Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

The last thing Shisui expects to feel as he falls is regret. 

It screams from him in a desperate attempt to reinforce his body with chakra just after Itachi yells his name. Reacting instinctively in a last-ditch shunshin fails when he has no visual, no way to orient. All the effort in the world won't activate his dojutsu when it's no longer in his head, but he still tries. He tries.

He doesn't want-

Rocks impact. Grit catches under hands and unforgiving stone slams into his side, shoulder, knee. Air is driven from his lungs. Palms and side burn with scraped skin. He scrambles for purchase and finds only loose dirt. The cliff face slides out from under him a second later.

Shisui hits the rapids. Cold overwhelms him in an onslaught of frantic current. He tries lashing out for instinctive purchase-

And lands on grass.

Green grass that Shisui can see.

He wheezes. Greedily inhaling burns his lungs with clear air that’s unexpectedly free of water. The sky is pink overhead, painted brilliant purple and orange by the rising sun. Trees curl over the edges of his vision and the familiar sound of the Naka River rushes in the distance.

Huh.

Shisui lies on his damp patch of earth, stunned, not quite believing the cool-bright dawn sunlight seeping through his oddly dry clothes is entirely real. He expected the Pure Lands, expected to end up in some kind of sunlit glade, and this fits the bill but it's weird. Everything still aches, which is rather unfair. A leaf wet with recent rain sticks to the back of his neck on the next bracing inhale, and it is not an afterlife-suited sensory experience.

Seriously.

He is so dizzy. Who sanctioned that?

The back of his throat is as dry as Suna but his cheeks are achingly wet. Shisui stares at the clouds above as tears trace lines of salt across his face. Half-dried blood clumps his eyelashes together.

All he can think is, wow. The afterlife kind of sucks.

The least the Pure Lands could do is ease the headache stabbing directly into his temples. It would also be very nice for his mouth not to feel like something died in it and for the dull throb of poison to vanish, but beggars can't be choosers. Shisui knows when to pick his battles. Protesting this sensory nightmare afterlife would be an utterly bonkers-wild hill to die on, especially because, hey!

He’s already died!

Fuck you, life, for being such a weird trial and a half.

Shisui just couldn't have been born in a nice, normal backwater civilian community with nice, normal family members and problems. 

Because, uh. Yikes.

Being dead feels a whole lot like being alive if he's honest. Shisui almost feels insulted. He wanted to at least glow or levitate. Also, transitioning to the afterlife is supposed to be a nicer process, right? There could at least be a welcoming committee.

He could go for sweets.

Or snacks.

Really, Shisui would kill for a plain bowl of watered-down rice at this point… unless eating isn't a thing in the Pure Lands. In that case, it's time to riot. He will unionize the afterlife for carbohydrates if necessary. Ideal results on unionization include snacks and the chance to not feel like utter shit.

He rolls over with a groan. The leaf continues sticking to his neck. Giving in to the drama of it all, Shisui mourns that the Pure Lands decided to have a root that digs into his shoulder, and early morning sunlight stabbing him in the eyes.

…Eye.

Singular.

Shisui bolts upright.

"Ohhh," Shisui breathes when his monocular vision goes dark from either blood loss or a slow-acting poison. Spots dance against iridescent black until they give way to morning sunlight. "That's fun."

Pulse pounding in his ears, Shisui comes to the abrupt conclusion that occupants of the afterlife should not have heartbeats. Which means this likely isn't the Pure Lands. He could be a ghost, or a zombie, or some kind of messed up combination-

Okay.

Step one to everything is not panicking.

He presses a hand into the eye Danzo tried to steal, which is also delightfully the working one. Whatever happened took away Kotoamastukami. A quick check confirms the physical eye itself is still there, just… not sending information to his brain. He's half blind.

His working eye is the one that can make a badass skeleton warrior, because apparently the universe does know mercy. This is not to say that Shisui likes using his Mangekyou for Susanoo. It drains him so much. Terrible cost-effectiveness. He mostly uses the genjutsu boost and kind of ignores the rest of his fancy eye abilities until he can't anymore, because Shisui lives on bad decisions. Inoichi calls this "avoidance anxiety." Inoichi is also very rude for training Shisui into recognizing and dealing with the impulse to do everything except the things that scare him.

For example, he really wants to run to Kiri right now and fight Ao, who still has that stupid stolen Byakugan. For fun. It would change Shisui’s biggest problems into something comfortably immediate and familiar, at least for the short term.

Shisui wrestles his priorities back under control.

So.

He’s alive?

So is Danzo, probably.

…Yikes.

Shisui gets the feeling that word will be his average outlook on life for the next little while.

What kind of filing-cabinet explosion in the shinigami’s office could have caused this? Moreso, how are his eyes back in his head? Did someone slip on his soul like a wet bar of soap in the shower and fling it back into the living world? If so, that kind of sucks for them. Oh, Sage, what if he’s back in time? That’s a thing that happens in Hound-taichou’s terrible novels - there’s always a love-triangle, too. That can’t happen. Shisui really does not want to date anyone when he just died. That’s not a mental state he can inflict on a partner, let alone two, because he’s too pretty to be anything but the center of attention-

“If I went back in time,” Shisui creaks to the damp grass and distrustfully cheerful dawn sky, “I am going to cry. So much. When somebody takes me out for realsies, I’m going to get snot in your robes, Shinigami-sama. Watch your back.”

Well, he’s going to cry no matter what happens, but that really isn’t the point.

Shisui's always been a vindictive little gremlin under the cheer.

Everything is weird, so he gives himself a couple seconds to quietly freak out in the sanctity of his own mind. He screams into his arm. Laughs. Cries a little. Then Shisui descends into horrified silence as he tries to puzzle out what happened. At least he's got a clue with a blind dojutsu-wielding eye. The sharingan is famous for cheating. Time, space, reality, minds - it bends them all. The key clue is that Shisui knows every Mangekyou has a limited number of techniques.

None of his Amaterasu-gifted wildcards can outright cheat death.

Mostly.

Hmmmmm. 

Okay, never mind, there is one. Shisui kind of… doesn’t really think about that technique so he kind of forgets it exists most of the time. It's even possible he activated it by accident.

Izanagi is not something that can be practiced. Shisui may have accidentally fucked himself over with that specific detail, but it seems he's fucked over gently since it rewound his body to a bit after his poisoning. Shisui's physical state seems to line up with right before Danzo pulled the nastiest eye-stealing nonsense. This is great.

It just doesn’t quite add up given how much time has passed since Shisui’s inglorious fall to his death. 

Izanagi takes a past state of the user's physical self and pulls that body chronologically forward with a time-delayed soul and memories. They are reunited after a would-be death has passed. To anyone outside the technique, this looks like going blind in one eye to cheat their way back to life. This is even technically true, but the elders ignore that part because they're a bunch of musty old wet blankets.

Well… almost all the elders are musty old wet blankets.

Sako is cool as fuck and sees the Mangekyou for what it is, but Yuuta is filled with enough dust and malice to balance out those scales within the clan's elder council. Uchiha elders are collectively more wet blankets than not.

Focus, shinobi.

Izanagi.

Dying.

Water- okay, don't focus on that bit.

Shisui very much did not want to meet death at that moment, so he could have activated his least-practiced ability subconsciously. Theoretically. Izanagi is certainly weird enough for that to happen.

In essence: it's possible to kill an Uchiha, celebrate, turn around and find that same Uchiha alive and being needlessly dramatic about it. Shisui might have occasionally daydreamed of the same scenario involving Ao from Kiri. It's kind of a shame. Now if Shisui pulls that trick, he won't have a working eye to see the reaction. To him, that's the whole point. Ao is the most entertaining rival purely because Shisui seems to activate some kind of instant-rage state on sight, but Ao's head for tactics keeps him from acting on it. Zero effort is required on Shisui's part to make this guy's entire week horrible. It's great.

But missing that reaction is a problem for another day.

The longer Shisui lies in the dirt and thinks about ridiculous dojutsu abilities, the more it makes sense.

The question now is how far forward Izanagi dropped him after he should have died, rather than the usual couple of seconds. The Naka's current could also have delayed that process, but he gets the feeling it was the loss of his eyes that made his body and soul take so long to reunite. Shisui has no clue when he is.

It’s dawn.

There was no sun to watch when Shisui fell.

He knows where he is, at least - this is roughly where he ran into Itachi after Danzo ripped his eye out. It's kind of hard to forget.

It's also kind of unnerving.

He presses both hands to his face in search of reassurance that it's whole. This confirms it again: he has two eyes. One just isn't working. Did removing the eye he gave to Itachi - and apparently activated Izanagi with - really make his soul wander around like some kind of ghost?

Did it activate due to the poison exactly when he took that eye out?

Shisui's temporary motto strikes a third time: yikes.

Well, moping and freaking out won't help. All that regret when he was falling makes sitting around itch at him. He has spent a lifetime missing chances, and all it ever left him with was the inability to rest.

Shisui is permanently trying to catch up. Waking up to a bright dawn where he should find the bottom of a riverbed inspires the same response Shisui has to every problem: he keeps moving. Evidence points out this is a necessity. Stopping gets him killed. Stopping to trust left him with an eye torn out and Root on his heels. It killed his genin team and his pride, and it would have killed his entire clan if Shisui didn't give himself over to riverside cliffs first.

He gets up.

Shisui runs a quick self-assessment and finds he still has the small cut on his arm from just before Danzo… yeah.

Anyway, moving on!

His tanto is sheathed on his back, but several shuriken and a kunai are missing from his kit. His chakra stores are pretty much full, rations prepped for a week because Root habits die hard, and hitai-ate on his forehead, which he immediately tugs down over his blind eye.

It makes him laugh a little.

He matches Hound-taichou now. Obito-nii would have a fit if he knew Shisui was taking after his teammate. Then again, Obito-nii would have opinions about a lot of Shisui's recent choices. The thought has Shisui screaming internally. 

What a day.

He needs to find someone. It doesn't matter who on the depressingly short list of trusted comrades he runs into, but Shisui needs to find one of the people who he feels safe enough to relax around, stat. There are rules he must follow following a mental health situation this bad.

"You are very loud," a little tabby ninneko tells him from the tree line.

Shisui turns and smiles like there isn't salt and dirt on his cheeks. The kitten gets up, stretching and wandering over like she doesn't really want to be scratched behind her ears. A rusted bell hangs from her neck. Shisui offers a hand to sniff before smoothing it over a kitten-soft forehead.

"You should get a new collar, little one," Shisui rasps. His voice catches and scrapes through the words until half the sentence is inaudible and half is as rusted as the bell he scratches under. The ninneko purrs, more iron oxide volume.

What a pair they are.

"You should give me fish." The cat presses her cheek into his hand, then trots towards where a surprising number of cats are gathering. Shisui counts five, which is very unusual without a summoner around. The Uchiha cat contract is tied to a crafting branch family that marries into the Izuno clan’s trading branch more often than not. They don't usually care about crow summoners like Shisui.

Interesting.

Well, he may as well see what's going on.

"I'll see what I can do." Shisui is careful to stick to full stealth as he follows the cats. Growing inconsistencies prickle at the back of his neck.

The cats themselves are singularly unhelpful in telling him anything, because their foremost concerns are snuggling, fish, and getting him to Neko-obaa. Shisui follows little padded steps  - so cute! - through the clan training grounds with all his best stealth techniques. It’s the kind of caution he put into trapping the ANBU Commander's office with prank tags. At first, he thinks the instinct to stay hidden is because the cats are weirdly affectionate, but as they progress that hope fades. The nearby compound’s silence becomes unnerving. 

Shisui steps onto a tree limb overshadowing what should be a bustling market district for the civilian Uchiha trades and merchant neighborhood.

A gaping lack of presence greets him.

Years-old blood is very conspicuously caught under eaves where wood has been sheltered from weathering. Somebody painted the compound red, top to bottom. From the looks of it, the whole place was cleaned.

Missed details like blood caught between porch floorboards mark a rushed effort.

Shisui is in the Uchiha compound, but there are weeds and weathering where there should be people and pets. A nearby wall is stained soot-black except for the blurry white silhouette of a small body. These streets are occupied by only crows, weeds, and a few watchful cats. One house is half-burned. Looking to the east reveals that all the buildings around Sako's have been flattened by a crater, which tells Shisui four crucial things.

First, the opposition didn't modulate attacks based on threat levels unless they had to, in which case they likely went all-out. Nothing less would succeed. To target the real monsters in the clan, they would have needed access to the ANBU registry.

Second, the attack spread across the compound fast if senpai didn't move far. If she was moved somewhere else mid-fight, the attacking force either used seals or someone who manifested a Mangekyou to turn against the clan.

Third, the trail of destruction indicates whoever made it survived meeting Sako, then went on to keep murdering away, which puts them at a higher Bingo Book rating than a moderately weak Kage.

Fourth, it happened within around seventy years of when Shisui 'died.' Sako was thirty-five when he last saw her, but it is generally accepted that the only way she could die is by way of ridiculously old age or her own summons. This crater is her handiwork.

The compound is very empty.

He was already going full stealth, but Shisui pulls out a clan secret and drapes himself in an extra layer of genjutsu. 

The ninneko turn and run. They’re trained enough to know he will follow.

The cats lead him outside the village barriers to a nearby abandoned town. The little outskirt building is familiar. It’s been a supply stop for Uchiha since likely before the village was founded.

His entourage of cats wiggle through window shutters and squeeze through a cracked-open door, so Shisui opens it to lean in with a low greeting to any occupants.

Shelves of herb cabinets and old wood remain unchanged in this little trade shop. Shisui finds himself relaxing as his eye adjusts to dim light. The Niidaime couldn’t find this place despite legendary sensing abilities, a big cat summons, and more-than-healthy curiosity. If all of that wasn't enough to crack the old security seals, then no current threat has any chance of tracking Shisui here.

He’s safe. For now.

It does not smell of cats inside, but instead of overpowering greenery. Shisui has no clue how many medicinal herbs must be packed into this little shop.

“Too thin,” is how the old woman with cat's eyes inside greets him. It’s like he barely left. Even the pipe in one hand and bushy grey hair hasn't changed. It's an unexpected relief - Shisui doesn't know what he'd do if even Neko-obaa was gone.

Shisui falls into old habit with an exhausted laugh and bad jokes. “That’s the secret fine print of the crow contract: if I fluff up into a puffball, they might have me co-sign with a songbirds. Then I’ll be twice the bird summoner and even less suited to cats.”

“We’ll see,” Neko-obaa sniffs as she waves him in. The wrinkled cat grandmother sounds just as ancient as Shisui remembers, perhaps a bit more, but cats are fickle creatures who interact with time only as it pleases them. “Go sit.”

“Neko-obaa, I’m covered in dirt and blood-”

“I don’t care what you track in so long as you’re alive to do it.”

Shisui blinks at her, a bit surprised at getting an actual sentence out of the grandmother, before realizing that she was affected by his mysteriously missing clan. Her nostalgic wishes are his responsibility to fulfill if the Uchiha are in hiding.

He slips out of his sandals before obediently hurrying past her to the low table. This proof that at least one Izuno is left says little about whether the village itself is still standing. Izuno go where they please and do as they wish. Cat laws prevail. Tragedy takes them only if they cannot physically outrun it, which is one of many bonding points between Shisui and the Uchiha’s shinobi vassal clan.

He finds rest and a moment to adjust to being alive at her low table with a couple kittens climbing into his lap. Finished wood presses into his palms. It’s the same table.

Neko-obaa will always be an ally of his family. 

He accepts his tea in good graces.

“Poisoning,” she grumbles past him to the wall of herb drawers. “Symptoms?”

“I’m not sure.” Shisui grimaces. “A headache and dizziness for sure, but those could be blood loss. If there’s a medic-“

A tabby face presses into his side from behind and half-sings several additions to the list Shisui hadn’t noticed. The ninnekko’s words fall into the indistinct haze of a rumbling purr when he scratches behind her ear. Neko-obaa ignores this to rattle through the wall of small cabinets, drawing out handfuls of herbs and medicine.

Shisui’s amusement lasts until half the greenery is ground into a foul-smelling paste she has him choke down.

Yuck.

“Shoddy work,” she tuts at the poison Shisui had kind of forgotten was running through his system.

Shisui takes a sip of tea to clear the foul taste from his mouth and keep the growing questions to himself. She’s here, and helping. It would be an imposition to ask much more.

Besides, cats don’t generally give long or detailed explanations, unless it’s a song or particularly good story. He’s out of luck for both. Whatever happened is an ongoing tale so far as they’re concerned, and therefore not worth telling until it’s over and no longer liable to edit itself. He hears from the gossiping cats that there are other Uchiha alive, though not many, and that’s about it.

Maybe he went far into the future?

That is a theoretical effect of Izanagi. The technique doesn’t lend itself to much study since it can’t exactly be practiced, so maybe something he did messed it up?

“What happened?” he asks, because Neko-obaa may not provide a straight answer, but he has to inquire a little.

Sure enough, she blinks, slowly, and fixes him with an unreadable stare. “Izanagi.”

Delightful.

That's one thing confirmed. It’s not necessarily what he was asking when the Compound is as empty as a couple of chestnut shells, but such are felines.

“Aa, I thought so," is all Shisui says. He scrambles for cat-suited manners in the pause and turns his attention to his tea. "If you don't mind my questions, how long has it been?”

“Eh,” Neko-obaa says in the thinking way older folks sometimes do. “...Sasuke-bou was a genin last we saw him. Itachi-tan was nearly as tall as you.”

Shisui wishes cats and time could get along just this once. Still, it’s a point of reference and a place to start. Hopefully both of his darling little cousins are still alive. 

Why they're giving Itachi a different suffix is beyond him though - this one the cats reserve for when they plan to sit and watch someone make an academic study of their own stupidity. It implies Itachi is acting with dignity befitting kittens discovering catnip.

Weird.

“Itachi-tan,” Shisui repeats in bewilderment. He receives no answer or indication that he’s been heard.

Did Itachi get stuck up a tree? Shisui resolves to use that suffix to annoy him if he's still alive.

Neko-obaa is less forthcoming about anything else he asks, but that’s expected when Shisui has no fish to trade. 

She wraps him up in a hug and shoves him towards the bathroom with its steaming tub. Her store has been supporting Uchiha shinobi for decades, so he marks the price of the clothes she drops in his arms to pay back later. Canvas black overshirts like the Uchiha wear are a fine craft produced by generations of skill. They are armor. Fire-protective marks of the clan. He can't accept one as a gift - they're too expensive.

After his bath, Neko-obaa shuts down Shisui’s mention of payment with suspicious firmness. Then she bundles him into a spare room’s futon for cats to climb over while he catches a one-hour nap.

The room is dark with the door kept open just enough for feline visitors. Familiar anti-nightmare seals are stitched into the pillow. Ink cats and a carved litany of zodiac animals dance on the wall panels, folding corresponding hand signs. It is as close to home as Shisui is going to get in this strange new world, where the compound is dead and empty, and only the ninneko came to find him.

He falls asleep to purring and the snores of Mame-kit, who is old and too deaf to know his own volume.

Waking not one but three hours later finds Shisui in mostly top condition and gratefully accepting the food Neko-obaa shoves at him. Once fed to her standards, she drops a sealing scroll of rations and mission supplies into his hands. The onigiri she adds last-second are salmon-flavored. It’s predictable, but far better than the dead mice the cats offer. He gracefully offers his share to the contract’s kittens, and shows his thanks for their mercy in a promise to scold Itachi for whatever he’s doing.

Neko-obaa pinches Shisui’s cheek, tells him to be careful, and watches him slip down her garden path despite the gauzy wrap of chakra that is sharingan-assisted stealth.

Trees pass in a blur.

Sneaking into the village just before noon reveals a few changes, mostly in the lack of familiar faces. He ends up figuring out roughly how much time has passed from seeing Anko, a little older and a little more subtly bitter in her unapologetic way. 

Not that Shisui would ever tell her she looks older.  He likes this newly returned life, thank you very much.

She’s talking with Genma, who has new-old scars over his knuckles, though nothing else has changed. That’s not too surprising - Genma could face the end of the world and look unruffled. It’s still telling that he’s here and whole with ANBU blacks showing from under his civvies instead of retired jounin blues. Shisui has done his fair share of assassination work. He knows how fast their careers go.

It’s not been too long, then.

The number of faces on the cliffs is consistent, so they're still within the Sandaime's reign unless the Yondaime has joined Shisui in cheating death. Seal Masters are unpredictable like that.

Shisui really would like fine details on why there are no Uchiha around before he reports in, though. There's also Root to consider. He ends up heading for the Tower by way of backstreets and as many stealth techniques as can be reasonably layered.

Pranking was a hobby.

Breaking in was a hobby.

Shisui was in the Academy when he stuck his first delayed paint bomb in Fugaku’s desk. Success got harder each consecutive time, which was akin to dangling a shiny object in front of a crow and telling them 'no.' The warning served to encourage mischief and little else. Shisui is laughably good at finding traps.

The records room is ridiculously easy pickings by comparison. Pitch black files and blank red paper hide secrets behind seal ink. It's an Uzushio system. Shisui learned how to break through these seals before he hit the Academy, so he reaches for the paperwork with little hesitation.

Comparing old photographic memories gives him a perfect overlay over how organization has changed, and he was a familiar face in the desk-duty punishment crowd. Shisui takes less than a couple seconds to locate the records of clan dealings directly after his supposed death. Most are everyday minutia. Some are political. Others are missions. He bypasses these for the redacted pieces.

It is still peacetime.

The village has not kept its peak wartime paranoid efficiency.

Well, they mostly haven’t. On his way to the Tower, Shisui passed evidence of past destruction in the village that reorganized a couple of the streets, but those scars are old enough to have mostly faded. Rubble was rebuilt. Shops returned. Shisui finds records of the easier topic second but reads them first.

These records describe a joint invasion from Oto and Suna. Supposedly the Sandaime came close enough to dying that he's trying to step away from the office. That would only happen if he was still dying. Shisui isn't torn up at all about it. The whole event explains Konoha’s marks of battle with none of war’s paranoia, with the archive’s security remaining laughably easy to bypass. Konoha may not be on high alert, but Shisui is. It might help that he has all the old security seal codes.

Phantom hands brush across his eye, and Shisui returns the invasion files to their place. He reaches for the Uchiha-related ones and hopes pointlessly that they will not make his nausea any worse. Most papers in the files are covered in blank red ink. The black-out seals coded to fade upon contact with a registered chakra signature are wildly unhelpful in Shisui’s endeavor to remain calm.

In the last four hours, he has woken up, found his clan missing, and learned that only a few are still alive. That last fact is something he has done a very good job of ignoring. He will keep trying out of stubborn spite.

In the spirit of avoiding whatever problems the future holds by overanalyzing the past, Shisui picks up the large file. Mission logs and whatever other paperwork bears evidence of a missing noble clan make it thick, but… odd. It's not thick enough. They’re a large founding clan. If the Uchiha were targeted by an enemy, there should be at least twice this much paperwork. Every team to witness an event like that would submit one report. Konoha is made of nothing but teams.

Quit stalling, Shisui scolds himself, and delicately channels chakra into the pads of his fingers. Muscle memory pulses his identification code into the black file.

Ink fades, revealing a tan file with white paper.

Shisui is half-surprised his chakra still counts, but then again… he is ANBU. Was? Was ANBU - Sage knows Inoichi isn’t clearing him to go straight back after this. That will be a very good thing, because if not then Shisui is checking himself straight into Psych. Still, ANBU have enough of a habit of coming back from impossible odds that it's unlikely they're going to erase his chakra signature from the key for a few more years. Surviving the worst is in their job description.

Shisui flips through the file.

Incident report, personnel report, incident report, incident report, ANBU contact, nukenin registration. Autopsies, funerals. Hospital records for the lone survivor. Interview transcripts. Wills and deeds gifting possessions to each other that the village claimed to seal until Sasuke is of age, which he should be. There are no forms releasing those clan artifacts back into the lone loyal Uchiha's care, though.

Unsurprising.

Sarutobi is a soft man. A good one, maybe.

It hides his ruthlessly clever side.

Some parts just don't make sense. Not the massacre - that could have happened, though not by his cute little cousin. Itachi and Shisui fully expected their clan's leadership to be taken out for the sake of the village, probably by one or both of them. For innocent lives to be taken, it would be someone else's fault. Unexpected, but very possible. The Uchiha were nightmarishly politically unstable. 

What's weird is that Itachi may publicly be the strongest Uchiha shinobi if Shisui's no longer around to dispute the title, but that assessment ignores the shadow ranks. Itachi couldn't kill everyone. Not alone and against that number. The actual strongest member of the clan is a lifetime black ops kunoichi, but Sako-senpai's name is on the lists for dead and funerals. She wouldn't be killed by Itachi. Either his darling cousin had help, or she was in on it. Given that Shisui saw her house replaced with a crater, it's probably the former.

Who could take her down?

There’s a faceless civilian-born black ops member with the highest kill count in the village, but they're a pure poison and stealth expert unlikely to make a crater like that. Straight combat would land in senpai's favor.

The potential discrepancy not a good sign. Itachi probably had help, but the idea that someone in the village would willingly try out genocide as a new hobby is near-ludicrous. Konoha may have its fair share of unhinged shinobi, but none of them could be that violent past the barrier blood seals that lie inside Uchiha compound walls. On the other hand, it's possible Itachi found help from outside the village.

…Which would require Itachi to talk to people.

Unlikely.

Shisui is half-convinced the whole massacre is a cover-up for mass desertion until he finds out which routine security ANBU squad was sent in pursuit. They had no active Root members. What’s more, Hound-taicho would never hunt a comrade unless something drastic happened.

It's real.

Somebody killed nearly every Uchiha, right down to the last newborn child.

It's all real.

"I should send a letter. Yeah. That'll do it: Dear Itachi," Shisui wheezes hysterically, "are you fucking stupid? Kindest regards, Shisui."

He puts the files back exactly as they were and flees from more than just the living.

Traps are reset, bypass seals taken down, and Shisui launches himself out of the tiny exit window in the archive office used only by ANBU and in case of evacuation. 

It takes real effort to stop on a nearby tree instead of running like his instincts scream to. He forces himself to be still, hidden in shadow, and check that no silent alarms have gone off. Exfiltration protocol demands it. There's an ANBU squad due to loop past here in a few minutes if he remembers right, and he needs to not be a moving target. The shunshin chakra cost is noticeable to skilled sensors.

Crows roost overhead. Not the summons - these trees are occupied by locals. Generational knowledge has endeared them to summoners, so Shisui isn't surprised when one coasts down to land on his shoulder.

Porcelain flashes in the periphery. An ANBU lands on the tower roof, green-lined mask tilted towards the window he left from. Shisui barely twitches when the painted snarl turns towards the village.

"Scared-distract-please-help," Shisui says desperately to the crow on his shoulder, animal language awkward in his mouth. His new friend clacks their beak in the equivalent of a neighborly oji-san tutting about how kids don't know how to fix their own plumbing, and takes off.

The ANBU's mask tracks the crow.

Shit.

Shisui thinks shadowy thoughts and focuses on not panicking. Night, darkness, quiet. Night, darkness, quiet-

The ANBU slips forward, half hidden in a chameleon genjutsu that does little to hide from a sharingan. They slink across the roof, attention fixed a little to the left of Shisui where something could have scared the crow into moving.

NIGHT, Shisui thinks desperately. DARKNESS. QUIET. NIGHT-

Crows burst from a tree a little ways away, shrieking happily about revolution and grapes. They want both equally badly. Apparently they have collectively decided their local innocent ANBU - hah! - will be the vehicle through which they achieve both these dreams.

Shisui is gone long before the ANBU reaches his tree.

Branches rustle far behind him. Shisui pushes off a window that rattles long after he's left, skips over twisting pipes, and finds himself nearly at the edge of the village. He banks a hard left to avoid going directly past the house of a paranoid sensor, rips back through the markets from high above, and darts straight through an unaware patrol as he aims for the far side of Konoha.

His flight across the village at full stealth relies on speed to escape sensors. Past a certain velocity, any faint chakra signature may resemble a there-and-gone echo similar to natural chakra. It's easier for sensors to dismiss him as a jutsu-sourced wind or prank, than to expect any shinobi could move this fast. If he were alive to the village, they would know better.

But he isn't.

Uzushio granite cracks underfoot after he bolts past an apartment roof. Sparrows erupt from a maple tree he rushed past as the wind buffets it. Dog teeth snap at his long-gone shadow. Civilians and shinobi alike remain largely unaware.

Shisui skids to a halt a block from T&I, hidden in a twisted alleyway with nothing but a dozen chickens to cluck at his disaster energy. He clucks back, realizes how that may be a sign of slipping mental health, and resists the urge to cry. Climbing to the roof and flipping across the street provides an excuse to run from his problems a little longer.

It takes longer than it should to pick his way past the first line of barrier seals and traps, given how familiar Shisui is with this building. He blames the delay on changed security rather than nerves.

At last, the final one unfurls. Shisui scales the outside wall with minimal difficulty and more illusions than strictly necessary hiding his presence. A handful of crows roost behind him on powerlines and tree branches.

Shisui wedges a kunai under a trapped window sill, disables the tripwires and seals neatly, and tumbles in. There are so many scuff marks on the windowsill that one more won’t be out of place.

This is technically one of the most secure rooms in T&I, but Shisui is an exfiltration specialist. If he can't get into a secure room and back out, then he is good for nothing but courier runs.

He hardly notices his sensei’s desk chair screeching on wooden flooring when he bumps into it.

Shisui's mental walls are crumbling.

He knows, abstractly, he is reaching for the mugs in Inoichi's empty office. Sheer habit has him starting up a pot of water for tea, because Shisui trained himself out of isolating himself from Inoichi long ago. The Uchiha genetic predisposition to going slightly off the rails is usually sparked by losing their support system, which Shisui is currently lacking in. He trusts maybe a dozen people. Maybe. Most of his ANBU squad have never seen his face, and the village he swore loyalty to indirectly blinded him in one eye.

Like most Uchiha, isolation is a very real danger to Shisui.

It will kill him.

Technically, it already has.

So, he makes tea. He's always neatly undercut that risk by self-imposed rules. One is that he has to stay long enough for a cup of tea if he's visiting his mentor and therapist.

Shisui finds himself sitting in the corner of an unlit office as he waits to be found, staring at a mug of mint tea clutched in his hands. Sensei still has the same brand. It's kind of funny. He hadn't thought anyone else in T&I liked mint, except the intern Aoba who is too scared of Inoichi to ask for even a teabag.

The picture on Inoichi's desk holds a girl years older than he remembers little Ino being. She’s smiling like the sweetest shark in her corner of the tank. Vicious and clever. Vibrant and controlled. Going by that metal plate with a leaf engraved into it, she’s also at least a genin now. Maybe chuunin. 

Shisui's family is dead.

All at once, gone.

Slaughtered except for two cousins. Itachi has turned incomprehensible, Sasuke is missing from the village records entirely beyond the fact that he left for some ungodly reason, and Shisui is here.

Alone.

…Danzo will kill him on sight.

Oooh, suddenly sitting around here is viscerally bad. Shisui can't change anything if he's not around.

He leaves his mug half-finished by the kettle and trusts it will be dismissed as one of Inoichi's many T&I coworkers. It's fine. This is fine. Traps are primed to reset the moment he's gone.

Shisui throws open the window, recklessly puts all his concentration into the swiftest shunshin he can manage, and runs.

Bolts, really.

He stumbles out of a messy shunshin and tumbles across a well-hidden rooftop. 

Right.

Missing one eye.

That throws off depth perception, and Shisui still needs to be oriented in space no matter where his exit point from a flicker is. It's no different from a leap of faith - seeing where he jumps from matters just as much as understanding the spatial layout between there and where he's landing.

Well, at least he'll have plenty of practice.

The corner of a red maple leaf drifts to the ground in Inoichi's office as Shisui flickers straight to the Naka River’s shores. He lands, reorients, and takes off with no direction beyond the desperate need to get away, away, away.

Back in Konoha, Inoichi pauses in the doorway of his highly secure office. It's hard to say if he's tipped off first by the chair he keeps tucked in being pulled slightly out of the desk, or the steam rising from the water kettle.

He enters cautiously, hesitant to raise an intruder alarm. Aoba sometimes stops by to raid the mint tea Inoichi has never quite stopped keeping stocked, even if the person they were originally for is long gone. The break room only has green and barley tea.

There is a torn-off piece of a leaf on the floor. 

Inoichi checks the locks on his files are complete before crouching to pick the leaf up. Whoever was here flickered out with a sloppy or long-ranged technique, but Inoichi would guess the latter by this leaf’s fresh tear. A fast enough body-flicker can be combined with replacement to increase range of both.

Something is wrong beyond the chance of foreign nin infiltrating, but he can't quite place whatever is tripping that instinct. Inoichi forms half a hand sigh to focus. He turns a Mind Walk inwards, picks the instinct out of his own mind, and tugs on it until it presents the source clues his subconscious found wrong-wrong-wrong. 

Facts line up:

This leaf is a red maple. 

The bright kind. 

Those are found only by the Naka, where valley walls limit sunlight available to trees and cause the leaves to change at a slightly different time.

The office smells like mint tea, but Aoba is a magpie in human form who only takes his breaks on the roof.

Marks under the window, just like Shisui always used to leave when he deactivated the seals no matter how much Inoichi chided him for poor technique. He has stared at them for years now, every line engraved in his memory. It is a different kind of shrine than any picture frame. An honest one, that remembers Shisui more for how he occupied the world than how he left it.

Now there are two new marks on the weather-treated wood, like a kunai caught on the windowsill carelessly. Inoichi cancels the bastardized Mind Walk in a flash of panic when the pieces fit together. If this is a trick-

No.

That's denial. Inoichi reshuffles his approach in the space between seconds. Reroute from potential spiraling, breathe, pursue the information you have to uncover what you do not. Stay grounded, shinobi.

Inoichi is one of the best sensors in the village and fully capable of noticing his student having a monstrously bad day. He'd know that chakra signature anywhere. Shisui only locks down his signature completely when he's under full stealth, but the faint panic is just noticeable enough for Inoichi to guess it moved in a straight line to the village walls.

He isn't sure he can believe it, but he's lost enough. False hope is worth following. 

Inoichi yanks the window further open and takes off after a chakra signature that's moving faster than any living shinobi could. Inuzuka Hana startles when he skids past her on the rooftops. Seconds pass before the Haimaru brothers break out in raucous clamoring.

He exits the village with a tracker on his heels.

They are not quick enough.

He knew this from the start. It still burns. Inoichi has very rarely been fast enough for Shisui, but he'll be damned before he stops trying.

Let it be known that Shisui is a speedy little gremlin when he wants to be.

He slides down a river, counting on gravity and chakra to keep him afloat. Thin, delicate waves catch and slough away underfoot as he coasts downhill on a current of momentum. He springs up into the trees a second later, impatient to put distance between himself and Danzo. Wind and fear catch in his teeth as Shisui sprints towards the nearest horizon.

He can’t believe he forgot about the man who ripped an eye out of his face around twelve hours ago.

Inoichi is going to have a field day sorting this out with him if he survives this.

If he survives.

If.

Such a big word for such little ink.

Shisui living is going to mess up Danzo’s plans in a visceral way. He imagines the war hawk learning about it in the worst possible manner. Preferably it will come as the same kind of shock as the time Shisui’s apartment experienced plumbing difficulties, flooded, and told him that via wet socks when he rolled out of bed.

He manifests this by spitefully trying to enjoy the passing sunlight as much as possible. Killing him didn’t work last evening or several years ago, so Shisui is here to experience the very best life has to offer.

Take that, Danzo.

He’s thriving, as much as anyone can thrive while fleeing for their life.

He flickers through branches and tries to revel in the feeling of wind against his face.

Theoretically, Shisui can outrun anybody. He is the fastest shinobi alive, possibly the fastest at all if Kyuusuke the Swift were still around to race. Unfortunately, the Ame-nin and his part in a rebellion died before Shisui could even learn he existed. Danzo ordered that assassination, too.

...Maybe Shisui can’t outrun everybody.

He has a rough idea of what happened while the shinigami was rotating his soul like a slow-roasted chicken, and only so long to fix it before Danzo shows up like one of those jack-in-the-box toys from Tetsu no Kuni. Given what Shisui knows about Root, he can guess exactly what will happen.

It’s easy math.

Danzo will take one day to verify the details and make sure Shisui is back. Three days at most will pass before he can send out a Root squad without suspicion, making four days total. He’ll probably want to contact his informants on the way, which ensures two of those intermittent days will be spent making sure the squad leaving has those security clearances and knows all the pass codes. Add time so the scheduled barrier corps patrol can have a Root plant in case the leaving squad is noticed. Then one day to get far enough from Konoha to attack, and if Danzo puts all that time into it, he’s going to be sure it’s a squad designed specifically to take Shisui down for good. Shisui gives them a few more days to catch up to wherever he finds Itachi, because everyone else is so slow.

Seven days total.

One week.

Shisui focuses on the distant mountain range.

He could have stayed. Sarutobi is a good man with good intentions. It is a large part of what makes him so dangerous. The Hokage will do what he believes in. This does not mean Shisui can count on any kind of help from that corner of the world, because with Sarutobi comes the loyalty of his shinobi. No matter what Shisui suspects of his friends and their ability to save him, he will not ask them to become traitors. Not for him.

Less than twenty-four hours ago, Danzo ripped an eye from Shisui's head while they were standing on an ANBU patrol route. People should have noticed. On the other hand… Danzo outranks Shisui. The consequences are different for him. Proof lies in the remembered feeling of Danzo-

Of the way he reached-

Nope. 

Shisui cannot trust his superiors right after that. He shivers through the memory and presses on.

“I have one week,” Shisui whispers. 

Trees blur past, the forest ends, and Shisui takes off, chakra-skating over a field of millet as he flashes through hand signs. It’s a signature move his team will recognize via the tracks, but Root will not if they’re sent in pursuit. 

The crow he summons is small, fast, clever, and most importantly dislikes Itachi for being too slow. Shisui knows his summons. She would have become reckless without anyone to call on their contract.

“Summoner!” Airi shrieks, diving directly into his arms. Shisui executes a practiced bend and twist mid-leap to prevent her landing from being dangerous.

“My little mischief-maker,” Shisui greets as he tucks the crow into his shirt collar and takes to the trees. Kilometers fold under easy footsteps. “Did you miss me?”

“Everyday-everyday.” A tiny, feathered head presses into his jaw. “Miss-much-day-by-day. Home-come-home-gone-home-is-Summoner-gone. Lost-was-alone-because.”

Shisui laughs wildly because otherwise he will cry, and if he cries he will break entirely. “I’m a little lost and alone, too.”

“Returned,” Airi points out. “Together-again. Now-go-where?”

“I hear my little cousins are in need of a talking to.” Shisui darts across a swamp, pulling the wind in a riptide behind him as he runs from more than just the living. “Mikoto-oba isn’t here to do it, and she made me promise to look after them.”

That was technically a babysitting promise, but it counts, alright?

“Good,” Airi decides, and jumps from his shoulder. At first the wind takes her, but in no time at all she’s back, flying ahead as very few of the crow summons ever could.

Shisui launches himself forward into a race. “Where’s Itachi?!”

Airi banks hard to the northwest, and Shisui quits leaving recognizable tracks altogether. The shadow clone he sends off will loop back under a henge to erase his trail with the exception of the millet. That will be left on the small chance that Konoha sends out someone familiar. There are a few trackers he trusts with his secret survival, but only two in ANBU. 

Unless Hawk quit.

She was always too good for the shadows.

Sound breaks and folds behind him as he pushes the limits of his speed, ripping across the continent. He has always been fast. With a little effort, Shisui could finish a courier run to Yuki and back in two days. Catching a lost cousin the crows can find?

That’s just a party trick. It’s late afternoon now. He'll be done by nightfall.

Itachi is midway through a step in the backwater marshes of Taki when Shisui hurtles out of the forest to plant a foot directly in his face.

It sends his darling little cousin flying.

Shisui ducks around the blue-skinned Hoshigaki's reflexive grab. That’s a Kiri swordsman if he’s ever seen one, though he supposes nukenin can’t be picky for their partners in crime. He twists under the swinging behemoth sword, flickers forward, and slaps a paint-tag directly across Itachis’ eyes. The explosion of baby blue is very fetching.

Itachi bursts into a cloud of inky feathers. Blue paint hits only the ground as the sun turns red and clouds turn black. Red skies pull down like a lance. Shisui rips through the genjutsu. He ends up running nearly into the Hosigaki’s sword and exchanges the world’s shortest taijutu match before Hoshigaki tosses Shisui several meters away.

The world spins.

Ground rises up to whack him in the shoulder before Shisui flips into a controlled roll. His sandal treads fling up dirt as he slides back in a low crouch for stability's sake.

“Shisui?” Itachi says. His voice has gotten deeper. Hollower. Empty as the clan compound and Shisui's abandoned home.

Ha!

“I need to apologize,” Shisui rasps, feral and manic with the day's revelations as he staggers upright. “Little cousin.”

Itachi is a few paces behind Hoshigaki, one arm resting casually in the ridiculous cloak, but very little about his best friend’s wide eyes and slightly too-quick breathing is casual. The sharingan is good for picking those kinds of details out.

Overhead, the sky is blue.

Hoshigaki barks a laugh as he circles around Shisui, as if trying to cut off escape routes. It doesn’t mean much to an exfiltration and sabotage specialist like Shisui, but the effort is cute. “Thought you killed them all.”

Oh, that’s where Shisui’s rage went.

“So did I.” Itachi looks so, so shattered in the way of someone who's gotten used to living a nightmare. Pale. Sickly. Yeah, he’s not doing well, especially with the blood running from his broken nose. Shisui wants to feed him. He wants to punch him. He wants to apologize and hug him and cry until he passes out from dehydration. Mostly, he wants to knock some sense into this complete and utter fool. 

“You should be dead, Shisui.” Itachi’s voice is cold and detached, completely at odds with his grieving body language and the roiling desperation in his words. “I saw you fall - what happened to your eyes?”

Shisui bares his teeth in something that probably isn't as reassuring as he wants it to be. “Did you see me go under the water?”

Itachi was already sheet-white, but he flinches at that.

“Izanagi pays a hell of a price,” Shisui adds as he stumbles under the chakra cost of moving fast enough across a country to break through the sound barrier. Hoshigaki must be pretty honorable to allow him so much mobility. “It takes a body from the past and reunites it with a soul in the future, after death should have claimed them both. But little cousin, Izanagi rests in our eyes. What happens if the reversal of time is activated at the same moment it’s removed from the anchored chakra source? When will a soul return if it must take so damned long to find the body?”

Itachi stares at him. The kunai has nearly slipped from his nerveless hand.

“Oh, that’s funny,” Hoshigaki says in the tone of a man who has nearly found the secrets of the universe folded up and stuck to a local bounty board with chewing gum. He sounds like someone who wasn't looking for answers, and so has no clue what to do but laugh now that he has them. “I get it now. The drama is genetic.”

"Bingo," Shisui says, purely because he likes chatting. Every second he's here without cracking and going for a kill is a real win, even if the anger is fading for now.

“Kisame,” Itachi adds. His voice is so empty. “Do you mind if I-”

“Don’t worry about little old me,” Hoshigaki interrupts as he points slightly downhill. “I’ll just be over there. Waiting. Training. Terrorizing the locals. That kind of stuff. You go finish up your genocide.”

As the nukenin wanders off, Shisui watches Itachi’s eyes close. His friend inhales, taking a second to steel himself, and for a second looks exactly like Katsumi-obaa does when the world weighs too heavy. Shisui once walked through the main house and saw her standing out in the garden, paused halfway through a kata in torrential downpour. Her age-lined face was tilted up, sword in one hand and kunai in the other, as she let the world believe it was only rainwater on her face. The former Uchiha matriarch is fire and steel. Proud. Mikoto is also a dragon like that, every inch her mother’s daughter.

Was.

She was.

Rage strikes from the apron strings of that memory.

Shisui launches forward, springboarding off his hands with one foot snapping out towards Itachi's broken nose. When his darling cousin dodges, Shisui's other leg wraps around Itachi's neck. Shisui curls up, sword in hand, and buries the blade in Itachi's false-calm face.

The clone bursts into genjutsu crows.

"Shisui," Itachi creaks from across the clearing, weary and wounded like somebody carved out his heart in the most painful way possible.

Oh, fun.

They match now.

"That was for Katsumi-obaa," Shisui tells him.

Itachi flinches again.

Not at the name of the grandmother who babysat them both despite her aching back and weathered age, Shisui knows, but-

Because he isn’t mad for Sasuke’s sake. Not for the living.

But they aren’t dead yet to Shisui.

"She was opposed to the revolt," Shisui says. "Did you even talk to her between my death and theirs?!"

Itachi's eyes spin into pinwheels and a tanto falls into his hand. It's not a good answer.

It seems they will end up fighting after all. Shisui accepts this with grief-fueled ease. He flickers forward, bearing all his weight on the steel that clashes against Itachi’s defensive strike.

Itachi's calm is a thin veneer at best, but the mask is one Shisui has never seen before. There is no hate in Itachi's eyes. Blades flash between them. 

Shisui kicks out, slaps away Itachi's strike, and slams his tanto into the space he just occupied.

Itachi steps back into reality a few meters away. “There’s no time left for the dead.” 

“Then give them some of yours,” Shisui snarls through the fire in his throat, and exhales an inferno at his friend. 

Itachi steals the fire and sends it back. Shisui flickers into close range once there's room and slams a heel into Itachi's knee. His cousin folds, then keeps falling straight through the earth. Shisui’s Mangekyou shreds the genjutsu and turns it around. He warps the earth into lava that coughs and sputters billowing smoke. 

"Did you have to kill them all? Sage, how many babies-"

"I had to." Itachi erupts out of molten rock in a bastardized headhunter technique. His strike swings wide, though Shisui doesn’t know if that was on purpose. "We have done worse in ANBU-"

They meet eyes-

Time compresses.

The genjutsu battle starts in earnest.

The sky turns red again. Monochrome light creeps over an inverted landscape, but Shisui pushes back. Magma bubbles under his sandals. Oppressive heat descends like a rock slide. Shisui draws choking smoke out of Itachi's chosen deathly silence. The world spins, twists, and rips itself to shreds between two contrasting wills. 

Indigo fabric unrolls across the heavens like Tatsuya-kun’s fabric dye in the Uchiha clothing shop as Shisui’s own Mangekyou pours scorching life into inverted color. Itachi’s empty red skies flood back a second later.

"No," Shisui says, quiet and dangerous as their willpower fights for control. Outside in reality, blood gathers in the corners of his eye and begins to drip down his cheek. "We didn't. No matter what ANBU asked, we never turned our blades on our family."

Some of the fake glacial wrath fades from Itachi's expression. Shisui wonders how long he's been wearing that mask for it to only slip now, in a genjutsu world. 

"We were prepared to," Itachi says.

Yeah.

They were, weren't they? Shisui thought that at worst, they'd target the elders and some of the active shinobi. Never genin. Sage, genin are practically civilian most of the time.

“Not like that,” Shisui says. “Indiscriminate killing was our job outside the village.”

Itachi exhales harshly, which is about all he needs to point out the lie. ANBU operate on different rules.

Shisui doesn't have all the facts. The thought helps him regain tenuous control.

He pushes his anger down for later. It's deserved, and he will rage, but it will be saved for a better moment. He closes his eye and forces himself to remember one of the first times he and Itachi trained together. 

Traditionally, this part of the fight is when genjutsu users of equal strength fight to the death. The trick to their battles is winning on three fronts: the real world, the illusionary one, and the battle for control of the world itself. Their eyes cheat with both speed and power.

Fuck that nonsense.

Shisui has learned far too much with no time to process. He plans to keep this up for a week of blazing glory until Danzo manages to extinguish him, probably around the seventh day. It is not an environment that is remotely conducive to stable life choices.

“Hey, genius.” Shisui opens his working eye. He finds himself far too short and far too young in the illusion at eight years old, across from a matching Itachi. Back then they were already fully blooded. These ages were when they became best friends. Now Itachi stands in a land of inverted color and Shisui stands in magma and smoke, separated by a test of skill and willpower.

One having turned his world inside-out, and the other tearing himself apart.

How typical of the Mangekyou to reflect a user's soul.

Shisui's voice is still fond in this illusionary battle. Some things never change. “What’s going on?”

“I had to,” repeats Itachi, like it's the only reason he has. Reckless, foolish, little Itachi who in this world carved from their memories is too small for even a hitai-ate. It would sound a little more truthful if he weren’t pale as a sheet. "It was- hard. To kill them all."

Yeah, it better have been hard to kill their family. What in the fucking shit. That is not anywhere near something Itachi’s fancy clan heir upbringing should think is appropriate to say right now.

His other point, though-

I had to.

Shisui is growing used to being horrified. Unwanted practice lets him manage a little offense beyond the nausea. Mostly, he just feels sad.

“No, you didn’t.” Shisui steps forward onto Itachi’s monochrome dirt, where light and dark have folded across each other into a reversed amalgamation of shadows. Embers crack and bristle underfoot as Shisui gently bullies his control into this domain. “You can lie if you want, but at least honor our friendship enough to come up with a better one. Okay?”

Itachi looks as if Shisui just slapped him. 

That's fair.

“What happened?” Shisui asks again, carefully soft. He wanders closer, dragging control behind him in a wake of volcanic ruin. “I can’t believe you’d kill everyone. I love you like a brother, ‘Tachi, but that’s a lot of escalation in a short period of time, and we both know I'm the one who's supposed to run too fast for my own good."

"You weren't there," Itachi says. His expression is a mask of calm, as if he isn't the loneliest person Shisui has ever seen and shattered from the weight of it. His chakra feels like a bird with broken wings. Terrified. Resigned. Mostly just hurt and screaming without making a sound. It's a wonder Itachi survived even a month like this.

"That doesn't mean I'd want you to run twice as fast for the both of us." Shisui takes another step forward, deep blue flashing across the sky as his control sinks hooks into their genjutsu battle. "One more time, Itachi: what happened?"

"Don't ask me to share that," Itachi warns.

Yeah, well. "Who else can?"

Itachi looks away, and the trees on Shisui's half of the clearing finish crumbling to white ash as his side of the genjutsu strengthens. Shisui's landscape is a haze of unnaturally bright red smothering heat behind him. Lava cracks and bubbles, spilling across the earth and hardening to dark volcanic rock that stretches to the horizon.

“I’d like to help,” Shisui says honestly. “I just don’t know if I can.”

This, more than anything, gets a reaction.

They were always honest with each other. It was their only way to stay afloat amongst a clan burning itself to wreckage and ruin. That trust is anything but easy now. As subtle as it was, Itachi has already tried to redirect Shisui in this conversation.

“Why?” Itachi asks as the sky flickers blue-red-blue between their warring control of reality.

“Because I don't understand,” Shisui says, thankful they're speaking through the genjutsu for privacy’s sake. “The coup needed to be stopped, and I can even see the massacre, but did it have to be you? Did the long dark path we both knew you'd be forced down have to end the lives of all of our family?”

"Yes."

Back in reality, time crawls on. They are now within arm's reach, so rather than let this turn into a fight to the death, Shisui sets off another paint bomb in his little cousin's face.

Bright pink paint, this time.

Itachi's side of the genjutsu falters. Shisui's lava greedily consumes the earth entirely, and he lets indigo-dyed skies settle overhead.

It’s kind of funny that Itachi looks like a wet cat scrambling for shreds of dignity. He even wipes off some of the paint and flicks a hand exactly as Shisui’s seen nekomata try to clean themselves.

"I hope that's not true," Shisui says in the genjutsu as he eyes the results of his paint bomb appraisingly in reality. He should add glitter. "But I also know it would be easier to falter in any other way. Did you ever try to take it back?"

Itachi's genjutsu self closes his eyes and gives a stiff nod.

Shisui presses his mouth into a long thin line. It's a good answer. Not a simple one, but this little proof of humanity is more than enough to leave him vulnerable with hope.

"You asked me to carry your will," Itachi says.

"I did." Shisui wishes he didn't have to say that it hurts what Itachi has done with that request. It feels like his death got turned into a weapon that tore through their clan in one clean killing sweep. He does not want to say this. Itachi looks like he really does not want to hear it, either.

Too bad for them. They’re having this conversation before anything can fester. Well, fester further. Shisui is coping poorly by his own standards.

"Itachi, you're my best friend," Shisui says heavily. "But please. Don't kill anymore in my name. I couldn't survive that."

Itachi inclines his head. He seems stricken in his usual subtle way, but that's not right. It's not an expression that suits him. "I didn't mean to hurt you."

“I know. I just don't get how you think hurting yourself like this wouldn't hurt me as well. What you're doing now, this isn't happiness. This isn't living. It's barely survival.” Shisui gestures with his tanto as he lets Itachi steal enough control to banish the molten rock. Oppressive heat eases. "You know what I wished for you.”

"I don't know what you think I'm doing that's hurting myself."

That sure is a bold lie. It's almost impressive how stubborn Itachi is in a mangled attempt to keep up his cover story.

Shisui raises both his eyebrows.

Itachi glares.

“You make such a good nukenin,” Shisui coos as patronizingly as he can, because he is allergic to taking Itachi's annoyance seriously.

Itachi escalates his glaring to everything short of Amaterasu in hopes of lighting Shisui on visual fire.

“So evil,” Shisui clucks. “Like a little wet cat. So good at playing the perfect traitor that even our own comrades can’t see an infiltration mission for what it is. I told you I hoped you would make your way in this world with your own hands as a loyal Konoha shinobi, and you did, didn't you?”

Itachi’s eye twitches.

Gotcha.

“How did you know?” Itachi asks as the next later of that eerie steel-cold mask chips away. The look of a crow who can no longer fly grows stronger in its place.

"The reports say Sako-senpai died." Shisui smiles like he isn't about to cry. "She had the time to get to her foster kids and put them behind a barrier, so she knew you were coming. You wouldn't survive giving her time to prepare if even the last Mizukage didn't, and that was after he chopped off her arm."

Itachi looks like he did as Shisui last saw him. Like the world is falling and he is stuck hiding the pain of it. "My eyes see more now."

It's a lie that insults Shisui's intelligence, Itachi's honor, and the sheer lethality wrapped up in a tiger summoner that was Sako. The youngest elder is - was - a large part of the reason their clan was willing to risk their children in a coup. Her body wasn't found, but that meant little when her house and a good slice of the forest behind it was reduced to a crater. The blood loss those reports recorded would've killed even the strongest shinobi. Everyone bleeds like equals.

“But the cats and crows aren’t after your head,” Shisui says, soft where his cousin is sharp, and twice as deadly. “You know cat rules just as well as I do - they mix up wants and needs when it comes to survival. So, the cats would only let a kin-killer walk free if you weren’t expected to survive much longer. As for the crows-”

Shisui can still feel Airi circling overhead, far outside this illusionary world. 

“They don’t like me,” Itachi nearly whispers. It’s the closest he’s sounded to the friend Shisui used to know this whole time.

“They wouldn’t. Not after that. But it’s in our culture to fixate, and you left Sasuke alive. That’s pretty telling.”

Itachi's control shudders, and Shisui takes advantage to end both of their genjutsu. A handful of seconds have passed real time, so he wastes no more in reaching out.

Itachi flinches, but lets Shisui pull him close. The hurt in Shisui's chest digs a little deeper when Itachi goes stiff at the crushing hug. 

"I thought you were mad," Itachi says in that horribly blank voice. He's always been calm, but not like this. 

Not empty.

"I am. But I'm also so sorry," Shisui says fiercely. Itachi curls in abruptly, all at once like he wants to hug back but can't make himself. 

It's okay. Shisui can carry the both of them right now.

Maybe.

He's had a day of it. Mild chakra exhaustion is making it hard to keep standing up straight.

Shisui slowly lets them sink to the ground. His little cousin's knuckles are white from where they've gripped his canvas Uchiha overshirt.

