Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

It was a fairly easy mission, in a small eccentric town alongside the Land of Fire’s seaside border.

They were there on a C-rank, a maintenance job where they were tasked with clearing out and rebuilding an old boat warehouse. It took four days, and while it was a lot of physical labor, it was hardly challenging, and their client was an old man who was very kind but very chatty-- so needless to say Sasuke was glad when they finally finished up. 

On the morning they were scheduled to depart, Kakashi made some comment about feeling bad (he didn’t) that the three of them had worked so hard all week, and granted them an extra hour to explore before they would depart. Sasuke stifled a groan. But Naruto had bounced on his toes and taken off immediately, declaring he was going to search the seashore for crabs, and disappeared from earshot before Sasuke could argue against it. 

“Go have fun, kids,” Kakashi said, waving them off, his face buried in his book. 

Sakura grumbled under her breath as she watched Naruto scramble into the distance. “I hope the sea carries him away.”

“I’m not saving him this time,” Sasuke muttered. 

“Be nice,” said Kakashi, unhelpfully. 

Sasuke exhaled, turning to stalk off with his hands in his pockets. He really had no interest in being there for any longer than he had to. Sakura pattered after him, her pink hair bouncing around her shoulders as she looked at the scenery surrounding them. “What do you wanna do, Sasuke?” she asked, and the implication that he wanted to do something with her made him irritable. 

“What I want to do is go home, but apparently that’s not an option right now.” 

Sakura giggled, even though it wasn’t funny. “Well, it’s just an hour.” Her voice picked up a cheery tone. “Come on, it’ll be fun. Let’s just hang out without having to worry about anything for a while.” 

Sasuke wondered what it was like to have nothing to worry about. It certainly wasn’t in his near future. But seeing no point in arguing, he made a small hum of acceptance and allowed her to lead him back towards the center of town. 

“Did you see the market stands when we first got here?” she asked, a light skip in her step. “They had all kinds of weird stuff out. I think I saw someone selling enchanted beads. I doubt they’re real, but I kind of want to take a look at them anyway. Want to come with me?” 

Sasuke kicked at a rock on the ground. “No, not really.” Then when her expression turned crestfallen, he added, “...but I have nothing else to do, so...” 

Immediately brightening, she took hold of his wrist and practically pulled him along. “It’s not far. You’ll like it, I promise!” 

She was right about it not being far. She was not right, however, about him liking it. 

He could care less about what the street vendors had to offer. While she excitedly pointed out the stand with the beads, run by a middle-aged woman who appeared to be wearing an actual bird’s nest on her head, he glanced around just to see if any of the stands had something interesting. Swords, for example-- that was one thing he wouldn’t really mind shopping for. But upon his sullen observation, none of the vendors seemed to carry any sort of ninja tools whatsoever. 

Then something else caught Sasuke’s eye.

At the very end of the lineup, there appeared to be a woman sitting down on a mat. She wasn’t at a stand like the others, and people seemed to be walking past her like she was filth on the street. At first, Sasuke thought she might be a beggar, but upon closer inspection there were wares arranged on the mat in front of her. She was a vendor too-- maybe a poorer one, but a vendor nonetheless.

“Sakura,” he said, pinching her sleeve to get her attention, “I’m going to go over there for a minute. I’ll be right back.”

“Okay,” she responded, half-distracted by her search through the beads. “Let me know if you find anything cool.” 

Sasuke made his way over to the woman on the mat. As he came closer, he realized the items she was selling were all scrolls. 

They looked lackluster, to be honest. However, she was the most interestingly dressed person he’d seen all day— her robes had an insignia on them, a small one embroidered on the front and on the cuffs of her sleeves. It looked like a clan symbol. Her gray hair was cropped short on the sides but long in the center, where it was pulled back at the base of her neck with a clip. And her hands and ankles were wrapped-- which suggested she might have been a shinobi, whether currently or in the past. Given her state, Sasuke leaned towards the latter.

Sasuke was uninterested in the scrolls she was selling, but out of a fleeting sense of obligation he reached into his coin pouch and pulled out a couple hundred yen to give to her. 

She perked up in sudden interest when he approached. “Oh! Which scroll would you like, dear?” 

Sasuke handed her the coins. “I don’t need one,” he said. “Just take it.” 

“No, no, no!” The woman shook her head, her beaded earrings clanking with the motion. “You get a scroll for your money, dear. Which one would you like?” 

Sighing, Sasuke resigned himself to the situation. He crouched down to get a better look at his options. They all looked different-- no two scrolls had the same seal or paper tone. “What kind of scrolls are they?” 

“They’re all jutsu scrolls I collected on my adventures.” The woman said this with a glow of pride in her voice. 

“Jutsu scrolls, huh?” Sasuke made no effort to cover up the lack of belief in his voice. He picked one up and weighed it in his hands, then began to undo the string around it to take a look inside.

“No!” The woman darted her hand out suddenly to stop him. "No opening until you purchase.” 

That firmly convinced him this was a scam, but Sasuke was planning to give the woman money anyway, so it hardly mattered. He glanced over the scrolls. There were eleven in total, all of different sizes and edging colors. It was hard to guess what any one of them might do, and highly unlikely that they would turn out to be anything special. 

One of them, a medium-sized scroll with a uniquely complex orange seal, caught his eye. The paper was thin and cheap-looking and the wax used to make the seal was hardly extravagant, but the design intrigued him: it was like some kind of abstractly rendered serpent. “Okay. I’ll take this one.” 

“Wonderful!” The woman clapped her hands together. “Enjoy it, dear. And be safe--don’t use it recklessly.” 

The advice felt ironic coming from a woman selling completely unidentified scrolls to random children. Still, he nodded and offered a tight smile in response. “Thanks.” 

“Have a lovely day!” 

Sasuke made a tch sound under his breath as he walked away. He briefly considered tossing the scroll in the trash can by one of the other stands, but had enough decency to decide that would be rude. Instead, as he walked back over to Sakura, he more closely examined the seal design. It was about the size of a 100 yen coin and seemed to have been carefully pressed, though the faint imperfections in it suggested the stamp hadn’t been professionally carved. 

When he arrived at Sakura’s side, she eagerly thrust a small paper bag in front of his face. “Check it out!” she chirped, and the bag clacked as she shook it. “I got a dozen of them. They’re a little ugly, but I guess it-- woah, wait, what’s that?” She lowered the bag, her focus completely distracted to the scroll in Sasuke’s hands.

“The woman over there made me buy a scroll from her.”

“Oooh. What kind of scroll?” 

“She didn’t tell me.”

“Well, aren’t you going to open it?” She positioned herself right beside him so she could hover over his shoulder. 

“It’s probably fake.”

“I still want to see.”

Sasuke sighed, only halfway annoyed. There was a genuine node of curiosity biting away at his brain, so he extended a finger and carefully peeled the wax seal back with his nail. 

He unrolled it. Sakura leaned in.

The boldest thing the scroll displayed was a large, highly intricate jutsu seal that took up almost all of the page. 

“Woah,” Sakura said, reaching forward to pull on the paper so she could get a better look. “It’s so complex.” 

She was right. The seal looked far too detailed to be fake-- Sasuke didn’t know much about jutsu seals beyond the basics, but he’d never seen a diagram that looked quite like this one. 

On the side, there was a string of kanji in incredibly fine print. He brought the scroll up close to his face to read it. 

“‘The caster of this jutsu will receive the single greatest desire of their heart,’” he narrated. 

Sakura failed to stifle a giggle. “That’s so cute! Well, if you don’t want to use it, I will.” 

Sasuke hummed in response, the closest he would get to a laugh. He re-rolled the scroll closed and pressed the wax seal down. Then he handed it to Sakura and asked her to put it in his backpack. She kindly complied. 

“I know it’s probably fake, but you should ask Kakashi-Sensei about that jutsu seal,” she said as she clipped his backpack shut. 

For the rest of the hour, Sasuke was stuck inside his mind.

He thought and thought and thought. The seal was probably fake. He wasn’t dumb enough to truly believe it could work. ‘ The greatest desire of their heart’. It was a sad advertising ploy, clearly targeted at gullible, brainless young shinobi who were easily enticed by pretty words. Sasuke was not one of those people. He was not, no matter how much the phrase admittedly made his blood rush. 

The greatest desire of his heart. He knew what it was beyond the shadow of a doubt. It made his fingers tremble to think about it, clutching into tighter fists at his sides, the pricking sensation of his nails digging into his palm the only outlet for the torrent of rage buzzing through him.

The image he pictured was his brother’s dead body at his feet.

It was a familiar thought. Something he had both daydreams and nightmares about. The one thing that would finally allow him to sleep at night, allow him to calm down, allow this weight of rage and responsibility to lift from his shoulders after the five years he’d been carrying it. 

Deep breaths. He steadied himself. 

The scroll was fake. Or if not fake, it was a trick, or at the very least falsely advertised. There was no jutsu that could bring him what he wanted. Nothing could give him that except his own hard work and dedication. He reminded himself of that over and over, willing his mind to stop thinking about it.

Eventually, their hour drew to a close, and Sasuke and Sakura met up with Kakashi in the plaza.

“Did you two have fun?” Kakashi said, standing up from the bench he had been sitting on. 

“Yep!” Sakura chirped. She showed Kakashi her paper bag of beads. “Sasuke and I went to the marketplace. I bought these and he bought a cool-looking jutsu scroll.”

“Oh?” said Kakashi, raising his visible eyebrow. “A jutsu scroll, huh? I didn’t think there were any shinobi in this town.” 

“There aren’t,” Sasuke said, an irritable pinch in his voice. For some reason, Sakura telling Kakashi about the scroll annoyed him. “Not active ones, anyway.” 

Just then, a piercing yell split through the air, interrupting the conversation. 

Naruto barreled to a halt once he reached them, shaking his hand wildly. It took Sasuke a moment to realize there was a crab stuck on his finger, pinching through the skin. 

“Bastard!” he cried out, his voice cracking shrill. “Get off me!” 

“Hey--” Kakashi began.

“Naruto!” Sakura interjected, stamping in front of him and snatching his wrist. She pried the crab off his finger and he howled in pain. Clutching the very upset crab in one hand, she grabbed hold of Naruto’s ear and yanked on it with the other. “Stupid! You’re such an idiot!”

Sasuke sighed for a long time. He caught Kakashi’s eye and the two exchanged a look-- which almost inspired a notion of amusement in him. Almost. 

As his two teammates calmed down, he glanced at the road stretching out before them, eager to get going. It was a five-hour walk back to Konoha, and Sasuke looked forward to shutting himself away in his room again as soon as possible. 

Kakashi seemed to notice this and finally closed his book, shoving it into his backpack. “All right, team. Let’s head out.” He said this in the same deadpan voice he typically used with them. 

Kakashi was an unsurprisingly difficult man to read, and that went beyond the fact that three quarters of his face were covered. Sasuke could tell there was far more to him than what he showed his students, but it didn’t seem like he was a shell easily cracked, and frankly Sasuke had more important things to think about so he didn’t pay it much mind. Kakashi was an acceptable sensei and he was friendly when he needed to be. Sasuke didn’t like to complain. 

He had to squash the voice in the back of his head that said Father doesn’t like it when you complain, because even after five years, he still had the nagging desire to be good enough for his parents. 

“So, Sasuke,” Kakashi said, pulling him out of his thought spiral. “Let’s see that scroll.” 

“What scroll?” Naruto exclaimed, attention immediately drawn over to the conversation. 

Sasuke sighed and rolled his eyes, but opened his backpack and pulled out the scroll anyway. He handed it to Kakashi, who opened it as he walked. Naruto bounced up to look at it over Kakashi’s arm. 

“We were wondering about that jutsu seal,” Sakura spoke up, “whether it’s real or not.” 

Kakashi made a thoughtful noise as he looked at the diagram. “It seems to be a summoning symbol,” he said. “Where did you get this?” 

“An old woman made me buy it off her. She had eleven of them, I chose that one randomly.”

Kakashi shook his head in mock disappointment. “Honestly Sasuke, I thought you’d be the last one of my students to submit to sales pressure.”

Sasuke’s cheeks prickled as Sakura and Naruto shared a laugh. “I wasn’t pressured. I was going to give her money anyway, and she insisted I take one in return.” 

“You were going to give her money? An act of kindness, from you?” 

“Wow Sasuke, I didn’t realize you had a heart,” Naruto chirped, which prompted another giggle from Sakura, and a huff of amusement from Kakashi.

“Whatever.” Sasuke actually felt himself blushing. “It’s not a big deal.” 

Kakashi didn’t respond to that, going back to glancing over the scroll. “The caster’s greatest desire, huh? Interesting.” He said this like he knew exactly what Sasuke was thinking about. “It definitely seems to be a real summoning seal. I doubt it’ll do what it says it will, though. Probably safest just to leave it alone.” He closed the scroll, handing it back to Sasuke. “You don’t strike me as the type to keep random useless trinkets, so I trust you’ll deal with it responsibly.” 

Sasuke tucked the scroll back into his backpack, answering Kakashi with a careless hum. Kakashi quirked his eyebrow at him, as if scanning his face for a further reaction, but received nothing of the sort. 

They did not discuss the topic any further, and Sasuke was grateful for it. 

They reached the village gates just before sunset, when the blue sky became tinged with a subtle deepness and the sun cast long shadows behind them as they walked.

Once they delivered the mission report, Kakashi dismissed them, and Sasuke wasted no time in leaping back to his apartment and finding his way to the shower. 

He allowed the mission’s tension to melt off his shoulders under the hot water. The whole time, he stared at the wall, and his thoughts traveled back to the scroll. 

The greatest desire of your heart. 

He had to close his eyes. He forced himself to breathe deeply again. Shove down thoughts of blood on his hands, Itachi’s body broken and lifeless in front of him, repaying all the pain and horror he caused their family, taking back what he took from them-- 

His hands were shaking again. 

He closed them into fists, resting his forehead against the wall. 

There, he just let the warm water beat down on him, willing it to wash away his thoughts. 

When he sat down on his bed in fresh clothes, he was still shaking. 

He held the scroll, staring down at the complex ink diagram and the statement on the side. He unrolled it further and found there was a short list of instructions along with it.

It would be so easy. 

Sure, it was probably fake. Or a trick. It could be any of numerous possibilities besides what it said it was. But Sasuke could not stop thinking about it. 

His greatest desire. Itachi’s dead body at his feet. If it would be that, excellent-- his brother didn’t deserve a glorious death anyway. That, or it could make him strong enough to kill Itachi, and then he wouldn’t have to waste any more time before going out to end him. One or the other. Either way, he’d end up standing over his brother’s corpse and he would finally be able to let go. 

That possibility was resting in his shaking hands. 

Where was the harm in trying?

A half hour later, Sasuke was perched at an apartment window. 

He knocked, and then a very surprised Naruto flung open the glass pane and pointed accusingly at him. “What are YOU doing here? Spying on me, bastard?!” 

Sasuke simply leaned in, glancing judgmentally around his friend’s messy room. “You wish you were that important,” he said. Then he offered Naruto his hand. “Come with me.” 

Naruto’s face instantly changed, from suspicious irritation to genuine curiosity. He took Sasuke’s hand. “Where are we going?”

“Remember that jutsu scroll I got today?” 

Naruto nodded-- then his eyes widened and a smile split across his face. “We’re gonna test it?! Even though Kakashi-Sensei told you not to?” 

“Quiet down, idiot!” Sasuke hissed. “Do you want the whole village to know?” 

Naruto stopped talking, but bounced on his toes and stifled an excited giggle. He allowed Sasuke to pull him out of the window and together they jumped down to the lower rooftop. 

“We’re getting Sakura too,” Sasuke informed him.

Naruto pumped his fists. “All right!” 

With that, they began to leap and run their way to her house, which was located in a residential sub-section of the village rather than towards the middle like Naruto’s apartment building was. 

Sasuke had given it some thought and decided that in case the scroll did turn out to be a trick, it would be best to have backup to help him contain the issue. He figured the worst case scenario would be that the scroll summoned enemy ninja or a similar threat-- in which case it was likely he’d need help to take care of it without anyone finding out. So he picked the two people he currently trusted most.

When they arrived at her bedroom window, Naruto hesitated and fell back, murmuring something about not wanting to seem creepy. Sasuke just shrugged and knocked on the window himself-- causing Sakura to jolt from where she was lying on her bed, her head whipping around to face the source of the noise. When she saw Sasuke, the fear melted off her face and was replaced by confusion as she walked to the window and opened it up for him. “What is it?” she asked, and Sasuke extended his hand to her. She blinked down at it, momentarily stunned. 

“Come with us,” he said, “we’re going to test the scroll I bought today.”

Sakura was used to playing the role of a respectful and responsible kunoichi, but Sasuke knew she had an affinity for mischief deep down. She couldn’t hide her excited smile as she took his hand and climbed out of her bedroom window. “Well, all right, but it has to be fast. I don’t want my parents to know I’m sneaking out.” 

Naruto giggled again as they leapt away, waving his hands in front of his face. “This is gonna be so great. We’ll get to see Sasuke’s deepest desire!”

Sakura laughed lightly too. “I wonder what it is?”

Sasuke felt instinctive embarrassment creep into his cheeks as his friends made fun of him, but shut it down immediately by reminding himself of the real nature of the situation. “This isn’t a game,” he said. “If this thing actually summons my greatest desire, you two aren’t going to like it.” 

That silenced the both of them. A tense awkwardness took hold of the air as they seemed to realize what Sasuke meant-- if only vaguely, as he hadn’t ever talked about his past with them in detail. They knew enough to draw a correct conclusion. Even Naruto knew better than to make jokes after that.

Instead, Sakura tentatively asked, “Where are we going, Sasuke?”

“Somewhere we won’t be found. And where we can contain it if the scroll turns out to be malicious.” 

He led them to the forest on the outskirts of the abandoned Uchiha compound.

Sasuke hadn't been there in several years. He made a point to take a route around the compound rather than through it, as he didn’t want to be forced to lay eyes on his childhood home. In fact, he’d rather not set foot in the area at all, but the Uchiha’s forest grounds were undeniably the best possible place for something like this. No one lived around there anymore-- no one ever came near it except for the night watch guards. 

Plus, it would be a fitting place for Itachi to be cut down. He could bleed into the same ground he slaughtered his family on. 

He wondered briefly if his clansmen would be grateful. 

His parents.

Sasuke shook his head. He couldn’t afford to dwell on that now. All that mattered was focusing on this self-imposed mission, staying alert just in case something went wrong. Afterwards he could think about the technicalities of it. 

As the trio descended into the trees, the person following them did the same.

***

Kakashi landed silently on a tree branch and watched as his three students bickered about where to best launch their jutsu seal trial. 

A small smile played on his lips underneath the mask. He rested his chin on his hand, looking forward to seeing how this might play out. Technically, he was here to make an assessment of their teamwork ability and problem solving skills-- but Kakashi was mainly in it for the fun of witnessing his kids make a stupid decision. 

Even still, if anything bad happened, he had a decent amount of faith that they would figure it out together. In the marginal chance that they couldn’t, he would intervene. Everything would be fine. 

The three of them calmed down and Sasuke began to read the instructions on the scroll out loud. Kakashi had gone over an introduction to summoning seals with them before, so they had a basic idea of what to do. The orange light of the sunset bled through the trees and cast dappled shadows over them. It was a pretty picture, honestly. Kakashi felt a small bud of affection for the three of them. The way Sasuke and Naruto argued and Sakura acted as the voice of reason-- it was like taking a look into his own past. 

Eventually, they all quieted down and Sasuke crouched to the ground, laying the scroll out in front of him. Sakura and Naruto gathered close behind. He formed a series of hand signs, raised his finger to his mouth-- biting it-- then smeared the blood over the symbol. 

In an instant, there was a bright blue flash, Sasuke was blown backwards, and a person appeared in the scroll’s place.

Sasuke woke up to hands clutching hard into his arms. He blinked, then blinked some more, his head and body aching with painful exhaustion. 

“Sasuke.” He heard Sakura’s voice above him, a breathless whisper.

With a jolt, he fully remembered where he was and what happened.

The scroll. He’d used it. 

He must have been knocked unconscious. How could it have-- 

When he sat up, his eyes slowly adjusted to what was in front of him. A person. A fully formed, dark-haired person, very much not dead, sitting on their knees on top of the scroll-- and Sasuke scrambled backwards into the bodies of Naruto and Sakura, terrified for a moment that it summoned Itachi alive, but why-- 

And then the blurriness fully cleared.

And then he realized.

Wide black eyes met his own. A soft, confused face, one that he recognized all too well, one that had been ripped right out of his only good childhood memories.

In a strangled voice, he spoke the first word that came to mind: “Mom?”

Chapter Text

Uchiha Mikoto recognized where she was immediately. 

She’d grown up in these woods. She practically knew every single tree. 

What she didn’t know was why she was there, and why there were three kids sitting in front of her-- and why one of them, the closest, was unmistakably her youngest son, who was older than he should be, and was looking at her with a two-tomoe sharingan and tears in his eyes.

“Mom?” The word, spoken a second time, was less of a word and more of a noise. He came toward her-- and Mikoto looked at him, searching, blinking out of her disorientation.

“Sasuke?” she said, more confused than anything else. 

Before either of them could do anything, another person jumped down from the trees, racing to block Sasuke with an extended arm. This person placed himself protectively in front of the three children, and she looked up in surprise-- only to realize that she recognized him. 

Hatake Kakashi.  

He was in ANBU with Itachi.

Itachi--

Her memories flooded back with the phantom pain of a sword in her chest.

“Uchiha Mikoto...?” said Kakashi, in a clearly controlled voice. For as skilled a shinobi as she knew he was, he couldn’t hide the shock in his eyes, his borrowed sharingan exposed and whirling with analysis. 

To be fair, it wasn’t like she was shielding her own shock, either.

She glanced from his face to the forest around them, to his flak jacket, to Sasuke-- still crouched behind Kakashi with the most heart-wrenching expression she’d ever seen on his face. 

Once she made eye contact with him again, he half-stood up, ran around Kakashi’s legs and stumbled to the ground in front of her. His eyes were glued to her face, as though he really couldn’t believe she was in front of him, and she reached out and touched his cheek. “Sasuke, what--” 

His face crumbled, he choked on a sob, and she abandoned her question and pulled him into her arms instead. 

Sasuke’s arms looped around her and he clung onto her like hanging on to life, trembling and breathing so fast and hard she worried he might be hyperventilating. Tears soaked into her shirt as he sobbed and it was all she could do to hold him-- it was the only thing in her world that made sense. 

Mikoto wasn’t entirely sure what was going on, but it was beginning to sink in that she was in the future.

Hatake Kakashi stood before her, wearing a flak jacket instead of an ANBU Black Ops vest. His shoulders were broader, and he might have been taller too, but she couldn’t accurately tell from where she was crouched on the ground. And the other two children behind him, staring in equal parts bewilderment and shock-- she didn’t recognize the pink-haired girl, but the boy, she realized, was Kushina’s son. Uzumaki Naruto, jinchuuriki of the Nine-Tailed Fox, who was a seven year-old like her son the last time she saw him. While Sasuke looked and felt about the age that his older brother should be. And he was sobbing in her arms.

Kakashi, suddenly spurred into action, reached down to pick up the discarded scroll near her feet. “Shit,” he finally managed. “It worked.”

“Kakashi?” Mikoto said, and realized her words were scratchy and formless. Like her voice box wasn’t used to working. “What happened?”

“I--” He faltered for just a moment, glancing from the scroll to her. “You’re-- alive. I don’t understand how-- you’re alive. It brought you back. ” 

Mikoto lifted Sasuke from her chest, holding him out in front of her, cupping his face. “Sasuke, honey, can you tell me what happened?” She wiped his tears away with her thumbs. He blinked, breathing deeply, looking up at her with glassy eyes-- but started shaking his head, leaning down when another sob tore from his throat. “Oh, baby,” she said, pulling him back to her. She ran her hand over his back.  

This was definitely her son. This was her Sasuke. She was just years in the future. 

Turning back to Kakashi, she asked, “How long has it been? Five years?”

He nodded. “Five years since--” At that, he glanced away, sparing a moment to look back at the scroll in order to cover up his sudden avoidance of the topic. He seemed to have regained enough composure to explain the situation, at least. “Sasuke found this scroll at a street store today. I thought it would be a dupe, so we didn’t take it seriously. The instructions say it summons the caster’s deepest desire.” He showed her the scroll and the now-obsolete summoning symbol on it, stained with a streak of blood-- Sasuke’s blood. “He used it, and somehow...” 

He didn’t have to finish. Understanding registered in her brain and she nodded slowly. “It summoned me.” She pressed Sasuke closer, her hand on the back of his head. The caster’s deepest desire. 

“Wait, you’re.... Sasuke’s mom?” 

Mikoto looked up to find Naruto staring at her with wonder in his eyes. The girl beside him had a hand over her mouth, equal parts shock and worry reading on her features. 

“Yes,” was all Mikoto said, swallowing thickly. 

Once Sasuke had calmed down enough to be separated from her, they dealt with the first task at hand: deciding what to do now that she was here. Protocol would require an immediate report to the Hokage-- but Kakashi explained that he would find it rational to consider it an 'unforeseen circumstance of the mission'  and thus postpone filing a report about it. A shaky loophole to exploit but one that Kakashi had used before and considered necessary for this instance. 

Kakashi and Mikoto were both exceptionally intelligent shinobi, but they were both left baffled at how exactly the scroll managed to do this. Kakashi told her that it was a problem to tackle at a later date, though, because what the two of them needed right now was time. 

At the end of it, Kakashi dismissed Naruto and Sakura back to their homes and gave Sasuke and Mikoto an escort back to Sasuke’s apartment, just to ensure no one noticed her. Once they were inside, he granted Sasuke a day off from training. No obligations tomorrow, from sunrise to sunset-- due to the extenuating circumstances. 

He left them alone with that.

Sasuke spent the first night wound up in his mother’s arms.

He made himself so small beside her, a lump in the blankets. He had to be close, clinging on to the sleeve of her shirt, because he was terrified that he would open his eyes and she would be gone. 

She was there for him, wholly and completely. She held him for hours and stroked his hair and rubbed his back and it was so much so soon and he felt locked in a haze, confused and frightened and so so vulnerable it made something snap within him. He was shaking uncontrollably the whole night, even after he stopped crying, holding onto her. Only when she spoke to him did the flashes of her dead body stop haunting his mind. He had to feel that she was alive and there. She held him to her chest, his ear pressed right up to her sternum, where he could hear the steady thump of her heart. That was the one thing that calmed him most of all. It was grounding, soothing, dug up feelings he hadn’t had since he was a small child. Memories he’d tucked away under heavy slabs of pain, resurfacing as he took in the familiar smell of her hair and the warmth of her body, the tenderness of her voice. 

She pushed his bangs back, kissed his forehead. He sunk under her chin, finding the crook of her neck, curling his fingers in a lock of her long hair. There wasn’t room in his mind to feel ashamed yet. He just needed his mother. 

When Sasuke’s breathing slowed and he dropped off to sleep, Mikoto let down a barrier she had been struggling to keep up. 

The weight of grief for her entire clan crashed upon her with full force, and after a few minutes of reconciling the shock, she began to cry.

Tears coursed down her cheeks as she continued to stroke Sasuke’s hair, ever so softly. Her husband was dead, her nieces and nephews were dead, her younger sister-- they were all dead. And her two sons, one of them hollowed out with trauma and asleep in her arms, the other-- the one who killed them-- she had no idea. She didn’t even know if he was still alive. 

Her shoulders shook with the heaviness of it all. For Sasuke, it had been five years of this emptiness-- but for her, it was just yesterday.

She had been dead for this long, but it felt like she had merely been asleep.

The grief alone would be enough to root her into the ground forever had it not been for the bundle in her arms. 

When Mikoto awoke, Sasuke was no longer beside her. 

She sat up, looking around-- pinpointing his chakra elsewhere in the house-- and detected the familiar smell of eggs. The clanking of kitchen utensils emanated from a few rooms over. 

Sasuke was making breakfast. When she walked into the kitchen, he was standing in his genin outfit, spatula in hand. His back faced her and she stared at the Uchiha crest on his shirt, her throat catching painfully with the reminder that he was the only person in the village who wore it. 

When he turned around to look at her, his sharingan activated automatically. 

She blinked, unable to help the pull of emotion in her eyes. “Your sharingan…” 

His face contorted into a strangely apologetic expression. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I know it’s disrespectful. I-I don’t mean to do it.” 

In the Uchiha clan, it was a basic rule of courtesy that children don’t address their parents with an activated sharingan. To do so was considered a threat, an act of defiance. 

But Sasuke truly couldn’t help it. It wasn’t abnormal, especially for younger children, to have difficulty controlling the sharingan’s instinctive response to strong emotion. With Sasuke growing up alone-- which sent another jolt of sorrow through her heart-- he never had anyone to teach him the ins and outs of his eyes. It was no fault of his own that he didn’t have perfect mastery over them. 

Mikoto softened her face at once. “Sweetheart, it’s okay,” she murmured. “You don’t have to apologize.”

Sasuke was still for a few moments, then nodded slowly. He couldn’t tear his eyes off her. It was like he was afraid she might vanish if he wasn’t looking.

She could tell-- in his stiffness, his awkwardness, his inability to speak-- that this vulnerability was not normal for him. She could feel the trauma in his bones, in his eyes, the difference in them, like a veteran shinobi’s stare thinly veiled over a shattered, broken-hearted child that never grew up. 

It hurt her heart that she missed so much of his life.

Later that morning, Kakashi showed up at their doorstep with a bag of folded clothes.

He explained that he managed to get into the storage facility for all of the Uchiha’s belongings. They had been very dusty when he found them, but he washed them and dried them overnight so they would be ready for her. 

“Thank you, Kakashi,” Mikoto said when he placed them into her hands, bowing her head in gratitude. 

It was good to have fresh clothes. In the bathroom, before changing into them, she examined her body in the mirror.

Her flesh, every curve of muscle underneath it, every scar— it was all the same. She pinched herself. She still felt pain. Her hair, too, even smelt like the shampoo she always used. Running her fingers through it, she wondered if she’d be able to get the same brand. 

Still looking in the mirror, she activated her sharingan. Three whirling tomoe. Then she concentrated her chakra— and bled it into the mangekyou. 

It seemed normal for all of one second. 

A five-pointed star-like pattern— except that was wrong, because it wasn’t five-pointed anymore. She leaned closer into the mirror, ignoring every single flaw in the glass her dojutsu picked up. 

There was no mistaking it. Her mangekyou sharingan was now a six-pointed star instead.

The two of them spent the day in each other’s company, and there was so much to say that they both went silent. 

Mikoto didn’t know where to begin. She was unfamiliar with Sasuke’s life, who he was now, everything that had happened since her death. They were trending on tender ground, so for now she just let her presence speak for her. 

Sasuke was adjusting to the situation. He didn’t care what they did, he just wanted to be near her. He showed her around his apartment, gave her small pieces of context for things that he had.  At one point he did ask a question, as they were standing in his bedroom and he looked down at his team’s portrait photo: “You knew Kakashi before, right?” 

