Chương 34: Kotoamatsukami and Fate

She'd changed from her school clothes. A pale blue dress, long-hemmed, falling to mid-calf. Her other hand was held behind her back, gripping something he couldn't see yet.

"Shin!" Ino spotted him and waved. Brightened all at once, the way she did. He walked up to her. Looked her over.

"How long have you been waiting?"

"Oh, just a little while."

"Would you like to come in?"

"... sure." The gate creaked when he pushed it open. The courtyard was what it was—mostly empty, one old tree, dry leaves gathered at the base of it. She followed him inside, that hand still behind her back, eyes moving over everything—the empty yard, the old wood, the lit windows. Inside: a few pieces of furniture, nothing unnecessary. The kind of house where you could see all of it from the doorway. He turned on the lights.

"Sit. I'll get something." She sat and kept looking around. He brought water, set it between them.

"Sorry—it's just water. I don't usually have guests."

"It's fine." She shook her head, then fixed him with a look that was half-reluctant and half-irrepressible.

"You're really not going to ask why I came?"

"Why did you come?"

"I—" She pressed her lips together. A small huff. Her hands rearranged themselves on her lap. In Shin's private assessment: she was still very young, and this was the kind of feeling that happened at this age and then faded and then later seemed like it had happened to someone else. He wasn't going to do anything that made it worse for her than it needed to be.

"Today," she said at last. Voice steadier now. Eyes down, one hand tight around whatever she was holding behind her, the other working a crease into her skirt.

"In taijutsu class. You looked like you were hurt pretty badly."

"Were you hurt?" he asked.

"I'm fine—" Her voice went soft without permission.

"You were hurt much worse than me." She brought her hand out from behind her back. A medicine bottle. Held it forward with both hands.

"I brought this. You put it on—it helps it heal faster." He took it. It would have been unkind not to. She'd been standing outside his gate, probably for a long time, holding medicine with both hands.

"Thank you, Ino." Her smile arrived in full. She nodded several times, decisively. He set the bottle on the table. Looked up to find her looking directly at him.

"..."

"..." The silence lasted just long enough to consider becoming uncomfortable.

"Put it on," she said.

"... Now?"

"Yes." He looked at the bottle. Similar to the medicine Mikoto had used—same type, slightly smaller. The one at the Uchiha house had been a family-size. Probably fine, he thought, without entirely committing to the thought. Tomorrow. Shisui. Shuriken. If this put him on his back until noon—"I'll apply it before bed," he said.

"I can manage." She looked at him without blinking.

"I could—" She sat up straight. The words came out with visible effort, syllable by careful syllable.

"I could help you apply it." She had made her father explain exactly how to do it before she left the house.

"..."

"That's—" He cleared his throat.

"No, thank you." She looked at him without blinking.

"... I'll do it," he said, resigned.

"Okay." Quietly deflated. He rolled up his trouser leg. The skin underneath was flushed and crossed with a dozen marks. Mikoto's medicine had done most of the work already—the walk back from the compound had let it set—and what was left was less pain than a general awareness that the leg existed. It went cool as he applied the new layer. He worked methodically. Across from him, Ino sat still. She was watching his face. He was looking at his leg.

The lamp did what lamps do—soft light, warm-toned, finding the angles of things— She forgot to do anything except watch. Time passed. Shin capped the bottle. Rolled his trouser leg back down. Looked up. Ino was still watching him. Completely still. Something in her pale blue eyes that caught and held his reflection.

"Something wrong?"

"Ah—oh!" She startled, both hands flying to smooth her skirt, over and over.

"No—nothing." He felt something soften in his expression before he could stop it.

"It's getting late. You should head home." The sky outside the window was fully dark. Stars scattered across it.

"Oh." She blinked.

"Right." He walked her to the front step. Shoes back on.

"Shin—" He paused. She hadn't quite looked at him. Instead she'd tilted her head back, one hand absently scratching her jaw—looking at the sky. This narrative has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. If you see it on Amazon, please report it.

"... the stars are really nice tonight." He looked up. A handful of faint stars. A few clouds.

"They are," he agreed.

"Better later, though. You should go." A beat.

"Do you have time tomorrow?"

"Hm?"

"Never mind." She half-turned.

"It's nothing." He watched her. She turned a little further. Not quite managing to look anywhere that wasn't vaguely near him.