How long has he been lifting the world alone?

Hah.

Like Shisui can't feel that answer down to the last second of rewound impact.

"I am sorry," Shisui repeats as he sits and holds his cousin through what is likely his first chance to show weakness in years, "for trying to leave you like that. I think - I think I got all caught up in the hurt, if that makes sense? It got all tangled around me, and I didn't even know until I was drowning without any water around. It was just me. I drowned in my head. So I hoped the pain would stop with just me, but it doesn't work like that. That pain gets transferred to you, and Inoichi-sensei. It got sent to Rei, Chojirou, Aoba, and Anko. Probably also Fumiko-sama, and Mikoto-oba, and Fugaku-sama even if he's got the emotional bandwidth of an inebriated turtle. It got shared with my ANBU team and the brats at the orphans club, and everyone at T&I, and hell, probably even Aki even if she's the worst paper-nin I've ever seen. Who even loses a weapon reimbursement form, anyway? That's literally the most common one, and it was for kunai."

Pulsing nerves draws his attention to the dangers of eyestrain as he adjusts to monocular vision. Shisui closes his eye and tips his head back to ease his aching neck as he warms to the topic. "Sage on a stick, she needs help. Bless her, if we could all wear incompetence so well there would be more market for kindness than killers. She tried to do some kind of angry-shove at the desk last time we met and just pushed the chair she was sitting in right over. We're ninja. I know we're a couple of monsters compared to the average, but still. Standards-"

"Please stop talking about Aki from the Armory," Itachi says into Shisui's damp shirt. His voice sounds a little high. Breath-rate tracks a little too fast for comfort, no matter how steady Itachi is keeping the enunciation. "We've been over this. She still doesn't know your name."

"That's just proof of being the worst paper-nin," Shisui sniffs. "We're cosmically destined rivals. You wouldn't understand our relationship."

“Ao from Kiri-“ Itachi breaks off to clear his throat. It’s a sick kind of sound. Wet. Uncomfortable.

“No, because I would swear an oath of brotherhood with Ao and kill him halfway through the ceremony,” Shisui explains as he pats his cousin’s back. “He’s so fun. We’re practically soulmates at this point. The difference is that Aki is worth being on a team with, because she would trip into a refrigerator and lock herself in during a mission-“

"Shisui. I am having a crisis."

Sure.

Shisui can show tact when asked nicely.

He picks another topic at random, which is a terrible idea when Shisui's brain is doing poorly after his last twenty-four hours. He has lost many people, died, lost eyes two or three different times, and is surviving on denial.

Cheers.

"So, I think there's about a fifty percent chance that Sako-senpai is going to claw her way out of the grave in a decade or so. Honestly, it's surprising she's stayed gone this long since Iwa only kept her in the ground for a week that one time, and Konoha is home turf." Shisui nods, warming to his topic. "We should put takoyaki on her grave. As bribery."

Itachi lets him ramble, because he is a sweet soul under all the genocidal murder. Hoshigaki continues lurking somewhere outside of Shisui's sensing range. It's far enough. Airi would make a racket if the nukenin tried to approach subtly.

They sit, and they wait.

Either Itachi is going to stab him and further break the summoning contract they both signed, or he's going to process a whole lot of old-new grief. They have time.

It takes a while before Itachi speaks again.

"You died."

"I did, but I didn't," Shisui says as he opens his working eye a fraction. Blurry clouds pass overhead. "Wanna know something wild I just found out? You die when your will gives up, Itachi. When you can't go on, or otherwise you do. You have to. Even if you're so awful at it, and it feels like the world is ending. I thought I was done. You saw it."

Itachi inhales, shuddering, like he's just forced himself to breathe.

"Like that," Shisui says under cotton clouds. He forces himself to smile, and laugh, only to scrape together a watery excuse for mirth. "While I was falling, all I could think about was how much I regretted it. Isn't that funny, 'Tachi? As soon as I stepped back, all I could think was that I wish I hadn't."

He forces another laugh. It doesn't sound much like one.

Maybe they both have grief to process.

"I thought my spirit was dead," he says, curling the counters of his mouth up because he only knows how to smile at the weight of it all. "But it wasn't. Otherwise, how could I regret anything?"

Itachi's arms tighten. Fugaku would call that involuntary movement childish, but Shisui knows bravery when he sees it. His best friend has never been anything but the most loyal of soldiers, too old for his age and carrying weight their elders would balk at.

Shisui laughs, and laughs, and cries because he wasn't really laughing at all. Itachi's arms stay a comforting weight around him as he pours his soul into saltwater that gets caught on bloody tear tracks.

He shouldn't find Itachi's presence grounding after what he's done. Shouldn't lower barriers with trust that needs rebuilding.

But he does.

Itachi is an anchor in this disquiet. Fire is hot. Grass is green. The sky is blue, unless it is purple, or black, or any other starlit color that separates Tanabata lovers. Obvious statements don't need repeating.

Itachi is quiet through his own turmoil, but it would be a mistake to call him calm. Whatever plans he had are straining at the seams, turning themselves over for inspection, and found wanting. The way his hands stay gripped tight in Shisui's black canvas overshirt says quite a bit about the kind of disquiet felt only by sailors on the night watch at sea, and brothers who are so lost that they are breaking each other. It is not the easy waves that are feared so much as what lurks underneath them.

It takes a while for them to calm down.

Hoshigaki stops by, looks mildly impressed at the sight of his partner in crime experiencing real feelings, and informs them he is going to treat himself by spending the rest of the afternoon and evening on a fishing trip. Implied is that he will not be touching their drama even from that safe poking distance. Perhaps when they have cried themselves out he will chance polite conversation, but not before then.

Good on him.

Shisui likes people with a decent head on their shoulders. He sits on a tree root and marvels at the efficiency of this man's ability to set boundaries. Hoshigaki seems like an honest, upfront guy. Unhinged, maybe. Then again, who in their profession isn't?

Itachi is quiet as he stands watching the blue swordsman wander off through sparse trees.

Hm.

Small-talk?

Good plan.

"So what did happen to Sasuke?" Shisui notes the guilt that flashes across Itachi's face as he accepts the hand up. "Because I couldn't find much paperwork on him."

"You wouldn't. He's a nukenin, but they're still hopeful he'll return."

Shisui pauses, distantly aware of how they both need to lean on each other to stay upright. "No fucking way."

Itachi lightly slaps his arm for swearing. "If it's what my little brother wants, I'll support it."

"You don't sound like you mean that," Shisui points out. "What's the catch?"

Itachi shifts and looks away as much as he can when they're supporting each other's weight. Shisui barely hears the quiet mutter of, "he's Orochimaru's student."

"Orochimaru," Shisui repeats. "The same Orochimaru who experiments on children and injected a part of his soul into Anko like an evil leech. That Orochimaru?"

Itachi inclines his head with undeserved grace.

Again: yikes.

Shisui proceeds to lie through his teeth. "Itachi, you are my favorite cousin, but… wow."

"Yes," Itachi sighs.

"Orochimaru."

"I am aware."

Shisui stares at his hands and tries to puzzle out how anyone would think the best option available to them could possibly be running from the village straight into the arms of a creep. Specifically, a creep known for treating people like materials in his experiments.

"...Sasuke's growing up kind of stupid, isn't he?"

Itachi heaves another sigh, this time from the depths of his soul. "I regret the path he's chosen, but so long as it makes him strong enough to survive until-" 

"Survive what?" Shisui asks, wary again now that they're nearing the topic Itachi keeps dodging. "You left him the last Uchiha in the village. With that many eyes on him, Danzo isn't going to steal him away like he did me. It'll be Sarutobi who manipulates him. Great job. Fantastic. Same problem with bad results. The village would bend over backwards to keep him loyal and alive, so what possible reason could you have to push him onto a revenge quest and reject all common sense?!"

Itachi glowers, which sucks for him because Shisui is ignoring it. That glare is 100% a complete wasted effort. 

"Revenge will make him strong."

"Revenge only makes you strong if it doesn't consume you." Shisui lets his remaining eye spin into a familiar pinwheel. "Don't kid me. Not about that."

"I won't." Itachi shakes his head. "Sasuke will outlive me and take my eyes. They'll let him see a better way. I've made sure his hunger for vengeance will see him through."

Sage wept.

Itachi.

You are so fucked up.

"Sasuke has no life beyond that hunger. There's no fulfillment in loss of your entire purpose." Shisui pokes him in the chest. "Stop trying to distract me with your trauma. We're ninja. That trick is Academy-level at best. What are you so scared of?"

Itachi stares at him.

Shisui isn't sure what he looks like, bloody and battered with a dusty hitai-ate tied around his head in a makeshift eye patch and red tear tracks clumping in ragged lines across both cheeks. Itachi can probably tell that there’s only manic energy keeping Shisui awake alongside panic and spite. Coming back from the dead isn't pretty. The sun has started to set, but Shisui only just woke up from the past this morning. Since then, he has visited the cats, broken into the mission archives, cried his heart out in the sanctity of his own mind, and snuck into Inoichi's T&I office to make tea. Then he crossed multiple countries, barely kicked his cousin's ass, and cried outside the sanctity of his own mind this time. It's been a long day.

"I am afraid," Itachi says, "that you will not survive hearing it."

Shisui scrambles for composure before he does something foolish. "Itachi. I can assure you that whatever you may imagine, my last twenty-four hours have been infinitely worse. At this point, I would like to get all the bad news over with so I can be absolutely certain there is nowhere to go but up."

"Shisui-"

"Please."

Itachi is too complicated to be a cruel shinobi. Always has been. Shisui counts on it even now.

Come on, Ita-chan. Prove you're not as lost as the cats believe. Save me this pain.

"Let me make you a meal," clever, sweet, homicidal Itachi says. He's always been a little too quick to care, a little too slow to kill, and far too skilled at the part of that equation which fits his nature so poorly. "While I tell you about the Akatsuki.”

Yeah.

Okay.

"Food," Shisui says with great feeling, "would be really nice right now."

An hour later, Shisui has to set down the soup Itachi made and cradle his face in his hands. Itachi notes his agony and continues his rundown on the terrorist organization he’s apparently a part of.

What has the world come to?

Shisui has six days left to fix the world. Is he going to have to blow up the moon? Fuck, he hopes not. That’s a little outside of his pay grade. Technically, all of this is outside his pay grade, but a whole moon is kind of a lot. It's pretty big and a little higher than his crows can reach.

Also.

Tobi? Madara? 

Whomst?

He even has another relative to kick some sense into, because apparently there's another one of them living under a mountain like a vicious little hermit. Sage love him. Shisui has so much work to do.

“Ita-chin,” Shisui says when he’s done, and the suffix drops like a lit explosive tag between them. Familiar Killing Intent spikes wildly for half a heartbeat before Shisui can continue, “what the fuck.”

Itachi’s chakra flashes in a mimicry of wildfire as he says, “Do not call me that again.”

It’s the first insult to hit home so far.

Good to know he hasn’t completely snapped. Shisui would test it in a kinder way, but he’s feeling a little off-balance after the day’s news. This reunion is very non-standard as far as their friendship goes. Every word they exchange feels like Shisui is once again tumbling down the Naka’s rapids, bashing into jagged rock and tossed about by white-foam waves. There’s no certainty. Little comfort. Itachi is cold and warm, seeking and violent.

Their friendship has gotten very weird, very fast, and Shisui’s usual solution of relying on his support network fails miserably because, surprise! His darling little cousin killed about half of them.

“Itachi,” Shisui backs off with a raised hand in apology. “You left on a mission nobody even knows about, except the person who killed me, the person who watched, and a spymaster who is known for ignoring other people's wishes for self-interest?”

Itachi keeps glaring.

“Not a good look,” Shisui points out. “At least have continuity about all this. I mean, you left to protect Sasuke, and didn’t do anything when Orochimaru gave him a curse mark? Come on, now. That’s not like you at all. At least be consistent.”

“I do not have to like his choices to support him,” Itachi says tightly. Well, tightly for Itachi - anyone unfamiliar with him would mistake those ingrained manners for calm.

“Right. Well. I am very stressed,” Shisui says. “So maybe that’s doing something to my ability to make sense of things. I apologize for offending you and am going to go lie down about it.”

He proceeds to summon another crow and does exactly that. 

Itachi watches Junka perch in a tree out of reach of them both with a melancholy look that borders on tragic. The noble thing would be to ask about it. The kind thing would be to apologize for the trainwreck of today. The honorable thing would be to take his sword and attack the local kin-killer right here and now.

Instead, Shisui unseals his bedroll and flops down. He will deal with all of this tomorrow.

No sooner.

Itachi leaves him to his moping and goes to run a perimeter sweep, which is… great. Airi is tailing him. It's fine.

It's all fine.

Shisui curls up on his bedroll with another crow keeping watch as he tries to work this mess out in his mind. The moment of solitude is deeply appreciated. It's hard to really relax in present company when Itachi has apparently gone off the deep end. The whole thing is deeply unnerving. Shisui doesn't think he'll wake up with a knife in his gut, but he didn't think Itachi would murder his parents and baby cousins in cold blood, either. They had made a worst-case scenario for that which involved at least a couple people helping them assassinate some of the Uchiha's leadership. The whole clan contains a lot of people.

Because, uh, yikes?

His motto for this week is far too fitting.

“Red-Yearling-not-safe,” Junka caws from the trees. Shisui stretches out his senses and notes Itachi is decently far away running a perimeter check. Crows are terrible gossips, but Junka is patient and thorough. She waits at least a week before announcing anything she's learned, and Shisui honestly isn't expecting Danzo to let him survive that long. It gives him the leeway to admit the truth of this to a semi-trusted confidant.

“Feel-safe-not,” Shisui agrees softly in the same language.

“Right-not.” Junka rustles her feathers. “Sick-hurt-One-Eye-stay-flock-near-safe-should.”

The crows have changed their name for him.

“Birth-flock-gone,” Shisui reminds her miserably. Itachi sure took care of that, eradicating possibly the last place other than his ANBU dorm where Shisui felt safe. It makes Junka's grumbling less advice and more complaint. 

“Flock-like-not.” Junka eyes him. “Red-Yearling-home-hurt-wrong. Miko-hime-follow-sign-last-because.”

Shisui rolls over to stare at her incredulously. There's no way he heard that right, because if the crows are only following Itachi because he's the last summoner on their contract, then what does it mean now that Shisui is here?

Itachi killed his clan.

Crows are fiercely communal and intelligent creatures. They don't hold with kin-killing of 'chicks', but unlike most summons with those values, take into account that their contract could be lost when they reprimand a summoner. Itachi has their loyalty because he is of use to them. No other reason. When he dies, the contract will be lost, so the crows are keeping their oaths while they quietly search for a new summoner.

And Shisui is messing that equation up in a big way.

Well.

For now.

"Search-keep," Shisui warns his chatty summons. She scolds him for assuming he must ask, then quiets down to keep an eye out.

It's fine.

He finds sleep like it's an old friend, and dreams of falling.

Chapter Text

"The Inuzuka joined Konoha on a condition," the stand-in Kurama matriarch says. Inoichi turns away from the vegetable stand he was approaching and marvels at how Konoha’s morning market crowd has begun parting around them like a river around stone. Not a single person looks towards the two clan heads with a loaded statement lying between them.

He tilts his head towards her curiously and adjusts his grip on his groceries. 

Kurama Suiko looks like she couldn't care less what people think of her, which is rather the point for a genjutsu master who relies on trickery. She also has the luxury of controlling exactly what everyone sees, so Inoichi has always taken the heavy shadows under her eyes and crooked grin as honesty. Her patched haori is visibly stained in old blood and spots of bleach, which was likely not used for its civilian purpose. 

“Good morning, Suiko. Could you elaborate?”

“Morning. And I thought it might be useful.”

“Useful,” Inoichi repeats, careful to replace any discomfort in his tone with an open curiosity. The oblivious crowd moves around them. Conversations this loaded don’t usually happen in the busiest street of the village.

“Might be.” Suiko shrugs. “If it’s not, then it’s not. I just figured you might appreciate the reminder.”

One of the gate guards yesterday was a Kurama. Though he didn't sense anyone trailing his and Inuzuka Hana's unexpected tracking mission, that's not to say they were alone. The Kurama clan weaves reality. He wouldn't have known if one followed. A clever shinobi tailing them could have overheard exactly what happened to send Inoichi on a blind chase.

“Does anyone else know?” he asks, heart sinking.

“None that will share.”

He’s a sharp enough sensor to feel the truth behind that statement. Inoichi considers himself very lucky the inevitable security leak happened with the clan that lives an illusion. Whatever they do is always layered. It may mean he doesn’t get a straight answer, but the core is honest.

Thank goodness.

"The Inuzuka agreed to settle in Konoha on the condition that their children could be avenged, if I remember right." Inoichi adjusts his groceries to mentally dredge up the relevant treaties. He remembers this one’s single case. Just after the last war, Tsume walked into a training ground and killed a Konoha shinobi in cold blood. That shinobi had ties to civilian nobility, so the aftermath was handled personally by the Sandaime instead of T&I.

He never did get the full story, which was odd. "The Inuzuka matriarch holds execution rights to certain nukenin and traitors."

"Not quite." Suiko tucks both hands in ratty sleeves and rocks back on her heels like a child gleeful to be caught raiding sweets. "She has a conditional right to anyone who betrays her kin. Stab an Inuzuka in the back, kill a ninken, kidnapping, line theft; the usual set. The founders listed enough conditions to make using it rare. Not impossible. She’s got a politically untouchable right to attack.”

“She can decide a sentence without trial?” Inoichi asks, despite knowing the answer. Kurama shakes her head before he’s done speaking.

“Witness testimony is needed if the victim’s proven to be alive. If T&I gets 'em first, good. That's the village's claim so long as the traitor stays locked up. But if nobody comes collecting, Tsume has every right to the first and last cut."

Inoichi knows exactly what the Kurama head is saying.

Killing the entire Elder Council is legal for Tsume if what he suspects happened to Shisui was a shared experience with even one Inuzuka. 

Kagecide is just as easy.

Inoichi is hesitant to pin blame on Sarutobi when their current Hokage may not have even known. He’s not sure what would happen to their chain of command with a hastily chosen Godaime. Tsunade is out of the village doing who-knows-what, Jiraiya is unfit to take control, and Inoichi is uncertain they have a leader who could manage the hat for long. Well, they do. It just doesn’t matter when the Nara clan’s internal politics are a nightmare when trying to take a kunoichi out of the shadows, and Yoshino was technically born outside the village. They need to be cautious about handling the Sandaime.

That’s his only issue with the idea Suiko has presented.

"Something to keep in mind," he says lightly, and Kurama Suiko grins wide like her clan's patron.

Shisui woke early and gave himself four hours to deal with Itachi. He gets through half that time before apologizing and running for the hills. Kisame, who must have arrived overnight, gives Shisui a knowing look as he stumbles through last-minute instructions on why Itachi should treat his beloved brother with basic human decency. It’s a bit uncalled for.

He returns Kisame’s look with his best attempt at easy cheer, and bolts.

It's not that Shisui doesn't care for Itachi. He does.

Nothing can be so easy.

He's also conflicted about everything Itachi has done and is swinging between rage and regret far too fast to be healthy. Shisui knows himself. Interpersonal relationships get dicey when his mental state deteriorates. He switches between clingy and reckless. Adding the fact that someone he trusted murdered their clan causes those conflicted feelings to beat against his mind like hot iron on an anvil. 

This is manageable.

He just needs to keep himself together for a week.

If not for Danzo, Shisui would head back and find Inoichi. Regrouping is one of his little self-imposed rules: if his mind is scrambled enough for him to notice, he needs to check in with somebody who he knows and trusts enough to help.

Right now, Shisui is so far past that line, it's not even funny. There is a solid fifty percent chance he's going to see another Uchiha and burst into tears. The other half is taken up by thoughts of heedless violence, because apparently this 'Tobi' took on murdering the heavy-hitters and babies amongst the Uchiha.

Yes, Tobi can probably kill Shisui. This doesn't matter. So could a particularly clever goose. 

Shisui covers well over half a day of an average shinobi's travel through Taki in a few hours. Skidding to a stop halfway up a mountain lets him see the pale blue sliver of a rarely visited coast, resting far beyond craggy cliffsides and rocky ridges. Shisui crouches on an outcropping rock to munch on a ration bar.

Airi lands on his shoulder as Junka circles overhead.

He needs an unbiased witness. Airi dislikes every human except for Shisui, and Junka is biased in every imaginable direction. Shisui chews over the issue alongside his fiber. When that provides no answers, he starts on one of the Neko-obaa’s onigiri, which are thankfully still fresh from the storage scroll.

Which summon would Itachi call on?

After a moment's thought, Shisui stuffs the ration bar wrapper into his pack. The box he pulls from a storage scroll has snacks for bribery purposes. He lets Airi select the treat type and tosses her a walnut from her chosen seed bag.

He then nicks a thumb on the edge of his hitai-ate. There's some kind of symbolism in bleeding because of the leaf engraved over his blind eye, which the cats and crows will likely argue over after he's gone. Airi caws approval as Shisui marches through a few hand signs.

Smoke billows.

"Missed you, Toki," he says to the large crow that hop-steps out. Itachi would have needed her genjutsu help to fight in the compound without raising alarms.

Toki clatters back a sound reminiscent of river pebbles and shoves her entire head into his hands. "Red-Yearling-BORING."

"I'm sorry to leave you bereft of quality entertainment," Shisui chuckles. He yelps, chin snapping up as Toki lashes out with both wings.

"No-sorry-say," Toki scolds. "Not-do-again."

His little mischief makers know him too well. Airi bursts into raucous cawing too fast for Shisui to follow, though he catches enough to recognize an explanation that starts with yesterday’s morning at the Naka cliffs.

“Know-not-happen-what,” Airi admits as she slows down into a discernable pace.

“I could really use an unbiased account,” Shisui says as he runs a careful hand over Airi’s feathers.

"Yui-Satou-summon," Toki demands.

Shisui raises his visible eyebrow but calls the additional crows as directed. Yui, who looks more like a little round puffball than an actual crow, races out of her summoning smoke to wriggle her way into one of his shirt's hidden pockets. Satou bursts into scolding that's not so much a translatable message as audible frustration and loss. It's understandable.

Shisui gently runs a hand over Satou's glossy feathers until the summon gets all his feelings out. Satou settles, inspecting him with one dark eye, the other seemingly dull after Izanagi.

“Careful-stay,” Satou says. “Red-Yearling-self-blame.”

“He shouldn’t. It was my choice. But I’m glad you were there to help Itachi through it,” Shisui tells the favorite summon of his cousin.

"Sad," Yui chips in from his pocket in chirping mimicry of human speech.

"I was, too."

"Task-have," Toki tells her peers, and the summons reluctantly leave Shisui's side to gather. Crows are not gifted at quiet chattering. They still try.

The birds take a moment to arrange themselves and discuss something involving roles. Shisui finishes a second onigiri just before they turn with serious expressions and sincere expectations. Satou ignores them all to figure out walking while holding a twig in his little talons, eye closed over the blind sharingan Shisui knows he carries. Satou has a penchant for playing villains whenever the chance for drama strikes, so Shisui has a rough idea of what's coming.

Airi steps forward, apparently designated as narrator. Shisui flicks on the sharingan to record. This should be good.

"Red-Yearling-very-very-sad-was," Airi begins as Yui flattens herself to the ground tragically to show Itachi's general morose state. "Stupid-was-"

Toki's wing swats the back of her head.

"Help-need-help-ask-Old-Red-Hat," Airi continues bitterly, as Toki puffs out her chest and hops forward. Satou places an orange leaf on her head to denote the Hokage's hat in a moment of symbolism.

"Help-not-get," the stand-in Hokage tells Yui's collapsed impersonation of Itachi. The tiny crow keels over, legs up in the air as she happily rolls around making various sounds of anguish.

Itachi absolutely did not lie down to have a tantrum on the Hokage's office floor when denied assistance in stopping the coup.

"Egg-chick-help-need-not," the Hokage's actress continues despite the already glaring inaccuracies. "Egg-chick-strong-is. Egg-chick-nest-kill-must."

"Inconceivable!" The stand-in Itachi caws. Shisui did not teach her that word. "Old man, change mind!"

"Chick-spare-if-nest-kill," Satou offers. It's a fair mimicry of Danzo, and an even better summary of the impossible task likely asked of Itachi. A brother or a clan. "Easy-choice."

Itachi's actress flips upright, then fans out her wings to bow.

"Yes! I will be stupid," she says with careful enunciation. Danzo and the Sandaime's crows puff up further in a show of pride at her agreement.

"Good," Danzo's actor says. "Go-fast."

The crows then scatter to prepare for a new scene.

"Nest-home-help-refuse,” Airi narrates. “Dumb-was. Red-Yearling-panic-did. Help-elsewhere-ask."

Toki shoves her whole beak through the leaf. The crow turns blindly towards Shisui as Itachi's actress throws herself at the much larger crow's feet. It is only the surreal horror of knowing this did kind of happen that keeps Shisui from laughing at Toki's new costume.

"Orange-Mask-am," Toki informs him gravely through the leaf. This must be their name for the Madara impersonator. "Nest-kill-want."

"Tachi-tsu-te-Tobi, help!" Itachi's actress hops toward the newly named Tobi, wings spread with flight feathers higher than the joint to mimic a low bow. "Home must fight! Help!"

Danzo's actor creates a decent cackling sound from the background. Shisui takes this to mean the elder was wandering around being rancid while Itachi descended further into crisis.

“Nest-kill-help-will,” Tobi’s actress says with a happy little hop.

Together Tobi and Itachi's actresses turn to face the other crows, wings raised.

Satou and Airi obligingly give themselves the little genjutsu sharingan every summon learns so they can be identified by allies. It's absurdly cute. What's less cute is how the two crows symbolizing his whole clan flop over. Dead.

Shisui sits, stunned, through Toki's rendition of Sasuke walking in on this mess. Between Yui's limited human speech and the support of his other summons, they're able to deliver that part in a format closer to a mission report. The attempt to be considerate of his feelings on this is appreciated.

The improvised play finishes with a brief scene in which Itachi flees to join and spy on the Madara impersonator's club.

The crows bow. Shisui applauds because he does not want to lose his summoning contract. It’s both for the positive reinforcement after a full report, and because he is trying to drown out the slightly horrified part of his mind.

Rewarding them with the treats he’d pulled out is also a reward to himself, since Shisui gets to watch four friend-shaped crows squabble as if nothing has changed. It’s a needed break. Yui is a little clingy and relocates to his pocket, but Toki and Satou have been given enough enrichment by Itachi that they have an easier time adjusting. Airi has had a day to adjust to being called on again.

Shisui gives them well-deserved attention as he feeds his gremlins their pumpkin seeds and nuts.

Chattering updates on years of everyday minutia drives away the looming silence. Shisui leans back on his palms to watch the rising sun crest over distant mountains. Newborn wind lifts the smell of ocean freedom to his high perch and buffeting cold air dances amidst shrubbery. It’s a good start to the day. Cool liquid sun pools across the ocean as dawn rays break through clouds, and Shisui is nearly sick in the wonder of it all. 

He would have lost this.

He did lose this.

Shisui takes fifteen minutes to cuddle his summons and pretend his problems don’t exist.

“Thank you,” he tells them, “For being here.”

Thank you for being unchanged, he cannot say. His summons have grown in the time he's been gone. Everything is different. Itachi has gone off the deep end, Sasuke has tied himself to a mad scientist, and every other member of a family once two hundred strong is gone. Konoha is unrecognizable without them and a monster snaps at Shisui’s heels. Even the land he’s sped through is warped and changed through the passage of time.

His only constant is the homesick smell of ocean brine.

It’s not enough.

It would never be enough.

What is enough is being alive to learn of these changes. His summons tell him this before all Yui, Satou, and Toki reluctantly dismiss themselves. They’re right, too. 

Airi stays after the other three are gone, studying Shisui with intelligent black eyes. When he offers his wrist, she hops onto it and continues inspecting him. Rather than ask, Shisui waits. To crows, sticking around is a kind of invitation.

She and Yui have always refused to answer Itachi's call, just as Shisui has never been able to summon Muta. Itachi could have at least sent treats and crow-suited puzzles to them through the other summons, but Shisui doubts this happened. Yui was clingy.

"Airi-miss-did," Airi says at last. "More-flock-than. More-flight-than. Summoner-first-want-before-after-always. Miss-did-miss-everyday-everyday-Summoner-know?"

Shisui's lungs stutter, breath catching at the admission of love beyond her own flight and family. "I... yeah. I know you care, Airi. I promise, I have always known that you care for me."

"Sure-not-was. Fall-reason-have," Airi diagnoses. "Fake-option-had-fake-option-not-did."

"It was more complicated than that," Shisui admits. His jaw aches from carrying habitual stress that was born in a populated clan compound. "I thought things would be fixed if I were out of the picture, but really, part of me couldn't think at all when it got bad. The point was that things would be better afterwards."

"Reason-flaw. Always-Summoner-better-with." She shuffles along his arm to perch on his shoulder and rearrange his curls with her beak. "Everyday-everyday-better-with-reason-stay-time-next-have-not."

Shisui takes it as a cue to lower his arm but otherwise hold still.

"Always-better-with," Airi continues as she shifts and preens him into some crow standard of presentable. "Hurt-know. Hurt-was. Summoner-hurt-want-not. Day-next-find-must-alone-do-together-please."

"I will, but that promise goes both ways," Shisui murmurs. Talons adjust, snaring in his canvas overshirt. "No shinobi is completely safe. No civilian, either. I'll try to find each tomorrow with you for as long as I can, but this isn't a safe career. If anything happens, promise me you won't hold yourself back. Find a new summoner."

"Cannot."

"Airi-"

"CANNOT," Airi caws directly in his ear. Shisui flinches, face pinched as she continues scolding, "Alone-know. Alone-will-be. Replacement-want-not. Life-danger-always-reason-not. Hurt-reason-not. Sick-reason-not. Dying-reason-not. Together-stay-want-choose-Summoner."

"I might not make it a full week from now, Airi. I want you to be safe."

"Airi-Summoner-understand? Same-want-have." She jumps from his shoulder in a burst of flapping wings to land by his knee. "Together-promise-then."

"I'll do my best to try if you do," Shisui agrees. He loves his conniving little summons dearly.

Resolve firms as Airi clacks her beak in agreement. Shisui is willing to try at living for the little crow. Danzo will need to hunt Shisui with everything he's got to catch him twice.

"Promise-did-safe-please," Airi reminds him as she presses her little head to his knee. Shisui fondly ghosts a hand over her little head before she de-summons.

Then he gets up, and does the only thing he has ever felt completely at ease with:

He runs.

Shisui darts through the remainder of Taki as a warm-up, skips past nearly all of Tetsu, and trots into the Mountains’ Graveyard with little care for mortal limits on speed at around noon.

He'd sent Airi back to the summoning realm to rest up, and none of the other crows could enjoy his preferred breakneck velocity. It's alright. He can do this alone. The Mountains’ Graveyard is creepy and devoid of most life, but that's manageable.

Shisui judgmentally sniffs at the tall trees with their sparse pine needles and wide lower branches. They look very flexible. He could rig a very nice catapult with these. Why can’t Hashirama trees bend any decent amount without snapping?

No, focus.

Prioritize. Plan. Proceed.

He finds what looks like an entrance to the international murder-club hideout and settles in to wait. Working with one eye is causing problems with photosensitivity and depth perception, but those are luckily issues Shisui trained for after getting his Mangekyou. Blindness is more than a background risk with it.

No, Shisui's problem is the ache in his neck is developing from turning his head so often.

It takes a few hours to find his cloud-cloaked target wandering through the forest as if they both are unaware of each other. Shisui wasn’t subtle. There had to be perimeter wards, and any decent shinobi would tie those seals to themselves. Itachi seemed doubtful about this. He regards Tobi as a very dangerous child.

Then again, Itachi has clearly lost his mind in recent years.

Threat assessment included.

Shisui accepts the danger and disregards the childish part. This is not a fight he can win.

He knows this because the second-most lethal shinobi in Konoha by body count and most lethal by power output was a kunoichi who barely stepped outside of ANBU's Hunter-nin division. She lived in a mask except for clan meetings and her foster kids. Itachi wouldn't have won against her. Nobody could without eyes and skill that were at least her equal. His cousin may have the eyes, but he doesn't have the chakra output to reshape landscapes.

But Sako-senpai died in the massacre.

Shisui watches the man in an orange mask waltz by, trip over a flower, and faceplant into the unimpressed dirt with a dismayed wail.

Sage.

Well, he has to kill this poor sucker after witnessing that.

For honor, or whatever.

Shisui draws his tanto, careful to keep the gleaming metal from reflecting sunlight towards his target. He plans his flicker into blade-reach and corresponding beheading strike, shifts his weight to pounce, and-

Strikes-

Tobi shrieks and flails, narrowly missing the attack. He trips over nothing and bends backwards with comical flailing, just in time for Shisui's tanto to sweep right over him.

Okay.

If he wants to play it like that-

Shisui doubles his speed and flickers behind Tobi. The sword slams into a red cloud on his shoulder and carves down. White ichor fills the wound instead of blood. Shisui ducks back from a massive gunbai that his opponent did not have a second ago.

He flickers forward abruptly, only for Tobi to have the substance of a ghost. For his part, Tobi slaps both hands to his mask and does a little hop-dance in mimicry of either fear or a desperate need for the restroom. 

"So scary!" Tobi positively wails, voice pitched at a decibel best left to toddlers. "Why are you being mean to Tobi? Tobi never hurt anyone!"

Shisui barely dodges a rain of shuriken that blast from thin air, cursing his depth perception issues as he flips around metal hail. He touches down in the clearing's center, catching steel from the corner of his eye. Shisui flickers to the trees. 

He barely lands before the branches come alive.

"Mokuton?" Shisui screams from the ground in the next instant. "What kind of bullshit-"

Roots nearly stab him. Shisui parries a series of hits from the war fan at close range, marching through one-handed signs. Tobi swats aside his Fire Phoenix like baby embers as Shisui dodges grabbing roots. His lightning-coated sword slices through Tobi again without resistance.

Tobi cheers and makes a heart with his hands. "It's Tobi's flower power!"

“What even is this?!” Shisui shrieks as he twists out of close range. Nobody’s fool, he slaps explosion tags on the roots as he goes. "I should drop you in front of the founders just to see-"

"Tobi would be honored," the nukenin says with near-religious fervor. He even shivers with a little enraptured glee. It is distinctly creepy.

Shisui grimaces and sets off the tags.

The fight that follows is vicious.

Tobi is practically an illusion unless Shisui stabs him at the second of attack. Anyone else would be very dead by now, but Shisui is fast. It's a lucky thing. They are each other's worst possible match. Both are an enemy the other can't hit, taking advantage of a weak point in skillsets that count on reaction time to function. It is the worst kind of fight. If not for his Mangekyou, Shisui would be a smear on the ground at first contact. As it is, he's barely able to keep his focus on the spatial awareness shunshin relies on while dealing with an evisceration-happy nukenin. 

Tobi is brutal. At least he's having equal trouble, if the transition from witty yet unhinged quips to eerily silent focus is any indication.

Shisui snaps out a kick the moment his sword phases out of Tobi's chest. He feels the second his blade is about to make contact before the evil squirrel of a nukenin goes insubstantial again. Tobi tries to whack Shisui in the head and only catches his afterimage. It's like playing one of those reflex festival games, but they're both equally suffering, and the first one to mess up gets thrashed. 

Yippee.

Scales tip all at once when Shisui is yanked from the start of a flicker by wire around his ankle. He spits a sealless fireball and snaps the wire with his tanto. It burns precious time. 

Tobi’s fan snakes out and upwards in the bought second. Once free, Shisui launches himself forward. He slips past the attack into Tobi's guard, nearly flickering from speed alone-

Tobi solidifies as his strike connects with the shunshin's afterimage-

Shisui forces his lightning-coated sword straight through Tobi’s heart. The nin collapses. It feels alarmingly slow in comparison to how fast they were both moving, and Shisui needs every bit of that time to realize he just won.

It's over?

Red soaks the earth, mingling with plant-like ichor.

“Oh, thank the Sage’s hairy armpits,” Shisui wheezes as he kneels and presses his forehead into the ground. “I want! A nap! But noooo, everyone has to have such a fuuuucked up day, so they make my day fucked up and now I’m stuck here having a nervous breakdown, you absolute motherfucker.”

Shisui honestly didn’t think he would survive that fight.

Actually, he reflects while curled up in the fetal position and gasping for breath, this says a lot about Uchiha habits.

Itachi goes and kills the whole clan except for maybe two poor souls, and the moment Shisui comes back to life, what happens? He immediately starts trying to help his darling cousin finish the job. That’s messed up. Inoichi is going to have so many opinions when he discovers Shisui’s headless chicken impersonation across the Elemental Nations to kick ass or die trying.

He nearly just did both at once!

Hysterical giggling bubbles up, and Shisui wraps his arms around aching ribs. Oxygen rebels from entering his lungs.

Holy shit.

Holy… shit-

Steel and wood cleave open the ground where he just was. Ichor and blood run down lacquered wood.

“That,” trills the very alive Tobi as he plucks his gunbai out of the long fissure, “was so mean.”

Shisui screams. 

Undignified scrambling back on all fours is pure instinct. He makes it nearly to the tree line like a crab to point and sputter.

He killed that guy. Escaping death with a sword shoved straight through the heart - he felt that impact, saw the blood, watched a life end with his eye recording the fading pulse. Tobi was dead. At least, Tobi was dead until he casually walked off a blade through the heart.

“I killed you,” Shisui yells once his initial panic fades enough to feel insulted at the sheer audacity of this man. That's his trick. “What the fuck, dude! That’s rude! Stay dead when someone finally lands a good hit-”

The fan slams into his afterimage. Shisui reappears to hang one-handed from the very top of a tree, letting the thin branches bend in a creaking arc under his weight as he cackles from an impending breakdown. “Son of a cockroach-”

“Stay still,” Tobi snarls under the roar of fire, and the abrupt switch back from his playful comedy act sends ice shooting down Shisui’s spine. Branches crack apart as Shisui dodges again, and the tree he was in sprinters.

Shisui kicks off the ground when it bursts into earth spikes. “No!”

He flickers away and forms an explosive clone in the same moment, using the shunshin as a stand-in for replacement.

Tobi falls headlong into a brutal game of clone tag as Shisui reactivates his Mangekyou for a ridiculously meticulous genjutsu. It hides him from even Tobi's thrice-evolved eyes as he falls out of the body-flicker amongst the treetops.

Shisui snags two treetops in his ninja wire and pulls tight, bending them together as he hurtles closer. The tree trunks converge just enough for him to brace his sandals on them. Trunks creak as his homemade slingshot bends away from the fight. Shisui laughs wildly, momentum slowed with coiled energy.

In the clearing, Tobi carves the clone in two and bats away the dispersal explosion.

The trees snap forward. Shisui releases the wire before it can carve his hands to pieces. His homemade slingshot launches him mid-flicker at the nukenin's face faster than even Shisui's sharingan can track.

Impact slams into his knee clumsily. Something brittle audibly shatters. Shisui hits the ground palms-first and pushes off into a flip, skidding back to gain distance as Tobi's blade narrowly misses his thigh.

The nukenin whirls around, gunbai in one hand and a hand sign forming with the other. He is very much missing a mask.

Shisui freezes.

Points.

"YOU!"

Obito - who apparently has not changed one bit beyond the toddler energy and whatever noxious mass-murder cocktail is brewing in his brain soup like a fungus - turns to look behind him.

"No, you! Mask-guy!"

There is more confusion as Obito points to himself with his free hand, playful body language in sharp contrast with the exhaustion on his face. It's understandable if he used the standard ANBU seals to make it feel like the mask ceased to exist, but still.

Obito-nii.

Shisui can never tell Itachi that he was right about Tobi being a disaster.

Obito takes a good look at Shisui's shock, turns around in a full circle, then finally appears to notice the mask at his feet. "...Oh."

"Why are you like this," is the first thing to come out of Shisui's mouth, half-fond and half-enraged.

Obito takes a moment to be offended at that. It is a crucial mistake, because Shisui is fast in the same way an inferno is warm. It's not so much an oversimplification as a comical underestimation. 

He flickers forward into a bastardized cartwheel and plants an explosive tag between Obito's sandals. His kick slips through Obito's chin as if he's a ghost. Shisui completes the flip and skids back with the detonation. "You've been alive all this time and never told Fumiko-sama?!"

Obito bristles as he bats away smoke. "Obaa-chan could look after herself!"

"She broke her hip last winter carrying groceries!" Shisui flickers forward and yelps when his tanto trails right through Obito again. He blocks the knee to the stomach only for a palm wreathed in chakra to smack straight into his solar plexus. Ribs crack. Shisui is thrown back. He rolls and springs up. "Was she even around for that night?"

Obito scowls, glancing away for a split second.

No way.

"You don't know either-?!"

"I was busy!"

"Yeah? Busy killing our family?" Shisui flickers above Obito and throws fire-infused kunai that won't do much besides make him feel less pathetic. Obito phases right through them. Roots branch up, warding Shisui away.

Keep him talking, divide attention, get intel-

"We burned incense and mourned you every day," Shisui tells Obito as closes the distance for close combat. Steel clashes between words. "She always calls me over to fix the lights because you weren't around doing- what are you even doing?"

"I'm fixing things," Obito screams back. The force of it and his war fan on Shisui’s tanto rattles Shisui right down to his shoes. He flickers behind Obito instinctively, who phases through Shisui’s ninja wire. 

Shisui darts away again when Obito’s gout of fire engulfs the center of the clearing. "Fix what?"

"All of this-" Obito gestures with his war fan in inarticulate rage, a hair away from incoherent screeching. It turns the flames into an inferno and sends them out in a wide-range attack. "Suffering! Don't you want it to stop?"

"Yes!" Shisui throws a rain of shuriken with wire threaded through the center, cursing when Obito anchors one to the ground with a kunai. Obito then lights the whole reel on fire like an ass. 

Obito tosses out a Gouryuuka as if making a dragon-shaped fireball that hot is easy. Shisui's sleeve nearly catches on fire before he exhales the same jutsu, shaping smoke and fire. He springs through the two techniques with pure unmolded fire release burning through his tenketsu. The brother he finds on the other side races forward, wakizashi sliding into his fee hand.

"So, start relying on people! You have-" Shisui darts close to try his kenjutsu. Each word lashes out with a strike that fails to land. "Friends! Family! Teammates-"

"He killed Rin!" Obito lashes out with Killing Intent as precise as the blade Shisui catches with his tanto. His unmasked face twists in fury before the gunbai sweeps in and forces them apart. Shisui flickers back to a pine branch and scrambles for old memories.

Shisui puts the pieces together, one-two-three. Puzzle joints lock together. Inoichi was Shisui's sensei. He knows how to build combat psych profiles and use it to rip opponents to shreds.

Obito definitely saw his teammates' last moments, but there was no way that timing was luck.

It doesn't line up.

Too neat.

Shisui investigated that mission after he did a particularly rough ANBU sabotage run with Hound. There was a moment, when Shisui replaced himself with the enemy and had to dodge a Chidori to the chest, that got tricky. The panic attack waited until that evening. Dissociation followed and they both politely pretended Shisui wasn't submitting a report to Psych when he returned. It wasn't fun for anyone. Shisui got permission to snoop from surviving parties, then made it a personal mission to stay far away from Hound's triggers after that. The details stuck, though. 

Sending a half-sealed jinchuuriki into a village with multiple Seal Masters in residence felt like a flimsy tactical decision.

"You think everything happened that conveniently?" Shisui slides under a fire jutsu and throws back a lightning technique that fizzles out. "Rin just happened to choose Kakashi to kill her while you were there? Let me guess, there was some clear sign suddenly saying your specific team was luckily so close by, and you left at just the right time to get there too late. Newsflash, Obito-nii! Manipulation starts with isolation! Take a good look at who you're trying to kill and tell me it's an honest list."

Obito halfway lifts his gunbai before the motion stutters to a halt. "...What."

Shisui flaps his sword hand at Obito's entire very manipulated being.

"What."

Shisui throws both hands up to the sky. "Oh, come on! It's the logical conclusion!"

Audible wrath builds in the back of Obito's throat like a whistling tea kettle.

Too much?

Susanoo wraps around Shisui in a green burst of translucent flames. Ghostly bone cracks down to the marrow when Obito rams his gunbai into it with both hands and a lake's worth of chakra.

"SHUT UP!"

"I will if you stop trying to kill me!" Shisui blinks past bloody tears and shrieks higher than he's ever managed when Obito teleports inside the Susanoo ribcage.

Obito gets way too close for Susanoo to matter. Orange-green flames reach for him uselessly. The war fan lashes out.

Shisui scrambles to dismiss the chakra construct and snap into a flicker. It's not fast enough. Steel carves a line of pain from shoulder to elbow.

"Cheater!" Shisui points at him from halfway up a tree, fully aware he's wild-eyed and probably about to die. "Go be Hokage or whatever if you think- stop that!"

The tree he was just in implodes. Shisui can feel his eyes water from going wide as he skids past their crater-filled field of destruction.

"Don't worry," Obito says, finally breathing hard. "I'm going to make everything better."

"That's the point of village reform!" Shisui ducks the gunbai and counters Obito’s wakizashi with his tanto. The clash throws cascading sparks. "If you want stuff to change then work for it the hard way, not murder-"

"I've lived the hard way!" Obito smacks the war fan into Shisui's side with the force of a mountainside. Mid-impact shunshin redistributes Shisui’s momentum and reduces potentially broken bones to massive bruises. "It didn't work!"

Shisui lands on his feet, ducks the scything blade, and throws himself out of the fan's path. Horror chases his heels as his brother in all but blood screams like nobody's been around to listen for all these years.

"All that did was leave me alone!" Obito turns bloody, viscous, rotting agony into Intent that nearly trips Shisui with its greedy need to inflict unacknowledged pain. "It taught me the truth hurts, so I have to make my own - don't you want that!?"

Oh, Obito-nii. Have you been thinking that all this time?

"You're not alone-"

"Then why did everyone leave?!" Obito screams, slamming both weapons into charred earth. Roots surge up in massive spikes, wild with desperation.

Shisui flips over one and lands on another. "You weren't-"

"So I'm going to make it better," Obito swears as he raises his blade towards Shisui. "I'm going to- it's going to be alright. Like a dream, but real. Nothing will hurt."

Shisui meets his eye and knows a fellow liar when he sees one. Familiarity makes producing Killing Intent hard enough that he gives it up altogether. "It will always hurt."

"Not if you can craft your ideal world." The words are a strange mix of recitation and a return of that religious fervor.

“I do,” Shisui says. “Every day, I get up and I try. It sucks, and it hurts, and it’s going to involve a whole lot more compromise than I want when we pay the bills with murder, but I can’t stop trying without giving up.”

“I haven’t given up-”

Shisui snaps into a shunshin into the trees, but still earns a shallow gash across his chest. It stings with his messy landing amidst branches.

“-on this,” Obito snarls as he turns to face Shisui. Blessedly, he seems more interested in talking than fighting for now. It’d be great if his words didn’t scape against the lonely, grief-stricken part of Shisui’s soul. Shisui has nowhere to run and hide that Obito can’t find with teleportation or whatever that Mangekyou does. He is no longer sure he wants to hide if his brother screams bloody rage and shattered despair like that.

“That’s the whole point,” Obito rasps, defiant and stubborn with a wakizashi in one hand and gunbai in the other. “I’ll never give up. Even if… even if you’re right, and she died because of me.”

Shisui crouches on his branch, unwilling to relax but equally unwilling to attack. "I know. You're dedicated, Obito-nii. That's what I always respected about you."

“Then trust me," Obito says. He stands in a decimated clearing of smoking ruin and upturned earth, with roots pouring out of the wreckage. It looks as if a massive tree has reached up through the soil to cradle their fight in gnarled hands.

Shisui looks at the desperate brother he lost so long ago and thinks of home.

He thinks, I can't do this.

I can't kill you.

Shisui shifts his Intent from a baseline wariness to Calming and layers it thick across the clearing in a cool pulse of chakra. His sensei taught him this technique to calm down comrades. Enemies react unpredictably. Most people do when their minds are tricked into caring for an opponent.

It's not wise.

Not smart.

Shisui has experienced loss after loss after dizzying loss in the last forty-eight hours. He will die by Danzo's hands in less than a week, assuming his own grief does burn him from the inside out before then. The world he once knew is gone. One loss at a time has been his way of life since Shisui could remember, but too much has been wiped away in the space of a missed heartbeat.

Shisui is aching and wild with the pain of these fresh empty spaces in his heart.

And he is desperately alone.

"It will be worth it," Obito says as the silence lingers. His own Killing Intent has started to ebb, though whether it's in earnest or in hopes of recruiting Shisui for his cause remains unclear. In the end, Shisui isn't sure the reason matters.

He's so tired.

"Are you trying to convince me?" Shisui asks with reckless care as he lands on the highest Mokuton spike.

Obito tilts his head and juts out his jaw. It's a small movement, caught the second he realizes he's done it at all. Shisui thought so - he's still Obito, still the kid who picked up that stubborn mannerism from his medic teammate. The memory is worth smiling at.

"Because I think you're so convinced you're irredeemable, that you've told yourself an illusion is the only place where you're worth the love other people want to give you."

For a second, Obito's eye widens. His mouth ticks down, shoulders barely hunch up, and he almost shifts back on his heels like he wants to run. Shisui knows flight risks. It's who he sees in the mirror every day.

"I'll let you in on a secret," Shisui continues, soft as a new dawn and wary as a fawn, because this is his brother who is just as lost. "I'd rather have this version of you as a brother than any genjutsu. That's my ideal world."

Obito shifts further back - not much, just a millimeter - and it tears another new hole in Shisui's shattered heart. Loneliness is a cruel poison. To see his brother hurt like this cuts into the raw, bruised parts of Shisui he keeps tucked away with his secrets and sadness. It hollows him out a little more. They started this reunion with a fight, but endings always have a chance to be better.

"...What," Obito asks, voice heartbreakingly honest.

Shisui feels like a leaking cup poured out for comrade after village after clan after grave. He's spent a lot of time giving. The world has just done a lot of taking. All that loss makes an ill-advised choice as easy as breathing.

How could he stay away while Obito drowns in that same hollow loss?

Shisui moves on instinct.

He closes the distance and chokes on the steel that slides neatly between his ribs. Obito's instinctive reaction to being approached by non-confrontational family is apparently stabbing, which hurts in more ways than one. It's hard to say which pain is worse. Obito's eyes are so, so cold and empty as he stares down at this weird little cousin who dropped out of the sky and ran into his sword.

Hah. 

It kind of figures that someday Shisui would move too fast to outrun himself.

He hacks out a bloody laugh and steps further into the blade so he can wrap both arms around Obito. "Miss'd you."

Obito shudders slightly. "What-"

"Not alone," Shisui garbles as he presses his face into a red-cloud shoulder. At least if he dies this way, it'll be worthwhile.

Next to his ear, Obito makes a sound like he's the one with a punctured lung. "That- it doesn't work like that."

"Y' supposed to-" Shisui loses the last of that sentence to spotty vision as his legs buckle. Circulating chakra won't hold off death forever, but it will spare the time and strength to wrap white-knuckled hands in a red cloud cloak and tug his brother of choice close. "To- a-ah, hurts. Y'gotta hug back, nii-san. S'polite."

Wood clatters on rock as the gunbai drops. A now-free arm gingerly, awkwardly, settles around him.

For the first time since waking up on a riverbank, Shisui is home. He buries hot-salt eyes in black-red fabric and wheezes laughter through an exhale. Inhaling brings a dry sob that burns alongside the blade in his chest. Tears are just as easy to accept as the blood in his mouth.

Obito's arm tightens into a better hug, like he wants to say something but hasn't had those words since a rockfall tragedy stole them away.

Everything hurts.

Shisui holds his brother close and cries for the both of them, because that's all he has left to give.

White-hot pain lances through his chest as Obito carefully adjusts both him and the sword. It could be that he's lowering Shisui to the ash-scarred ground, but the world spinning along an axis of incomplete horror makes navigation hard.

"How dare you?" Obito's wrath cracks and breaks through his words as if it can't decide to be a hoarse whisper or enraged scream. "You don't get to end this. You don't get to be- not like her. You don't get to decide to be another death on my hands, and cry all over me. Fuck off with that. I choose who I kill. Only me."

Shisui shudders with another sob. "S-sorry."

He made it less than two days and completely failed to kick ass. Great job, Uchiha. World Record for 'Fastest Ruining of a Second Chance' will fit right alongside all his other speedrun missions. He can put it next to the 'Guilt-Trip a Dead Relative' one he just got. This is the worst achievement on his record.

His chest burns.

"You don't get to die," a breaking voice from old memories of scraped knees and patchwork seams tells him. Tears gather on orange goggles in Shisui's mind. "Not like this."

Darkness closes in. 

Shisui falls, but it's okay. Someone's here to catch him this time.

Back in Konoha, Inoichi is still quietly losing his mind.

He's at his desk in the Yamanaka main house, files upon files of unobtrusive manilla folders scattered across polished wood instead of carefully sealed away. From the oldest of elders to a stillborn child, every Yamanaka is tracked through their paperwork. Most have at least five little colored tabs attached to the top. Green-grey-brown-black tracks ranks, and red-orange-yellow-white tracks age. Symbols mark risk groups from mental health to politics to possessions that make them targets.

The files here are purple with a white stripe: child lost before adulthood.

Inoichi doesn't make a habit of pulling this flag to go looking for patterns. Inoko helps screen these files with her uncannily good memory and intuition. He is beginning to wonder what's going through her head if this slipped past her, or what happened to Inosuke. The older man directs his excessive parental energy to monitoring security inside the compound.

Now he wishes he had looked more thoroughly because there is a pattern. It's not one he likes.

A good pattern would be fixable.

A good pattern would be missing.

A good pattern would be impossible to extract from the data because Inoichi wouldn't be missing children in the first place.

This is not remotely close to a good pattern.

He gets up, puts away the files, and locks them behind a web of traps and seals every clan head has added to since the Yamanaka’s founding. Then he goes to find the other clan heads. Tsume is already doing the same to her own records, brought on by a comment from Hana that Shisui smelled faintly of poison, blood, and a village elder. Kurama knew without checking but avoided sharing the number of children missing from her clan. Choza is also looking at his own records with the kind of determination that has started earthquakes, but Shikaku had only closed his eyes and sworn viciously when Inoichi warned him. 

"Fawns have gotten lost in the Nara Forest for a long time," he'd said. "They're buried under the roots. Be careful of who you talk to if you're looking into that, and don't make my mistakes."

Root was dissolved.

No Nara child could wander into their forest and fail to come out. Whatever Danzo threatened Shikaku with had to be world-ending and a tighter trap than even he could puzzle a way out of. Inoichi considers that the KPF would have been responsible for that investigation and gets a very bad feeling about the Uchiha Massacre. Shikaku phrased his warning bluntly given the circumstances, so Inoichi’s old friend must be stressed.

Caution halted the spread of information any further, but Inoichi knows there is strength in numbers.

Worry traces his steps.

Chapter Text

Shisui wakes up in a room that smells like alcohol, sweat, blood, and feels right at home. This is remarkable three-fold: first, he's alive. Second, he's healed or close to it. Third, that is a whole Sannin drinking like a fish at the rickety little hotel table.

Shizune watches with faint disapproval. There's a pig in her arms. Shisui is fairly sure the pig is new and Shizune didn't have a habit of carrying farm animals before he got tossed through time, but he is equally unsure of anything happening. They all seem to be a cheap hotel room. That's about all the detail Shisui can process.

“-And we got confirmation last night that they canceled your debt as well,” Shizune is saying as Tsunade places her forehead on the table. “Please be careful, we shouldn't visit their bar for a few months.”