Mikoto nodded. “Not closely. But yes, I knew him.”

“He’s my sensei now.” Sasuke picked up the photo and handed it to her. “These are my teammates.”

It was intensely obvious that this was the only photograph Sasuke kept in his apartment. 

Back in the Uchiha compound, their home had been full of them-- on the walls, the mantle, the side tables. 

Sasuke didn’t have a single thing that would remind him of his family. And it hurt-- but right now, Mikoto was grateful for it, because seeing a physical representation of what was gone forever would surely break this composure that she was working so hard to maintain.

Swallowing against the pain in her throat, she forced herself to focus, to stay present. She gripped the edges of the photo frame and looked over the faces in the picture. 

Her son looked so grumpy. Under any other circumstances, she would have found it amusing. He glared forward at the camera, seemingly ignoring an equally intense pointed stare from Naruto beside him. Mikoto had never stopped before to consider the irony of Sasuke ending up on the same genin team as Kushina’s son. Her mind flashed to how Kushiha would react-- how happy they would both be to find their children matched on a team together. An experience that had been stolen from both of them. 

She scanned the rest of the photo. Kakashi, smiling with his eye, his hands placed affectionately on Sasuke and Naruto’s heads. The girl in between them, a bright grin on her face. 

Absorbing the commemorative photo, seeing Sasuke in a genin headband with his genin team, all grown up and graduated-- suddenly brought a rush of tears to Mikoto’s eyes. 

Sasuke noticed this. Startled, he opened his mouth to say something, but no words came out. 

Mikoto sniffed and swiped at her cheeks. “I’m so proud of you,” she said, her voice shaking.

He came towards her and she reached out and cupped his face, holding him there so she could gaze at him. “You’re so grown up-- I can’t believe it. Look at you.” Her fingers swept a strand of hair behind his ear as a smile brimming with emotion pulled on her lips. “You got so tall and handsome….”

Sasuke tried and failed to hang onto stoicism. His brows pinched, his eyes glossed over and he looked at her with the sudden warmth of childlike adoration. 

He wasn’t quite her height yet, so his chin fit perfectly over her shoulder as she hugged him. She rubbed her eyes one more time as she pulled away and let the moment pass as quickly as it had onset. 

Looking back to the photo, she asked, “Who is the girl?” 

“That’s Sakura,” Sasuke told her. “And the other boy is Naruto.” 

He went on to describe several of their most memorable missions to her, and she listened as intently as she could. Mikoto wanted to absorb and internalize all the information he could give her, learn every little detail about the five years of his life that she missed, but unfortunately that was just not realistic. Even now, she found herself struggling to give her full attention to his story. 

Her mind was distracted by other things-- as it would continue to be perpetually throughout the rest of the day. 

The unspoken horror of what happened to Itachi hung over her like a dark ghost, so thick in the air it was almost tangible. Mikoto’s heart-- her living, beating heart-- sped up in a frenzy and she developed a sick feeling in her stomach whenever she thought about him. And she couldn’t stop thinking about him.

She could feel the phantom pain of her son’s sword cutting clean through her chest. No matter how hard she tried to ground herself and stay present for Sasuke, the memories threatened to drag her down into a violent ocean of tightly packed horror.

Itachi had killed her first. It was merciful, in a way. Got her pain over faster, so she didn’t have to hear her husband’s dead body thump to the floor, didn’t have to bear that tidal wave of grief just before her own life was extinguished. 

She thought about Fugaku, and what he must have been thinking. He was a strong man. She could imagine him kneeling there, composed, his eyes shut as to not look down at her body crumpled beside him. Then Itachi’s sword driving through his chest. 

“It must be hard,” Sasuke said quietly, while the two of them were eating dinner. She looked up from her plate-- he must have picked up on her silence. There was a look of genuine pain, empathy, on his face. “I know exactly what you’re feeling.” 

And suddenly, she saw the whole weight of the five years she had been gone etched into her son’s body. His shoulders, the way they were slightly hunched, the calluses on his hands. The white flecks of scars that showed occasionally on his skin. He had been through so much. That was a pain she could never fully understand, even though it was her family too-- being alone with that grief for five whole years, a child with no family left at all. The blood behind his eyes… he must have seen the bodies. 

She wondered with an even greater intensity, what happened to Itachi? 

She couldn’t sleep that night, so instead she worried, worried, worried about her oldest son. 

He was her son, but he was also her murderer. He was her son, but he was also the figurehead of his brother’s nightmares. He was her son, but he was also a decimator, a criminal with the blood of genocide on his hands. He was all these things, but most of all he was her son. 

She loved him. She missed him. She worried about him. And she didn’t sleep, even after Sasuke drifted off beside her. 

***

Six in the morning, ANBU Black Ops appeared on their doorstep. 

Naruto was the one who let it slip. Shockingly, Sasuke couldn’t even find it in himself to be angry. 

It wasn’t going to stay a secret for long, anyway, he had enough of his wits together to understand that. Eventually someone would have detected her chakra, or at least an extra presence in the village and come to investigate. Sasuke didn’t want it to happen, as he knew it would trigger a full-blown investigation (and she would be taken away from him)-- but it was unavoidable. 

He stood in the kitchen with his hackles raised, sharingan on and flicking between the masked Black Ops faces, as his mother turned and calmly explained to him that he should just go along to training and wait for her to come back.

Everything in his mind screamed no, but he knew what was rational, so he swallowed against a prickly throat and said, “Yes, Mother.” 

She gave him a warm smile. He didn’t need his sharingan to tell it was forced, though. As she turned to follow the ANBU out the door, her face steeled over-- and it actually reassured Sasuke more than her smile did. It told him she wasn’t going to put up with any bullshit.

So Sasuke did go to training, and as he went he felt his stomach twist with a wholly new kind of anxiety. It was almost as though a shock had gone through his nervous system and now he was hypersensitive to everything-- physically, mentally, and emotionally-- and the strangest part was that he didn’t hate it. 

He felt a lot of things, predominantly anxiety, which was so bad it nearly made him sick. But underneath that there was a feeling he was so starkly unfamiliar with he couldn’t put a name to it. It was similar to anxiety in that it made his heart beat faster, made his pace quicken, and gave him energy. He walked down the street as casually as he could, while his muscles wanted to jump and run or climb or something, which was uncomfortable-- but it wasn’t unpleasant. 

Aghast, Sasuke found himself with the thought: is this how Naruto feels all the time?! 

He was coming close to the training grounds when the name for this feeling finally dawned on him.

Euphoria. 

He was happy. 

***

Mikoto stilled the anger in her with steady breaths as the ANBU agents led her to the Hokage’s office. 

Stopping her directly in front of Sarutobi Hiruzen's desk, they fanned out around the room, clearly there to create an imposing appearance. Mikoto was forced to calmly look into the crumpled old face of a man she deeply hated. 

And the man had the audacity to greet her with a smile. 

“I never thought I’d be so glad to see your face, Mikoto,” droned the Sandaime Hokage, eyes edged with crow’s feet squinted in the friendly grandpa way he’d perfected from years as Konoha’s functioning handpuppet. 

“Hn,” was all Mikoto said.

“I assume you were briefed on the intel we received earlier this morning. Don’t worry, I won’t bother you with more pleasantries. Let me jump straight to the point.”

“Please do.” 

Sarutobi looked smaller and more shriveled than ever. Mikoto begrudgingly wondered why he hadn’t died yet. “These are unprecedented circumstances for this village-- I might go as far to say the entire shinobi world. No one’s ever heard of a person being brought back from the dead as… perfectly as you have. You’ve had a full day back in this world. I’m curious-- have you noticed any differences in yourself at all? Physical, mental?” 

Mikoto thought about her six-pointed mangekyou sharingan. “No, Sandiame-sama.”

Sarutobi nodded thoughtfully. “Interesting.” 

His desk was overly organized-- it featured no more than three stacks of paperwork, his pipe, a cup of tea that still had steam rising from it, a photo frame that was faced away from her, and a small houseplant. 

Mikoto knew better than to engage her sharingan in front of the Hokage. But frequent dojutsu users tend to develop exceptional visual precision even with their normal eyes. Quick scanning, cataloging, memorizing, analyzing-- the skills the sharingan trains are retained even without enhanced vision. 

So it wasn’t hard to tell this room was put together specifically for her appearance.

“Do you know anything about the jutsu that brought you back?” Sarutobi continued.

“It was a scroll with a summoning seal. That’s all I know.” A very complex summoning seal at that, which Sasuke had purchased from a street store. 

“I’d like this scroll to be placed in the custody of the Sealing Corps, if you don’t mind. With research they might be able to trace it back to its creator-- and I’m sure I don’t need to tell you how many doors possessing this kind of jutsu would open. It’s vital that we obtain it before other villages can.”

“I don’t have it.” 

Sarutobi blinked at her. “Who does?” 

Kakashi. “I was disoriented for several minutes after I was summoned. I don’t know what happened to it during that time.” 

The Third Hokage merely hummed in response, tapping his finger thoughtfully against the edge of the desk. 

She always found it particularly annoying that the Sandaime opted to wear his full Hokage robes and hat near constantly, as if everyone would completely overlook him otherwise. Like he needed to project the reminder that yes, this tiny, shriveled, stagnant old man was in fact the Leaf’s Third Hokage and not just your everyday indistinct-looking grandpa. That, or maybe he owned no normal clothes. Mikoto didn’t have a hard time believing that idea either.

“I’ll have to take that question to Naruto and Sakura, I suppose,” Sarutobi mused with a light-humored chuckle, and Mikoto felt a flash of anger go through her. Of course. Why don’t you continue to exploit the children? You’ve never been above it before. 

“In addition,” he continued, before she could respond, “I would like to have both you and your son sit through some tests in the hospital later to get a reading on your chakra levels. Getting you a complete physical will be the first step to forming an idea of what really happened.” 

Mikoto nodded curtly.

Seeming to have noticed her lack of responsiveness, Sarutobi let out a short, pensive sigh and leaned forward. His face took on an expression she’d seen on him many times before-- an almost infantilizing prying look, as if essentially pleading with her to affirm, to compromise. “Mikoto, we require your cooperation for this to work. I understand how uncomfortable and frightening it must be to be back in the world, five years after your death. But your reappearance has brought in a slew of opportunity.” He placed his gnarled hand on the desk for emphasis. “If we get our hands on this jutsu, there is the possibility of restoring more of your clan.”

Mikoto’s blood boiled with white-hot anger. Liar, she thought, you don’t want that. It’s your fault we’re all dead. 

Instead, she said nothing. Communicated nothing-- forced her face to go slate-blank. 

Sensing he wasn’t getting anywhere with her, Sarutobi pursed his lips and leaned back, slackening. He resigned himself. Mikoto sensed this meeting would soon come to a close. “One last thing-- I’m having you restored to normal jounin duties.” He placed his hand atop the nearest paperwork stack. “From this point forward you are once again a citizen of Konoha, with full right to live and work within these walls. Anyone who opposes that will be dealt with accordingly. I don’t want you to have anything to worry about.” He patted the file. “You’re granted three days to get adjusted and spend your time as you see fit before the assignors will begin considering you for mission duty.” With that, he gave her another grandpa smile. “You are dismissed.”

Mikoto didn’t budge. “Sarutobi-sama,” she began, ice in her voice, “you can’t have brought me here expecting me not to ask questions. I want to know what happened to Itachi.” 

At the mention of his name, all six ANBU agents started, leaping into ready positions. Sarutobi made a scolding noise and raised a hand to call them off. Then he closed his eyes and took a deep breath. “I can’t discuss that with you right now. At a later date, you will be summoned to a discreet location where everything will be explained. Until then, I must ask you to never speak about that topic. It could cause unrest in the village.”

Mikoto bit the inside of her cheek so hard it bled. “Yes, sir.” 

A crackling breath expanded his chest, evidence of old age and the smoking habit wearing away at his body. “Thank you for answering my summons, Mikoto.” He smiled at her one more time, oversweetened and flimsy. “Go on back to your son-- he needs you.” 

Yes, Sasuke needs me, because you failed to do your job and orphaned him, and failed again to even provide him care beyond that tiny apartment. She thought of Kushina’s son. Naruto. You stick orphans where you don’t want to see them anymore. Do you just not want to be reminded of your failures every time you look at them? The way you failed to prevent the deaths of Kushina and Minato, myself and my entire fucking clan?

Sasuke wasn’t supposed to be alone. 

He was supposed to have his brother if he had no one else. But Itachi was gone, and no one could tell her what happened to him. 

She knew better than to prod-- the memory of her last experience before death was still fresh and seething, and a person couldn’t massacre their entire clan and expect to get away with it, regardless of if it was under orders. Itachi must have known that his actions were a death sentence. 

The facts were: her clan was dead. Itachi was gone. Sasuke was alone. 

And it was all the result of Sarutobi’s negligence.

Incompetent old man. She finally turned around and exited the room, the gazes of the six ANBU agents prying into her back. 

Chapter Text

Training was weird for Sasuke.

Weirder than normal, at least, and that was saying a lot. 

Both Sakura and Naruto behaved strangely around him, like they weren’t sure what to say or do. He could tell they wanted to talk-- there were unspoken questions itching to burst out of their skin. But the effort to keep them contained made the both of them uncomfortably quiet. Sasuke could feel their stares pricking into the back of his neck. 

Strangest of all, Kakashi was actually on time. 

He arrived, greeted them, and promptly said they were taking it easy today. He didn’t side-eye Sasuke when he said this, but he might as well have, because the direction was obvious enough.

Sasuke’s life had suddenly, radically changed, and now they were all wary of him. 

Sasuke couldn’t quite explain it, but felt simultaneously different and the exact same. Part of him was annoyed at the change in dynamic, thinking there’s no reason for this-- it’s not like there’s anything wrong with me. Nothing that would prevent me from training normally. And the other part was stewing in extreme discomfort about the fact that his entire team saw him cry. 

Not just cry, but full-on bawl like a baby in the arms of his mother. 

His mother, who was alive, who his whole team watched him summon two days ago. Who they knew existed somewhere here in the village-- Sasuke’s previously dead mother who had been killed by his brother five years ago in an event that stamped him an outcast and something to be wary of because he was the only survivor of his slaughtered clan but not anymore because his mother was back and oh god it was too much-- and his friends looked at him like they expected him to break down spontaneously at any minute. 

It reminded him slightly of the time right after the massacre, when he finally waded out of his grief-stricken trance enough to notice that everyone was pointedly avoiding him. Stealing glances and whispering and thinking about him, but refusing to acknowledge his existence face-on. It was a feeling that he hated, being an object of cautious attention.

Irritated at no one but himself, Sasuke stared intently forward and tried to ignore the glancing faces of his teammates and sensei. 

“O-kay,” Kakashi said, breaking the awkward silence. “Up, children. Let’s not waste the day now.” 

“Ironic, coming from you,” Sasuke said as he rose, feeling the need to snark at someone, “when you spend day after day with your face stuffed in that trashy book.” 

At that, both Naruto and Sakura burst into giggles. 

Kakashi huffed in amusement. “Come on guys, it’s not bully-your-sensei time.” 

Sasuke stuffed his hands in his pockets. “Right, sorry. I forgot bully-your-sensei time is only four to five PM on Tuesdays.” 

“You bully us all the time!” Sakura jabbed, poking Kakashi’s back. 

“That’s because I’m the sensei and you’re the students. Bullying you is a part of my job.”

“Did your jounin-sensei bully you, Kakashi-sensei?” Naruto asked.

Kakashi looked thoughtful for a moment. “No, not really…. not on purpose.”

The three kids responded in a vaguely synchronous chorus of “Then why do you get to bully us?!” 

“Hey,” Kakashi said defensively, “are we forgetting that I’m the one getting bullied here?”

Feeling satisfied to have directed the conversation to something other than himself, Sasuke let the bickering fade to background noise as he walked. Where they were walking, he wasn’t quite sure; they were in a clearing in the training grounds with a few targets and dummies situated around the place. Kakashi said they were taking it easy, so Sasuke assumed that meant they were free to practice whatever they wanted. 

Over their last mission, he had gotten it in his mind to practice more advanced fire style techniques. He was frustrated with how simple his grasp over them was-- while advanced by average genin standards, they were far below the bar for an Uchiha, especially the son of the clan head-- and Itachi’s younger brother. 

The reminder of his brother triggered a strong adverse reaction in him. He physically shook his head, as if to reject it. 

Usually, he was used to embracing the anger it gave him. Foster your hatred. It had become second nature to hone his emotions down to a fine point, preparing for the day they would find their target. 

Now, his brain viciously repelled the thoughts like an armor. Because for the first time in five years, he felt actually, genuinely, not miserable, and he didn’t want anything to spoil his mood. 

He’d consider it a weakness if he thought too hard about it. 

But right then, all he decided to think about was his mother, and how he hoped she would be done with her meeting soon so he could ask her to help him with his fire style jutsu.

When they reached an area that had a number targets posted around the field, Kakashi told them he had some other business to take care of and that they could work on their taijutsu while he was gone. He asked them to please try not to kill each other (but wounding is alright if they apologize) and left with that. 

***

Alone in Sasuke’s apartment, Mikoto felt the reality of her situation with ten times as much weight. 

In order to avoid falling into a spiral, she took to distracting herself by cleaning. And then when she finished cleaning, she sharpened the extra kunai Sasuke kept in a box in his bedroom. And when she finished that, she tried to make some food, and was utterly horrified by the sparseness of his cabinets and refrigerator. 

Sasuke kept his apartment fairly organized and didn’t have many personal items beyond necessities. His stock of food, by extension, consisted of only the bare minimum of what an active shinobi’s diet should consist of. He clearly took his training seriously and spent his money responsibly. He never liked sweets, so it wasn’t like she expected that, but he hardly had so much as a post-mission snack for himself--  nevermind enough food for two people, or even one fully prepared meal. 

Mikoto had had him cook with her occasionally in his childhood, when Fugaku and Itachi were busy with work and missions and Sasuke wasn’t yet enrolled in the academy. He enjoyed it, and he was quite good at it too-- he had always been a quick learner and it helped that he put so much effort into everything he did. It pained her to think about how it must have been after her death. She would understand if cooking had become a painful experience for him. 

Deciding she would have to go grocery shopping, Mikoto found a piece of paper and a pen and began writing a list. 

She was meant to pick up a payment from the bank to tide her over for a few weeks while the deed to the Uchiha clan’s finances was sorted out, which was a whole other box to unpack. Mikoto had yet to know what happened to all of the clan’s resources in the wake of their deaths-- the responsibility would have been all fallen to Sasuke, being the only survivor and only living person entitled to make those decisions, but he was an eight year-old at the time any of it was in process. Definitely not old enough to sign major contracts or to claim ownership to finances and an entire district of buildings. 

She would have to figure out how to get that handled justly, return the clan’s assets to the clan they rightfully belonged to, even if that clan consisted of only two people. But that was too much to think about at the moment, and it required her to dwell on and process the fact that her entire clan was actually gone, so Mikoto chose to focus solely on her grocery list for now. 

Sasuke’s favorite foods were tomatoes and rice, so she wrote those down first.

She hoped those were still his favorite foods, anyway. Sasuke was twelve now, not seven, and a lot can change in five years, especially for a traumatized and growing child. 

The fact that she wasn’t even sure of her son’s favorite foods anymore gave her an uncomfortable anxiety. Mikoto always hated not knowing things or feeling like she was out of the loop. Despite her position as one of the Uchiha clan heads, she was often sidelined in favor of her husband, and therefore didn’t receive all the information that he did. People often just didn’t feel the need to tell her things, including Fugaku-- and her discontent from that tided over to the present, and caused her tension over the fact that she hardly knew anything about her son anymore. The missing information created a seeming void in her mind that pleaded to be filled in. She tried to silence the voice by reminding herself that there was nothing to be done about it right now. This was a unique and uncharted experience and she couldn’t expect to get adjusted immediately. She would have time to get to know Sasuke again, and she would, even though she wished she didn’t have to. 

Sighing, she finished up the list, placed her pen down and ran her fingers through her hair. 

If she was living in her normal life, she would waste no time before putting this list in her pocket and heading to the store. She’d take little Sasuke with her, and Itachi too if he was around and had the time. If Fugaku wasn’t working, she’d ask him if there was anything in particular he wanted her to pick up. He would grunt a no in response or maybe ask for something small, like a stick of dango (because yes, Uchiha Fugaku had a sweet tooth, which was a secret that only Mikoto was privy to). 

The thought created a cavernous bud of loss in her chest. She longed for her husband. That was a painful truth she tried to stifle by keeping busy, but a piece of her heart absolutely ached for him, and craved the stability of his rational and resolute presence. This was doubly strange for her because their relationship had not been that close in its last few years. Early on, it was different; even though their marriage was arranged, they had both put in the effort to make it work. They got to know each other. They connected. They developed a mutual love that was strengthened by the birth of their two children. He was a cold man by nature but he was soft with her, and he was soft with their sons in their earliest years, and Mikoto had respect for him. Then his duties and the tensions between the village and the clan hardened him. He became closed off and was barely present for his family except to ensure that his sons were training hard. He’d always been strict, but with time, he became grueling, and Mikoto recalled multiple fights where she’d been nearly driven to take the boys and leave. 

She could never actually do that, of course-- their circumstances didn’t allow it. Where would they go, anyway? She had too many responsibilities to the clan, as did Itachi, and besides it all she truly did love her husband and held out hope that one day things would go back to the way they were. 

But they never did. 

Their relationship remained tense up until the night they died together. At that moment, in Mikoto’s somber acceptance of her fate, she felt a sense of understanding and solidarity with him that she hadn’t experienced in years. A silent agreement to die peacefully by their son’s hand. And they did, they died peacefully, and she would have remained dead had it not been for Sasuke’s interference. 

The jutsu scroll said it would summon the caster’s greatest desire. Sasuke’s greatest desire was her-- to have his mother back. 

That fact felt like hot cinders on her skin. 

Mikoto couldn’t afford to let her grief consume her because Sasuke needed her. He had needed her for five years, and now she was finally here, and she had to make up for all that lost time. So she forced everything down again and folded up her grocery list. 

She had to go pick up a new jounin uniform anyway, so she could complete both of those tasks at the same time. Right as she was getting ready to leave, she sensed the chakra of a person approaching the apartment. The muted image cleared enough that she could recognize who the signature belonged to, and she opened the window for Kakashi before he could knock. 

Kakashi perched on the windowsill, grabbing onto the top of the frame. “How did you know I was going for the window?” 

Mikoto crossed her arms. “Everyone who’s been in ANBU goes for the window.” 

He chuckled lightly at that. “Ah, yeah. I suppose you would know.” 

“What are you doing here?” 

“I wanted to apologize. I thought I’d be able to buy you more time than just a day, so I’m sorry. It can’t be easy getting adjusted after-- knowing about your son…” 

Mikoto flinched inwardly, knowing right away which son he was talking about. 

She recalled Hiruzen’s earlier words, forbidding her from speaking about this topic. Kakashi likely had the same amount of information as her, if not less: the Uchiha clan was dead and Itachi was the perpetrator. Itachi was also nowhere to be found and taboo to mention. If the plans about the coup were never revealed after the massacre, then the whole village would have no idea why Itachi was made to kill them-- which meant Kakashi didn’t either. The implications of that made her dread. 

But she merely nodded, swallowing her questions. 

Kakashi cleared his throat. “What I’m saying is that I get it. You have a lot to process. If there’s anything I can do to help, let me know.” 

“Thank you,” she said. “But right now, I’d just prefer not to think about it.” 

Kakashi quirked his eyebrow. “That doesn’t sound like healthy coping.”

Mikoto scoffed. “As if you would know the first thing about healthy coping, Kakashi. I’ve heard stories from Kushina.” 

The two of them shared a quiet laugh. They’d both known Kushina well, and both suffered her loss. Mikoto found herself wondering why they never spoke about it before-- why she never reached out. 

“We’ve lost a lot of the same people, haven’t we?” she said. 

Kakashi hummed, considering. “I suppose so.” 

She could feel him eyeing her, and she leaned back against the counter, looking away. Her vision couldn’t seem to focus. For some time, neither of them spoke. It grew harder to stay afloat with each moment of silence.

“Mikoto,” Kakashi eventually said. 

She looked over at him. She gave him a heavy look that conveyed every ounce of her exhaustion, and he responded with one of calm empathy. 

“Don’t shut yourself away in here, all right?” 

“I wasn’t planning to.” 

“You say that as if you haven’t been keeping busy with pointless tasks for the last hour or so.” He raised his eyebrow, having clearly taken notice of the over-cleanliness of Sasuke’s apartment. “I can see where Sasuke gets his perfectionism.” 

Mikoto winced internally at that, knowing full well that wasn’t from her. Sasuke’s perfectionism came directly from his father-- a result of the inferiority complex that Fugaku had instilled in him through his criticism and comparison. 

“Why don’t you come to the training grounds with me?” Kakashi offered. “You can meet the kids, see Sasuke in action. I’m sure he’d like that.” 

Mikoto gave it some thought, then nodded. “I would like that, too.” A smile graced her lips. “I would love to see how far he’s come. Before-- when I was alive-- he was just learning his first fireball jutsu.” Her heart ached with the memory. Kneeling down to rub burn ointment on her young son’s face after he’d spent all day practicing, working so hard to impress his father. And Naruto was now on Sasuke's team, too. Mikoto had never been able to be a part of his life. Perhaps now was her chance to make up for that.

“You’ll be glad to know he’s come far since then. He graduated at the top of his class, and I find him to be skilled for a genin. And he’s got a little bit of a rivalry with Naruto. It’s very cute.” 

At that, Mikoto managed a light laugh. “All right,” she said. “I have to go pick up a new jacket and headband, but after that, I’ll meet you there.”

Kakashi gave her a thumbs-up, and then he leapt back from the window, disappearing out of sight. 

***

Sasuke lay, winded, on the grass underneath a triumphant Sakura. 

Her fist was poised inches from his face, her forearm over his throat, effectively holding him to the ground. She had beaten him in their taijutsu match. Easily. In fact, she overpowered him so fast that he hardly even remembered what happened. 

Off to the side, Naruto was laughing so hard he might have busted a lung. “She just destroyed you!” he wheezed out, pointing offensively at Sasuke, who only let out a soft groan of pain in response. 

Sakura stepped off of him. “Are you okay?" she asked, holding out a hand to help him up. "I’m sorry I hit you so hard. I didn’t expect it to-- well, I didn’t expect it to be so easy.” 

Sasuke stumbled to his feet, hissing through clenched teeth as his muscles screamed with soreness. 

“What happened?” Sakura fixed him with a concerned look and placed her hand on his arm. 

“Sasuke got beat, that’s what happened!” Naruto interjected. He poked Sasuke in the chest. “You’re getting rusty, y’know. I bet I could take you on easily now.” 

Sasuke swiped his hand away. “In your dreams, usuratonkachi.” 

“Oh yeah?! You wanna go?” 

“Not now.” He pushed Naruto to an arm’s length distance. “You go up against the winner, not the loser.” 

“Yeah, Naruto,” Sakura said, crossing her arms. “Get over here. It’s your turn.” 

Naruto scrunched up his face as Sasuke passed him.  “All right, fine. But next time we fight, I will get you, just wait.”

“Whatever,” Sasuke mumbled. “Good match, Sakura.” He held out his fingers to form the unison sign, and she hooked hers around his. She smiled at him and they ignored Naruto who shouted something about it hardly even being a match. 

Then Sasuke went and sat off to the side as Naruto placed himself across from Sakura. He sighed, lying down on the grass, and ignored the way his spine cracked as he did so. 

The match with Sakura was just… a slip-up. That’s all. He had a momentary lapse of judgement-- probably a lingering result of the recent shock. Nothing to worry about. 

He noted how he felt unusually tired. His sharingan resisted activation, and he allowed it to shut off, welcoming the sky’s blue in place of the red filter. Sakura was admittedly getting much faster recently, and her chakra control was impeccable. The extra effort to keep up with her in sparring must have depleted his energy. 

Sasuke watched the clouds drift by, his backdrop the faded sounds of his teammates fighting. A shout from Sakura, yelps from Naruto and the popping of shadow clones told him how the battle was going. (“You can’t use shadow clones, Naruto! This is a taijutsu match!” “So what? All my clones are doing taijutsu!”)

He would have been quite content to drift off to sleep there had it not been for the people who suddenly landed nearby— and the familiar voice calling out to him. 

“Sasuke!” 

Sasuke’s heart jolted in his chest. He sat up straight, looked over to the source of the noise to find his mother waving at him, dressed in jounin attire, standing alongside Kakashi.

She had come to see him train. Sasuke had to actively resist the urge to run straight into her arms, he was so excited. He couldn’t remember the last time he felt anything like this— just pure happiness. The worry and exhaustion seemed to melt off him to make way for it, and he couldn’t help the smile that came to his face as she walked over and sat down beside him. 

"You're working on taijutsu today?" she began lightly, offering him a smile in return as she settled on the grass. 

Sasuke nodded. Kakashi stood beside them as together they watched the continuation of Sakura and Naruto's fight. 

"They're both good," Mikoto commented, and Kakashi just hummed. Sakura seemed to have the upper hand, though Naruto wasn't any closer to giving up, continuing to insist on using his shadow clones despite Sakura’s scolding. 

Sasuke picked at his fingernails, unsure of what to say. He felt a prickle of embarrassment and gratitude for the fact that his mother hadn't arrived in time to see him get defeated pathetically in his last match. 

After a few moments, Kakashi walked forward, right into the fray of the fight and caught both Sakura and Naruto by the arms almost effortlessly. 

"Guys," he said, "there’s someone here that you should formally meet." 

The two of them looked over in Sasuke's direction, the fight fading from their eyes as they noticed Mikoto. They stalled there for a moment, expressions of wonder on their faces. 

Kakashi led them over to where Sasuke and his mother sat, and Mikoto stood to greet them. Sasuke stood after her-- and the soreness in his legs flared up with the movement.

Naruto bumbled up first, eyes wide and practically glowing with amazed curiosity. “You’re really Sasuke’s mom?” he blurted out, just the same as he had when he first saw her. Sasuke found himself rolling his eyes. 

Mikoto just laughed softly, a good-natured smile on her face. “Yes, I am.” 

Sakura glared and pinched Naruto from behind, causing him to yelp. Then she swept forward and extended her hand to greet Mikoto with a sweet smile. “It’s really nice to meet you, ma’am,” she said. “I’m Haruno Sakura.” 

Mikoto shook her hand, before Naruto bumped Sakura to the side with his shoulder. “And I’m Uzumaki Naruto!” 

They exchanged more pleasantries-- and even Sasuke, in his happy haze, could feel the awkwardness of unspoken topics. The circumstances of her arrival went unaddressed, and though Sasuke preferred it that way, it made their interactions uncomfortable. It’s not every day that one has to introduce themselves to their friend’s formerly dead mother. 