"I have training tomorrow," he said.

"Oh." The word went slightly flat.

"Right." She started moving toward the gate.

"But I should be free by evening." He couldn't help but speak up when he saw that she seemed a little disappointed. She stopped. Didn't turn. One second. Two. Then she turned—quickly, all at once—and looked at him from the gate.

"Tomorrow evening. Five o'clock. The park by the lake." Then she ran. The gate creaked shut behind her. Shin stood on the porch and watched the space she'd left behind. The stars overhead were faint and scattered—honestly, not particularly impressive. He sighed. Shook his head. A rueful smile, small and helpless, came and went. Night. Konoha's forest. Itachi leaned against a tree trunk, head tilted back toward the sky. He wore his ANBU uniform, mask pushed up to his brow, a standard-issue tantō across his back.

Stars filled the dark overhead—dense enough to cast pale light on the ground below, cold and clear. Beside him, a waterfall ran white through the dark, its roar filling the silence between the trees. The wind off the water was sharp. It pulled at the edges of his mask, his collar, the loose strands of hair against his face. A sound moved through the forest. His eyes dropped from the sky. Shisui?

"Come." The voice was faint. Itachi pulled off his mask and followed. …… Above the waterfall, Shisui stood with his back to him. Even at a distance, in the dark, Itachi could see it. The set of his shoulders. The way he was carrying too much of his weight on one side. Battle damage. His mind moved immediately to the obvious conclusion. Danzo. Shisui turned. Itachi's pupils contracted. Two lines of dried blood ran down his cheeks from both eyes.

His right eye was closed—the lid sunken, collapsed inward, wrong —and his left eye fixed on Itachi with something that should have been his ordinary gaze but was thinner now. Dimmer. The face beneath it was pale and drawn.

"Danzo obtained information about my eye," Shisui said. His voice was calm.

"He took the right one. Today's fight—what's left in the other isn't enough. I can no longer execute the Kotoamatsukami plan." Itachi said nothing. Shock moved through him before he could stop it.

"How did Danzo know about Kotoamatsukami?"

"Fugaku told him." Itachi's body went still. His mind caught up three seconds later—the clan meeting, his father's composure when the room had turned, the way Fugaku had noted Shisui's absence with no particular expression. Two men who should have been enemies. And his father had handed one of them exactly what he needed. To remove Shisui. To clear the board. Cold moved through him from the inside out.

"The coup can no longer be stopped," Shisui continued, quiet. His left eye had shifted—the iris reshaping itself, slow and deliberate, into a four-pointed pinwheel. Across from him, Itachi's own Sharingan had activated without his choosing it, the three tomoe spinning in answer.

"If the village goes to civil war, the other nations will move against us. Another war becomes inevitable." A pause.

"And one use of Kotoamatsukami—I'm not certain it would have changed anything. Fugaku wants to remake the world. The entire clan follows him." His expression didn't change.

"Danzo was right. I overestimated what I was capable of." Itachi didn't speak. He'd understood the same thing standing in that hall today—how small the two of them were against it. How small any single technique was.

"In the storm that's coming, you need power enough to keep yourself alive." Shisui's remaining eye held him steadily.

"I'm going to give you what's left of my ocular power. It will open the path to your Mangekyō Sharingan."

"Shisui—" Itachi had heard it before Shisui finished speaking. The particular quiet of someone who had already decided.

"What are you planning to do?" Shisui's mouth moved in something that wasn't quite a smile.

"Danzo and Fugaku won't let me survive this. If I die—" He paused.

"Things might shift. My death might change the shape of what comes next."

"Wait." Itachi stepped forward.

"There are still options. Lord Hokage—he'll protect you."

"Itachi." The word stopped him. Shisui's expression had gone still.

"You understand what I've been working toward." A beat.

"The Third does too." His voice was very quiet.

"He'll respect my choice." …… The waterfall ran on. Wind moved through the canopy. The stars were bright and the forest held its breath around them, and Itachi stood in the middle of it without any words. Shisui exhaled—slow, deliberate, the breath of a man releasing something that had been very heavy—and after a moment he spoke again.

"Before I go, I'll leave my left eye with you. Shin has been holding what remains of the right eye's power—I left it with him. If there comes a day when you need it, you can draw it from him. Whatever you choose—between the village and the clan—I'll respect it. Whichever path you take." Faces moved through Itachi's mind, unbidden. His father. His mother. Sasuke.