Tsunade scoffs into the cheap wood. “‘S all blood money. Right, kid?”

There are no thoughts in Shisui’s brain. Shizune’s chakra flickers in concern before it eases back into placid poison and an unreadable steady trust.

What was he even asked?

"I'm not dead?" he creaks. Tsunade staggers upright before stumbling over to slap a green-glowing hand on his chest. Invasive medical chakra sinks though the contact like ice-cold roots.

“Don’t worry,” Tsunade slurs as she clumsily pats Shisui’s cheek with her free hand and the side of the bottle it's holding. “Your friend paid off a whole lot of debt. I’mma ‘bout to get sloshed.”

Shizune sighs through her nose.

On one hand, Shisui should be concerned. On the other hand, if he takes on any more problems, Shisui is pretty sure he’s going to break under the stress. These shoulders can only hold so much weight. He cannot lift the sky, cannot fix the whole world’s issues in the space of one week.

“Good for you,” Shisui decides, and watches Tsunade nearly miss the doorway on her way out of the room. 

Sage love her. 

She’s such a mess.

Shizune and the pig in her arms watch as the door shuts. "I'm guessing you're an unnamed shinobi with no alliance who we should forget?"

Is this a regular occurrence? They must make bank. Shisui agrees with as many apologetic thanks as he can muster and wonders if this is part of why the Senju fortune hasn't been depleted yet.

He runs a quick self-assessment and finds he’s very weirdly at peak health, without even the chakra drain caused by that little margin of error medics have due to imperfect chakra control. Tsunade is a wickedly terrifying healer. He's a little low, but his reserves feel more like they do after a light training session than a fight to the death.

“Do you know if he left enough money for me to buy a shirt?”

“And breakfast,” Shizune confirms from her spot by the room’s desk. She points her pen at a cute little bento wrapped up in cheerful shuriken-print cloth. A pile of dark clothing sits next to it. The brother who murdered his entire clan save two has apparently left Shisui a lunchbox like some kind of blushing civilian with a crush. Sure. Why not?

Obito-nii, you have fascinating priorities. Never change.

…Actually, no, please do change a whole lot and stop trying to kill everyone in the world.

“Great,” Shisui says to cover his internal screaming, and hauls himself upright into a sitting position. Besides a bit of muscle soreness, he doesn’t feel badly off at all. It’s bizarre. He didn’t know medics could get this good, even Tsunade.

Shizune frowns at him but doesn't protest.

She even helps Shisui wobble to the cramped bathroom and shower, which is very nice of her.

In short order he is clean and in clothes that from the smell of it are Shisui's dusty and freshly washed laundry from three days or several years ago. He's not sure how to feel about the fact that Obito was in his room. Obito also knew how to get in and find his clothes. He has also revealed that Shisui’s clothes have been sitting untouched in the laundry basket for roughly a decade. 

For the Sage's sake, is the rest of the compound untouched?

…His fridge hasn't been cleaned in years.

"I am about to be such an irresponsible adult," Shisui tells the bandage he's wrapping around his arm.

Shizune is kind enough to look sympathetically upon the mess his week-long breakdown is turning him into. "That kind of day?"

"More like a week." Shisui puffs up his cheeks in a sigh and gradually lifts both arms to test his range of movement. "Every day I think of problems, and every day I realize I will not have time to deal with the overwhelming majority of them."

Shizune’s chakra goes faintly flat with disapproval. Thankfully, between how subtle it is and the fact that she’s too good a shinobi to outwardly react, it's subtle enough that Shisui isn't rude when he ignores it. He inspects the packaged meal instead. 

Ooh, saury and vegetables. High protein and vitamins for recovery are very nice, especially when alongside plenty of rice to fuel chakra production with carbs. It's even homemade, which leads to all kinds of questions. Somehow Shisui can't see Obito stress cooking. He seems more likely to plot from some kind of symbolically relevant perch than have a healthy habit like meal prep. Then again, Obito has, like Itachi, become a little unhinged since Shisui last knew him. Who knows what he does with his free time when he's not being a mass murderer?

At least the food is good.

He cooks like Ume-baa. The old, retired shinobi could have carried those groceries herself, Shisui knows. She managed just fine after Obito was declared KIA. She was also clever enough to invent a needed kindness so any life skills taught in payment could be received with minimal protest.

Shisui misses his home.

Shizune catches him up on small, random things. It's the kind of news no shinobi could turn from harmless knowledge into a weapon. Her pig's name is Tonton. It rained last night. The big shogi tournament nobles all care about was held in the capital last week. They trade trashy book recommendations.

Small things.

Shisui is far more careless, if only because he is too tired to act suspicious around someone who should be a comrade. The last two days are wearing on him.

“Take it easy for a day or so,” Shizune warns as she coaches Shisui through a stretching routine that’s doubling as some kind of diagnostic. “No fighting.”

“Can I jog?” He has places to be.

Shizune frowns. There’s a steel to it that reminds Shisui he is talking to a poison mistress who will probably be just as polite in a warzone of her own making as she is to a patient. “Carefully. Lift no more than around your own weight and stop all exercise if your leg starts to cramp up or goes past a slight soreness. Your body needs time to adjust to the shock, even if it was healed.”

“I can do that,” Shisui says.

He will be very careful to jog to his next destination and wait a day before he tries to burn down his target.

"Unusual shortness of breath should be reported to a medic within half an hour at most." Shizune and her pet pig watch him start checking through his equipment with judgment in their eyes. "That means we missed a tear in your lungs, which is not something you can temporarily stitch together with your own chakra. Get to a medic ASAP or you will die."

"I will," Shisui promises. He gets the feeling a good number of patients have dismissed her advice and faced uncomfortable consequences. He mentally reshuffles his daily schedule.

I’ll just have to adjust for less immediate ass-kickery, in accordance with my petty need to be better than them. That should be easy enough. Shisui grins at the thought and tucks a roll of custom wire into the side of his tanto holster. Mikoto would probably approve.

Shizune seems to read the compliance off his face. Her shoulders relax by a fraction.

Itachi's information and Obito's identity imply his week of chaos needs to include a little B&E. This is a good thing. It's Shisui's entire specialty - if he were, say, a bodyguard specialist, this would be terrible news.

Most pressing of Itachi's information are these facts:

First: the murder-club is trying to seal bijuu into a giant container of some sort. What the container is made out of is a bit unclear - Itachi skipped over that part because Shisui got distracted wondering how Kakuzu hadn't killed everyone in the club already. The container is probably a seal, or a person. If he's lucky it's a box in a take-out bag and he can just nab it, because Obito will always be a bit of a disaster. Shisui already knows the mystery object needs to be destroyed. Power does not dissipate in organizations like these.

Second: Orochimaru is teaching Sasuke, which has to be the most toxic environment Shisui could imagine besides maybe Root. He needs to get his darling littlest cousin out.

Third: Danzo is still being evil, which isn't a surprise so much as a big enough fact that it can't be left out. Itachi implied he went behind the Sandaime's back that evening. This means that if Shisui returns to Konoha and kills Danzo out of revenge, the politics related to that specific incident probably won’t touch his few surviving clan members. It may not have done that anyway, but this is good reassurance.

That gives Shisui three concrete goals: destroy the statue, grab Sasuke, and kick ass or die trying.

Easy.

He can jog to the first one.

“Uchiha-san,” Shizune says, and Shisui nearly falters in his packing. The ration bars he was counting out are shoved back into their scroll, number forgotten under the greater stress of hiding his tells. He shoves a handful of shuriken in his pocket, realizes he may stab himself and get trapped with this perceptive medic for another day, and hastily shoves his handful of sharp metal into his kunai pouch instead. Shisui takes a deep breath and steadies what nerves he can.

How long have they known?

“Yes?” he asks, trying for levity and failing. The last of his supplies are sorted and put away. Shizune is too good a kunoichi to miss exfiltration prep, let alone his cracking voice. She keeps whatever she's feeling hidden behind a medic's calm professionalism.

“I assume you know what happened to your eye?”

"I was there, yeah." Shisui chuckles, earnest and strained. “It was hard to miss.”

“And will you return to Konoha?” Shizune asks. She's very good at presenting a professionally distant curiosity that's completely free of judgement, but Shisui runs errands in T&I when he's village-bound. Her arms are holding the pig a bit tighter. 

Is my village a place you can go home to was a question rarely asked of shinobi wearing an unmarked hitai-ate. The question was given to a couple of Shisui's clanmates as a test of loyalty by their teams. Fugaku considered it a mockery and waste of words, for all that he tried to keep those events quiet. It seems Shisui's death pushed the future to become this foreign place where every living Uchiha is technically a nukenin. This was an unspeakably rude question when he died. Now, it's a reasonable one.

Does he plan to run, or will he live and die for his village as he was born to?

“One way or another,” Shisui grins wider as he hops up on the windowsill with a showman's gesture crossing his heart. He pours drama into the action like it’s the greatest joke in the world. “I promise. That’s my home, after all.”

Shizune doesn’t stop him from falling backwards and into a shunshin from the window. She lets him go, Tonton in her arms, and Shisui is ridiculously thankful for the mercy.

One way or another.

Danzo will make sure his bones find their way home. They’re too useful to rest anywhere else.

He turns his face to the north, and travels back towards the Mountain's Graveyard at a loping run.

"You don't have to flee," a voice that sounds suspiciously like Mikoto says in his head. Shisui turns his face to the sky and wonders if he's finally cracked. He wonders if he ever stopped breaking under the pressure that started when he first channeled chakra into baby-soft hands.

"Don't I?"

The clouds hold no answers.

"I'm sorry," Shisui tells them. Wet salt tears slide down his cheeks, so he smiles with warmth to match the sun in hopes it will drown his aching heart. "I don't know how to do anything else."

If he stops running for even a moment, he trembles to think of what may be lurking at his heels. That's the problem with making a life out of avoidance. Sooner or later, he will be caught like a fox in a hunter's trap, and all the details lost to his own amorphous fear will step out of the shadows. 

It's what killed him the first time.

It will likely be what kills him again.

Shisui lifts a flippant wave to the heavens like his chest isn't being crushed to ash and dust. The cheer he pastes on is mostly for his family in case they're watching, but it's also a little for himself.

The rest of his day will be spent stretching a two-hour jaunt into sixteen hours of travel.

It's so slow.

Shisui grouches his way past marshes and leaf-mulch lakeshores. Streams chuckle and burble until they join rivers he jogs through. Scattering water across limestone fossils and muddy silt is worth the fun, and distracting himself by poking at a log covered in white oyster mushrooms serves to ensure he really does follow Shizune’s instructions. Every time he’s tempted to speed up, Shisui takes a break to procrastinate. 

It’s practically noon before he grouches across the first border between countries, which is so very slow. He inches north at the pace of a slug. Evidence of past team missions point to this being the pace of an average chunin’s sprint. Shisui personally feels insulted the second he realizes it.

He is a loathsome snail.

A turtle.

He crouches in a tree mere kilometers from the well-patrolled border and sighs through grit teeth.

“This whole trip is a nightmare,” Shisui grumbles as he summons Toki. The large genjutsu-oriented summon who hops out of billowing chakra smoke immediately starts poking at Shisui’s hidden pockets for treats.

“Nightmare-not-return-because.” Toki hops around him to start picking at his kunai pouch as if it has been filled with snacks while she was away. “Sleep-need.”

“I slept in today,” Shisui points out. “And have spent all of today moving slower than one of those glaciers in Yuki. If I had to put this in a mission report, I think I’d just melt into the ground.”

“Ground-home-not,” Toki tells him. “Sky-good-stay.”

“I don’t have wings,” Shisui points out. Toki ignores this fact to poke at his little travel pack and its storage scrolls. “It’s at least good I'm not on a sanctioned mission, even if this means every single Uchiha is currently a nukenin. Kagami-ojii is probably rolling over in his grave.”

“Sad-choice-stupid,” Toki grumbles.

Shisui opens his mouth to argue before realizing she is technically right. He chose to make himself miserable about how long today would take. Does he really want to spend one of his precious days alive making himself miserable? He has so few minutes, so why is he spending so many groaning over how slowly they're passing? Everyone has too much time, until they suddenly have none at all.

Well, he does like complaining, but only for the drama of it all. Legitimately being miserable is a less-than-ideal way to live.

“Right,” Shisui manages over the sound of his own internal screaming. “You know what? That’s a fair point.”

Toki peers at him, pockets and pouches forgotten. “Toki-always-so. Egg-treat?”

“How about I find a hard-boiled egg for you after we cross the border?” Shisui points at the station. Toki’s head swivels around to look, then back to blink at him. She’s large enough that Shisui has to brace himself when the summon hops onto his shoulder, as if this will change her vantage point.

“After-promise? What-try?”

“I hereby promise egg." Shisui smiles when Toki’s feathers poof up in approval. "As for this, I lost a fight in Tetsu and am planning on marching back to give the victor a piece of my mind. That might be tomorrow’s battle, though. For now, I guess I’ll live vibrantly out of spite?” 

“Can-help-all-today,” Toki decides. It’s a relief. Shisui can manage a decently powerful genjutsu and combine it seamlessly with stealth, but he’s not unbeatable. Years have passed. Monsters have been born and unleashed. Adding Toki’s avian chakra can erase his presence from powerhouses like sage-based sensors.

She tips forward off his shoulder into a gliding dive, and Shisui follows her down to stick as close as he can. Her chakra is airy in comparison to a shinobi’s. It drapes over him in a glossy net of silken illusion. Toki’s own appearance shrinks to that of a normal crow, and Shisui is aware of his own doing the same as they layer the genjutsu into a continuous loop. Shisui packages up his chakra signature until it’s bird-sized. 

Together, they coast past the border station in a wandering path suited to juvenile crows.

Toki keeps the genjutsu going much longer than necessary.

It provides the security to trace rapids towards a waterfall that thunders over moss-dark rock. Crow and Summoner take a break to search for beetles amidst the greenery and argue over which found the more colorful one. 

Toki wins an extra egg from it.

Typical. 

She’s too good at proving herself right, which is either luck or skill. 

Shisui knows better than to ask. If his summon has slipped a genjutsu past him to cheat Shisui of another hard-boiled egg, he figures she’s earned it for ingenuity, genjutsu skill , and sheer guts.

Toki’s illusion slips away as they reach the first village. A touristy henge is all Shisui needs to blend in with civilian travelers. Vendors hawk their wares through a tiny market. Trade must pass through for this space to be so close to the border - the town is mostly made of inns and wanderers. 

Shisui purchases dinner for later and a snack of karinto to occupy both hands as he lets a kid pickpocket a couple ryo off him. 

It seems the kids are alright.

Shisui turns so his back is fully to the street that kid came from and takes a bite.

“Be careful with your coin here,” grunts the cook he bought his stick of fried dough and sugar from. Bless him, this civilian is very poorly trying to hide his straying attention to just behind Shisui. “Pickpockets and all.”

“I think I can stop a thief,” Shisui scoffs, purely because he wants to see this guy’s reaction to a freshly robbed person announcing that. Shisui hides a smile by biting into the pastry and getting sugar all over his hands. The mess is absolutely worth it.

The civilian’s eyebrows pinch. His mouth turns down, eyes narrow just over Shisui’s shoulder, and hands twitch like he wants to cover his face. 

Shisui does his best to ooze overconfidence.

“...Uh huh,” the shopkeep says after just a second too long for any pause to be considered natural. He does not seem to mean it one bit.

Through the metal piece that protects customers from spitting oil, Shisui notices the reflection of another kid approaching. This one seems to be egged on by his friends. One member of the scrawny group hangs back to count out the ryo Shisui just lost.

Shisui takes another bite of dough and adjusts the illusion on his henge’s pocket. Attempting to wipe sugar off on his thigh hides the sleight of hand trick that retrieves a single ryo from his travel pack. 

“Why did I do that,” Shisui says, mostly to the sugar on his henge’s pants, and partially to the shopkeeper. Since his next pickpocket seems hesitant, Shisui slips the coin up his sleeve and straightens up. 

“Do you have a towel?”

“Good idea, I think there’s one in my jacket.” Shisui stalls further by wiping his hand on the henged jacket before searching through his pockets. He then pauses, looks at the sugar coating his clothes. “That was a bad decision, wasn’t it?”

“Yes, it was.” The shopkeeper’s jaw seems to clench under the weight of crushing disbelief.

Shisui looks up as his new pick pocketer reaches into an illusionary pocket. It's easy to pass off the ryo up his sleeve from under his henge. “Do you know any good places to get soup so I can drown my sorrows, along with maybe the rest of my misfortune?”

“Try Hori’s,” the guy says, still staring at Shisui. 

Perhaps the advice was given out of pity, but it was given nonetheless!

Shisui has plans for today. Those plans involve eating his weight in noodles. They do not include worrying over dead and pointless things like his pride or his honor. Shisui winks at his temporary bestie before leading his gaggle of pint-size pickpockets away.

Asking around directs him to a noodle cart, where Shisui finds udon with steam that curls past his face in greeting. Broth seeps over the cracks in his heart but doesn’t settle until he baits the local street kids into a game of Daruma-san. 

Only one more kid tries to pickpocket him.

This time, Shisui’s sleight of hand ensures the newest kid pulls a full handful of sugar-coated dough from his pocket. It’s downright hilarious to watch them puzzle over it when they think he isn’t looking. After all, the best pranks are more bizarre than harmful.

Shisui leaves the village feeling a little lighter. A little heavier, for all that his newly acquired dinner barely weighs anything. 

Today, the world seems to love Shisui back as hard as he loves it.

He falls into a half-meditation, half easy loping jog, and sorts through his feelings about the last few days. Toki flies overhead.

Shisui wanders back to the coast where he watched his summons report. Together summon and summoner cross another border, and Shisui amuses himself with Tetsu no Kuni’s inability to detect a henge. Samurai are strong. Intellectual, if taught properly and disciplined enough. Most are also laughably far from beating the average shinobi at stealth.

Even with the lack of shinobi, he sticks to playing the part of a traveling craftsman. Shisui lacks the most surface understanding of samurai honor codes necessary to blend in with ronin.

It’s not sustainable to spend all his remaining time running and hiding like this. Root will catch up.

He still wants.

Shisui and Toki wander their way into making camp as close to the Mountains Graveyard as they can safely justify. He figures half a nation away is far enough.

Unsealing his tarp from his pack, Shisui strings up a hammock amongst the twisted branches of a grandfather tree. Toki’s silk-smooth genjutsu covers his campsite, brushing against his chakra like phantom flight feathers. To anyone strange enough to be this far up a mountain at night, all they’d find is two crows in a tree. The smaller one tucks its head under a wing.

Eating while cocooned in tarp and bedroll is discouraged by most of ANBU’s old guard. A few shinobi in black ops who cut their teeth in a war and never left would say that Shisui’s choice of insulated comfort and food is too risky. Too vulnerable to an ambush.

Those grizzled lifetime ANBU are right, but also no fun.

Today Shisui chooses hubris.

He also wants to appease the animal instinct to curl up in his warm little nest while shoving carbohydrates and protein in his face. The last few days have been enough of a trial already. Shisui thinks he deserves a reward after so many lethal injuries over the last three days.

Thus, he shall indulge in the luxury of being a sleepy little gremlin.

He is going to lie in this caterpillar-shaped warmth with a crow perched on his knees, and he is going to do it with a steamed bun in his grubby little hands. Crumbs feel like an acceptable price for it. Anyone who wants to have opinions about his deviation from accepted procedure will have to find out first and therefore an easily outrun consequence.

“This is my teenage rebellion,” Shisui tells Toki as she picks through his healthier treat mix.

“Want-good-have,” Toki says, which can be translated to so many different meanings. He bites into cooked dough and puzzles over the options.

Stars pour across vibrant heavens. 

“Do you mean you think I deserve better, that I should do better, or that I’m doing better?” Shisui considers his last bite of meat. “Because I can agree with at least one of those.”

“One-Eye-fly-far-fly-fast-fly-everyday-always,” Toki clarifies. “One-eye-slow-need-slow-have-slow-become-did. Good-was. Toki-One-Eye-want-good-have.”

“Yeah. I needed to slow down. Honestly, I kind of needed all of today,” Shisui tells his summons as Toki picks up her bag of crow-approved food. She drops it on his chest and clacks her beak.

“Right-was,” Toki reminds him as Shisui seals away the bag of crow feed. “Many-many-done-Toki-right. One-Eye-good-chick-learn-much-have-did. Toki-predator-watch-will-One-Eye-sleep-safe-good.”

Shisui clicks his tongue in thanks for the offer to guard him overnight. He’ll make sure to send her back to the summoning realm with another hard-boiled egg next morning, because even the unnatural endurance of crow summons has limits. She deserves an egg or two for this.

“Many-thanks,” Shisui croaks in her own language. Toki relocates to a branch over his head with a polite caw. Feathers darker than pitch turn her into an outline against the blazing vibrancy of starlit skies.

Amaterasu’s light has faded and long-since washed yuzu warmth from the sunset’s last rallying shades. Deep purple and fathomless dark swamp the endless expanse. Shisui finds himself unbearably grateful for the small infinity of constellations standing guard between this terribly scarred land and whatever gods may dance in that vast unknown. Awe and honor alike turn his eye red through sheer emotion. 

Tomoe spin.

Echoes of a rooftop night in the Uchiha compound overlay the present.

“That’s Yatagarasu,” a memory of Shisui’s mother says from where she’s perched on the roof beside him. Feather ornaments catch moonlight from where they’ve been woven into her hair by the summons they shared. Her voice overlays Shisui’s grandfather’s.

“The trickster crow,” his mother and grandfather once said as their listener watched with red-lit eyes.

In an inherited memory, Uchiha Kagami turns to his daughter. Waves crash over the shores of Uzushio, audible from the roof they sit on.

“If you’re lost, follow from his wing to his beak,” Kagami says to his daughter in a voice that overlays with his uncle’s, “to the star that never moves.”

Long ago, before the village’s founding, Uchiha Izuna slipped away one night to sneak up onto the Clan Hall’s roof with a nephew clinging to his back. Shisui watches old-same stars through a recording made by his grandfather’s three-tomoe eyes.

“We are born of the sun,” Izuna said to his nephew under a sea of constellations. “Even in the dark and no matter how the night may protest, we are made to burn. Never forget that.”

Some of tonight's stars have shifted by the most miniscule fraction.

Shisui cuts the chakra flow to his eye. Stars blur. He blinks away the memory and mourns the number of traditions his clan has lost. How many people no longer exist, even in memory?

“Hey, Toki,” Shisui mumbles to his summon. “See the constellation directly over us? That’s Yatagarasu, the trickster crow. If you’re lost, follow from his wing to his beak, to the star that never moves.”

“Magnet-winter-star,” Toki croaks. “One-Eye-name-Three-Crow-after?”

“My ancestor did.” Shisui blinks away sleep-blurred vision. “Because we are born of the sun.”

Crows roost above.

Toki presides over them from where she’s perched over his tarp-wrapped bedroll. Surrounded by the warmth of his bedroll and trust-bought safety, Shisui falls asleep.

He dreams of sitting in a room in the Main House where Itachi used to study with him. Red light falls in a grid across tatami through rice paper panels. Distant drum beats thud in a heartbeat pattern. He sits at the low table, the only piece of furniture in the room, and writes, and writes, and writes with hands that do not ache. Ink from contracts and mission logs seep out of his kana in a slow-moving river. Paper flutters under his hand, struggling as it bleeds without blurring a single word. Ink pools across still-dry paper and table. Red-black in lantern light, it flows over the edge of his desk table in a warm, thick wave. Bloody ink pools in his hands, soaking his shirt-front and lap. It is suffocating. Sticky. Red falls from his eyes. Shisui sits, calmly writing a report that leaks blood in a room as it rises up over his knees, elbows, shoulders, chin, mouth, nose-

He wakes up.

Toki’s faint chakra signature stands guard at the top of his tree.

Shisui summons a little snowball puff of a crow. Yui settles next to his chin and tells him a chirping story of her father playing messenger between youkai. The old crow danced and laughed and tricked them into falling in love with each other. She would do the same.

He falls asleep, and this time dreams of walking across the sea to a home his grandfather knew. Uzushio waits as it always has. Salt air catches on his hair and wipes away the red clumped in Shisui’s eyelashes like his grandmother used to. 

Peace feels like ocean waves.

Inoichi returns to his own mind and opens his eyes again. 

In front of him, Inoko sits back, arms crossed loosely. She is not the first person he has checked for mental interference, but she is the one he was most curious about. Inoko oversees supplies and housing for their clan's genin, along with finding foster families for their orphans. The kids all call her Inoko-nee.

She is highly sensitive to power dynamics and accompanying patterns. Inoichi assigned her to the genin's files for that.

Their clan's technique allows them to manipulate minds. It is an ability not lightly used when trauma inherent to the shinobi life is so easy to take advantage of. A determined Yamanaka could ruin quite a few people before getting caught, especially if that person is on the field. Some have. It is a fact Inoko has pursued like a rabid wolf since another clan's end via madness prompted the Yamanaka to look inward. 

She would not have missed this.

By technicality, she didn't. The issue lies with what happened when she followed that trail to its logical end. Inoichi is rather proud of his clanmate for forcing Danzo to use a technique with such a long cool-down time. He must have been desperate.

"He used a stolen eye on me," she says.

Her voice is light.

Deceptively so.

"He did," Inoichi agrees wearily.

The implications of Danzo having Shisui's eye are not easy to stomach. Did he try to kill Inoichi's student? Or capture him, given the trail a few days ago? Either way, the raw panic Inoichi sensed was unmistakable.

Inoichi swallows down the pit of disgust threatening to choke his voice into much harsher tones than his clan member deserves. She has had her mind warped. Taken orders she never would. He got rid of the compulsion to ignore, hide, and forget, but it left a scar. She could be taken out by a C-Rank genjutsu now.

"How are you feeling?"

Inoko considers his slumped posture for a long moment.

"I remember every name," she says, and reaches for a blank scroll. It's not the answer to what he asked, but it also is. Wild boars are feared for a reason. They're brutal. Viciously hard to kill, and harder still to deter once they are angry enough. 

Gods and youkai bless clans in odd ways. Nara may be blessed to run and Akimichi blessed to evolve, but it is the Yamanaka who are made to shred their enemies from the inside out when pushed beyond their limits. 

Danzo will burn for this twice over.

Chapter Text

“Choice-good-make,” are Toki’s words of wisdom the next morning. The camp is packed, and breakfast shared, but Shisui is stuck waiting for her reward to finish cooking. Foraged eggs inside drift and dance through the boiling water in his camp mug as Shisui channels fire chakra into his hands.

Yui has fallen asleep in his pocket.

“I may be stupid,” he says, and winces at Toki’s outraged squawk. “Let me finish! I may be stupid but at least I can be stubborn about it.”

Toki hops over to inspect the little mug of boiling water he’s clutching. She then peers up at him.

“Choice-good-make,” Toki croaks again.

Shisui softens a little. “I’ll do my best.”

Toki leaves not long after that with a little kiss pressed to her forehead and the eggs Shisui fished out of his mug. Her promised reward disappears with her into the chakra smoke caused by de-summoning.

Shisui nudges Yui into wakefulness. She can't match his speed, and Shisui will travel fast once he gets moving. The little crow still bursts into motion, gliding high on tiny wings. 

“Are you sure you want to stay?” Shisui calls up to her.

“Treats for Toki-ku-ke-ko, treats for Yui!” Yui swoops down to land on his shoulder and pipe in her native language, “Fair-is-yes-yes?”

“I’m about to leave,” Shisui points out. It’s partially because if he gets caught folding to bribery, every single crow will exploit his soft, mushy heart until Shisui is naught but a birdfeeder for his little darlings. This would be fine and acceptable, if he didn’t have a lunch outing scheduled with the elder murderous cousin.

His little mischief makers are aware that Shisui can’t feed them while running and can’t choose not to run at all.

Sure enough, Yui grumbles only a little before de-summoning. Shisui muffles a yawn and double checks for stray feathers dropped at this campsite. Once satisfied, he raises both hands to honey-dipped clouds and runs through a morning stretching routine.

Today he will hopefully find Obito.

Hopefully.

Now properly warmed up, Shisui trots down the mountain. He starts picking up speed as the sun claws its way into the bloody freedom of peach-red skies and skips through the fading pre-dawn fog that caught its woolen haze on rolling foothills. Contentment curls alongside the wind that pulls behind him in a riptide dance.

"'Morning, Obaa-san," Shisui tells the sunrise. Last night's second dream left him oddly rested. At peace. It's a good way to wake up. "I hope you're doing well. Things are a little heated down here, but they should straighten out with a little luck and elbow grease."

Blue-white clouds drift overhead. The breeze smells clean. Petrichor-fresh.

"I hope your joints don't ache in the Pure Lands," Shisui tells the sun as he trots down a hill. "I hope it gets easier."

Sage, does he hope it gets better.

"I thought I could spare myself some pain by leaving first. But that's not true at all. Pain isn't a race or a game to win at. All I did was cut off my chance to hear you say, 'welcome home' again."

He is so grateful for the time he had with her.

He is also aware that he needs to grieve for the time he lost.

"I hope you know that I love you," he tells the morning breeze as he turns his jog north past pine and birch. "I hope you knew that I love you."

He thinks of carrying groceries, of walking in empty footsteps. Steam flickers on tile walls as food cooked, and a windchime gossiping with chatty birds just outside the porch she loved to sit on while watching her grandchildren run kata.

"I hope you knew," Shisui says as he approaches his best guess at Obito’s ward line. "And I hope you know."

He steps over, afterimage already fading.

Eerie silence greets him. Even the songbirds and insects have grown cautious here, and it puts him on edge. One of the weirder nukenin must have returned to their base for even the outside woods to be affected like this.

Shisui comes to a stop on the jutting precipice of massive bone. This may have once been a rib, if ribs could be taller than any building besides maybe the towers in Ame.

"Sorry, Obaa-san," Shisui tells the distant sun. "When I see you again, can you tell me ‘Welcome home?'"

Solar warmth dances across his face as if brushing salt from his cheeks.

It's a peaceful sort of blessing.

He wants to go to the coast, where his grandfather's ashes lie. Uchiha Kagami's descendants are allowed to depart from the clan burial traditions due to his ties with their sister village, and Shisui comes to the abrupt realization that he needs to tell his ancestors there what happened.

One more item for the list.

"I'm going to survive this," Shisui lies to himself.

"No," an inhuman voice rumbles from behind him. "You aren't."

Shisui's afterimage is speared through with Mokuton.

He lands on a lower rib already halfway through hand signs for an Uchiha hellfire signature. Widespread flames scorch the earth, burning plant life to ash in a single wide sweep.

Ichorous natural chakra and Mokuton melt upwards out of the ground, forming into a distinct humanoid shape. Tree-like appendages poke out of a red-black cloak that matches what Obito was wearing. It looks fundamentally wrong. Green hair lies stiff and leaf-like over eerily white flesh that the sharingan informs him really isn't textured like skin so much as tree bark. One yellow eye stares at Shisui. The yokai's other eye is only a weirdly flat circle that reminds Shisui of when Kushina once manifested a tail in the Hokage office to make a point - if that's not a chakra construct on some level, he'll eat his shuriken pouch. To the sharingan, this yokai resembles a plant that got only watered with liquefied bijuu. It's very bad news. 

Perhaps worse, this might be two yokai fused together. Half the creature is covered in pure yin chakra as if its right side were dipped in ink.

Simply put, it looks unholy.

"Jubokko-san, I don't suppose you'll let me leave?" Shisui manages to get past his internal screaming.

Obito has been chilling in his fun little nukenin clubhouse with a yokai that is rabidly bloodthirsty even by shinobi standards.

Just casually.

This is bad for Shisui's sneaky plans to avoid combat today. He is used to having the option to cut and run from whatever consequences may arise on missions. Making exits is - was - his main job in ANBU. Because of this, opponents who can follow him to the ends of the earth like this yokai have to be eliminated or else he simply will not be able to rest. In a team he could risk this.

But solo?

No.

No, Shisui cannot win this fight. He is equally incapable of outrunning it. 

The choice of which to try anyway is taken from him by the massive spiking roots that burst from underfoot. Shisui stumbles out of a shunshin, tanto striking out. The Jubokko sways back and vanishes underground with a sharp-toothed grin.

"Oh no," Shisui whispers, hopping back to perch on a rock. It is the only rock large enough for him to stand on nearby, but he is going to cling to this meter-wide boulder and all the false safety it offers. Trees struggle to get past rocks, right? Or do they grow out of them? Tenzo is no help whenever Shisui asks, and it's not like he ever thought he'd face someone else with Mokuton.

Ha.

Haha.

"Did Danzo do this?" Shisui mutters under his breath, despite being very aware that Danzo would have about as much luck controlling a Jubokko as anyone else. Yokai are non-domesticated by definition.

He stares at the deceptively peaceful soil.

What was Obito even thinking?

Maybe he introduces this guy with, "oh yeah, that's Tanaka, our murderous plant-monster. He tries to compost visitors sometimes but if you just throw some fertilizer on him, he'll calm down."

Unbelievable.

"I'm going to revenge-cry on him," Shisui announces.

As if on cue, his trustworthy rock explodes.

Shisui yelps and flickers straight upwards on instinct. A bare instant is all his eyes need to tell that the roots bursting out of his destroyed haven are humanoid. Pale flesh curdles into a mockery of the Jubokko. That’s a clone.

Another shunshin drops him directly in front of it, tanto swinging down. Hands and roots burst out of the earth by his ankle. They reach-

Shisui’s blade cleaves through the clone’s white fleshy side in the second before those hands grab. Pearly ichor splatters when red blood should spray. He’s gone before the restraints close.

Another clone drags itself out of the tree he lands in, chlorophyll hair falling over sickly yellow eyes. It’s mouth stretches into a sick grin. Vine-like white roots burst from the branch around him, curling over sandals before he cuts them back desperately.

Shisui only needs one sign to make a decent fireball. He torches the tree.

Landing in a crouch down in the clearing shows three clones total, plus the weirdo in the cloud cloak who’s smiling at Shisui like all the holidays got moved to tomorrow. A shiver rattles down his spine. These clones are at least tokubetsu jounin level by speed alone.

He’s outnumbered.

If only they were high-chuunin level. This number game leaves him outmatched, and the look on these Jubokko’s faces confirms that they’re all aware. Shisui isn’t walking out of this situation the same way he walked in.

No plant needs such a predatory look, but the way they smile a touch too wide counts easily.

“Is it too late to work this out over warm drinks and sugar?” Shisui stands up slowly, flicking white ichor off his tanto. The clone he cut nearly through the center bubbles slightly. Flesh regrows, and Shisui laughs to cover his nerves. “Wow, this is going to take a while.”

“Well, excuse me for not being able to move at the speed of sound-”

“Shut up,” an inhumanly rough voice interrupts. Shisui catches sight of the black half moving slightly and realizes, to his horror, that there’s a whole other opponent welded to the Jubokko. Is it possessed by an Onryou?

He’s not surviving this, is he? 

A whole vengeful entity is possessing a sentient plant. Yokai are one thing he never learned how to kill. Creative problem solving has consequences in this fight. Does he want to risk dismembering his enemies if regeneration may multiply them? Mitosis is one headache of a battle tactic.

A leaf crunches as one of the clones shift, and Shisui’s afterimage is speared through.

He cuts an arm straight off the clone who attacked, only for it to keep moving like nothing happened. Shisui tries to flicker a little too late, and roots catch him off guard. The earth slams into him sideways as the ground tilts up far too fast. It takes all the meager air he manages to inhale past their tightening grip to spit a fireball at the wood binding him. Charging pure fire chakra through his body saves himself from being caught in it. The technique burns through his reserves recklessly.

Shisui flickers to the tree line frantically.

Cool, cool, cool. 

Shisui's lungs burn like an implosion. He gasps for breath and stares at the collapsed white shapes that are slowly dissolving into ichor.

"Are you stupid?" Obito yells as he slides out of thin air. A wakizashi drops into his hand, and he decapitates the nearest clone in one clean slice. "Go!"

Right. Shisui is here to make mischief. He is a prank-setting raccoon in human form; he can make a nuisance of himself. 

He slips into the tunnels.

He gets far enough away for the worst of the noise to fade before the hall twists sharply. Shisui curses at the bruises he'll have tomorrow and hurries onwards.

The enclosed space is… difficult. Shisui didn't have any problem with them before losing an eye, but something about how carefully he relies on depth perception for navigation in the narrow passage is making him dizzy. If not for the threat of pursuit, Shisui would take a moment to stop and reorient. As it is, he makes do with keeping one hand on the wall and half-closing his eye to let it rest. Anyone who attacks will wear those ridiculous cloaks. It's enough. He'll see them coming through the haze of unfocused vision and rely on his other senses until then.

Twisting tunnels turn into narrow hallways that carve around the ancient bones of whatever once lived here. Shisui whispers a near inaudible prayer to be spared from the inevitable haunting, and cautiously sneaks forward.

It gets easier once he realizes that this place is laid out like a circulatory system. Hallways and tunnels intended for use are simply excavated to have a flat floor and higher ceiling. The resulting question is nearly philosophical: brain or heart?

He's an Uchiha.

So is Obito.

Arteries lead to an atrium, where a massive husk of some dead tree or rock has been carved to look like it was once sentient. The dead thing is definitely cursed. 

Forget the bijuu container, he needs to purify this thing, fast.

Shisui pauses just inside the shadowed hallway to marvel at all the bad vibes oozing off its wrinkly corpse, then flinches further into the dark when a figure steps out from another doorway. His attempt at last-second stealth fails before it can even start.

Two sets of red eyes meet.

He stares at Itachi, who looks tiny beside the most gnarly looking statue to ever be built. Itachi stares back.

"...I'll get Sasuke out of Orochimaru's control and forget every piece of blackmail I have on you if you Amaterasu that here and now?" 

Itachi sighs.

Shisui wonders for a wild second if he should feel fondness or hate towards his cousin. The reality of it is that he feels both. It will take more than a week for him to reconcile Itachi, the best friend, with Itachi, the kin-killer, so the most Shisui can do in this time is try his best.

It’s hard. Shisui looks at his cousin and still sees a kind person.

Just because he did not witness an act does not mean it did not happen, though. To pretend otherwise is to spit upon the lives Itachi took and people he harmed. Itachi is salvageable, but he has made no effort to do so.

If Shisui survives this week, he will drag Itachi into justice.

They stand side-by-side and watch black flames devour the weird statue thing. This will probably make many people angry, but at least it’ll work. There’s so little time left. Stop-gap solutions will have to be enough, because Shisui's remaining time is a sacrifice already spent. All that matters is how much damage he can do in the short days before Danzo catches up to him. He is a dying star burning until he's snuffed out.

Shisui can run and run and run, but he is mortal.

He cannot outpace fate forever.

Even if he could, his heart wouldn't take the strain long enough for it to matter.

“You know,” Shisui says quietly, because he is too good at loving to completely abandon Itachi. “I think I’ve messed with enough that Konoha’s going to notice my fun and fashionable re-aliving within three days or so. That’s enough time for you to get there, isn’t it?”

Itachi glances at him out of the corner of bleeding eyes. Red makes his stare burn hotter than the sacred flames. “...I can reach Konoha in three days at a sprint, yes.”

“So slow, 'Tachi. I don’t suppose you could get rid of your murder club’s bijuu-container, too?”

“I already have.” Itachi’s weird cloud jacket rustles when he tips his head back, eyes falling shut. Shisui takes the chance to really inspect his cousin’s face. Pale, tired, stressed-

They're too similar.

Always have been. Clocks tick down and prodigies burn out.

“Lungs or eyes?” Shisui asks under the crackle of flames.

Slivers of red grow to crescents as Itachi opens his eyes again, still fixed on the very topmost flames. “You should get out before Zetsu arrives.”

Shisui takes a last second to record the sight of his cousin in case it’s his last. Time feels like an echo. He does want Itachi to have a good life, even if it won’t be one with him in it.

"Stay strong," he says, and bolts.

The statue caves in on itself as voices rise in confused anger, but Shisui is long gone, escaped down a tunnel and out to the freedom of evening blue skies. 

Shisui spends the next few hours at a light jog that puts him through a couple nations. Dodging border security is easy as ever - providing he has enough awareness to know it’s approaching and maintains full stealth. Shisui can reach velocities he only endures with his Mangekyo’s reaction time. The average shinobi will think he is a powerful gust of wind or a jutsu fired off either as a bad prank or to cover an infiltrator breaching security.

He is one of those things.

The politics for dealing with it give Shisui time to put swaths of land between himself and his problems, so who cares? In a couple days it will no longer be his problem. Besides, even if sensors notice Shisui, what are they going to do?

Catch up to him?

Ha!

The crows are delightfully helpful in figuring out where Orochimaru is. Gossip runs through their blood. It’s true of both his summons and the gathered busybodies Shisui calls out to in their avian language, and he has to fight down laughter as they swoop around him with whatever news feels most important.

Sasuke, it seems, has been the subject of much talk.

Shisui offers a marble from his pack to the most helpful crow and nearly gets mobbed with the inanest details of his little cousin’s revenge quest. 

Apparently, Sasuke has a habit of practicing new raiton jutsu outside, which means there are always a half-dozen or so curious birds sitting at a safe distance betting on if he’s going to blow up his face. He has also nearly blown himself up with fire. The crows consider this an even graver offense. Shisui asks and is informed that being struck by lightning is pure bad luck, whereas flying directly into a fire is generally the fault of whoever attempts it. Sasuke’s choice in elements has been weighed, measured, and found wanting by the local corvids.

“Teach-please,” a juvenile crow with two missing toes calls.

“Cannot,” he calls back. “Choice-fix-not!”

“Scold-please,” a particularly clever one amends, and Shisui can’t hold back his laughter at the request to scold his littlest cousin out of using a primary element.

Yes.

Yes, he will scold Sasuke, but not for this.

The crows confirm that Sasuke lives behind a clever fuuinjutsu ward line, mostly because Shisui summons Satou to ask. The competitive nature inherent to teenage corvids takes over after that.

Satou moderates their squawking.

Phantom insects creep up Shisui’s spine, though Satou is lovely enough to notice and tip the blind side of his head away. The crow is such a sweetheart.  It is deeply unpleasant for Shisui to look into his own now-blind eye, but that’s not this summon’s fault.

“Return-can,” Satou says quietly.

“Don’t want it,” Shisui hears himself say. “Maybe later.”

Satou flicks his beak up in a remorseful agreement. 

It’s also not his fault that Itachi has always played favorites with their summons. Itachi is also a busybody under the placid tragedy he’s trying to make into an art form, so Shisui can trust Satou to know exactly how to find the littlest Uchiha.

Sure enough, Satou gives exact coordinates. 

The loyal crow de-summons himself after informing Shisui that the Corvid Sage has made him the primary summoner on their contract. Normally crow summoners are equal for a reason. If Shisui asks the crows to attack Itachi now, they might. 

The reverse is not true.

Shisui jogs through a forest and gets reacquainted with his conflicted feelings about that. Running is a fantastic time to work through big brain things.

He also thinks about how to beat a Sannin for all of five seconds, before remembering he is all but made for solo hit-and-run tactics. He cannot hope to win against Orochimaru, but he can ruin the mad scientist's day. He's a natural at creating horrible accidents. Anyone doubting that fun fact can easily look at his whole life for a top tier example. This is going to be great.

Shisui plans to rob Orochimaru of a whole human person in three easy steps. In the shinobi business, that’s called ‘kidnapping.’ 

It goes like this:

First, he must get there.

The next and slightly harder part is a little tricky. He must both not die and not let his local stealable human die. Stealable humans are called ‘targets’ and failing this step just makes it a murder, which is decidedly less cool, funky, and fresh than an assassination. This is especially true because Shisui or Sasuke would be the ones murdered. They have things to do! It's a busy week.

To complete the kidnapping, he then must run away with his target. The crucial part here is that he cannot run off into the sunset with Orochimaru as well. It's not a “kidnapping” if he brings along Orochimaru. Instead, that’s a “vacation to hell.” Shisui reviews this final step twice and reminds himself not to repeat Genma’s infamous ANBU-initiation mistakes with Suna’s last Red Sands Puppet master.

Overall, Shisui feels fairly confident.

He has a plan.

He’s a little more careful as the sky turns dark with storm clouds, though. His “jog” turns into an actual civilian jog once he passes Ame’s borders. Old exfiltration strategy involves making sure he’s not discovered after causing problems on purpose, so it’s not like he’s lacking for practice at blending in.

A henge sees him purchasing civilian clothes across a few separate towns near the border. 

"I'm sick and tired of these rain clouds," Shisui sings under his breath between towns, because it's funny, it fits, and Ame has a vibrant art scene despite all appearances. “That cover up the morning sun I so desperately seek. Just one tiny glimpse is all I need.”

Ame is a bad place to move at top speeds, anyway. The reports Shisui remembers about this place imply their leader has some kind of wide-range sensory background jutsu up. The unknown factor is risky enough that Shisui needs to slow down and spend a whole day crossing this tiny little country. 

Shisui picks his way along raised roads between rice fields and roaring rivers. Ame has been rained on for so long that in most spaces it is a sea of grey due to flat water reflecting thunderclouds. Misty rain cascades down, eerily free of brontide and lightning.

He hops over a puddle at his snail’s pace, and plods along, once again stuck at this inching pace.

“A spark of hope is what I’m after,” Shisui continues under his breath, because no rookie infiltrator would make extra noise in Ame. He personally couldn't care less. “A single day with cloudless skies would surely make a change. A friend whispering, it’ll be alright.”

Being stuck inching along after having done just that is a kind of agony Shisui is beginning to feel tested by.

He has places to be.

It physically hurts, but Shisui manages. The only other option is to take his chances with an unknown jutsu. Risks like that are how shinobi get killed.

The sensory technique runs either constantly or close enough to make little difference - one Konoha squad tried to expedite their mission through the cover of a storm and got bartered back in body scrolls. It was bad. One of them was a Hyuuga, so Sarutobi had to swallow his pride or else walk into one of the few situations where Konoha's dojutsu clans united. The honorable Sandaime ended up allowing a Konoha craftsmen to train up artists in Ame for a few years as payment for the bodies.

Ame’s goal with that was more to shame Konoha than to do anything else. 

Shisui seeks out a way to cross a flooding river like a civilian and remembers how spitting mad Danzo was about the whole kerfuffle. Art for ashes. Shisui thought it was poetic, but only fools spoke up when the Root commander got restless.

Ooh, Danzo raged about it.

Good times.

Would not repeat given the chance.

Shisui stares at the storm-swift river in front of him and reluctantly admits there are no bridges within walking distance before nightfall. The civilian he is pretending to be cannot cross it in any reasonable manner. 

He puts hands on his hips and levels a disappointed look at the river in hopes the kappa probably watching him have empathy. Nothing happens, besides accidentally popping his back and scaring himself with the sound.

Shit.

He considers crossing the river like a shinobi anyway. Seeing as this would get him a ticket to the shinigami’s dining room to ask why they handed out Life: The Sequel as a freebie, Shisui gives it a hard pass. He will… camp in enemy territory?

Sure.

It is so funny that passing out while alone under an unknown enemy surveillance jutsu is somehow less dangerous than walking across a stream. He should tell Izumi-

Who is dead. 

Right. 

Never mind, Shisui will share that humor with Yuugao, who will not care that it makes him weirdly melancholy despite all appearances to the contrary. She has zero emotional bandwidth for other people's trauma. Tenzo would notice and be kindly awkward about it, Raidou would sit in silence and let him spiral but this time with company, and Genma would be kindly incorrigible. The rest of his old black ops team are too socially awkward and can bring Shisui to tears due to it. He would immediately be abandoned for his Hip and Cool emotions, so he ignores them.

Suckers.

They act like training with Gai every once in a while infected him. It’s patently untrue. Shisui was always like this. He can even cry on demand. Izumi appreciated that kind of natural talent, even if he mostly used it to mooch sweets from her kitchen window.

Shisui pauses halfway through searching out a decent campsite to once again remember that Itachi killed Izumi, and exercises his fun crying party trick to its fullest. Pressure builds behind his eyes.

Yay, catharsis!

Now he’s cold, damp, and dehydrated. It’s very fancy of him, so Shisui chooses a spot under an old tree and summons a couple crows. They poof into existence under his cloak, which is charming enough to distract him from the rubble of his own life.

Despite her primary ability to be unbearably cute, Yui is still a sensor summons. She may be downy-soft and a complete puffball of a crow, but Shisui has always counted on her to be sharp as a senbon and twice as lethal when he needs warning of enemies approaching. Shisui tucks her into his hood. Junka, who will gossip about this to Itachi in a week, sits in the tree branches high above.

"Warm-stay," Junka warns him. "Grapes?"

“I have none,” Shisui mourns. “Pumpkin seeds?”

Junka gives him an opinionated look. Luckily, she is a crow and unable to move eyebrows, but the judgment gets concentrated in her beady eyes to beam directly into his soul. It’s very anxiety-inducing. Shisui is reminded of the time he had to host a dinner party for the clan higher-ups after his ANBU recruitment. He overcooked the stir-fry and politely excused himself to hide under the bed in his parents' dusty room and panic about it while his neighbor mercifully took over the host duties. Mikoto later found him and put a bowl of miso soup in his hands. She then left a plate of ridiculously fancy sushi, which he neither served nor had ingredients for, halfway between the bed and the door like a taunt.

"Try," Junka says. Her tone is the driest thing in this damp country.

“I am doing my very best at a lot of things, all the time,” Shisui tells his summons honestly. Junka clacks her beak. “What if - and hear me out here-”

“Blueberries,” Yui says in her chirping mimicry of human speech. She did not know that word when Shisui saw her last. He was teaching her kana to spell with, yes, please, and no. That last one was her favorite.

“No.”

“Blueberries,” Yui says again insistently. “Yes! Blue-blue-berries for Yui and Jun-ka-ki-ku-ke-ko-kun!”

"Little-Snow-rude," Junka grumbles. "This-self-tired-bullshit-of."

“Jun-ka,” Shisui enunciates. The named crow rustles her wings in long-suffering thanks. This seems to be a misnaming nobody has corrected for entirely too long.

“Jun-kun.”

“Junka.”

“Shi-shisho makes names.” Yui nods like the grizzled war veteran she is despite her chick-soft appearance. “Tachi-tan says sa-shi-sui-se-so.”

“You can call me that. But I usually ask permission for nicknames and cute suffixes first,” Shisui says rather than remark on the wordplay. “Maybe ask Junka if she likes your name for her?”

“No!”

Junka caws a harsh threat. "PLUCK-LITTLE-SNOW," she says. "PECK-PECK-PECK. RUDE!"

"Gossip-pants," Yui says quietly in the same language. Volume changes nothing. Junka has clever eyes and ears.

"TEAR! RIP! HURT-DO-SOON!" Junka hops up and down on her branch in a sodden bird-shaped dance of incandescent rage. She even bobs her head as if to the tune of her own livid screaming. "RUDE-RUDE-RUDE!"

“I am so tired,” Shisui says under his breath. “Can we have manners?”

“You don’t.” Yui looks up at Junka’s fury. “Jun-ka. Junka. Bird-bird.”

Junka pauses abruptly. Her branch keeps shaking up and down, so she nearly gets launched off it from being caught off-guard. 

Shisui politely busies himself with checking his perimeter trap seal while Junka regains her footing and speech. “You are also a bird, Yui.”

“No!”

"Yes," Junka says, and takes off to fly around the perimeter. "BRAT-CHICK."

“Sage have mercy,” Shisui sighs. He unseals his bedroll and a tarp to cocoon in like Ame's sleepiest temakizushi. 

Thus rolled up, he settles down for the night and wonders at how little socialization his little band of thieves have gotten in the past years. It seems Itachi has avoided calling on Shisui’s favored summons, which… sure. Okay. There is a lot of hurt lurking around that topic he isn’t delving into.

"Warm-stay," Yui tells him in her native tongue. Shisui holds up the end of his sleeping bag for her. His little puffball of a crow hops just under the opening and settles down as if the worn fabric is a nest. Feathers poof up in defense against the cold.

Shisui mumbles an agreement.

Unfortunately, his brain will not let him sleep.

Does Danzo know where he is?

The least-likable council member would probably be happy to know Shisui is miserably sitting in the middle of a downpour right now. Then again, he likely doesn’t have enough empathy to care one way or another. 

That's a thought.

Danzo? Experiencing compassion?

Ha!

The imaginary Danzo in Shisui’s mind is too insistent in rejecting all creature comforts for his Root soldiers to be anything but the product of clan-heir-turned-head privilege. Danzo probably dresses in silk every day - Shisui is ignoring his memories that prove otherwise because it’s hilarious this way. With a little effort, he takes that imaginary Danzo in his head and squishes him under a very large rock. For some reason his brain makes it sound like scrunching up an over-saturated sponge, which is even funnier in a morbid way, so Shisui concentrates and preserves the whole mental image with a technique his sensei shared. Any Yamanaka who stumbles across that will have an interesting day. He puts it right in front of his memories of the last week, as a present for anyone who Mind Walks him. After a second’s thought, Shisui rigs an imaginary paint tag over the memory, so it looks more exciting.

Nice.

He is so skilled at redecorating his brain. It’s filled with glitter and weasels. No, really. Shisui likes his past to be much like assorted trinkets gathered in a bag that also happens to hold a torn packet of glitter: fascinating more for the story they could tell than the one they really do.

Ame is the worst and best place to stop for a night. On the one hand, it's damp and wet. On the other, he gets to hear rain falling.

It's also a dead zone for traveling shinobi, but Shisui has friends in the local crow population. They'll stand watch against nightmares and ninja.

What a combo.

"Dear Fugaku," Shisui sleepily says to the grey skies that are far too dark to know where the sun might be. "I hope you can't see the results of your parenting skills. You tried. Yeah, it went badly in a couple hundred different ways, but I hope you can't see your sons destroying each other. If you're watching, please look away. Tell everyone to close their eyes. I don't want my ancestors to record these days as a memory."

"Tell him," Yui mutters, "Yui-Yui will do her best."

"Hear that, Fugaku?"

Rain falls in a weightless hush.

"That's all any of us can do," Shisui murmurs. He soothes the soft feathers on top of Yui's head, curls around her, and slips into a light doze.

Under Konoha, a village elder stands in his office.

He is not alone. A blank-masked shinobi kneels in front of him, and several more lurk unseen nearby.

Danzo flicks through the report one of his brighter shinobi put together. The security anomaly this agent noticed three days ago was researched by another undercover operative stationed in the Tower. Danzo then had their findings collaborated on by another undercover agent in ANBU. 

That last step in his vetting process slowed this report down by over forty-eight hours.

He can admit to being annoyed at the delay. Usually, he’d have a report like this in sixteen hours at most, but a few of the clan heads have been oddly twitchy as of late. It seems the ANBU Commander is as well. She replaced at least half of her office’s security according to that agent, and frequent visits in usual off hours had interrupted attempts to covertly crack the new system.

Danzo suspects this change was the fault of Yamanaka Inoichi. The head of T&I met with her recently. Heightened security is good for the village, but a headache to adjust for. He’ll need to assign an agent to do recon.

Paper rasps as he flips over a page.

It’s troubling news.

The Tower’s records were accessed recently. The identity of whoever opens each file is recorded when blackout ink is canceled. That list is stored under the tower in the ANBU Commander’s office, which is one more reason why Danzo is hearing of this now, and not four days ago when it happened.

ANBU Shrike went through the files on the Uchiha Massacre and recent Invasion.

Shrike is also dead.

Danzo attended that assassination himself. 

He opens a filing cabinet, flicking through coded tabs until the correct folder unseals itself into his hand. The file on Uchiha Shisui’s death lists a sensor’s report that his chakra vanished.

Completely.

Chakra signatures cannot be erased, only shrunk.

Danzo puts the file back. Security reseats as the cabinet closes, but Danzo keeps a hand on the cabinet a second longer. 