“Mikoto-san is here to oversee your training today,” Kakashi said. “Please be respectful and don’t bother her with questions unless they’re training-related.” 

“Got it, Kakashi-Sensei!" Naruto chirped. Giggling, he bounced on his toes. Clearly unable to help himself, he turned back to Mikoto and exclaimed, "Can you tell us embarrassing stories about Sasuke?!" 

"That is not training-related!" Sakura yelled, smacking him on the back of the head, as Sasuke felt a cold shock of horror go through him.

His mother just laughed, cupping a hand over her mouth. "Maybe later," she said.

Sasuke's jaw dropped. "Mom, no!" 

At that point, Kakashi turned his head away to hide amusement, as Naruto dissolved into a fit of giggles. 

Sasuke's cheeks prickled-- but seeing his mother smile and laugh made any irritation fade from his mind immediately. He found himself smiling too, and willed himself to ask the question that had been on his mind all day.

“Mom,” he began quietly, and the word felt foreign but sweet, "can you teach me fire style jutsu?" 

Mikoto looked at him, momentarily surprised. Then her face softened, her eyes lighting up. "I would love to. Of course, Sasuke." 

Her answer made him feel all warm and fuzzy on the inside, and had to force himself to stop smiling as to not look dumb in front of his team. 

He was going to get to learn Uchiha clan signature jutsu directly from an Uchiha, something he had accepted was never going to be possible again. That, plus the attention and care from his mother that he still wasn’t used to experiencing, compiled to set his heart on fire.

"Alright," Kakashi said, "let's leave them to do that for now. You two, I would like to talk to you about the techniques you were using during your taijutsu match just now." He placed his hands on Sakura and Naruto's shoulders, and Sakura gave Naruto a piercing glare from the corner of her eye. At that, Kakashi steered the two of them away, looking back at Mikoto and Sasuke as if in affirmation.

Sasuke looked up at his mother, waiting for direction from her. 

"You want to learn about fire style jutsus?” she asked with a warm smile, and Sasuke nodded. “How much do you know so far?"

Sasuke explained to her everything he knew, and the extent of his grasp on the fire style forms. He halfway felt a small prickle of embarrassment, thinking she might find his knowledge subpar-- but her face betrayed nothing but glowing pride. She complimented him, said he was very smart and clearly studied hard, and asked him to show her some of his favorites. 

Warmed by the validation, Sasuke complied. He formed the hand signs for his Katon jutsus and started with a basic fireball, making sure to not to touch the grass with the flames, which would be an embarrassing rookie mistake. Then he moved one by one through the other few fire style jutsus he knew. All controlled, careful, and small, for demonstration purposes. His mother praised him after each one, offering slight corrections in stance and positioning. 

His last one was a Dragon Flame jutsu, one he'd only recently begun practicing. When he formed the hand signs to create it, though, the jet of fire caught somewhere in his chest. Coughing suddenly and exhaling smoke, Sasuke pitched forward and gasped for breath, feeling as though his throat had been scorched with a hot poker. 

His mother put her arms around him, holding him steady. “Easy, easy,” she hushed, “breathe it out.” 

When he regained his breath, Sasuke straightened up, swiping at his watering eyes. "I don't know what that was," he choked out. "I don't know why it didn't-- " 

She rubbed his arm lightly. "It's alright, it happens. Did it burn you? Does your throat hurt?" 

When he nodded, her face pinched into an expression of worry. “That doesn’t usually happen,” Sasuke insisted, swallowing painfully against the smoky taste. 

“It’s alright, honey. We’ll just get you some water, okay? I’ll go get Kakashi and let him know--”

“No, don’t.” Sasuke grabbed onto her sleeve to stop her from turning away. “It’s not that important. I can keep going.” 

His mother looked at him doubtfully, soft concern in her eyes. “Don’t push yourself too hard. Especially with this kind of jutsu.” 

Ignoring how exhausted he felt, how laborious it was to breathe, Sasuke just nodded again in acknowledgement. He looked at her a few moments longer, silently pleading for her to stay-- and she sighed, reaching out to ruffle his hair. 

“You’re still so stubborn.” Her voice carried an affectionate laugh, but heavy sadness lied underneath it. “Just be careful, okay? And tell me if it gets too painful, I don’t want to let you injure yourself.” 

Sasuke savored the physical touch as it lasted. Her words left him feeling somewhat shameful, a faint sense in the back of his mind, but it was far overshadowed by the glow of appreciation for his mother’s love. With a scratchy voice, he asked, “Can you help me with my sharingan after this?”

She simply smiled at him and leaned in to press a kiss to his temple. “Of course.” 

***

They continued to work on some less intensive Katon techniques and bridged into sharingan training over the course of the next few hours. As afternoon approached, Kakashi, Sakura and Naruto met up with them again and Mikoto fell back to the side to let Kakashi retake the reins with his students. 

It was nearly time for their lunch break, and Mikoto still needed to go grocery shopping. 

At a point where Kakashi was free, she approached him and politely dismissed herself for the time being, then promptly headed back for the village.

She had always bought her groceries from the local shopkeepers and farmer’s markets in the Uchiha district. But all of those people were dead now, their farms abandoned, shop stands full of dust and scrubbed-off bloodstains and stripped of all useful materials. Mikoto didn’t dare go back there, even though her muscle memory begged her to, and she forced herself to put the images out of her mind altogether. The village had plenty of shops and markets to choose from-- she’d find a new one and focus on picking out the perfect tomatoes to keep from thinking about her home. 

Walking the Konoha streets, Mikoto felt unusually self-conscious, wary as though eyes were prickling into her skin. Her flak jacket concealed the Uchiha crest on her back and kept her safe from immediate attention, but she still had the burning fear that everyone around her could sense she wasn’t supposed to be there. 

The announcement of her return would be made public soon, she knew, now that she was being placed back in the active jounin registry, and information always spread quickly among ninja. For now, it was all she could do to cling to anonymity. 

She saw people she recognized-- people she used to work with, people who were in her academy graduating class, who looked older and sadder and more scarred-- and her heart quickened with each reminder that five years were missing from her life. She lowered her face to keep from being looked at and stuck to walking under overhangs and in the buildings’ shadows so no one would become curious by the sight of a jounin they weren’t familiar with. 

When she arrived at a grocery store, she did her shopping quickly and efficiently, but instead of the distraction she was hoping for, the mundane task only highlighted her environment’s absences. No little Sasuke lingering around her legs, inquiring about the food she picked out. No Itachi to help her locate everything on her list. No need to pick up a small bag of sweets because there was no one at home who liked sweets anymore. 

The clerk working the counter was a teenager, most likely too young to know her by face-- but Mikoto still approached cautiously, spoke very little, and refused to make eye contact in their interaction, overly careful in her desire to go unnoticed as if she could pretend she was still dead.

When she finished, she went back to Sasuke’s apartment, put away the groceries in their proper places except for a few select ingredients, which she used to prepare some bento lunches.

She then returned to the training grounds just in time for their break and surprised the three children with food-- and the joy on their faces was the most effective distraction she’d encountered so far.

Mikoto spent the rest of the day with them, observing their training, helping out where she could. She spent some time with Sakura and found her chakra control to be exceptional for a child her age, and offered to introduce her to some more advanced genjutsu techniques with Kakashi’s permission. 

When she spent time with Naruto, all she could see was Kushina. His loud and impulsive personality, indignant protests, disregard for rules, and fiery spirit were perfect mirrors of his mother, and Mikoto’s heart hurt with fondness as she looked at him. She wondered in awe how he could be so similar to Kushina despite never having met her. And she wished more than ever to sit him down and tell him about his parents, reveal the information he was forbidden to know. 

But that wasn’t an option, so the least she could do for him was to be friendly, offer kindness. And that was enough, it seemed, to win his favor, because by the end of the day he had taken to calling her--

“Auntie Mikoto!” Naruto bounded up, the thick late-day sunlight catching his yellow hair and making it glisten. “You’re coming back tomorrow, aren’t you?” 

Taken aback by the nickname, Mikoto briefly hesitated to respond; and in the meantime Sakura bonked Naruto on the head with the heel of her palm. “What he means,” she interjected, “is that we’re very grateful for your help today, Mikoto-san… and we’d like it if you came to help us out again.” 

Mikoto really liked these kids. She could never have asked for better teammates for her son. “I would love to,” she said, “if your sensei says it’s alright.” 

“I’m sure Kakashi doesn’t care.” Sakura cupped her hands around her mouth to form a megaphone. “Hey, Kakashi-Sensei!” 

Across the field a little ways, Kakashi looked up from his conversation with Sasuke. “What?” 

“You don’t mind if Mikoto-san comes back tomorrow, do you?”

“Oh, no, it’s fine…” 

Mikoto shook her head in amusement, fascinated by this team dynamic. 

Sasuke lingered out by the training posts, where he had been half-heartedly listening to a talk from Kakashi before Sakura’s interruption. Mikoto glanced back at him, noting yet again how much he’d grown. It was strange, how every time she looked at him her brain seemed to skip like a broken record, as though it had trouble processing the information going into it. Like it took her half an instant longer to recognize him than it used to. 

But she'd made her decision already; she would get to know him again. She would get to a point where her son, this twelve year-old boy who grew up without her, would no longer feel like a stranger. 

The first step to that: to become adjusted to his current life. 

“Sasuke, how would you like to have your friends over for dinner?” Mikoto asked. “I’ll make oyakodon, if everyone is alright with that.” 

Naruto whooped for joy and jumped in the air, and Sakura clapped her hands together excitedly. Kakashi merely looked at Mikoto with a half-raised eyebrow. 

Sasuke glanced between his teammates and his mother. Then a small smile crept to his face, and he nodded. “Okay.”

Chapter Text

Mikoto held out her hand, allowing a crow to perch on her wrist and peck at the grains in her palm. 

Her older sister Rei had introduced her to crows, though she never learned to manipulate them or to use them for battle. Her bond to them existed through reading their chakra and allowing them to read hers-- a mutual exchange of information. 

Rei had owned an aviary where the crows liked to gather. Mikoto and their youngest sister Toshiko spent a lot of time there in their teenage years; and later, a child named Shisui would practically grow up within it. Shisui forged a connection with the crows of a depth that was unheard of in the clan, and he would then go on to teach Mikoto’s eldest son to connect with them in the same way. 

With Shisui and Itachi always out on missions, Mikoto often went by the aviary and communicated with the crows so that she could check up on her boys. The crows’ chakra was all linked through invisible threads, in a delicate network that allowed her to track them, in a way. She could sense clusters of the birds mingled with Shisui’s or Itachi’s chakra, feel their heartbeats, and know if they were alright. The faintness was a general indicator of their distance.

It was something that reassured her, calmed her nerves. Because of this, the crows’ presence had grown to have a soothing effect on her. This was changed by Shisui’s death-- after which a deep sorrow accompanied them.

She stroked the bird’s glossy black feathers as it finished off the seeds in her palm, ruffling its wings and tossing its head as if stretching taut muscles. Its warm chakra pulsed steady like a gentle heartbeat, threaded between all the other crows in the area. 

Breathing deeply, Mikoto mingled some of her own chakra with the crow’s. She traced the interconnected web as far as she could reach, feeling for a presence, a familiar body wrapped within a cluster of birds... but found nothing. Exhaled and let go. Disappointed, but not surprised. 

The extension of her chakra left her feeling hazy, and a thrumming headache took root in her skull. As if sensing her discomfort, the crow hopped across the length of her arm and settled on her shoulder, nuzzling her hair with its beak. 

With a sad smile, she murmured, “Keep an eye out for my son, would you?” 

It couldn’t oblige her. She’d never learned to give the crows actual commands, finding the process somewhat invasive, but she still spoke to them anyway and liked to believe they knew what she was saying. 

After one final head scratch, she gently nudged the bird from her shoulder and watched it take flight into the orange-tinted sky. Then Mikoto left the balcony and returned to the kitchen of Sasuke’s apartment through the sliding glass door. 

The oyakodon was almost ready-- she was only waiting for the rice to steam at this point. Sasuke was setting the table and arranging the extra chairs around it. It was going to be slightly cramped, with five people sitting around the tiny excuse for a dinner table that Sasuke’s apartment had, which Mikoto had failed to consider before inviting everyone over. 

In their Uchiha clan household, presentation for guests was extremely important and she had often agonized over keeping the dining area completely spotless and made up as perfectly as a clan head’s home should be. If the circumstances were normal, she would have taken several extra hours to get everything in perfect order, ensuring that their good image would be maintained. Now, though, there was obviously no need, and the taste of her previous normality didn’t allure her. She’d already spent time cleaning earlier anyway. 

“Sasuke?” she called. 

From the dining area, Sasuke turned his head, stood up, and came immediately into the room to answer her summons. “Hm?” 

“Would you like to taste this?” 

When he approached, Mikoto offered him a small spoonful of broth from the cooling pan. He sipped it, then bobbed his head in affirmation that it tasted good. 

After washing off the spoon in the sink, Mikoto turned to see what her son had done in the dining room.

“Does it look okay?” he asked somewhat awkwardly, as though he wasn’t used to seeking another person’s opinion.

“It looks perfect.” With a small laugh, she added, “It’s as good as we’re going to get with this space, anyway.” 

Sasuke nodded in agreement. “I don’t think my-- teammates will mind.”

Mikoto raised her eyebrows. “What was that hesitation for? Could it be that you were about to call them your friends?” 

“No, I wasn’t, I just--” Sasuke turned away defensively as Mikoto nudged him with her elbow.

“I’m only teasing.” Her son was still the same in that regard, it seemed. He was always hesitant to admit when he cared, and didn’t tend to give anyone the title of ‘friend’, even as a young child. 

But a tiny smile came to his face as he turned.

“They’ll be here soon,” Mikoto said. “Could you help me put the bowls together?”

Sasuke silently complied, assisting her in spooning the rice into bowls and pouring the chicken and egg broth over each of them. 

***

As Sasuke had anticipated, Naruto was the first to arrive, ever eager for a meal he didn't have to pay for. Sakura showed up shortly thereafter, and even brought a small plate of pastries she had baked as a thank-you. Sasuke decided not to tell her that neither he nor his mother were a fan of sweets.

Kakashi was late, of course, but by now Team Seven was used to getting started without him. Sasuke told his mother they might as well begin eating, despite her hesitation ("Shouldn't we wait? It's more polite to wait--" ), and all three kids shook their heads and warned her of how little Kakashi-Sensei valued their time. 

With that, the four of them began eating their food.

Sasuke just stared down at his bowl for a while. A small twinge of nostalgia worked away at the back of his skull, as somewhere in the depths of his memory emerged the reminder that his family used to say a prayer before they ate. He'd never given it since he’d been living on his own, so he wasn't sure why he suddenly felt like he should. 

At the sounds of his friends laughing, his mother's voice asking them questions and smiling at their responses, he allowed the thoughts to wash away. 

He was here. This was the present. He was with his mom and his two teammates-- people he trusted. People he had bonds with -- whether he liked it or not, in some cases. 

He was home. 

Sasuke took a spoonful of oyakodon and the warm rice was unexpectedly soothing. It was unusual to find himself enjoying food, as he’d gotten used to just focusing on the necessity of it, and it struck him with the reminder that everything tasted better when it was made by his mother (or rather, everything tasted better when it was made by someone who loved him, which was also a long-forgotten experience for Sasuke). He wondered briefly if Naruto felt a glimmer of the same way.

The boy in question was speaking in a less-than-acceptable volume, and Sakura was trying to get him to quiet down as he rattled off about his latest prank war with Konohamaru. Sasuke briefly tuned in when his mother gave a laugh, and he attempted to catch her eye as if to share annoyance. 

"Can I have seconds?" Naruto exclaimed suddenly, slamming his wooden bowl down on the table in his excitement. Sakura mumbled something scolding about not being rude but Mikoto just smiled and nodded, took his bowl from him and said, "Of course, honey." 

Naruto snickered with giddy happiness, and Sasuke couldn't be annoyed at it this time because he completely understood how he felt.

As Mikoto retreated into the kitchen, Sakura turned to Sasuke with a sincere look and said, "Your mom is so nice."

“Yeah, she is,” Naruto agreed, then added, “you must be real happy to have her back, huh, Sasuke?”

Sasuke didn't know how to verbally respond to that, so he just nodded, and had to fight to repress the smile that wanted to come to his face. 

Naruto continued. “Man, when you told us what that scroll said, I thought it was the dumbest thing I’d ever heard. But to think it was really real, and look what it got you.”

Sakura made a noise of agreement, humming around the food in her mouth. 

Mikoto came back into the dining room with Naruto's bowl refilled, and he happily took it from her, chirping, "Thanks, Auntie Mikoto!" A flash of jealousy went through Sasuke upon hearing Naruto refer to her so affectionately, and he decided not to acknowledge the fact that he was embarrassingly possessive of his mother. 

Then a knock sounded at the front door, and all three genin heads turned to look at the source of the noise. 

"I'll bet that's him," Sakura said, "horribly late, of course, but what's new?" 

Mikoto stood to get the door and to no one’s surprise, there was Kakashi in all of his nonchalant glory. 

The good thing: he wasn't wearing his jounin uniform to dinner, thank Naka. 

The bad thing: he was wearing the lamest casual clothes Sasuke had ever seen, which was, in fact, worse. 

Sasuke didn't want his mother to get the idea that his sensei was a lazy slacker that couldn’t train them properly, but that was exactly the image Kakashi was giving off. Sasuke just pointedly glared at him from across the room. 

“Hello, Mikoto,” Kakashi said with a cheerful wave as he removed his sandals. “It smells lovely in here.” 

“Thank you,” Mikoto responded, directing him to the kitchen table. “It’ll get cold soon, so hurry and sit down.”

As Kakashi moved to do so, he took notice of Sasuke’s less than pleasant expression. “What’s that look for?” he asked, raising his eyebrow.

Sasuke scowled harder. “Really, Kakashi? It’s one thing to not respect our time, but my mother’s?” 

“You’re right, I’m sorry, Mikoto.” 

“Oh, it’s really fine,” she assured them.

“No, it’s really not,” Sakura chimed in, “you shouldn’t let him disrespect you like that, Mikoto-san.” 

“Now, now, you guys, I didn’t mean anything by it…” Kakashi raised his hands in a placating gesture. “I really am sorry, Mikoto.” Sakura just shook her head at him.

After another assurance from Mikoto that it was, indeed, fine, Kakashi finally sat down at the table with a hefty sigh and removed the black gloves he was wearing. Mikoto retrieved a bowl from the kitchen for him and he thanked her upon receiving it. 

Sasuke watched as his sensei carefully began to eat, trying to read him. Kakashi made no expression after the first couple bites (sliding them into his mask in tactfully small amounts, to Sasuke’s disappointment), and on the third, he hummed and remarked, “It’s wonderful.” 

Mikoto smiled at him and accepted the praise humbly. 

Sakura soon finished up her bowl and also asked for seconds, and Naruto asked for thirds. Mikoto filled up their bowls for them each time, and Sasuke found himself thinking they should at least offer to get it themselves, so she doesn’t have to do everything. 

After she came back from the kitchen a second time, she paused near Sasuke, looking over his shoulder. “You don’t like it?” she asked.

It was only then that Sasuke realized he had been so busy paying attention to his teammates’ reactions that he had completely forgotten to eat his own food, aside from a few bites. “No,” he said in a rush, “I do like it-- it’s good, thank you.” 

It was unclear whether or not his mother believed him, but she offered a smile and lightly touched his head anyway. Sasuke then tried to focus back on his food-- though it proved to be difficult, as he couldn’t ignore the fact that now Naruto was staring directly at him.

Sasuke scowled and retorted, “What are you staring at, loser?” 

Mikoto flashed a sudden searing look at him. “Sasuke, be nice.” 

At that, Naruto clapped a hand over his mouth, trying not to spray food everywhere with the laugh that bubbled up, nearly choking. Sakura’s eyes widened and she looked down, trying to hide her own amusement at witnessing Sasuke get scolded. 

Sasuke’s face heated and he shrunk slightly under his mother’s gaze. The retort at Naruto had been on instinct, he didn’t even pause to consider the consequences before he said it. Now it was sinking in that he really shouldn’t be mean in front of his mother. “I’m sorry, Mom.” 

“Don’t apologize to me, apologize to your friend,” Mikoto said. 

Naruto nearly exploded in laughter again. This time, he made an effort to swallow his food first, then looked at Sasuke with a wicked grin on his face. 

“You heard her, Sasuke,” Kakashi said, clearly enjoying the situation. 

Sasuke gritted his teeth and hated the obvious embarrassment prickling on his cheeks. With a horrifying amount of difficulty, he managed to string together the words, “Sorry, Naruto.”

Still looking stupidly smug, Naruto said, “What was that, Sasuke? I didn’t hear you.”

“I said I’m sorry, you--” Sasuke bit his tongue to prevent from spouting another insult, and sighed harshly instead.

Everyone was laughing at him now. Under any other circumstances, that would have pissed him off more, but now it just… didn’t. His mom gave him a good-natured smile and he couldn’t stay disgruntled much longer after that, so he just let his team laugh, and tried not to laugh himself. 

Mikoto fit easily back into the ‘perfect mother, perfect wife’ role she was used to inhabiting in her clan. 

When she and her husband had first assumed the position of clan head, she had hated that this was the expectation on her now, but over time she had become more or less indifferent. She was a shinobi, an Uchiha clan head, and it was just one of her duties. She mastered it like any other skill.

So this was to say she was very, very good at pretending to be happy when she wasn’t. 

It was deeply wrong to be making a family meal like this but without her family. This smell of cooking food, the sound of clinking dishes, the entire atmosphere told her she should be walking into the dining room to find her husband and two sons, sharing a meal together like always. 

To curb the difficulty, she found excuses to be in the kitchen, refilling her guest's bowls or getting a headstart on washing the dishes. Sighing, she positioned a pot underneath the sink faucet and filled it with soapy water to let it soak. 

Moments later, footsteps approached behind her. Mikoto turned to find Kakashi coming into the kitchen, holding his empty bowl and chopsticks in one hand. 

"Hi, Mikoto," he said, in an overly casual tone. 

"Hi, Kakashi," she reflected.

He paused at the counter, watching the pot fill up with water for a few seconds too long. Eventually, he cleared his throat to speak. "I was just going to let you know," he began, "that they have me assigned to watch out for you." 

“‘Watch out for me,’” Mikoto said. "You mean 'watch me', right? You're meant to spy on me?"

Kakashi raised his hands. "Not spying. Just keeping an eye on you. Out of friendly regard for your health and safety." 

"We're friends now, are we?"

"I'd like to think we are." 

Mikoto sighed, shutting off the tap. As soon as she did, Kakashi turned it towards him and flicked it back on to run his bowl under it. “You have a lot to handle, Mikoto. I understand if you’re struggling. I figure you could use some support-- at least someone around that you can trust.” 

That was technically true. Mikoto had to concede, it was nice to have another adult to talk to. 

Kakashi had the sharingan too, which was something that had sparked a lot of controversy in both the village and the Uchiha clan when it first came to light. Mikoto remembered weighing in on this specific issue in his favor-- since it was Uchiha Obito’s dying wish, as well as a bad time to create new conflict, directly following the close of the Third Shinobi War. Mikoto knew Kakashi had also worked closely with Minato and Kushina, so, really, of all jounin in the village, she should be grateful to have him to confide in. But it was the fact that he was assigned to her that made her skin crawl with distrust. Part of her wished he’d show at least some loyalty to the Uchiha clan over the village, being entrusted with such a significant piece of them.

They cleaned their respective dishes together in silence for a few moments. Then Kakashi said: “I handed over the scroll.”

A wave of anger caught Mikoto off guard. She stopped what she was doing, gripping the edge of the sink. 

She knew there were no objective reasons for Kakashi to not do this, nor were her own reasons completely rational, but she couldn’t shake her distaste for providing the village higher-ups with what they wanted. 

“They’re reviewing it tonight. I expect they’ll call you and Sasuke in for tests sometime tomorrow morning.” 

Mikoto let out a breath and nodded, resuming the dishes with controlled calm. “Good to know.” 

After dinner, the others stayed and talked for a little while, and Sakura opened up her plate of pastries for the others to eat. Mikoto grabbed one even though she didn’t enjoy sweets, wanting Sakura to feel accepted.

She glanced at Sasuke every now and then, noting his facial expressions and body language to make sure he was comfortable. He would occasionally engage lightly with the others and responded to prompting. Not quite enthusiastic, but he didn’t seem to be distressed or bored, which was good. 

Eventually, once the sun had fully set, Sasuke’s team members prepared to leave. Kakashi thanked them again at the doorway, causing Naruto and Sakura to chorus thank-yous of their own, and Mikoto smiled and laughed and thanked them for coming. Sasuke lingered somewhat behind her and waved as they left. 

Then Sasuke and Mikoto retreated to the kitchen. They talked as they did the rest of the dishes together. Sasuke was smiling and even broke into laughter a few times, and with her state, Mikoto thought it was the most beautiful sound she’d ever heard. At one point, he joked about something, and Mikoto set down the bowl she was scrubbing and pulled him in with soapy hands to kiss his forehead. That just made him laugh more, and he squirmed out of her slippery grasp, wiping the suds from his cheeks. 

Sasuke went to bed smiling, and Mikoto went to bed barely holding her fraying pieces together. 

The apartment only had one bedroom, so they had laid out the extra futon in Sasuke’s room for her to sleep on, both for practical reasons and because it was comforting for both of them to be aware of the other. Mikoto only felt like she wasn’t on the edge of drowning when Sasuke was near her-- she needed the constant reminder of why she had to stay stable. 

He fell asleep quickly. The sound of his faint snoring filled the room as Mikoto lied awake, observing the way the moonlight fell through the window over his bare-bones furnishings. It caught the photo of Sasuke’s team, producing a sharp white reflection on the glass. 

Unable to sleep, Mikoto got up from her bed and walked to the window, pulling the curtains wider to look outside. The moon was high, it was a cloudless night, so she could see a good amount of the village from here. 

There were a few new buildings, many of the same she was used to seeing, some with slight noticeable changes. Switching on her sharingan, she read the chakra of the people within range-- most of them at peace, sleeping, relaxing, getting ready for bed-- while a few were restless or working, preparing for a night mission or doing paperwork. 

Everything felt so wrong.

Even Sasuke, who was her only light in this situation, was wrong. She still wanted to think of him as the seven-year old she was familiar with. But that boy was gone, along with Itachi, along with Fugaku, and the rest of her clan. 

Mikoto let out a long, slow breath. She lowered her head, pinched the bridge of her nose, and tried to stay calm. 

For a few moments, she swayed slightly, simulating a grounding movement, since she couldn't pace for worry of waking Sasuke up. 

She glanced back at him. The covers were draped over his curled-up body and he looked smaller than he was. If she tried, really tried, she could imagine he was still the little boy she knew. 

Swallowing down the feelings of wrongness, she approached him very quietly, leaned down and brushed a strand of hair from his cheek. He seemed to be sleeping soundly. That was good.

Mikoto quietly left the room. She had to walk carefully, as the floorboards in Sasuke's apartment tended to squeak-- it wasn't a very high-quality building. She clenched her fists in frustration, walking past the sparse furniture, bare walls and rough carpet of the living area. 

Life was more surreal at night. This was truer now than it had ever been, as she flexed her fingers, curled her toes into the carpet, feeling the wrongness in every cell of her body. The solid, irrefutable fact that she wasn't supposed to be here, in this flesh, in this house. 

She didn't have any memories after Itachi killed her. After the life left her body. Just blankness. She could, to a certain extent, feel that time had passed, but there was nothing to fill it up. No images, colors, sounds. Nothing. 

Wasn't there supposed to be some kind of afterlife? That's what her parents raised her to believe. She remembered her mother and father, her two sisters, dressed up in stiff formal clothes to attend ceremonies at the Naka shrine every month. She remembered her father's gloves, her mother's sweet singing voice. The way her younger sister always got told off for running in the building, how she and her older sister would get blamed for it, how Rei started making excuses not to come.

For an Uchiha clan head, Mikoto probably wasn't as religious as she should have been. But she'd never really felt drawn to the shrine the way other members of her clan had, the way her parents claimed to be. She just felt indifferent. 

Craving the comfort of cold air on her skin, Mikoto opened up the doors and stepped out onto the balcony. She shut the door tentatively behind her, then walked to the railing, placing her palms on the cool metal.

A light breeze buffeted her face and hair. She breathed in the scent of the village, absorbed the quietness of it. 

It didn't resonate as her home. 

Her home wasn't the village in general, not really. She had too much anger at it for that. Her home was and always would be solely the Uchiha clan. With her family, her clansmen, her comrades. That home was gone-- or mostly gone, at least. 

She still had Sasuke.

Mikoto closed her eyes.

She took a moment to thank Naka-- or whoever else might be out there, watching over her, depriving her of an afterlife-- for allowing her to be here with him. In this new version of her world, everyone that ever meant something to her was gone, except for her two sons-- one of them here and tangible, the other one out of reach, a concept.  Mikoto clung with both hands to the belief that Itachi was out there somewhere. 

And she'd find him.

How, she didn't know yet. But she would.

It was nice to have the sting of the night air, to remind her that she was alive, inhabiting a body. But soon the chill began to sink into her flesh, making the hair on her arms stand on end underneath her nightshirt, so she relented and went back inside. 

She looked through the bag of clothes Kakashi had brought and pulled out a sweater, wriggled into it, and tied her hair up in a ponytail so it would be out of her face. Then she went back outside and leapt over the railing. 

Mikoto landed with hardly a tap on the rooftop below, then leapt down to another nearby building. She continued in this fashion, leaping from building to building, always on the shadowed sides, under awnings and between alleyways to remain stealthy. Her three years of ANBU training weren't lost on her yet. The wind whistled around her, adrenaline pumped through her body and she savored the evidence that she was alive. It was a feeling reminiscent of her earlier years as a shinobi, relishing the blissful freedom that came from leaping through the trees on a mission. This was until she reached the outskirts of the Uchiha compound.

There was a wall of wooden planks over the front entrance, marked with mottled caution tape. The roughness, the finality of it, made Mikoto's stomach turn with revulsion.

After a few moments gazing at it, heart pounding with the anticipation of what she was about to see, she leapt over the top of the stone arch and dropped down onto the cobbled main path. 

The trees on the sides of the path were still strong, the only constant in the area. Everything else was fraught with the wear of neglect. The grass was overrun, sprouting up between the cracks in the path, creeping out, spreading like a disease. Moss covered the stones, something that the Uchiha had always ensured to clean off when it grew, and the entrance pond was stagnant and murky, the stream of water that usually trickled into it long since dried up.

And then there were the buildings in front of her.

Stark-gray, drained of life like corpses. 

Completely and utterly desolate.

She willed herself to walk forward, legs shaking, breath unsteady. The feeling was so overwhelmingly foreign, so dark and unreal, Mikoto had to fight back sickness. Every step she took felt more mechanical. Her bones tingled. The cold bit her cheeks, smothered her.