"Itachi." He looked up. Something in Shisui's expression had come loose—uncertain, the way he almost never looked—and then it steadied.

"My original intention was good," he said, quietly. More to himself than to Itachi.

"I want you to know that — My dream was good." The pinwheel in Shisui's left eye turned, slow and deliberate. Itachi's Sharingan tracked it without thought.

"You've always known that." The wind lifted around them.

"You understand me, Itachi." A line of blood welled from the corner of Shisui's left eye and ran slowly down his face.

"Don't fight what's coming. I'm passing the power to you now." His expression had gone somewhere past quiet—somewhere clear and settled.

"I'm giving you my ocular power." The blood reached his jaw. Itachi let go. Something in him released all at once—instinct and habit and three years of knowing this person—and then the power hit him. It came through his eyes first. Then deeper. The world went white. ……

"This is called Fire Release: Great Fireball Jutsu. It's our clan's foundational technique. The seals are—" A breath held. Fire bloomed enormous against the sky.

"Fire Release: Great Fireball Jutsu!" A low exhale. Something that had been clenched finally loosened.

"You—hah." A pause, and then, softer: "That's my son." ……

"Your father is very busy. You need to understand that, Itachi." A hand smoothing hair from his forehead.

"He's proud of you. Every day." ……

"Nii-san, when are you going to have time to train with me?"

"I'm sorry, Sasuke. I've been—""You always say that."

"Next time. I promise."

"Fine. You promised, okay? Nii-san?"

"Nii-san—" …… The images came faster, overlapping, and then they began to break. His father. His mother. Sasuke. Stretching into threads—hundreds of them, thousands—tangling, weaving, dissolving. He reached for them. No— They slipped through.

"Nii-san?" Small. Getting smaller.

"Nii-san—"" Sasuke—!" …… He came back. The waterfall. The forest. Stars overhead, cold and very bright. Shisui. Shisui's remaining eye had gone to nothing—the vision behind it reduced to outline and shadow. He was looking in Itachi's direction at something he could no longer really see. His hand came up, two fingers pressing slow and careful against his closed left eyelid. What I had left wasn't enough. The thought moved through the space between them without being spoken. Even this. Not enough to go further.

"My power wasn't sufficient," Shisui said. His voice was very quiet.

"Your Mangekyō—you'll have to open the path yourself, when the time comes." His fingers pressed in. The blood came steadily from beneath the closed lid.

"Itachi." He held out his hand, palm up. Something small and dark rested in it.

"My left eye. I'm leaving it with you." I'm sorry, Itachi. The words didn't come from his mouth. For giving you this fate. There is no other road—only blood, only pain. That is what waters the Sharingan. Shisui stood with both eyes closed now, face tilted slightly toward the sky he could no longer see. Blood tracked down both cheeks. His expression was unbearably quiet. Itachi breathed. He gathered himself.

He looked at Shisui—at the thing being offered—and found the steadiness that always came back to him eventually, even when it took a moment.

"I can only ask this of you," Shisui said, in the voice of a man setting down something he had carried a very long time.

"Protect the village. Protect the Uchiha name." Above them—sudden, harsh—a crow dropped from the dark canopy. Its call cut through the sound of the waterfall. It landed in Shisui's outstretched palm and dissolved—feathers scattering, a burst of black across the night air—and when the dark settled, both the bird and what had been in Shisui's hand were gone. The tension went out of Shisui's body all at once. He laughed—soft, quiet, startled.

"Tomorrow," he said, "would you go to the western edge of the forest for me?"

"…"

"I had this idea." The laughter was still in his voice, distant and warm.

"Once everything worked out—I was going to take Shin on officially. Publicly. My disciple." A pause.

"And you'd take Sasuke. And the two of them would grow up side by side and—" Genuine amusement moved through him.

"They'd be something, wouldn't they? I think about that."

"They would," Itachi said quietly. Shisui's smile softened. He tilted his head back, toward where the stars were. His eyes were closed. He couldn't see them.

"The Uchiha and Konoha just—at peace." A breath.

"Living alongside each other." The words came out wistful, almost wondering.

"I really did want that." The waterfall ran on.

"Do you think Shin will cry for me?"