Either Shrike’s recorded chakra signature was tricked by a mimic or reproduction, or Shrike is alive and has failed to report in. It seems every member of that clan may be a traitor to the core.

Danzo feels a bit like a fool.

He should have known.

Orders are tapped out against the filing cabinet’s seal-coated metal. Through the patterns, Danzo picks a tracking team from the available Root members, assigns a leader, and sets out orders. They will need to wait a day for part of the team to return from another mission, and perhaps one more evening if the ANBU Commander’s security upgrades have been applied to the outer walls of Konoha itself.

He assigns another agent to join the departing squad. The assigned operative will only join the trackers partway, then diverge to investigate the barriers from the outside. She’s relatively untried at infiltration but knows which village loyalty to claim if caught. Iwa has been far too quiet lately.

By the time Danzo takes his hand off his ink-covered filing cabinet, the kneeling agent is gone.

Chapter Text

Konoha is not a good place.

Nyanda is the Izuno matriarch, sworn to lead her vassal clan in deference to the Uchiha's noble title. As such, she witnessed firsthand the crumbling echo of their reputation. She was there. Cats aren't really noticed if they try not to be, so it's unremarkable when the rest of the village forgets them.

She was there.

She wasn’t able to save a single one, is the problem.

She had stood on this cliffside training ground years ago, in an empty compound, having traced ghostly steps from the main house. 

The ANBU team there had stopped her from speaking with a grieving child, so she went to pay other respects. Hidden seals were activated, pets collected and informed of the fate their owners met, and invasive species uprooted from the gardens. The heirlooms were all collected before the ANBU or scavengers found them. That's the duty of survivors, after all. She choked out poison roots, cared for the living, then went to find the dead.

On that cliff side, sandals poking over a steep drop, Nyanda had wondered about the people history would forget. She's one of them. The little catalyst who died here was another. They see tides and currents, shift in the shadows, and breathe through the surprising inevitable before tragedy strikes. 

Years later, Nyanda has come at the request of the ninneko to visit the same cliffside. 

Ninneko step from the shadows, weaving underfoot by way of rusty bells and rustier greetings, until her wandering path becomes half a dance. These are Sage-touched cats born and bred for warfare, yet she refuses to step on the delicate paws that seek out her sandals like moths to a flame.

The clearing is smaller than she remembers it, likely due to shrubbery encroaching on what was once a training field. Grass has grown over sandy dirt. Wildflowers dust it in odd patches.

"He woke here," a piping voice says. Nyanda hums, the rumbling kind granted by her own Manaki Neko summons, and allows the kitten to claw her way up jounin blacks. Purring warmth nestles in the crook of her elbow.

"You should give us fish," much rougher voice adds, far older than the rest. Nyanda blinks in greeting to the ancient grey tabby from Neko-obaa's shop. His arrival tells her the grandmother is aware of exactly what happened. Mame-kit rarely leaves her side.

"Did he wake up recently?"

She receives a vague confirmation from the off-tune choir with pointed ears as they disperse across the clearing. The little kitten who climbed up jumps from her arm to follow.

Following her nose leads Nyanda to a patch of grass no different than the rest, but ant tracks pull her attention to faintly discolored soil. It tastes of iron. Nightshade. Chemical harsh and bitter, so Nyanda spits poison back to the earth. The cats watch on.

Shisui was here recently.

Poisoned.

Bleeding.

Dying.

But he was not alone. The clowder found him.

"I mourn," the Mame-kit says as he comes to sit beside her.

"So do I." Nyanda crouches to rub his little head, scratching behind brown ears when Mame-kit presses his cheek into her palm. "Did you see him?"

"I want to sleep," Mame-kit croaks. "I want my family back. I want them to come home, and pick me up, and love me for all the years they have left me behind. I miss them."

Nyanda plops down and crosses her legs. A kitten climbs into her lap before the old summon can, but Nyanda has comfort to spare. She picks Mame-kit up carefully. He allows her, patient as ever despite his aching joints and boney hips. Nyanda cradles the old cat, meeting brilliant green eyes. Four paws reach up. Back feet stick up in the air as a front paw presses to her chin, and the last wraps in her vest. His gnarled claws catch on armor-silk fabric.

"Your summoners miss you, too," Nyanda says.

"Then why did they go away?" Mame-kit presses his whole head into the ear scratches she offers. "He did, too. They all disappear."

Nyanda touches her forehead to his. "They didn't want to. I promise, they didn't want to go."

"It does not matter if they wanted to," Mame-kit says. Wide eyes blink up from the safety of her arms. "How can they love me and still leave me behind?"

Nyanda presses another kiss to his head in answer. It's the only one she has.

The cliff edge is a dangerous drop with still-raging waters below. Wildflower and untamed grass dot the edge, catching golden dawn light in a serene breeze.

She imagines Danzo standing at the edge of that cliff with poison on his hands.

There is only one thing cats do when an object sits beside a steep drop. 

It makes her stand with the cat still in her arms, and seek out a fellow matriarch. Plans may require a Nara, but Yoshino was born to an infinitely more useful surname.

Here is the thing about revival a couple years late: it's lonely.

Shisui has taken a deep breath as if waking up from the deepest of sleeps and discovered the world has moved on without him. People have grown, all of them in unpredictable ways, and Shisui finds himself fumbling and stagnant by comparison. It leaves him lost and adrift, scrambling on his knees to grab a single old connection to preserve.

That's the problem with the past. It's empty. Everyone else has moved on.

So, he knows Sasuke will have changed. Shisui reminds himself of this as he exits Ame and heads towards Kusa. The crows have charted his path with no regard for terrain, which means his time is spent running up cliffs and skipping across rapids.

"Why is solo travel so oddly reassuring," Shisui mutters as he picks his way past a line of barrier seals in a section of rolling hills. Sparse woods clump together in patches that remind him of the tortoiseshell and calico cats that gathered outside the coastal fishmongers stalls. A warm breeze stirs ginkgo leaves. Wildflowers dot sprawling seas of grass and clumps around ponds that reflect puffy white clouds.

It's positively delightful to be in this weird little piece and peace of nature.

The earth stretches out until it meets sea in every direction, steady as the dawn. It's a very kind reminder that no matter what may happen, the next day will arrive. Life will continue. It will bud amongst the camellias and mountain herbs no matter what he chooses to do today. There will be a tomorrow.

Shisui's blood pressure settles as he hides amongst the wood-sorrel and tries to come up with a plan.

Options are limited.

He could kick the bees nest that is Orochimaru's hideout, which is not, in fact, a fun thing to do. Shisui has kicked bees' nests before. Accidentally. It was an event his squad paid unwilling witness to and is memorialized by a fascinating lesson from Genma on a poison inspired by bee stingers while they sat in the rain.

Alternatively, he could stick around waiting until something happens, which is the safest choice but also one Shisui has no time for.

He settles for the middle ground. In what is essentially poking the bees nest with a very long stick to see what comes out, Shisui summons Junka and sends the crow on an extremely short messenger run. She may be noticed. She may be questioned. She is also clever, observant, and knows exactly when to bail on a dangerous situation, so Shisui trusts her to find Sasuke. He'll feel it through their contract if she de-summons early. Just in case, he keeps Yui tucked into his shirt collar. She'll let him know if any crow returns to the summoning realm.

In the meantime, Shisui finds his way into a little woodland patch to brood amongst the trees.

It will take a while for Junka to find his darling little cousin.

Shisui also fully expects Sasuke to send out someone else to scout for him. It’s Strategy 101 at that point - better to keep the person the trap is for inside and test defenses first. Collect information. Stall for reinforcements. Begin preparing a counterattack while comrades distract. 

Shisui will need to make a split-second decision on how to respond to the search party. If it's Orochimaru he may just lie down and cry about it, though. The crows have been given fair warning.

And Junka.

…Who cannot talk in any human language. 

No, wait, she's super coherent despite that obvious issue. Also, ingenious. Junka will be able to pass on his message.

He hopes.

No, she will - Shisui knows better than to doubt her dedication. Junka is a clever crow which is precisely why her choice to share gossip at the worst time hits so hard. She may have communicated any number of fun little tidbits to Sasuke if not for her own avian limits. Shisui’s one mercy may end up being the fact that Junka is incapable of human speech. 

Mimicry is a matter of biology for crows. Only two members of the contract can talk: Miko-hime is technically a raven except when she chooses not to be, and Yui never cared to learn the distinction between crows and their brethren. It’s hardly the weirdest thing about the little puffball of a summon. Airi swears she has a third leg.

That’s a funny joke.

…Right?

“I did not deny the descendant of a god blueberries yesterday,” Shisui tells himself sternly. He unfortunately knows himself too well to be very convincing. That’s the problem with practicing lying in the mirror - he knows all his own tells. Also, Yui chose him as her summoner by refusing to answer Itachi’s call from the start. What does that even mean?

Actually, Shisui is done thinking about this.

“No,” Yui agrees from his coat collar. “Blue-blue-berries! Yes!”

That answers nothing.

Shisui crosses his arms at the branch under his sandals and stews in confusion. Answers will only bring more questions. Does he want to know enough to risk it?

Junka caws overhead.

"Small-Chick-nearby. Careful. Luck-good," Yui tells him in the language of crows. She de-summons herself in a small poof of chakra-smoke before Shisui can respond.

Right.

The little grouping of trees is scraggly enough that any Konoha-trained shinobi will have a bit of difficulty. It hasn’t been too long since Sasuke decided the nukenin lifestyle was trendy, right? He should still have habits only infiltrators relearn at this age.

Who even knows what Orochimaru is teaching him, though?

Shisui tracks a flash of white and purple in the far distance. He hasn't seen whoever it is and can't put a name to the chakra when it's been injected with enough snake to feel like Anko, but Shisui has time. Sasuke must have asked only one person to scout out a suspicious meeting request, which means this is someone strong as hell.

They're being very cautious.

So. Not overconfident-

Shisui catches a glimpse of the shinobi and takes everything he just thought back. This weirdo is very overconfident. Also, they are so reckless to wear their own image, because the sharingan detects no henge. The shinobi turns-

…Is that Sasuke!?

Sage love him, it is.

Shisui's littlest cousin strides through grassy rice fields with not a care in the world besides the hilariously dark cloud of brooding teenage angst that shadows him. His outfit makes Shisui want to bundle him into a sweater. How is he not freezing? More importantly, how dare he grow that tall? This must be some kind of crime, especially when Shisui can practically smell how corrupted his yin chakra is from here. Orochimaru is doing everything he can to make this kid so mentally unbalanced.

The teenager steps further into the grasslands, warily keeping an eye on the sky where Junka circles high above. It's not exactly a sound tactical decision to spring a trap without informing all those potential reinforcements stuffed into a snake den, but Sasuke sure is doing it. He’s even got the Uchiha fan on his back like a target.

Wow.

Sasuke really did grow up weirdly. Here he is, poking around completely outside of Orochimaru’s ward line, as if Itachi will pop up in a mimicry of his namesake.

This is great, because Shisui is fast and has Thieving Hands. 

He loops wire around a tree behind him and crouches on his branch with one line in each hand. This is tricky business - he knows from experience that a jump directly into speeds too high will cause the branch to crack and give anyone with unreasonable reflexes just enough time to draw a weapon. The solution is to move the branch in his targeted direction and jump at the same time - it at least makes the sound less sharp.

He is very good at making improvised slingshots.

Sasuke fails to notice. He seems to be poking shrubbery as if hoping Itachi will jump out of the knee-high bamboo to throw glitter at his little brother. 

The bamboo rustles, devoid of weasels. 

Shisui sticks to the branch, tugs his wire tight, and forces both hands out in front of him. The branch bends behind him - careful now, don’t disturb the leaves too much or Sasuke will notice. Don't pull too far, either, or the branch will creak. 

Shisui adjusts his aim to make sure he’ll be able to flicker in the right direction and waits in his little self-made trap. Tension coils like a spring underfoot.

Sasuke takes another step-

Shisui cuts the wire and launches himself off the branch’s recoil.

They’re across the field before Sasuke’s reflexes have him drawing a sword. At twice that distance, Shisui knocks steel away and tosses Sasuke into a pond. His littlest cousin goes flying, smacking into the water for full submersion.

The resulting splash is magnificent.

As he skids to a stop on the pond’s shore, Shisui personally thinks that it’s very harmonious of him to greet both surviving members of the Amaterasu Branch like this. Balance is the root of inner strength. When interacting with his family, Shisui will take all the tranquil symbolism he can get.

Some little creature is squirming in the bank mud, so he picks up a stick to help gently nudge it away from the danger zone. The little lad resembles Gai's giant snapping turtle, and any limb put near that summon might not stay connected to its owner. Better not risk it. Tiny jaws snap at his muddy twig with enough force to sever fingers.

Wrathful lightning chakra heats the innocent pond ecosystem to boiling.

Sasuke bursts from steam-cloaked waters like the cataclysm of a wrathful god, hidden in blazing chakra generated by his own fury. Ozone trembles across the air. It’s all very dramatic. Shisui stays crouched on the bank holding a muddy twig and wonders if he should applaud.

“Cheers,” he says to the pissed-off teenager who stalks forward atop steaming remnants of the pond. Sasuke comes to an abrupt stop. Eyes spin red. Chakra snaps to throw off a genjutsu does not exist.

Shisui goes back to pushing the turtle with his stick. 

Sasuke stares. His sword is shaking in his hand, nerves conducting static through the metal. Brontide shudders. Shisui idly presses his own fire-natured chakra into the pond shore to spark rebirth as he continues poking at the turtle. He’s not a Kurama with their secret ways of burning fields to keep the fox’s forests healthy, but Shisui can still try. Scorched earth crunches under his sandals. 

Sasuke has kind of mirrored Itachi’s reaction. That's morbidly cute.

“You got big,” Shisui points out once the turtle is safe, because he is very bad at holding his tongue and it is bizarre that Sasuke is taller than hip-height. The staring does not abate. If anything, Sasuke’s eyes get wider as his cousin stands up.

“Shisui?” Sasuke asks, voice breaking a little.

“Yeah, brat.” Shisui grins exactly how he used to when Mikoto would ask him to watch over her youngest. “So, what’s all this about?”

Sasuke looks ready to cry.

Ah, hell.

For all that Shisui is careful to approach non-threateningly with visible hands and open body language, Sasuke doesn’t respond at all. Shisui probably could have charged and gotten a flinch only after landing a hit. Just how badly has Orochimaru messed with his student's head? Scratch that. Wrong question. How badly has Itachi messed with his little brother’s head?

Shisui comes to a stop in front of Sasuke and gently puts his hand over the sword hilt. There’s a flinch in Sasuke’s chakra at the contact, but nothing else. Wide eyes record Shisui gently easing the sword from white a knuckled-grip and sheathing it at Sasuke’s side.

High above, Junka caws a warning.

“I need to go,” Shisui tells Sasuke’s worryingly blank expression. “Orochimaru has every reason to be interested in another Uchiha body he can steal, and he’s too close for comfort. You can come with me, or you can stay, but I made a promise and intend to keep it.”

“I…” Sasuke stops. Swallows. “Prove it’s you.”

“When you were five, you discovered you could nap inside my biggest sweater,” Shisui says immediately. “And it would not only be warm, but nobody would bother you, plus Mikoto-oba thought it was cute when you wandered around. Which was funny right up until you decided to take a nap in my sweater while I was also wearing it, found a shuriken in my pocket, and hurt yourself.”

Both look at the pale white scar stretching across Sasuke’s pointer and middle fingers.

“I bandaged you up and told Fugaku-sama you found the shuriken in the backyard.”

“Liar,” Sasuke says quietly. He drags his eyes away from the scar to stare at Shisui with the dull certainty of someone who believes they are lucid dreaming.

“Yeah, but he wasn’t the one to kill me,” Shisui points out cheerfully. He smiles like trouble incarnate. “That’s what we call self-preservation, Sasu-kun-”

“Don’t call me that.”

“-And I’m basically a role model of self-preservation.” Shisui pauses to marvel at how much he cracks himself up sometimes. “Actually, maybe not. You know who is into self-preservation, though? Yoshino. I should introduce you; she’s the scariest person and yet Inoichi-sensei says she’s the most stable shinobi he knows.”

Junka caws a second warning.

“Later,” Shisui adds, because there is a Snake on the way and Sasuke’s eyes are getting a little glassy. Nobody’s home behind them. “Can I - you’re not safe here. Can I pick you up?”

Sasuke blinks at him.

Right.

Shisui wavers for only a second or two.

I’m not going to just leave Sasuke here when he’s dissociating.

“...Feel free to stab me if you don’t want to be kidnapped,” Shisui says, and carefully scoops his little cousin up. 

Sasuke, bless him, continues pretending he tried to channel raw natural chakra. The statue-impersonation is very cute but not convenient at all, so Shisui decides they should skedaddle.

Water cleaves apart with the force of his takeoff. Up in the sky, Junka de-summons herself. The crows know better than to try and keep pace with Shisui when he’s evacuating teammates.

Glades and grassland alike rush past. Shisui’s feet drum against the ground as he ducks into a dull sprint, triggering shunshin between each step.

Sasuke hasn’t responded from where he’s been tossed over Shisui’s shoulder. The bewildered mess of his chakra hasn’t even subsided one bit. Shisui finds himself rambling, so they won’t get hit with a stray static shock strong enough to take them both out. It also distracts from the devastating reality that somehow, even half out of his mind after four straight days of trauma, Shisui has now become the most emotionally and mentally stable Uchiha. He benches that thought in favor of patchwork memories.

Words settle with the patches of wildflowers they speed past. Shisui finds himself talking about those he lost, both long ago and mere days since.

It helps.

"There is evidence they loved me in my choice to be soft," Shisui rambles on. "Acknowledging your grief is a powerful thing. I don't know a single member of our family to do it gracefully, but it can be done. Probably. I might not be very successful, because your brother needs so much therapy- OW.”

“Oh. You’re real,” Sasuke says blankly, staring at the newly bloody kunai in his hands.

“Yeah, I sure hope so,” Shisui garbles past the pain in his thigh and need to restrain this child in bubble wrap. Sasuke needs so much therapy, too. Duly noted. Inoichi is going to have a day of it. “Did you seriously just stab me?!”

“Yes,” Sasuke says in the voice of someone experiencing so many emotions they’ve looped right back around to inner peace. Shisui misses his sensei’s common sense so much.

"Listen, I know everyone in the Amaterasu line has this need to hate on their local Kotoamatsukami branch. I get it. We're chronically insufferable. But please consider that you are disrespecting my heritage of 'committing to the bit,' which is kind of rude."

"That's not how that works," Sasuke says to the trees that flash there-and-gone past them.

"Sure is. We even kept threatening to move to Uzu because acting like Konoha's jealous ex-lover would be so funny." Well, that, and they're the branch who handles that side of their trade. 

Handled.

Past tense.

Then Konoha used Uzushio as a mine for the granite they built fences and walls with. The village of leaves is built out of graves in more ways than one, which is why Shisui's vibrantly friendly Uchiha branch began self-isolating. The rest of the clan had their own reasons. 

"I should bring that threat back," Shisui muses. "Maybe I can swoon when they tell me why it's a bad idea, which really makes it a good idea when you consider the drama opportunity. With a little luck I can faint long enough for a decent nap."

Sasuke is quiet for a moment. "I forgot."

Shisui hikes the scrawny teen higher over his shoulder like a bag of potatoes. He weighs about the same. Trees burst past, wind rips apart, and a series of rice fields rush past in the space of a few seconds. They are moving so slow, but if Shisui speeds up any further, he isn't sure Sasuke will be able to take the strain. Liquifying his cousin would be bad.

"You okay, Sasu-kun?"

"Don't call me that," Sasuke says reflexively. He pauses to probably contemplate how totally cool and badass Shisui is- "I forgot how annoying you are."

"Rude!" Shisui bolts up a mountain range and springs from the top of a cliff. As they fall, he lectures his darling cousin. "That's my entire defining character trait. At least forget something embarrassing, like the time I got stuck up a tree and Izumi-chan had to haul me out."

"I did forget that," Sasuke agrees dryly. "You were tokubetsu and still wedged yourself between a few tree limbs less than a meter off the ground. Truly, a remarkable opponent. Thanks for the reminder."

Shisui curses as he lands.

"You're no longer my favorite living relative," he tells Sasuke as the world twists into a blur, and nearly gets stabbed again. The kunai is confiscated. He jabs a pressure point in Sasuke's leg when the brat tries to kick him.

"Not Itachi, Sage's fuuuuu- hm. I am not going to swear in front of you, or Mikoto-oba will descend from the heavens like a feral dragon to gently and lovingly rip my spine out." Shisui darts over a field and pats his cousin's knee because it is within easy reach and Sasuke was kind enough to slow his reflexive murder attempt. "No, my favorite living cousin is now Obito-nii."

Sasuke goes eerily still. It's very much in contrast with the roiling chakra he's lost complete control over. 

Tentative hope steals Sasuke's voice with the wind. "...Who is that?"

"Uchiha Obito. Saw him yesterday," Shisui says gently. "He's become a bag of cats after so long with an unhealthy hermit lifestyle and the absolute worst houseplant I have ever set eyes on, but we can solve that with hugs. And real therapy. So much therapy for everyone. Hey, once this is over, tell whoever's in charge to put him in a room with half of Psych and see what comes out, alright?"

Sasuke scoffs. "Tell them yourself."

Shisui chuckles.

Oh, littlest cousin.

"Sure," he lies gently. "But I have some things to do first. Hey, you know what?"

Sasuke, who has really and truly never been verbally burned before - at least not much - is far too wary of this. "What?"

"Chicken butt."

Sasuke is quiet for the next two hills.

"Tell me about Obito," he demands imperiously as they crest the third.

Shisui laughs for real this time, and turns memories into living words that paint the path behind them.

In Konoha, a good number of the clan heads are gathered in a small yet tastefully decorated meeting room. They are not in the Tower with its many ANBU. They are not even close to the center of the village - this meeting is on Hyuuga land. Their eyes see enough to identify incoming visitors.

It is not luck that the Hokage receives a polite invite, while the elders either are not clan heads or have conflicting events pop up on their calendar.

It is also not by luck that the ANBU guards on rotation are led by Hatake, who prioritizes teammates over a mission, and includes Yuugao. It’s no secret that she’s become vicious and quietly disrespectful after Sarutobi's failure to take note of Hayate's health until it all but killed him. This roster is vital when in combination with Genma, who apparently has submitted more missing reports for lost orphans than any other current ANBU. The team will help if any of those three act. They were not originally assigned for today, but the ANBU Commander is civilian-born and grew up aware of the threats digging unwanted roots into her footsteps. She has a vested interest in figuring out where her ranks were infiltrated.

Inoichi wonders if it's very blatant that the room is geared for battle. He's sitting between his friends in case this turns into close combat, instead of how they default to surrounding Choza as vassals of the noble clan. They shift to bracketing Shikaku if village politics are about to get particularly dicey. Inoichi only takes center in war rooms and friendly gatherings; with any luck Sarutobi will read the wrong message from their seating arrangement.

He shouldn't worry. They are foremost shinobi. 

Liars.

Murderers.

Assassins sit beside tricksters, sabotage specialists and stone-cold interrogators.

The mood is light. Hyuuga is a predictably stuffy host. The usual atmosphere should make the absence of the village elders less strange. Jokes are thrown across the table, though the Fuuma, Nohara, and Houki are absent. 

Those missing clan heads are currently stopping by the Shimura compound to ask Danzo about some irrigation issue their civilian branches share. Moving a river requires everyone who borders it to agree on the idea before plans are put before the Hokage, so they will be arguing over impacts on the village and surrounding area for at minimum two hours. It will take them another hour to visit a temple afterwards.

Sarutobi arrives late, apologizes for his busy schedule, and accepts a cup of tea. Inoichi braces himself in the conversational lull of rote greetings.

This will be interesting.

Shibi begins discussing the tea blend, where the leaves were harvested or dried, and other small things every clan head here can recite in their sleep. Crafts are safe small talk. The Sarutobi have apparently started to invest in a bookbinding trade, which all but forces Shikaku to bring up the existence of Nara brush-making techniques that are older than most of the present clans.

"I'll speak with Asuma about it when he gets back from the capital," Shikaku says quietly over the rim of his own cup. The room collectively pauses.

For such an innocuous rebuke - implying Shikaku does not trust or expect Sarutobi to properly attend his own clan as well as his absent heir - it is also a warning to the other clan heads. Shikaku has very neatly placed his blame on one man, rather than all Sarutobi. Choza is the first to move with a small nod that unites the Ino-Shika-Cho in this. Inoichi feels the weight of attention on him, and concentrates his Intent into a light amusement.

The current Sarutobi head is too sharp to miss the pause across the room. Shinobi speak in more than words. Politics turn that detail into a nonverbal battlefront.

Sarutobi knows there was a message, and the Ino-Shika-Cho has united in it, while Hyuuga's disapproval is visible and the Shiranui head is laughing at them all in her usual silent way.

But without context, Shikaku's threat is misinterpreted as a personal warning.

"I have been spending too long away from my son," Hiruzen agrees, just as quietly. "Thank you for the reminder, Shikaku."

"Now that you mention missing family," the Izuno matriarch says, "since we're all friends here, I would like to know where little Yoshi-chan is. You may remember him, Sarutobi? He drowned in the Naka last winter despite being one of my few clan members who is both clever and enjoys swimming."

The plan was to wait.

Gather intel.

Assess.

Trust the cat clan to throw all that into disarray for no discernable reason.

To be fair, the plan did survive at least five entire minutes before now, when Inuzuka Tsume leans over the table with both hands pressed flat on Mokuton wood. "Where the fuck are our kids, Sarutobi?"

Inoichi can see the first thought clear as day on the Hokage's face: this is why I retired.

Then he sees the second, much more interesting realization: Tsume has learned of something that makes him a threat, and she has rights to a traitor's head. Sarutobi does not have the look of a man who will consider fleeing.

She can take what she is owed, here and now. He wouldn't stop her.

Not that he could.

None of the clan heads gathered would interfere if Tsume reached for a blade, and the leader of his ANBU guard gathered outside is a Hatake, the Inuzuka's sister clan. He might even help if they are exceedingly clever about this, given the ongoing adoption crisis around Naruto. Sarutobi could survive that fight without his ANBU backup, assuming nobody else attacks, but they would. Maybe even the majority would fight. Inoichi knows he and Shikaku will wait for Choza's decision, but the Aburame, Izuno, and Kurama will support the Wild Clan alliance's escalation if Tsume makes that call. Since the Hyuuga no longer have their hilariously fragile bond with the Uchiha whenever kin-killing, bloodline theft, and dojutsu theft are brought up, they're likely to side with the Inuzuka and Aburame just to preserve that alliance. That many clan heads would destroy Sarutobi in battle - they just need to be sure Tsume's the one to actually kill their honorable Sandaime Hokage.

If Sarutobi plays this very carefully, the village will escape a public scandal.

His teammate will not.

The third thought that Inoichi reads off Sarutobi's mask of calm hits as he realizes this is about Danzo. It is pure regret: I have failed.

The Sandaime turns to Shikaku first, his Jonin Commander, and falters in the face of familiar exhaustion. The question turns wordless. Unspoken.

"A book," Shikaku says as he outright ignores whatever Sarutobi was about to ask, "is composed of more than paper alone. Ink, from charcoal and fire. Thread, from the earth. Hands to bind it. The individuality of each page brings worth to its whole, so that even the value of a blank text is found in its potential for personalization."

Sarutobi flinches at the hidden illusion to Root's old practices of breaking minds. Inoichi had raged when he'd uncovered that little detail. The fact that this metaphor is wrapped in a reminder that Shikaku has made his opinion on Sarutobi's ability to lead clear in retrospect can only make the sting worse. There’s another layer with civilian craft responsibilities, and Inoichi is willing to bet on some private conversation making the bite far worse. It's a ridiculously complicated verbal slap in revenge for the missing Nara children.

The Kurama head slurps her tea loudly to punctuate the silence.

"I call this emergency meeting to order," Choza says, and his voice carries through the room. "Does anyone object?"

Hiruzen is too good a shinobi to close his eyes as he steels himself, but Inoichi tracks the forced inhale. The pause is silent, hungry, and yawns across the low table like a gaping chasm.

Choza tilts his head to Hyuuga, deferring to the other present Noble Head since they're on his lands.

"As all Noble Clans and a representative from each alliance are present, in the interest of time-sensitive intel, we shall begin without our missing members," Hyuuga agrees sourly. "A summon will be sent for them as we continue. Again, does anyone object?"

"The Izuno invoke cat laws for accusation of kin-killing, with the snow leopard contract as our witness." Izuno Nyanda winks at Hiruzen. It does not soften the rage hiding under her cheer one bit. "A reminder, for the young, old, and overconfident: as a continuation of the treaty placing the Izuno as vassals to our sweet little village's first noble clan, the Izuno have two rights the Uchiha preserved. You'll find them on the founding charter."

The rooms temperature drops a degree with that name.

"We retain the right to leave whenever my clan wishes, and the right to complain about whatever we feel necessary so long as it does not reveal classified Intel or another clan's secrets. This includes the right to accuse a kin-killer without accompanying paperwork. By this law, I now request we bar Shimura Danzo and his teammates from this meeting for the death of his chosen kin via sworn brotherhood to Uchiha Kagami, and his teacher Senju Tobirama."

Inoichi chokes on air, Shibi's insects shriek a high note at a loss of chakra control, and the Shiranui head vanishes altogether. Outside the room, the ANBU team is having many feelings.

This is a lot to process.

The Izuno believe so strongly that Danzo had a hand in the Nidaime's sacrifice that they are willing to bring it up like this? They usually stay away from village politics - Inoichi knows Izuno was invited here specifically because her presence makes any gathering read as unofficial. The cat laws are mostly invoked to get out of public gatherings and most clan council meetings.

"We are incapable of sticking to a single plan," Shikaku mourns as the room falls into pandemonium. Izuno Nyanda sits in the middle of it all, smug as a cat with a mouse wriggling between its claws. 

Choza is too kind to laugh at Shikaku's misery, but his chakra is sparkling with mirth. "Did you expect anything else?"

"No. I had just hoped for efficiency within our chaos." Shikaku sighs from the very depths of his soul, and Inoichi barks a laugh despite the wildly insensitive timing. Across the room, Kurama practically drapes herself over Izuno to dramatically stage-whisper something under a genjutsu. Fox and cat grin at each other. Then they catch Inoichi watching, and the twin smiles turn on him. He blinks back as placidly as he can.

Shisui's panicked chakra signature flashes through his memories.

Let them riot.

Inoichi pointedly tilts his head to the door, where the Shiranui head is dragging a pair of unconscious blank-masked shinobi into the room. Sarutobi deserves every bit of the headache he's going to get. Kurama looks mildly tempted to take his alluded invite at face value. Izuno is predictably unreadable.

Choza elbows him in the ribs for encouraging an unauthorized interrogation when the official thing is his own job. It's entirely unreasonable. He gets a sympathetic look from Kurama and a deceptively blank one from Izuno as Hyuuga calls the meeting back to order.

Danzo is summarily banned from the proceedings.

Inoichi listens to his peers burn out infection in their village while watching the Sandaime's face. Their leader regrets and fears, though none of that fear is for himself. The other clan heads are likely to assume that concern is of a clan head for the people who rely on him, because it is what they can easily understand and identify with. 

It is not.

Sarutobi is already wondering how he will speak to Danzo.

How to skirt the restrictions the clan council is authorized to place on his movement. It's disappointing yet unsurprising. They are shinobi: underhanded tactics are their craft and lifeblood. Their Hokage must place a knife in the back of someone he trusts - someone whose loyalty he has always tried to be worthy of. The question now is who Sarutobi will be forced to betray.

His people?

Or his friend?

"You've acknowledged what you've done wrong," Inoichi says in a conversational lull. Sarutobi looks to have aged years in the last half hour. "Now what will you change, so it cannot happen again?"

Sarutobi smiles, a shadow of the grandfatherly affection he's always worn like a cloak. "I will learn."

Inoichi is supposed to encourage learning from mistakes.

He thinks of the torn maple leaf Shisui left in his office out of fear turned into a sloppy exit strategy, and says, "I wish you luck."

It is not a kind blessing.

Summoning Airi to loop overhead ends up making Shisui spend the last hour of the jog explaining summoning contracts to Sasuke. Yes, he and Itachi signed the same contract and can call on Sage-blessed crows. No, these crows are not uniformly loyal. Shisui is relying heavily on the two summons who have only ever responded to his call, because Airi and Yui would have had zero socialization over the last few years. They also will not answer Itachi’s attempt at summoning.

Purple and plum brush a peach-flavored sunset over the horizon by the time Sasuke is convinced of the two hellions' loyalty.

It seems Shisui will have to be sparing about calling Toki for a while. Sasuke remembers her as one of Itachis’ favorites. This is fine - she deserves her rest.

They make camp in a little grove. 

Shisui scolds Sasuke for being an utter slob with his camp craft and spends the evening bringing him up to jounin standard. Sasuke reacts as if he had no idea these were skills Konoha taught at all, which is more proof that a Snake needs polite strangling than anything else. That problem is for after the roots.

Dinner is a lesson in his little cousin’s opinion on fish. Sasuke has, apparently, big opinions on how many tomatoes they should eat it with. He does not care that there are no wild-grown tomatoes within this entire landmass. 

Shisui desperately wants Fugaku to know how weird his son is growing up to be.

He also needs to gut Orochimaru.

And the Sandaime, maybe? 

That’s unclear. Kagecide should wait until his leader is retired, for the sake of irony and avoiding another emotional crisis. After all, Shisui is a shinobi. He bleeds. He serves. Then he bleeds again.

"What do you know?" Sasuke asks that evening as they're staring up at the stars with a low, smoke-free fire between them that's burned itself to the ground. From the sound of it, Sasuke has been sharpening the same kunai over and over this whole time. "About- that night."

There are so many answers to this question.

"Do you mean who ordered it?" Shisui asks back. "Or who helped him?"

The whetstone stops mid-slide.

"What?"

That is delightfully unhelpful. Which question confused him?  Shisui flips a coin in his head and goes with the first one.

Before he can organize and start a proper rant on how epically Danzo sucks, Sasuke says-

"He had help?"

Oooh, okay.

Sure.

"He could have managed alone, according to anyone outside of ANBU," Shisui agrees. "But once you're in black ops, you learn where the real monsters live. Itachi wasn't stronger than your parents put together, and he certainly wasn't stronger than Tora no Sako."

Sasuke's whetstone starts up again. It's a little more precise than before. A little shorter. Anxious. "Itachi didn't like her. Or any of the elders."

"That's a long answer," Shisui warns, because there's only so many ways to say Sako never expressed a single opinion on the coup. Yuuta of the civilians was malicious as hell turned over and Shisui's reluctantly glad that the old toxic frog is gone, but Fumiko of the shinobi was equally invested in taking over the village. It was impressive but unexpected given her focus on honor and the respect they were owed, despite being emotionally grounded. Sako was the third member of their elder council as the oldest ANBU, but she was away too often to sink many teeth into the clan politics. He never figured out exactly where she stood.

"Aa," Sasuke says. Shisui translates that to mean Sasuke is done with that line of questioning, and his brain needs time to rotate Shisui’s answer like a rotisserie chicken. "What did you mean, it was ordered."

Shisui forces himself not to outwardly grimace. That non-question says a lot about Sasuke's lack of investigative reasoning skills.

Tricky, tricky.

"Long ago, there was a village of trees," Shisui says. The seal on his tongue burns. "They grew tall and strong under four successive leaders. But their roots were rotten." Shisui sits up, meeting red-bright eyes across campfire embers. "A parasite was feeding on them. That parasite thought itself a better leader, so it took saplings and stripped them of will until they stood tall and straight. They were uniform. Empty."

Sasuke frowns, but the novelty of talking to a living, non-homicidal Uchiha must trump his impatience. 

"The parasite took from all kinds of trees, but it was scared of one. Its natural predator, which found and strangled out the poisoned roots."

"The KPF," Sasuke guesses, which figures - Itachi was trained to lead the clan, but Shisui overheard enough to know Fugaku caught onto his younger son's sense of relentless justice and planned accordingly. The KPF had one function, which was to power check the shinobi. They weren't actually police. KPF shinobi were extensively limited in the actions they could take against civilians and nobles. Settling small disputes just ended up being a large part of their job by accident, because they were formed to keep shinobi from abusing the inherent power of any chakra-wielder in a village with civilian occupants. Duties handled by that government branch included presenting evidence of corruption to the relevant councils. The KPF functioned as one of the few real power-checks in a dictatorship.

It would have suited Sasuke.

Words like could, would, and should mean nothing in the face of a tenacious future carved out by living hands.

"Jealousy can be hate, and hate can be fear, but the parasite chose the easiest of the three. So it tangled the roots it had gathered and choked off trust. It stole water and nutrients as all parasites do." Shisui tries for a smile past the ink burning in his mouth, but isn't sure it's very convincing from the look Sasuke gives him. "Those trees were starving. They got desperate. And desperate trees make mistakes when their roots are rotting beneath them, until the parasite can fell them all in one night."

"You're lying," Sasuke whispers.

"Nah. I wouldn't joke about dojutsu theft, and that's coming from someone who lost an eye to-" Shisui chokes on air. He bends over, wheezing, and waits it out with a fist gripping his shirt front on instinct.

Sasuke makes a faint sound of alarm, followed by the muffled thump of a dropped whetstone. One awkward hand lands on Shisui's back. He reaches blindly until he catches Sasuke's other hand and gives it a squeeze.

"Shisui," Sasuke warns. That underlying message is clear as day. Don't leave me.

He clumsily pats Sasuke's arm and means, I won't.

"M'fine," Shisui gasps when he has the air for it. "I'm fine."

Sasuke scowls at him, just like he used to when Shisui 'stole' Itachi away for a mission. "I told you not to lie to me."

The hysterical laugh Shisui bites back is highly unnecessary right now. A bit of it escapes despite his best effort. 

Sasuke pulls him up and sits right beside him so they're leaning on each other. "Breathe."

"One thing about the roots," Shisui manages past his hammering heartbeat and rattling lungs. "You can tell- it's-"

Ink burns.

Shisui traps his frustration in a short, contained noise.

"What's going on?" Sasuke snaps.

"Did- ow. It's okay, I'm alright. Did that snake teach you about bar seals and how they get people to shut up?"

Sasuke looks at him with the most emotion he's shown so far besides that outraged hate, as one hand twitches to his own neck. Horror suits him terribly. "You got sealed?"

Shisui sticks out his tongue playfully.

It serves two purposes.

"Unfortunately," he says after showing off his least fun tattoo, "a parasite works best if nobody knows it exists. Double unfortunately, it knows when its seals are activated, so now we definitely have at most three days before…. Uh. Yeah."

Sasuke grimaces. "Eyes?"

"I physically cannot tell you," Shisui says apologetically.

"Is this why nobody talks straight in Konoha?" Sasuke asks like the brat he is.

"Name someone my age or older and I'll tell you if they aren't at risk of being disappeared," Shisui jokes back. To his surprise, Sasuke considers the offer seriously. He goes quiet for a moment.

"... Kakashi-sensei."

Wowza. Just name the guy who got ordered to kill the Hokage and be done with it, huh?

Shisui's silence is very weighted. Sasuke's chakra does a whole loop-de-loop of anger, regret, morbid curiosity, and completely unexpected empathy before it settles back in anger again.

Double yikes.

Shisui needs all his relatives to openly talk about their feelings, stat.

"Tell you what," Shisui says like he didn't just see Sasuke play darts with his emotions. "Talking and killing are very different things, so I'm gonna go burn a parasite out-"

"I'm coming," Sasuke interrupts, further confirming that he is a complete brat. Shisui squints at him.

"You're not going to like who I expect to show up as backup."

Sasuke's mouth closes, muscles tightening around his eyes like he's not sure if he wants to glare or scream. "No."

Shisui tips his hand from side to side.

"No."

"If we kill the root of the problem and survive, you can fight Itachi all you want without having to track him down?"

"...Hn." 

Sasuke is ridiculously easy to manipulate. If Shisui survives this hot mess, he's gutting Orochimaru for that. It is not an experience he will survive, but that's how this hypothetical future got started twice over. Gambling luck is part and parcel of shinobi life. If he comes back after both the Naka and his impending doom at Danzo's hands, Shisui will officially be the luckiest kind of cursed.

"Sleep first," Shisui decides. "Then let's grab Itachi so he can say the names I can't, and we'll do some weeding."

"He wasn't sealed?"

Shisui shrugs. 

He honestly doesn't know. Things may have changed, but they may not have just as easily. If so, then they'll play verbal charades until Sasuke stumbles across Danzo's name.

It will work out.

It must.

The fire burns low.

“I’ll take first shift,” Sasuke says, still moodily staring into the embers in his Amaterasu Branch way. All their drama went into an elegant form of tragedy. It’s a crying shame. Shisui personally thinks the Kotoamatsukami penchant for comedy and showmanship is far more suited to healthy enjoyment of life.

“If you’re sure,” Shisui says, unsealing his bedroll. He leans it up against the clearing’s gentle incline, and watches leaves blot out countless stars above. Clouds shine in silver moonlight.

Airi coasts down to settle by his shoulder.

“Tired-look,” she says in the clack of her beak and tilt of her head. “Safe-are-stay-will-Airi-hope.”

“We’re alright,” Shisui tells her. To Sasuke’s inquiring look, he adds, “she’s a little overprotective.”

Airi gently pecks his ear for that.

Shisui lightly presses his cheek to the summon's wing. It helps. This contract is honestly the best thing to come out of getting his Mangekyou. Yes, summon contracts are mostly to help those with particularly damage-prone eyes navigate independently in the field if anything happens. Yes, the mental health side of their contract is written as secondary to that. No, Shisui does not care. He loves his little murder of mischief dearly, and the crows love him right back in their fiercely wild way.

Maybe they’ll be okay, once he’s gone.

He knows now how much of a lie that is. The space he once occupied hurt them viciously when it fell empty. 

It’s a strange thing to look back and know that he should have gone on, for them. For the sunrise. For sea salt ancestors and the stray cat behind his house. For the Obaa-sans who relied on him to fix rusted hinges and leaky pipes, for the ache of a picture frame and incense he could have spared them. He should have gone on, if only to taste water at some distant midnight that had the flavor of a god. For the bite of a peach on a sweltering afternoon. For snow shoved down the back of a sweater, and a warm drink cradled between chilled hands.

He should have gone on for a thousand nothings.

It would have been worth it.

He counts the reasons like sheep until he falls asleep, warm feathers pressed into his cheek.

Sometime in the night, Sasuke wakes Shisui to take over the job of sitting against the base of a tree and watching the stars overhead. Rather than curl up with his bedroll, Sasuke takes his blanket and settles next to Shisui, not close enough to lean on but still within arm's reach. It makes Shisui's chest hurt.

A crow Shisui doesn't recognize has strong words about chicks kicked out of nests too early to fly. For all that it's tempting to agree with the local auntie, Shisui holds off. Sasuke's breathing pattern hasn't eased off into sleep yet. He settles for fidgeting with a pair of shuriken.

"Shisui," Sasuke says a concerning amount of time afterwards.

"Mhm?"

"Did- did he want to kill them?"

Shisui exhales, long and low. Shuriken dance over his hand, glinting in cool starlight.

"No," he says. "Never."

Sasuke doesn't fall asleep at all that night.

Chapter Text

“Uchiha Shisui,” Danzo repeats. Callused fingers tap his cane, a controlled mimicry of a tell he plays with to hide commands. A combat specialist is chosen, given orders, and moves out between breaths. This, Danzo thought to himself when he designed the system, is what a commander should be. "Anything else?"

“The Yamanaka are moving,” reports the agent he ordered to inspect Konoha’s barriers. She wasn’t asked to monitor the Barrier Corps gossip while completing her task. 

Such a bright shinobi - he should assign her to more intelligence missions in the future. It would either prove her worth or take care of a false advertisement of skill.

Did Yamanaka Inoichi make contact with his old student? The Yamanaka head is a decent diplomat. At Shrike’s old speeds, he could have sent word to any of the known countries and returned by now. Are they playing with treason? No, the Yamanaka are currently stuck squabbling along with the rest of the clan heads in an idiotic competition to gain favor with the Daimyo. Inoichi would not be throwing so much effort into that dispute if he were sowing dissent. 

Shrike likely has not had contact with the village. If he can be pushed further from his old associates, he will self-destruct like the rest of his ill-fated clan did once isolated. The rot will be cleansed from Konoha.

“We will have to make the most of this,” Danzo decides. “Top priority: Uchiha Shisui will not contact the village. All agents are to eliminate any crow summons or summoners they find. Attack with intent to kill. Subpriority: keep his body as intact as possible. You are assigned to locate the trackers and update their orders, then maintain distance for surveillance after initial contact."

Agent 727 dips into a short bow.

One flick of his hand has her racing after the combat specialist to relay orders. Shisui is unfortunately fast. If he does eliminate the tracking squad, Danzo will need to know.

Morning finds Shisui focusing on the rock one meter away, then the tree three meters out, and finally lifting his head slightly to focus on the treetops far away. Each time, he takes a few seconds to adjust to the feeling. Then he goes back to staring at the smear of dirt on his ankle and starts the process all over again. It's oddly exhausting. The exercise builds an ache behind his eyes - both of them, though phantom pain could explain the blind one.

Footsteps pad back into camp, but Shisui trusts Sasuke to notice the breakfast he left out without prompting.

Dirt, rock, tree, treetops. Dirt, rock, tree-

"Shisui?"

"Sorry, little cousin." Shisui closes his eyes and tilts his face towards Sasuke to show he does, in fact, want to talk. This is just an exercise. "One thing they never warned me about losing an eye is that I still dream with binocular vision. It… takes a second. To adjust."

Soil shifts, more a warning Sasuke gives of his approach than accidental sound. Fabric rustles as his cousin sits in front of him.

"You had other warnings?"

"Sure did. Impaired vision is pretty common for Mangekyou users, and I've got a doozy of an overpowered technique." Feeling reckless, Shisui reaches out blindly until Sasuke offers a hand. He's not sure he's comfortable with anyone reaching near his eyes, ever again, but he's running on numbered days. Wisdom needs to be passed on. He presses Sasuke's palm over his blind eye and leans into the pressure as much as is safe.

Nausea churns in his stomach.

He's not in danger. Get it together, brain. Sasuke is one of the very few people Shisui knows for sure isn't going to stab him right now. He'd probably stab anyone who'd try.

"You aren't well," Sasuke notes, like it's news. There is an edge to his voice, as if he's asking Shisui to deny it and swear himself to the truth of a lie.

"No." Shisui swallows roughly and forces honesty out no matter how it has to be pulled out of him. Truthful briars catch in his throat. "But I'm functional, and time will heal this."

"I need you to heal," Sasuke says, frantically calm. Shisui's eye opens a fraction, squinting in the too-bright light. What he can see of Sasuke is a blurry shadow, haloed in searing morning sunlight. "Do you understand? I need you to live."

Oh, littlest cousin.

Shisui wants to.

He is even willing to try.

"I can only heal from this," Shisui promises. It's the very best part of the truth he can give.

Sasuke’s expression shutters as he pulls back his hand. “Hn.”

What- oh, come on. Shisui has the same amount of emotional energy as a deep-fried slug. He’s not ready for a conversation about Sasuke’s near-desperate scrambling for a family member to be completely unaffected by the massacre. Shisui isn't ashamed of how poorly he’s doing. He’s not going to hide it. Yeah, it sucks worse than that time the Hachibi jinchuuriki found Yuugao, Tenzo, and Shisui sitting in the middle of Kumo’s mountains painting their nails and deconstructing all Konoha’s class-based issues, but he’s going to survive this. Maybe.

“Sasuke- Hey. Sasuke, look at me.” Shisui realizes this is kind of a terrible thing to say when Sasuke grits his teeth, but it’s too late to take his words back. Sasuke looks like he is actively being tortured when he meets Shisui’s eyes. 

Right. The last Sharingan he saw had Tsukuyomi aimed to shatter.

Shisui glances away, only for Sasuke’s chakra to spike in irritation.

Fuck it. He shouldn’t assume what Sasuke wants, and they’ll need to talk about the sharingan’s oldest home use eventually. Maybe he’s a meet-problems-head-on kind of kid. Shisui meets his eyes again.

"Would you like my memories of it?" Shisui inspects Sasuke’s reaction for a sign he should drop the mildly loaded topic. “Learning how to live with it, I mean.”

The sharingan picks up an otherwise-unnoticeable fine tremor in Sasuke’s shoulders. "What?"

Shisui resists the urge to roll his eyes at himself when Sasuke would misinterpret the gesture. Every single living Uchiha is starved of healthy support networks. This is why their family culture turned to insular bonds so quickly when shunned - they need those bonds to combat the risk of breaking apart like a stale cracker.

"Knowledge can never hurt," is all Shisui says as he shuts his eye again. It spares Sasuke from asking and Shisui from the incoming headache. "Most of what I learned ended up useful before now - people would target my eyes, and knowing how to adjust in battle helped. It's common enough for an evolutionary response."

"I wasn't aware." Sasuke sounds a little unnerved, a little curious, so Shisui keeps rambling.

"The actual recovery period for losing or exchanging eyes is a year for non-Uchiha, but our optical nerves have built-in weak points designed to be cut and reattached with minimal trauma." Shisui shrugs his shoulder. "Given a replacement is available we can cut adjustment and recovery time down to a week. Missing eyes take half a year to adjust to, but with training we can be battle-ready within days. It's… the smaller things are harder because I didn't expect them. Colors. Navigating enclosed spaces. Readjusting every morning. But I can share what skills I remember."

Sasuke is quiet for a while.

That's okay.

They have time.

"Show me," Sasuke says. When Shisui risks the ache in his temples to open his eye, Sasuke looks away. "Please. I- I want to know about my- our clan."

"Alright, Sasu-kun."

It's a testament to all this emotional upheaval that Sasuke is too distracted to make a face at the nickname.

They meet eyes.

Shisui gently shoves a gossamer tangle of memories across the mutual link. It is a testament to how messed up Sasuke is that he looks downright stunned at all the emotion this sparks. His face twists in grief before shuttering, then repeats the whole process all over again. Shisui watches, a little fascinated.

Sasuke glares in what looks like a desperate attempt to hang onto his dignity. "Don't- stop looking at me like that."

It's like he's attempting to suck the tears back into his face with sheer willpower.

"You're allowed to grieve," Shisui points out. "I won't ever judge that."

"No. I am an Uchiha," Sasuke grits out. It's downright painful to watch how he seems to be burning his own heart to cinders by way of suppressing grief until it eats him alive. "And Uchiha don't cry."

That’s utter rubbish.

"Who told you that," Shisui says, aghast and more than a little insulted. "Sure, your branch has always been a little stuffy about expressing an actual sentiment, but we all cry buckets of tears. That's practically our whole inheritance?"

Sasuke makes a noise that likely was intended to be frustrated grunt but really manifests as a miserable half-sob. Shisui scoots over to sit right beside him. Sasuke makes no move to retreat, which is as good as an invitation to lean on him obnoxiously.

"That's disgraceful," his littlest cousin chokes out.

Now there's a little of Fugaku's influence.

Yikes.

That old man sure knew how to mess with both his son's heads. Shisui wants to break down bawling at the clan shrine and scream, look at what you've done to them. They've got anxiety!

"We all cry," Shisui says instead as he drops an arm around Sasuke's touch-starved shoulders. "There's literally a whole saying about meeting a crying Uchiha on the battle: tears are clear, little to fear. Tears are red, go for the head."

Sasuke glares at him through the grief caught on his lash line, as if his chakra hasn’t been hungrily clawing at Shisui's since the second they made contact. This kid is painfully starved for attention. 

"That's not a saying," Sasuke says as he awkwardly tries to both shove Shisui away and seek out comfort. It ends up being the most unconvincing show of sulking that Shisui has ever seen. Amaterasu must be weeping from laughter in the heavens. 

“Totally is.”

"I would have heard it by now."

"You know what? We can do a field trip sometime and ask around. I just can't believe someone told you that Uchiha don't cry." Shisui scoffs. "What complete bullshit. We're internationally known for dramatically sobbing all over our battlefields. Our mon should have been a tissue box instead of a fan. Or sponges. A bucket? Anyway, look! I can even do it on command!"

Then Shisui bursts into tears as promised, which succeeds in only making them both cry more.

It's very cathartic. Sasuke looks downright mortified.

This seems to hit Sasuke’s limit for showing emotions beyond disgust, wrath, and whatever else he has pulled from Konoha's caricatures of the Uchiha to emulate. 

Sasuke stands, adjusts the sword tucked into his ridiculous outfit, and stalks away to presumably complete a task. It's absolutely a cover for dealing with the fact that he is a human who has expressed completely natural feelings. Shisui watches him go, fighting a smile. 

"He's such a genin," Shisui tells Junka, who is roosting above him.

"Preening-needs," is the crow's assessment.

Shisui barks a laugh and wipes the backs of his hands across his cheeks. Making a face at the muddy mess that comes away prompts him to find a handkerchief, then scrub down completely at a nearby river. It's fine. The crows will tell him if Sasuke gets lost doing whatever it is he's using as an excuse to grapple with his emotions like a soapy ice cube in a tub. They're professionals.

Shisui sits alone at their little campsite and has a think.

Sasuke seems to have crafted his identity around revenge, and an understanding of their clan that's been filtered through the village. It's like a bunch of civilians and Iwa or Taki nin summarized the Uchiha culture, and Sasuke decided he needed to become exactly that. The result is kind of pitiful. That made-up clan has genjutsu and fire, yes. They also have rage and grunting instead of talking, drama, and a whole lot of mental instability wrapped up in unwarranted aloof superiority. Sasuke's doing great considering his information sources.

Where were the Izuno? The Tori?

Actually, no, Shisui knows how far away the vassal clans were kept and hates his Kage a bit for it.

"Junka, can you keep an eye out?" Shisui sits up, back straight and hands together in a concentration seal. "I need to get my grandfather's box out of storage."

Junka warbles an agreement. It's all the cue Shisui needs to activate his eyes and pull himself under into the deepest of meditations.

The sharingan records too much information for any wielder to function without creating an organization system of some kind.

Phantom salt air rises in the cutting wind. Sea spray bursts to his left, scattered droplets echoing a wave one of his ancestors shrieked in joy at. Leaves rustle overhead. The sound his mother heard overlays the sound her father heard, and on and on all the way back to their founder. Every Uchiha has a mindscape with those leaves in the background.

Except Sasuke. Maybe Obito also lacks one, though everything going on in that cousin’s mind is far less clear.

Shisui's eyes open.

Rolling fog greets him.

Magma crunches underfoot, one more sense memory crafted into a trap against invaders. Shisui wanders past the outer prank-like defenses. Memories sift past him, each second of visual memory manifesting as a droplet in this thick fog. 

He passes through childhood training sessions, afternoons babysitting, and mission after mission. Dreams and bloody knuckles fall behind him as Shisui presses further into the fog. Deep in the bones of his ancestors, certainty rattles like a war drum. Shisui knows who he is, just as they did.

He was born to burn.

This is his heritage.

Shisui steps onto an Uzu shore he's never known in person.

Phantom seagulls call overhead.

He brushes fingertips over the gnarled and storm-beaten bark of twisted pines as he passes them. Up a cliffside path lies a clearing overlooking the blue-grey sea. Granite crunches underfoot. Fog retreats as he follows the path, until a small meadow lies ahead.

In the center, etched into the ground, is a sundial Shisui's uncle had hoped to someday install in Uzushio's highest meadow. It would have honored Amaterasu and the old gods of Uzu's sea together. That uncle died before his dream could become a reality. Shisui's father turned to a life of craftsmanship immediately after losing a brother, and placed this sundial in Kagami's favored corner of the island shortly before the war took it as well. That same war claimed Shisui’s father not long after his birth.