A crackle of bushes. Mikoto's head snapped to the side, and a couple of large rats darted out behind a cluster of overgrown foliage, skittering across the path in front of her and disappearing out of sight into a lineup of vacant shop stands.

The merchant buildings were empty, shop windows darkened, stands overturned. The tones of gray and blue and purple that coincided with the clan now looked cold, mourning, rather than strong and significant. She passed the fruit market her aunt and uncle had run. The flower shop of an academy classmate of hers. A woodcarving workshop owned by an old man they used to joke was invincible, as he’d been an old man since Mikoto’s youth but he never seemed to slow down as the years wore away at him. The distant familiarity stung her, alongside the knowledge that all of those people were long dead.

The further she walked, the closer she came to the residential area-- the closer she came to home.

She’d walked this path countless times before, her footsteps were among the many that wore it down, but it didn't feel welcoming now. It felt like a death sentence, a nightmare. 

Mikoto hardly noticed her breath speeding up, becoming ragged. She fought to keep her sharingan off, knowing that if she activated it, the emptiness around her would only be proven. Not a life around beyond the scavengers like those rats, helping themselves to the remnants. 

What was worse, everywhere she looked, she could see the bloodstains.

Scrubbed off futility, the dark splashes were unmistakable-- a faded rust color painting stone tiles beneath her feet and storefront walls, back alleys. She could almost see it. The slaughter, her son carrying it out.

Mikoto walked and walked and walked and walked.

Passing a house, another sound caught her ears, and she turned to find a bony black cat slinking out from underneath a cobweb-filled porch. 

She felt compelled, in the back of her hazy mind, to do something for it-- help it somehow-- but her brain didn't will her body to move.

She let the cat pass, padding across the tiles in a loping hurry, attempting to get away from her but too sickly to run.

Mikoto continued walking.

And walking.

And walking.

Until she reached her house.

At the very center of the residential district, the Uchiha clan heads' family home. She let her eyes scan the porch, the front entrance, the awning, the roof, the walls, the way the moonlight played on all of it. The stillness. The smell.

It smelled, very distinctly, of dust. It smelled abandoned. Dead.

Mikoto walked up the porch steps. 

She reached out, placed her hand around the doorknob.

And then her fingers froze.

And in her head she saw the floor, she saw her husband in the corner of her eye, beside her, felt Itachi’s presence behind them.

Everything in her body tensed up like a malfunctioning machine-- unable to bend any of her joints, move a single muscle in her half-living body. 

After standing there for what felt like hours, just seconds stretching into the next stretching into minutes, Mikoto lost all sense of time and jerked herself back from the threshold of her house. She stumbled backwards, so far that she nearly tripped over the edge of the porch, but caught herself before she could fall back over the steps. 

Breathing heavily, she looked for a place to go. A place to hide, as she suddenly was consumed with the realization that she did not want to be there anymore. 

Anxiety whirled in her head, panic, and she leaned down and put her hands on her knees, then sank fully to the wooden boards as she fought to catch her breath. Gasping, like her lungs weren't big enough, like her body was shrinking. 

She clutched at her chest, wrenched the sweater's fabric in her fist. She pressed her fingers into her skin, the small curve of bone underneath her throat, and pitched forward to stare at the cracks in the boards. 

With the world spiraling around her, she focused on the pressure in her hands, against her neck, and she calmed herself down. 

Dizziness made her head fuzzy. She fought back nausea. Shut her eyes against the static filling her brain.

And then, before she could even realize or control it, Mikoto began to sob. 

And then she was crying on her family home's porch. Weeping into her hands, breathing like there was glass in her throat, fighting for it the way she'd always had to fight in this awful rot-space of a village. The way everything felt like a fight now that she was back, stolen from the comfort of death. Everything hurt. Everything fucking hurt.

She didn't know how long she cried for, just that she was even more dizzy afterwards. She stayed there on the boards after her eyes went dry and waited for the lightheadedness to fade, and only then did she activate her sharingan.

Mikoto looked around, at the absence of human life. Noted the pinpricks of warm energy from small rodents, felines, birds and insects that were close enough, but nothing familiar, nothing comfortable. 

The emptiness, the barrenness of it. The compound was deprived of everything that gave it its name, made it function, like her. 

Mikoto scooted herself to the porch's edge, setting her feet onto the lower step, and sat there, taking slow, calming breaths. She clutched her hands together and ignored her shivering. 

And she stayed like that, again, for another spanse of time that she couldn't quantify. She just breathed, squeezed her fingers, and made herself acutely aware of the shinobi watching her from a distance. 

ANBU Black Ops. 

Two in the northside tower, hidden under the roof's awning. Two positioned in trees to the left and right of her.

Mikoto knew the way they worked-- she was one of them, didn't they know that? Feeling horribly apathetic, she stood up, wiped her nose and shunshined back to the balcony of Sasuke's apartment, no longer desiring to walk. 

Chapter Text

Mikoto could trace her hatred for the village back to one specific date: October 10th, twelve years ago, the night she lost Kushina. 

Before then, she had been displeased with it. The way her clan was treated frustrated her, especially with all the history she’d been raised with, the knowledge that the Uchiha were a co-founder of Konoha alongside the Senju, and yet had been sidelined in favor of their counterpart. Even as the Senju petered out into practical nonexistence, blending with the other assimilated clans, the Uchiha remained pureblooded-- they were the only constant in an ever-changing civilization-- and yet never received any sort of equal standing or sufficient leverage within their shared creation. 

Mikoto grew up hearing the mutters of distaste from her father, the silent worry from her mother, their building frustration. It was Rei who eventually explained to her why their parents worked so hard, why the village didn’t trust them-- and she was in her academy years when this first became clear to her-- that they were feared. This was largely due to the lasting wake of Uchiha Madara’s legacy. Her whole clan had been equivalized in nature to this one ancestor of theirs, and Mikoto’s family, being the clan heads and his direct descendents, felt it better than anybody. 

Then the Nine-Tails attack occurred, and on that night she awoke to the full extent of Konoha’s incompetence amidst her crushing grief. She remembered seeing Kushina’s body after-- the gaping wound in her stomach, clothes splashed a darker red than her hair-- lying next to Minato, gruesomely killed in the same way. Mikoto remembered arriving too late, after forcing her way through a team trying to keep her away, under orders to prevent an Uchiha from getting too close to the Kyuubi. It became clearer than ever then, the extent of the fear the village had for them. Mikoto wasn’t allowed to save her best friend, or even be with her in her dying moments, for the sake of that fear-- and the people that were meant to protect Kushina all failed and she died in agony over her newborn son, and Mikoto was never allowed to even meet him, much less assist in his upbringing. This was in part due to the Uchiha clan’s precarious position immediately following the attack, wherein trying to associate with the freshly-branded Kyuubi jinchuuriki would look far too suspicious for their sake, and part because Naruto was not allowed to know the identities of his parents for the worry that it would put him in danger. 

Mikoto also remembered not crying until three days later, too consumed by the suddenness of it, before finally breaking into angry tears on their still-damaged kitchen floor. Fugaku had been there to comfort her, and she vaguely recalled Itachi coming in to ask what happened, and Fugaku telling him to go to his room. Through her grief it set in just how deeply the village failed its people.

Now in the present, magnified infinitely by her clan’s complete slaughter, all Mikoto felt was rage. 

She struggled to keep herself under control as the medic-nin escorted her and Sasuke through the hospital hallways, now under an entirely different pretense than attempting not to succumb to her grief. They moved through pale walls and bright lights to a secluded wing of the hospital, behind two different locked doors and soundproof walls. They were essentially a part of a top secret investigation, so it was no surprise, but it still made Mikoto prickle with unease, as though preparing to be attacked at any moment. The hallways branched into a small empty waiting room and Mikoto was directed to sit down. Connected to the room was an examination center behind a closed door. 

They took Sasuke in first, then her. 

When sitting on the cool metal examination table, she thought of previous hospital visits in her life. A kunai injury from her genin days that she needed stitches for. A two-night extended stay to heal her eyes after a bout of overuse when she was in ANBU. The day she found out she was pregnant with Itachi-- which she remembered by the sickening feeling of dread that had overcome her when she received the news. She was twenty-two then, and although that was around the average age for women in the village who bore children, she still felt far too young. Mikoto hadn’t even wanted children, really, but she lost that choice the day her older sister died and she and Fugaku became next in line for clan head. Her pregnancy signified the essential end to her shinobi career, the life she knew, and with that came a sense of grief.

But then Itachi was born-- and while that was far from a pleasant process, she did remember all of her worry and doubt suddenly falling away the moment she held him in her arms. 

Dwelling on that memory made her chest ache. Mikoto had to close her eyes, grip the edge of the table to force the swell of emotion down. It hurt far too much to think about her eldest son-- but it hurt to push the thoughts away, too, so Mikoto was stuck in a fix. Deep down, there was an anger at him, for not understanding, for falling into the village’s trap-- but that particular anger she chose to address at a later date. Right now, all she could manage was her worry, and her anger for him at the fact that he was ever caught up into an adults’ mess to begin with. She would quite literally kill just to know if he was okay. 

The tests and examinations took over an hour for the two of them and they waited an additional thirty minutes for any results to come back. Sitting together in the waiting room, Mikoto and Sasuke made small hesitant conversations until the medic-nin returned with all the paperwork. 

The evaluators still had no solid explanation for how exactly the scroll managed to bring her back; a full physical manifestation with all of her memories, appearance, and personality intact. It was a more powerful jutsu than the Nidaime’s Edo Tensei, and that made it both suspicious and incredibly valuable, on top of being so difficult to crack. The Sealing Corps gave little in the way of further discovery beyond the it’s clearly foreign and unlike anything we’ve ever seen, which was already apparent to anyone with eyes, so all the information they had access to was what it did to their bodies.

What they learned was that Mikoto had about half her previous amount of chakra. And that Sasuke, too, had only half of his normal reserves, and they weren’t regenerating. 

The medic-nin explained to them that when the seal was activated, it had likely ripped half of Sasuke’s chakra out of him and used it to create the manifestation of Mikoto, but that didn’t explain why she had an intact physical form, one that was accurate down to her cells. The other data showed her DNA now more closely resembled Sasuke’s, though the difference was hardly noticeable considering they were mother and son and had a very similar genetic makeup to begin with. 

For the Edo Tensei jutsu, the caster required a full flesh human sacrifice as well as some DNA from the body of the person they wished to reanimate. It was deemed unlikely that someone would have access to Mikoto’s DNA-- since, as Mikoto would then find out, all of the Uchiha were buried in a mass grave. The rage and violation that fact stirred up distracted her from the point, which was that it would be impossible to check if her remains were intact, as they were a part of the mix of bones of her friends, colleagues, and family that had all been disposed of alongside her.

Sasuke's reactions were a bit harder to discern. He seemed guarded, wary. When the medic-nin left after handing them their chakra screenings, he stared down at his for several seconds, then said, "That explains why I've been feeling like this."

Mikoto turned to look at him, slightly concerned. "Feeling like what?"

"Drained all the time." He looked at his hands, flexed his fingers. "Like I've been weaker."

"And you didn't think to tell me that?" A small spark of protective anger flared in her words, and she recalled Sasuke’s fire style demonstration the other day-- when his jutsu backfired and he claimed to be off his usual performance-- and scolded herself for not giving it more thought.

Sasuke looked at her hesitantly. "I'm sorry, I just-- I thought it was a side effect of the shock.”

Mikoto let out a breath, retaining patience. She recalled that Sasuke still wasn’t used to having someone to tell about these things. "Please tell me if anything unusual like that happens again, okay? Or if there's anything else you're concerned about at all."  

He nodded and looked back at the results, his facial expression tightening. 

Soon after, the medic-nin came back into their room to give them more information. He tapped a pencil against his clipboard as he read off the notes on it. Mikoto noted how uncomfortable he seemed to be around them, unspoken apprehensions clear on his face. “We’ll look into methods to get your chakra levels restored, but there’s a chance it may be irreversible as long as we don’t have all the information on the scroll.” 

Well, that was intensely frustrating. Her summoning had literally torn a chunk of Sasuke out of him and there was no foreseeable way to fix it, and that was going to eat away at her as long as her stolen life continued. “Isn’t there anything built into the scroll?” she asked. “It’s a summoning seal-- there must be a way to at least reverse it.” 

At that, Sasuke had a delayed reaction, then snapped his head to look at her. Only after saying it did Mikoto realize the implications of her words-- that she was suggesting her own death, the complete removal of what Sasuke just regained in his life. 

The medic-nin let out a short sigh. “Technically, yes, there should be. But the seal’s complexity makes it difficult to reverse-engineer one to go the opposite way, especially since we don’t know where you were summoned from, or even which country this type of seal is designed in.” He scratched something on the clipboard with a pen, likely just distracted scribbles. “It’s possible that in the event of your death, Sasuke’s chakra might be restored to him, similarly to how a shadow clone would work-- but there’s no way to prove that. It could also just die with you.” 

Mikoto had so many more questions, but she just let them sit at the back of her throat, unasked, and nodded tightly. Sasuke’s discomfort beside her became clearer with each passing second. He did not take well to the idea that the jutsu could be reversed and especially that his mother was inquiring about it. 

With a few more awkward fidgets, glances and some note-taking, the medic-nin assured her that her reappearance truly was a miracle and that the village was so glad to have her back, both as a shinobi and as a member of the Uchiha clan. He said these words with an evident sensitivity, as if worried that the mention of her clan would set her off. Frankly, he was very lucky it didn’t.

Following that vein, he dismissed them-- right after requesting Mikoto back for a mental health evaluation later in the week. She bit back a retort to this and simply allowed him to lead the two of them back the way they came, out the doors and through the hallways to the hospital’s front entrance, and once outside they returned to the apartment and prepared for training.

***

"Only half your reserves, huh?" Kakashi said, fixing Sasuke with a questioning look.

Sasuke just nodded absently, scraping his sandal against the grass. 

Kakashi clicked his tongue in consideration. "Well, you're going to have to take it much easier than usual to make this work. It's going to be difficult to get used to, but I do know shinobi who operate on less chakra than what you have now, so it’s possible." 

That did make Sasuke feel a bit more hopeful. Truth be told, learning that he only had half of his reserves and there was no foreseeable way to get them to regenerate felt like being told his career was over. It was nice to know there were other options. 

"I might have you practice with Sakura to learn better chakra control from her. That should help you a lot in managing your levels so you don't over-exhaust yourself. And of course, training with your mother will help, too."

Sasuke hummed in agreement, liking the sound of that much more than the sound of training with Sakura. It was embarrassing and deeply frustrating to need another kid’s guidance, and to know that out of all his genin teammates, he was now the one falling behind.  

But he followed through with his sensei’s instructions nonetheless, not out of respect so much as out of necessity. He had to learn to work around this roadblock. There was no other option.

He spent a few hours training with Sakura, trying his best to emulate what she told him-- though she wasn't very good at teaching what she knew, it seemed. She was rather incomprehensive and vague, and tried to demonstrate things that weren't really demonstrable, but Sasuke still observed and listened and attempted to learn something from her crude ramblings, unideal as it was. He used his sharingan to watch her chakra flow as she moved through various jutsus, and did actually glean something from that-- and found himself slightly impressed with how coordinated her flow was. How each technique took a specific bout of her chakra and expended it all efficiently, never using more or less than that budget. When Sasuke fought or used jutsus, he tended to just siphon through whatever amount of chakra he could immediately utilize, not paying much attention to whether he was overextending, since he had a lot of it anyway and didn't often get exhausted in a normal fight. Now, obviously, that would have to change.

For the next part of the aftermorning, he worked with Kakashi again and sat through a lecture on the nature of chakra control, why it matters, and several techniques that were great go-to’s for shinobi with below-average chakra levels (which he wasn't-- even with only half his reserves, Sasuke was just about the average level, being an Uchiha-- but this still left him feeling prickly. Was his chakra control really that bad to begin with?) Meanwhile, his mother trained with Naruto, and Sakura eventually joined, and every now and then Sasuke glanced back to find his teammates laughing and bonding with her. This gave him mixed feelings-- jealousy, frustration that they felt so entitled to her time, but also a strange warmth alongside it. The cause and direction of that warmth was not clear to him. 

Kakashi was far from unobservant and took notice of Sasuke’s distraction. He snapped his fingers in front of Sasuke’s face until he pulled his gaze back with a sour expression. 

“Focus, please,” Kakashi said placidly, “unless you’d rather I hit you out of nowhere.” 

Sasuke scowled. “I’m ready. Just go.” 

The goal was to see how many clones Sasuke could create at once and for how long he could maintain them as Kakashi imitated enemy attacks, forcing him to be constantly aware of how much chakra he was using at all times. The answer turned out to be five clones for ten minutes before Sasuke was almost completely exhausted. During this time, as his energy waned further and faster, Kakashi easily picked off each clone before nailing the real Sasuke on the head with a solid blow. 

The impact sent him sprawling rather ingloriously in the grass. He scrambled to his feet as fast as his screaming muscles would allow, breath laborious and clutching the top of his head where Kakashi had hit him. He clapped his shaking hands together to form a sign, prepared to create more clones to try again, but Kakashi held up his palm in a halting gesture. “That’s enough. You’re done, Sasuke.” 

Sasuke dropped his hands and allowed his knees to buckle, roughly sitting down in the grass, and let out a shuddering breath. His lungs burned and dark spots fluttered in his vision. In front of him, Kakashi stood nonchalantly with hands in his pockets, unaffected by the exertion.

This stupid setback-- it was so damn frustrating. Sasuke fought back a disgruntled noise and began ripping out clumps of grass. How come every good thing in his life had to come with a cost? He got his mother back, and now here he was, weaker than an academy student, completely incapable compared to the rest of his team and what he used to be able to do. 

“I know you’re frustrated,” Kakashi said, crouching down to meet his eye level. Sasuke glowered at him. “You have to take this one step at a time, kid. I told you it would be hard to get used to. But part of getting better is knowing your limits, and knowing when and when not to push them.” 

Sasuke halfheartedly nodded and sprinkled out the ripped grass in his hand, not meeting Kakashi’s eye. 

Kakashi sighed, and then changed his expression to an eye-smile and patted Sasuke’s head patronizingly. “Let’s go see what the others are doing, shall we?”

Throughout the afternoon, Sasuke did what he could on the verge of chakra exhaustion and tried to ignore the way everyone was treating him, like he was an object of pity. Only Naruto didn’t bother to change his behavior, being just as abrasive as always— and oddly, Sasuke appreciated it.

After their lunch break, some of his energy returned and he practiced sharingan techniques with his mother, and by the end of the day, he did feel slightly better about the situation. He could learn to make this work. He had to, it didn't matter if he felt like he could or not-- failure wasn’t an option. 

Or else he'd never get to where he needed to be. 

He'd never be strong enough to--

Sasuke pushed that thought out of his head, deciding he was too tired to delve into hatred right now. He went home with his mother, and promptly showered and changed into some more comfortable clothes before lying facedown on his bed. 

It would be fine, he decided. 

The mental voice that said that strangely didn't feel like his own, but he chose to listen to it anyway.

***

Mikoto took a quick shower once Sasuke was finished, making sure to shut the clothing box tight after she dressed and tuck it underneath the bathroom counter where it wouldn’t take up much space. She ran a finger across the embroidered crest over her heart and tried not to dwell on the longing it produced. 

She pulled out another wooden box from underneath the counter, this one smaller, containing her jounin essentials-- her backup weapons pouch, senbon kit, her headband (which she placed there after cleaning it), extra sandals, her registry information card, and the Bingo Book. 

Mikoto stared at the book for a few seconds before picking it up-- carefully, as though it were at risk of shattering in her hands. Then she pushed the box back underneath the counter, silently made her way to the kitchen and sat down at the table. 

Feeling the beginnings of hesitation, Mikoto glanced at Sasuke’s bedroom door to make sure it was fully shut, that he wasn’t coming out any time soon-- and only then did she crack open the book in her hands. She took a deep breath. Thumbed through it and came to the initial of her older son’s name, flicked over the pages until she was looking down at his profile.

There was his picture-- a portrait from the ANBU Black Ops registry, taken right after he was promoted to captain. He was thirteen then. Looking at it now, it suddenly seemed so clear how much older than his age he appeared to be-- not just in looks, but in his expression, his eyes, the way he regarded the camera. He looked less like a thirteen-year-old boy than he did a seasoned soldier, years of intelligence stored inside those black eyes. Briefly she wondered what he might look like now, but found herself unable to imagine him older. She couldn’t picture her son looking any more battle-worn than this.

With a shaking breath, Mikoto tore her eyes away from the photo and moved on to scan the rest of the page.

The information listed: his S-class rank (extremely dangerous), his experience level (2+ years in ANBU Black Ops), the list of his offences (which contained the word familicide), his country and village of origin, the date he defected, and a reward for proof of his elimination.

There was a brief description of his physical appearance, further detail on his crimes against Konoha, and nowhere on the entire page was there information on his whereabouts or affiliations. She scanned it again and again-- all signs pointed to him completely disappearing in the wake of the massacre. No updates or recent information at all. 

A flash of anger shook her down to her core, because how convenient it was for the village to plaster him with these titles, declare him a traitor and discard him, so they’d never have to address their own fallibility. How perfectly aligned to have Itachi take the fall himself. Fix the village’s generations-long problem in a single night with one manipulated child-- so that while he was out there somewhere, suffering, the elders could cower and hide behind this false image of him, a tack board to pin all of their guilt onto and send off into the wilderness where none of it would be their problem to look at anymore. 

She could have cried again from the rage, but remembered she still needed to make dinner for Sasuke, so the tears would have to wait for a more convenient time. As she stood up, Mikoto steeled herself, stopped her shaking, and pulled her thoughts to other things, wondering if Sasuke had bothered to make himself regular meals while he was alone. There was no one even checking on him, no one to make sure he was eating properly, that he was healthy, that he wasn’t harming himself or engaging in self-destructive behaviors-- and that thought train just led her right back to her hatred for the village, so she muttered a curse under her breath and rather roughly took a pot out and placed it on the stove.

What else was there to think about? The scroll. After learning what it did to Sasuke, Mikoto now had a new objective: find a way to restore Sasuke’s strength back to him, no matter what it took, and ultimately, learn more about the scroll itself. What it truly was, who created it and why.

The fact was, her summoning stole his life force from him and rendered him weak, and that was unacceptable. Not just for his well-being, but because Mikoto knew full well how dangerous it was to be weak in their world. Getting him used to the new chakra level wasn’t good enough, and either Sasuke already knew that, or he would realize it very soon, and then they would have to confront the uncomfortable reality of what to do next. 

Mikoto was weaker than usual, too, and she chided herself for barely even noticing it. Like Sasuke, she had also attributed her exhaustion to the grief and shock of suddenly being brought back from the dead and not thought much of it-- that, and she hadn’t yet been in a situation where a large amount of her chakra would be required. As she felt through her reserves, it did become apparent that there were pieces missing, that her chakra was stretched thin across her network. 

With that in mind, she opted to make a simple, soothing meal to ease both of their stress. Tomato soup. 

***

Sasuke didn't recall falling asleep, but he woke up to the sound of his bedroom door sliding open and his mother's voice quietly calling him for dinner. He sat up, rubbed at his eyes, and offered a sleepy smile. “Okay."

She smiled down at him, and Sasuke once again felt a rush of warmth and his other worries melting away. How could he even consider the chakra loss to be a significant downside? His frustration completely lifted when reminded of what the scroll did for him, what he had in his life now. He wouldn't trade it back even if it did give him everything he wanted to be strong. Even if it had killed Itachi instead. 

That thought put an uncomfortable pit in his stomach, which he made sure to shrug off, shove out of his mind before he sat down at the kitchen table to eat the tomato soup his mother made.

***

For the first part of dinner, they were silent. 

Then Mikoto asked a question: “How do you really feel about all of this?”

Sasuke looked up, blinked once. “About my chakra?” 

“About everything.” 

He took a moment to swallow, place his spoon down, and glanced to the side in thought. “I’m still getting used to it,” he admitted quietly. “But I don’t-- I don’t regret anything. I’m actually happy. I haven’t felt like this in years.” 

Mikoto felt something in her heart catch painfully at that. “So you’re not worried or frustrated?”

He shook his head. “I am, but it doesn’t matter. If this is the cost, I’ll learn to live with it.” 

That answer did nothing to soothe Mikoto’s worry. “You don’t have to hide anything from me, if it really does upset you. And even if they don’t figure the scroll out, we can work together to find a way to fix this and get you back to normal.” 

Sasuke didn’t respond for a few moments, then gave a small nod. Quietly, he murmured, “As long as it doesn’t take you back.” 

Mikoto forced a sympathetic smile, reaching out to cover his hand with hers. “I won’t leave you again. I promise.” 

And at that, something darker briefly came over Sasuke’s face, but was gone as fast as it appeared. He nodded again and offered a slight smile in return. 

Mikoto was about to let him return to his dinner when the conversation topic struck her with a small bout of curiosity. “When you first bought the scroll, what did you think it would do?” 

Sasuke took a spoonful of tomato soup and shrugged. “Kakashi told me it wouldn’t do what it said, so I didn’t expect much. I thought it would be a dud, or at the very worst, a trap, so I took my teammates with me to test it just in case. I figured we would be able to contain the problem if there was one.”

Mikoto implored him further. "But what did you want it to do?"

At that, Sasuke faltered and fell silent. After a few seconds, he murmured, "I don't know." 

Mikoto could tell he was lying.

***

At night, Mikoto lied awake once again, restless. All her mind wanted to do was compute. Work out a plan for Sasuke, how to fix him; a plan for Itachi, how to find him, how to even begin to reacquaint them, assuming Sasuke hadn’t seen him since the night of the massacre-- and what then? How would Sasuke feel about it at this point, if he’d even processed anything past the horrific shock, trauma and grief? If he hadn’t just repressed it far beyond the point of digging it up? It was likely he didn’t know much about the position of the Uchiha clan leading up to their demise, so he would have no perception of what would have led Itachi to do something so awful, strip away everyone and everything he knew and loved. 

She had yet to start this conversation with him, but she knew she had to and completely dreaded it. 

In the morning, they had breakfast, and the normality of it was ironically jarring. 

Sasuke picked unenthusiastically at his eggs. “Eat your food, honey,” Mikoto said, in a tone oversweetened to hide the cracks of exhaustion in her voice. She had hardly touched her plate either, and was just cutting her eggs up into smaller pieces to seem busy. 

“You haven’t been sleeping,” Sasuke murmured. 

The statement caught her off guard, and she hardly needed to feign confusion. “What?” 

“You haven’t been sleeping very well,” he repeated. Poked at his plate with the knife. “Do you have nightmares too? Is that why it’s hard?” 

The ‘too’ sent a jolt of empathy through Mikoto’s heart. She swallowed against a rough throat and pinched a clump of eggs between her chopsticks, even though she knew she didn’t plan to eat it. “No… not frequently. Just…” The words threatened to get caught in her throat, but she forced them through anyway. “We have a lot to talk about. There are answers I still need.” 

“It’s okay.” Sasuke’s facial expression steeled over. “I can take it. Whatever you need to know, ask. I’ll tell you what I can.” 

Mikoto took a breath, gathered her calmness. “Do you know what happened to your brother?”

And Sasuke’s knuckles went white around the knife.

***

Sasuke knew his mother would eventually ask something like this. He knew it was a topic that couldn’t be avoided, in the back of his mind under all the evading he’d done to hang onto this brief happiness. Thinking about Itachi again felt like being jolted back into his body after drifting outside it for so long-- he suddenly became aware of every single pain, every little irritation poking at him in and around his skin.

His lack of response seemed to make her nervous, and she rushed to soften her question. “Do you know if he’s alive?”

Sasuke turned the knife over in his hand. “Yes,” he said slowly, “he’s alive.” 

His mother’s clear relief suddenly set off a furious burst inside him. He dropped the knife and it clattered to the table, and he clutched his hands together to prevent them from shaking. “Why do you care?” he asked, his voice half-grated on the way out of his windpipe. “After what he did?”

“He’s my son.” 

“He killed you.” Sasuke’s throat was becoming more and more constricted, and it was harder to get the words out. A quaver of rage went through them. “He killed everyone.” 

Mikoto’s voice softened further, strained. “I know,” she said, and developed the most genuine expression of distress he’d ever seen on her face. “I just don’t understand why he…” She cut off to consider her words. “Why he left you.”

Sasuke’s head shot up, his eyes widened. His sharingan activated against his will. “What do you mean why he left me?” He choked on his own strangled breath. “You think he should have killed me too?”

“No-- no, of course not!” Horror bloomed in her eyes, and she reached out in a placating gesture. “That’s not what I meant at all. I just--” 

“You don’t understand it,” Sasuke said, “Itachi never cared about any of us.” 

She just stared at him, her lips parted. “That’s not…”

He stood up suddenly, the table shaking as he pushed off from it. “No, you don’t understand!” He raised his voice to a shout. “You don’t want to hear it, but it’s true-- he never felt anything, he never cared. He did it for fun-- he’s a monster, he killed all of you, and leaving me alive was his biggest mistake, because one day I’m going to make him pay.” 

***

The silence was deafening. Mikoto’s sharingan flicked on to match her son’s. She stood up slowly, making her way over to him. “When you used the scroll,” she said again, “what did you want it to do?” 

When she was in front of him, placing her hands on his shoulders, Sasuke instinctively reached up to hold onto her sleeves. 

“I’ve been training all these years for it, Mom,” he said, his voice thick. “It’s all I ever think about. And I’ll do it. I’ll do it for you, I’ll kill him for what he did to you-- and then you’ll be able to sleep.” Light shimmered over his wet eyes. Blood red irises, two tomo in each. He clutched her arms, as though he was trying to comfort her, as if his words were supposed to comfort her, but he dug his fingers in a little too hard, clasping-- 

Mikoto had a deep horror expanding in her chest. When she finally came free of her shock, a sharp breath tore into her lungs, and she wrenched his arms away, took hold of his wrists and pressed them to his chest. Sasuke gasped at the sudden action. She crouched down so she was below his height, looking up at him. “Sasuke,” she said, a tense whisper, “you cannot kill your brother.” 

Seeing the abject horror on her face did something to him-- his resolve was breaking. He began shaking his head. Shaking his head in denial, like she didn’t understand. His lips pulled into a grimace and a tear slipped from his eye, barely skating over his cheek. “I have to,” he croaked. “You don’t get it, Mom-- I have to.” 

A sudden realization dawned on Mikoto. Something else had happened. Itachi didn’t just leave that night. She released his wrists, reaching up to cup his face, nearly breathless as she said, “Oh, sweetheart, what did he do to you?” 

And for the second time, Sasuke completely broke. 

Chapter Text

Shimura Danzo sat alone in a dimly lit room. 

His desk had just recently been cleaned. That was unusual for this particular desk, being deep underground as it was, constantly at the mercy of dust and other unsavory elements. It didn’t please him to have to disrupt that rare cleanliness with the file resting on top of it-- extracted from its years-long entombment in the data storage of ROOT. A singular orange lamp illuminated his workspace where this file sat opened, marred by the gray dust it had collected during that time of stagnation.

A brief disturbance of the air alerted him to a person’s presence moments before they appeared. “Danzo-sama,” the agent said, their masked face bowed as they knelt silently before him, “Uchiha Mikoto is speaking to Sasuke about the Clan Massacre.” 

Danzo met this information with a steel tone. “What has she said?”

“Only questions thus far. My subordinates are standing by.” 

This was an expected situation. “Then Hiruzen's warning predictably did no good.” Danzo referred back to the file on his desk. The outdated jounin registry documentation of the woman in question stared up at him, atop the extensive stapled sheets of monitor logs from as far back as the Kyuubi attack. “If she begins to give Sasuke any suspicions or shows further signs of conspiracy, you may eliminate her without consultation. I will handle Hiruzen in the aftermath.” 

“Hai, Danzo-sama. And what should we do with Sasuke?” 

Danzo regarded the agent, the stock-stillness of their form, and paused for a time before giving an answer. Truthfully, that was a question he did not yet have an answer to. The backup plan was less than ideal. “If it comes to the worst,” he said, “you will bring him here. But he is not to be harmed under any circumstances. Keep that in mind as you proceed."

“Hai.” 

***

Sasuke told her everything. 

Everything he remembered-- coming home to find the bodies. Running for his parents, terrified, entering the bedroom to find them dead-- Itachi’s silhouette standing over them, sword still in hand, dripping blood onto the already smattered floor. His denial. The shuriken that came whizzing past him, tearing his shirt-- Itachi’s explanation-- to test the limits of my ability. The degradation, the foolish little brother, the there is no value in killing you, if you ever want to defeat me, run away, foster your hatred, and one day, when you have the same eyes, come and face me. The genjutsu Itachi trapped him in-- how it ripped him out of his body and the world became sickening and wrong, how many times he saw a repeat of the same events: his parents murdered, clan members cut down screaming in the streets, blood spattering over the walls and tiles and floorboards of the place he recognized as home. The pain of such a brutal, sudden betrayal, and being so confused and so hurt by it that he could hardly think-- and the guilt of not realizing sooner, of not seeing the signs, of not fighting back. How he felt so weak and useless, as though it was all his fault, that if he’d only been stronger or smarter and somehow noticed his brother’s insanity, he could have prevented it before it happened.

He told her about the following years too-- the loneliness, the hours upon hours he spent training, losing sleep and hardly eating. How his grief and pain had turned to anger until rage was all he could feel. And it never stopped-- the death haunted him in every second, awake or asleep, there was no escaping it, no one he could run to for help. The only times he ever felt peace were the few occasions where medic-nin came to sedate him after he woke up screaming, disturbing the neighbors. 

And the only thing that got him through it was directing every ounce of the rage, grief and agony he felt at Itachi. He hated him so much he felt like he might drown in it, that it would just dissolve him, and over the years he allowed it to whittle down his reservations till he would be able to kill without remorse because the only light he saw at the end of the tunnel was in his brother’s death. Not just to give Itachi the fate he deserved, but to prove to him that he could do it-- that he wasn’t weak anymore, that he was capable, and he’d never be weak again. 

Mikoto listened and felt every ounce of the pain her son described. 

It was as though her heart stopped beating. The crushing truth fell on her piece by piece until she could hardly sense anything beyond the weight of it. A few times she reached out, just to touch Sasuke’s cheek or brush hair from his face, but he resisted. He had long since stopped crying, but he was still shaking violently, buzzing with anxiety. His sharingan remained on-- it was no use trying to shut it off. Not with him rattling off like this, reliving these experiences in his head. 

When he finished, Mikoto pulled out a chair and sat down, pressing her knuckles to her lips. 

All at once, everything started to make sense.

Sasuke was broken, and it was far beyond the grief and trauma of losing his entire family. Part of her had thought-- hoped -- that Sasuke didn’t even know who did it. That he didn’t believe his brother would do such a thing, that he still had some kind of connection to him-- or at least an idea, a faith that there was more to it than face-value. Mikoto realized with full clarity how deeply selfish she was for entertaining those beliefs. 

Itachi had hurt him. 

Tortured him. 

Sasuke-- her poor baby-- was only seven, would have had no concept of thinking around it, of searching for nuance, anywhere past the horrifying reality that his big brother killed their family and tortured him. 

The genjutsu.

That was a facet of the mangekyou sharingan reserved only for legends, forbidden from use in the Uchiha clan-- the Tsukuyomi. 

Mikoto’s mind whirled fast, processing, while her body remained in an eerily calm state. She absorbed the information hollowly, knowing it was true but failing to fully comprehend it. The image of her older son hurting his little brother, no less entrapping him within a genjutsu torture technique their clan used to use on war prisoners-- it was horrific, it didn’t make any sense, and it was burned into the inside of her brain. 

What in kami’s name was Itachi thinking? 

Mikoto had carefully chosen her last words, kneeling on the floor of the master bedroom, in those moments leading up to her death. She’d felt a surprising amount of calm and clarity, acceptance that washed over her without much of a fight. No semblance of fear, no room for betrayal. Love for her son oppressed every other emotion. We already know, Itachi. 

She remembered Fugaku’s words as clearly as a mantra, too. Take care of Sasuke. 

Mikoto envisioned her two sons leaving together, abandoning the village in search of a new home. A refuge. Somewhere they’d be safe from Konoha, safe from the history and the crimes they carried with them, safe from the powerful people that wanted to pull them in directions they were far too young to go. She envisioned Sasuke, though stripped of everything else, safe under the care of his older brother. 

Itachi had not carried it out that way. 

He’d conditioned Sasuke to hate him-- he probably felt, somehow, that he was doing this for Sasuke’s own good. She was suddenly reminded of a gloomy evening, thirteen years ago, when Fugaku brought their four-year-old firstborn home from the battlefield they had been on without her knowledge. 

The world’s greatest teacher is pain. 

He had learned this from his father. 

The dark pit in her chest expanded, hollowing her lungs and stealing her breath. She realized with horror that she couldn’t turn off her sharingan. 

The cruelty of the actions Sasuke described, the pain and fear in his voice-- the complete wrongness of it made her feel like she’d been caught up into some twisted alternate reality, far out of her reach, and she could hardly extend the ability to wrap her head around it. It threatened to make her sick. Itachi had always been kind. He had always been gentle with Sasuke. Where their father pressured, scolded, and scrutinized, Itachi was there to reassure, to be a friend and a source of comfort, and although he wasn’t perfect he was there for Sasuke as much as he could be. 

In ANBU, he was everything his superiors wanted. Calm and clear and decisive and what’s best for the mission first with all feelings tucked away under folds of mental conditioning. He had embraced and embodied his training, he was so good at it that it scared her sometimes, far better than she had been during her own time in ANBU Black Ops. She had struggled in her youth with finding meaning in it-- the increasing senselessness of the killing had eaten away at her until she was finally driven to quit. Itachi, however, seemed to manage it with ease. She knew with sickness in her heart that this was what enabled him to execute his final mission.

But his father’s teachings enabled him to do what he did to Sasuke. 

“I’m sorry,” Sasuke suddenly said. 

Mikoto blinked out of her trance, looking up at him. 

“I’m sorry that you had to find out like this.” He sniffled, seeming to take a moment to search for words. “I know he’s your son and it’s hard.”

What made it hurt even worse was that Sasuke completely and fully believed it.

He believed his brother never loved him.

He believed Itachi killed everyone for fun. 

He had gone five years alone believing he was not loved by anyone in the world, and Mikoto’s heart absolutely ached for him. The fact that she wasn’t here to protect him opened up a wound of guilt in her chest, and she furiously thought to herself you could have prevented this, even though she wasn’t sure how. Her thoughts floated in front of her, loose wisps, out of her reach and unable to be pieced together. 

She didn’t know what to say, so she just reached out and cupped his face. Her thumb traced his lower eyelid and he squeezed his eyes shut, dipped his head, and leaned into her touch. 

“It’s what I wanted it to do,” Sasuke murmured after a few moments, voice crackling. “I wanted the scroll to kill him. That was-- I thought that was my greatest desire.” He nudged her hand off of his cheek and continued in a lowered voice, half to himself. “I don’t want to do what he said. I don’t want to kill my best friend.” 

Mikoto’s heart stuttered. “What?”

"He said--” Sasuke blinked, shifting his gaze, as if suddenly unsure-- “to awaken the mangekyou sharingan. That’s the only way I’ll be strong enough to beat him.”

Mikoto felt the cold chill of horror settle in her chest yet again. "That's what he told you?" 

Sasuke nodded, swallowing hard, and Mikoto let out an exhale. She pulled out the chair beside her at the table. “Sit down.” 

This was another conversation Mikoto had known she’d have to have one day with both of her children, though she didn’t think she’d have to explain this to Sasuke for another several years, had her life not been cut short and jolted into the future. As Sasuke sat, cautious, she asked, “How much do you know about the mangekyou sharingan other than that?”

Sasuke glanced down in consideration. “Just what Father told me,” he murmured. 

The mention of Fugaku caused an odd conflict of bitterness and longing in Mikoto's chest, which she fought to ignore. “It's awakened through feelings of responsibility for the loss of a loved one. You don't have to kill someone to get it."

Sasuke nodded slowly, absorbing the words.

“More often than not, it’s an accident. For example, a friend might die protecting you, or you could cause something to go wrong on a mission, or make a choice that results in sacrifice.” Mikoto searched for the words her mother had used when explaining it to her for the first time. "The mangekyou sharingan used to be a vital power for our clan, in the years before the creation of Konoha, and yes, people would kill each other to awaken it. But we’re far beyond those times now. The mangekyou is not necessarily the mark of a murderer. I know it's hard to reconcile that, especially after what we grow up hearing-- and what-- what your brother told you-- but in truth, it's a mark of grief. And of guilt." 

At that, Sasuke’s brows pinched and he began shaking his head. “No, that’s not-- that doesn’t make any sense. Itachi doesn’t feel anything.” 

Mikoto noticed his hands beginning to shake again, balled into fists on his lap, and she reached forward to gently take hold of his upper arms. “Sasuke…” 

“He can’t feel guilt.” Sasuke didn’t look at her, face trained firmly to the floor, his voice tight with rage. “He murdered Shisui to get his.” 

That made her falter. “He told you he killed Shisui?” 

Sasuke nodded once in a jolting motion. "He didn’t kill himself like they said. Itachi murdered him.” 

Mikoto knew this wasn’t true. She knew it, but she bit back the urge to tell him. She didn’t have any evidence to prove it, and after all that Sasuke had told her, she even began to doubt herself. Her heart said that Itachi would never, ever hurt Shisui, much less kill him, the same firm view she’d maintained all throughout the months following his death-- but until now she believed that Itachi would never hurt his little brother, either, and here she was, proved wrong. 

A sudden wave of protective anger surged through her and she had the urge to pull Sasuke into her arms and comfort him, tell him everything was okay now, that he'd never be hurt like that again-- but she couldn't do that when she didn’t even know if it was true.

Mikoto hardly knew what to think anymore. 

Three days after Shisui’s body was discovered in the Naka river, Mikoto and Fugaku shut themselves away in the bedroom to have a talk. 

Fugaku held a file from the police department, scanning the pages to avoid meeting her eyes. He looked unnaturally tired, the lines on his face deepened, making him appear older than she’d ever seen him. “We have to confront the possibility,” he began, voice gruff, “that our son may have killed him.” 

“No,” Mikoto said instantly. “You’re wrong.” 

“Mikoto, think about this.” He took on the tone that indicated he was ready to start an argument. “Itachi knows how the mangekyou sharingan is awakened. It’s possible he decided to make that sacrifice himself.”

“This is Shisui we’re talking about!” Against her better judgement, Mikoto began to yell. “Itachi loved him! Don’t you dare accuse your own son of something of this magnitude without evidence, Fugaku, you’re just as bad as the rest of them--” 

“Do not let the fact that he’s your son blind you from--”

“Blind me from what?! If either of us is blind to our children, it’s you. When was the last time you had a genuine conversation with either one of them or bothered to ask how they’re doing? I’ve always been there for them! I know him better than you do!” 

That silenced him. Fugaku let out a long sigh, lowering his head and pressing the bridge of his nose. 

Mikoto swallowed hard and recomposed herself. “Shisui committed suicide. That’s the end of it. Now if I were you, I would extend some compassion to your son who just lost his best friend.” 

Mikoto exhaled, covering her mouth with her hand in contemplation. She fought the urge to put sense to Itachi’s actions, figure out what his plan was, his reasoning. Telling Sasuke to kill his best friend, to awaken the mangekyou sharingan of his own volition-- it was just another senselessly cruel act on top of the countless others Mikoto was already struggling to process. And for what? To make him stronger? Itachi was lucky he didn’t kill his brother under the sheer weight of this pressure, after leaving him too frail to bear it, carved down to the bone by grief. 

Sasuke finally looked up to meet her gaze. The post-crying redness of his eyes and darkness of his eyelashes made him look younger than he was, and it pierced Mikoto’s heart all over again with the reality of what his brother did to him. 

Before she could speak, he murmured a question of his own: "You have it too, don't you?" 

Mikoto hesitated a moment, then nodded-- briefly feeling the instinct to guard that information as a secret. She and Fugaku had both gone through great efforts to conceal their mangekyou, for the concern that certain members of their clan would push them to use that power for destructive purposes. Fugaku in particular was firm in not allowing that to happen.

It was hard to get used to the things she didn't have to do anymore now that her clan was gone. That thought threatened to easily pull her down into another slope of unmanageable grief, where she was already tilting on the edge from the pain of this conversation, and Mikoto had to fight to draw herself back. "Yes, I have it," she said. "But keep that quiet, okay?" 

His voice lowered audibly in volume, as if in respect of her request. "How did it happen for you?” 

Another conversation she hadn’t expected to have so soon. Fugaku knew the details, and Itachi knew enough, but Sasuke had never been told more than a vague story of the event, being as young as he was. "My sister died." 

"Aunt Rei?"

Mikoto nodded. "It was during the beginning of the war. I was in ANBU Black Ops at the time. My squad was tailing hers on the outskirts of the battlefield when we were ambushed, and I made a mistake, got my group separated, and ended up captured by Iwa-nin. Rei didn't listen to her captain's orders and went back to rescue me, and she was killed." 

Sasuke's face changed suddenly, his eyes softened with sympathy. "I'm sorry," he mumbled.

Mikoto shook her head. "It's okay. That was years ago." Taking on a serious but gentle tone, she cupped Sasuke’s chin to make sure she held his gaze. “I know what Itachi told you. But you do not have to kill a friend. You do not have to awaken your mangekyou sharingan. It's a very painful, very traumatic process that I wouldn't wish on anyone, especially not my children.”

Sasuke flinched subtly at that, and for a second Mikoto worried she’d made a mistake by implicitly including Itachi in her statement-- but Sasuke said nothing and simply nodded in response.

It wasn't hard to guess that Itachi had awakened his, back on the night when they heard the news of Shisui's death. After that, there was a visible change in him. 

Mikoto wondered if it was the catalyst to send him down the path that eventually led to the Uchiha's elimination. Shisui's death had wrecked him.

He refused to talk about it, even though his parents knew he had seen it happen, and that fact only increased the clan's (and his father's) suspicion of him. He didn't even make an effort to defend himself. Mikoto, however, defended him to her dying breath. Itachi loved more deeply than almost anyone she knew, even for an Uchiha-- she held firm that he'd never kill Shisui, never, just like he'd never hurt his little brother, but now one of those facts was broken and the other was on a precarious ledge. With all that had happened, too, all the manipulation he’d likely gone through behind closed doors to lead him to such a point--

Perhaps she really hadn't known him after all.

She shared a pained look with Sasuke, and only then did she finally pull him into her arms. "Oh, baby, I'm so sorry," she whispered into his hair, wrapping him up in a tight hug.

He let her hold him, pressing his face against her shoulder. "It's okay," he murmured. "It was years ago." 

She could feel with every ounce of her intuition that it absolutely was not okay. Sasuke was shattered on the inside. Her reappearance had been perhaps akin to a bandage over that gigantic gaping wound. It had allowed him to forget, just for a little while. But there was no fixing all of that damage, all of that hurt, the shards on his insides. There was so much injury there. She pressed her palms to his temples, shut her eyes, wishing she could heal all of it herself.

He made a movement to shift away, so she pulled back and cupped his cheek. "Thank you for telling me,” she said. He nodded against her hand, and she delicately tucked a strand of hair behind his ear. "And next time you have a nightmare, let me know. Let me help you." 

Sasuke murmured a small okay under his breath. Then he turned to look at the table, at their abandoned breakfast plates, the utensils lying askew from when he shook the table standing up. “We should go,” he said quietly. “We’re supposed to be getting a mission assignment today, so…” 

At that, Mikoto glanced at the clock on the wall, registering the time that had passed. “You’re right,” she said, “I made you so late, I’m sorry.” 

“It’s fine. I doubt Kakashi will show up for another hour, anyway.” 

Mikoto stood up. “Why don’t you go on ahead? I’ll clean all of this up and meet you there.” She began to gather the dishes, eyeing the food still left on Sasuke’s plate. “Are you sure you’ve had enough to eat?” 

Sasuke stood up as well and began securing his weapons pouch to his hip, simply saying, “I’ll be fine.”

With a small exhale, Mikoto fought the instinct to press and collected his plate. She looked at him as he made his way to the door, silent. The exhaustion in him was evident. All sense of his previous happiness had been washed out, something ghostly clung to his form in his hunched shoulders and lowered head, and her heart hurt to see him go like that. “Sasuke, wait,” she called softly. As he turned to look at her, she approached and pulled him into a brief embrace, pressing a kiss to the top of his head. “Go easy on yourself today.” 

He answered her with a nod, and she let him go, the ache in her chest unfading as he left and closed the door behind him. 

Now alone with the dishes, Mikoto put her attention on collecting them and taking them to the sink. 

This bitter knowledge felt like getting used to a new reality all over again. Knowing what Itachi did to Sasuke, her desire to find her oldest son burned even stronger now, a desperation for answers. The only question plaguing her mind, repeating over and over again in an endless cycle, was why? 

The hollow, exhausted feeling in her stomach threatened to swallow her. The anger would come later, she knew-- all she had now was this speechless sadness, the low thrumming of her uneasy heartbeat.

And as she turned on the water to begin washing their breakfast plates, her sensory abilities suddenly alerted her to a presence-- moments before there was a tap tap tap on the kitchen window. 

The crouching ANBU operative did not wait for her permission, and pulled open the window silently, leaning inside to peer at her through the dark eye-holes of a bird mask. “Uchiha Mikoto,” said a female voice, “Sandiame-sama requests your presence in the councilroom at dusk.” 

Mikoto met the gaze with a cold stare, refusing to engage. 

The ANBU agent left as quickly as they appeared, disappearing into the air with a shunshin, and Mikoto sighed, reached forward to push the window shut, and resumed the dishes. 

Chapter Text

Mikoto learned a collection of painful truths after her older sister died— firstly, that her father’s love was conditional. 

He called her weak, berated her, barred her from political meetings and from associating with him in public and descended completely into a bitter and hate-filled grief. In his mind, his sole heir was gone— he considered neither of his younger daughters to be an adequate replacement. He’d put decades of time into grooming his oldest; and, blinded by her skill and competence, seemed to forget that she could die. 

Mikoto herself had a complicated relationship with her siblings, but she loved them both deeply, even when she tried to convince herself she didn’t. She couldn’t remember a time in which her family was entirely functional— there was always some kind of drama happening, some fight going on, two people who weren’t talking to each other for whatever reason. She and her sisters’ shared childhood was fraught with bitterness and fighting, and this was due fully to the way their parents raised them— constantly pitting them against one another, particularly Mikoto and Toshiko, through pushing them to measure up to Rei. 

As the eldest of the three, Rei had fallen into the role of a third parent, and so her two younger sisters had grown up constantly underneath her shadow. She had been combed from birth to be the next clan head, and she acted the part: she was mature, serious, clever, and an utter prodigy at everything she did. She was eight years older than Mikoto, and Mikoto remembered idolizing her, then resenting her, then idolizing her again, her feelings changing and becoming more complex as she grew. 

Toshiko, on the other hand, was only one year younger than Mikoto. Being so close in age, the two of them were fiercely competitive and strived in every way to outdo the other, and resultantly, win their parents’ love. In their youth, neither had yet realized that was a futile goal. After Rei’s death, it dawned on them both at a different pace. Toshiko blamed Mikoto for the loss of their sister, which utterly broke Mikoto’s heart, and completely estranged herself from the head family at the earliest moment she could. What was one a fitful rivalry turned into genuine resentment and their relationship was permanently broken, all the way up until their deaths. One of the greatest regrets of Mikoto's life was that she never tried to mend that bond with her little sister, which ached like a wound now that it was far too late.

Their father always emphasized strength above everything else, as not only were they the examples for the rest of their clan's youth, but since they grew up in a time of conflict, they were constantly at risk. The Second Shinobi War came to a close when Mikoto was fourteen, only for the third to break out just a year later. Her entire life was backdropped by war— it shaped her existence, the way she saw the world, just the same as it did for everyone else in her generation. To be weak was completely unacceptable.

So when Mikoto quit ANBU, she unintentionally scorned her family.

She had been her clan’s link to the Konoha government for the three years she spent within the ANBU ranks, and her decision to leave was seen as an act of cowardice. After watching Rei cut down in front of her and awakening her mangekyou sharingan, Mikoto’s worldview drastically changed. The death and killing started to sicken her, especially once she got to a point where she couldn’t find a reason for why she was doing it— the assassinations blurred together in constant torrents of blood and the extinguishment of lives she knew nothing about— but in wartime, a shinobi with reservations about killing was as good as dead. It didn’t matter what her skill level was, if she hesitated to take the lives of enemies, if she felt remorse, it was a crippling weakness that would become irrecoverable if she allowed it to consume her, and her father never wasted a moment to remind her of this. Her entire life up until that point had been ruled by her parents and their expectations and the first moment Mikoto chose to take her choices into her own hands, it proved to be a grave mistake. 

The dischargement resulted in waves of disapproval from the rest of the clan. She was looked down upon and shamed by her own kin and her reputation suffered greatly, until her parents publicized her arranged engagement to a spouse they’d picked in hopes of balancing out her failure. Then the clan suddenly became much more welcoming of Mikoto's ascension to leadership when it meant Fugaku’s as well. It was a tactical political decision, one that her parents made for her own good, and benefited her even if she initially hated it. 

In order to keep her role and move up from her clan’s distrust, she had to play along. And she did: she learned to love Fugaku. She learned to work with him. She bore his children. She learned to cater to the interests of her subordinates, keep herself soft and welcoming and palatable, because if she was to be considered a coward in battle, she had to prove herself useful in other ways. Mikoto never truly let go of her bitterness at having her own merit discredited in favor of her husband’s, falling into the background while he assumed the majority of the clan head duties, but it came down to the simple fact that their clan liked him better— they saw a more obvious strength in him, and with the Uchiha clan’s straits, they were in dire need of a powerful presence to rally behind.

Over the years, she became very good at controlling her anger, but it never disappeared from within her. 

She built a new family out of the ruins of the one she was born into. Though she swore to never become her father, his teachings did stick with her as she matured, and it took those many years and hard lessons for her to truly grasp the painful truth of what he meant— the vital importance of strength. She learned things about life, about death, about its place in her world; and how she was responsible for responding to it. There were no excuses. She was a clan head. And she loved her clan, despite how it hurt her, and was determined to see it flourish under hers and her husband’s leadership. 

Something, though, went wrong along the way. 

Standing in the bathroom with her hands around the sink, Mikoto activated her mangekyou sharingan once more and stared into the reminder of those lessons in the mirror.

A six-pointed star. 

She’d already failed with her first son. Now knowing she was manifested from Sasuke’s chakra, that her DNA was almost a perfect match to his, it was clear what this difference signified. She allowed herself to process the fact that she was getting a glimpse at what her second son’s mangekyou would look like. 

Mikoto vowed to ensure she never saw this pattern appear in his eyes.

With that, she tied up her hair, choosing to leave behind her headband and flak jacket today. The Uzushio symbol on the shoulders of her long-sleeved tactical shirt served as another reminder of someone she lost, in which she recognized an additional cruelty by Konoha— branding their gear with the mark of the first clan they allowed to be destroyed.

Kushina came to mind with a deep ache in Mikoto's chest. Kushina, who’d endured the loss of her own clan once when she was taken away from it and again when she heard of its annihilation, and still remained a bright sun in the lives of all who knew her. Mikoto felt a rush of almost crippling guilt for not being a better friend to her while they were both alive, now that she knew how truly painful that loneliness was. It came with a morbid solidarity. She couldn't help but think that if only Kushina were here, if Mikoto could share that pain with her, everything would be so much easier.

She glanced around the apartment once more, wondering where the ANBU Black Ops were watching her from this time. They’d certainly follow her to training— as well as witness the conversations she’d have, the people she met, and microanalyze her every movement and decision. Even with her whole clan dead, she wasn’t free. Never would be. 

This meeting at dusk would be her opportunity to ask the questions she needed answers to, though she thought it unlikely that she would get any truth from Sarutobi and his advisors. All she was likely to come away with was a stress ulcer. Still, it would give her an angle, an opportunity to collect information, the subtle if not the overt. 

As she tucked a roll of wire into her senbon pouch, attached it to her hip and left through the front door, Mikoto began to make a list in her head. 

Sasuke rubbed the sheen of sweat from his cheeks, hating the sun at this particular moment slightly more than he hated the bickering voices of his teammates. 

He’d had enough of this farm already. He’d had enough of these stupid, slow missions in general, being subject to Naruto’s complaining and whooping and Sakura’s tendency to get in his way. Kakashi, too, was likely sitting somewhere in the shade, either reading or taking a nap like usual instead of supervising them. And it wasn’t like they were doing anything that mattered anyway. 

The emotional exhaustion of what occurred this morning seemed to weigh down on Sasuke physically, in addition to his already depleted strength. It was annoying and all he wanted to do was lie down somewhere instead of reaping and re-planting this random farmer’s herb garden. 

It was the first time he had been truly honest with someone in five years about anything relating to the massacre. About anything relating to Itachi.

He felt uneasy, but at the same time, almost relieved. Like a weight had been lifted off his shoulders. It felt somewhat good to have told someone what happened— someone who loved him, and would comfort him like he needed. But at the same time, it was his mother, who was still deeply in denial about her oldest son's treachery. 

Sasuke flinched visibly as he dwelled on it. Her reluctance to accept what happened made him so deeply frustrated— of all people, he thought his mother would understand; but after all, she was still Itachi's mother too. Sasuke felt even sicker at that. Itachi didn't deserve her. She deserved better than a son like him, a traitorous sadistic murderer. How could someone so vile and evil come from the most loving and kind person in the world?

Trying to find an answer to that question simply exhausted him further, and he forced himself to stop once he realized that his knees were shaking. 

Meanwhile, several rows of farmland away from Sasuke, his teammates seemed to finish their nonsensical debate. Sakura departed in a huff from the conversational range of Naruto and began making her way over to Sasuke. She then lingered nearby him for a while, approaching closer every now and then in a way that suggested she was trying to be subtle, but was really incredibly obvious. 

“Go stick to your own field,” Sasuke told her. 

“I finished mine,” Sakura said, tone slightly hurt. “I thought I would come help you.” 

“I don’t need your help.” It was clear she pitied him and Sasuke couldn’t stand it. Pity from Sakura was an insult, frankly, he thought. How weak did she think he was, to need her help?

He wanted her to leave so he could be alone again. But just to Sasuke’s luck, it seemed that Naruto had taken notice of them lingering around each other and was heading in their direction, as though he assumed this meant they were taking a break, and Sasuke fought to suppress the stinging urge to yell at them to piss off. He couldn’t put up with both his annoying teammates right now, in the state he was in.

Naruto folded his hands behind his head and whistled casually as he arrived, then grumbled something about the mission being boring that Sasuke didn’t bother to listen to. He turned as much focus as he could back on his work, plucking up more of the dried herbs at his feet. 

“What are you doing?” Sakura said to Naruto in a brittle voice, crossing her arms. “Go back to your part of the yard.” It was ironic that it was almost exactly what Sasuke had said to her, and yet it seemed neither of them were getting the message. 

“I’m just standing here, jeez,” Naruto said.

“Go stand over there instead.”

“I’m not even bothering you or anything. What are you doing here, anyway?” 

“I was seeing if Sasuke-kun needed any help.” 

At that, Naruto looked down at the progress Sasuke had made on his section of the herb field and made a surprised snort. “Geez, look at you,” he said with a giggle in his voice. “ Now who’s dead-last, huh?” 

Sasuke glanced over at Naruto’s section of the field, noting that he looked much farther along than Sasuke was. And if Sakura was already finished— there was no way around it. He was the one completely falling behind. “Shut it,” he said through gritted teeth.

Naruto merely giggled again. “I’m just saying, it’s kinda nice for a change.”

“Naruto, don’t make fun of him,” Sakura snapped. Her tone softened completely when she turned to Sasuke, though. “It’s okay, just go at your own pace.”

“Pfft, now you sound like his mom.” At that, Naruto took a moment to glance around, as if scouting for something. “Hey, Sasuke, where is your mom, anyway?”

Sasuke didn’t honestly know the answer to that question. She’d said she would show up later, after cleaning up the remains of breakfast, but they had left for the farm before she arrived. He didn't imagine the breakfast cleanup could possibly take this long, though, considering their current excuse for a mission, he also couldn’t really blame her if she decided not to come. It wasn’t like he needed her nearby all the time. Certainly not.

Not right now, anyway.

“Why don’t you just mind your own business?” he mumbled, tugging a particularly stubborn root out of the dirt. He was so frustrated with them— with Naruto’s idiocy and utter lack of tact and Sakura’s sensitivity. He shouldn't have to sidestep their feelings every time he tried to communicate with them, that wasn’t how a team was supposed to work. And— he didn’t even want to be in this team, anyway, never in the first place. They were dysfunctional and incompatible and incompetent. 

Sakura continued to attempt to pry into his reservation. “Sasuke-kun, are you okay?” 

“Just leave me alone.”

“What the heck’s your problem?” Naruto said in a pouty tone. 

A surge of anger caught Sasuke off guard so suddenly it nearly knocked him over. “I’m sick of your— everything, you’re insufferable,” he snapped, then turned to Sakura. “And you’re so fragile. You’re weak and you’re holding us back.” 

At that, Sakura physically flinched away from him, an expression of hurt crossing her face. She opened her mouth to respond, but was interrupted before she could get a word out.

“Hey!” Naruto shouted, suddenly animated, flinging an accusing finger in Sasuke’s direction. "What right do you have calling her weak? You're the one with no chakra! If anything, you're the dead weight!" 