Granite sand and fine ash that has been laid to rest shift underfoot.

It lies at peace.

Shisui walks forward, passing the sundial to stand a few strides from Uzu’s high cliff edge. Then he waits.

It takes exactly half a minute for someone to sigh next to him. The adult Uchiha who’s made an appearance is deceptively short. Spiked hair that in two generations would manifest as Shisui's curls frames a Konoha hitai-ate.

"Welcome," Kagami says, as he always has when Shisui enters this clearing. His choices and words never change, but Shisui is bound by duty to play his part in this ritual of an interaction with his grandfather’s recorded echo. 

So Shisui turns to the memory that has manifested, and says, "I'm home."

He's probably supposed to say something different here, because his grandfather always waits a second too long before moving again. Shisui has never figured out the right answer.

He doesn't think his grandfather would mind, though.

Kagami's memory leans forward to clack their forehead protectors together, as he always has whenever Shisui enters this clearing. Memories like these don't change - they are recordings that wait to greet every descendant. Someday, Shisui hopes Sasuke will interact with this recording as well.

The recording’s smile is a mirror of Shisui's. A little reckless, a little mischievous. A little melancholy.

"I am proud of you," his grandfather says. The firm confidence in unknown descendants has always been humbling.

"I am trying to be worthy of it," Shisui tells the memory that cannot hear him. He knows the next line Kagami will say: No matter what-

"You already are."

Shisui startles so badly he reels back.

Kagami bursts into laughter, while Shisui behaves disgracefully as a shinobi by tripping over his own feet and falling on his rear. "Come on, I know I shouldn't have led you along, but your face! Priceless!"

Shisui gapes up at the-

The ghost?

In his head?

"Is my brain haunted?" he blurts out. 

Kagami hunches over to cackle so hard he starts wheezing.

Oooh, Shisui had heard his grandfather was uncannily like him, but hearing and witnessing it are two very different things.

"I sure hope so," Kagami garbles through his mirth, and Shisui short-circuits. They really are exactly the same. He gave that answer to Sasuke yesterday for a different question, but their delivery was the exact same tone and cadence. The ghost clutches at his ribs and straightens up, wiping away tears.

"Um," Shisui squeaks as his grandfather offers a hand to haul him upright. 

"Oh, I needed that. Yeah. Yeah, okay. It's good to know the kids are alright."

Shisui hesitates, wary of the implications to that phrase: the kids are alright. How does he break the news that there aren't exactly many of those kids left, let alone how none of them are remotely alright?

Shisui nervously accepts the offered hand. "So, about that…?" 

"I know." Kagami sobers as he pulls Shisui up. Kagami has more burn scars than most, a mark of time spent in forges. His smile shrinks into something smaller, more hopeful than Shisui could give but still familiar like a reflection. "That, and why you're here. You don't have to explain anything to me."

It's a relief.

"I'm a chakra imprint, triggered two factors. The first was by a descendant using Izanagi, but the second condition was your arrival here. I've seen every sharingan-recorded visual since when you woke up at the Naka."

"So, you saw-" Shisui grimaces, thinking of the state of the village his grandfather was trained to someday lead. They don't have time to unpack that mess. "Itachi. And Obito-nii."

"And a brief glimpse of Tsunade-hime. Man, I always suspected Sensei's niece would grow up a bit of a disaster, but hot damn did she overachieve." Kagami nods as if saying, so there. "We should have cut ties with the village and gone to live in Uzu."

"Weren't you trained as the Nidaime's successor? Threatening desertion feels a little on the nose." Not that Shisui hasn't done the same, but… really?

"If the village can't handle me, that's hardly my fault," Kagami points out.

Shisui figures this is fair.

It's not what he's supposed to think, but Sarutobi lost the right to govern Shisui's mind when he ordered Itachi to kill his entire family, bar one. Generosity is a challenge.

"Is there anything I should pass on?" Shisui asks. He's not sure what else to say.

"No. You are my legacy, and I am happy to leave the consequences of my peers to the judgment of living shinobi. I didn't come back for them." Kagami opens his arms. It's a familiar gesture. Open, offering comfort, and… Shisui has never claimed to be reserved.

He steps into the embrace. It feels like coming home to dark granite and ocean waves.

"I will always be proud of you," Kagami says. "Never doubt this, Shisui: you are already worthy of my care."

Shisui hugs his grandfather tight as chakra runs out, and a ghost's ability to speak freely ends.

Kagami's ghost leaves the sense-memory of the life and love known only by a grandparent. That feeling does not fade as Shisui opens his eye to empty space and a large seafarers chest.

Shisui sits in front of-

Well.

Metaphorically, it's a box. Really, it's a web of sharingan-recorded memories passed down from his ancestors, but for the sake of naming things, these are always called memory boxes. Shisui assumes it's because they're functionally the same as an old trunk a mother may keep her wedding kimono in for her daughter, or old family heirlooms too precious to be kept out. Photographs. Journals. Wisdom gathers like dust amongst material objects, becoming a heritage of longing passed between generations. The Uchiha do this much like civilians, but the bulk of their inheritance are memories recorded by their dojutsu.

Kagami imagined the reservoir of precious history as a sea chest, and Shisui inherited too much nostalgia to change this.

He sits there in seiza and picks out memories of his own. They are folded, lovingly, like well-worn clothes he hopes will be cared for. 

Shisui packs memories of a fleet-footed life spent running and laughing. He packs his memories for a cousin and whatever descendants Sasuke may choose to have. He packs them with instructions on how to pass on a new set when Sasuke is ready.

Folded with hallowed care.

He gives the memories of sunsets walking home, of dango won from a bet. He gives Ichiraku ramen eaten side by side with a sun-bright child he was not allowed to speak to, and gives the memory of paying off the kid’s tab. He gives mission failures and successes, and a line of porcelain masks lead by lighting-lit green paint. He gives fans printed and embroidered on cloth. He gives fear and love in a shrine lit by fire. He gives cherry blossoms and his one accidentally recorded interaction with a clever civilian girl outside a flower shop. He gives Izumi's careful mochi making. He gives poison lessons with Mikoto and the rare stern pride of Fugaku caught at a training ground.

He gives a cliffside conversation with his best friend.

He gives the regret of a wasted life.

He gives the hope of a better one for his littlest cousin.

The last thing Shisui chooses to place in this box is the most chakra intense. He gives his own recorded memory that waits on Uzu's shores. Shisui’s echo will hug Sasuke and any descendants he may have whenever they visit, and tell each one an eternally repeating message.

That message fixes the point where Shisui thinks Fugaku failed. It's where Itachi failed too, by way of appalling communication skills. This isn't okay. Shisui is willing to rise to a task others forgot, but cannot convince himself of being worthy to stand in eternity next to a sundial and the ghost he has never quite measured up to. The open shore suits him better.

Once this is done, he shuts the chest and re-binds a sea salt ghost to the outside. As Shisui shuts his eye, a phantom hand lands on his shoulder, steady and constant. 

Shisui isn't alone. Not completely.

He opens his eye and finds himself once again standing alone in that clearing above ocean cliffs. Shisui inhales wild sea salt air and looks up at pine trees his grandfather loved dearly enough to bind his bloodline to.

"I want to go home," Shisui tells them.

Then he takes a deep breath of misty air and makes his way back downhill to his cousin.

On his way past the shore, Shisui passes a recording of himself that looks… at peace.

Hunted, yes, but Shisui has always seen past the laughter in mirrors. This echo stands in comfortable off-duty join blacks, tanto sheathed but otherwise unarmed. Salt wind turns wild hair untamable.

"Are you free?" Shisui asks, a little curious. The echo turns towards him. "Are you able to live?"

"You will always be loved," his echo says. "So live for yourself, to honor us."

It's a good answer.

Shisui steps onto the waves and takes the long path home.

He opens his eyes to Sasuke, packed and impatient. It seems his littlest cousin hasn't changed much in some ways. Sasuke was always easier to motivate.

Shisui packs wordlessly.

Shisui loves his youngest cousin like the annoying little brother he never got to have, but traveling with him is so slow. It's not Sasuke's fault. Years of practice went into creating the wind resistance techniques that Shisui uses to avoid self-injury by moving faster than the speed of sound. It's a constant subconscious adjustment - rather than a jutsu Shisui can have Sasuke copy, it takes practice to know when to adjust for changing air pressure without leaking blood from his ears. It's more skill than technique, customized to his body weight, musculature, and such to a degree that copying would risk too many errors. Those same jutsu only work on himself, which is why Shisui knows just enough sealing from Minori-san, the Uchiha seamstress, to stitch his own strengthening seals into his belongings.

However, he can't extend the entire resistance technique to Sasuke, only enough for a slight speed boost and short sprints. The control is too internal. His littlest cousin also scoffed at being carried today, so they're stuck moving at a standard shinobi pace.

For Sasuke’s pride.

Shisui doesn't have pride anymore. It burned to death with his genin team for a war.

Sasuke's non-combat survival skills are still slightly below standard, which Shisui continues to amend after he summons Airi to recalculate their path during a break at noon. Itachi and Kisame may get within a day’s travel of Konoha before they can. Shisui and Sasuke might need to prioritize that meeting through a shortcut, or else Itachi will be left to improvise.

Past evidence indicates Itachi is remarkably bad at making plans without Shisui.

Running in one big group will also be faster, because some of Shisui’s travel time is now spent making up for the gaps in Sasuke's learning. He needs to outsource some of these lessons. Orochimaru likely hasn't had Sasuke moving around enough to learn long-distance travel tricks beyond Chuunin level. Given how Taichou ripped his teaching mentality straight out of the brutal Hatake traditions, that means Orochimaru hasn't dealt Sasuke any travel lessons. None. There can be no other explanation.

Thus, they take breaks.

It's so monstrously unnecessary?

"Honestly," Shisui mutters under his breath at a ration bar during one of these treetop breaks. Sasuke gives him a wild look that has to be waved off. "Nothing you've done, Sasu-kun. I just get the feeling a lot of people tried to clip your wings while telling you to fly."

"Naruto thought pranking Kakashi-sensei would help, but he still got away when we all worked together." A little crease appears between Sasuke's eyebrows, and his ears turn red. "It was stupid."

Aw, his first thought is of his bestie-

Wait.

"Taichou tried not to teach you?!" Shisui attempts to gesture and promptly bashes his knuckles into the oak bark in his blind spot. "Ow! Fuck. That hardaaaaaa- no swearing. Mikoto-oba, I am so sorry, please do not return as a ghost to haunt me-"

"Aa," Sasuke interrupts. "I think we were assigned as a punishment."

"Bullshit." Shisui crosses his arms and harrumphs at all the irrationality around him. Honestly. Taichou should've shared that lax attitude with his own ANBU squad, and quit teasing Shisui about taking his new team out for drinks that one time. "He's pack of your team, and Hatake are as loyal as they get."

Sasuke levels dubious eyebrows.

"What a scarecrow," Shisui mutters. "He should go find some field and stand in it."

"Bullshit?" Sasuke repeats with a little smile.

Shisui can physically feel his face drain of color.

"Alright, enough resting." Shisui chivvies Sasuke into moving and checks the sky for spontaneous lightning. Mikoto-oba both can and will fight Raijin, wrest away control, and strike him down from above for swearing around her son. "Come on, up, up, up! Daylight is a-wasting!"

"Wimp," Sasuke scoffs, then yelps when Shisui scoops him up.

"But I am a wimp who isn't dying today," Shisui says as he launches them forward. "Onwards, to kick names and take ass- oh, she is going to roast me like a helpless little potato, what the fuck- SHIT. Hey, Sasu-kun, you didn't hear shit from me- fuck. Damn it."

Sasuke laughs for the first time.

Yeah. 

He might be alright by the end of this.

Things get tense around mid-afternoon, when Airi loops back to report. She executes a well-practiced landing as Shisui slows slightly, settling in the crook of his free arm. Sasuke looks relatively curious.

Airi cheerfully announces in her native language that at Shisui's current speed, they can reach Itachi and his Hoshigaki companion in an hour. That, or they could continue ahead, camp for the night, and meet up with them tomorrow.

Shisui relays it to Sasuke in the interest of fairness and lets him choose.

The news is received very poorly. They end up using that hour in very different ways. Mostly, Sasuke makes a crater out of a brand-new forest clearing and vents his many feelings into the bedrock. Shisui and Airi spectate and snack because that's the kind of lifestyle they're on this earth to celebrate: gossip and graze.

"Do you think he's trying to dig right through the earth?" Shisui asks when Sasuke hits the twenty-foot depth mark. It's kind of impressive. Rock may be weak to lightning chakra, but not enough to do this without serious determination.

…Or rage.

"Small-Chick-wise-not," Airi tells Shisui as he unpacks a camp mug and rips some pine needles from a tree to dump in it. "Loud-make-fight-bring."

"I think he's having a lot of emotions," Shisui tells her as he fills the mug from his canteen. Fire chakra turns his palms red-hot and brings his tea to a prompt boil. He's going to have to keep it at a high temperature for a solid ten minutes, but Sasuke doesn't seem to be slowing down any time soon.

"Me-too," Airi huffs. Her feathers poof out indignantly. "One-Eye-scared-now-Red-Yearling-of. Airi-alone-lost-was. Wrong-is. Airi-fight-not. Airi-hurt-tree-not. Airi-burn-not. Airi-bring-threat-not."

"Yeah." Shisui understands. They are all hurting, and in situations they can't control. It's terrifying. Frightening. All they can control is how they respond, and Airi is taking offense at Sasuke's choice to take out his fear on the world around him.

Shisui doesn't think anyone stuck around long enough to teach Sasuke to be anything but angry. 

The Snake would have had no use for such things. Easy logic there.

The Sandaime could have even encouraged this if he was planning on cultivating a cute little Uchiha frontliner. It wouldn't be the first time shinobi were raised explicitly to go out onto a battlefield and self-destruct in a truly awesome fashion. There are whole clans that do that ritually. Which leads to Sasuke's last mentor who would not have curbed that impulse at all.

Sure, Hound probably tried when he wasn't behind a porcelain mask, but anyone taking lessons on how to be human from a half-wild Hatake needs to reassess. That clan got famous for decimating entire battlefronts in a blaze of self-destructive fury. Protecting family was their whole culture. Shisui inherited sharingan memories of what they were like before the village system, and he can confidently say that Hound fights to the point of chakra exhaustion on purpose. There's every chance the most emotionally stunted Hatake to ever come out of Konoha had trouble teaching Sasuke to not do what those old wolves would consider justice.

Wowza.

"Sparrow-nest-fall-hurt," Airi notes. "Teach-please."

"You're pretty angry about this," Shisui notes. "More than I expected. What's up?"

"Rude-hurt-will." Airi clacks her beak to punctuate the statement with a kind of personal offense that has no equivalent in human languages. "One-Eye-tomorrow-morrow-scared-hurt-day."

Ice floods through Shisui's veins at the reminder. Two days. He guessed at having around seven total, and today is the sixth.

Oh gods.

"Small-Chick-big-worry-make-not-see-One-Eye-bigger-worry. Right-not. Wrong-is. Small-Chick-noise-make-Small-Chick-worry-into-everyone-worry. Fair-not. One-Eye-many-many-worry-have."

Is he breathing?

Shisui inhales abruptly. It fights him. His lungs spasm and shake against his ribs like they want to do anything but process oxygen.

No, he was not breathing.

That's fun.

His exhale shudders out in fits and bursts.

"Summoner?"

Talons prick his hand. 

Shisui plasters a smile onto his face. "Give me a second. I'm-"

He doesn't have the brainpower to remember the human word.

"Mind-hurt-sick," Shisui says in crow. Airi, the darling, hops up to nestle just inside his wide shirt collar.

Right. He's fine. This is fine.

It must be, or it's going to fail, and they are all going to-

Spiraling.

Check yourself, shinobi.

Shisui inhales, finds the panic, and sorts through it with the exhale. What is he afraid of?

Inhale.

An involuntary frightened noise gets strangled in the back of his throat.

Exhale, there we go.

There's not much he can do to avoid his time running out, but he can deal with the emotions. He seeks out the type of strength found only within resolve. 

Inhale.

He's going to take as much of Danzo's operation out with him as he goes. 

Exhale.

The teamwork may set Itachi and Sasuke on a path to sorting out all the layers of pain they're building like a wall. With any luck Shisui's improvised demolition exercise will leave behind something of a bridge between the brothers.

Inhale, let it become automatic.

Based on the rescue from Shisui’s near-murder by an evil houseplant, Obito-nii seems to already be doing some kind of mental gymnastics to stop his apocalypse plan from working. Sasuke is no longer in the care of a creepy mad scientist. Itachi is… whatever. Itachi is probably using this field trip to avoid blame for burning the haunted statue-thing, which shouldn't be too hard considering this darling little cousin is a professional liar who stands out even among people who deceive as a career. 

All of this counts as fixing things, right? Shisui did his best. He deserves a little gold star sticker that says, "you tried."

Shisui does not intend to die, but his priority must be to accomplish as much as possible in the time remaining. The odds of accomplishing both are poor. He will go out in a blaze of screaming that history will hopefully call glory. It may hurt-

Oh, Sage.

Shisui wants to go home.

He is going to go home. He is going to do his best. He is going to leave this explosion tag of a situation better than he found it.

There you go, Uchiha. Find a goal and fixate on it until it sees you through.

He calls a different breathing exercise to mind and packages up all the little shattered parts of himself to cry over later. Old, familiar composure from black ops missions settles across his shoulders like grey armor and a porcelain mask.

"Forgot to mention," Shisui murmurs to Airi. "I have been trying not to be alone for long."

"Miko-hime-summon," Airi orders instantly.

Shisui sighs, but his self-imposed rules are that he has to follow her directions if he slips this close to shattering in the field.

A couple hand signs and a drop of blood later, chakra-smoke billows behind him. The Sage Summon of all corvids is just tall enough to need to duck when she's in the Hokage's office. They figured that one out on a day like this.

"Summoner," Miko-hime greets in a mimicry of a familiar voice. Airi bursts into raucous cawing. It's a bit too fast for Shisui to track beyond that it's a report on the day's events, so he ignores it entirely and leans back into soft ink-dark feathers. They press over his shoulders in a comfortable weight.

"Reckless," Miko-hime warns him once Airi is done. It's a little unclear who her next words are for. "Settle, fledgling. I will watch the chick."

Thank goodness, Shisui thinks as he slips into meditation. Miko-hime preens his hair as if he were a baby crow, and Airi keeps watch over Sasuke's tantrum. They stand guard. Sage bless the stars and sea below, and clever corvids who think when I cannot. 

He needs a good second or five thousand.

By the time Sasuke calms down enough to stand in his destruction and sulk, Shisui is mostly fine.

Mostly functional, at least. He manages to find a subset of grief he can make a home out of. It settles in the bags under his eyes and clumps together on the roof of his mouth like over-baked beans.

Rocks clatter in the crater of one teenager's angst. The noise grounds him. Shisui's hands sear against his mug as he stares Sasuke in the eye.

The giant crow behind them is ignored.

Tension flies right over Sasuke's head. If he does perceive avian judgment, he shows none of it. Either way, that's a problem someone needs to fix. Shisui won't be around to do all the guiding, but that doesn't mean he can ignore it like so many others have. So help him, he is going to do all the good he can with this short second chance at life.

Shisui loudly slurps his tea.

"...Sorry?" Sasuke tries. He has the decency to begin looking uncomfortable, which means he genuinely doesn't know what he did wrong.

That’s concerning.

Shisui gets up with all the exhaustion of the ojii-san who lives - lived - down the street from him, mug still in hand. "Come on."

Chakra coats sandal treads and turns his descent into the new canyon into a controlled slide. Sasuke watches him go with a carefully blank expression. He can make whatever faces he likes. They're fixing this.

"What- where are you going?"

Shisui has to turn his whole head to give a raised eyebrow back. This half-blindness thing is such a strain on his neck.

At least Sasuke flickers over to follow.

Miko-hime flies over to perch behind him when Shisui finds the upturned sparrow nest amidst the rubble. Some of the chicks are making their fear known in loud, desperate calls, but Shisui hangs back. Warmth settles around him as Miko-hime lets him lean into her feathers with tea still burning his hands.

Sasuke looks at Shisui, who pointedly looks from his cousin to the nest.

Sasuke glares at Shisui.

Cute.

Shisui takes a sip of tea.

The unspoken argument ends exactly as expected.

He stands back, letting Sasuke scoop up the nest and grudgingly apologize to the sparrow family.

Then Shisui chugs the rest of his tea, seals the mug away, and gets to work helping.

They find a fox too hurt to save, crushed mid-back. Shisui croons to it in the old language he heard a Kurama use once for this same purpose, and does his duty by it. Another unreadable look flashes past Sasuke's face. Shisui is close enough to catch the self-loathing in his chakra.

Not yet.

Shisui will give him time to process that.

It takes them a fair while to apologize to the locals and fix what they can in such a short time. Once they're done, Shisui stands at the edge of the crater and cracks his back while Miko-hime and Airi hover. It's appreciated.

Sasuke climbs up the crater to look at him blankly. "You did not have to do this."

"Yeah," Shisui agrees. "I'm the worst."

"You are not," Miko-hime says, and Sasuke does a full double-take at his mother’s voice coming out of a crow’s mouth.

Oh. Yeah, that's not going to make Sasuke’s day any better, is it?

"Miko-hime is a mimic like ravens, but she's the Sage Summon for all the Corvid contracts," Shisui says belatedly. "I've got, uh. Rules. For living."

Sasuke is looking at him like he's lost his mind. Since it's what Shisui nearly did, he supposes that's reasonable.

"Our summoner is mind-hurt," Miko-hime explains. "So we shall escort him to his nest. It is the promise we have made."

"Aa," Sasuke says with all the suspicion in his soul. It's very efficient of him to say so much with so few words. Fugaku-sama did that too, but he kept it to dealing with the clan elders.

"Most Uchiha with a Mangekyou sign with one of the clan summons for a reason," Shisui explains wearily. "Keeps us from being stranded alone. It's a whole thing. They'll assist me 'till I'm out of the field and with my sensei."

"It is necessary," Miko-hime adds.

"Yeah. That."

"You have a service crow," is what Sasuke seems to take from this. If he put any less intonation into that statement, Shisui thinks it may clip right out of reality for being too empty.

He summons Yui on instinct. Because she is perfect, the puffball crow poofs right into his cupped hands, so Shisui can offer her to his littlest cousin. Sasuke eyes her warily.

"Hold her," Shisui says. "Come on, Sasu-kun. Reap the benefits of serving avians with me. Who knows, you could secretly be a bird person."

Sasuke reluctantly takes the crow. Yui poofs up further and eyes him back, disgruntled at her current perch. While Sasuke melts as much as his faux-aloof attitude can bear, Yui remains unnerved. Her happy little chirp is completely faked, so Shisui clicks his teeth in mimicry of a clacking beak. 

Airi glides down to perch on Sasuke's shoulder, distracting him from Yui hightailing her way back to Shisui.

"Like-not," Yui grouses as she burrows her way into Shisui's collar. She succeeds in cramming herself under his chin by virtue of the high Uchiha collar that makes a Yui-sized hollow there. He hums in apology.

"Little-Snow-hold-like-often," Shisui murmurs. "Change-what?"

"Soul-like-not," is Yui's ridiculous answer. She's adorable. 

Shisui remembers for a second that the soft grumbling ball of fluff tucked under his chin is the descendant of a god, and decides he has too much to worry about already. Yui could be Amaterasu herself and he'd still tease her about blueberries. This is called "friendship."

Sasuke, for his part, seems completely taken aback at experiencing childlike wonder. Shisui reminds himself that it’s probably been a while since Mikoto’s falcon summons have been sighted in this realm. Tragedy is far too easy when he thinks about his family.

To counteract this, he rummages around in his pockets for glittery trinkets and finds a colorful bead. Yui latches onto the gift immediately.

"Anyway, are you ready to talk about what set that off?” Shisui asks as Airi relocates to Sasuke’s shoulder. “Because we need to do that eventually."

Sasuke looks away with an honest-to-Sage, "tch."

Who did he even learn that from?

Izumi?

She would, is the thing. Izumi is soft and kind and practiced at ensuring her mask of filial duty is mistaken for weakness. There’s only one difference between Itachi's two closest friends. When Shisui gave all he could to the village, he let it take until there was nothing left. He died for it. Izumi saw what the village would ask of her, and decided to take first. Then she died because of their home.

Shisui should probably work on his issue with denial. He can’t keep referring to family with the present tense like this.

She’s dead.

Miko-hime's beak presses into his cheek. The nudge helps.

Shisui takes a breath to sit with what he’s feeling right now. Stepping back from conflicted feelings lets him see what they are in a non-judgmental light. Acknowledgement may not resolve these feelings, but it does grant freedom from being ruled by the earthquake in his veins.

He holds his fear and rage close to his chest.

They exist to protect him.

They have their place.

So does love.

The cornerstone of his bloodline anchors Shisui with a phantom memory of Kagami’s trust.

"In two days or so, we are going to arrive in Konoha." Shisui meets Sasuke’s sulking with renewed calm. "We are going to be on the home turf of the person who is responsible for my entire situation, a good portion of the Uchiha's isolation before everything blew up, and for lighting that fuse by giving Itachi an order he couldn't refuse."

Sasuke had begun relaxing, but his expression shuts down again at the mention of Itachi.

"You know what he did," Sasuke hisses.

"I do. And I also know the circumstances." Shisui closes his eye, because ow. Everything is bright, all the time. "Listen, there is not a single stable Uchiha alive right now, including me. But I can tell you Itachi only lost it when Danzo threatened him into killing the clan."

"Danzo?"

That is certainly a name. Shisui was probably hanging out in the shinigami’s fish tank while those events happened, so discussing who ordered what must not matter to his least favorite tattoo. Shisui does a half-hearted little showman's gesture he copied from a Suna puppeteer as if to say, ta-da. Here's the bad news you didn't know you wanted.

Sasuke's Killing Intent could probably kill a horse at short range right now, but Shisui is both out of his mind with an exhausted form of grief, and immune. He got accustomed to cousins going through bad days shortly after Itachi got into ANBU.

What a world.

"Yeah, him." Shisui tips his chin at the wreckage. "So, I'm uh, really not doing too hot, because I'm going to meet the subject of my nightmares in two days and it's only just sinking in. Can we take a raincheck on killing the person who is willing to help keep me alive and functional through that? Please?"

Sasuke's eyes flicker red. He seems to take about a second to put it all together - Shisui's off-kilter personality, the Sage Corvid towering over him, and the context of what they're about to do. 

"You can murder Itachi afterwards," Shisui adds as Miko-hime tries to preen his hair despite the lack of feathers. "But waiting would help me, personally, a lot. I know this is a selfish ask. Your feelings are justified, and you have every to be angry and refuse-"

"Stop," Sasuke interrupts, so Shisui does.

He is very surprised when Sasuke steps right up to him and wraps him in the most awkward hug. Shisui has no idea when Sasuke last let himself offer comfort like this. He’s very stiff.

It’s probably not been encouraged since the Massacre.

The next minute is quite the struggle for his little cousin. He chews over some internal conflict alongside all the messy feelings Itachi must always bring up. Shisui watches Sasuke nearly grind his teeth to the breaking point and wonders what advances Konoha has made in dental science.

Shisui is a little impressed by his family of four unhinged Uchiha. They are all so gloriously messed up. Danzo isn't going to predict any of the chaos they pull, because who even knows what an Uchiha mind does after it hits that point of no return? Shisui is going to hit his limit in two days. The others hit theirs ages ago. Hoshigaki is going to be the sanest one, and according to Itachi, he's enough of a monster to be called a Tailless Tailed Beast.

"Are you saying I can't do what he can?" Sasuke bites out eventually.

"He's talked me back before." All times but one.

Sasuke's grimace pulls into a snarl as if he is fighting himself to speak. "I can… I can wait. If you need help, we will find it."

"It's alright to say this won't work," Shisui sighs. "I… honestly don't think I can mediate much right now. It'll be best if Miko-hime is willing to step in."

Sasuke looks up skeptically at the massive bird. 

"The Red Yearling has not summoned me since he betrayed the terms of our contract," Miko-hime says. "I suspect he is aware of the price."

Oof. Shisui sure doesn’t know what crows would do to those who ask too much of them and would like to never find out. He is in enough of a crisis already, thanks.

Despite also having no idea what that means, Sasuke seems to take it in stride. "Is that going to be a problem?"

"No," Miko-hime says in the sweet way Mikoto-oba once used while poisoning her knives. Nostalgia cuts the same. Sasuke makes a faint noise like someone punched all the air right out of his chest. "You will have your fair peace, fledgling."

Sasuke still looks upset, but it’s hardened into resolve. He’s chosen a path and will follow it.

Yikes.

Sage, but Shisui loves his motto for the week so much. It's like a brother to him at this point.

Ah, he wants to lie down and cry.

This is good.

He is able to feel some kind of emotion.

"Let's go," Sasuke orders.

"Alright," Shisui sighs as he reaches upwards. Several vertebrae crack. “Are we being peaceful about this for at least seven days?”

Sasuke looks away.

If he thinks Shisui will take that answer, he has another thing coming. They stand there long enough for the silence to become awkward. 

“He didn’t want to kill them,” Sasuke says. It echoes his words of last night.

“No,” Shisui says, just like he did back then. “Never.”

“Hn.”

This, unlike the silence, is an actual agreement.

"If you still want revenge, I won't stop you," Shisui says. Surprised and active sharingan snap up to study his face, though Shisui has no idea if anything other than exhaustion may show from the tired slant of his eye and crease between his eyebrows. "That's your choice. But you need to build yourself a place to go after that revenge is complete, alright? It's selfish, but it's what I'm asking of you."

Sasuke's jaw clenches, but he meets Shisui's eye and nods. "I promise."

He's growing up.

Shisui takes a shuddering breath and lets it out slowly. "I hope you'll forgive me for asking that of you."

"Don't be stupid," Sasuke grunts, and marches off in the wrong direction. His tone and accompanying body language are softer than Fugaku would have chosen, closer to Mikoto's serene mask that hid tempered steel. His mother would have chosen different words for that same sentiment: I already have.

Shisui flickers past Sasuke. When he catches up, Shisui turns their path towards the correct destination and lets his littlest cousin set their pace.

It seems Itachi and Hoshigaki are heading their way now that the crows have shared locations.

Shisui suspects Junka. She would do it without being asked, too.

But she is also clever and one of the crows to understand every shinobi signed language her summoners do. If they are going to communicate via summons, she's the obvious choice.

Shisui sighs and tips his head to the side, steps shifting to light mimicry of an Izuno gait. Their sister clan has blatant body language regarding when they feel threatened, and he isn't above copying it for the sake of projecting his intentions in this meeting. Sure enough, Sasuke's hand falls from his sword hilt, though it stays close. 

He must remember just enough to subconsciously pick up on what Shisui is doing. 

That, or the cat clan had a subtle hand in raising him. Based on what Itachi reported, that's unlikely. The Sandaime warned them off. The Izuno matriarch is prickly and unpredictable on a surface level, but she wouldn't abandon a kid to fend for himself. That's not how the vassal clan relationship works, let alone the Izuno culture. It's a small comfort that the Izuno head is also the type to bide her time before striking back, usually in a devastating chaotic upheaval dismissed as being cat-natured.

They meet in the trees.

Itachi stops a bit further away than Kisame.

Sasuke makes as if to step forward before Miko-hime drops a wing over him, potentially trapping Sasuke next to her for all that the angry glaring indicates he hasn't noticed his lack of choice. Shisui still reaches back, wrapping a hand around Sasuke's nearest wrist, another offer of comfort that can restrict him should he snap entirely.

They can't kill Itachi right here.

Shisui wouldn't survive it.

It's not right, not good to set these hidden traps for Sasuke and cloak them in kindness. It's also the only option he feels may leave him standing should the worst occur.

"Truce?" Kisame asks, amusement curling through the question.

Shisui glances back at Sasuke, and holds his littlest cousin's attention for the few seconds it takes for him to decide. Sasuke grimaces but gives one of those reluctant grunts Fugaku mastered.

"Truce." Shisui grins crookedly. "Got any snacks?"

Itachi, bless him, is still a mother hen. 

Hoshigaki watches him bustle around their stealth break site with a grin that spells future blackmail and memories he plans on holding onto for eternity. Shisui gets the feeling most of that entertainment comes from not being the one mother henned for once.

"Drink," Itachi orders, holding out a mug wafting steam. The overbearing effect is largely ruined by how he's chosen to stand a good few paces away from Shisui and the massive bird looming behind him.

Sasuke has stuck next to Miko-hime so far, tucked under her wing. Together they're doing a very good job of staring at Itachi. Shisui knows that Miko-hime's body language is treating Sasuke like a chick who hasn't yet grown flight feathers, but Sasuke remains blissfully ignorant. It's kind of funny.

Okay, scratch that. It's downright hilarious.

For lack of anything else to talk about without devolving into heedless violence, they've begun planning.

"We can lead you through the updated to the village defenses," Itachi says, retreating to sit by Kisame. He folds himself into some mimicry of docile attention with all the methodology required of a tea ceremony guest. It is singularly unnerving. Itachi is adaptable, but Konoha always needed him to appear competent and dangerous. They needed a perfect weapon and Uchiha heir. Watching Itachi turn unfocused eyes to the dirt in front of him, hands visible on his knees, resembles watching a ninneko ask to be declawed.

It's weird.

Sasuke, at least, hasn't attacked yet. He's even participating, albeit rarely. Each word seems to cost him.

"We could enter by the west gate," Sasuke grits out.

All the gates have people Shisui knows personally, and he's bringing three dangerous nukenin into his home on an assassination mission. Shisui is trying very hard to ignore the inevitability of meeting familiar faces. Half of Root knew him as Danzo's pet Uchiha, which leads to another uncomfortable thought:

"I am going to hurt comrades when we go in," Shisui realizes. Wow. That's going to suck.

"It is sometimes necessary," Itachi says.

Sasuke's Killing Intent spikes. His hand goes to the sword at his side, eyes blazing red, and Shisui realizes he is going to watch two of his three last living relatives fight to the death. Then he is going to break down. Again.

Miko-hime circumnavigates all of this by stepping on Sasuke. He crashes to the ground, pinned by talons the size of Shisui's tanto. The Sage Summon pays Sasuke's struggles no mind, still staring at her less favored summoner. Itachi gives her a rictus grin.

Oh, for crying out loud.

“Itachi,” Shisui interrupts before crow politics can get dicey. “What is the purpose of sacrifice?”

Itachi halts his baiting altogether, emotionally wrecked to the point of standstill by one question.

“Don’t ruin him for your own purposes,” Shisui says quietly. “Not like this, and not to him.”

“He killed them,” Sasuke hisses, still struggling. It’s abundantly clear that he’s only letting Shisui boss him around because the novelty of another living Uchiha hasn’t quite worn off yet. The respect for an allied Sage Summons also may have something to do with it.

“He did,” Shisui says. “And you can get your revenge if you want, but we made each other a promise, Sasuke. You have to live beyond it.”

Itachi is watching when Shisui glances his way, and shifts slightly. He then stands so slowly it's almost agonizing, and turns his back to the campsite in either de-escalation or pure foolishness.

"Perimeter," Itachi murmurs, and slips into the trees.

They all track his chakra for a few seconds. He isn't masking it at all. Does Itachi just not care about bounty hunters and ANBU patrols?

Once again, Shisui is reminded that Itachi's form of shattering started with his common sense. What a marvelously self-destructive person he's turned into. Fugaku must have drunk himself straight into reincarnation from the Pure Lands, providing Shisui's mom didn't get to him first. There's probably a grumpy shrub in Iwa by now.

Nyanda knows better than to enter another clan’s lands she has never needed to visit outside of formal events. She also does not have to. Genin messengers are so common in this village that one who never got their mission from the Tower can hide in plain sight.

This way, an invite is sent.

It’s set at the fanciest restaurant in the village. Discrete tatami-floored rooms branch off from a central hallway, rather than booths or multiple tables seated in the same room. Visiting nobles, rich civilians, and diplomatic parties from other villages use this space more than the average shinobi, but clan heads stop by as well to fulfill their part in a social dance. Infiltrators-in-training often work as staff. Izuno finds the pageantry useless. She also conforms just enough to not appear outright callous in her treatment of these unspoken rules.

The Daimyo’s wife recently made a reservation there.

The Nara’s complex gender politics and strategies could require Yoshino to be nearby, in some convoluted plan to curry favor. Nyanda cares less about if this is true than if Danzo will buy the excuse.

The Nara matriarch happens to run into Nyanda on her way through the village center. They fall into easy small talk before Yoshino invites Nyanda to join her.

The Nara and Izuno matriarchs have now been seen meeting by pure coincidence in a public space.

They sit in seiza across the low table and tea set Yoshino orders, and catch up about everyday minutia. Marriages, births, funerals, and disputes. Leadership belongs to the people, and the people are busy.

Nothing to see here, folks.

Just two matriarchs catching up over dinner.

The noblewoman next door has been keeping up a steady hum of conversation, so Izuno has no issue with steering their dinner conversation ever-so-slightly. The sharp kunoichi catches on and helps keep it natural.

Conversation turns to paperwork, at which point Izuno activates the silencing seals inked around their booth. She sets a tiny ceramic figure next to them, and Nature chakra turned into physical luck seeps through the brushwork.

Sure enough, Yoshino immediately switches topics.

“Sixteen,” Yoshino says without preamble. “You?”

“Five of my children have gone missing since the Massacre,” Nyanda says.

“A higher percentage of your children, then. Only a little less than Tsume’s. Shibi lost fewer, but one was his nephew.” Yoshino’s jaw clenches. “Clear correlation. Your alliance got hit the worst, Civilian Council second, mine third. The Hyuuga were barely affected.”

Nyanda taps her temple, and Yoshino nods in agreement. The Hyuuga seal their kids too young.

“We’ll have trouble reconditioning them,” Yoshino mutters. “I’m glad for Tsume, at least. He deserves ruining.”

Nyanda couldn’t ask for a better opening.

“It’s possible he’ll be glorified,” she says quietly.

“I don’t care, so long as he’s dead,” Yoshino returns. “I don’t suppose you could stop that?”

“As a member of the Clan Council, my hands are tied. I can’t share any information besides the number of missing kids. Luckily, I don’t think that’s what you’re asking for.” Nyanda subtly decreases the strength of their silencing seals. Yoshino was born into a clan that is hyper aware of when they are being listened to, so she must notice.

Sure enough, her hand twitches towards some weapon hidden up a sleeve.

“I wonder what the Daimyo’s gardens are like this time of year. It's a shame we have more fish at this table than answers.” Nyanda keeps her grin firmly internal as a chubby cat slips into their booth, padding towards them to curl up under the table. Yoshino shifts so their visitor is hidden from the door, and Nyanda does the same with the window.

“You cannot be serious,” Yoshino hisses, re-activating the silencing seals. “A summon infiltrating through the Daimyo's wife? Are you trying to start a civil war?”

Right on time, the booth behind them shudders with a scream. “Tora!”

“He’s old enough to make his own decisions,” Nyanda says. 

Yoshino gives her a disbelieving look as the noble party falls into an uproar over their once again missing cat. Through the thin wall, the Daimyo’s wife sounds frantic.

“Let’s toast to friendship,” Nyanda says as she sets her little side dish of salmon on the tatami mat, hidden to the door’s sightline by Yoshino’s knee. “If I’m right, you can make something beautiful of this opportunity.”

Yoshino lifts her glass.

This group is so slow.

After sundown, Shisui sits around a campfire with Itachi, Sasuke, and Kisame, a full afternoon of travel from where they had a very stressful reunion. Embers dance ever higher to join their bright pinprick counterparts above drifting clouds. Shisui leans back, watching them rise past hundreds of local crows congregating in the branches above. 

Kisame ignores this to continue ruthlessly enjoying their attempts to figure out what is up with Konoha. All three Uchiha present have very different opinions on the strength of the village’s current forces. Shisui has no clue. Sasuke thinks he could take everyone in a fight and cannot verbalize this. Itachi does not want to fight a single person there, and also cannot verbalize this. It leaves Shisui suffering and Kisame entertained as the brothers try not to argue, or even talk with each other, while both convinced the other is painfully wrong.

“I am suffering,” Shisui says to the sky. “How can you believe Sarutobi is someone you can win against. Please explain it in small words. I am so tired.”

Across the fire, Kisame coughs to poorly hide a laugh.

“Aa.” Sasuke frowns from where he’s been brooding next to Shisui and snipping arguments at his brother. At this point, every interaction without KI is a massive win in Shisui’s books. “He’s old.”

“Are you seriously calling the guy who trained the Sannin and got taught by the Nidaime feeble?” Shisui asks, insulted. 

Kisame barks a laugh. “He’s got a point.”

Shisui kind of wishes he had a guy like Kisame by his side in ANBU. All he had was Genma, who has looked a raging chakra monster in the eye and asked it to go be someone else’s problem. At least with Kisame, his entertained nonchalance comes with a little common sense.

“No,” Itachi murmurs. At the collective odd looks, he adds, “Sarutobi is respectable as a shinobi.”

Sasuke glowers.

"There is no respectable leader who's that old," Kisame points out. "Not for shinobi. But Itachi’s right that you should be wary of the elders in a profession where everyone dies young."

Sasuke scoffs. “What harm can they do?”

Woah, that’s a bold statement.

“You know what?” Kisame lifts and drops a shoulder at this show of incredible overconfidence. "The fact that you dismiss older shinobi because they might be weak is not my problem."

Itachi hasn't moved a muscle to change expressions, but the brittle edge to his chakra gives away the riot of emotions happening underneath that placid mask. Kisame, likely noticing the same, shoos Itachi away to collect firewood. Red clouds on black vanish into the tree line, but his chakra is still close no matter how Itachi has shrunk his signature to the size of a rabbit. Shisui's sensei is a sensor. It'll take more than that to fool him.

"You should be careful about our elders," Shisui murmurs to Sasuke as he gets up. It's worth dropping a hand on Sasuke's shoulder as he passes his cousin on the way towards Itachi's lurking presence.

"The Hokage," Sasuke sneers, "is a senile old man who couldn't stand up to his own student."

Right, the fight against Orochimaru is apparently still slowly killing Sarutobi.

Shisui read about that fight in the Tower’s records. He even heard a mention of it from Itachi.

"Our Kage is one of several elders." Shisui drops his volume for all that he knows it's useless. Kisame is too close. "You're not a fool, littlest cousin. Who of the Nidaime's students died not long after their teacher? Who reported their deaths? What did their sensei train them for that he did not teach the others?"

Sasuke bristles.

Steel rasps against a whetstone in a polite reminder of Kisame's presence. With a nod to the swordsman, Shisui ducks his head.

"My grandfather was named Kagami," Shisui whispers into his cousin's ear. "And trained as the successor to the Nidaime. Who would consider our clan both a threat, and his legacy? Who would want me to die first? Do your own research."

With that, Shisui stands and slips into the trees. He’ll find his lost cousin before long.

Airi chirps directions, so Shisui starts with her word and adjusts when he locates a nearly entirely suppressed chakra signature.

Rather than keep watch, Shisui closes his aching eye and revels in feeling balanced.

Shisui tugs his hitai-ate up so the comforting weight of it can lie even like it used to. He makes his way slowly, cautiously, because training for blindness and functioning with only that training for days on end are very different things. He did, however, spend whole afternoons relying on his paltry sensing abilities instead of vision to orient himself. It rested his eyes after grueling missions, so Shisui is comfortable wandering through the forest near their camp with both his eyes shut tight.

Itachi and Sasuke both know about this habit, but it seems one of them is still worrying.

"I'm glad," Shisui says, tilting his face towards the trees. "That you came to meet us. And sorry for the trouble."

"It didn't feel right to travel alone," Itachi says as his chakra signature moves closer. He lands beside Shisui. Out of arm’s reach, barely.

"Luckily," Shisui says lightly, and continues walking towards the sound of moving water. If there's a stream nearby, he should probably find it to make the next morning’s disorientation a little easier. Taking a walk later to freshen up and splash water on his face might give him a chance to hide that weakness.

He used to trust Itachi with everything right down to his dying wishes. Part of him still does.

The other part of him can't trust anyone.

They walk together through the night.

"Was Danzo the main threat to Sasuke?" Shisui asks.

Itachi's voice is a little further away from Shisui's shoulder than he expected. "He was. There are still others who would want to use him. Bloodline thieves. Bounty hunters."

"The Sandaime," Shisui adds, and chuckles when Itachi's chakra ripples in shock. "I may have trusted him to keep internal war from breaking out in the village, but that's a fair distance away from being a leader every individual could trust. We're shinobi. We serve."

Itachi's shoulder brushes against his. 

Shisui doesn't know if he wants to lean away or into it, so he just smiles and turns his face towards his friend, eyes still shut tight. "What's your plan?"

"I was going to make Sasuke fight me," Itachi says. "But you came back. He isn't the last Uchiha anymore."

"He's lost the protection that came with that title," Shisui agrees. "And I've already broken some of that anger. Sorry. Again."

"Don't be," Itachi says softly. His calm does a very good job of hiding all the turmoil underneath. It's so very Itachi. Shisui is reminded of an island of floating ice he saw on a mission in the northernmost Mizu territory. The surface was miniscule in comparison to the gargantuan mass hidden underneath.

"They'll probably come after him," Shisui says quietly. "What will you do if he agrees to return?"

Itachi stays quiet.

His shivering chakra tells a different story, and the fact that he's stopped walking speakers louder, still.

"Hey," Shisui says. The words echo with a sunset memory of his last moments on that clifftop as he reaches out to rest a hand on Itachi's shoulder. "What's with that expression? Worry doesn't look good on you, Itachi."

The shoulder under his hand shifts, as if Itachi were struggling to hide a tell. "You can't even see me."

"I can tell," Shisui says, easily continuing their bizarre almost-reenactment. "Even like this."

A hand wraps around his wrist, and Itachi steps forward, resting his forehead on Shisui's shoulder. It's not an embrace. Not a hug. They're just occupying the same space, steadying themselves together.

"It's going to be fine," Shisui says, so quiet the words are only for the two of them in this big, wide world. "I promise."

Itachi's chakra is near-inexistant with how far it's suppressed. It's well-practiced. Necessary. The nukenin lifestyle is not kind to those unable to hide their presence.

Shisui is still able to feel his cousin break apart and knit himself together all at once.

He presses his fingertips into Itachi's shoulder as a reminder and turns back towards the camp.

They all need rest.

Nobody will win if time is squandered on Shisui.

This time, they walk together towards a warm meal and night of sleep. This time, they both survive to see the dawn.

This time.

Shisui sits in the camp with high-strung tension, and sighs. Step by step. They're moving. That's what he's good at, and all he needs to rise to face his fears.

It's still not exactly comfortable.

Sasuke can’t trust either of their new allies, and Shisui can’t trust anyone here not to snap and start a fight to the death for fun, revenge, or self-destruction. Hoshigaki seems like a pretty honest guy, but Shisui doesn’t really know the ex-Kiri-nin. That village is made of good liars. It’s a survival trait. 

The result of all this hair-trigger anxiety is that they end up taking two watch shifts with two people each. Sasuke and Hoshigaki take the first watch, and Itachi and Shisui take the second. All the real watching is done by gathered crows. 

It’s the most peaceful solution.

Chapter Text

Shisui watches the sky lighten incrementally from inside the little burrow he’s made from his bedroll. Ordinarily spending his watch in his nest of blankets would be the very worst tactical decision, but Miko-hime called enough crows to the nearby trees that they’ll get more than enough warning before any ambush can strike. Itachi has made the same decision. His raspy breathing his audible from across the clearing, and an answer to the question Shisui asked back when they were united in front of a burning statue.

Lungs or eyes.

Shisui sighs, and the shift alerts him to a puffball-warmth nestled between his sleeping bag and shirt. Raising the canvass to peek at his bed-invader reveals an unapologetic little ball of fluff. She cracks open one dark eye to peer distastefully at the cold pre-dawn light he lets fall on her.

"Sleep-more," Yui squeaks. She sounds approximately five days old and sleepy enough to pass out for twice that time.

"Little-Snow-chick," Shisui says fondly. "Wake-need."

“No,” Yui says. Her soft feathers fluff up even more, turning her into a perfect orb of soft downy fluff. "One-Eye-mind-sick-hurt-is. Sleep-need. Sleep-get."

“I need to be awake during my watch shift,” Shisui says. “That’s kind of the whole point.”

“A-i-u-e-oh no,” Yui grumbles. “No. Sleep.”

“No sleep?”

“No!”

“As adorable this is,” Kisame grumbles from where his wave-patterned camp roll across the clearing, “I’d appreciate it if you could quiet down for the next hour. Some of us need all the shuteye we can get.”

“Sorry,” Shisui says. “And goodnight.”

“‘Morning,” Kisame says dryly. “Please shut up.”

Shisui shifts to lie on his back, and stares up at the dove-grey sky caught between branches. He’s careful about moving regardless of if Yui is a battle-tested summons and more than capable of fending for herself. Sure enough, she ends up nestled right under his chin.

“Sleep,” she says quietly.

He does not. The meditative state he slips into might be good enough anyway.

Flexing his chakra, Shisui reaches out through a sensor technique to focus on the surrounding area. He sinks deep into the feeling of the world living, growing, decaying, and changing around him in a constant pattern of repeating cycles. Every action has a reaction, turning fate’s wheel alongside marching ants and the drip of water past mycelium networks.

Shisui anchors himself to the intent in the campsite, and sits in awareness of all the living things in this gloriously complicated clearing.

He loses track of time to the great ticking clock of an earthen heartbeat.

Peace sprouts from under fallen leaves. One companion wakes up, then the other, and curiosity dances in Shisui’s direction before the third already awake companion draws them to the fire. Contentment curls with steam and honey. Butterfly wings catch solar warmth. Woodpecker feathers rustle in defiance of gathered crows, and a squirrel claws catch on cedar bark. Steel and stone rasp in habitual reflection as maintenance honors a blade.

Shisui snaps out of meditation to a nervous flicker in Sasuke's chakra. He opens one eye a sliver and watches Itachi leave their clearing.

Perimeter as an excuse to breathe, probably. Between how often Itachi and Sasuke need a second of distance, their camp has been hilariously overprotected.

He sits up, cradling Yui as she stirs. It takes seconds at best to pack up his portion of the camp, and another two minutes to complete his morning routine. Sasuke and Kisame continue poking the fire into cooking breakfast, but both give him nods as he joins them.

Leather-wrapped kunai handles slip into Shisui’s hand, flickering between his fingers in a parlor trick.

This may be the last morning.

Contented peace like this makes for an auspicious start.

"How are you doing that?" Sasuke asks, breaking the silence. Shisui can't fight back his bitter smile.

Itachi passed on a whole lot of cruel memories that bloody night, but maybe Shisui can leave some good ones before this is over. He's already given a few, but a collection of warnings about how to weather the grief of losing one's vision aren’t the brightest memories to share. Shisui can do better.

"Do you remember how we share our legacies?" Shisui asks.

Sasuke hesitates. "I do, but… I couldn't receive them."

Memories of a specific habit passed from one person to another are an odd way to remember by outsider standards, but Shisui mourns this tradition with all the others. He is made of his father's laughter and the way his mother tapped her fingers when she concentrated.

The sharingan is rather necessary for sorting through that chain, yes. Unready minds would melt under the strain, so there are strict clan laws around how much information they can pass to anyone without at least one tomoe.

"Trust me?" he asks, and Sasuke takes a deep breath before meeting his eyes. Sharingan spin in tandem.

The memory Shisui gives is a collection.

His aunt performs the same sleight of hand. Her cousin performs it. His grandfather. His sister. Her father. His niece. Her friend. Their father. His mother. Her uncle.

The line goes all the way back twenty or so generations to a time that predates their clan's use of kunai. One spring day in a muddy training field with a pair of clansmen sparring not far away, Uchiha Chiharu struggled to use her small daggers despite the bandages over burn scars on her hands from learning to work a forge. Her sister Nakamaru suggested using them like her card tricks; the memory ends with a triumphant victory screeched to rain-heavy clouds.

Sasuke looks at Shisui like the world has fallen out from under his feet, and he has no idea what to do about it.

"Keep recording," Shisui says as he pulls out a set of three kunai, "and add this, alright?"

With the sharingan, Sasuke only needs to see the trick once to remember it. If he has a child, he can pass on at least one of the Uchiha's countless legacies. Their dead can survive through the living like this. Uchiha are meticulous. Love to them is about remembering. It is about holding each other when the world is ending and knowing every ancestor is beside them in the shift of their shoulders and the way they smile. It is reincarnation in the simplest way.

A bit of prompting has Sasuke repeating the blade trick back. This seems to be all their youngest clan member can handle - Sasuke retreats to run around the perimeter and maybe cry over old ghosts. Itachi returns in time to watch him go.

Sasuke has probably only had painful memories in that much clarity before now. Shisui’s don’t-let-your-eyes-get-stolen cheat sheet doesn’t count.

People live on in habits.

Their clan has always had a range of superstitions, all more or less worthy of abiding depending on the season, time of day, and who is being asked. Generally, this one has been respected by all, if only to let precious people linger without involving ghosts. Shisui is made of a thousand ancestors who were all beautifully, intensely human.

These people are all lost, all gone, but the place they were is echoed in the living. It works that way for people outside the clan, too. He sees it in how Iruka rubs the back of his neck when he's embarrassed like his Jonin sensei used to, and Hana makes camp meals with her aunt's recipes. Kurenai taps her sandals on her door lintel like Izumi. Last Shisui knew, little Naruto had Kushina's smile.

The Uchiha live on.

His week is so fleeting, but for now, at least they are immortal in his memory of them.

It's enough.

Across the clearing, Itachi's hand flicks down in Konoha standard sign. "Thank you."

"I didn't do that for you," Shisui says, ignoring the way Kisame is watching them like this is prime entertainment.

"I know." Itachi looks down at his hands. Shisui wonders what he sees. Blood? Rot? Guilt? "But I can be thankful for the sake of my beloved little brother."

"That isn't love he feels," Shisui says tightly. "That's fear. It's more the opposite of love than hate can ever be, and you've left him to be consumed by both. I will always care for you, Itachi. But I only have so long before this is over, and if I need to spend the whole time reminding you of who you are, then that's what I'm going to do."

"You will outlive me."

Shisui shrugs. "I'll be surprised if any of us make it past a month. Do us all a favor and let Sasu-kun have a chance at hope, yeah?"

Itachi inclines his head and goes to sulk by the fire in his elegant main-house way. That is such an Amaterasu Branch thing to do. Everyone else yells or burns something to get the feelings out, but Itachi and Sasuke unfortunately both seem the type to suppress and feed their misery until it consumes them. Sage help them all. It's genetic.

Kisame snorts. "You are all so unhinged. This is great."

"Nobody here is alright. Got a problem with that?" Shisui asks as sweetly as he can.

"Not on your life, kid." Hoshigaki laughs under his breath, shaking his head. "No, I'm here to watch you reach Konoha and maybe even take a crack at the tree-hugging legends while I'm at it. If War-Medic Tsunade is nearby, I won't turn that fight down. Might even search her out."

That is horrifying.

Maybe he doesn't know about the Village’s older defenses? That seems likely.

"Friendly reminder: Hashirama trees eat people who don't acclimate their chakra to the surrounding land," Shisui warns him. It's the polite thing to do, and from the way Hoshigaki grins, a little necessary. "Listen, you can do what you want, but it's a village hidden in trees for a reason. Our Shodaime planted them hungry. The blossoms are poisonous, the roots and bark are a mild sedative, and destroying them releases toxins. If you don't have a willing escort by someone who grew up around the Hashirama trees, you're as good as dead."

They also do something with directional genjutsu, but it's treason to mention that part. Shisui thinks the other villages at least suspect seals, but he's not sharing about those, either. Uzumaki Mito and Senju Tobirama put in some nasty side effects that Hoshigaki could activate by even searching for the ward line. Ignorance is the better part of valor here.