At that, Sasuke recognized the absence of rational thinking in his mind, and he lunged forward and tackled Naruto to the ground. Sakura yelped something in shock and leapt backwards as Sasuke threw a punch at Naruto’s head— which glanced off his jaw when he jerked to the side to kick Sasuke in the stomach. Sasuke grabbed a fistful of Naruto’s hair in retaliation and forced his head down into the dirt, only to have his grip torn loose when another kick caught him in the ribs, sending him lurching to the side. In seconds Naruto scrambled up and over him and grabbed his shirt collar in both hands. He began shouting something fierce in Sasuke’s face just as the sun was blotted out above them and Kakashi stepped in to peel them apart, still squabbling.

"You're crazy!" Naruto shouted, voice shrill.

Sasuke struggled faintly in Kakashi's grasp, heaving for breath harder than he wanted to be.

“Now, now,” Kakashi chided, “both of you need to calm down.” 

“ He attacked me!” Naruto clarified unhelpfully, throwing out another accusatory finger.

Kakashi released them both once their thrashing deescalated and turned to Sasuke. "What’s gotten into you today?" 

Just as Sasuke prepared to make a stinging retort, a voice cut through the air and silenced him. “Sasuke? What happened?” 

He turned to find his mother at the entrance gate, approaching them with a questioning look on her face, which seemed to be more directed at Kakashi than him. A bit of the tumultum in Sasuke’s chest quelled in her presence, so instead of snapping, he halfheartedly kicked at the dirt. 

“You showed up just in time, Mikoto,” Kakashi said with a fake-sounding cheery air. “I was about to lecture your kid on his bad behavior.” 

Sasuke cringed, feeling guilt creep into the pit of his stomach at the prospect that his mother might be upset with him. He purposely avoided her gaze, focusing instead on a small rock near his shoe. He felt worse once he heard her voice turn on him in a concerned but stern tone. “What did you do?”

“He hit me,” Naruto informed her, and Sasuke had the sudden overwhelming urge to hit him again.

“Sasuke, why would you do that?” Mikoto leaned down to meet his lowered gaze, and Sasuke didn’t have an answer to give her. 

Why had he hit Naruto? What seemed like a rational reason a few minutes ago had completely faded from his mind, leaving only residual anger in its wake. “It doesn’t matter,” he mumbled, “let’s just get back to work.” 

Naruto muttered jerk under his breath as Sasuke turned back to face the farmland, noting the progress they’d made and the amount they had left to do. It was only his part, really, that needed work. There were only a few more sections of herb to re-plant, and then the mission would be done, and they’d have another pointless D-rank to add to their records. 

And what then? Sasuke would have nothing to do but stew in his own thoughts. That notion was not pleasant. 

“That’s not an acceptable answer.” Mikoto came up behind him and placed a strong hand on his shoulder, holding him in place. “You don’t hit your friends, Sasuke.” 

Her tone suddenly irritated him. “I’m not seven,” he snapped, and made a motion to nudge her hand away. “Don’t talk to me like I’m still a child. And he’s not my friend.” 

There was a short silence, and then Naruto huffed and grumbled something under his breath. Mikoto removed her hand from Sasuke’s shoulder and turned to reassure Naruto that Sasuke didn’t really mean what he said. Sakura simply stood off to the side, watching with sad eyes. This time Sasuke tried to shove down his guilt. 

Then Kakashi let out a disappointed sigh— though as with all of Kakashi’s displays of emotion, it seemed somewhat disinterested and performative. “You two have to work out these problems if you ever want to advance past this point. I can’t have my genin beating each other up on mission duty— that would be bad rep for me as your teacher, don’t you think?” Sasuke scowled, ducking away from Kakashi’s hand as it came forward to rest on his head. Naruto, though, disgruntledly allowed their sensei to pat him. “Finish up this mission, and then I’ll have a new assignment for you two. Sakura—” he turned to his third student, who was still cowering— “you may go home if you’re done. Or you can come watch your teammates suffer. Either way.” 

Sakura nodded and looked despondent instead of giving an answer. 

“I could take her, if that’s alright,” Mikoto offered suddenly. “I was planning to run an errand later that she might be interested in.” Addressing Sakura, she added, “Only if you’d like to.” 

“I don’t have an issue with that,” Kakashi said. “What do you think, Sakura?”

Sakura worriedly glanced from Kakashi to her two teammates, lingering on them for a bit, before finally nodding her head to Mikoto. “Alright.”

“Great. Have fun, you two.” Kakashi gave a quick wave at them and patted Sakura's shoulder lightly as she passed. Mikoto offered her a warm smile, beckoning her along.

Sasuke noted that his mother wasn’t wearing her jounin vest or headband today, and had a small tote bag slung over her shoulder, which he didn’t recall ever seeing in his apartment before. It left him wondering briefly what kind of errand she was planning to run and wishing he could come with her. 

Just as he had that thought, Mikoto spared a look back at him, her expression the same as the one she’d given just before he left the house that morning, which made him feel small and young. It seemed like there was more she wanted to tell him, but all she said was, “Be good, alright?” 

Sasuke gave a curt nod in response and watched them go back to the entrance gate, a mixture of emotions settling in his chest. 

Kakashi, then, turned back to his two remaining students and folded his arms. "You two," he said, looking down on them with a punishing eye, "are in for a special treat now. Finish up the rest of this—” he gestured to the field— “and then I’ll come get you. You’re going to do a teamwork exercise.” 

Naruto and Sasuke shared an apprehensive glance between them.

It appeared to be an obstacle course.

They were in a section of the training grounds, though not one that Sasuke or Naruto (or anyone in their generation, probably) had ever been in. It was a rough clearing with a bunch of structures built into the trees and a crude starting line carved into the ground between two posts, which they were currently standing behind. 

“This course is designed specifically to be completed by two people,” Kakashi explained. “You’ll need each other’s help at every step of the way. Communication is key here. Remember, you’re cooperating, not competing.” Saying this, he roughly patted both of their heads and shoved them forward. "Good luck. I'll be watching from a distance."

Creep , Sasuke thought, among numerous other insulting words, as Kakashi leapt somewhere into the trees.

Beside him, Naruto let out a huffy breath. He shot Sasuke a side-glance, and Sasuke, too, evaluated him out of the corner of his eye. 

They hadn’t had to actively work together like this since— well, since the Wave mission. 

The reminder of that sent a small shudder up Sasuke’s spine, thinking of senbon lodged in his skin and the overwhelming knowledge that he was going to die— as well as, underneath the pain and anxiety, the fleeting contentment that came with it. 

There was also the memory of being held in Naruto’s arms and asking him not to die too, which was in many ways just as horrific to remember. 

The obstacle course seemed to wind through the forest around clumps of trees, so that a good majority of it was obscured from view. Sasuke could catch sight of some rusting metal poles, a running length of fencing, and what looked like a tall watchtower connected to a mess of ladder-like thatching as though it was meant to be climbed on. He assumed there were likely many hidden traps, tricks and mock-attacks along the way as well. 

Everything he could see looked extremely old and reeked of disuse. In fact, he wouldn’t be surprised if this was something Kakashi had had to do in his own genin years, and just wanted to put his own students through the same pain, even if the course no longer matched up to safety protocol. 

“So,” Naruto said, “are we doing this?” 

Sasuke shrugged. “Doesn’t look like we have much of a choice.” 

"Okay." Naruto took an over-dramatized deep breath, turned to face Sasuke, and stuck out his hand. "Truce?"

For a few moments, Sasuke just looked at it. Then he breathed a conceding sigh, and before the ridiculousness of the situation could get to him, took Naruto's hand in his own and shook. "Truce."

With that, they began.

After hours of attempting to strategize, shouting at each other, physically pulling one another over and through obstacles, attempting coordinated jutsu in defense against automated attacks, and the occasional near-fistfight, Sauske found himself too exhausted to continue. They were only around halfway through the course. He tried as hard as he could to conceal his heavy breathing, the way his legs shook, and the dizziness in his step, but despite his efforts, Naruto managed to take notice. "You're done, aren't you?" he asked.

Sasuke glared at him, but after a few moments his pounding heart caught up to him and he nodded, exhaling in defeat, and propped himself against a tree for support.

"You can sit down, y'know," Naruto told him. “I won't tell Kakashi-sensei. He's probably not even watching us, anyway." 

Sasuke grunted in acknowledgement and gingerly lowered himself down on the grass. 

Naruto came up and sat beside him. "I'm kinda tired too," he said, though it was a clear lie. 

Sasuke fidgeted with the hem of his shorts as he waited for his breath to regulate, for the static in his brain to clear. It was painful to be stuck in this state— knowing that his physical conditioning more than permitted him to tackle something like this, but it was just his stupid chakra reserves that were the problem. Even basic jutsus were an effort now. 

Naruto, too, avoided eye contact and began playing with a leaf on the ground. "I'm sorry about your chakra. It must be really frustrating." 

Sasuke made an affirmative noise. 

"Are you fighting with your mom now or something?" 

Sasuke shook his head. "No."

"Then why did you snap at her like that?"

Thinking back on the moment made Sasuke feel guilty again, which was annoying. "It’s nothing."

“You’re such a liar.” Naruto grabbed a fallen stick, having seemingly grown bored of the leaf, and began poking it into the soft dirt at their feet. His voice dropped to a mumble. "You're really lucky to have her, you know.”

Sasuke blinked, then remembered fully who he was talking to, and a small prickle of shame nudged its way into his conscience. "Naruto, are you..." He paused, unsure how to phrase his question without being weird. "Does it make you jealous?" 

Naruto hummed, then lightly shook his head. “Not really,” he said. “Having your mom around has been really great. She’s nice and she’s an awesome cook.” 

“Maybe we could find another scroll,” Sasuke murmured, just thinking out loud. “And maybe it could give you your parents too.” 

Naruto began to scratch a messy drawing into the dirt. “I’m not sure it would work like that.”

“Why not?” 

“Well, you didn’t get what you expected to, right?” 

Sasuke faltered, realizing what he was saying. 

“I don’t know what it would give me. I could say I wanted parents more than anything, but I didn’t know my parents. I don’t even know if they wanted me. I have nothing…to want, y’know? So, I’m not sure what the scroll would give me.” 

“Maybe a bowl of ramen,” Sasuke suggested. 

Naruto laughed out loud then. “Yeah, maybe.” 

Sasuke knew deep down that Naruto wanted a lot of things. Maybe not a family in the traditional sense, but a family, still. He couldn’t imagine Naruto not wanting that, with the life he grew up in. 

Sasuke never gave much consideration to the fact that Naruto didn’t have parents to miss like he did. He just had nothing. 

How would the scroll give him the opposite of nothing? How would it interpret that desire? It made Sasuke’s head hurt to think about, and it annoyed him slightly, too, realizing that the scroll saw right through his own haze of hate and anger to pluck out what his wounded heart truly wanted, that he didn’t even consciously realize until after it was given to him. 

He’d wanted his family back. 

But most of all, the scared, lonely child buried underneath all his layers of anger and flaky maturity, wanted his mother. 

“I don’t know much about how family is for other people,” Naruto continued quietly, eyes firm on the ground, “but when I saw you… crying like that, with her… it kinda made me realize how important it must’ve been for you.” He turned his head, and his eyes momentarily flitted up to meet Sasuke’s and he smiled. “So I’m glad you have her back.”

Sasuke swallowed against an unexpected lump in his throat. “Thanks.” Then, after a moment— “I’m sorry I hit you.”

Naruto giggled at that. “That’s the second apology I’ve gotten from you this week. I could get used to this, y’know.” 

“Shut up, idiot.”

Smug, Naruto promptly turned back to the dirt, resuming the finishing details on the crude design at his feet as though nothing had just changed between them. “I can’t believe all this came from a weird old scroll you bought. How much did it cost ya, anyway?” 

Sasuke tried to remember, but couldn’t come up with the exact amount he’d offered the old woman. “Almost nothing,” he said honestly. “Just a few coins.”

Naruto shook his head with a small scoff. “Crazy.”

Sasuke leaned over to get a better look at what he had drawn in the dirt. It seemed to be an awkward-shaped face with dots for eyes and a lopsided smile. “What is that?”

“It’s a frog, stupid.” Naruto pointed to the weirdly long curve at the bottom of the face. “See? That’s the tongue.”

“That doesn’t look like a tongue. And frog tongues don’t even look like that in real life.”

Naruto glared at him all scrutinizing, crossing his arms. “Since when are you an expert on frogs?” 

“I used to catch them in the pond by our house with my— brother.” Sasuke blinked, realizing the sentence had tumbled out of his mouth without much prior thought. The previous lightness of the conversation seemed to deflate, as if punctured, and left him stinging in the aftermath.

“Oh.” Naruto turned back to stare at the dirt, pettiness dissipating into an awkward sobriety. 

Sasuke let the residual ache of angry nostalgia buzz within him for a moment, then took a deep breath and tried to let it go. He dug a hand into his hair, hissing a sigh. “Everything is so— messed up.”

Naruto made a noise of agreement and nodded.

Chapter Text

“Are we allowed to be in here?” Sakura asked as she stepped underneath the caution tape at the front of the Uchiha district. 

“Well, no one is going to dare kick me out, if they know what’s good for them,” Mikoto responded, waiting for Sakura to take a quick glance around before proceeding down the stone path. It was phrased as though intended to be a joke, but the confidence in her voice and the somber air over the area killed any room for humor.  

Sakura really only had a vague understanding of what happened to the Uchiha clan. She knew the basic facts, of course— everyone did— but it was difficult to conceptualize something of such a degree without having seen it. Being in the empty district now seemed to place a heavy weight upon her shoulders, pressing down with the layers of terrible things that she knew had happened here, even if she struggled to form a picture of them. 

As they moved further down the path, the emptiness only continued to grow, and Sakura found herself swallowing down a great deal of apprehension. She still wasn’t entirely sure what Mikoto wanted with her. Feeling the need to fill the silence, or at least distract from the oppressive weight of past tragedy, Sakura remarked, “It’s pretty.”

“It used to be,” Mikoto said. They reached an intersection in the path, where Sakura could see it branched off into a plaza of rundown shop buildings on one side and what looked like the outskirts of a residential area on the other. 

“What do you want me to help with?” Sakura tried again, forcing her voice to stay bright. She had the idea that being here was not pleasant for Mikoto, and felt like she needed to do something to lighten the mood— but then thought that might be insensitive and simply waited anxiously for Mikoto to give her some context.

“There’s a project I want to do.” This time, Mikoto looked at her and offered a soft smile, and Sakura found herself immediately reassured by the gesture. “This place is rotting away, and I’d like to bring a little life back into it.” 

“Okay.” Sakura nodded assessingly. “What should I do, repaint some stuff?”

“That’s not a bad idea. But first, I thought we could feed the animals.” Mikoto opened up the small tote on her arm and pulled out two bags, which, upon closer inspection, appeared to be dry cat kibble and birdseed. She lifted the bag of birdseed and held it out for Sakura to take. “We’ll work together to do it. I’ll give you a small part of the district to go around and just put a little in any birdfeeders you see, it doesn’t have to be much. Does that sound okay?” Once Sakura gave affirmation, Mikoto picked up the cat food bag and continued to explain. “Once we encourage the cats to come back, they will start killing the rats and mice. And when the birds come back, they’ll eat the bugs. Or chase them away to the Aburames’ side of the forest, at least. That was how it was when my clan lived here, and I imagine our absence has disrupted the order of things. You and I are going to work on bringing that back into balance.”

Sakura nodded in understanding, intrigued by Mikoto’s technical view on what they were doing. She would have agreed to help just out of compassion for the animals, but it was neat to know they were actually helping the local ecosystem, too. “Does Sasuke-kun know you’re doing this?” 

“Not yet,” Mikoto admitted. “I only just thought of this today. But I think it might be healing for him. It will certainly be healing for me.” 

Sakura nodded again, more eagerly this time. “That would be good. I really worry about him sometimes.”

“That makes two of us.” Mikoto let out a small sigh, settling her hands on her hips as she surveyed the area, and Sakura guessed there might be more to the story there than what she was letting on, considering Sasuke’s attitude that morning. “One more thing before we start— can you sense any genjutsu around the area?”

Sakura blinked, surprised. “Um,” she said, then looked around a bit. She concentrated on her chakra, monitoring it for disruptions, and tried to feel for anything irregular around her. When she came up with nothing, she shook her head. “No. I don’t think so. We’re… not under one right now, at least.” At that, she remembered Mikoto was an Uchiha and probably significantly more adept with genjutsu than Sakura could ever hope to be, and suddenly felt very unhelpful. “Was I supposed to sense something?” 

Mikoto shook her head. “No,” she said, “not yet.” 

Sakura decided not to dwell too much on how strangely ominous that sounded. 

They got to work soon after. 

Sakura took to walking through the residential part of the district, looking for houses that had feeders on their overhangs. It was eerie how quiet the entre area was, disturbed only by the occasional bird’s caw or rustle through the overgrown foliage. At one point, a crow landed in a whirl of black feathers at her feet, approaching her expectantly, and she smiled and leaned down to give it a small handful of seeds. 

Just then, Mikoto appeared from around the corner and Sakura nearly jumped out of her skin. The crow hopped closer, undisturbed. 

“I’m sorry,” Mikoto quickly apologized, “did I scare you?”

Sakura breathed an embarrassed laugh and nodded as her heartbeat calmed. “You walk quietly.” She noticed the empty bag folded in Mikoto’s hand, and compared it to her own bag of feed, which was still half full. “Wow, that was fast. I’m not even halfway done yet.” 

“That’s okay. I saw the feeders you filled. You did a good job, Sakura.” Mikoto reached out to take the bag from her, and Sakura handed it over so Mikoto could place it back in her tote. “Did you sense any changes in the area as you went?”

“No…?” For a moment, Sakura blinked away confusion. “I didn’t sense any genjutsu, if that’s what you mean.” 

“Are you sure? Try again— tell me if you pick anything up.” 

Still confused, Sakura closed her eyes and concentrated on the chakra signatures around her. Her own chakra felt undisturbed, as did Mikoto’s, and there didn’t seem to be anything abnormal in the air around them. 

Except— 

There was. A small waver of something reached her senses— just slightly out of place, a tiny ripple of wrongness. “I do!” she said excitedly, eyes flying open to look in the direction of the disturbance, which she pointed to. “That house is wrong. I’m guessing its appearance is being manipulated.”

“Very good,” Mikoto praised. “Can you tell what’s different about it?” 

Sakura thought for a while longer, analyzing the feel coming off of the building. “I think it’s— something’s hidden. The jutsu is being used to cover up a part of it.” 

Mikoto nodded with an affirmative noise, smiling. “Can you break it?” 

“Yes.” Sakura clasped her hands in the release seal and murmured kai under her breath. Once she had done this, the illusion dissipated— abruptly revealing a large smatter of dark discoloration on the house’s wall.

It took a moment to register that the stain was from blood. 

She found it a bit difficult to swallow after that. “Oh.”

Mikoto stared at the house for a little while too. Then she took Sakura’s shoulder and gently steered her away from it. “I’m sorry to make you see that.”

Sakura looked up at her, now feeling very small and out of place in the compound. “Did you cast that genjutsu?”

“Yes. I wanted to test your ability, but I also thought it might help me to change some things back to the way I remember them. Turns out all it does is remind me of what’s missing.” 

Sakura’s gaze flitted back to the empty streets, recognizing the complete desolation. It was hard to imagine that this entire place used to be populated and bustling with life. The enormity of that loss stayed just outside Sakura’s comprehension. “You must really miss your family,” she murmured.

“I do.” 

Sakura shifted her feet, shame creeping in as she thought of Sasuke and how much she truly didn’t understand about him. “I said some really mean things to Sasuke-kun a while ago. About him and Naruto... not having families. I think that might be part of the reason why he hates me.” 

Mikoto looked at her with sympathetic eyes. “He doesn’t hate you, sweetheart, I promise. I know what hate looks like in him.” 

“Oh...okay.” That did made her feel relieved.

“I’ve noticed he isn’t very nice to you or Naruto, though, which I’ll talk to him about.” Mikoto crouched down to the crow by their feet, who had just finished picking off the birdseed. Another crow flitted down to join it, bobbing its head as if looking for the food source. “What happened today?”

Sakura scraped her shoe on the ground, remembering the moment with a small pinch of hurt in her chest. “He attacked Naruto. I’m not really sure why, but… he seemed upset, and I guess we were annoying him too much.” 

“I see.” Mikoto’s brows pinched in concern. “I’m sorry you had to endure that. We had a difficult conversation this morning, so I’m assuming that has him on edge.” 

“What did you talk about?” As soon as the question left her mouth, Sakura realized she was being nosy and quickly apologized. “I’m sorry, you don’t have to tell me.” 

“It’s alright.” Mikoto stroked one of the crows’ heads with a curled finger. “We were talking about his brother.”

Sakura didn’t say anything more after that. 

Mikoto then took her back to the compound gate, walked her part of the way home, thanked her for her help and bid her good night. 

Now without the district’s heavy air pressing down on her, Sakura began to feel quite warm inside. She was happy to have bonded with Sasuke’s mom— and Mikoto showed her a kindness and concern that Sakura didn’t frequently get from her own mother, which made her feel a bit giddy. It was nice to hang out with someone who was good at being a shinobi and a mom for once. She returned home with that comforting thought in mind.

***

The sky was warm with a late-afternoon sun by the time Mikoto headed back to the apartment. Sasuke wasn’t there when she arrived, evident in the absence of his shoes by the door.

Once she had dropped off her tote, she observed the time on the clock and noted that it was still too early to start dinner, meaning she had to find something else to do to keep herself busy. She thought about heading to the training grounds to check on Sasuke, but reminded herself to step back and give him space-- he wasn’t a little kid anymore, as he’d made sure to remind her, and she owed it to him to respect his feelings. 

Having completed her task at the district, the only other item on Mikoto’s agenda was this meeting. 

Four hours till sunset. 

Sasuke could come home at any point during that time. She hoped that whatever Kakashi had decided to put them through wasn’t too hard on him— though she knew any training he could do to get used to his new physical state would be beneficial in the long run, she hated the thought of him suffering through it. 

Her urge to control everything around her was far worse than usual now. With her world spun around, Mikoto wanted to latch onto the palatable, and she had to breathe and remind herself that in these circumstances, all she could control were the chores. With that thought, she took to pointlessly reorganizing things in the kitchen for a while. 

She planned the evening in her head as she went, watching the minutes tick by, until the clock eventually reached a time that was semi-appropriate for dinner preparations and she moved on to cooking. Just as she set the rice to steam, Sasuke arrived home. 

He looked utterly exhausted. He responded to her greeting with a half-hearted vocal acknowledgement and headed straight to his room, hardly sparing a look in her direction before he shut the door, and silence once again settled in the apartment. 

Mikoto ran through the events of the day in her mind and worried hopelessly that she’d done something unfixable. 

This was how he must have been before her arrival— what Itachi made him into. A bitter, ghostlike preteen with unbearable responsibility on his shoulders. Swallowing down her grief for the bright and happy child he used to be, Mikoto focused even more intently on her work and ignored the sting in her throat. 

The worst part was that she didn’t know what to do for him now.

She had responsibilities she was well used to as both a clan head and a mother, and she’d been good about balancing them most of the time. Now, her grasp on each of those roles and the lines between them was slipping. The conflicts with the village were a heavy burden shouldered alone, without Fugaku or their advisors within the clan or anyone at all to bear it with her, and her heart still hurt with the urgency to find Itachi. Sasuke needed patience and sensitivity from her and Mikoto was running short on both. 

Later in the evening, he came out of his room and lingered in the kitchen for a moment. Then he approached her and unexpectedly leaned his head on her shoulder. “I’m sorry,” he mumbled. 

Surprise and concern flooded Mikoto’s heart and she placed a sympathetic arm around him, touching her chin to his hair. “It’s alright, sweetheart,” she said, and gave his back a comforting rub. “Is there anything you want to talk about right now?” 

He shook his head no, so she didn’t press further. 

Sasuke stayed and helped her make dinner, and once it was completed, they ate together in an understanding silence. 

Dusk arrived.

There was something ominous in the air surrounding this meeting. Mikoto went into the council room feeling like she was walking to her death, which wouldn't shake no matter how thoroughly she tried to convince herself it was irrational. But that wasn’t to say she was afraid— dying calmly once tends to shift perspective on those types of things. 

The three elders and Hiruzen were already placed in their spots at the council table when she entered, shutting the heavy door behind her. The room was candle-lit, orange and dim, illuminating the rough wrinkles on each of their faces. It reminded her heavily of the political meetings she and Fugaku used to attend with all of the other clan heads— the most recent one just a month ago, in her timeline of memories, unaccounting for the five-year gap where she was dead.  

Sarutobi was seated in the middle, his primary advisor Danzo on his right, and the elders Koharu and Homura flanking his left. He met her eyes upon her approach, smiling warmly as she knelt in respect. "Thank you for answering my summons, Mikoto-san.” 

"Hai," she responded, "though I'd prefer your agents to be more respectful of my privacy next time. Maybe try the door." 

Hiruzen chuckled as if it were a joke. "I do apologize for the intrusion, but this meeting was organized rather suddenly this morning.” 

I wonder why, Mikoto thought rhetorically. She stood up and made her way to the chair at the table’s front, left empty for her, and sat down, facing the four elders.

Hiruzen placed a gnarled palm flat on the itinerary document in front of him. The other three appeared to have copies of the same document at their places, though the Hokage’s was noticeably thicker. "We've called you here to discuss several subjects. I would like to answer your questions, as well as ask a few of my own. The legal processes will go easier the more responses you provide— though it’s worth mentioning you are allowed by law to refuse to answer if you wish.” 

Mikoto nodded once in understanding. 

“Firstly— how is Sasuke adjusting?” He gave her a friendly smile to accompany the question. 

“He’s doing well,” Mikoto told him, which was all but a complete lie. 

“Good, I’m glad to hear that.” Hiruzen referenced the itinerary. “Secondly, the jounin council has been notified of your return and looks forward to welcoming you back. You’ll be able to meet a group for training at Field 3 tomorrow morning to re-integrate yourself, if you like.”

The thought of that just annoyed Mikoto, even though she knew she should be happy to meet old acquaintances and immerse herself back into training. All it really did was interrupt her mental schedule. 

“I looked through your file and it seems you had quite a long break from shinobi work for your maternity, though I do acknowledge the skill-maintenance training on record for you here. Because of that, I will give you the choice of whether or not you would like to retake the jounin exam. Choosing to do so would grant you access to S-rank mission assignments, but other than that, there would be no difference to your profile."

Mikoto indicated her preference not to retake the exam, and Hiruzen marked something down on another sheet of paper and then transitioned the conversation into the legal processes of Mikoto’s reassociation into the village. That stretched for a long, long time, which she was certain was intentional. 

By the time he finished explaining, Mikoto had whittled down her own thoughts enough to cut glass.

Finally, the moment arrived. Hiruzen finished reading protocol from a small scroll, rolled it shut, and said, “I open the floor now for you to ask any questions you have.” 

Mikoto took a breath, exhaled, and said in a calm voice: “What did you do to my children?”

Silence stretched for a beat too long. Then Hiruzen said, “I promise no harm has ever come to your sons by our hands.”

“I don’t believe you.” Mikoto maintained a level gaze. “Someone pushed Itachi to destroy our clan. Someone isolated Sasuke in the aftermath. I’d like to know who was responsible for those decisions and why.” 

Hiruzen looked at her with softened eyes, almost pained. “Mikoto-san, I am deeply sorry for the oversight in regards to Sasuke’s childhood. Your concerns there are founded. But I must remind you there is no greater power at fault for what happened to your clan other than Itachi, and possible outside sources that may have influenced him.”

She expected a similar answer, yet it still caused a flare of rage in her. “What do you mean ‘outside sources’? I don’t believe he could be coerced into working for other villages.”

“Not other villages, but we have evidence of him associating with missing-nin groups since his defection.” 

Mikoto bit her tongue to keep from expressing shock. “You know where he is, then?” 

Hiruzen paused briefly, and Koharu filled in for his lapse. “His exact whereabouts are unknown,” she said, her expression on the edge of hostile. “We only have witness reports so far. Itachi is an S-class missing-nin with extreme skill in hiding himself when he does not want to be found, which I’m sure you know well. Chasing after him now is pointless.” 

“So do you or do you not have evidence that he was influenced by outside sources prior to his defection?” 

Hiruzen sighed and admitted, “It’s a theory.” He reached underneath the itinerary document and pulled out a small, square slip of paper. “What we do know is that there are reports claiming he now operates with a group known as Akatsuki.” Saying this, he slid the paper across the table to her. 

It was a blurry, low-quality photo of two figures, bodies mostly concealed by the black cloaks draped around them, and further hidden by the wide rice hats over their heads. The cloaks appeared to be detailed with red shapes that Mikoto couldn’t quite discern. Her heart rate escalated, though, upon looking at it— this was the most recent information she’d received about Itachi since her return, and even though it was tenuously believable at best, it made her mind race with urgency to act on it. “I see.” She regulated her chakra flow to ensure the others would not be able to recognize and take advantage of her emotional vulnerability. 

Continuing, Hiruzen said, “I understand that it may be difficult to accept your son’s betrayal, and you aren’t expected to move on from this right away. But I’m sure you must have seen the signs.”

That immediately snapped Mikoto back to awareness. “Itachi never showed signs of anything more than the emotional toll of his work in ANBU. Even if he did— do you doubt my husband and I enough to believe we would have allowed our child to continue expressing them? And if you were as aware of these signs as you claim to be, why wouldn’t you come to us directly? Why not get him help?” Hiruzen looked like he wanted to interject, but Mikoto continued to speak. “I know my son and I know he would never do what he did if he thought he had a choice, that has always been his view on killing. All of you, whether directly or indirectly, hold responsibility for pushing him to that point.”

The aggravated reactions of the four elders spiked tangibly in the air. 

“That is a bold accusation,” Danzo said. Koharu, too, began a stinging retort, but Hiruzen silenced them both with a raised hand.

“I’m aware of how hard this must be for you,” he began, momentarily closing his eyes, “but it’s in your best interest to remember that the Itachi you knew was only what he showed you, not his true self.”

Mikoto fought to regulate the surge of anger in her blood. “Do you claim to know my son better than I do, Sarutobi-sama?” 

“Your son killed you,” Koharu snapped. “That does not bode well for your ability to understand him.”

“Was he not already known for previous outbursts over his dislike for the Uchiha clan?” Danzo contributed, voice utterly devoid of sympathy. 

Mikoto did not respond to that. 

“And his own ANBU colleagues described him as troubled,” Homura added. 

Everything in Mikoto’s heart screamed at her to argue, but she couldn’t refute any of those points with facts, and allowing her words to turn emotional rather than logical would compromise her position. So, rather, she took a deep breath and held her tongue. 

“You’ve gone through a terrible tragedy,” Hiruzen continued, “and I understand that in your grief and confusion, it is comforting to have someone to blame. There is counseling available at the hospital which may help you to address those feelings.” 

Mikoto allowed a few beats of silence to pass. Then she softened her face and lowered her gaze to the table in a submissive gesture. “You’re right.” 

Hiruzen let out a quiet sigh, apparently relieved to have reached a settlement. “Once again, I truly am sorry. Do you have any further requests?”

After waiting another moment to portray considerate thought, Mikoto nodded and picked up an echo of her previous firm tone. “Yes. If you refuse to trust me, at least ensure your agents know how to hide themselves properly when they do their spying.” 

Hiruzen looked like he was deciding whether or not that was supposed to be a joke. Ultimately, he seemed to settle on the latter. “Very well. And Mikoto-san, the presence of those agents is only an extra security measure. Please don’t feel threatened by them. They are just as much there for your protection as they are for Konoha’s.” 

“What about Kakashi? Is he an extra security measure too?”

“Kakashi volunteered for the sake of his student’s well-being and nothing more. He isn’t spying on you, his sole concern is with Sasuke’s safety and stability.” 

That was new information. Mikoto filed it away accordingly. “You seem to care more for Sasuke’s well-being now that I’m back than you did after he was orphaned.” 

Hiruzen’s face pinched then. “Please be critical of everything your son tells you in emotional distress. He may not have been fully cared for to your standards, but he was not neglected— and with such a sudden change in his life, it is reasonable to be wary of his mental condition. Kakashi wished to monitor your household for any possible threats to that stability.” 

Mikoto chose to ignore the implication in Hiruzen’s words— that she was harming Sasuke, or, more likely in their range of concerns, influencing him against the village. She curled her fingers into a light fist underneath the table. “Very well. As long as Sasuke’s well-being remains the only concern.” 

Hiruzen sighed again. “I’m very glad we’ve been able to come to an even standing. Thank you for your cooperation, Mikoto-san.” He flipped to the final few pages of his itinerary and began to address them. “Before we wrap up this meeting, I would like to make you a proposition. You may have the deed to the Uchiha district and free reign to inhabit it, in exchange for your silence on the clan massacre going forward.” 

Mikoto’s heart skipped a beat. “You’re attempting to barter with something that already belongs to me.”

To that, Danzo spoke. “Because of the lack of qualifying adults to inherit the property deed, the compound was overturned back to Konoha after the massacre. So it isn’t yours, Mikoto, not anymore. You forfeited your right to it in death.” 

If Mikoto hadn’t been clamping down so hard on her emotions, her jaw would have dropped. Instead, she clenched it, and directed her attention to the feeling that her teeth might split. 

She tuned out the rest of Hiruzen’s explanation and agreed silently, signed the consent forms he pushed in front of her and returned them without issue, even though gazing at the confidentiality agreement on top made her skin crawl. Her inked signature stamped at the bottom was a permanent record of her acceptance of this indignity. She felt like she was betraying her clan and everything they fought for, everything they believed in, and it sat on her shoulders with an unshakable weight. 

As she stood and left the council room at last, clutching her claim to the district, it did feel as though she’d sacrificed her life.

Mikoto arrived at the Uchiha compound as night sealed over the sky.

She activated her sharingan immediately. With it, she scanned the area, noting all the pinpricks of life. There were considerably more now than there had been this morning. The animals were beginning to return. 

Sakura had done very well today, and her help had eased the burden on Mikoto’s shoulders. Although it was perhaps a little crude to use a child as her cover, it was the only way she could ensure she’d be able to accomplish her goals without unwanted interruption. Having the district in her name now did eliminate a large portion of that issue— but she was still being spied on, and that wasn’t a problem easily solved.

She didn’t have much time to think further on that before an agent dropped soundlessly behind her.

“What are you doing here?” Mikoto said without turning around. “I own this district now. You are an intruder.” 

“I’m simply here to confirm that you intend to make good on our deal.” 

“So you’re confronting me directly, instead of watching from the background? Hiruzen’s gotten paranoid.” 

The agent’s voice grew low and icy. “We are ROOT, not Sandiame’s ANBU. Remember this: the Hokage cannot protect you from us if we have to protect the village from you.” Mikoto felt the agent lean closer to her. “Therefore, you are expected to be fully cooperative. If you have no concern for yourself, consider your son.” 

A shock passed through Mikoto’s body from head to toe.

The agent had threatened Sasuke.

She remained frozen still as the agent’s presence vanished, leaving only open air behind her. 

The wind toyed with loose strands of her hair, and she finally found the dexterity to reach up and brush them back from her face. Then she clutched into the locks, tugging at her scalp in frustration, and let out a slow, steady breath. 

She shunshined back to the apartment. There were plans to refine and no time to waste. 

When she saw Sasuke sitting at the kitchen table, her heart leapt into her throat from the confirmation that he was alive and safe. He didn’t greet her, but he seemed calm, and Mikoto did find it in herself to be glad he had become accustomed to her presence by now. The wounded and desperate gaze he’d worn initially whenever she was near him had only hurt her broken heart.

Her mind pushed past that acknowledgement, though, to plow right back into a cycle of planning and analysis. She moved into the kitchen and barely noticed when Sasuke followed, sitting up on the counter nearby her, just outside her line of sight. 

Mikoto went about the motions of preparing tea. A dark ginseng and lemon blend, made with herbs she’d picked out at the grocery store earlier that week. She bitterly doubted they would taste the same as the ones she used to buy at home, but it was the least she could do for herself to ignore that irritation.

As the tea was brewing, she tapped her finger incessantly against the kettle’s handle, having run out of things to do while she thought. Then, on a whim, she decided she felt like having honey, remembered her son was in the room and spoke up to ask him to get it for her. "Itachi? Can you—"

She cut off in sudden realization.

The blood drained from her face. Mikoto turned around, stared at Sasuke and opened her mouth to correct the mistake, but her voice refused to cooperate. Sasuke only looked down at his hands. After several moments of agonizing silence, he slid off the counter and left the room. 

The sound of his bedroom door sliding shut reverberated through the building. 

Mikoto squeezed her eyes shut, dropped her head and pinched the bridge of her nose.

For a fleeting moment, she had forgotten that the silent, somber twelve-year old in her kitchen was Sasuke, not Itachi. And with that one stupid mistake, she shattered the tenuous atmosphere between them all over again. 

She only uncurled from her position when the kettle whistled. Mikoto poured her tea with unsteady hands and didn’t put honey in it. She didn’t drink it, either, and it grew cool on the countertop. 

She slept poorly on the couch that night. 

Chapter Text

For the next several days, Mikoto got up early in the morning and trained with the other jounin. 

She became very practiced in her responses: thank you, I’m fine, no I don’t know what happened, yes it’s good to be back. A few asked about the afterlife and she had nothing to tell them. Several asked about Sasuke, as though they’d suddenly remembered his existence now that there was someone around to look after him. Others still asked about Itachi— but it was in a hushed, implied sort of way, never with his name, veiled under innocent queries about the state of her family before the fateful night. If she’d seen signs— in the same way Hiruzen had said it during the meeting, which made her blood boil. It only outlined the true depth of their ignorance.

As much as she hated the thought alone, Mikoto wanted to shout to them: my son was coerced into killing his kin, you have no idea how much of the picture you’re missing. Beyond that, they were clueless about everything the Uchiha went through, which seemed even more obvious to her now than it ever had been before. When she wasn’t controlling herself, she found her thoughts running off into hate-filled directions like you were probably relieved when you heard the news, to have that wariness eliminated, until she carefully reeled herself back into calmness. She reminded herself that most of the village had respected the Uchiha, even if those perspectives were far overshadowed by ever-present suspicion. That even if they were compliant in her clan’s oppression, they wouldn’t have wanted them to die. 

That assurance did little to sate her anger about it, but it kept her civil. 

She always got out of the training grounds as soon as time would allow. Just enough to socialize a bit and do enough training to make her muscles burn— and to realize just how much of a setback her chakra loss truly was. Her capacity for jutsu was cut in half entirely. It was one thing to know that, but something else to see it and feel it in action, and she knew she would have to work hard to get used to it. She could only imagine how it felt for poor Sasuke, who didn’t have near half the amount of control training that she did. 

Once she’d finished up, the next step in her routine was typically to check on Sasuke, though this varied depending on whether or not his team was back from their mission by that time. Team Seven were taking short, frequent missions recently and were almost always back in the village by early afternoon, which was a relief to Mikoto even if it got on Sasuke’s nerves. It meant both that she could plan around them with relative certainty and that Sasuke wasn’t being put into the kind of danger that higher-ranked missions would pose. 

Lately, all the genin in the village were racking up their mission logs with C- and D-ranks. A new influx of requests, maybe— either that, or they were being prepped for something. Mikoto didn’t dwell on that too hard, as she had bigger things concerning her mind. Whatever was coming, Sasuke wouldn’t be a part of it, anyway. 

During these past few days, Mikoto had also been testing the limits of the spies that were tailing her. In doing so, she had discovered a few blind spots. They couldn’t directly observe her in rooms that were small and restricted and had no windows, like the jounin recoup room or weapons storage, though those types of secure locations were incredibly few and far between. The deliberateness of that detail in the architecture of most of Konoha’s buildings was unmistakable. For all that was said about the Will of Fire and the Sandiame’s efforts at familiarity, the fact remained that the Konoha government was far from trusting toward its people. 

In these rare blind spots, though, she had found a small sleeve of safety where she could accomplish some of her planning. She couldn’t rule out the possibility that her spies had access to Byakugan, so in these places she was restricted to tasks that did not require the use of chakra and that appeared unsuspicious. If they got concerned about what she might be doing, they’d send someone undercover as a civilian or low-ranking shinobi to passively observe. Therefore, she had a time limit. There was no way she could fully conceal the fact that she was using the spots to her advantage, but if she kept her time short and ensured the instances were irregular, they wouldn’t be able to prove anything.

Then there were certain buildings in that were fortified against even dojutsu. Areas that were meant to be strictly private, such as containment rooms for classified intel. These were the only locations she could complete any tasks that might otherwise draw suspicion to her. The only one in the main body of the village she could use was the Sealing Corps facility, as she had reason to be there. 

The Uchiha compound also contained several of these buildings, which had been constructed around the time suspicions against the clan were running high. They knew they were being spied on, so it seemed a worthy cause in order to maintain their own dignity— to enforce their rights to private conference. Mikoto herself had signed off on some of the building permits. She was able to use these locations to her advantage as well, though she did so infrequently and only when necessary during her trips to the compound.

Most of her work was relatively easy to accomplish in this time. 

The ROOT agent’s threat was a steady thrum at the forefront of her mind, solidifying everything else into clarity and certainty. Tentative ideas and last resorts now seemed like her only options— and her inhibitions about enacting them, she’d realized, had fallen away completely. 

There was no longer anything holding her back. 

Sasuke’s life was on the line. That meant anything and everything was on the table to protect him, and Mikoto had no holds barred. 

- 5 - 

Mikoto arrived in front of the Sealing Corps facility as morning bled into midday.

She walked in without announcing herself, knowing they'd be expecting her. It helped to have jounin clearance now— it ripped off the bandage and made it easier for her to go most places and get what she needed. She did have the added dely of being stopped in the street, and the awkwardness of conversation with people who wanted to catch up (or worse, felt obligated to help her by filling in all the details of the last five years), but it was a necessary hindrance if only to cast away suspicion from herself. Some were polite enough to not be overt. Sometimes she got looks or nods or smiles. She knew it should have felt comforting, but instead it just made her itch with distrust, because after the meeting with Hiruzen and the Elder Council she knew couldn't take anything in this village at face value. 

Within the blind spot of the Sealing Corps facility, Mikoto slipped into a stairwell and formed the seals for a Shadow Clone jutsu. The halving of her already depleted chakra threw her off balance for a moment and she cringed at the prospect of using even more, but she had little choice in the matter, so she wreathed the clone in a cloaking genjutsu and sent it off.

Once that was finished, she climbed the stairwell until she reached the appropriate floor for her object of interest— the scroll that had brought her back. She had a meeting scheduled today with the head of the investigation and was intent on receiving any updates they could provide.

She made her way to the floor that contained contact rooms, where the specialists working with confidential items could securely share their work and discuss information without risking the security of other classified projects. All of the rooms were sealed with identical metal doors and were accessible by an analog keypad. Mikoto typed in the key code she was given and the door unlocked with a dull latching sound. She pulled it open and stepped inside, gently shutting it behind her. 

The room was lit by yellow lamps and contained nothing but a table, chairs, a collection of scrolls and the lone woman pouring over them. Mikoto met her eyes and was greeted with a smile— she knew this woman, she realized— they’d gone to the academy together, as well as shared a few missions in their chunin years. Her name was Tsuru.

“Mikoto, it’s good to see you," Tsuru said with a small smile, giving her a once-over which Mikoto knew meant confirming it was really her. "Come sit down."

Mikoto returned the smile and complied, taking the closest empty seat at the table. Tsuru had changed slightly from how Mikoto remembered her— she had noticeably lost muscle, indicative of the years she had been out of active duty since her injury, and her oak-dark hair now had streaks of premature gray. Although they hadn’t necessarily been friends, it was nice to be with a familiar face.

They exchanged pleasantries and then moved to the topic of discussion, starting with an overview. Tsuru began to explain. “You know the basics, I’m sure: it’s an altered summoning seal, and the hand signs listed in the instructions match those of the Nidaime’s Edo Tensei jutsu.” She gestured to one of the larger scrolls on the table that appeared to be rather old. “Lately I’ve been studying that particular jutsu to see if I can work out where the alterations were made. We’re still not sure about the legitimacy of the inscription-- it seems like the jutsu creator developed it with the expectation in mind that their user’s ‘greatest desire’ would be a dead person. One doesn’t just accidentally recreate the Edo Tensei jutsu, it’s complex. This was made by someone who prepared all the aspects beforehand and left nothing but the hand signs and a seal for the user to activate.” 

The implications of that statement unsettled Mikoto. “I see,” she said tightly, nodding along. “Anything on where the seal design might have originated?” 

Tsuru let out a sigh at that. “It doesn’t match anything in our databooks, that’s for sure. Either it’s an obsolete technique that managed to escape history, or it was developed by someone independent of any village or clan we’re familiar with.” She picked out a lone document, slid it across the table to Mikoto. “We looked into the village it was picked up from, but it doesn’t seem to have any registered shinobi. Here’s the mission report Kakashi turned in from that day.”

“Sasuke said he got it from an old vendor who had a clan symbol on her clothes,” Mikoto reiterated, picking up the file. “That she convinced him to buy one and he chose one at random. And she claimed to have collected them on ‘adventures’.” 

Tsuru hummed. “It’s certainly possible that there are retired shinobi there. Maybe even missing-nin living in hiding. But we won’t know that for sure unless we send in someone undercover to investigate-- and if this woman was freely encouraging a Konoha-branded genin to buy from her, it doesn’t seem likely she wants to hide.” 

“That’s a fair assessment.” Tilting her head down to hide her face under her bangs, Mikoto flicked on her sharingan and snapped the document into her memory. It was possible that the woman had intentionally set it up that way for some sinister goal— if she’d somehow wanted it to reach Konoha— but with the nature of the jutsu, it didn’t seem likely. What sinister plan would come about from bringing a child’s loved one back to life? So far, there hadn’t been any obvious setbacks besides the chakra loss, and it seemed like that was part of the requirement for the summoning. That, and Sasuke had chosen a scroll at random— so unless all of the scrolls had an identical seal on the inside, this scenario had occurred entirely by chance.

It frustrated her that she couldn’t puzzle out the meanings. Damn the creator of this scroll and the woman who sold it, for taking half her son’s strength away from him. But she needed to be patient for just a little longer, so she remained calm.

“There’s also the wax imprint that the scroll was closed with.” Tsuru picked out a slip of paper and placed it in front of Mikoto. It contained an ink recreation of the design that had been on the wax— an abstract, twisting serpent. “I haven’t been able to trace that, either. The closest match I could find was the signature of an old Sage who’s been dead for years.” 

“So in short, you have nothing,” Mikoto said. Her words were clipped, but there was no malice in them. She was just frustrated. 

“We have enough to know that we’ll get nothing from textbook research,” Tsuru clarified. “We have to trace it to its source. That begins with tracking down the vendor. If you approve, I’ll begin working on getting the permissions to dispatch an ANBU team.” 

“If I approve?” 

“Well, yes— you’re the one who was summoned with it, after all.” 

Mikoto bit her lip, considered it a moment. As much as she wanted answers, she had a bad feeling about leaving the work in the hands of ANBU. ROOT was already one excuse away from eliminating her as it was. “Hold off on it for now, if that’s alright,” she finally said. “I want to make sure we have all the information we can find. To be honest, I’m worried there’s something deeper to this that we aren’t seeing yet.” 

Tsuru looked reluctant, but conceded. “I can double-check my research, if it would make you feel better. Meanwhile, I have several of our best fuuinjutsu experts working on deconstructing the seal. Though, earlier—” her voice softened— “I couldn’t help thinking how much easier this would be if we had Kushina.”

The topic shifted the tone of the conversation. Kushina still had quite the lasting reputation among Mikoto’s generation, it seemed. That was both refreshing and bittersweet. “I’ve been thinking that a lot lately, too.”

“I imagine so. You two were close, weren’t you? I was hoping you might’ve picked up a thing or two from her. You’re the only other person I assume she would have shared her knowledge with aside from our late Yondaime.” 

It was well-known that Minato had excelled with seals, but the power behind him in that aspect was always Kushina. Her skill with fuuinjutsu far surpassed his— something Mikoto had been able to witness firsthand. Unfortunately, Mikoto herself had never been drawn to fuuinjutsu, and never put much focus there beyond the jounin-level basics. Kushina had taught her a few tricks over the years they knew each other— and Mikoto would always cherish those pieces of knowledge— but it was nothing that would have allowed her to decode the meaning of this seal. She shook her head. “I’m sorry. Seals were never my specialty.”

“Hmm. That’s too bad.” Tsuru focused her attention to a textbook on the table, which was marked with the Uzumaki clan symbol on the cover. “Really, this would be easier if we had anyone at all from Uzushio. It’s a terrible shame, when shinobi feel the need to eliminate such a great wellspring of knowledge as an entire clan. So many justus, fighting styles, weapon makes, traditions, sealing techniques— just lost forever.” 

The sudden personal nature of the conversation caught Mikoto off guard. She briefly wondered if Tsuru had intentionally steered it that way. It had to be— surely she wasn’t oblivious enough to drive into such a subject without thinking of how her partner would react. “You’re right,” Mikoto said, in a carefully flat voice. “A terrible shame.” She pretended not to catch the side-glance Tsuru gave her, as though in wait of a further reaction. 

When none came, Tsuru let out a breath. “I’m sorry. I had no right to prod into a wound like that. I know we were never close, but I want you to know it broke my heart to hear the news five years ago. And for you to come back so suddenly... it feels like a miracle. Even if it doesn't feel that way for you.” 

“It has been very painful,” Mikoto admitted quietly. “But I’m glad to be here for my son.” 

“Ah, of course." A smile tinted Tsuru's words. "Sasuke must be so happy to have you back.” 

A flash of bitterness struck Mikoto, but she swallowed it down. None of these people had cared about Sasuke while he was alone. It was only now that he had her back that they felt the need to express how happy they were for him. Where was that concern when he was an isolated orphan? Hiruzen’s words from the meeting resurfaced in her mind— his open admittance that Sasuke’s care in the aftermath of the massacre had not been handled well. 

And then, inspired by the recent subject of Kushina, Mikoto was reminded of Naruto, and of the fact that the exact same thing had happened to him. 

In the wake of his parents’ deaths, he was denied to potential caretakers— Kushina’s friends and loved ones, especially Mikoto and her family. She thought of how desperately she’d wanted to look after that boy in Kushina’s honor, how angry and helpless she felt, and how ultimately she’d failed to do anything for him. 

This scenario was no different. Merciless guilt twisted in her stomach. She should have done more, tried harder, now that she knew just how gut-wrenching it felt to know her child had been cast aside for years. Back then, after the anger and the fighting, all the civil pleas to the Sandiame, there had been an assurance that Naruto's upbringing would be attended to and Mikoto was all but forced to drop the subject. Then in the years following, there was the self-justification— telling herself there was nothing else to be done, that she was doing all she could be expected to do by keeping her attention on her own family. That Naruto would be fine under the care of the Hokage. The Uchiha may not have liked him, but he had been good friends with Minato and Kushina. He could be trusted, at the very least, to ensure the care of their child.

She should have known better. 

Mikoto clenched her fists, closed her eyes and let the wave of regret roll over her. Even today, she was continuing to assure herself she was doing all she could, regardless of whether or not that was true. How could she give Naruto the justice he too deserved from Konoha? Her own children had to come first, no matter the cost. For Naruto, she would have to wait to figure something out when the time arrived. I’m sorry, Kushina. 

She thought back on what Tsuru had said about clans, the loss in eliminating them. Now that she was the only living adult left of hers, she was the only one who knew their secrets and generationally preserved techniques. That meant she had a responsibility to not only remember them for those who couldn’t, but to pass them onto the next generation so that they’d continue to survive. Itachi knew some of them; Sasuke, only the traditional fireball jutsu. That was all his parents had had time to teach him. 

As soon as her circumstances allowed for it, she would fix this. It would be a way to restore the clan, let them live on in their last remaining children. The thought both made her heart ache and reinforced her determination.

The first step in that was to get what she needed here. “May I see the seal?” she asked.

“Go ahead,” Tsuru said, passing her the scroll. “I don’t know how much more you’ll get out of it, though.”

Mikoto picked it up, pulled it open in her hands, and looked down at the detailed ink sigil. It was faded now that it had been used, further obscured in the center by the dark brown streak of Sasuke's dried blood. She hadn't had the opportunity to study it closely when she had first been summoned, so she took that opportunity now. What still shocked her the most was how complex it was— it was like nothing she'd ever seen before, not in Konoha or in any rival village during combat.

The paper seemed old, flimsy. Easy to destroy, if one wanted to. 

It was as Tsuru said— if they wanted any further answers, it was likely they'd have to track down the vendor themselves. 

For now, Mikoto flicked on her sharingan once more to preserve the seal in her memory. This way, she could draw out a copy of it later, or as close to the original as could be achieved with the faded ink and blood smear distorting it.

After a bit more time and a few additional documents passed between them, they began to wrap up, exchange parting words. Then, as Mikoto rose to her feet, Tsuru did something unexpected. 

She took one of Mikoto’s hands in both of her own, spoke in a hushed voice: “I know it’s been a long time, but want you to know I’ve never forgotten what you did for my little sister. I’m still in your debt. So if there’s anything else I can do for you… please don’t hesitate to ask.” 

Mikoto blinked, surprised. She hadn’t expected Tsuru to bring this up— an event that had occurred nearly fifteen years ago, ten in Mikoto’s time. But the mention caused her sense of opportunity to flare up, and she gently lifted her other hand to rest on top of Tsuru’s and smiled. “You’ve done enough for now. Thank you for this.” She gently squeezed her hand. “But if something comes up… I’ll let you know.” 

“Of course. Anything.” Tsuru nodded agreeably, let go. Her hands lowered to the front of her body and clasped together. “Take care, Mikoto. I’ll send you a summons if we discover anything new.” 

“Thank you,” Mikoto said again, and genuinely meant it. 

She exited the room then. As soon as the door shut behind her, she let out a breath and started down the hall. She found her way out of the building and back into the sunlit streets. 

There was now only one more thing to do before she would get to check on Sasuke. Team Seven would likely be back by this time, or at least returning soon. 

Just as she’d had that thought, a hawk’s cry sounded overhead and Mikoto looked up. 

The bird coasted lazily over the village rooftops, its white speckled underside visible from the ground where she stood. It cried again, warbled, and sailed out of sight. 

That purpose of that distinct hawk was lost on her a moment, though she knew it symbolized a summons. And then it hit her at once. Damn it! she thought. Today? 

She didn’t have time for this. There was far too much still to be done. 

This was quite possibly the very last thing she could have accounted for when planning for this particular day. It required a fast recalculation. There would have to be a detour here, and after that, no more time to waste. 

***

- 4 -

As soon as they’d returned to the village in the aftermath of another D-rank, Sasuke had separated from his team and now wandered the streets alone, thinking. He’d picked up on the fact that they were doing many low-ranking missions lately. Even though they weren’t particularly challenging, they forced him to be constantly aware of how much of his strength he was using at any given time, and so he was getting used to his disadvantage little by little. He could see and feel the small improvements, promising potential for more. He just needed to be pushed a little harder. 

After this particular mission, Sasuke and Sakura had walked through the Konoha gates with a beat-up and complaining Naruto strung between them. Kakashi trailed just behind, aloof as always. They’d teased Naruto for his clumsiness. Once they stopped, Sasuke had made his attempt to leave with plans to head straight for the training grounds, and Sakura had made a pass at him.

For a moment, he’d considered snapping at her, but thought better of it. He didn’t have time for this. He needed to get to the training grounds, as he’d been doing after each of their mission the last few days, to work on his chakra control. Consistent and grueling practice was the only hope he had of getting stronger in this state, and he had far too much to work on to bother himself with indulging his teammates’ wants. It was their fault if they couldn’t understand that. 

However, he had taken to heart his mother’s reaction to the way he treated them— and even if his mindset hadn’t changed too much, he had this new compulsion to be… friendlier. To make more of an effort at the teamwork thing, because that was what his mother wanted. His version of this was to say nothing instead of saying something mean. 

So instead of making a jab at Sakura for wasting her time, he’d simply bit his tongue, dismissed her and walked away. Naruto yelled something behind him, and Sakura refuted it with a snappish word, and Sasuke let them both fade into background noise as he headed on his way to the training grounds. 

A hawk soared overhead, letting out a cry. Sasuke looked up at it, momentarily jealous of its freedom. 

As he continued to watch it, it occurred to him that it wasn’t a native animal. Its distinctive patterning pegged it as foriegn— and though he couldn’t tell where it had come from, he knew its presence had to be a signal. 

Something was about to happen. 

What, exactly, he didn’t know. But the farther he got, the more he thought about it, and it nagged at him until he heaved a sigh and gave into that annoying voice in the back his his head, the one telling him to go back and check on his teammates, just to be safe. Reluctantly, he doubled back, telling himself it was just out of common sense and not a real concern for their safety. 

He headed back a little quicker than he intended to.

When he reached the area, he detected an unfamiliar flare of chakra— and then there was the wail of a child, and shortly after, he recognized Naruto’s voice shouting something, just on the other side of a fence overcrowded by trees.

After a thought, Sasuke collected a few rocks from the ground, deeming it precautionary to have a nondeadly weapon on hand. He decided to get a look at the disturbance before intervening and silently leapt up into the branches of thick-boughed tree, perching himself in a spot concealed by leaves, and observed what appeared to be the makings of a fight. 

Unsurprisingly, Naruto was at the epicenter, yowling at larger kid. This guy— and the girl next to him— immediately struck Sasuke as being out of place. If the hawk was an anomaly, these people were a glaring disruption in the Konoha landscape. 

The boy was hoisting up a younger kid by the shirt collar, gibing at him. Sasuke recognized the kid as one of Naruto’s friends, which explained why Naruto was involved. Sakura stood with him, interjecting with the occasional passive comment in an attempt to deescalate the situation. 

Why would foreigners be here? 

He continued to watch them intently. The boy cloaked in black, face streaked with purple paint. The girl with blonde hair, indifferently standing by. Soon it became clear to him that he wouldn’t learn much context unless he intervened. 

With that thought, he dropped down to a lower branch, reeled back the pebble in his hand and threw. 

***

Mikoto found herself back in Sarutobi Hiruzen’s office once again, this time surrounded by every other active jounin and chunin in the village. 

The air was tense. She could tell not everyone was pleased about the forthcoming announcement, same as her— though likely not for the same reasons. 

It began with questions from some of the other jounin, which Hiruzen responded to before explaining the purpose of the meeting, which was to officially announce the Chunin Exams. Mikoto listened and waited for it to finish, knowing that ultimately neither she nor Sasuke would be affected by the news. In his compromised state, he wouldn’t be allowed to take the exams, anyway. This was the reason Team Seven had been racking up their mission counts, and Sasuke’s performance in them, while improving, still wasn’t back to his original capacity. Kakashi would have recognized this and deemed it inappropriate to put him through the exams at this time.

As Hiruzen called forth the three jounin in charge of the new genin— Kakashi, Asuma, Kurenai— Mikoto admittedly let her mind drift to other things, anticipating that this would be over quickly. She was snapped back to awareness, though, when Kakashi answered the Sandiame’s question.

“As for Uchiha Sasuke, Uzumaki Naruto, and Haruno Sakura... I, Hatake Kakashi, recommend all three.”

Surprise froze Mikoto for a moment, and then her heart rate accelerated. All three? But Sasuke— 

The other two jounin-senseis proceeded to recommend the same. After this, a younger man came forward and spoke out, who Mikoto recognized as Sasuke’s academy instructor. 

“This may be out of place,” he said, “but please let me say one thing, Sandiame-sama. I was in charge of these nine in the Academy. They all have ability, but it’s too soon for them to take the exams."

He said what Mikoto wished she could, if she was able to risk making a scene, and Mikoto watched him be shut down. First by Kakashi, and then Hiruzen, calmly explaining away the young man’s concerns. It reminded her with a bitter pang of the way he’d dismissed hers.

She waited tensely, then, until the meeting was finally dispersed. When everyone started to trickle out, she caught Kakashi before he could leave. 

“Kakashi,” she said, in a forceful but hushed tone, “what are you thinking? Sasuke can’t take the exams in the state he’s in!” 

“I figured you would say that,” he mused, turning to face her halfway. “Don’t worry, I’m not going to force them to do anything. I just want to offer them the choice.” 

“But Sasuke’s going to—” She pinched the bridge of her nose, sighed harshly. “If you give him the choice, he’ll want to do it, no matter what we tell him. He thinks he has something to prove and he’ll break himself trying.” 

“I’m aware of that. I plan to advise him against it, just for caution. But if he really wants to, it will be an excellent motivator for him to get stronger, don’t you think?” 

That was true, and she knew it was necessary for Sasuke to improve his strength, no matter how it worried her. “In only seven days? It’s not enough time.” 

“I’ve been teaching Sasuke for long enough now to know what his strengths and weaknesses are, and how he responds to pressure. He’s done enough missions to be eligible. I know you’re his mother, but try to think of him as a shinobi here and not as a child in need of protection. He’s grown a lot.” 

The side of her that was a mother said he is a child and he is in need of protection, but the side that was a shinobi said that Kakashi had a point. She acknowledged both. Closed her eyes, considered her options for a moment. Then, finally: “Alright, fine. But let me be the first to talk to him about it.” 

“Fine by me.” Kakashi raised his eyebrow at her, as if waiting for something else, but Mikoto promptly turned and left. 

As she headed for the exit, Kurenai caught her eye and gave her a smile and a wave. Thrown for a moment, Mikoto returned the gesture half-heartedly. She’d used to see Kurenai quite often when the woman was younger— she had been the pupil of an Uchiha in her chunin days who had guided her in honing her genjutsu prowess, so she had been a frequent visitor in the compound.

That thought accompanied a sudden pang in Mikoto’s heart, for the people in this village who’d supported the Uchiha clan or who had been welcome guests within it. It was a reminder that goodness still existed here, even if ignorance suppressed it.