There is a reason even the friendliest merchants and envoys are escorted with so much caution.

"Sounds like a good time," Hoshigaki says, patting the bandage-wrapped scales at his side. The living sword rustles, reminding Shisui that this is a bit out of his paygrade.

"...Sure."

Shark teeth flash in response to Shisui's visible doubt. "I gave Itachi my loyalty long ago, Shunshin. That's no lie. If it’s a fight he needs from me, it’s a fight your village will get."

"I trust that," Shisui says. “I may not understand completely what you get out of this, but you’ve already shown that you’re honorable enough to see it through.”

Kisame startles slightly, then smiles. It’s a more determined one than the amusement and passing curiosity Kisame has given Shisui so far. A bit more honest, maybe, or it could be that he isn’t used to being seen as loyal as he is.

Shisui nods back and makes sure to scuff the ground as he approaches his cousin. Itachi seems unbothered by all of this, but it's hard to tell with him. 

“The village won’t get a fight,” Shisui says, projecting to both their companions. “Just Danzo. If we need crowd control, Sasuke may be our best bet, though.”

“I never wanted him to be involved in any of this,” Itachi says, staring right through the fire. Shisui squints at him. Shock is no longer working overtime to strip away Itachi’s practiced mask of calm apathy. He could cry his heart out without moving at all.

“He’s determined to be,” Kisame says. Shisui glances over and ends up watching the ex-Kiri-nin redo the wraps on his weapon. “Little siblings are like that.”

Out of respect for the history of Kiri’s school system, neither Itachi nor Shisui ask where this sibling is currently.

“Itachi,” Shisui says after a moment. “You have been doing all of this for your brother, but is there no way you can ever spend a single peaceful moment with him?”

“I have made my peace with never achieving that dream. So long as Sasuke grows strong enough to survive this bloody world, that is a price worth paying.” 

“All the strength in the world can’t buy back a brother,” Shisui says.

Itachi continues staring into the fire. 

It’s going to ruin Itachi’s at this rate, but trying to limit the weirdly poetic tragedy he practically oozes is a battle Shisui knows he’ll lose every time. Behind Itachi, Kisame shrugs in a show of solidarity. Shisui rolls his eyes in commiseration.

Itachi is too good a shinobi to miss this, but he’s also very good at ignoring Shisui’s chaos.

Too good, really.

Nobody’s ever taught this shinobi that he is allowed to be human.

“A favor,” Shisui says, when it becomes clear Itachi intends to burn his retinas at their little campfire.

At this, Itachi blinks and turns towards him. “I owe you more than that.”

“I’m asking you to think about what could have been if you had been honest with Sasuke from the start. Consider what your brotherhood would become if you shared what happened, and wipe away the lies. Do you think it would be better?” Shisui shakes his head when Itachi opens his mouth. “I don’t want you to tell me what you think. Not now, and not after you’ve sat with the answer for a bit. But for the last favor I’m asking of you, I’d like for you to consider the value Sasuke has always placed on his relationship with you, and how you are willing to acknowledge that love.”

Itachi tilts his head marginally.

Good.

“You know what? I can’t tell,” Kisame says slowly, “if hearing that makes me think you’re more or less likely to make Itachi turn on the Akatsuki.”

Shisui sticks out his tongue at the ex-Kiri-nin.

From the laugh he gets in response, Kisame isn’t about to stab any of them in the back. It’s all Shisui can really ask of a temporary ally.

“Maybe emotional fulfillment looks like being pen pals,” Shisui offers as they pack up the camp. Sasuke enters back into hearing range as he adds, “you can always make up for lost time with a glitter bomb in the mail. I did that with Ibiki, and it went perfectly!”

“Coffin-Maker Ibiki?” Kisame asks as Shisui checks that Sasuke took all his possessions with him on that little perimeter walk. “You got the Head of Konoha’s Torture Ops with a glitter bomb?”

“He’s not my boss,” Shisui sniffs. He tucks away his storage scroll and waves to the roosting crows. Today can be a good day if he tries. Shisui is more than willing to put in the effort. Yui’s scolding reminder to take care of his health melds with Shisui’s laughter. 

De-summoning smoke leaves their group alone but for the hundreds of watching local corvids.

“Not helping your point,” Kisame grumbles. The last traces of their camp disappear as water wells up underfoot, obscuring footprints and mimicking indicators of an underground spring. “Itachi?”

“He put Shisui on desk duty for a month,” Itachi says as he buries the firepit with a flex of chakra. “And Ibiki is not the head of T&I.”

Shisui blows a raspberry at Itachi as Sasuke steps back into the clearing. “Snitches get stitches, Tachi-chan. Now! Tag, you’re it!”

Sasuke’s eyes get huge in the half-second before Shisui scoops him up and bolts for Konoha.

Tag distracts them for three minutes at most.

Shisui made a valiant effort. Unfortunately, he’s the only one actually willing to play, so the game fizzles out before it can really start.

Unfortunately.

Traveling is still painfully slow, but it has become downright agonizing now that Itachi has descended into complete melancholy. He seems to be attempting ascension into godhood as a lower deity of tragic regret. Kisame seems fully inoculated through exposure. Shisui is as well. Sasuke, however, is treated to the full force of his brother’s morose silence.

Running together is now both slow, and awkward. 

Shisui has made his peace in not forgiving Itachi. He's doing his best to move along, but it is very difficult to do that when his best friend is putting out the most mournful vibes on earth. Seriously. The energy in their little party of village-wreckers is positively noxious.

Sasuke seems to struggle between staying between Shisui and Itachi as if the latter might snap at any moment and lunge, and alternatively lagging or speeding up to get as much distance from his brother as possible. Shisui accommodates it as best he can. Meanwhile, Itachi looks like a soggy rag to the face could take him out once anyone looks past the mask of calm. 

Kasame is blessedly easy to understand in comparison. He's laughing at them all.

Shisui can get behind that.

He makes it a point to poke Kisame into a debate on the worst shinobi fashion trends, which is the best decision possible. Kiri is wild. Shisui takes his time complaining about Iwa's eerie theater costumes and gets treated to a very fun story about Kisame's mystery sibling busking through Taki's black market.

They reach early afternoon at the most agonizingly slow pace before things pick up.

A little adrenaline is good.

Healthy.

At least, until that adrenaline looks like ten Root agents bursting out of the pine trees to ambush a collectively S-Class band of unstable shinobi.

Shisui flickers into combat, engaging the one designated as a leader by how the rest came from positions that would keep them in line of sight. It’s a pain to figure out, but nobody else here knows the kind of habits Root allows to develop. He’s fought alongside one of the trackers in the back.

There is no easy thing about fighting former comrades with deadly intent, but either the Root Squad survives, or they do. More unwilling children will be taken and recruited like he was if Shisui stumbles in lethal combat.

So, he will fight and win.

Even if it makes him sick to his stomach on old memories.

Shisui slides under a tanto strike. Flame pours from his mouth, a distraction that he flickers through as a tanto slides through his afterimage. He swipes his own tanto through the water bullet his opponent summons. The squad leader abandons ninjutsu to slam Inuzuka-sharp claws into Shisui’s chest. He flickers back fast enough to earn only shallow gashes. Shunshin lands him behind his opponent, tanto raised.

The Root squad leader has a swift death.

It's still not a good one. 

Shisui turns and engages another opponent, boxing them back into Kisame’s massive blood circle. 

The squad has one combat specialist. Itachi has forced them away from the group, which makes the rest a bloodbath once Kisame and Shisui work together.

Konoha teamwork pulls Sasuke to Shisui’s side, easily baiting another into range.

“Follow-observe-threat-north,” Satou calls from high above, and Shisui meets his littlest cousin’s eyes. Red flashes, the message of a distant observing enemy is passed on, and Sasuke’s lip curls. He’s adjusted fast to using the dojutsu like this, but… he’s an Uchiha. Adaptation is easy.

Sasuke takes over.

Shisui darts through the pine forest, urged on by his crows. They lead him to a massive tree, whose roots curl around an abandoned badger den some clever shinobi has turned into a hideout. It would be indistinguishable, but Shisui’s eyes are apparently no longer a common threat shinobi train to hide from. Wire catches sunlight.

“Sorry,” Shisui breathes in the time it takes him to go from visual confirmation to mission completion. 

He runs through the first hand signs for Hound-taichou’s Headhunter. Shisui then slams past a pithy genjutsu barrier towards the entrance covered in ninja wire and seals. Shunshin bypasses the tangled series of tripwires with pure speed. He yanks the Root agent an arms-length forward out of her hideout just before he flickers further into the badger den. 

Headhunter’s last sign triggers with the tripwire.

Momentum blurs Shisui’s already-high speed into lightning-fast. He sinks into packed dirt as the Root agent’s traps trigger around their owner.

Shisui pops out of a patch of wildflowers on the other side of the pine tree, shooting up into bristling branches and rebounding off the trunk. He flips over another pine’s branch and races back, retracing steps to the clearing. The traps continue going off behind him. That agent’s chakra signature vanished a second after they started tightening.

Shisui flips around, flicking through signs for an element he has no skill at. It’s still a jutsu he had to learn long ago.

Earth Burial swallows the den up.

Shisui reappears in the clearing with his dream team of messed up shinobi.

Shisui reappears in time to hurtle tanto-first into a Root Agent behind Sasuke. He miscalculates their speed enough that they both nearly smack into Kisame, who ducks. Samehada bristles.

Kisame glances over when Shisui tucks into a roll and hops back up. Itachi strikes down Shisui’s would-be opponent.

“You,” Hoshigaki tells him, “might end up being my favorite tree hugger.”

Shisui turns a beaming smile on Itachi, who is ignoring them, and Sasuke, who is finishing with the very last Root shinobi.

“Hear that?” he asks. “I’m finally somebody’s favorite!”

Sasuke gives him a look deeper than most oceans, and Shisui abruptly remembers that he is currently the only person in the running for this “Sasuke’s favorite living relative” competition.

It’s kind of depressing. This is the worst way to get a participation award.

Shisui gingerly reaches out to mime patting Kisame on the shoulder. Alliances shouldn’t be tested carelessly. “You would be my favorite Mist Survivor, but I don’t want Ao to find out and cry himself to sleep at night. We’re practically married, you know. I’m going to put a snake in his house once we’re done here.”

“You are spectacularly fucked up,” Hoshigaki tells him kindly.

Shisui looks around them at the results of a battle their group jumped into without any hesitation.

They are all ‘spectacularly fucked up.’

Inoichi stares at the papers in front of him and desperately wishes he could trade places with the Kurama head. She is currently lying spread-eagle on the ground, having rolled straight out of her council seat to be visibly miserable.

Inoichi makes the healthy choice to acknowledge what he's feeling: absurdly jealous.

Also a little regret, which is interesting. He traces that back to its source and finds that old guilt over his older sister's death in the war, which is better to pick through when he's not attending the Clan Council's investigation of their esteemed elder.

And what an investigation this is turning out to be, since for some reason the Izuno head has consistently woken up and chosen violence. She's joined by Tsume and the rest of the Wild Clan alliance, as it seems their kids have been scooped up the most. Inoichi would believe it's because their compounds lie closer to the dangers of more remote training grounds, and all those accompanying ways children can wander to unseen deaths. If he were anyone else, he could try to believe that is why. Unfortunately, he tracks the psychological weaknesses of his peers as a hobby. Danzo subconsciously dehumanizes the Wild Clans enough to put them on the front line out of sheer habit. Among shinobi, frontliners and assassins die fastest. Spent resources need replacement. 

Inoichi loathes what this investigation has begun to uncover with every fiber of his being.

It also isn't going very well.

They may have a pattern of missing kids, and records of what Root used to do, but current operations are frustratingly out of reach. 

Shikaku at least got Bear to put the same ANBU squad on guard again, which is fun up until they consider that it's really suspicious from Danzo's point of view. 

To ease this, Inoichi took it upon himself to mention a need for excuses to Shibi, who is delightfully aware of court politics due to the many, many insect spies they keep in the capital. 

Shibi nodded and said nothing. 

A long-winded request for Konoha's most powerful clan to send a representative in for some frivolous showboating appeared on Hiruzen’s desk like clockwork. It did not specify which clan was the most powerful. Since Danzo excuses himself from squabbling and Kakashi is the obvious scapegoat for dragging this out, the Clan Council has an excuse for at least a few weeks of debate. Izuno has started to drop hints to the elder that she wants him to go, which has made Danzo all but allergic to the topic of their country’s capital in polite conversation.

The gathered council has already agreed to send an Aburame, as it's only fair. Shibi hates it a little. It's kind of amusing that nobody has noticed. Inoichi has plans to generously offer an Ino-Shika-Cho escort for the mission as moral support.

For fun. 

It's totally not to get an infiltration specialist Yamanaka into the capital, specifically so they can conversationally charm the Daimyo's wife at the inevitable tea ceremony an Akimichi's presence would demand. Approval from Choza looks like an invitation to a tea of his own and a conversation about what clanswoman made the sweets, which selected the team. Shikaku did not give any sign that he's noticed, which means he either isn’t aware or has to pretend ignorance. 

Shikaku also does not have any say in any strategy his wife chooses to enact. 

Therefore, when Yoshino elbowed her way into Inoichi’s flower shop late last night to give him a frighteningly detailed account of the capital, that was all the work of the Nara matriarch. It was nerve-wracking. Inoichi does not know how a retired kunoichi who has been restricted to Mother's Groups and gossip had a map of the castle in her head. He also does not know how she predicted his plans. Truthfully, Inoichi does not want to know. Yoshino was born to the Raku, Ame's extinct performance-infiltration clan. 

Deep waters lie there.

Deep waters lie everywhere these days.

Inoichi hates how he is benefiting in some small way from the ripple effect started by his student's suffering. The politics sit, as acidic, on his tongue. Every night, he goes home and is forced to look at himself in the mirror. He knows his peers are feeling similarly from the way Hyuuga has grown colder every day, and Yuhi has started spacing out in a manner that would be disgraceful for a shinobi if they weren't a sensor.

Danzo's bloody hands have begun to further stain them all with each useless day. Inoichi hates the politics of it.

This doesn't mean he can ignore them.

Rather than stop for a full night's sleep, they agree to do half-watches and move out before dawn. Shisui is incapable of falling asleep, but taking on all of Root after a night of travel is equally poor decision making. They are going up against an army and need to be in top form.

So, they will take watches.

Shisui takes the first watch with Itachi. Crows roost overhead. It's comfortable in the way threats directed on his part will always be. 

I am cared for, he thinks as Miko-hime takes up most of a tree with genjutsu practically dripping from her feathers. Shisui wishes his safety didn't have to arrive at Itachi's expense.

He is also viciously happy about it.

Tomorrow, they take on Konoha. Tomorrow, Shisui rolls weighted dice against his ever-fraying chances of survival. He promised Sasuke he would try, but it is a small chance with little forgiveness for his usual tricks. Shinobi are trained to be honest about their chances.

He has made his peace.

“I’m sorry,” Itachi says from across the campfire. Calm pulls a better mask over his face than any ANBU paint. Shisui can’t tell if this is related to the question he asked Itachi over a morning campfire’s smoke, so he has to ask.

“For what?”

“You deserved better.” Than this, goes unsaid. Than me.

“So does everyone else,” Shisui tells him. He doesn’t mean it cruelly or kindly. Just honestly. “And so did you.”

Itachi doesn’t say anything else for the rest of their shift.

Chapter Text

The too-short rest ends long before sunrise.

Pre-mission focus familiar to all shinobi ensures their camp is packed up quickly, efficiently, and thoroughly.

Then they run, discussing plans on the way.

The goal is clear enough: make a big enough mess that the village will notice Danzo’s evil pit of gloom. They are collectively nightmares in battle, so this should be a reasonable task. Shisui presides over a short discussion that results in agreement on ‘divide-and-conquer’ as a strategy. They will all split up and try to meet at Root’s center.

They’re all decent at performing solo, but someone needs to stick with Kisame or else he’ll get trapped in Konoha’s more traditional defenses. There is a reason escorts are provided to all visitors that stretches beyond shinobi paranoia. Honestly, security is really an excuse to avoid losing face in the most literal sense. Hashirama trees eat people. 

That, and their nice-guy village reputation would also take a hit if any rumors started up.

Luckily, Shisui has confirmed through the shinigami’s choice to dump him on the shore of a highly traumatizing site that he’s not considered a nukenin by the village. This is convenient in a kind of morbid way. The people inside Konoha can feel however they want about his frantic scramble to assassinate a political figure - really, Shisui just needs approval from the trees for this.

He also gets along with Kisame like a house on fire. They’re mutually happy to be stuck together for the duration of this attack.

Itachi will enter the Root base from one of the west entrances. Sasuke will take east. Kisame and Shisui will take south. Between the two of them, they should clear it fastest and reach Danzo's office before either murder-brother finds the other and tries to commit fratricide.

Four questionably sane people against the entire snake-nest of Root are laughable odds.

On the other hand, they don’t necessarily need to win.

They just need to make a big enough mess so that Danzo’s unregistered mission and recruitment history gets exposed to the Civilian and Shinobi councils. His own past will doom him after that. 

From what Shisui knows, Danzo has threats designed to neutralize the Nara, Kurama, Hyuuga, and the ANBU Commander. Every single one of these people want their local Warhawk dead. If they are led to an investigation, Shisui can count on the Nara and Hyuuga to encourage it, for vastly different reasons. Same for the ANBU Commander, though any revenge motivating her was likely born ages ago in an orphanage between her bunk and the ones of kids who went missing. Personal feuds like that only end in a morgue. They are lost to memory within one generation, not that Danzo's reputation could survive at all. No. No, the councilman is done for. The Kurama will burn everything and dance in his ashes as they are wont to do.

“We need a name,” Shisui says as they run through the trees. “I’m thinking of Operation: Homewrecker.”

“Absolutely not,” Sasuke says while Kisame grins like a shark.

“Tell me it’s inaccurate, I dare you.” Shisui waves off the varied reactions with a gesture he copied off a Suna puppeteer. All their mannerisms are fantastic. Shisui thinks it's because they're surrounded by sand, which is basically straight-people glitter, so they need to compensate for the lack of rainbow with dramatics. 

Itachi sighs deeply.

"The Dream Team Of Fucked-Up Shinobi," Shisui offers, because he is benevolent and willing to compromise.

"That could be any squad," Kisame points out reasonably. "What about, Konoha's Worst Nightmare?"

"No, that's just Danzo getting the hat," Shisui says. "Several Birds And A Shark? Abbreviated to, uh-"

Itachi is no help when Shisui tries to drag him into this with a look.

"SBAAS," Shisui says with his whole heart and soul so the confidence can really sell it. "Sounds like 'spas,' which is exactly the kind of day we'll need after this."

"No," Itachi says.

"Hn," Sasuke says in malicious approval immediately after.

"You are all so weird," Kisame says delightedly. "It's like traveling with a lit paper tag."

Itachi delicately pinches the bridge of his nose as Shisui hazards a, "thank you?"

Sasuke flickers ahead, ambivalent. In the interest of keeping this team together, Shisui applies a tiny burst of his usual pace to shoot past his littlest cousin.

From the slightly relieved look Sasuke gives, he's happy for the company but reluctant to communicate it.

They carry on in easy silence.

Because life cannot be easy, things get emotionally charged again at dawn.

During one of the little breaks they’re taking to stay fresh, Itachi turns to Sasuke with the kind of poise Mikoto carried into clan meetings that often turned sour. Shisui recognizes this storm warning for what it is and catches Kisame’s eye.

Kisame raises an eyebrow.

Impatient, Shisui ticks his chin towards the trees behind Itachi and flicks a hand in Sasuke’s direction. For all that Sasuke frowns at him, the intended recipient looks completely in the dark and amused about it. Kisame sets a hand on his hip to watch Shisui try to communicate without letting the two other incredibly observant shinobi notice.

At this point, they’re all just standing around in the clearing, staring at each other.

“Unbelievable,” Shisui mutters. He marches across the clearing to stand next to Kisame, and points at Itachi. “You. If I see Tsukuyomi I’m telling Miko-hime. And you-”

Sasuke crosses his arms at Shisui.

“-The crows will disown Itachi if he hurts you, and I’ll be upset enough about it to fight him, too. You are cared for and safe right now.” Shisui steps closer, hooking a hand around Sasuke’s shoulder to anchor his attention. “Do you understand?”

Sasuke’s eyes flick to Itachi, then Kisame.

They settle on Shisui.

“Aa,” Sasuke says. It’s the best answer he’s going to get, so Shisui backs off.

“I will be watching and listening,” he says, just to be polite. Shisui then wanders far enough away to make his intent clear, and glances back.

Kisame surprises him by being directly next to him.

“Aren’t you a sensor?” Kisame asks as Shisui swears violently.

“Aren’t you a chakra powerhouse?” Shisui snips back as they continue wandering further. Behind them, crows roost in the trees.

It is not the time or the place for emotional conversations that may throw off their teamwork, but Itachi and Sasuke are Uchiha under the Main branch stuffiness. Communication is always good. If they are lucky, any resulting bond will make the brothers fight twice as hard.

Shisui weathers well-intended grumbling with a smile plastered over his face, and finds a tree that will allow them to climb decently high. Kisame looks at him like he’s some kind of monster for suggesting it, and sits by the roots.

Okay?

Shisui darts up the tree to roost amid shaded branches and lip-read whatever they’re talking about. He must have missed a fair amount from the context. Hopefully it wasn’t anything he would have needed to interfere in.

“I thought that maybe, if I could go back, it could have been better.” Itachi smiles. It’s a small, honest one that is a far cry from the manipulation he had planned. “I would be truthful with you from the start. It may not have protected you from Danzo, or kept you from pursuing him yourself, but it would have protected you from me.”

Sasuke’s wide eyes stay caught on Itachi as reaches out to poke his little brother's forehead.

Shisui can’t tell what memories are passed between their dojutsu. In all honesty, he really does not want to know.

Itachi ends the memory.

Dark eyes meet.

“I will always love you,” Itachi swears to his stunned little brother, like it is an oath he can force to outlive the stars above. 

Shisui looks away, instead focusing on the feel of their chakra signatures. He said he would moderate, and he will, but Shisui also doesn’t want to know what face Sasuke makes when his heart shatters the tiniest bit more.

The rest of the run is uncomfortable in a new way. Shisui can’t help but feel relieved, though. Sasuke’s KI has not spiked a single time since that conversation. He also is not moving through the world with the habits of his ancestors echoing in his wake, so Itachi did not gift anything like a box during their little talk.

Not that this is his business.

Except that it is.

On the bright side, they make it to Konoha with minimal interference. Shisui flits through the trees, darting past Sasuke and trading stories with Kisame. Sasuke sticks close when speeds allow.

They get quieter when they approach Konoha, and swap to full stealth entirely through the outer line of barriers.

Shisui startles at a flash of color in the distance. He slows, then stops on a branch not far from the village, squinting through tall Hashirama trees.

Was that…?

Sasuke lands beside him, hand on the hilt of his sword. "We can approach from behind-"

"This isn't an enemy," Shisui interrupts as Itachi lands on his other side and a bit further up the tree. Sasuke tenses with his brother's proximity, then stiffens further still as Kisame brings up the rear. Shark teeth flash in silent laughter as all three Uchiha track distant movement like a pack of baby, red-eyed owls. Their tomoe are likely syncing.

In the distance, Mame-kit rests in the arms of a familiar kunoichi.

"Itachi and Kisame keep watch," Shisui says, studying the Izuno matriarch. She's dressed for war, but her wakizashi is peace-bound and she's lazily devoting her attention to cuddling a old summon expressly forbidden from seeing combat ever again. "She's not here to fight."

"Could be," Kisame says, scratching his neck casually for all that it puts a hand closer to Samehada's hilt. "That's the Bakeneko, isn't it?"

The what?

"It is. Izuno-sama has kept her reputation inside and out of the village at extreme opposites." Itachi tucks both hands into his sleeves. "I suspect she's too good at playing the fool."

Oh, so she got a bingo book name while Shisui was out. That tracks.

"Then let's see if she'll try to keep us out, or let us in," Shisui says, and ignores the disbelief from all parties. Really. It's like they've never profiled an opponent before. Cats make terrible guard dogs, unless they really care about whatever thieving hands are after.

Crucially, these thieving hands are family.

Kisame and Itachi vanish into tree cover. The spider silk thin genjutsu that slips over them is modeled after one of Shisui's own, which may be why he leaves it be beyond a light pulse of chakra. Beside him, Sasuke throws it off in much the same way.

Shisui gives Sasuke a grin before jumping down, his littlest cousin following a half-second later.

They land on sunlit grass a couple dozen meters away, and begin picking through potential traps towards the matriarch. She meets them midway, attention fixed north, then slightly south, in a wandering path that suggests she's arrived in front of them by compete accident.

Mame-kit's purr rumbles between the three of them.

"I'm glad to see you're still alive," Izuno says once they meet. Her attention slips to Sasuke for a weighted second that extends the sentiment to him as well. "Though I am surprised so see you back so soon."

"I want to come home," Shisui says. The phrase brings up memories of sun-salt cliffs viewed through his grandfather's eyes. Shisui pushes it back to focus on the forest and it's bright growing life instead. "Are you here to stop us?"

"No."

Sasuke's chakra does an odd hiccup out of surprise. In the tree line, Itachi's has descended into a curious mix of self-loathing and gratitude. It's a reminder of how utterly unsocialized this group is.

Mame-kit's paw presses against the matriarch's chin, stealing her attention for the sake of forehead scratches.

"Our alliance predates this village," Izuno continues. "I won't toss that aside so easily, especially not for a kin-killing traitor who's stolen Izuno children from their beds."

"In that case, are you here to join us?" Shisui asks, curious despite the answer Sasuke's disbelief hints at. She can't. She has people to protect, and yet Shisui wonders how close she is to risking it all. Izuno meets his eyes fearlessly.

Very close, then.

She shakes her head, regretful.

"A good person would ask you to come out of this alive." Nyanda tips her head to the side, eyes at half-mast. "But that's not my request. Our clans have loved each other too much for me to ask you to lie today."

"Thank you," Shisui whispers. It's a task he hadn't realized he'd been bracing for, now lifted from his shoulders.

"Instead-" Nyanda scans their little group of supremely messed up Shinobi, tree lurkers included, before returning to rest a heavy gaze on Shisui. "You should know, Danzo is about to fall out of favor in the capital."

Gods, but Shisui loves the conniving little grumps this clan is made of. It's probably what bonded their ancestors so closely: a need for drama coupled with a deep appreciation for revenge. It's practically inherited. Knowing how her clan refuses to take responsibility for anything, Nyanda pulled the strings of whoever arranged that incoming mess from the shadows.

"You didn't have anything to do with that, did you?" Kisame asks from his perch, highly amused. Izuno treats him to a slow blink before looking away. The startlingly easy offer of friendship falls on deaf ears - Kisame doesn't seem familiar with the Izuno body language.

Sasuke doesn't fidget so much as shift uncomfortably.

"Make him pay for it," she tells Shisui. "I assume you have your own way in?"

"I might."

"Be careful." Nyanda hums half a line of some song only she knows. It softens the gesture of reaching out to tap knuckles against his unarmored chest in reminder. He's being reckless. Shisui steps closer to scratch Mame-kit's cheek, as he's not completely mannerless.

"You came to the compound," Sasuke says abruptly.

"I did." Izuno slips a tiny scroll up Shisui's sleeve as Mame-kit attempts to bury his face in his palm. "Not that Danzo was happy about it, but that's really his problem to deal with. Dumbass. He considers my kinsmen idiots at best, so I got closer than the others."

Sasuke grimaces. "Everybody else was after marriage."

Shisui doubts it was so simple. Konoha's civilians would honor the social contract to look after a brutally orphaned member of the noble founding clan. Somebody absolutely chose themself as a sacrifice and tried to step up at least as a housekeeper before a powerful political force cut them down. Shinobi are both easier and more complicated. Marriage alliances are nigh-impossible for even the daimyo to break, for all that they're a bit out of fashion between Konoha's clans since inevitably there are already marriages between members, but that changed when a founding clan's population dropped to one. 

Or, two. Itachi's exile paperwork wasn't filed when Shisui broke into the tower. Sasuke probably didn’t know it even needed to be stamped.

"Less than you'd think," is all Izuno says. "Make them pay for that, Sasuke-bou, but no more and no less. Or don't. Do whatever with your rage; I claim none of it."

From the look on Sasuke's face, he has plans.

"Thank you, for everything. I know this hasn't been easy on the Izuno," Shisui sighs, running a hand through his hair and using the motion to hide pocketing Nyanda's scroll. It feels chakra-imbued.

Kisame, interestingly, tips Shisui a wink the second he stows it. There is so much going on with this guy. Shisui kind of loves it. They would have gotten on like a house on fire if there were more time to build comradery.

"We can weather the storm," Izuno says. It's about as obtuse as Shisui should have expected. "What can I do that is of help?"

Trust, confirmation? Sasuke signs just out of sight of Izuno. "We don't need your help-"

Shisui blatantly shoves his elbow into Sasuke's ribs, too fast to dodge completely. "Thank you. Again. I guess our debt keeps adding up."

"I'm not doing this for you alone," Izuno murmurs. "You weren't the only one to lose family that night, Sasuke. Remember that."

Shisui winces at the rapid-fire flavors of agony Sasuke's chakra twists through. Most go too fast to recognize, but outrage and grief are distinct.

"Aa," Sasuke grinds out as Shisui flicks through signs behind his back.

Sasuke would have inherited a lot of life debts that night. Given the way his issue with the village feels almost privileged in its bullheaded blindness, Shisui is willing to bet that Sasuke has burned through most of those favors without ever realizing it.

Shisui glances back to the tree line, eventually catching a hint of red. Sharingan meet. Kisame's signed agreement and suggestion are transferred from Itachi's eyes, then passed to Sasuke when Shisui glances at him with red-flickering eyes.

Sasuke grimaces but dips his chin in the barest of nods.

"There is one thing," Shisui says. Mame-kit's purring crescendos as Izuno adjusts the old cat.

She listens with all attention fixed back on her charge. Shisui takes it in stride. Beside him, Sasuke simmers with an unsure cocktail of rapidly changing emotions. Explanation completed, Shisui waits for the matriarch's verdict.

"I can wait with your shark for a minute, no more." Izuno lifts Mame-kit to press her cheek to his on an affectionate gesture. "I cannot lead the clans to help, only follow and wait for the hunt."

Right.

Okay.

It's not in her nature to take the responsibility a leader of the clan council would require. Shisui can't ask for that, just as she can't ask him to survive this - failure to protect each other would break them.

Kisame drops from his tree. Izuno looks to Itachi, the only shinobi still in hiding. She's guessed his location wrong by a meter or so to the left. 

"Cheers," Shisui signs, and flickers directly next to Itachi. He scoops his genocidal cousin up and runs.

Shisui lands just above a stone archway, inside the perimeter of seal work. The genjutsu provided by their contract ensures anyone who notices will perceive two average crows.

Nothing else.

The Root agent on guard duty still attacks, which is so rude that Shisui lets Itachi make the distraction. Their blank-masked friend is lead on a merry chase through the forest, pursuing an illusionary bird who always seems to just barely escape reaching blades. Even if the operative realizes they're in a genjutsu, breaking out of it is another task entirely.

"Junka said you didn't feel safe around me when you first came back," Itachi says as they watch the agent dance after empty air. Shisui takes a moment to silently curse out his exhausted state back then. He shouldn't have told the summon. It's been a week, and she has a talent for spreading gossip at the worst possible time. "I wanted to ask, has that changed?"

Shisui looks at his cousin, focusing on the bridge of his nose rather than red-spinning eyes. “...Uh.”

"I see," Itachi says. Under the emotional mask of placid calm, he sounds unbearably sad.

"Don't take it personally," Shisui says. "I don't trust anyone."

Not anymore.

Itachi nods, and flickers on ahead without a word.

Shisui sighs, watching him go.

He takes a moment to crack open the thin scroll Izuno gifted him, eyebrows rising at the compact storage seal that recognizes his chakra. This is quality Uzumaki work. Most clans wouldn't gift it to outsiders.

Shisui carefully unseals a small bell charm, and a scrap of paper with two hastily scrawled sentences. 

The bell has no clapper. These charms are used by the Izuno to find their children in the village, and clan members in battle. To their ears, the bell still rings. More importantly, it was implemented after a child of that clan went missing suspiciously. No Izuno has shared their clan's security methods with Shisui, but he can still guess what this bell was designed to warn against.

The note is burned once he reads it. Any confirmation that the Izuno know what Danzo did with Shisui's eye is too dangerous for any less.

He ties the charm next to his tanto, and slips back into the shadows.

Trees fly past in a green-brown blur, wind rips past his face.

Shisui slows, then ducks into a roll when his landing is still a bit too fast. Izuno’s eyes flick to the charm when he flips back onto his feet. 

The nod she gives him feels like burdening responsibility she does not want to hand over. Shisui inclines his head as well. He was made to burn. Their vassal clans know this well enough.

“That’s one trip complete,” Shisui says cheerfully to the three deeply uncomfortable shinobi. Not a single person in that trio wants to be alone with the others. Shisui tramples over the simmering tension and holds his hand out to Sasuke. “Next?”

Sasuke gives him a displeased look. “Why offer if you’re just going to pick me up?”

“Because my mother raised me right,” Shisui says automatically. “Obviously-”

“Aren’t you an orphan?”

Sage, fuck.

Right in the childhood trauma.

Kisame glances at Sasuke for a second, then stares at Shisui’s painfully fixed smile. He and Izuno seem to be experiencing another moment of solidarity. She looks like a kid stuck watching two teachers argue while standing over her Academy desk. Kisame grimaces. Sasuke, bless him, seems completely unaware of their audience's reactions.

The painful silence stretches until Kisame punctuates it by whistling lowly.

“I’m not technically an orphan,” Shisui wheezes. “Wow. Alright, let’s move on. Ready?”

Sasuke looks at him a little strangely, but steps forward.

Shisui scoops him up and bolts from that horrible location.

"She visited," Sasuke says when Shisui drops him outside a Root entrance. 

Shisui squints his eyes and presses his mouth into the most confused line he can. "Who are we talking about?"

"Izuno-san."

Oh.

"When I woke up, the cats in the compound were well fed." Shisui tips his head back to look at the leaves above. 

He is one of many.

Uchiha don't die easily.

"They always were."

"You're never alone," Shisui tells his littlest cousin. 

Sasuke catches his eyes, and Shisui folds up a neat package of memories. He passes his inheritance to Sasuke as a small mental sea chest crafted by his ancestors, to be opened when Sasuke has more time.

His grandfather's memory will survive if Sasuke does.

Sasuke's eyes widen the second he realizes this isn't a gift to be opened on receiving.

"That's the real Uchiha legacy, Sasu-kun." Shisui rubs his knuckles into Sasuke's hair, chuckling when his littlest cousin scowls. "We carry our comrades with us. Sometimes it's hard to get a little peace and quiet, but they're not ghosts. Not so long as our memories keep them alive."

Sasuke exhales harshly.

Shisui imagines Izuno was not the only one to attempt to reach out after that Massacre, when a child lived alone with his ghosts. Even Root would be aware. Their reasoning for interference with Izuno efforts would be in line with pushed boundaries and the question of if old laws were still protected at all. Isolating Sasuke would have been more of a byproduct.

Maybe.

Shisui isn't fully able to predict Danzo, which is bad for strategy but good for his mental health. The fact that he can't emphasize with the Warhawk is reassuring. They're too different.

Sasuke brushes a hand over his eyes angrily. This much acknowledgement of tears is a massive improvement in comparison to how Shisui found him, which justifies dragging his littlest cousin into an affectionate headlock. Sasuke figures out how to escape it before Shisui can ruffle that duck-butt hair too much.

“See you on the other side,” Shisui says gently. It takes quite a bit of effort to stop himself from embodying his crows through anxious fluttering. “Remember, your goal is to distract. If you feel like you may get swarmed, cutting and running past the village will work just as well. Keep moving.”

“I will.” Sasuke opens his mouth, then closes it in a show of frustration. Shisui sits back on his heels to wait. Itachi is quiet. He’ll go as far in as he can and set up wide-scale genjutsu traps for as long as possible before discovery, which is also why Shisui dropped him off first. Sasuke is anything but subtle, but Kisame is worse. Their order allows for a little chatting.

“You promised me,” Sasuke says finally.

Ah. This is something Shisui should have seen coming. They have done a lot in the past few days, but it’s still been such a short period of time. Sasuke isn’t used to standing beside a survivor of that bloody time in history.

“I did. I’ve made a lot of promises recently.” Shisui’s lips turn up, fond and sad as he records this moment for time immortal. “I promised Itachi I would find you, and I did. I promised a medic that I will return to Konoha, and I have. Airi and I both try our hardest at finding a tomorrow. None of these have been broken.”

“You promised that you’d try.”

“And I will, just like how I know you’ll live beyond revenge,” Shisui tells his cousin. “We are Uchiha, Sasuke. We are born of the sun and made to burn, no matter how the night may protest. Never forget that.”

Sasuke’s expression firms, just a bit. For an instant, he looks like the son Shisui thinks Fugaku foresaw. Not identical to his brother, what with that sense of justice and ruthless fixation on its arrival, but capable of becoming an equal.

Then Sasuke steps back, and the moment breaks.

Shisui watches his littlest cousin slip into Root’s base with his heart caught between the backs of his teeth.

In a moment of weakness, Shisui flicks through a summoning jutsu. He wanted to keep his little mischief makers away from this fight, but they are hopelessly outnumbered. Extra eyes and ears will help even those odds. 

Four crows watch him struggle over it. Yui, Toki, Satou and Junka are clever enough to avoid notice in their own ways.

Yui speaks for her peers. “What-need?”

“Hurt-man-watch for,” Shisui says carefully. He’s forgotten their name for Danzo, but is allowed to choose his own. “Sneak-hide. Far-stay-from.”

Shisui still does not want to put his little band of darlings anywhere near Danzo.

"I don't see the concern with these trees," Kisame says when Shisui reunites with him just past Konoha's southern tree line. Nyanda has gone, presumably back to the village before she can be missed.

"We did say not to touch them."

"You didn't." Kisame frowns, then glances up at the massive oak he's leaning against. Roots drape over his boots as if they'd grown that way for decades, but the nukenin doesn't seem to notice. Samehada's handle rests in the crook of his elbow. It seems the trees are less interested in claiming her than her wielder.

Shisui sighs, clapping a hand on his shoulder. Kisame looks at the point of contact a little strangely before his attention abruptly shifts to his feet.

Watching the swordsman curse like a sailor as he shoves himself away from the tree really shouldn't be so entertaining. The outline of his shoulders stay as indents in the trunk, proof of how close he was to being absorbed entirely. Shisui politely warns his new comrade before brushing bark fragments off his coat.

"Don't touch the trees without a friendly Konoha nin around," Shisui says. This time, Kisame takes the warning seriously. "Our Shodaime was an idealistic tree-hugger who wanted to fix the world through the power of friendship, but he was still brought up on murder. Konoha counts on propaganda from other countries to bolster some of the older defenses."

"Genjutsu," Kisame mutters, glancing up at the leaves.

"Not technically, but close enough. Come on," Shisui says as he turns towards the more remote training grounds. "The entrance should be this way."

Kisame follows, now sticking a little closer to Shisui.

Shisui sticks to the hidden paths, careful to keep a genjutsu over them both. Kisame is unfamiliar enough that neither of them are comfortable with using Shisui’s speed to trick barriers, so they’re stuck doing this the slow way. If they had time, maybe. Their skill sets and personalities match up for a very good preliminary sabotage squad, providing Kisame would be willing to be carried at top speed. The missed opportunity is a crying shame, really.

Shisui guides them to what looks like a shed that sits past nigh-abandoned training grounds. The building is set into a barely traversed and shady slope, where a series of crumbling retaining walls stand against future flash floods or mudslides. Shisui and Kisame crouch behind one of these old walls as they scope out the rickety one-window hut. A genjutsu hums over their shoulders. It kind of mimics the genjutsu on that building, making it look like a shack. 

Shisui is decently sure the building could easily hold a Root Squad and a few unsealed supply shipments.

"That seems like a lot of security seals for one door," Kisame says. 

"Yep. Window frames are covered in ink, too."

"What do you want to bet that this is a little supply entry?" Kisame asks. This is really funny considering that they made it here due to the maps and security codes Shisui has kept in his head alongside the seal on his tongue. No shinobi can simply wander up to a Root entrance. Finding these requires a key.

It's why Shisui personally dropped Itachi and Sasuke off, then returned to Kisame before any nearby trees could get hungry.

Not that he can say this, but still.

"At least they locked it," Shisui offers instead as he eyes the door. "Otherwise, this would be just disgraceful. All we need to do is get through a window without touching the frame."

“I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but I’m not exactly subtle,” Kisame drawls. “Oh, I can manage in a pinch, but it’s not exactly fun for anyone involved. Lots of blood. Bleach. That kind of thing. It’s why they paired me with one of you fancy-eyed types in the first place. Sneaking over to look at seal work that tangled will not end well.”

Shisui hums and pries a slightly pear-sized rock from the retaining wall. It’s probably rude to pick at the crumbling fence, but who’s going to judge him? Every single person in their invasion team makes far worse decisions. Shisui has no end of clapbacks.

Besides, granite this dark is only mined from Uzushio. 

His grandfather's second home.

“Don’t worry,” Shisui says as he inspects his new pet rock, who he is naming Renga-chan. “I have a Mangekyou.”

“How is that going to fix-”

Shisui reels back and throws Renga-chan through the window. Glass shatters.

Kisame whistles. “Gotta say, I came along to be entertained and this is pretty promising.”

“I know how to serve,” Shisui says with as much sass as he can find in his heart and weapons pouch.

In the abandoned hut, something scuffs quietly against the floor. It’s too subtle for a civilian to notice.

A test.

It would be cruel to leave his pet rock all alone in that scary place. Shisui communicates this by sweeping an arm towards the building and bending at the waist, one more copied showman's gesture. Kisame barks a laugh.

"Well, if you insist," the nukenin says delightedly. 

Shisui straightens back up to bounce in place. He adjusts the genjutsu covering them absentmindedly. "Have I told you how fun the energy you bring to this group is? Imagine, with just the murder brothers it'd be like traveling in my own personal rain cloud."

It serves to pull more startled laughter from his new B&E bestie.

"Not bad yourself," Kisame loosens the wrappings on his yokai sword as they make their way to the cute little murder-shack. "Ao always made you out to be some kind of menace, and he was absolutely right. This whole group is a riot."

"Aw, he remembers me!" Shisui slaps a hand over his chest so Kisame knows where this reaction is coming from. "Please tell me he's still kicking around in a ditch somewhere. Probably stuck in it with his fancy stolen eye."

"Oh, he is."

"Sage love that fucking thief," Shisui trills as he inspects the window's jagged glass, and means every word as pure insult. "I want to kiss him on the forehead."

Kisame pauses, disabled razor wire trap tangled around a kunai. "...You know, I don't understand the first thing about you two, but I honestly think he would try to climb right out of his skin. And I think you would, too."

How rude!

Shisui clicks his tongue and pointedly marches through a couple unnecessary hand signs. He raises an eyebrow at Kisame.

Shark teeth bare in a grin.

The grand fireball Shisui blows into the shack outright engulfs it. It serves to light a fire under the ass of both operatives on guard duty. Two is a lucky number. There's one for each of them. Shisui slides through the window, already cackling as his shuriken meet an ANBU tanto.

The inside of the hut is - surprise, surprise - at least three times bigger than the outside. It is also utterly nasty and needs serious repairs.

Kisame offhandedly spits a water bullet at one agent, then lets his sword… unhinge its jaw?

Sure.

Shisui scoops up the pet rock he has emotionally bonded with, shoves it into the bottom of his weapons pouch, and pulls out a pair of kunai. He manages to do all this before the other tanto-wielding Root operative crashes into his afterimage. 

They're very slow.

Down go the kunai, up goes the tanto, and Shisui neatly disarms himself with the agent. The shinobi slams into the rotting floor, pinned under Shisui's weight. All three blades clatter against a wall.

"Is this just what you do?" Shisui bashes his opponent's head into the floorboards. Repeatedly. Ceramic cracks, and Shisui flickers back when the clone explodes. "Follow disasters for entertainment?"

"Oh, he's a self-reflective menace," Kisame coos to Samehada as she rips chakra out of the other agent. "Hear that, ol' girl? We lucked out."

Shisui slams his knuckles into a reappeared throat and laughs like a threat, flattered. His opponent goes down for real with his follow-up strike.

The following second of silence itches in anticipation.

Shisui is a shinobi.

He fights.

He bleeds.

He burns.

Not once has he ever claimed to enjoy it, but the shatter point of his bloodline can alter behavior in unpredictable ways. When Shisui realizes his smile is barely fake, he is too stressed to question it.

"Warmed up?" Shisui asks, picking his way to the charred yet still-hidden door. He turns away while picking the lock to avoid witnessing whatever Kisame's fancy shark-on-a-stick is doing to make those crunching noises.

"Barely," is the grouchy response, still given with more good humor than any of Shisui’s living cousins could dream of attempting. 

"You're lucky today." He smiles easily and hefts the door open. "We can fix that."

They descend into shadowed tunnels as a team.

They make it to the atrium before a single Root shinobi notices trespassers. It's such a ridiculously convenient lull in security.

Is this the work of Sasuke or Itachi? Somehow Shisui doubts it was his littlest cousin. Sasuke never got the right training in their genjutsu abilities since his eyes were only activated as a genin.

Itachi theoretically could have used Hidenmichi through his contract-

Oh.

Sage wept.

Itachi would use the crow contract to extend his genjutsu’s reach. Hidenmichi is a taxing long-term technique that can target anyone who has made eye contact with the summon it’s channeled through since initial activation. The strain that technique puts on chakra coils is minor when used short-term, but downright inhumane otherwise. 

Itachi absolutely could have been planting sensory blind spots in Danzo's ranks where his brother was concerned ever since he left the village. To use it here, he would only have to modify it to cover a few additional targets.

How many years has he been bleeding out for this ace up his sleeve?

Shisui curses his cousin's self-destructive streak and all but flies towards the center of the base. Then he curses more when a passing Root Agent throws the genjutsu off. 

Kisame takes them down, but the spike of alarmed KI more than does its job.

The base goes on high alert in less than a minute.

Shisui and Kisame bolt the last short distance towards the tower-shaped center of the base. Far above, tunnels and Root agents converge alike. Water coats the floor as they run. It pours out from Kisame’s path until every inch of ground as far as Shisui can see is covered.

“Floor’s lava,” Kisame barks, and Shisui springs for the ex-Kiri-nin without hesitation. His palm barely braces on his teammate’s shoulder before Shisui launches into Shunshin, flickering up into the branching walkways and tunnels Root agents are swarming from. 

Far below, Kisame’s hands blur through a summoning contract rather than the stolen Terumii technique Shisui expected. A Root agent steps on the floor and falls right through.

Shisui kicks off a passing guardrail, throws himself further upwards, and marches through a long sequence of signs for maximum firepower with minimum chakra. Another agent tries to attack and gets caught in the wind blades Shisui dodges by a hair. He flickered ever-higher, slams past a kenjutsu user that nearly grazes him, and finds himself at the top of the cavern.

“Katon.” Shisui’s sandals brace against the high ceiling as he finishes the last sign, and murmurs the name of his granduncle’s favored technique to further reduce chakra cost. “Gouka Mekkyaku.”

He inhales and breathes.

Searing heat burst past his hand, engulfing the cavern. Flame roars downwards in an all-encompassing flood. 

Kisame, far below, is standing on deep water. He’ll be fine. Shisui suspects any other shinobi to attempt swimming would be considerably less so.

Shisui’s mind races as he carefully monitors the cost of using Madara’s favorite flames. This will be worth a tenth of his reserves. Root agents are well-trained and individually powerful enough to dodge for the tunnels, but at least a quarter are under constant orders to retreat and report when encountering threats past a certain scale. By pulling out a trick from his ancestors, Shisui can slow the incoming swarm.

Flames lessen to tolerable heat, and Shisui pushes off the ceiling directly into a flicker through them. He slams downwards through the atrium, and slows himself with a broad wind technique that further fans flames. It allows Shisui to bounce from the lowest walkway to a wall, and skid down along it.

Shisui is very proud to say he stops just before touching water. He is less proud of the high-pitched scream that rips out of his throat when Kisame bursts out of the water right in front of him.

“I thought tree huggers still learned water walking,” Kisame says offhandedly, eyes on the dissipating flames above.

“We do!” Shisui gingerly steps onto the water and finds he does not fall through. This is great. Friendly fire is the worst to deal with mid-battle. “But you also can’t say ‘the floor is lava,’ and not expect me to commit to the bit!”

“...Alright, that’s fair.”

A dark shape passes far below them as they run back towards the center of this improvised aquarium.

“Oh, this is so cool,” Shisui whispers as he watches sharks mill impossibly far below ground-level. “Can they be bribed with pumpkin seeds?”

Kisame barks a laugh and doesn’t answer.

Worth a shot, Shisui thinks as they turn and face the incoming Root agents with ease like old comrades.

Then he must concentrate on dealing with the never-ending Root agents.

Before long, Sasuke finds Shisui and Kisame fighting back-to-back. They would be at risk of getting swarmed if Kisame hadn't summoned another few sharks, proving once again that he's a monster of a powerhouse.

In a bought second between attacks, Shisui looks up at occupied branching walkways that seem to go on higher than the cliffs by the village. He swallows dryly.

Danzo’s shinobi are stalling.

Wearing this little team down with groups of smaller numbers.

It’s a bloody strategy no leader would turn to without the worst of desperation, but Danzo does not approach tactics with any intention of being a commander. He only intends to win.

And Root will obey.

As if reading his thoughts, reinforcements pour out of the tunnels above.

Blank masked shinobi practically cover the walls. The tactical bright side to this fight is that full-time Root agents don't care about risks like friendly fire. Either their comrades will dodge or die, and these agents aren't remotely good enough at empathy to care which one.

Shisui cuts down an attacker who nearly catches Kisame from behind, and wonders which of them stand any chance of beating this number of black ops shinobi in a battle of attrition. Survival is an equally noble goal. Sasuke is stubborn enough to try for both. He would also hate Shisui for the truth: Sasuke would not succeed in either goal without help. 

Kisame alone is not enough to protect the littlest Uchiha-

A gauzy genjutsu floats from one of the ground-level passages. It hides Itachi as he steps out of the dark tunnel as if he had been lurking nearby all along. 

Thank goodness.

Red carves twin bloody lines down his cheeks, but Itachi has reverted his eyes to the base sharingan. It takes little time for him to reach their group, and less for the other two to notice they ally. The defensive formation Itachi slides into beside Kisame is wholly automatic, practiced, and natural.

"Looks like the party’s all here!" Shisui greets. The emphasis should be on how they really are all here - it seems Danzo has thrown every available Root operative into this massive cavern. 

Shisui hates this deeply unsexy ambush with all his aro-ace energy.

"Go," Sasuke snaps.

Shisui's eye darts to the side, cataloging the way his cousin is reluctantly backing up into a defensive triangle with Kisame and Itachi. It leaves Shisui out.

Free to run, like he always has.

"You're the fastest," Sasuke grits out. He looks like a cornered fox, and Shisui taps the side of his fist against his cousin's shoulder in what reassurance he can offer.

"Don't die," Shisui warns lightly, and Sasuke scoffs as if the notion were ridiculous. Then again, Sasuke's fixated on surviving to deal with his brother, and Itachi's spent years training to survive so that Sasuke can accomplish his dream. Their stubbornness will see them through.

Kisame will survive regardless of their drama.

"We'll be fine," Itachi says. He gives Sasuke a look that has more layers to it than most onions. Behind him, Kisame has begun to bleed Killing Intent like a particularly frenzied shark. 

This team is a time bomb, but at least they’re set to explode in the best possible place to do maximum damage.

Shisui orients himself, finds his destination, and launches into shunshin.

He bursts through a familiar walkway exit. Shisui caps his speed, careful to move just slowly enough to let the Root shinobi feel as though a chase would be worthwhile. 

Sandals drum through Root’s dark earthen corridors.

By the outskirts of Konoha, the daughter of a civilian merchant accepts a folded piece of paper from an old woman sitting against the trunk of a maple tree. Red leaves cast dappled shadows over the pair, shading them from bright sunlight. Wildflowers dust the rarely used training field around them, some stems plucked before a favor was asked. Other petals lie scattered over a cat sleeping amongst sun-warmed grass.

The merchant’s daughter frowns. “Why does it need to go to the shrine?”

“That's a little complicated.” Painted nails tap the illusion that has replaced this shinobi’s face with a civilian craftswoman’s. “Do you know about how sometimes, the shadows eat kids who do too well?”

The girl steps back, wary. “No. What are they?”

It’s a good attempt at lying. 

Civilians are not blind. Yoshino is a bit upset at herself for failing to count on this earlier, but she has all the pieces now.

“They’re the ghosts of other missing children,” she says, carefully quiet. The little civilian girl backs up another step but listens. Honesty has value, and civilians are not lesser in any way for their lack of manipulated chakra. It’s a fact the Clan Council looks past. “I figured out where they’re coming from, but got caught in the process. So, I need to get this paper into the big fox shrine.”

The clever civilian looks down and unfolds the letter without hesitation.

No shinobi would.

Yoshino loves this village of interwoven branches. She loves underestimated common sense and loyalty. She loves the warmth this village never stopped holding in its heart of a now-gone clan. She loves the regard that civilian generations have passed down in secret, memories that Danzo’s rumors could never completely stamp out. She loves little girls who are smart enough to question rules. 

Smart enough to prove they are not Root by choosing an answer that wouldn’t occur to any half-brainwashed child.

“We’re not supposed to go into the shrine when ninja are there,” the kid says, nose scrunching up. She closes the note and folds it back into quarters, then again for good measure. “And you might be trying to hurt my village, shinobi-san.”

“I could be,” Yoshino agrees. “What do you think?”

Paper crinkles between small hands. Eyes dart past Yoshino, to the distant village streets. They return to land on the sleeping cat that led Yoshino to a Root shinobi stuck chasing illusions. That agent then led her to a tunnel. The illusion made it easy to trap the shinobi in two separate paralysis jutsu. Her shadow stretches behind her, thin and wavering, up the bark of a tree and into leaf-shaded branches. It will snap if she moves from the shadow of this tree. Worse, the spoken paralysis technique she’s layered over it does not allow her to move its target.

Yoshino cannot move away from this tree. She was very lucky to be stuck by the wildflower field this child sneaks away to play in.

“I think the district we’re not allowed to play in is haunted.” Brave, stubborn eyes meet Yoshino’s as a small civilian girl makes a choice that will define the future of their home. “Obaa-chan gets sad when she talks about her friend who lived there. I think the roots this message is about shouldn’t be here, and you’re happy that they’re going. I guess I also think you’re one of our ninja.”

Yoshino loves this village fiercely.

A little civilian girl walks into a shrine. She does not bring the note. Civilians know about seals, and how ink is one of many weapons. They also teach children young not to interrupt shinobi praying for mission success.

A child of the village who was sharp enough to play dumb when her peers vanished walks into the shrine and says, “shinobi-san? A doe got stuck under some roots.”

The matriarch of a fox’s clan turns.

Shisui flies through the Root maze of branching corridors. He ricochets off walls and around corners, leading a scrambling mob on a reckless chase like a murderous line of Root ducklings. 

Hound-taichou had all kinds of tactics for getting rid of duck-impersonator genin teams. None of them would work here, so Shisui is left to skid clear through Root’s mess hall with enemies in pursuit. He bursts through a swinging door and resists the urge to bark at the cute little followers like a dog.

Root is a maze, but Shisui once walked these corridors, bound by choking ink unwillingly chaining him to these passageways. He knows exactly where he is. Past the bunks and training halls under Konoha, seals and research form a level before the depths of this rat’s nest reaches Danzo's office.

Root agents chase after him to the next locked gate. Speed flings Shisui over traps that snag a chasing operative. He is near that goal when Yui tugs on their contract in warning. Danzo has been spotted by her location.

He sent her to Root's outdoor training grounds. They double as an emergency exit at the surface level.

Shisui has nearly hit rock-bottom.

He spins and takes off back through the Root crowd at top speed. It puts Shisui in the middle of their pack, but sheer velocity and confusion together help him doge a doton jutsu. The following blades only catch his afterimage.

Shortcut, shortcut, where-

Shisui barrels through scything wind, uses kawarimi with a Root Agent, and flickers around a corner. His afterimage raises a middle finger salute to the slowpokes.

He needs a shortcut-

Shisui flickers through a deserted laboratory, crashes through another door, and skids through another hallway. 

WAIT.

A breath, a pause to turn and duck a Root agent's sword, and he rebounds off their chest plate. Ribs crunch like stale bread. He flickers back to the lab, darting through his chasers at a top speed far beyond his earlier pace.

There’s no way that was who he thinks it might be. 

Shisui skids back into the abandoned lab and chokes on air.

There’s NO WAY-

Three tanks of glowing liquid stand out in dim lighting.

One holds a quarter of a Senju body that Shisui dismisses to mentally scream over later.

One is empty.

The third-

Shisui flickers in front of it and meets the eyes of a heavily scarred woman, who is the best shinobi their clan has ever produced. 

She's missing an arm, and while that's nothing new, the white in her hair and hospital clothes are. It's fine. Sako lives and breathes her chosen nindo: to be a shinobi is to endure anonymously. She's always emphasized the word 'endure' to a ridiculous degree, and Shisui doubts she needs the oxygen mask in that tank. Simple water or whatever that is doesn't have the guts to kill her. Kiri's last Mizukage learned a similar lesson the hard way.

There are chakra inhibiting seals etched into the tank.

He punches the glass, earning disjointed cracks but not disturbing the fluid just in case it's keeping her alive.

Footsteps thunder en masse just outside, but there's no reason to worry when Shisui has a disrupted seal array and monster of a kunoichi in front of him. He flickers back to engage the first Root agent to come through the door.

Shisui throws them at a rack of pricey equipment and turns just in time for the corner of his eye to catch movement. Sako reels back and headbutts the glass. It cracks further. Liquid begins to drain.

Shisui hops backwards to defend her. Tanto in one hand and a handful of shuriken in the other, he meets the onslaught desperately.

Uchiha stick together.

Sako snarls, muffled, like a bat out of hell. She slams her now-bloody forehead on the glass. Billowing chakra-smoke reveals three tigers that pounce on the room with the reckless glee of predators who have been starved of a decent hunt for years. Shisui spares a glance behind him.

"Go," Sako says in ANBU sign. She then smashes her knee through the glass in an explosion of lukewarm liquid. Cutting shards rain outwards. 

Shisui knows better than to get between a hunter-nin and her targets. He turns and runs.

It’s what he’s best at, after all.

His parade of Root agents are finally left behind.

Shisui flips thorough hand seals and trusts that some of the blood on his hands is his own. It’s true in one too many ways.

“Airi,” Shisui calls out to the crow who bursts into existence beside him. “An addendum for the Sages!”

His little friend caws a promise.

Corvids view death differently from humans. He will have to word this carefully for her to translate it properly.

“Hold my funeral outside,” Shisui begins as he pinballs through narrow tunnels haunted by the living. Airi keeps pace as he puts new words to a letter for those who will outlive him.

“If it rains, then good! Let it rain! Tell the children to splash in puddles,” Shisui says with good humor that bounces behind him off maze-like walls. “Tell the adults too, because wet feet are worth a little joy. How could I cry for a life well lived? So hold my funeral outside, sun-warm and rain-kissed, and let the kids leave to play halfway or three-quarters through the ceremony.”

Shisui skids past a locked door, backtracks, and pauses to pour fire over it until the surrounding walls are weakened to blackened soot. He ignores the door and its traps entirely, tunneling through. The hall beyond is empty, and Shisui carries on with laughing reckless speed. 

Airi follows.

“It’s what I want, what I would have wanted, and what I hope,” Shisui calls to his summon cheerfully. “Don’t mourn by putting your laughter on hold for me. Feel no debt of sadness. Instead, take my ashes to the coast, and cast them into the trees my great-grandfather planted. Give me back to the wind; let me fall into the waves near the island where our sister village lived. Lay me down for life to grow from. I have had enough of death.”

Airi swerves ahead, and Shisui follows.

“Do not think of me as gone in any way that matters. Hold my funeral outside,” he tells his comrades through her as he slows to a trot before the door to forest training grounds.  “Especially if it rains.” 

“Happen-will,” Airi says as Shisui presses a hand to the door. “Safe-stay?”

He will try.

“I have had enough of death,” Shisui repeats, and pushes the door open. He held his Root graduation exam in this forested clearing. He killed a comrade here. It is not a place for the contentment in his chest.

Noon light filters down from the secluded Root training ground. 

Shisui expected a lot of feelings when he finally stood across from Danzo. The elder waits in the clearing, flanked by Torune and Fuu, his favored guards. He has not changed, but Shisui’s old comrades have grown up.

Shisui gives them a little childish wave.

Operation: Homewrecker has caused enough of a ruckus that the village may have caught on by now. Part of him regrets springing this on the people he once fought and lived alongside - most of the Clan Council and likely nearly all the Civilian Council have no clue what Danzo has been doing. If they know children are gone and missions are interfered with, they still won’t know where to look. 

Anyone who caught even a hint of either was shut down or eliminated quickly. 

Shisui was present for a few of those threats. Some are particularly memorable. The Nara, the Kurama - he was in the rafters for both meetings between Danzo and clan heads. Those two clans got reports from their shinobi before Danzo could interfere in the communications. 

It means Shisui knows about the Dead Man’s Seals covering the esteemed elder’s body. 

Shikaku met Danzo's surprise visit with a staggering amount of information he shouldn't have been able to deduce, and the Kurama monopolized their genjutsu to find out more than Shisui may have conveniently forgotten to report to the elder. The Hyuuga unknowingly confirmed these. A clever civilian child who resisted recruitment with words and analysis rather than violence revealed another. Shisui hopes Shin hasn't been lost to conditioning.

There have been changes since Shisui left his village early. This is accounted for. Izuno passed on one last piece of information with her little scroll.

Shisui cannot channel chakra while removing that stolen eye, or else the seals will activate. The village ward line will be reset to exclude specific clan compounds from its protection. Agents will receive marching orders. Shisui has seen the effects of one genocide - he does not need to witness another.

So.

No chakra with the eye.

Everything else is fair game, though.

“Hey, boss,” Shisui says. Contentment sings through his bones as he draws his tanto. “I’m handing in my resignation letter. Effective immediately.”

“One does not resign from being a shinobi.” Danzo’s voice drains peace from Shisui’s resolve until all that is left is static nerves. He thought he was ready.

How laughable.

How fucking hilarious is that?

"I do," Shisui says as his smile grows manically wide.

“You are born into this life to die for your village,” Danzo says. Torune and Fuu step forward. “So. Be a good soldier and hold still.”

It is all the warning he gets.

Shisui flings himself recklessly across the clearing when Fuu’s tanto sings just past an artery. He smacks a hand against the passing ground, expelling chakra to toss himself up and away from Torune. Hands curl into Shisui’s overshirt, caught on canvas blacks as he meets the Fuu mid-air. Shisui’s knee cracks into Fuu’s chin, effectively cutting off the sound just as their clone explodes. He pivots, throwing his weight to the side. Steel slides through his afterimage as Shisui forms the first of two hand signs. He breathes out a gout of fire. 

The fight is breathtakingly brutal.

Fuu is a bloodhound of a Yamanaka, with Kenjutsu and strength that far outclasses Shisui’s. Torune, on the other hand, is almost worse. Torune is a one-accidental-touch-has-killed-training-partners kind of poison master. Even worse, he’s an Amburame. The contact poison moves.

It is a mercy to Shisui that Fuu takes the initiative, and Torune mostly stays back. He does not want to fight his comrades, and wants to kill them even less.

Shisui twists under Torune’s open-handed strike as he tosses wire-laced shuriken. Fire races after the metal, only for Fuu to crash into Shisui from behind. His strangled yelp turns into a screech when blistering heat wraps around them both. Fuu proves himself to still be reckless by trying to grapple Shisui while they fall through burning wire.

This will always be Shisui’s home field. 

He stuttered through a tiny shunshin and slams a kick into Fuu’s chest. Earth cracks with the Yamanaka’s landing. The wire follows. Thank goodness.

Shisui hits the ground in a roll and springs up to launch a fireball at Torune from point-blank range. He kicks aside the burning replacement log, his tanto grip sparking with lightning chakra as Fuu crashes back into him.

The force behind that blow pushes Shisui back.

His knees hit the soil as Fuu’s strength forces him to keep both hands on his tanto. Deadly poisonous insects hover on all sides, blocking off all escape.

Danzo steps up to stand beside Fuu.

“You are fortunate,” the councilman says as Shisui struggles against Fuu’s crushing blade. Rock cracks further under his knees. “I’ll give you the privilege of serving Konoha one last time.”

Shisui’s eye goes wide as Danzo reaches for his face. His Mangekyou swirls to life for a desperate attempt at Susanoo before Fuu’s free hand forms half the Mind Switch sign. The corrupted technique carves bloody tears down from Shisui’s baseline three-tomoe eye. 

“Not again,” Shisui hisses as his worst memory comes back to life, struggling to rise. “NO-”

Izuno's bell chimes.

Danzo flinches back far too violently for the subtle note, ears bleeding. Torune and Fuu’s eyes reflexively shut as if a flashbang had just gone off.

Shisui takes the bought second to rush forward, recklessly shoving Fuu’s tanto aside with his own. His fingers plunge into flesh-

Danzo's Killing Intent slams into him just as Shisui rips his own eye out of the elder's socket. An earth jutsu sinks up to his knees before Shisui flickers back to a nearby branch. Shadows shift as bugs receive orders. Shisui flickers back to the clearing, tanto screeching against Fuu’s and explosion tags plastered over Root armor. Grand Fireball swamps Torune, but Shisui knows his old friend is too good a shinobi to be caught in it. Wet squelches in his free glove. He replaces himself with another clone and wraps himself in a genjutsu strengthened by the summons contract.

A crow watches from nearby trees. Shisui crouches in its phantom place and shudders through an exhale that sounds more like a sob.

Shisui looks down at the stolen eye. 

Taking his eye back should feel like a victory. It should feel like righteous fury. Rot carved out of an infected wound.

Really, the eye just feels a little squelchy. It's wet, warm, and utterly nasty in his hand. 

Hysterical giggles bubble up until they tumble out through his fraying control. Embers ignite, consuming the eye until all that’s left is ash that flakes away. Logically, he should save this eye for transplant or burial. Shisui would rather cleanse any part of himself controlled by this elder in fire. Laughter bubbles up again. 

His clone explodes.

As his protective genjutsu is ripped away, Shisui throws his head back and cackles.

He just pulled his own eye straight out of Danzo's head. The old war hawk experienced dojutsu theft as a direct result of committing that very crime. Oh, the delicious irony.

"Not very fun, is it?" Shisui bursts into a fresh round of manic laughter at the rage in Danzo's next attack. He ducks under a sword and screams with pure wounded joy. This is the kind of revenge his ancestors happily drowned in. Torune’s rinkaichuu nearly bite poison into his side and Shisui barely cares until he remembers the little scrap of paper Izuno gave him. Hungry fire chakra curls over the bugs before they can make contact.

The arm.

Shisui’s laughter cuts off as Fuu and Torune both slide blades through his afterimage. The earth cracks apart as he touches down. Two flickers later, and Shisui realizes his luck is about to run out.

I am going to die.

Shisui aims a messily reckless strike at Danzo and nearly steps into range of Fuu’s brutal taijutsu.

I knew I was going to die, but…

Fuu lashes out, slamming a flat palm into Shisui’s chest. The impact would’ve been lethal if Shisui hadn’t flickered in the same second. He tucks into a roll, curling over the agony in his chest, and flickers again before a full second passes. Rinkaichuu swarm where he would have landed.

I want to live.

Shisui stumbles, sword drawn and barely held up before Fuu is there again.

“Sage’s fucking moldy beard,” Shisui coughs out. Torune flickers into existence on his right, leg bent back and about to kick Shisui with so much poison-

Shisui flickers into the center of the clearing, past Danzo and his weird choice to watch this all go down, only to shriek when the tree he nearly lands on is coated with extremely poisonous bugs. Wire redirects Shisui’s path last-second. 

He slams his tanto into the clearing’s dirt and lands on the hilt. Sweat slides down the back of his neck.

Danzo’s jaw is clenched.

“Torune,” Shisui says quietly. His old comrade watches through a blank mask laid over blank emotions. “You’ve gotten clever. This whole fight, you’ve been cutting off my escape routes.”

“Every surface within your shunshin range is within my rinkaichuu’s,” Torune says. His voice has gotten deeper. Emptier. “Give up, Uchiha Shisui.”

Fuu darts forward-

And trips over his own feet. Torune and Danzo also stumble. The elder snarls a curse.

Inoichi skids into their little clearing, reaching for Shisui in a mad scramble. Shisui reaches back without pause. In the bare seconds bought, he practically smacks their forehead protectors together-

The sharingan catches willing eye contact-

A Yamanaka technique reaches back-

Time falls away, bent between two minds.

What do you need? Inoichi asks.

Shisui nearly cries in relief. There is a world of difference between seeking out comrades as a step in his already overwhelmed days, and having them arrive, unasked, ready to help, the second they knew he was in trouble.

All he has is that overwhelmed, crowded fear, so Shisui shoves it back in a tangled mess. He needs space. He needs time, and a chance to avoid fighting old friends. He needs Inoichi to let him do this because it's a delicate task with too many ways for a well-intentioned comrade to activate Danzo's failsafes.

He needs Torune and Fuu to be separated from their commander.

Shisui does not have the words for this. It's okay. Inoichi has always been good at helping him find them. His mentor breaks their connection and sprints in the direction of Fuu.

Danzo takes Inoichi’s place in the next instant, his rarely used blade slamming into Shisui’s with the delicacy of a tidal wave. KI swamps the clearing, clogging Shisui’s lungs as he gasps for breath. Ghostly green fire erupts to protect him.  Activating Susanoo earns blue flames as Danzo does the same with a stolen eye.

Maternal aunt, the flames tell him as they burn against ghostly green ribs. Shisui squints through stinging blood that gathers in his eye. Twice removed.

“Thief,” Shisui grits out. His Susanoo wraps boney green fingers around blue-burning bone, and forces Danzo’s stolen use of this technique back.

Nephew, he tells the opposing blue fire of gods and ancestors. Seeking what was taken without permission.

Skeletal hands grasp Danzo’s phantom ribs and pull. Gowing cracks spiderwebs out of marrow. The lower right rib splinters into shards. Shisui shoves his tanto into the gap, though it moves so slowly Danzo only leans away with mocking ease. The elder glances at Shisui’s tanto blade frozen a few inches from his side, and dismisses it.

The sheer confidence in his skill is disgusting. Shisui’s tanto stays trapped, useless, as his Susanoo tries to burn Danzo’s stolen one to ashes.

Outside the two Susanoo, Inoichi grabs Fuu's head on either side, glances in his eyes, and moves on when his clansman buckles. Shisui finishes a genjutsu in that moment, silk thin and barely detectable by even a Yuhi or Kurama. To Torune, Danzo taps his sword, coded orders snapped out.

When Inoichi takes off, Torune pursues for nonlethal subdual.

Surprise steals Danzo’s attention for one precious second.

Shisui cancels his Susanoo to put all that green-fire chakra into his blade, and swings up.

The noise that rips out of Danzo's throat upon losing an arm is a muted kind of righteous outrage. It raises the hair on the back of Shisui's neck. Both their Susanoo flake away to clear, humid air, and Shisui scrambles back a step. He has just enough time to get his tanto in guard position between them before Danzo's blade slams into it.

"Traitor," Danzo rumbles. Lit by dying flames and covered in wrathful soot, the elder's mouth twists in disappointment. Weight bears down. Shisui can barely care at the hysterical laughter bubbling up past his sealed tongue. Soil shifts as he skids back a half-step from the sheer force pressing into his blade. 

Danzo has been keeping his skill sharp by sparring with Fuu. What was it that Kisame said to Sasuke not too long ago? Beware of the elders in a profession where people die young?

Shisui disengages by replacing himself with an exploding fire clone.

Hidden in a nearby tree, Shisui shoves his free hand into his weapon pouch, desperately hoping for anything in his bag of tricks. An explosion tag, glitter, his long-lost wakizashi - even a paint tag would be useful right now.

Please, he begs anyone who may be listening. Panic smells like sea salt memories, but he isn't ready to go home to laughing ancestors on Uzushio's ghostly shores.

He isn't ready to die this time.

Isn't willing.

I want to live. The waves in his mind chuckle over smooth beach pebbles. I want to live, so PLEASE-

Shisui's fingers close around the beloved pet rock he shoved into his weapons pouch and immediately forgot about. Granite bites into white-knuckled fingers, carved like a fingerprint from the home his ancestors knew. It feels like a blessing. Sometimes, heritage is violence.

Do your best, Shisui mentally tells Renga-chan as he flickers back into striking distance. 

Then he swings the rock.

Danzo is apparently not expecting to get whacked in the head by a rock, but it sure does happen. He even stumbles back a bit.

The stolen eye goes white.

Shisui wasn't expecting that to actually force a use of Izanagi. It just goes to show that his ancestors have a wicked sense of humor, and that Renga-chan is the best pet rock an emotionally compromised shinobi could ask for. Shisui hops back a little to marvel at how teamwork really does make the dream work. 

Huh.

Turns out Fugaku was right about something for once.

"Did you just hit me with a brick?" Danzo sneers from a few meters behind where he was just attacked, injury-free but for the missing arm. His chakra is muted. Insulted. Full of schist.

"Show some fucking respect." Shisui pulls steel through the earth clone and snarls, "that's my pet rock we're talking about."

"Impudent." Blades flash, lightning chakra flickers, and Shisui darts away from a kunai that shatters where he just was. It melts under electric pressure. Shrapnel sizzles in a splatter of molten metal across the floor.

"That was why you needed culling," Danzo muses as their blades clash again. Shisui is forced to replace himself with another clone. "You're too volatile."

Ha!

Every shinobi is a little cracked.

"You're just mad I have a personality,” Shisui says. He flickers back into range, tanto carving down as the elder’s blade falls from his hand-

Danzo lashes out for his neck, and Shisui chokes in surprise as his back hits earth. Panic drums double-time in his ears as his throat screams and chest burns. Cloistering fear sinks pressure alongside Danzo’s best efforts to cut off his witty commentary by force. He manages to stab the councilman in the side. Danzo barely seems to notice.

Dogs howl in the distance.

“I’ll have you dismembered this time,” Danzo wheezes. Shisui tries and fails to kick him in the stab wound. Torune’s poison must be finally kicking in, though when he got bit is a mystery. Shisui settles for setting off a paint tag in the elder’s face.

Hot pink explodes and does nothing. If anything, Danzo tries harder to strangle him.

Shisui is actively trying to catch Danzo’s eye for a nasty genjutsu when Inuzuka Tsume crashes into the clearing, ninken and an ANBU team on her heels.

Danzo's hand tightens further.

Shisui has just enough time to make eye contact before lightning chakra burns his consciousness to black, but the elder is too late.

A second of eye contact is all his dojustu needs to pass on a wealth of information. Tsume now holds the full list of Danzo's failsafes in her mind.

This time, Shisui greets the darkness with desperate refusal. He is trying to find a tomorrow out of this situation.

He wants to live.

He wants to live-

Lightning ignites in his veins, and Shisui falls into the ether.

Bonus:

“Why do even I bother?” Tobi hisses as he swirls into existence on a blood-soaked walkway. 

Itachi twists, sword raised to fend off a strike that does not come. He moves on to a Root agent in the next half-breath and lets his partner deal with greeting the new arrival.

“Fancy seeing you here, Leader.” Kisame’s slams his weapon straight through an opponent, reading Itachi’s intention. “Care to join?”

Tobi tips his head, giving off the impression of a curled lip through sheer disdainful body language. A Root agent appears, attempts to engage, and retreats the second they realize their target is untouchable. “No, thank you. Danzo has outlived his use as a traitor. I’m here to ask if either of you would be interested in… further weeding.”

“Oh?”

Killing intent shivers across the cavern like a poisonous fog of second-hand vitriol. “It seems our cause has been corrupted from the start.”

Itachi is too good a shinobi to outright stop and stare, but seeing Tobi act in a remotely competent manner makes it tempting.

Huh.

Shisui was right.

Itachi can never tell him. His cousin would be insufferable about it, and the nostalgia of that may very well take Itachi out before the sickness in his lungs. Hoping Sasuke will recover the full extent of his old wrath is also a bit of a gamble at this point.

The brother in question hits their now-crowded walkway like the second coming of a thunder god and tries to attack Tobi.

Itachi is half-distracted with his own fight, but not so much that he can’t keep tabs on his little brother. If Tobi tries to hurt Sasuke, he’ll-

Sasuke is not moving.

Itachi straightens up, ignoring the itch of congealed blood at the back of his mouth, because his little brother is frozen, eyes fixed on the Mangekyou eye glaring from an orange mask. Fear stutters through Itachi’s veins. What did Tobi do?

“Are you Shisui’s Obito-nii?” 

Itachi feels his brain stall.

Tobi seems to be doing the same. He reaches out to Sasuke, then lowers his hand before it can make contact. He abruptly pulls a massive war fan from thin air, smacking it into an incoming Root operative before Itachi can react.

Tobi looks at his war fan, then at Sasuke. Neither seem to provide him with any answers.

“...No,” Tobi says, like it’s not some kind of hastily made decision. Itachi is a little grateful. He does not want to think about all the mental contortions he’d be launched into with a positive answer. At least a lie gives him plausible deniability as he focuses on keeping his little brother from dying.

Sasuke gives him a disdainful look and seems to dismiss Tobi entirely. It’s not exactly wise to outright dismiss an opponent, but Itachi can understand the temptation. Tobi is like that. As Sasuke darts away to collapse more of the tunnels into this atrium, Itachi moves so he can step in if needed. Tobi reluctantly slips into step with Kisame.

Itachi smiles to himself when none of them are looking.

He missed this. Shadowing after Sasuke, never overreaching but always present… Itachi has not felt this at peace in a long time. Babysitting duty, it seems, is back within reach after all these years.

Not that he can ever tell Sasuke.

Ruckus thunders far above them as rocks crash over another tunnel opening. Sasuke flickers back up to their walkway in search of any other way these agents are getting in.

A barely-audible wolf howls.

"Oh, for the Sage's sake." Tobi scowls at the distant sound of barking dogs. "Stay in your trash bin, Kakashi."

Sasuke stops cold. "What?"

Tobi points his gunbai up in the general direction of canine howling. "That, little cousin, is a disaster." 

Sasuke's expression grows intrigued, which to him is about as close to idolization as he's willing to get.

Itachi has a split second of realization. It's followed by the mental image of his brother in a swirled mask shrieking over burnt cookies as Tobi did a few weeks ago.

No.

Absolutely not.

“They’re getting in through the vent,” Itachi announces.

Luckily, Sasuke takes the bait. Lightning crackles in his little brother’s wake. Itachi’s relief turns into clawing anxiety as his foolish little brother tries to climb into the vent full of brainwashed shinobi.

Itachi jumps from the walkway in blind panic before the action processes, wrapping a hand in his little brother’s shirt and yanking him back. 

Rock wall crashes down where Sasuke was just standing. Water cascades from the walkway above them as Kisame and Tobi face the last of the Root agents.

Both brothers look at the collapsed wall for a moment.

“They collapsed it,” Sasuke says quietly. “But it’s not enough rock to keep them out.”

It is enough to keep the average shinobi out.

“The entire base has built-in weak points. They were reinforced to collapse efficiently.” Itachi blinks, unalarmed, when Sasuke turns on him, lightning flickering over his blade.

“Were you- were you sealed? Is that what this was? The entire time?”

Itachi can’t help but smile, achingly fond. “It wasn’t necessary.”

Sasuke stares at him, wide-eyed.

Itachi waits as the last ROOT chakra signatures in this cavern blink out.

“I will always love you,” Itachi reminds his little brother. Sasuke looks like he wants to cry but has forgotten how.

Stone breaks in a massive crack that echoes across the atrium. Fragments shower into deep water on the far side.

Together, Sasuke and Itachi look up at where Kisame is picking his way out of a large hole high up in the wall. Flickering electric light shines from behind him, cathing on Samehada’s scales. 

“Found a passage,” Kisame calls down. “That cousin of yours is pretty decent, so try not to let him die, alright?!”

Sasuke flickers away immediately.

Itachi is… glad of it, for all that his little brother has left him behind. Maybe with a little work, there really is something that can be healed here.

He is willing.

Amaterasu, but Itachi has never been so willing to come home.

Resolve kindles into the kind of low flame preferred by cooks and hearth fire heaters. It gives Itachi the strength to go first to the walkway where his partner is talking with Tobi about some kind of weeding. They look up as he slips over the broken remnants of a railing.

“Itachi?” Tobi asks. The offer is similar to one given long ago. He could go. He could join Tobi and report whatever this weeding is to Konoha. Old habits yawn in hungry request of repeating.

Itachi tips his chin towards the broken wall. He’ll pass.

There’s not much use in maintaining this charade when so many secrets are tumbling loose from the shadows. Sasuke is quickly running out of reasons to place his revenge on Itachi’s shoulders, and Shisui is shaping his future away from its intended path. Itachi has little use outside the village now.

“I will follow my brother,” he says, and means it in every way he can think of. “Providing Pein is willing to release me from my service.”

“Eh, that’s already granted.” Tobi shrugs, seemingly unsurprised. “Kisame?”

"I think I'll help hunt a traitor," Kisame says offhandedly with a glance towards Itachi. "If you'll have me."

Tobi offers a hand, palm up.

"It was an honor to fight beside you," Itachi says as Kisame takes the offered hand.

The last he sees of his partner is painfully familiar for the parting. Kisame grins like his sharks. "Not bad, yourself."

The last of their chakra signatures disappear in a swirl of warped space.

Chapter Text

Shisui wakes up to sunlight throwing dappled shadows through his window to splash across hospital sheets. Hound-taichou’s familiar chakra signature flickers in the direction of that daylight warmth, and Blackbird’s lurks amidst the faint cool chemical feeling of focused detail that all medical nin leave on their used equipment. Sound passes through him as a dull, distant sensation that sits like a hazy fog filtering through Shisui’s mind.

He could reach for it.

He could lift the phantom weight of full wakefulness.

Shisui keeps his breathing slow, slipping a bit further into a meditative technique with every second.

He could, theoretically, fight to stay awake and end up giving a report to the very Hokage who ordered his clan be killed. Sarutobi took his family, his heritage, and his home, but the old man is still Shisui’s Kage. His moral compass. His leader. ANBU oath determines that captains are not allowed to rest before reporting in. He should do that.

It would not be the option Inoichi defines as “self-care.” In the interest of finally making healthy choices, Shisui chooses to commit a little secretive treason just for himself.

As a treat.

Shisui has put everyone else first for this entire race through hell and high-speed waters. There was just too much to fix. Plots from organizations to stop, and lost crows to gather into one severely unstable murder. Shisui pushed himself too far. Itachi, Sasuke, Obito – they needed him. They needed support. They needed acknowledgement of the pain inflicted on themselves and each other, and a ghost from the past to cling to. Guidance is not easy. Performing emotional support pushed limits Shisui was already barely hanging on to. Doing this, then confronting his demons, placed Shisui in a position where he used Madara's most devastating jutsu without hesitation or forethought.

Shisui did his best ceaselessly, but he cannot give the energy he does not have. It’s time to put himself first. It's time to rest in the still waters he was named after. Finally.

The Hokage can wait a few hours.

No, Shisui thinks hazily as he rolls over. I do not want to deal with that.

He goes back to sleep.

Chapter Text

The next time Shisui wakes up, sunlight is pouring through his window to pool across starch-white sheets and linoleum floors. Hospital equipment turns the vanilla-soft morning glow into a hazy familiarity. Habit has Shisui pushing himself up to a sitting position before he realizes he's not alone.

An Uchiha with extensive bandages creeping out from under Jounin blacks sets down her book.

"Morning," Sako signs from the chair between his bed and the window. There's a tiger summon between them, whose back Sako is resting sandaled heels on. It’s positively delightful to see this hasn’t changed. Sako knows exactly what will kill her and tempts it daily.

"You shouldn't be here," Shisui rasps, eyeing the bandages. He raises a hand to his face when speaking pulls at his skin weirdly, and finds his blind eye has also been wrapped up.

What a pair they must make.

Sako flips off the door, which is effective enough as far as explanations go. Her hand sweeps back, encompassing the room and pointing out ANBU Hare in the corner, who Shisui hadn't noticed. The gesture ends with a cup of water and pitcher on a little bedside tray. 

Sako snaps at it. Points. Then she snaps at it again when Shisui shows only incomprehension.

Right. Hydration.

Cold bites into his palms as Shisui navigates holding the paper cup despite muscle tremors. It tastes godly.

Reality crashes in.

He is in the hospital, which means it's over. It's done. He made it through over seven days. Shisui even came out the other side alive and probably free, which is so far beyond his expectations that he can't even begin to imagine what comes next. He's here and alive and none of it feels real.

Birdsong drifts through the open window.

"Is-" Shisui stops, staring through his cup of weirdly delicious water. "Did we get him?"

Sako hooks two fingers and twists them viciously down from her eye, so the path forms a ‘V,’ then shifts them to form another sign by her jaw. It's not a combination he knows, combining the words for ‘Inuzuka’ and something similar to ‘hunt.’ Keywords in Konoha Shinobi Sign change often to make it harder on infiltrators, and Shisui died a while before Sako likely got captured. It’s been long enough since then that Shisui has plenty of learning to catch up on. He doesn’t envy Sako, who relies on it more.

"Dead," Sako signs when Shisui raises his eyebrows. "Tsume said you softened him up for the ninken."

Air whooshes out of Shisui's lungs.

Danzo is gone.

Hah!

Just like that; all at once.

“The others?”

Sako forms a sign name Shisui doesn’t know, “-and Sasuke are in T&I. There’s politics around their situation but neither will be killed for desertion, seeing as they chose to come back of their free will. Expect people to bother you about it in a few days.”

Shisui thinks he knows who she was talking about, but he knows better than to proceed on a series of assumptions. “Itachi?”

Sako forms the sign name again, one that pulls the sign for ‘genjutsu’ across her forehead much like the sign for ‘nukenin.’ “-Never resisted at all.”

They don’t have Obito or Kisame, then. “Aa.”

Sako gestures at his entire being. “You?”

“I will be fine,” Shisui says, like it’s a promise. The claws of it settle into his marrow to burn like cinders. He nearly wasn’t. Uncertainty must rattle through his chakra, because Sako raises an eyebrow.

“You’ll survive this,” she says. “Two days asleep, brief waking, then another day asleep. The medics guessed you’d wake this morning, and they were right.”

“Did someone tell you that?” Shisui asks. “Or did you go looking for answers?”

The tiger under her sandals rumbles before she reaches down to scratch at its ear. “I asked.”

She is likely only saying that for the listening ANBU.

Sako moves on to some quality gossip around Danzo's ruining. Apparently the second that house of cards started caving, the clan council jumped on it with vicious efficiency. It seems almost too effective. They were prepared for this. 

Sako catches Shisui's eye, sharingan flicking on for an instant to pass over a few memories.

Sako wades through wreckage of her own making in the Root base. She stumbles down corridors she remembers snippets of between labs and storage facilities. Her summons lurk at either end of the hall - Kouen is a clever tigress with enough of a temper to shred any unfamiliar shinobi who pass, while Rento will be much more discerning. They also leave her to get adjusted to these implanted eyes.

One is a Mangekyou.

The other is not.

Neither are from people she bonded with, so Sako is a little busy between the fighting, navigating this maze, and trying not to crawl out of her skin at the echo of two ghosts she cannot properly honor.

A chakra signature breaks away from the central space shinobi have been headed towards, and heads straight for her. They’re probably following the path Shisui took. Amaterasu bless him, Shisui gets sloppy about leaving tracks once he passes a certain speed. 

Sako ducks out of view to hide her own presence. A stolen kunai to the light overhead plunges the hallway into pitch darkness. She will survive. By any means necessary. Rento either fails to stop the shinobi, or lets them pass.

The shinobi runs by inches from her without noticing-

Sako snaps out her hand to grab the back of the brat’s collar. Light bounces across the tunnel as flames curl from his mouth. 

Cute.

Sako counteracts it with a shell of her own fire chakra, and lifts her quarry further up like a lost kitten as she waits out the next fireball spat at her face. He makes some very admirable attempts to stab her. Sako drives a kick into his wrist, forcing him to involuntarily let go of the sword. She tosses him before catching it by the handle and driving it into the ground.

Sasuke whacks into the wall and rolls to his feet in a move likely copied off Shisui.

Interesting.

Sako blocks his next hit. Fire curls from under her feet as she tosses him back against the wall. Down the hallway, Rento pounces on someone, which marks the end of Sako’s babysitting time.

“Use your eyes!” she signs as he stumbles upright. 

Sasuke takes one actual look at her and nearly falls right back down. She catches him with an internal curse. This baby crow should not be anywhere near the action if he’s that low on chakra. Has another war started? Are they inside village boundaries? That would at least explain the KPF getting involved, though neither of the clansmen she’s seen were wearing the emblem.

Sasuke says something, but the angle is bad, and her hearing is still all but gone. Sako nudges him back upright and signs as much once her hand is free.

“Itachi is alive,” Sasuke says instead of explaining what in Amaterasu’s name is going on. Typical. Itachi is the earth Sasuke has always orbited around. Sako pulls him to her side like a lost chick because their heir takes advice on how to act human from his summons. This will do for now. She is getting them out of this place.

“Good,” Sako decides as Kouen snarls out a displeased greeting to yet another visitor. This one is still foolish, it seems.

Sako snaps her hand out again, grabs an ear from the shadows, and yanks. An ANBU agent comes tumbling out from behind their chameleon genjutsu. 

Hound has gotten even skinnier, somehow.

She must let go to sign her kouhai, so Sako simply does not. Instead, she shakes him by the ear slightly and gets raised hands with deceptively pitiful body language in response.

He might be saying something.

Sako lets go, signs “hearing gone” in Standard because there is no way the nearby baby crow has gotten himself anything above high chuunin with those shabbily trained eyes, and reclaims her quarry. Hound thankfully switches to lightning-fast Standard to keep Sasuke in the loop.

Finally, a mission briefing. Hound even dials back his Standard by several years, steadily working in new signs so she can learn as he updates them. He’s a clever kid like that.

Nearly all Active-Duty members of the Clan Council are involved in this operation. They do not have telepathic links up and running, because apparently Inoichi is MIA. The Yamanaka head disappeared shortly after the Kurama matriarch barreled into Shikaku’s office. Planning commenced while a few ANBU squads were sent out for instant response. Sarutobi was apparently encouraged to step down, though Hound skips over the probably complicated question of ‘why.’ The Akimichi and Hyuuga stayed back to take over Sarutobi’s guard and keep an eye on the village, which is such a close-combat team to elect, even if they’re politically viable. Sako briefly wonders what Shikaku was thinking before Hound adds that the ANBU Commander is also personally there. 

The upper tunnels are currently filled with Konoha Shinobi.

This is good.

Sako only needs to get Sasuke three levels up, rather than all the way, to find allies and medical attention.

“Did you get your eye from Shisui’s Obito-nii,” Sasuke says abruptly. Sako must stand in a dark, enemy-infested tunnel network she just spent years being tortured in, and admire the fact that Sasuke just said that out loud with no warning. Hound goes stock still. His chakra feels like it’s trying to convert itself into a puddle of lukewarm yet boiling expired milk. The process is kind of painful to witness. She loosens her grip in case he needs to run.

Actually, is Hound saying anything-?

“CAN’T. HEAR,” Sako signs with the broadest gestures she can reasonably manage.

“Confirmation. Escape assist request,” Hound immediately says in ANBU sign. Sako gives him a disappointed look for using a highly secretive code around active sharingan. Seriously. Sasuke’s going to remember that sequence for the rest of his life.

“I am going now,” Hound adds in Standard. His chakra shudders like it’s trying to hatch straight out of his body to get away from whatever feeling he's experiencing.

“Good plan. Shisui is half-mad with grief and needs to be found before he gets stupid about it,” she says. Hound’s chakra violently reacts before it’s strangled back to baseline acceptable lethality. Sako ignores this and Sasuke’s surprise at an ANBU having emotions as she continues, “the office should be down this hallway. We’ll head to the surface.”

Hound bolts in a blaze of white.

Shisui will be fine. Wolves get protective like that. It will also give her kouhai something to fixate on that’s not the deeper and more painful memory of Sako’s nephew.

Sako assigned her distant cousin to her kouhai’s team for a reason, not that either needs to know that. 

Sasuke poofs up at some perceived slight when the ANBU leaves, so Sako simply picks the kid up by the back of that ridiculous outfit and starts dragging him up with her. Honestly, what has Fugaku been doing if his son is walking around dressed like this?

Once out of sight, Sako checks there are no listening ears before turning to Sasuke. They are going to survive this, but she needs to know a bit more to make sure of that fact.

“Is Obito-kun alive?”

Sasuke eyes her distrustfully. “I think so. Shisui said he is.”

“ANBU-san-”

“Kakashi,” Sasuke says, with the worst sign name Sako has ever seen. It’s ‘scarecrow,’ followed by holding both hands up like reading a book. Kakashi being known for something other than the death of comrades is very good, especially since the last Sako knew, Kakashi was working himself into another spiral of bloody missions in the aftermath of Shisui’s death. It’s also a bad name that tips up the book to cover Sasuke’s mouth like a mask. She can’t read his lips.

“Kakashi,” Sako signs, using a combination of ‘Scarecrow’ and ‘Fang’ instead, taken from the Fang-Son sign name he had as a little baby ANBU Recruit. “Did not realize Obito-kun is alive.”

Sasuke considers this for all of a second before something akin to vicious glee mixed with a hint of familiar revenge sinks into his chakra. All the Snake in it amplifies the negative emotions quite a bit.

It is at this point that Sako knows Sasuke’s parents are dead. That’s an old curse mark, poorly sealed, but Mikoto had Kushina’s old journals. They would have fixed this. Someone in the clan probably inherited the notes but didn’t understand why they were kept so carefully. This curse mark is a problem with a solution for later.

For now, they are getting out of this hellhole. Sako has sent support to the clan member she saw earlier and will now take part in her very favorite activity: going home to hug her kids.

She tugs on her contract with the tigers and marches towards the stairs. Another pipsqueak shinobi ghosts after them with a very refined technique, but his concern is giving away his presence. Shinobi can shrink their chakra signatures, but few dull their emotions enough to hide from a sensor hunter-nin.

"Status," she signs when Sasuke nearly stumbles.

“Aa.” The kid is visibly swaying on his feet from Chakra Exhaustion.

“Ask teammates when you need help.” Sako frowns at both the baby crows in front of her and reaches through a genjutsu, tugging Itachi into reality by the elbow. 

The way both Main Branch kids shift their body language when confronted with each other is uniquely strange. Itachi filled out the clan paperwork claiming Sasuke as his anchor an age ago. There’s no reason for Sasuke to be even slightly wary towards him. Sibling problems, most likely. Goodness knows her own kids will have enough drama to catch her up on.

She pokes them down the hall, closer to the best place on earth: an exit.

Itachi outlines the situation further. Shisui went ahead to fight Danzo, who apparently was the one to kill him. Danzo also has multiple Sharingan in his possession, which Sako is aware of. She really does not like the eyes in her head or the fact that they are from mis-matched owners, so this is old news. Itachi is also dodging patrols-

“Repeat that,” Sako signs.

Itachi’s resolve seems to firm. “I am a nukenin, Sako-senpai.”

Sako raises an eyebrow at him.

“I am a nukenin,” Itachi repeats a little slower, as if he thinks she’s having trouble understanding Konoha Standard Sign. She gives him a pitying look. The whole clan knew he’d put the village first when it came down to it. That’s the whole reason he got inducted into ANBU so young.

Itachi isn’t a nukenin.

“Okay,” Sako decides, catching Sasuke again when the kid nearly trips. He’s doing very well, but those reserves are only slightly above average for his age. Chakra exhaustion will hit him before they reach the end of this hallway.

Itachi has turned a placid face her way. Fugaku taught his eldest too young, and it shows in all the ways Itachi reads even more like a shinobi when he’s trying to lie. He should sound a bit more upset if he’s trying to sell this kind of pitch. A bit more civilian.

They find stairs that Sako insists on walking up carefully, checking each step for traps.

“Should I have seen Obito-kun?” Sako asks.

Itachi and Sasuke glance at each other. Weirdly, Itachi deactivates his eyes for it, leaving him all but blind in the dark stairway.

“I don’t know,” Itachi says after a moment. “Maybe.”

“This village is poison.” Sasuke’s lip curls. “He got out, and Shisui likes him. If he wanted to burn this place to the ground, then I’d let him.”

“Teenagers,” Sako signs at Itachi, and finishes clearing the stairs. She gets the sense the brothers are discussing something emotionally devastating to the both of them from all the gymnastics their chakra signatures are going through. It is not something she wants to hear.

Sasuke falls right over when he goes to climb the trap-free steps, and his brother swoops forward. Sako waits for Itachi to get his little brother in a rescue hold that will still allow decent maneuverability in a fight, before she signs again.

“Do we need to get you back to a target, Double-Agent-kun?”

Itachi’s face is one Sako makes sure to stow away for prosperity. She may not know who of her family is still alive after so many years, but there must be a few who would enjoy seeing this.

“No,” Itachi says. His mouth turns up, something contented and a little hopeful peeking through that mask of calm. “I belong in my brother’s shadow, not theirs.”

It feels like it should mean something. Sako claps him on the shoulder because she has no idea what people who socialize would say, and flares her chakra to draw attention of enemy and comrade alike. She will survive this.

Today, her summons will hunt.

Sako watches from up a tree as Shark patches her up. He’s writing down a hell of a list on scratch paper, but the scene below is far more interesting.

Itachi watches, expression completely absent, as an ANBU team approach. The crow on his shoulder coasts away on some errand or other.

They are going to go for the kill.

Sasuke steps between them. His face is turned away from Sako for the first half of what he says, but she catches the second when the team spreads out, circling around the two brothers.

Shark’s chakra starts getting a little testy. If she moves, he’ll paralyze her legs to get the healing done uninterrupted.

“-was sanctioned,” Sasuke says. Itachi’s eyes are fixed solely on him. “This whole village killed my family!”

The ANBU Squad hesitates.

“I will go quietly if my brother does,” Itachi says. When Sasuke whips around to stare at him with wide, devastated eyes, Itachi smiles. It’s a brittle kind of sad acceptance that Sako saw on Mikoto sometimes when the world rose up to shut her out. Sako knows it too well from the last days before she was captured.

“You can’t be thinking of going back,” Sasuke says. Sako would miss it if her eyes weren’t lit red. “After what they’ve done to us.”

“I care for my home,” Itachi says plainly. “But never more than I care for you, Sasuke. Where you need me, I will go.”

Sasuke looks very conflicted about this for some reason. His eyes turn from his brother to the stars, and Sako follows his attention to a constellation she knows means something to the Kotoamatsukami line. The ANBU squad gets nervous when he ignores them. Sako flares her chakra in a warning to hold their attack, and two outright twitch in her direction like her survival is a surprise.

“Move one more time,” Shark signs in her face. “I will drop you paralyzed in the hospital lobby.”

Sako inclines her head and watches Sasuke turn in the direction of the village. Something almost wistful pulls at his chakra, for all that his expression stays cold in that Amaterasu Branch way.

“We are born of the sun and made to burn, no matter how the night may protest.” Sasuke whispers. “I’ll stay. If I need to, I’ll burn.”

ANBU approach to capture and restrain Itachi. Both brothers are knocked out with decent techniques, but Sako tracks the squad by signature as they move through the village.

Shark scolds her for wasting chakra on a sensing technique, drawing her attention back.

Sharingan activate in a hospital room when chakra flares. Now stripped of all weapons by hospital staff, every interaction has left her feeling vulnerable enough to involuntarily activate her dojustu. Sako pushes herself off the frankly unnecessary bed and opens the door to a rarely seen face.

A very blood splattered Inuzuka Tsume steps into the room, wild and angry. Kuromaru’s mouth moves, and Sako looks to Tsume for a translation. The matriarch’s eyes narrow.

“Can’t hear?”

“It’ll heal in a few hours,” Sako signs. It wouldn’t have stopped her, anyway. She knows she’s more than hit the point at which the village would pay for her retirement. Loss of limb in battle would do it, but so would loss of voice in battle, more than two years in ANBU service, more than fifteen years as an active shinobi, or induction into the position of clan elder. She’s been through this song and dance enough. Disabilities and political positions can’t bar a shinobi from ANBU. Only an inability to perform adequately will do that.

“Who else was lost in the attack I was captured in?” she asks instead. “I saw Shisui, Itachi, and Sasuke, but that night had collateral damage.”

The Uchiha district had to have upgraded its security to become that kind of dead zone. Except... Tsume’s expression of bloody grief has not changed. The door locks behind her, seals activating in a familiar self-containment barrier. Kuromaru's ears tip back.

No.

“Where are Izumi and Asahi?” Sako asks, forcing ANBU professionalism into her words to replace the lost sense of calm. “Where are my kids?”

Kuromaru says something.

“They were avenged,” Tsume translates, because the Inuzuka know what matters.

Sako’s left eye activates a Mangekyou. A half-second later, her right eye sports a different Uchiha Branch’s blessing from the heavens, newly manifested. Heightened detail records the way Tsume leans back ever so slightly at mis-matched designs, and the way Kuromaru bristles the smallest bit. Their composure is admirable.

Sako claws her rabid grief together before it can destroy her sense of self entirely. She will bleed and burn and find her way to a grave, through storm and sun alike. 

Then she will survive her breaking point as many times as it takes. 

“I will survive this,” Sako tells herself, like she always has. She finds her goals, her anchors, and holds on to the ones that remain. “Is there anyone I didn’t see? Anyone besides Shisui and the Main Branch kids?”

“We have evidence of another Uchiha on the scene.”

“That’s all?”

“I made sure that Danzo knew,” Tsume says.

He knew.

That’s where she’ll start looking for the graves, then. Sako is of the Raijin Branch. They seek out a target or die trying, just as the Kamui rage until they burn themselves out, and Amaterasu pursue a goal until it breaks them.

Sako ends the shared memory, but not so fast as to completely hide a faint curl of summoning smoke.

“You shouldn’t be here,” the ANBU Commander says. Sako’s hearing is back enough to make out the words, but she can’t care enough to turn around. Paper crinkles under a gloved hand.

The devastated office of Shimura Danzo holds secrets she won’t pry into, but this one-

This one is hers.

Asahi was in the hospital during the night of the massacre. Working through a fever. There were two other Uchiha in the hospital who Itachi killed, both adults.

“It was assumed Itachi went to the children’s ward before his compound, or looped back.” A gloved hand lands on her shoulder, and another eases the paper from Sako’s hand. “One of your kids lived. Itachi never targeted him. The orders only included the Uchiha bloodline, not adoptees.”

Sako would not have survived losing them both.

She is grateful.

She is angry.

She is grateful to be angry and angry to be grateful when her child was murdered in the village she has sworn so many oaths to. Tangled fears have caught in her teeth and stuck to the roof of her mouth. Determination dissolves them, setting a straight line to the goal that Sako has always followed. Asahi is alive.

Sako lets paper be eased from her hand, and straightens up. There is work to be done so her family has a place to return to. She will preserve the home her daughter loved to honor her. She will find her son, who has no grave.

“Who lived in total,” Sako asks as her resolve settles, anchored by a heartbeat somewhere beyond her sensing range.

“Sasuke, Itachi, possibly a third who is currently a nukenin, and your son. Danzo renamed him ‘Sai.’”

Her eyes turn black as exhaustion hits. Anything else the ANBU Commander said remains unrecorded.

Eyes flicker red under a genjutsu.

“The Clan Council,” Akimichi Choza says, “Approves of Tsunade as our Godaime Hokage.”

A record of who sat in this room, what seals surrounded it, and what micro expressions flickered across whose faces, are all saved for eternity. It is not useful to her. It does not feel important to her, so long as her people are safe. 

This moment is still important to her future family members.

She is making up for lost heritage, for the thousands of ancestors no longer remembered due to entire branch families being wiped out overnight. She is ensuring that history will be remembered exactly as it was.

Sako blinks away her sharingan.

Her sharingan activates-

Sako considers the served arm lying on a pristine sheet amidst the R&D shinobi. Second cousin, reads the tomoe of the first two implanted eyes. Fifth cousin, once removed. Aunt twice removed. Sister-

Seeing that pair of eyes hurts worse than the rest.

Faces continue to flash in her mind's eye. She calls the pattern painted on the inside of the Uchiha shrine to mind, and lists names from the tree inked on the ceiling and engraved across stone walls. These names are all that was asked of her, and all she will give this village. Konoha has taken enough.

But to protect the living, she will defend with the dead.

“The faded eyes,” Sako signs. At the back of the room, Ibiki meets her gaze. He will know when she lies, so Sako directs her words to him. “I’m walking the line of clan secrets by saying this, but assuming the conditions were met? You should be very grateful to Shisui.”

“How so?” Ibiki signs back as he speaks. Sako grimaces. She needs to learn the updates they made to this language, but doing that is nearly impossible when people keep babying her with the old version. It was excusable in combat. Not here.

“Again,” she signs. “Correctly.”

Ibiki pauses, surprised. The R&D team’s collective nervous tells get caught and memorized by her dojutsu, but Sako has no time for shinobi who live in the light. She and Ibiki walk the same path. He’s no monster under the bed. He’s a colleague, comrade, and kouhai.

Unfamiliar signs follow. Sako repeats them with Sharingan-assisted perfection, checking to see if there are differences between rank that would change them, and gets a negative.

“I don’t know how these eyes were stolen,” Sako says. “Would you say that those who died would have been betrayed? Scorned? Protected by someone who died for them?”

Ibiki nods, now repeating his response in the new version of Standard. “All possible.”

Most of the stolen eyes are only three-tomoe stage, but a few progressed. Danzo had a Yatagarasu branch eye, which is a little surprising since they should have died out with Hikaku’s line in the last war. That Mangekyou holds a self-delusion technique that pushes limits at such an extreme personal cost that Danzo would not have been able to utilize it much. Shisui’s chakra was also sunk into the Warhawk’s skull when Tsume found him, and Kagami’s eye is still in the clone-cell palm.

Ibiki tips his head to the side, ever so slightly.

Go on, he is saying. Soften it for them.

The village has shown that it can fear Sako’s bloodline through no fault of their own. Power can threaten. Fear and anger are two sides of the same coin.

So, she lies.

“No Uchiha would willingly have use of more than two eyes at a time,” Sako tells Ibiki, the only truth among the following nonsense. “So, there’s no way for the theoretical side of that forbidden technique to ever be used, unless they’re a filthy eye-stealer. Since there was one..."

She trails off meaningfully, and lets them make up whatever narrative they like.

"We were lucky?" Ibiki asks, and Sako recognizes the offer of an exchange. Honesty for reparation. In a sense, it is blood for blood.

"You should be grateful to Shisui for stopping that future. And I will be burning what he couldn’t.” When Sako begins to wrap the arm up in the sheet it’s been placed on, one of the R&D shinobi flinches forward. She has to stop to reply.

“If Senju-san wants her grandfather's cloned cells, I can deliver those ashes,” Sako signs dryly. It would de-escalate if she shut off her dojustu, but Sako will need these memories for her living family.

The shinobi nods reluctantly.

Sako finishes packaging up the arm, slips it under her own, and leaves the lab. Ibiki keeps pace.

“Tsume wants to spar with you,” he says, and Sako exhales the ghost of a laugh.

Ceremonial fire burns at the Uchiha shrine. Red eyes record embers drifting skyward with bloody tears from a slap-dash medical procedure.

Her sister didn't have the Mangekyou before, but it activated nonetheless. Sako’s tomoe patterns match now.

A shape slips out of unoccupied air to stand next to her. She notes him by presence rather than visual cue, and keeps watching fallen clanmates rise up to rest amidst stars. It’s hard to make a mistake with this signature. Sako fought him to a standstill once. She only faltered when a black-orange mask cracked apart, and a face similar to her brother's stared back. 

A good portion of her time in the tanks was spent hoping this shinobi got proper medical care for those scars, but Sako knows that the chances for it outside of Konoha’s revolutionary standards are slim.

“I didn’t know,” the man next to her says. Sako hums, low in her throat. She revels in having another person claw their way out of the grave this village has made from the Uchiha name.

“About Danzo taking eyes?” Sako asks, sticking with the international sign this time. Her visitor tenses. “Because I can tell you that it seems like nobody did.”

“Then how did Shisui know the key to deactivate Danzo’s traps?”

Embers drift upwards.

Sako lived. So will they.

“It matters less to me than two other things,” she says. The shinobi turns his head to frown at her, and Sako places the familiar features with only a little trouble. Deep scars cut through a face resembling her long-gone brother’s. He looks well enough. That blue-black coat does not need the embroidered lining, but someone has begun stitching an unskilled orange wave pattern into the inside.

“Two,” the shinobi repeats. “That’s nearly tempting fate with greed in this kind of career, you know.”

“Do you want to be found?” Sako asks instead of rising to the bait. This is the first question.

Obito looks at her - really looks, like he’s trying to study her. It’s understandable. Sako used to handle too many long-term missions to really know her orphaned nephew, until he was gone and the whole clan was in uproar about eyes gifted to teammates. She started taking in orphans the clan claimed but wouldn’t care for after that. 

“No,” he says finally. “I need to figure out who was involved in taking me away and corrupting my teammate’s dream. I need to kill a shadow that’s trying to become a tree with a shark as my only teammate. After all of that is over, I’ll probably need to find a way to atone.”

She didn’t ask for that detail and does not know what to do with the answers. There are only two things of import. The whys and hows are inconsequential. 

“Are you happy?” she asks, the second of two questions she needs to protect her answer.

Obito looks at her in surprise.

The fire burns low as ghosts breathe a crackling sigh of relief.

“No,” he says. “But I’m doing what’s right.”

“That’s good enough for me, then.”

Sparks and soot dance amidst bonfire smoke. Sako records it for time and a distant cousin who got put into a medical coma.

Beside her, Obito chuckles. It falls into full-blown laughter, the kind Sako can remember from too many people lost to their own grief. He is on a dangerous path that leads far away from her.

For now, they unleash ghosts into the stars together.

Eyes swirl red under a genjutsu. Sako is no fool. She is in a crowd, in broad daylight, in a village that has grown up without her family.

Civilians and shinobi alike gather around the Tower to hear one era end, and another begin. 

On the ground just outside this building stands the clan council. They have to peer up at an uncomfortable angle, but this is also the weakest point in security. It is an honor for any shinobi to be asked to watch a ceremony from the blind spot in defenses, so they do. Some, who push paper from politically visible positions to make Konoha run, get to stand on the roof.

Sarutobi takes off his hat, handing it to a grouchy and slightly tipsy Tsunade. 

Far below, Sako leans on Nyanda as they watch from the shadows. To stand here, she had to claim temporary headship of the Uchiha while the rest were unavailable, but doubts Shisui will mind. He knew what Danzo did to the clan. He’ll want to know how the people here responded. 

“She may not be what this village needs,” Nyanda drums against Sako’s elbow with tap code. “But she is a change.”

Sako shifts to tap back. “Do you think she’ll let Suiko finally claim the Kurama’s adoption rights to the Yondaime’s kid? Their sister clan was a vassal to the Uzumaki.”

Izuno passes back the slang code for laughter. “No alliance can take precedence over our new Hokage’s Uzumaki grandmother, no matter how absent she’s been. It’s frustrating that we can’t interfere.”

Sako watches the Kage and grins. She’s heard of the gag order through rumors, not an official decree. Technically, it doesn’t apply to her yet. 

She closes her eyes to search out the sunlit-bright chakra that contains ancient malevolence amidst the crowd. Izuno hears her request and plans their route back to the hospital accordingly. The village’s jinchuuriki deserves to know he has a family with their fox clan, should he ever decide to claim it.

Civilians cheer at the end of the new Hokage’s speech.

Shinobi do as well, a little more hesitantly. It’s not a good sign, but it’s not a bad one either. Only time will tell if Tsunade can be a leader worth respecting.

Sako continues her updates on Konoha’s gossip as Shisui sits in his hospital room and processes. She goes on to detail how the ANBU commander is practically courting the Kurama matriarch. Both kunoichi are dancing in Danzo’s ashes. Between the loads of paperwork the elder squirreled away and the slow decay of his reputation in the capital, there’s more than enough fodder for celebratory bonfires.

Shisui shudders slightly. He appreciates knowing what resides in the shadows, but there's no way he's poking that lurking danger.

Sako trails off once they start moving to civilian gossip. It's not her purview. Silence settles comfortably between them.

Shisui wonders if she is surprised by having this peaceful freedom again.

"How do you go on?" Shisui asks quietly over rustling leaves outside the hospital window. "How do I endure this?"

"That's a long answer," Sako says.

Shisui huffs a weak laugh. "I don't know what I expected."

"Not my fault," Sako tells him. "I outlive people. Usually by force. That's not a particularly praiseworthy talent, but it's mine and I'll be fucked if I can't own it."

"Can I ask for the long answer?"

Sako gives him a knowing look before she starts to sign.

"Endurance comes in two flavors, the kind where you're able to share the pain, and the kind you shoulder yourself. If you're lucky and stubborn, you'll realize this is the first one. That's the lucky part." Sako nudges her tiger summons with a heel, prompting a growl that raises hair on the back of Shisui's neck. She laughs, a hoarse barking sound. "The stubborn part is surviving the realization that you should share your burden at all."

"I don't know why I expected something easier," Shisui grumbles.

"It can be. Sometimes," Sako's signs slow with an awkward sort of reluctance. "This kind of aftermath comes and goes like tides. I can't promise a pain-free life. I can't promise it'll be okay. But I can promise it will be worth the pain, and for that, I am asking you to endure it."

"But what if my world burns again?" 

"Then I'll be sitting next to you." Sako leans back until she's nearly boneless beyond the signing. "We are born of the sun, Shisui. We rise eventually, no matter how the night may protest."

It's not the answer he wants. Childishly, Shisui finds himself asking again as if the answer will change.

"I'm not strong enough to survive a week like that ever again," Shisui tells her quietly. He realizes just how true the words taste as he sets them on starched hospital sheets. "I lost pretty much my whole family at once and nearly went mad from it. I know what being a shinobi means, but - how do you recover your courage?"

"By finding people to come home to," Sako says. "By choosing them. When the compound burned, I fought. When my family died, I fought. When I woke up in the lab, I fought. For them. For my team. For you, when I saw you were still alive. We are made of our families, and they are made of our choices."

The words settle. They stay in the sunlight filtering through the window behind his senpai, and gather like dust and tiger fur in the corners of the room.

Shisui's eyes ache.

"You make it sound so honorable."

"There is nothing noble in survival," Sako signs dismissively. "Just a tomorrow. But it's worth it. Always will be."

Shisui looks away. He can see the sense in the first part, but the second half of that statement will take work.

Sako lightly kicks the side of his bed to get his attention again.

"You need to hold onto that tomorrow," she signs once he's looking at her again. "It's going to be the hardest thing in the world, but the way to get through this is by grabbing that sunrise like it's a promise. You take it, and you hold onto it, and when the next tomorrow comes you do it all over again. It might feel like you can't. It might feel like it's slipping out of reach, and you might even hate the struggle, but I need you to hold that tomorrow tight like it's all you have. Understand?"

"Yeah." Shisui smiles past the salt in his eyes. It spills onto his cheeks with the motion. "Thanks, senpai."

"Talk to your shrink," Sako tells him before she gets up and stalks towards the door. The tiger follows in her wake.

"Don't run from the med-nin too long," Shisui fires back. She flips him off without turning around.

It really shouldn't be a surprise who is on the other side when she opens it. Inoichi gives the eldest living Uchiha a respectful nod, steps aside, and gives her summon the same wary acknowledgement as they pass.

"Shisui," Inoichi says as he closes the door behind him. There are thick files under his arm, and he looks like he hasn't slept well in weeks, but he's here.

"Hey, sensei," Shisui says, and promptly bursts into tears. 

He feels more than sees an arm loop around him in a hug that's mindful of his injuries, and the fresh wave of sobbing isn't worth fighting at that point. Shisui cries himself out and isn't ashamed of it one bit. This has been a long time coming.

“I am so glad,” Inoichi says, sounding a little teary himself, “that you came back to us.”

It prompts a new wave of tears.

“I didn’t entirely mean to go in the first place,” Shisui hears himself rasp as he leans back seconds or minutes later. “It was just… easy.”

“How so?” Inoichi sits back, still perched on the side of his hospital bed. The files, Shisui notes now that his vision isn’t completely waterlogged, have been abandoned to the visitor’s chair Sako sat in. 

"I have left early my entire life." Shisui cants a shoulder towards Inoichi in apology when the Yamanaka twitches at his double-meaning. "So you can imagine that I'm not very good at staying late."

Inoichi somehow can smile at him in a way that feels honest. Shisui isn’t sure he could if their positions were reversed. He thinks he would be angry, or crying, but not happy.

Inoichi just reaches out, taking Shisui’s hand. "You’ll have time to practice." 

It’s something he hadn’t considered.

“I’m sorry,” Shisui says, because he has to make sure Inoichi knows. “I didn’t… I thought when I made the choice, that it was the right one. I thought - not really that everyone would be better off without me, but that I was hurting so much that it would be worth it. That the world would have less total pain without me to tip the scales. But it didn’t.”

“It did not,” Inoichi agrees. “Can you tell me when you realized that?”

“Depends, do I have to give my report after this?” Shisui asks cheekily. “Because I am going to be so tired if we do the therapy thing now. That’s going to end very poorly.”

“You aren’t reporting to the Hokage,” Inoichi says, which is so very wrong. Shisui must report. It’s a whole procedure.

“Uh, no? I am?”

“You left the village after an assassination attempt on your person by an active member of a military government,” Inoichi says dryly. “Without reporting in.”

“That’s kinda rude of Konoha to frame it that way,” Shisui points out. “Cut me some slack, sensei. I’m back from the dead-”

Joke’s on him for reminding Inoichi. Shisui sighs as he is once again wrapped in a hug.

“I asked for that one, huh?”

“You did,” Inoichi says, withdrawing to place a hand on Shisui’s shoulder. It’s very nice to be around people who are no longer treating casual physical contact like some kind of strategy game they need to win at. Shisui loves his cousins, but they have left him very touch-starved over the past week. It was exhausting.

Everything was exhausting.

“So, here’s what we will do,” Inoichi continues as he reaches for the files. “First, a medic is going to check in while I run through the paperwork the hospital has started to hunt me about. Then I’m going to Mind Walk you, and report to the new Hokage. That’s news, by the way. Hiruzen stepped down for-”

“Tsunade.”

“Which Sako told you,” Inoichi continues smoothly. “In that case, I will drop you off somewhere while that happens. You are under guard, so try to stay at a brisk walking pace for their sakes.”

Eww, bedrest. Shisui mourns all the light travel in his future as someone knocks on the door. Maybe he can get around it by just picking up one of his local ANBU when he needs to move at anything above the most agonizing crawl.

UGH.

Shizune steps into the room, and Shisui takes it all back. He needs to be better than her last patients. It’s vital to him, as a being who lives off petty spite. He needs to beat those fools at this one task.

“I will spiritually bond myself with a turtle,” Shisui promises them both.

Shizune frowns at him.

When Inoichi explains and the frown turns into a kind of reluctant amusement, Shisui counts her reaction as a win.

“Now," Inoichi says as Shizune presses a glowing hand to bandages over a mark from Fuu’s sword. “Paperwork.”

Shisui turns to look Shizune in the eye. “You can knock me back out now.”

“Don’t move,” she scolds, and the need to be better than her past patients once again hits in full force. This is a competition for nobody but him, but Shisui is bound and determined to win by a landslide.

“Question one,” Inoichi reads off, clicking a pen. “Name.”

“I hate paperwork.”

“Uchiha… Shisui. Thank you. Gender?”

“Ass-kicking.”

“Ass… kicking. Very good. Identification number?”

“I will start crying.”

Inoichi looks up at this, and wordlessly offers the pen so Shisui can fill the forms out himself. The window is open. It’s too good a chance not to take. 

Shizune snatches the pen out of Shisui’s grip before he can toss it through sunlit leaves, and points the ballpoint end under his nose. Shisui, who knows exactly what Shizune can do with this weapon, holds very, very still.

“I have a headache,” Shizune tells him in her polite way that indicates boiling rage under the surface of those manners. Shisui nearly goes cross-eyed looking at the pen.

He lists off his shinobi identification number.

After wading through the paperwork hell and listening to Shizune’s do’s and do not’s of healing, Shisui claims a bathroom break. He considers escaping from there before realizing his support network includes an ex-hunter nin and the best sensor in the village. Escaping would do nothing. 

“Grow up,” Shisui tells his reflection. An exhausted face stares back from behind greasy bangs and bandages swamping one eye.

Argh.

“I should be kinder to myself,” Shisui grumbles, and points a finger at his reflection to try again. “Hey, badass. You’re going to be so very stable by the end of this. You are not yet an island of serenity, and you are able to acknowledge your feelings about the effort and time it will take you to become one. Fugaku fucking wishes - fuck. Wished. Fugaku wished- Nah, that's still weird."

"Shrike," Blackbird's voice says wearily from inside a little wall cupboard of spare supplies. "You can be in denial. I won't spill."

Sage bless Raidou.

Shisui blows a kiss at the ceiling, then at his reflection for good measure before he resumes. "Fugaku wishes he had this kind of healthy sense of introspective awareness regarding his mental health. It's so fashionable of you to have a beefy brain like that.”

His reflection looks a little wild-eyed. Shisui winks at it to drive the point home.

That’s better.

He has only one eye, so he has no clue what winking looks like on him, but the effort of putting a little flavor back into his life makes the whole day feel a bit more approachable. Shisui calls this self-care method "coping."

The ANBU guard wait very patiently through his insistence in getting out of uncomfortable hospital clothes and into jounin blacks. The sleeves are a little too long, pants a little too wide, but Tiger tosses him a few rolls of limb wrap.

Inoichi rambles through a speech they’ve both memorized as Shisui finishes making himself comfortable. The Yamanaka then unseals takeout in the form of yakitori, and has Shisui get food in his stomach before they start. It’s probably for the best. This technique has a low but non-zero risk margin. If it goes poorly, Shisui may get knocked right back out for another nap.

Protein consumed, they sit across from each other, Shisui at the edge of the bed and Inoichi in the chair.

Their eyes meet.

Tomoe spin.

Inoichi forms the sign to start the Mind Walk.

It takes a few seconds at most for Shisui to remember just how much he went through, and that Inoichi is both a reporting officer, and his therapist. He is stuck standing in his mindscape with magma pooling around his ankles while experiencing regret.

“I can explain?” he tries.

Inoichi looks up at a very large, framed imaginary Danzo getting squished by a rock.  The sense-illusion is torn around the edges, likely a product of that last fight. Shisui nearly broke down laughing when he got his eye back, so the emotional upheaval to cause that reaction must’ve also shaken a few things loose in his brain.

Inoichi looks at Shisui, then at the paint tag hovering over it. “I guess that is one way to decorate.”

“I got bored,” Shisui says immediately.

Inoichi snags the paint tag and hurls it at Shisui. In his mind, Inoichi has the upper ground and can move too fast to track. Bright pink explodes in Shisui’s face.

“Then you have something to think about while I go on ahead.” Inoichi shakes his head when Shisui wipes aside paint to raise an eyebrow. “We will be going through your memories eventually. This also isn’t a way to replace telling me what happened, and I’ll be interested in how you choose to describe events. That’s why I’m reviewing them without your commentary, rather than with.”

Shisui grimaces at all the work headed his way, but accepts the reasoning readily enough.

Recovery requires effort.

His foundation has been shaking for over a week now. Inoichi will be able to help him seal over the stress fractures, so if he must wait, he will wait.

Shisui leads the way past his outer defenses until sea salt mist replaces magma entirely, then faces his mentor.

“There were moments discussing some parts of clan history that are considered secret,” Shisui warns. “I don’t mind you seeing them, but you know how my mind is more heritage than individual. Some of that inheritance is protection made from the love ancestors felt for their children’s children. It won’t show mercy.”

“No prying into history or eyes,” Inoichi says. “I’ll be careful.”

“Don’t set foot on Uzu,” Shisui adds. He waits for the surprised but steady nod from Inoichi before closing his eye, and dropping into a deep meditation.

Inoichi stands in front of a burning statue, and sighs through his nose. The memory of Itachi tips his head back, eyes falling shut as black flames rise. Shisui’s internal narration, the one that wraps memories over time in feelings and biases, has labeled this all-ending statue “uglier than the murder houseplant,” and “seriously cursed evil vibes.”

Unpacking all of this is going to take a while.

Inoichi can’t wait.

“Lungs or eyes?” Shisui’s voice says, and Inoichi turns to leave. Itachi’s voice freezes him in his tracks.

“You should get out before Zetsu arrives.”

Itachi has been very difficult to evaluate at T&I. They’re being cautious about pitting Yamanaka Techniques against a sharingan-wielding genjutsu master’s mind. Itachi’s mind is likely too shattered. Too dangerous. The nukenin may have failsafes or techniques at his disposal even with access to his chakra cut off, but that response to Shisui’s question was unexpected.

Helpful, even without a brother to lead him.

Maybe Inoichi will have T&I try a Mind Walk on Itachi.

After this, at least. It was already concerning enough to see Shisui point at the nin his brain labeled “big brother” and name the man “Obito.” Inoichi is going to be putting in a lot of hours into helping Shisui feel at ease in the village, let alone safe.

Not long after, Inoichi watches his student waltz into Orochimaru’s territory without a care in the world for tripped seals, and heaves a much deeper sigh. They’re going to talk about this. They already were going to chat, but this is worse risk-taking behavior than he expected.

Far more than expected, he amends as fracture patterns spread across kaleidoscope thoughts. Danzo stands with an empty eye socket, but all the sick humor in that memory comes from Shisui alone. Inoichi’s student nearly snaps for a few terrifying seconds.

The relief Shisui felt at seeing a memory of Inoichi comes as a surprise, but he hates watching that version of himself leave. It looks like it helped. That’s all he could have asked for.

Inoichi watches Shisui’s memory of being strangled and catches himself wishing he could have done more.

It’s an unnecessary thought.

Would, could. Both are useless. More important are the stitches sewing Shisui’s jagged edges back together. Nobody can place those mending stitches except Shisui, but Inoichi can at least supply the thread.

Shisui opens his eyes from his meditation to see Inoichi signal the ANBU to get ready to run. It’s as good as permission to bolt at any point from now on. This is not a great sign. Rather than plan further escape routes, Shisui sympathetically forces himself to fiddle with the limb wrap around one of his ankles, and wait for Inoichi to sort through whatever he witnessed. 

Information overload is the worst.

“Why don’t you go to your clan’s shrine,” Inoichi says, which is completely unexpected. “I need to report in, anyway.”

“Sure?” Shisui grins slightly at the last steadying hand Inoichi puts on his shoulder, and finds his sandals as his mentor leaves.

The front door is for civilians and the Yamanaka who like chatting with them.

Shisui cautiously walks to the window, tapping his sandal treads against the ground to check the grip. He can be a turtle. He’ll just be his fast version of a turtle. This bedrest will be easy.

“Don’t,” Hound warns from just under the windowsill. 

Shisui is careful to make direct eye contact. “Don’t what?”

“You fucking know exactly what, Shrike,” Hare says from the tree. Shisui eyes the genjutsu she has up and decides not to mess with it. Instead, he presses both of his hands to the windowsill before kicking up into a handstand, because Gai is both a treasure and a delight.

“I shall handicap myself by traveling across the village without my feet,” he decides, aiming for a mimicry of Gai’s speech pattern and failing epically because his crow-gifted accent turns the third word into a half-screech. Whatever. Dignity is for losers. Hound lights up in a blaze of white chakra.

Shisui flickers forward to the sound of cursing.

He presses a palm to red tiled rooftops and throws himself upward into another shunshin. Wind bursts past as he reappears nearly over the village market. Shisui throws his weight to the side, using that as a substitute for the jump he usually anchors a high-speed flicker with. A sparrow shrieks as he slams past the little bird, wind buffets a passing patrol, and sound cracks behind him as the sound barrier folds in on itself. 

Shisui reappears outside the Uchiha Shrine’s red tori gate. He presses his other hand to the ground, twists off it into a shorter shunshin, and flickers straight to the entrance.

Steel cleaves apart the air where his head would be.

Still skidding to reduce the momentum of traveling a short distance so fast, Shisui bends back to slide under steel. His reflection passes in well-made bladework. Once past, he pops back up and slams two fingers into the crease in this ANBU’s armor in a move ripped straight out of the Hyuuga’s fancy taijutsu.

His opponent stumbles back a step but, weirdly, does not attack.

“Identification?” the ANBU signs.

Shisui squints at them. Who even knows what the codes have become since he left? Doesn’t this team have a sensor?

His sharingan flickers off, then back on.

They step back. It must be enough.

Shisui blows an obnoxious raspberry at the painted mask for not trusting their sensor teammate, and because he can. Then he trots into the shrine.

Ward lines ripple as Shisui walks down the stone path, which should keep any ANBU out. These wards do not, however, explain why there is a guard lurking around this sacred space at all.

He finds his answer standing in the fire-lit shrine, eyes fixed on names carved into the walls. Shisui’s eye flicks up to the painted tree stretching across the shrine’s ceiling and walls, then to the well-swept shrine interior. Someone has been coming through here to speak with ghosts. There are two types of incense burning. Many are before names he does not know.

Others go back through the Kotoamatsukami line.

It seems Sasuke opened a sea chest while Shisui was napping.

Shisui stands next to his cousin, and follows his eyes to the names of two very recent clan heads. Sasuke has a classic overshirt, so he must have gone to see Neko-obaa. That, or Izuno stopped by.

“They would be proud to see you return,” he says quietly. “But I think they would be proud if you ran, too. Love gets to be uncomplicated like that, sometimes.”

Sasuke has no chakra signature beyond the faintest ember. The trace of Snake has all been drained away, leaving lightning and brontide shuddering like an echo of passing storm systems. T&I sealed his ability to access it, then.

“Itachi said he’d follow me if I did,” Sasuke says.

“But you chose to stay.”

“Hn.”

Shisui closes his eye, blocking out the orange-red-black of the shrine with its bright blue shadows and history sunk deep beneath wooden floorboards. This isn’t the part of his home that saved him, but it is worth honoring. Sea salt mist flickers on the edge of his awareness, folding into a sense-memory of Kagami’s hand on his shoulder.

Someone swears in the distance. His old ANBU squad has gotten slow.

“You’re already out of T&I?” Shisui asks.

“I’m too good a resource to keep hidden,” Sasuke mutters. 

“Didn’t you have Kakashi as a sensei? Where’s all that underneath the underneath bullshiiiiii- uh.” Shisui looks behind him, half expecting her angry ghost to manifest in the ancestral shrine, then back at the names Sasuke’s been staring at. The ancient room remains quiet but for distant wind curling against rice paper. It is not a reassuring sound. “Anyway! Please tell me he at least mentioned it.”

Sasuke grunts an affirmative. “There is no underneath.”

“Do you think this is the most efficient way to treat a returned shinobi?” Shisui can't help but ask. Sasuke glares from the corner of his eye, so Shisui sarcastically adds, “a whole ANBU squad for each of us. Very efficient. I bet Itachi has one too. Sixteen or so ANBU constantly on watch, calling for thirty-two out of the whole black ops. Three squads total, if they’re using who I think they are. There’s no way anyone I remember has that kind of political power, so somebody is nagging the Hokage into leniency.”

Sasuke’s eyes flicker in the direction of the exit, then the village. 

“You can try to burn the world, but too many people care about you, Sasu-kun. They’ll stop you long before the finish line.” Shisui grins like a cataclysm. “I’m willing to bet they’re fighting for you right now, actually.”

His littlest cousin seems to know exactly who to blame. “That idiot would yell the whole time doing it, too.”

“You should talk to him.” Shisui says. “Tell him your coolest, best, and totally badass cousin who you just can’t live without-”  Shisui breaks off to cackle when Sasuke’s elbow connects with his ribs. He fakes a swoon for the drama of it all and collapses on the floor of this very sacred shrine. 

Ooh, he can practically feel Honorable Elder Yuuta’s ghost seething beyond the grave about decorum. To rub it in the toxic old man’s face, Shisui crosses his arms and stays on the ground, grinning up at Sasuke. The kid has the audacity to sniff at him.

So rude!

“I’ll teach you both to use the shunshin properly,” Shisui offers cheerfully. 

Sasuke’s attention slides towards him. “...Do you have to teach the Dead-Last?”

“Yeah, but I’ll also correct your kata, so it’s still in your favor. Do we have a deal?”

Sasuke’s eyes flick back to the names of his parents. Gut-churning grief and relief twist through that faded spark of lighting, battling self-directed anger and a wistful type of hurt that barely makes it to his face. Much like Itachi, Sasuke is growing up into that elegant Main House type of tragic grace. Hopefully he can remember how to take off the mask. A little venting can be healthy.

“Aa,” Sasuke says, a bit reluctantly. "Deal."

Shisui rolls backwards onto his hands, then flips to his feet so he can sling an arm over Sasuke’s unfairly tall shoulders. This kid is supposed to be a meter high at most. Amaterasu really does give her hardest battles to her strongest soldiers, but Shisui wishes he weren’t in that number quite viscerally.

“Excellent. Hey, tell him I’m taller than you, alright?”

Sasuke gives him a look full of poison that is not remotely threatening. Shisui, who grew up receiving much better glares from Itachi, coughs so he doesn’t laugh in his littlest cousin’s face. It would be received poorly.

Faint clattering draws their attention to the shrine entrance. A moment later, Toki coasts past the ward line.

She lands on a wooden grate next to lit incense, head cocked to one side. Shisui can’t help but stare at the summons. Itachi must have had her wait around the village, watching the world turn without him.

Clever Itachi, who has the control to anchor a summon to their realm before he was taken in and undoubtedly cut off from his chakra.

Clever, murderous Itachi who is looking for ways to be better even after shattering his sense of ethics for the sake of a little brother.

Clever, sweet, murderous Itachi, who would know that Shisui called on Toki once for an unbiased account of what happened. Now, he can ask again.

“One of yours?” Sasuke asks.

“Yeah,” he says, because she is. She’s both Shisui’s and Itachi’s, but Shisui would never ask her to stay this long. He lets his crows rest. “I need to catch up on a decade of good shinobi gossip, after all.”

Sasuke rolls his eyes again and bows to the names he’s been watching over. Shisui catches his littlest cousin by the elbow before he can leave, and pulls Sasuke into a hug.

Sasuke freezes up.

“I am so proud of you,” Shisui whispers over the black-dyed canvas on his cousin’s shoulder. “No matter what. And I am so grateful to see you finding a way to live past what’s happened this week.”

Shaking hands slowly wrap around Shisui. It’s a clumsy, awkward attempt at a hug that’s honestly kind of awful as far as hugs go. Shisui wouldn’t trade it for the world. He stands there, content, and keeps his arms loose enough for Sasuke to run when he’s ready.

It’s impressive that Sasuke can hug back at all, let alone for more than the shortest of seconds. He’s already healing.

It still isn’t long before Sasuke steps back, face tucked downwards as if he can hide behind the hair that slips over his eyes. 

He flickers away in the next second.

Shisui eyes the red maple leaves drifting down to rest next to an engraved name: Uchiha Kasumi.

Stone catches under his hand as he collects the handful of leaves. Shisui thinks of an age-lined face paused midway through kata, lifted to the rain, and understands that memory of the former matriarch a little better.

“Missed-did,” Toki says from her perch. 

“I missed you, too.” Shisui reaches out, and Toki coasts through the room to land on his arm. 

She clacks her beak at him.

“What happened? I know a little. Sako-senpai shared what she could, and I bet you heard Sasuke just now. But that’s leaving someone out, isn’t it?”

“Red-Yearling-recover-Tree-Hat-want.” Toki readjusts her wings in the crow equivalent of shrugging. Shisui is never going to tell Tsunade what the crows have named her. Never. “One-Eye-recover-Toki-want.”

“I am trying,” he tells her. 

Sage, but he is trying. He promised Airi as much. Sasuke, too.

“Want-victory,” Toki says. Red-orange light reflects off her feathers, making the crow look like a messenger of the gods. At the thought, Shisui folds his hands together.

Summoning smoke unfurls.

Shisui spends another hour in that shrine, Yui tucked under his chin and Airi on his shoulder as Junka, Satou, and Toki argue over the recent gossip.

It’s unlikely Itachi will be a shinobi again, but Shisui knows this village won’t discard a weapon with that reputation. Toki said Tsunade was invested in his situation, and the legendary medic had pre-war plans for upgrading Konoha’s mental health practices. Itachi is nothing if not a representation of how the current system can fail. Helping him is a big statement. Itachi is in T&I right now, but Shisui has little doubt he’ll be moved elsewhere once he passes screening. 

Obito is who-knows-where, but Toki has seen him step into the village a few times. He’s even tried to lurk outside Shisui’s hospital window, until failing in a very interesting event where Hound tackled him straight back into Kamui. Hound apparently reappeared on top of the hospital a few hours later slightly disheveled and a bit injured, but otherwise unharmed. Toki did not understand enough ANBU sign to explain what happened.

Junka is choosing to believe they kissed. Shisui does not want to think about it. That’s his captain and big brother she’s talking about.

Disgusting.

Junka believes it a little louder in response to his very correct opinion.

As for the last living members of his family, Shisui is delighted and unsurprised. He bet at the beginning of this mess that Sako would dig her way out of a grave. Her luck even dug her foster son out, too.

Every single member of his family is okay right now.

They’re okay. 

Yui snuggles under his chin with a contented noise. He soothes the feathers on top of her head before reaching up to do the same for Airi, who clacks her beak at him.

ANBU wait outside the shrine as local crows gather on its roof.

Shisui has done all he can to blitz through the world like a typhoon, with half the grace and none of the warning. He has tried and tried, and managed to rest in small, scavenged portions between the massive effort of it all. This remarkably unfamiliar world where everyone has moved on in unpredictable ways has hit back at him with full strength. Shisui is tired. Battered. Bruised and broken. Now, it’s time to start working on healing the hardest to face part of this future he woke up in:

Himself.

Shisui lands alone on the roof of T&I before slipping past traps on his way to a familiar window. Familiar traps are easily disabled, and his kunai fits nicely under the window, catching on the marked-up windowsill Inoichi always scolded him about.

This time, he finds himself entering slowly, savoring the return as a walk towards his future rather than fleeing from the past. There are no longer ghosts among the living attempting to drag him down. No poison in his veins. No blood on his face. He has laid those threats to rest.

All that remains are ancestors and tomorrows. 

Water boils as Shisui waits for Inoichi to catch up.

This time, Shisui leans into those echoes of the past. It’s a good way to redo the moment shortly after he was freshly reawakened, already half lost with panic and grief. His last time in this office was not conductive to healing. Shisui wants to recreate this moment of reaching out to his support network. He wants to fill it with something that can honor his fear and loss and luck alike.

Shisui has always carried Kagami in a half-dozen mannerisms. He makes tea with the methodical precision and excess helping of honey used by a neighbor who was lost that bloody night. When he scorns the chair to sit on the floor, it is like Izuna, his granduncle.

For the sake of symmetry, he cradles his mug and sits where he did two weeks or so ago, when the world had fallen out from under his feet in more ways than one. He sits with his past in the present to greet the future.

Straightening his spine into Fugaku’s posture, Shisui channels Mikoto’s patience.

And waits.

Inoichi steps into the office and pauses, watching Shisui. It’s anyone’s guess what his mentor is thinking, or if he can see where these dozens of echoes come from. Sheafs of papers are crammed under one of his arms, and a bag of takeout hangs from the other.

Ichiraku’s ramen.

“So,” Shisui says. “What’s the plan?”

“There is no plan,” Inoichi says as he tosses the stacks of forms onto his desk. One continues to slide across it, toppling into his empty chair. Paper rustles as it spills onto the ground under the furniture. Inoichi crosses tired arms at his desk and eyes it as if calculating how much he really cares about keeping the workspace neat.

The bags under his eyes are a little more pronounced than when Shisui last saw him.

Sage, but Shisui missed his mentor so damn much.

“No plan,” he repeats. “Giving up on me already?”

“Never,” Inoichi says, startling Shisui with a look that’s half-fond and half-fierce. “Don’t ever build the habit of joking about that. The first step to recovery is looking at what happened. We will sit with it, nonjudgmentally. Then, we make the plan.”

Right.

Shisui looks down at his empty mug. A single pale green drop of water traces the ceramic bottom as he turns it, trundling along in an endless cycle. Gravity claims everything eventually. The question is, how long can Shisui manage to rise?

“I can’t climb very quickly,” Shisui says. “Doing all of this in such a short amount of time took a lot out of me. And Danzo-”

His missing eye burns. Two times, the elder reached. Once was successful. 

Once was enough.

“My wings are partially clipped,” is all Shisui manages.

“We aren’t letting you fall.” Inoichi says. His mentor crosses the room to crouch a bit in front of Shisui, far enough to give space but close enough that reaching out feels like an option Shisui would not have to struggle for. “Do you understand? We are here to stop you from falling, but I can’t fight all of this battle for you. I can provide the weapons to fight with, I can help you strategize, and I can support you with the rest of your precious people. When you stand, I cannot make you bend your joints, but I can ensure that you do not stand alone.”

It feels unfair. Airi made him swear to find a tomorrow despite that fact. When Shisui dropped his littlest cousin off in front of a Root base entrance, Sasuke had looked him in the eyes and said, “You promised that you’d try,” so he will. Fairness has never mattered.

Shisui is born of the sun. He will rise, no matter how the night may protest.

“That’s all I need,” Shisui says.

Inoichi tips his head to the far more comfortable chairs in his office. “Then let’s get started.”

The first thing Shisui feels as he rises towards his future is relief.

Chapter Text

Shisui tugs on a hopefully clean overshirt, checks the clan symbol on the back does not have berry juice on it - thank you, Yui - and stumbles past his little apartment kitchenette. 

Stepping outside induces a shiver as cold hits his face and creeps up his arms. Shisui pulls fire chakra through his tenketsu, piggybacking off the Yin and Yang chakra that marches alongside his pulse. Dancing phantom flames chase away Hi no Kuni’s meager dawn frost. Shisui exhales steam lit orange-yellow by delicate fire, and raises his arms in a stretch that greets the rising sun.

Most of the trees that shed their leaves have lost them, but the Hashirama trees are always last to turn and first to return. It’s a good day.

A cold one.

Shisui gets two steps out of his apartment before stopping.

“Forget-did,” Airi clatters from the rooftop tiles and branching ofuda-plastered pipes. She tips her head to the side. “Egg-Not-greet-remember-not?”

“Never-never,” Shisui calls up in thanks for the reminder.

He doubles back to pat the rock on his windowsill for good luck. Daily rituals are supposed to help him reclaim a sense of normalcy or something along those lines. Inoichi's advice generally ends up whacking Shisui upside the head much later when the effects kick in, so sure. 

He will say 'hi' to his pet rock Renga-chan every day.

"Greif gets tangled up in blame," Inoichi had said as he flipped through papers. Shisui watched from the comfort of a ridiculously soft chair that was newly added to the room by the time he got out of the hospital.

"I think it gets tangled up in rage more," Shisui said. "For me, anyway. I was so angry at Itachi - still am, honestly. We're never going to be best friends in the same way."

"No. You blame Danzo."

Argh, Shisui has been called out.

"I did and I do." He plucked at soft fabric. "But I don't know why I'm angry at the village now."

Inoichi shrugged. "It's what we do when our minds can't comprehend the loss - something or someone has to have played the starring role. We want to run, or fight, or really do anything but sit in the same situation, which is a similar cause of the suicidal thoughts you were dealing with. Your mind was putting out big, flashing warning signs that all said: this situation needs to change. But now something has changed. It's just not in the ideal way where your family is alive again and everyone is holding hands, singing around the campfire."

Shisui pulled his knees up to his chin, squirming until he took up the smallest possible space on the chair. "I don't know where to go from here."

"Let's look at it this way: why are you spending your free time in Training Ground 44 instead of with your team or your family?"

"I talk to Sako-senpai."

"Yes, the only person to come back in a way that didn't hurt," Inoichi said, which was a surprisingly correct statement that shook Shisui to his foundations. "You told me you want Obito back in your life. What did you envision that to be?"

"Do you think I should talk to him?"

"I think you should consider what trying would mean for yourself instead of just him."

Sako-senpai nods to Shisui from where she's exiting her own apartment, tiger following in her wake. He hasn't seen her without a nearby summon since finding her in a tank, but the past few years had effects on all of them.

“Morning,” Shisui says, trying for casual when a second Uchiha follows her. The kid - Sai, he wants to be called Sai - holds himself with Root stiffness.

“Morning,” Sako signs before setting her hand on her son’s shoulder. 

“Good morning,” Sai offers with the fakest smile Shisui has ever laid eyes upon. “Slowpoke.”

Shisui can feel his eye twitch. It’s unfortunate. Sai is trained to a ridiculous degree for all that he’s just barely been allowed back home, so both he and his Hunter-nin parent absolutely notice the agony this nickname causes.

He was late for an event involving Sai once. That errand just happened to be picking up Sai from Psych while Sako was retesting for her place in ANBU. 

“I am very fast,” he sniffs.

Sai nods condescendingly. “You mentioned this, yes.”

“The fastest,” Shisui says warily.

“You are.” Sai manages to both smile and make it sound like he’s lying. It feels like the worst of insults. Shisui considers himself lucky to have no pride left to injure, but the skill is still impressive. Sai is going to be hilarious once he’s readjusted. Sasuke and Sai are already halfway to a double homicide, for all that Team Seven has only just started absorbing him by proxy.

Rather than respond to the bait, Shisui turns to Sako. “I assume you're both heading out for daily warmups?”

“Training,” Sai corrects as his mother signs confirmation.

Shisui keeps his grimace internal. It's been a work in progress to separate anything from that word. Root had no concept of warming up or healthcare check-ins - either they were training, on a mission, or asleep. Warming up with a morning jog would have always had added quizzes or some other hellish exercise.

“And reeducation classes,” Sako signs. “I have a council meeting that both of you are welcome to interrupt at noon, but Sai knows to find you in an emergency since I may not be available.”

At the ANBU base, then.

“Flare your chakra if you need us,” Shisui tells their clan's most recent surprise survivor.

Sai blinks at him, slowly, like he's swapped to an unknown language. 

Sure.

Shisui ruffles Sai’s hair as he passes, only to walk right into the terrifying snap of the tiger’s maw. Fingers curl into his overshirt and yank.

Shisui throws a hand out, palm biting into the railing separating apartment walkways from the rooftops. Sako twists her grip, launching him further up before her summon can decide he’s enough of a snack to pursue.

Shisui flickers to the rooftop with a curse. “Just because I’m a bird summoner doesn’t mean I’ll taste like one! Sage’s sake.”

Honestly.

Shisui turns to the cliffside monument. Red-blue shadows stand out from beneath the gold sunlit rock, as if Amaterasu dipped a massive brush in lacquered gold and swept it across the faces of past Kage. 

Airi follows as he hops leisurely across rooftops, taking the slow route. Windows open, villagers rising to pour seasoned steam into twisting streets. Shops open, noren set out, and greetings ring softly far below. Markets set up with easy practice. Shisui folds himself into a few cartwheels across high pipes and the laundry lines that stretch across these twisting, familiar, nostalgic streets. The village wakes up.

He thinks about how everything has changed on his way to the clifftop.

It's… lucky, really, that Sako-senpai is a survivor the likes of which legends envy. She’s terrible with communication and an honestly horrible source of advice in interpersonal matters, but she is able to extend her "hard-to-kill curse" towards those under her care. Hopefully that continues. The evidence lies in her foster son's survival through Root, though he had forgotten his name by the time he was recovered from the blank-masked trainees. Her son is still recovering.

Survival-oriented is the type of leadership the Uchiha need for now.

Merchants greet each other, unaware of Shisui skipping far above. It feels as though he’s risen out of muck to take a first clear, fresh breath with them. Airi swoops past with a few locals playfully chasing her. Shisui turns in a half-dance, spinning into their midst as he joins the corvid game across patchwork roof tiles.

He’s home.

He’s safe.

He is not responsible for the clan.

Shisui is too frayed at the edges, Sasuke is too unstable, and Itachi will never really be trusted by the village again. Obito is out of Konoha altogether, following his own plans of revenge on Zetsu and conspiring to make the new Hokage's life an exercise in patience. None of them could oversee the official aspects of reintegrating a clan. What's more, none of the post-nukenin members should be in charge of the clan they each betrayed in different ways. 

This leaves two candidates. Honestly, Shisui could manage a day of leading the Uchiha before falling into a breakdown or relapse. He hasn't healed enough yet.

But Sako-senpai endures.

Lethally.

Desperately.

Without want of glory or honor, yet certain as the sunrise each morning.

It's what they need. Itachi, of all people, sat down next to Shisui in a Psych hoodie and suggested closing the compound, relocating back to where Uchiha once lived in the center of the village. It's a breath of fresh air. Framed like a return instead of a change through Shisui’s words, Sasuke accepted the move as a way to honor their ancestors rather than betraying their dead. Shisui had to rephrase it rather than their Temporary Clan Head. 

Sako-senpai may be talented at survival, but emotional bandwidth is a different matter if it's unrelated to getting through each day by way of fire and blood. There are no thoughts in her head that relate to mental health. No effort is given to fulfillment, just perseverance. 

She has no spite either, so Shisui acts for them both. He thinks it's very nice to see Konoha deal with cats and crows.

Revenge is the way of Uchiha. He's just maliciously petty in his execution of it. The Uchiha clan is now very small, yes, with only Shisui semi-visible. Sai is in classes learning how to think of himself as a human. Sako-senpai still is more myth than reality to anyone who is not in black ops, or now another clan head. Itachi and Sasuke aren't safe to let roam and Obito does nothing but roam, so Shisui is left with the social pressure to be Konoha's perfect Uchiha. He started last week, and immediately solved this with paint tags. Also glitter.

Ooohh, the people hate to hate him. It’s funny as fuck.

Shopping is becoming his very favorite hobby.

Shisui slips into the cliffside woods, circling back through the trees to reapproach from behind the Nidaime’s carving.

Airi, the darling, flits away to watch and report. ANBU stealth and a genjutsu strengthened by the crow contract ensures watchful shinobi will only notice a few crow summons checking on an intruder.

His target’s chakra holds steady.

Shisui sneaks out onto a branch overlooking the clifftop, where a familiar Uchiha sits on Tobirama’s carved head with a stolen book. The whole village is swathed in nearly gone traces of morning mist, and Shisui takes a second to admire it with his unknowing companion. From so high up, it really does look like a place that could be beloved. There are no roots this morning can’t burn away. Rot has been cleansed. Shisui watches smoke rise as Konoha citizens make their breakfasts, and feels a little more content with it all.

The Uchiha close to him deflates with a little sigh, before bringing up a book to smack against their forehead. 

Repeatedly.

They have things to talk about, but for now-

“Light it on fire,” Shisui calls softly, weaving a silk-thin genjutsu into his voice to make it pitched into an inhuman tenor.

Obito startles, then looks up at the clouds. “Amaterasu?”

It is technically breaking a lot of cultural conditioning to impersonate their clan’s chosen deity, but Shisui will do quite a bit for a good prank. It helps that he’s one of the less religious shinobi.

“Light it on fire,” he calls again. “It needs to be done.”

Obito immediately sets Hound-taichou’s book on fire. 

...That took surprisingly little convincing.

Shisui lands as Obito is dusting ash off his hands and delights in the undignified yelp it causes.

"Lies, " Shisui interrupts the flailing and swearing. "I'm your favorite Uchiha."

"You," Obito says as he pokes Shisui's chest right next to the scar from their reunion battle. "Are the only one I can exist in the same room as."

Fair enough.

Shisui flops down on the monument with a hum of agreement. Obito joins him after a moment of hesitation they both pretend to ignore. 

The chilled autumn sun freezes red cold across his fingertips and ears. Airi coasts down to land on his shoulder as Shisui pulls a letter from his pocket and soothes over freshly sealed paper. Birdsong trills behind them as the earth continues stirring.

“Are you alright?” he asks, attention fixed resolutely on the paper.

Obito sighs. “Kakuzu is a pain as always, Hidan is a headache as always, and if we reach the end of the year without strangling Deidara, I will personally set down my blade to become a monk. What do you think is alright about this?”

“So, you haven't caught him, then.”

“You'll know,” Obito says darkly, “when I catch Zetsu.”

Shisui isn’t so sure. A fight like that will either have everybody or nobody watching, with little space between. It’s also not a point worth pressing. Worry won’t change the outcome. “Are you happier with this kind of goal?”

Obito grumbles something indistinct before biting out, “sure.”

He does not sound remotely sure of it.

Shisui makes the face this requires. Somewhere between Shisui’s scrunched nose and wrinkled grimace, Obito throws out both hands in a gesture of frustration.

“I'm making choices I know are fully mine, even if I know they're imperfect,” Obito snaps. “No more manipulation. Whatever mistake I want to choose is mine. Happy?”

“Yep! Very happy,” Shisui chirps. 

Obito is getting better at communicating to Shisui, though the rest of the village bar Hound seems to be a lost cause.

That's enough.

Itachi is both banned from contacting Obito and under constant surveillance, Sako would attack, and Sasuke is complicated. By complicated, Shisui means that Sasuke tries to reminisce or learn about the lost Uchiha because he still does not know that Obito helped Itachi turn the compound into Murdersville. Meanwhile, Obito makes faces due to being the local odd duck before he got abducted. Sometimes Shisui follows along for the entertainment.

Sometimes, Hound-taichou is caught in the periphery. The guy is a bag of cats in one wolf-themed shinobi, which makes for marvelous entertainment. Junka remains insistent that he and Obito are dating. Kisame sent him a pen pal letter suggesting the same. Shisui thinks that is none of his business. He also thinks that they are so far from emotionally healthy that they should not date anyone else, so this is really a situation best not thought about for too long.

At least all of this is a sign Sasuke is healing.

Small victories.

Shisui holds out the letter to Obito. “Here.”

“Post your own pen pal mail,” Obito grumbles, but he trades Shisui's letter for a mildly dirt stained one. 

Shisui sniffs at him and opens the letter immediately.

“He wants to go hunting together,” Shisui notes. Kisame has been trying to arrange it so that Ao becomes aware with Kisame watching gleefully from the shadows. As Shisui also wants to witness his reaction, they are aware the path to efficiency lies within cooperation and plotting accordingly.

"I don't underestand this," Obito reminds him. 

"You know how some people are born under stars that say they love each other in the old stories? Destined to be together? Like Madara and Hashirama-"

Obito gets up with a sound of disgust. Dirt crunches slightly as he paces in a rather wonky circle with his face buried in both hands, then relocates to lie facedown slightly behind Shisui. "I don't want to hear-"

"Two bros," Shisui sings to be obnoxious, "Making a village and living on either side because they're not gay!"

"I want a nap," Obito tells the uncaring dirt he's busy pressing his face into.

"The point is," Shisui says, a little louder so Obito can hear him over his internal crisis, "some people like Hermit Gramps and our Local Tree Gramps-"

Obito makes a high-pitched noise in the back of his throat.

"-Are lovers who were always meant to be together. Sasuke and his lil' sunshine teammate are like that, too. Written in the stars and everything. Cosmically destined lovers. Ao and I are cosmically destined haters. It's our duty to poke at each other like this, and I need a reunion with him."

Kisame recommends tomorrow. Shisui, delightfully, has travel rights to Uzu's ruins. He can take a week-long trip every other year, and Kiri is close enough to those shores for the very best of nonsense.

With Obito’s help, Kisame can wander by when Shisui pops out of a sonic boom to jump scare his worstie-bestie with glitter and fire. This is great. Ao is going to lose his mind. Ao also knows that the way to stop Shisui from hating him is to give Konoha the eye he stole, but this Kiri-nin is stubborn as well as an idiot. The eye will stay in Kiri. Thus, they are cosmically fated to be eternal hate-lover rivals. Shisui owes him a warning before they cross paths on an undercover mission or something equally high stakes, like politics.

"I have Madara's memory box," Obito admits into the dirt. "They weren't lovers."

"Oh, boo."

"Wrong founder."

Shisui has to take a second to absorb that. "So, I gotta ask-"

"Don't ask."

That's probably for the best. Shisui is done thinking about this, actually.

"Izuna took Madara's favorite fan for training and burned it by accident. He was so happy about keeping that secret that he told literally every single descendant," Shisui settles on. When in doubt, bring up dead-people drama.

"What fan?" Obito flops over and sits back up. "The gunbai?"

“I guess? Huh. Anyway. Can you tell Kisame I'm fully committed now?” Shisui folds up the now-wrinkled note. “Hopefully he already knows that I’ll fold like wet cardboard for an opportunity to make Ao miserable, but just in case: yes. Absolutely. We are going to cause so many problems tomorrow.”

“You could choose not to,” says Obito, the man who stepped off his personal revenge path only to hop onto a different, far trickier one.

Shisui gives him a speaking look.

“Or you could delay it, so I don’t have to ferry your mail,” Obito grumbles petulantly. He kicks at the monument’s orange-brown stone, letting pebbles clatter down carved features.

“I’m not on the mission roster yet, and Konoha can't keep my survival a secret forever,” Shisui points out. Hiding behind Sasuke and Itachi’s reputations will only temporarily keep the other villages from realizing he's back. “Maximum surprise will only happen if we get to Ao now.”

“How is this my life,” Obito grumbles. He gets to his feet slowly, like an old man. Shisui considers teasing him for it but holds off - it’s hardly Obito’s fault that Konoha is the only place with decent medical care. Their lifestyle is not a kind one. Nukenin rarely live long enough once the effects really settle in.

“Don’t die,” Obito grunts. His mouth pulls back at the corners with awkward hesitation that echoes a long-gone kid with bright orange goggles. 

“I learn from my mistakes,” Shisui says. “And you don’t need to say goodbye, Obito-nii. I know you’ll be back.”

Gratitude flinches through Obito’s inferno chakra signature. Rather than make this into a parting that Obito needs escape from, Shisui turns his attention fully to the village. A hand lands on his shoulder, trembling.

His brother in all but blood vanishes into Kamui. 

Airi clatters out a sound best left to rusty hinges. “Not-will-have. Worry-much.”

“I know someday he’s going to leave for good, and we won’t know when that will be. That’s why I won’t ask him to return a favor like survival,” Shisui tells her quietly. “Even if it is worrying. He’s here for now, and the best I can offer is a listening ear as he struggles through his choices.”

Tactically, it is very fortunate that Obito has set his new fixation on destroying Zetsu. Betrayal is a potent emotion, one Uchiha usually fall to most viciously when someone turns on their loved ones. The Mangekyou is not kind to unprepared minds. That Zetsu and Madara turned Obito into a purposely unstable weapon makes his descent into a rage-fueled pursuit of absolution much worse. 

Or better, maybe. 

Any living Uchiha - which is not many, but still enough to count - knows how this will end. Obito will burn himself out trying to end Zetsu. Whether he succeeds or fails, he will not survive the process.

Shisui is very lucky his own mental checks mostly withstood that same trauma response. He is functioning. Recovering. It's enough.

I am asking you to endure it, Sako-senpai said in that hospital room. It felt cruel at the time. 

Insurmountable. 

Shisui raises both hands in a stretch as he rolls to his feet. Villagers are beginning to fill the streets, cheerful colors and mild errands turning their wandering path into a kind of river he tracks from above. Pale dawn cold catches his overshirt as Shisui steps up to the edge of the monument.

It was all worth enduring.

He was born of the sun to fly, so Shisui spreads his arms as if he could embrace this moment, and twists into freefall.

Sandal treads tap against the Nidaime’s hitai-ate, throwing Shisui forward. Shunshin launches him to the rooftops. Shisui catches himself with one hand. Brick presses into weapon calluses. His heel lands on a chimney halfway to the market, and Shisui crouches low before launching himself sideways. Pigeons take off in a burst of startled feathers, windchimes ring far behind him, and Shisui’s laughter catches on powerlines.

Metal rings as he skids down a drainage pipe just outside Psych. Alley cats and squirrels scatter out from underfoot as Shisui trots along a low rooftop, ducking under a row of massive unlit lanterns and sliding over a tree branch. 

Shoving aside bright red maple leaves with the back of his arm, Shisui crouches to pick at the wards around Psych.

“Eat-should,” Airi grumbles as he unseals ink and a brush. “Two-breakfast-need. Airi-treat-earn-did.”

Shisui bites down on the brush handle as he thinks, letting the sound mimic a clacking beak in answer. It takes a bit of creative problem-solving to create a Shisui-sized loophole in the perimeter alarm. He slips through, trading brush and ink for his bag of bribery.

“Never-here-were,” he tells Airi in the same language as they climb the red maple tree. If Junka finds out Shisui has been checking in on a certain series of reunions via stealth, she will be an absolute menace with that gossip’s timing.

Airi crunches through nutshells a half-minute later when Shisui finds his quarry.

Far below in Psych’s little outdoor garden, Itachi sits on the little porch beside his brother. Chakra-restricting cuffs poke out from his standard-issue sleeves, but Sasuke sports curling ink on his own arms. It is doubtful either brother will have full access to their abilities anytime soon.

Shisui crouches down on the mossy rooftop, still hidden by red maple leaves. He shuffles out while staying within the shadows until a line of cheerful advertising flags drape between himself and the courtyard. Wisteria branches and chipped paint press into his back as Shisui leans into the building behind him.

He should not have this little routine.

Trust does not lurk behind rust, paint, and plants.

The problem is that Shisui once gave that trust to Itachi and woke up to a dead clan, missing cousins, and abysmal mental health.

“I'll live for you,” Itachi offers. It is a far cry from an old promise that Sasuke likely never heard spoken aloud: I'll die for you.

“What about for yourself?” Sasuke says tonelessly. “What about loving yourself enough to try at preserving it?”

“Someday.”

Shisui makes a lot of promises about this kind of thing. Not once has he ever done it thoughtlessly. Itachi makes few promises, but will keep them with the same bite and vigor as a rabid bear.

“I want better for you,” Sasuke says. Each word seems to physically pain him, but this is still very impressive. Complete sentences, used to communicate complex emotional processing? Wild. Maybe the Amaterasu Line’s stuffy form of tragedy isn’t completely doomed to epic poems.

“You’re a truly generous brother,” Itachi murmurs.

Shisui crosses his arms and tries to figure out how Mikoto would respond to this conversation.

“It may be too late for me,” Sasuke is saying when Shisui tunes back in. “You were loyal.”

“I chose that path,” Itachi says. “Not you. Forcing you to suffer for my choice was the worst mistake I made, more than all those days of lying to you and asking for forgiveness.”

Ahaha. Yikes. 

It’s the kind of dramatic statement that has Shisui slipping away from the ivy, because this is officially no longer any of his business. Airi watches judgmentally as he slides back through maple leaves to replace Psych’s wards.

Far below, Sasuke’s muted chakra is roiling.

“If I had been honest,” Itachi continues lowly despite Shisui’s best effort at not paying attention, “I could have reunited with you as something other than a failure and a monster. You don’t have to ever forgive me for that, or for anything else. It won’t change that I’ll always be proud of you.”

“I-”

“You don’t have to.” It is not like Itachi to interrupt someone he cares for so much, but the resigned voice continues, “I will love you always.”

“I forgive you.”

Shisui slides down a rooftop out of hearing range.

Airi coasts after him as he places heavy steps across a gas pipe to another rooftop.

“I am so glad,” Shisui tells her quietly, “that I wasn’t born into the Main Branch. What an absolute shitshow. Don’t get me wrong, I’m glad they're saying it now, but wow. They waited years to talk this out. I had cousins who would've snapped and had a big public cry session within a year, no Snake curse mark or clan murderer needed.”

“Summoner-choose-why,” Airi tells him as she perches on his head. “Talk-does-care-much-fast-go.”

“Glad to know I meet your standards. Communication and carbs can solve over half of shinobi problems,” Shisui agrees. “Hey, want to see me find the spiciest takeout I can for my lunch meeting with Inoichi?”

Airi’s wings rustle in the crow equivalent of rolled eyes or a disapproving exhale.

Tomorrow, Shisui will slam out of the shadows in Kiri and shove his elbow in Ao’s stomach. He will dance out of blade reach and laugh like a sea storm at the relief and rage in his rival’s eyes. Kisame will later ask Obito for Shisui's recorded memory of the event, despite having witnessed it himself.

Tomorrow, Shisui will pass Sasuke's team dinner as sunlight turns golden in the evening and bright cool shadows outline Ichiraku’s warmth in blue. Team Seven will laugh and chatter. Sasuke will tolerate it like a starving man too proud to admit it.

Tomorrow, Shisui will sit in Psych with Itachi and ask about his retirement plans.

Tomorrow.

For now, he shoves a kunai under Inoichi’s windowsill and grins at the resigned exhaustion on his mentor’s face.

“Someday you’re going to scrape clean through the wood there,” Inoichi grumbles from his desk. He takes the takeout container Shisui offers without looking. “Not that I’m finding it easy to complain now, but please at least make a token effort to act like the exfil specialist I know you are. For Ibiki.”

“I could always start coming in through his window to prove a point,” Shisui offers, eyeing the copious kunai marks from years of visits. “It can't be too hard.”

“I have one question.” Inoichi cracks open the container of shishito peppers liberally doused in togarashi spice, and snaps his chopsticks. “Is that risk-taking behavior, or classic T&I culture of tempting pain.”

“We don’t have a culture of tempting pain.”

Inoichi looks Shisui in the eye and bites down on a pepper.

“We have a small culture of tempting pain,” Shisui admits with laughter in his voice as he opens a container of okonomiyaki. “And Ibiki would have to catch me first. So, the real question is, are you willing to trade a battered window frame for a coworker who occasionally finds paint tags in his desk?”

“Paint tags in his desk?”

“Fugaku’s not around to prank and I’m trying to charm my way back into ANBU. Ibiki’s the next best challenge.” Shisui takes a bite of his takeout. “No more marks on your windowsill. Sounds like a good deal to me.”

“You know what?” Inoichi says, and pauses to consider the scratches Shisui has left over years of climbing into this office window. “I’m going to have to turn you down on that offer. They’ve grown on me.”

I missed seeing new ones, he does not say. They’re both shinobi - Shisui hears the message regardless.

It's going to be okay.

Shisui goes to the kettle and starts making himself a mug of tea.