None of that mattered now, though. 

And for better or for worse, Mikoto knew that Sasuke wouldn’t be taking the exams no matter what Kakashi said, and no matter how she felt about it personally, because her plans got in the way of it. Her worry lied in how he would respond to the concept. She thought it would be easier to just tell Sasuke he couldn’t and then handle his anger in the aftermath. It felt cruel to tease him with the option, knowing full well she was going to be the one to take it away from him.  

She left the office quickly, knowing that she was now crunched for time. There was still one more task to complete before she could see Sasuke— and with her shadow clone already occupied, Mikoto would have to do it herself. But if everything went according to plan, it would only be a quick shop visit and a return to the apartment, and then she could be on her way. 

***

- 3 -

After the confrontation with the foreign shinobi, Sasuke headed straight back for the training grounds. He’d confirmed his own suspicions, there was something going on— they were here for the Chunin Exams.

That red-haired kid. Gaara. There was something deeply off about him. He was far too smooth for a genin his age, and the way those other two had looked at him— with shared expressions of thinly-veiled fear— was as good an indicator as any that he posed a considerable threat. 

Sasuke thought back on the boy with face paint, before Gaara had intervened. His words: You’re the kind of punk I hate the most. All talk and nothing to back it up. Normally, Sasuke would brush off a comment like that, but now...

He knew he wasn’t at his best. 

Bitterly, he thought about the battle in the Land of Waves. How pressured and helpless he’d felt, underneath the adrenaline of survival. He had hardly made it out of that fight alive, let alone actually won it, and if he was at half his power level now— there was no way around it. He wouldn’t stand a chance against these new opponents. 

He had to get better, and he had to get better now. 

***

Within a concealed structure underneath the streets of the Uchiha compound, the cloaked shadow clone dragged a brush over small slips of paper. 

Mikoto did this until she had a small stack of them. The seals were all identical, carefully drawn. A simple, familiar design.

The final one, though, was different.

She mapped it out on a much smaller card, this one with a chakra adhesive on the back. While drawing it out, she referred to a handbook propped open on the desk in front of her, detailing traditional Uzumaki seals. She followed this guidebook very carefully. 

After all, fuuinjutsu had never been her specialty. 

When these were all complete, she unrolled her wire and began attaching them, one by one, in precise lengths. All except for the small one. That, she slipped into the pocket at her jacket’s breast, sealing it shut. 

***

- 2 -

Sasuke’s breath came in sharp gasps. 

A sharp ache pounded in the roots of his eyes, but he forced his sharingan to remain on. He was only just getting started, after all. After running through several warmups and sparring with a clone, he now planned to work on his Fire Style repertoire. With the chakra control techniques he was practicing, he had been able to last a good amount longer than he normally would have. He knew he was improving, he could feel it— it just wasn’t near enough. He could still hardly compensate for the disadvantage, let alone get better than he was before. 

Just as he’d clasped his hands to form the first seal, there was the swish of someone appearing behind him and he felt the familiar presence before he turned his head to check. His mother stood there, flak jacket still on but unzipped, as though she’d just finished up training. Her forehead protector, though, was nowhere to be seen. She started a smile, but her face turned worried as she glanced over his condition— his heavy breathing, the sweat on his brow. “How long have you been at this?” she asked, stepping closer. 

Sasuke parted his hands, scrubbed his bangs from his face. “An hour…”

“It’s time to take a break. You’re exhausted.”

Sasuke clenched his fists and and nearly shook at the thought that this would have been nothing for him a few weeks ago. “I can’t,” he snapped. “Do you want me to stay weak like this forever? I have to push myself or else I’ll—” His voice cracked and he broke off, gritting his teeth. Mikoto just continued to look at him, her eyes concerned but knowing, as though she was waiting for him to calm down. Slowly, he took a breath and let some of the anger go. “Sorry.” 

Her hand found his shoulder, gentle and warm. “Let’s go home, Sasuke.” 

Home. That made more of his anger melt away, distracted by the warmth in the word. He had a home now, in the sense that he had a family to go home to. He just had to remember that, remember the reason his chakra was sacrificed, and that he would never reverse his decision for anything. Thinking this, he let go of some of the obsessive thoughts and let his mother lead the way back. 

It wasn’t the home he thought she had meant. 

He realized they were going the wrong way within a minute, but he didn’t fully accept where they were going until they were standing at the gate to the Uchiha compound. Why his mother would bring him here, Sasuke couldn’t fathom. 

Wouldn’t she hate this place even more than he did, with the wound being so recent for her? It made his blood freeze just to look at it. When he was alone, he’d never dare to set foot here if he had the choice. But with her presence, he realized, he was a lot less opposed. It added a long-lost comfort that made him feel much braver about facing the empty compound now, even if it still put him on edge.

“It’s alright,” Mikoto said soothingly, as though sensing his wariness. “I just want to show you something I’ve been working on.”

The knowledge that she had been here at all was new to him. His confusion was swamped, though, by the twisted sense of nostalgia this place brought on as he followed her through the gates.

The first thing he noticed was the running water. 

The formerly dry stream alongside the front path had been restored— the pipes were running again. The water rolled constantly into the bowl of the decorative pool, the way it used to when there were people living here. The next thing he noticed was the green. The dry grass had been cleared and there were new sprouts in their place. As they walked further, Sasuke started to spot planters with newly-placed flowers and bushes, or tiny sprigs of new growth.

“You did all of this?” he murmured, looking around for anything else notable— any other signs of life— as if some part of him expected all their dead clan members to be back too, that his eyes would fall on the old shopkeepers sweeping their storefronts or on Police Force members returning from patrol.

“I was able to get ownership of the district restored to us,” she told him. “And I’ve been trying to clean it up since then. Turn on your sharingan.” 

Sasuke did as he was asked. He then noticed all of the pinpricks of life, the hints of motion. Cats running underneath the building foundations, birds flitting from rooftops. 

“What do you think?” There was a smile in Mikoto’s voice as she watched him look around, taking in the change. 

Sasuke considered it. As much as this had made the compound less dismal, there was still a thrum of bitterness in his chest. Part of him found it almost wrong— an act of trivialization. “It’s good,” he murmured, “but it doesn’t replace what Itachi took away.” 

That made Mikoto fall silent. A few moments passed, and then she said, “I know. I’m angry, too. Angrier than I ever thought was possible. But we have to appreciate these small victories as they come, or else we’ll drown in all the dark things behind us.”

Sasuke looked over at her. She had her eyes fixed on a point somewhere in front of them, and he followed her gaze to see a skinny-looking black cat rolling around in a patch of new plants. It seemed happy. Once again he found himself faintly envying the freedom of an animal.

For a fleeting second, he considered asking her to help him. To accompany him in his goal to bring Itachi down and to restore justice to their family together. But even through desperation to accomplish this, he knew in the back of his mind that it would be unacceptable to ask a mother to kill her own son. This was something he had to do alone. 

No matter if or how she tried to stop him. 

“I wanted to be the one to tell you this,” she began again, quietly. “The Chunin exams are to be held a week from today.”

Sasuke perked up at the mention. “I know,” he said. “We ran into some genin from Suna in the village today. They told us.” 

Mikoto turned to look at him with a sudden concern in her eyes, slightly widened. 

“We didn’t fight," he assured her quickly. He didn’t tell her they had been moments away from one, if it hadn’t been for Gaara silencing his companions.

She calmed somewhat, shook her head. “Sandiame-sama gave us very short notice, if you found out before I did. We only just received the official announcement.” Then her voice lowered a notch. “You should know that Kakashi recommended your entire team.”

Sasuke’s heart seized in his chest. “All of us?”

“Yes. Including you. I told him I didn’t think it was a good idea, considering your physical state, but he insisted on giving you the choice— and I do think he’s right to say you deserve at least that.” She looked at him. “So I’ll leave it up to you, but please, think hard about it. I want you to do what you think is best for yourself, and it’s okay if that means saying no.” 

“I want to,” he said, and meant it entirely. “I need to if I’m going to get stronger.” 

Mikoto let out a slow sigh, and for a moment Sasuke thought she was disappointed in him. But then a smile came to her face. “I thought you’d say that.” She met his eyes again, and there was something tired and worn in her expression. “Let’s go back to the training grounds, then. I’ll spar with you.”

- 1 -

Mikoto led him to one of the training fields on the opposite side of the village, one that Sasuke wasn’t used to using. It was a field mostly used by jounin, as the contour of the land made it difficult for even fighting, and Mikoto insisted that it would help Sasuke learn. He accepted this, taking it as a sign of her faith in his ability. 

The sun was full and warm with the waning afternoon, tones of orange in the light promising sunset in only a few hours. Upon beginning, Mikoto introduced him to a traditional Uchiha form. She explained that it was one her own mother had taught her in her early genin days, and that she wanted to take this opportunity to pass on some of the Uchiha clan’s legacy to him while they had the time.

For the first part, Sasuke ran on adrenaline-- both in the excitement of receiving one-on-one training from another Uchiha and in the opportunity to prove his skills to his mother. He actually began to enjoy himself. That same feeling of approaching improvement returned.

They sparred, plain taijutsu, with Mikoto mostly taking up the defensive and giving him pointers on how to attack in ways that conserved his energy. Sasuke followed her directions, but also used what he’d learned from Kakashi to try to catch her off guard. After a while of that, she stopped him to change the scale of the fight.  

“Now, I want you to pretend I’m a real opponent,” Mikoto said. “I’m going to begin attacking you, no holds barred. Don’t be afraid to try to hurt me.” 

Try to, she said, because she knew Sasuke wouldn’t be able to land a real hit on her. That thought annoyed him slightly, even though he knew it shouldn’t have. Still, he geared himself up for the challenge, wanting to be on his best performance. 

The fight began. Mikoto moved fast, darting to dodge his attacks and reciprocate with her own, all smooth and controlled. She made no unnecessary moves. No energy wasted. Sasuke flicked on his sharingan, tried to record and mirror her movements. Her fist whooshed past his face and he leapt to the side, reeling into a retaliating kick. She wasn’t pulling her punches— she just trusted him to dodge them. He let that faith take root as a glimmer of confidence. 

The unresolved nature of their conversation at the compound soon began to bleed through, and then Mikoto asked a question. “Sasuke, there’s something I want you to tell me.” When he looked at her inquisitively through the whirl of the fight, she said, “What are you angry at?” 

The question caught him off guard. Why this, of all topics, right now? “You know what I’m angry at,” he said, a pinch of irritability in his voice. 

“I want you to say it.” She deflected a kick from him, sent it glancing off her armguard. 

“Fine. I’m—” he huffed out a breath, tried to control the venom in his voice— “I’m angry at Itachi.” Except ‘anger’ wasn’t nearly strong enough of a word. Nothing came close except hate, and even that didn’t feel like enough. It was something dark and vile and vicious inside him, an amalgamation of all his pain that grew claws and teeth and hunger, and all it wanted was to shed Itachi’s blood. To cause the same hurt that had been given to him, but most of all, to avenge all the Uchiha who couldn’t do it themselves. It was both righteous and deeply personal. 

“What else?” 

What else? There was nothing else! Sasuke narrowly dodged a lunge using one of the forms she had just shown him. Itachi was the focal point of all his anger, there was nothing else important enough to warrant it. 

Except— 

There was. 

Sasuke suddenly found it hard to swallow, and he combated the discomfort by attacking more aggressively. “I’m angry at you,” he admitted. “But it’s— it’s not the same.” 

“Why are you angry at me?” She asked it like she already knew the answer and just wanted him to say it out loud. 

It made him feel exposed, almost humiliated. “Because you won’t accept what happened. You don’t understand, and you don’t want to.” He became aware that the conversation was drawing up all of his hurt and anger to the surface, and that it was causing him to shake. His movements became more uncoordinated, thrown off. “It’s made me feel— that even after everything— Itachi is still always going to come first.” He had to force the last sentence out like a coil of barbed wire, and his voice split with the contempt in it. 

“That’s not true, Sasuke,” Mikoto said calmly, like she was being patient with him, as she used his own momentum to trip him up in his next attack. 

Sasuke regained his composure just in time to block a blow with crossed arms. “It sure feels like it is,” he snapped. Frustration formed a knot in his chest. She was being dismissive, not taking him seriously. “You said you were angry too, and yet you won’t let me avenge our clan. What exactly are you angry at?”

Mikoto diverted the question with the beginnings of a lecture. “When I was younger, I was taught that anger had no place in peace and therefore it had no place in me." In a swift motion, she used the incline of the land to her advantage, leaning into the slope in order to draw Sasuke’s momentum that way and throw him off balance. “Anger drives impulse and impulse causes death and chaos. Of course, that was wartime, and things are different now.” She then positioned herself on the higher ground, gaining the upper hand, and diverted all of Sasuke’s attempts to get around her. “We were taught to funnel our anger away where it could be made useful later, removing the factor of impulse. Gaining control. Then you would call upon your anger when you needed to act. That was when it became useful: in battle. There’s a careful balance to hold there, between power and blind rage.”

Sasuke didn’t understand why she was telling him this. No amount of controlling and suppressing would soften the anger he felt. 

“Now answer one more question for me: why are you angry?" 

The answer was obvious, and it ripped its way out of him with a vicious force. “Because he killed everyone!” This was so different from the conversation they’d had in the apartment days ago— this was cold and ruthless, the way she cut into the old wounds, instead of softening the impact and soothing him. There was a goal at the end of her questioning now. She had a point to make. Sasuke wished she would just spit it out. 

“Because you loved them. You loved your family and he took them away from you, and that anger wants to right the wrong. It’s powerful and distracting from the pain. Love is anger’s most powerful furnace— there’s nothing more dangerous uncontrolled than anger borne of love. You hate Itachi so strongly because deep down, you love him just as much.” 

Sasuke’s heart kicked into his ribs and he stumbled, tripped. It took a moment to process what she’d said, working through a wave of disbelief, and then a snarl tore from his throat before he could impede it. “No, that’s not true!” His voice betrayed him by cracking.

The concept filled him with revulsion so deep it made him sick. Disgust crawled through his every bone, making his hands quake harder, and he shook his head violently to clear it away. The blatant, unconcerned audacity in her statement, the fact that she’d dare say it after knowing exactly what Itachi had done, made him violent. It made him want to hurt. He threw himself at her, attacked faster and more aggressively, all inhibitions gone. On instinct, he began to funnel chakra into his taijutsu for more power. 

This time, he actually began to force her back considerably. Each time one of his blows made contact with her defenses, she stepped back, allowing his momentum to carry him forward. Her expression was controlled, letting through none of its usual warmth. This was Uchiha Mikoto as a shinobi, an ex-ANBU jounin— all traces of the side of her he knew were wiped away.

Sasuke thought about what she’d said: call upon your anger when you need to act. He let the emotion flow through him, giving power to his blows and quickening his instincts, bringing his goal into clarity. He managed to get some surprise out of her, just a flicker in her eyes— realization, perhaps, of how far he’d truly come from the seven year-old who sought his family’s validation. 

His strength was fading fast, though. In this haze, he hardly cared. He’d drive himself into the ground and force himself back onto his feet if he had to, over and over and over again until his body understood that he wasn’t going to allow it to give up. If he didn’t do that, he’d never make it. He’d never be able to beat those Suna shinobi, he’d never be able to pass the Chunin exams, he’d never get to kill Itachi— he’d never get to prove that she was wrong. 

He had no love left for his brother.

And even if he did, admitting it meant losing the fight forever. 

It wasn’t an option.

Eventually, when it became clear that the exertion was too much for him, Mikoto caught his wrist in the next attack, forcing him to stop. She released him and he stumbled into a crouch, breathing hard. 

“One more hour,” Mikoto said. “Sustain yourself for one more hour of this, and then we’ll finish for the day. Can you do that?”

Sasuke caught his breath, scrubbed the sweat from his face with the back of his hand, and nodded sharply.

- 0 -

An hour later, Sasuke fell to his knees, wheezing. Sweat dripped from his brow and pasted his shirt to his skin.

Mikoto lowered her hands to her sides, let out a breath. She looked at him, and suddenly there was that warmth again, melting away the ice in her face. Here was his mother, appearing back from underneath the shinobi’s mask. 

This time he didn’t want her comfort, though. She came closer, tried to touch him, and he pushed her hand away. Her betrayal still stung like an open wound— and that’s exactly what it was, a betrayal, because she was supposed to take his side and not his brother’s, she was supposed to understand, and instead she was still under the influence of the false image Itachi created. And Sasuke knew now that even that image of Itachi mattered more than him. “I can’t believe you,” he spat, struggling to his feet despite his exhaustion. “I can’t believe you’re still like this, after knowing what happened. Don’t you care? Don’t you care what he did to you? What he did to me?” His voice came out rough, with an undertone of desperation. “He’s not your son anymore! You don’t even know him, you never did!” Realizing he was trembling from the rage and exhaustion, he fought to steady himself, but clenching his fists only sent a tremor of weakness through him. He got very lightheaded for a moment and decided he was better left on the ground, so he sank back to his knees. Placed his hands in the grass, stared down as he fought for breath.

After giving him a few seconds to calm down, Mikoto crept over and knelt beside him. “I’m sorry, Sasuke,” she murmured, and her hand came to rest gently on his back. He flinched, but didn’t push her away this time. “For everything you’ve been through, and everything I’ve put you through, and for not being there when you needed me. You have every right to be angry— at me, your brother, or otherwise.” 

Sasuke closed his eyes and let out a shaky breath. That small validation unclenched something slightly in his heart, though it didn’t erase all the bitterness. He opened his mouth to say something— but was interrupted by a sharp sting of pain in the back of his neck. He flinched, realized she had attached something to his skin. “Ow! What—?” 

“Forgive me for this,” Mikoto said softly. 

In the next instant, less than a mile from where they were standing, the village border wall exploded in a sudden spray of smoke and flame. 

Sasuke had no time to express shock before his mother’s hand gripped firmly into his shoulder and pulled him with her into a shunshin.

Chapter Text

The world was pitch-black and silent when they reappeared. Mikoto collapsed to her knees, head spinning with exhaustion, and fought to catch her breath. With her halved chakra already split into a shadow clone, using shunshin to transport another body alongside herself over such a long distance left her levels quite low. 

She could hear Sasuke stumble beside her, disoriented. “Mom?” he said, voice jagged with shock, reeling from the sudden plunge into darkness. She felt his hands grabbing at her, clutching into her flak jacket. “Mom, what’s going on?” There was a note of worry in his tone, like he thought she was hurt. 

Mikoto placed one hand over his and squeezed, the only reassurance she could give in this state. She took careful, replenishing breaths, waiting for her head to stop spinning. Her ears rang from the sound of the explosion— from the stark contrast of loud noise and then sudden, suffocating silence— and she assumed Sasuke was experiencing the same thing. 

After a lull moment, she took a deep breath and struggled to her feet. Sasuke followed, clinging with one hand to her arm, keeping a point of contact. Their shuffling footsteps echoed in the stillness. Mikoto repeated the process she’d forced herself to memorize for this day: five paces in, then turn left. There was a lightswitch there. The faulty electric system flickered before springing to life, illuminating the space around them. 

The bunker was empty and disused. Dark concrete walls encased stifled air, sparse furnishings. Mikoto squinted against the flood of light, waiting for her eyes to adjust. Everything was still in place as it should be: the bags she’d packed for them sat propped against the wall nearby, next to folded dark cloaks. Sasuke blinked rapidly too, trying to look around and catalog their surroundings. He touched his fingertips to one of his eyes, pressed. A beat of distressed silence passed, then he said: “Why can’t I use my sharingan?” 

As Mikoto turned to respond to him, he seemed to find the answer on his own. His hands flew to his neck, to the seal she’d attached there. He clawed at it and she quickly swept forward and grabbed his wrists to stop him. “Leave it,” Mikoto said, voice hushed but serious. “It’s there to suppress your chakra for now.” 

He looked at her with widened eyes. There was something harrowing in his expression— a look of betrayal. “Why would you—?” 

“I’ll explain everything in a moment. But before I do that, I need you to understand one thing: we need to leave the village as soon as possible. Right now, we’re safe, but I estimate we have about an hour here at most, so I need you to listen very carefully to everything I say.” 

“What are you talking about?” Sasuke’s expression turned into a glare, masking over his other emotions with anger. He tried to pull out of her grasp, but she held fast. “An hour before what?” 

“Before they start to figure out where we are.” Anticipating his questions, Mikoto pointed behind him. 

He tore distrusting eyes from her to look over his shoulder, observing the faded paint of an Uchiha crest on the farthest wall. With his eyes adjusted, he would be able to more clearly see the rest of the bunker— the indicators that it was meant to be inhabited, like the ventilation system in the ceiling and the mats on the floor. 

“We’re currently underneath the district,” Mikoto continued. “This bunker was constructed after we first began planning, but we never ended up using it.” They’d known the risks, calculated them. In the case that their revolution turned sour and violence broke out, all of the most vulnerable members of the clan would have been safe in here. Though it was never stocked with the necessary provisions for that, it had the space, and most importantly, it had an escape route out of the village through the back. “It’s concealed with an S-rank genjutsu, completely undetectable, but they’ll become suspicious of that eventually. With some hands-on searching, it would be possible to find the entrance.” 

Sasuke turned back to look at her and his eyes revealed an apprehensive fear, developing from the realization of how much there was that he didn’t know. “What planning?” 

“I’ll get to that. Now, we—”

“What was that explosion?” he said, voice quickening as he began to put together the pieces himself. This time he jerked his hands out of her hold, stepped backwards. “What did you do?” 

Mikoto let out a breath. “That was our cover for now. I didn’t hurt anyone, just caused a scene.” Sasuke was staring at her like a cornered animal, his body language a mixture of defensive anger and fear like he thought she was going to hurt him. It broke her heart. “Sasuke, come here. Please.” She lowered her voice to a soft, gentle tone. “Let’s sit down, alright? We both need to recover before we can do anything else.” He was exhausted too, as she’d made sure of before bringing him here. In the need to rest, there was a prime opportunity to talk.

“I’m not leaving anywhere with you,” he snapped, backing away from her. “I don’t even know if I trust you anymore.” 

“Let me explain everything,” she said. “You can be angry at me later, when we’re safe, but right now I need you to listen to me. This is the only place I can speak openly without putting us in danger."

Sasuke’s anger wavered then, but his tone remained defensive. “What do you mean my safety?” 

“Come sit on the mats with me, and I’ll tell you. Alright?” She stared at him, waiting for his reaction, until, finally, he gave a short nod. Mikoto beckoned him, making her way further into the bunker to where the cold concrete floor was covered by tatami mats, and knelt down. Sasuke, after a moment’s hesitation, hesitantly followed and settled down across from her. The dry mat crinkled underneath his weight.

From here, Mikoto could see the doorway that led to the escape route. She stamped it into her vision, wondering for a moment if she’d be able to take them both through it fast enough in the case that they needed to make a sudden exit.

Sasuke looked at her expectantly, waiting for answers, and a sudden apprehension surged up in Mikoto. The tenseness in his body language betrayed the fear she had already caused in him and she knew her words now would rip away his control over it. An intense protectiveness for her son threatened to silence her completely, but every circumstance she created had aligned to allow her this time and she couldn’t afford to waste it now. Concealed in a blind-spot location, her ROOT pursuers distracted, entrance to their location hidden with a three-layer genjutsu she’d spent her time in the compound meticulously crafting— this was her only opportunity, so she let out a slow breath to calm her nerves. She would feel her guilt, sadness and exhaustion later, just as she’d thrust aside her grief. 

“Sasuke, before I begin,” she started quietly, “I need you to know that I love you, and everything I’ve done up to this point has been for your sake. You are not secondary to your brother and you never have been.” She waited for him to take in the words, watched his reaction— the tightening of his brows, the blinking. He looked down, away from her eyes. “And I’m sorry for thrusting you into this mess so suddenly. I know it’s frightening and confusing, but no matter what happens, trust that I will do everything in my power to protect you. I promise you that. You are my sole priority.”

He didn’t say anything to that, but his eyes softened slightly and he gave a hesitant nod. 

Mikoto kept her voice careful, calm. “I’m going to tell you everything that’s been kept from you. It’s going to be hard to hear, and we don’t have the time to address it all, so all I need you to understand and accept right now is why we need to leave. I don’t want to take you against your will.” Sasuke seemed to pick up on the unspoken meaning: I don’t want to, but I will if I have to. “You will have questions, and I’ll answer them as soon as we’ve fled to a safe place. All I ask for now is that you try to trust me. Can you do that?”

It took Sasuke a long time to come up with an answer. He seemed to be trying to appraise her honesty, feelings and logic likely at war inside him. After a stretch of uncertainty, he finally let out a breath and said, “Fine.” 

Mikoto's shadow clone perched in wait in a tree just outside the village, wreathed in a clearing smoke. She’d distorted herself with a transformation jutsu, wearing the form of a stranger. Her clothes had taken on the appearance of a black armored jumpsuit. Bandages wound up her neck and covered her mouth, and her hair had turned short and russet-red, her eyes light green. 

In her mind, she counted the seconds. Moment by moment as it passed, waiting for the ANBU Black Ops to arrive, for her world to be swarmed by adversaries. 

The orange glimmer of seared paper bomb fragments drifted through the air and settled on the grass in front of her. From here, she could see the hole the bombs had created in the village wall. It wasn’t quite enough to cripple the wall’s integrity entirely, but she could hear the shudder of the beams and bricks above it as their weight distributed around the displacement. A few more chunks of rock fell, thumping onto the dust and debris-sprayed ground below.

It wasn't long before the first respondents arrived. A sudden barrage of shuriken whizzed in her direction before she even saw the person who threw them and she used a kunai to deflect them all, leaping backwards into the branches. Two chunin appeared then, leaping through the hole in the wall, and there was a shouted word that Mikoto didn’t catch. Their features and movements were difficult to discern in the dust and smoke without the aid of her sharingan but she anticipated their movements to the best of her ability, leaping further up into the tree to evade them. Reaching into a pouch at her hip, she withdrew smoke bombs and threw them. 

From their perspective, she was an unknown missing-nin with unknown motives who’d breached the wall of the village. No doubt her intentions with the hole in the wall would be noticed: that it was just large enough to imply passage for a small group of shinobi, not enough to do crippling damage, and the fact that she was positioned in wait here as a distraction. As a shadow clone, her only mission was to create time. She was a separate facet of the greater plan. A piece of the whole. So she did what she was instructed to do— she stalled. Defended herself, attacked when necessary, created confusion. 

With a cresting leap she evaded another barrage of shuriken, then sensed the whir of the wire attached to them the second before they glinted in the sunlight, yanked back in her direction. She used a substitution jutsu with a rock and wound up on the ground. 

At the moment she snapped her head up, an entourage of ANBU Black Ops arrived on the scene, alongside a few tailing jounin. She backtracked further into the forest and blanketed another genjutsu around herself, one that threw the sound of her movements in addition to concealing her image. As she retreated far enough into the trees to gain a vantage point on the newly-arrived shinobi, she could see that one of the accompanying jounin was Kakashi. Mikoto’s shadow-clone heart skipped a beat— he was exactly the person she needed to see. The pieces of her plan were falling into place, and now, if she’d predicted correctly, the next series of events would lead her directly to the final important task on her list.

As though sensing her attention, Kakashi’s gaze immediately turned in her direction. With his sharingan eye unsheathed, he could see through the majority of illusions— meaning he was the only one among them that could see her. “Go search the surrounding area for infiltrators,” he then said to the other shinobi around him, without taking his eyes off Mikoto. “She’s just a clone; this is a diversion.”

Several of the ANBU Black Ops agents dispersed into shunshin, and others took off traveling in a different direction, calling out ambiguous commands to the other shinobi. Mikoto watched the two chunin from earlier turn on their heels to follow, displaying the red Uzushio symbol on the backs of their flak jackets.

Would Kushina tear down the village walls for the sake of her son? Mikoto thought she would, if she was here to see what they’d done to him. 

Mikoto looked back to Kakashi and held his sharingan gaze. He was able to discern not only her genjutsu, but the fact that she was just a clone, and if her analysis of him was correct, he would soon be able to tell exactly who he was up against. 

She glanced at the disappearing backs of the other shinobi once more, making sure they left out of earshot before she could proceed with the plan. Deeming it pointless to keep up her concealing genjutsu, she let the illusion fall away just as Kakashi formed a series of hand signs and a lightning jutsu roared to life in his palm, splashing a jagged white light onto everything around him. Mikoto turned tail to flee and began leaping through the tree branches, picking up speed. The nostalgic rush of adrenaline that surged through her with the chase was almost sweet. It had been years since she was involved in any sort of real fight— and, though it wasn’t something she would readily admit, she had sorely missed it. 

A tree behind her exploded into splinters as Kakashi pursued in her wake, lightning jutsu screaming. Mikoto continued to leap out of its range, diverting her path in unexpected directions, before leaping high up into the treetops and forming the seals for a fireball jutsu. She whipped around, the familiar concentration of hot chakra bubbling up from her chest and unfurling in the form of fire from her mouth, and set the trees behind her ablaze. 

Kakashi was forced to double back to avoid the flames, but he recovered near instantaneously— quick enough to bar Mikoto’s sudden rush. She went for his Chidori arm, aiming a kick that would’ve splintered bone if it had made contact, and Kakashi dodged to avoid it. His lightning jutsu crackled out, forced to dissipate in order to prevent misdirection with the sharp movement.

Then, for a few spitfire moments, the fight was pure taijutsu. Mikoto stuck strong to her usual style— valuing speed and leverage, never any more movements than necessary to avoid wasting energy. 

Kakashi was faster than her, though. It made sense, with him having been trained by the fastest shinobi in history, and it was a trying effort for Mikoto to keep up with him. She had to continually put distance between them in order to keep some sort of upper hand, to delay him slightly so she had time to retaliate. 

At last, the moment she was holding out for arrived. Kakashi stopped suddenly and leapt back, creating a wide distance. Mikoto eyed him expectantly, still poised for defense. 

As a shadow clone, her thoughts, similarly to her physical form, were more simplified— just a piece of a more complex system. She had her roles in mind and enacted them beat-for-beat just as she was meant to, as was placed into her cloned mind upon her creation. Now that Sasuke was safe, hidden away from the prying eyes and harmful hands, she was free. She could say what had been threatening to burst out of her ever since her return. 

"Drop the ruse,” Kakashi said, straightening up. “I know it’s you, Mikoto."

Mikoto couldn’t help the feeling of satisfaction that uncoiled within her chest. Kakashi had not failed her. It was as she assumed— in the time they had spent together, he had used his sharingan eye to catalog and memorize her fighting style, and he had recognized it now in their conflict, underneath her guise of a plain, nondescript missing-nin. “Smart,” Mikoto praised him. She released the transformation jutsu with a hand sign, restoring her true appearance. 

“Thanks.” Kakashi’s posture visibly relaxed, as though they were just conversing as friends, a clear tactic to lure Mikoto into comfortability. “Mind explaining to me what you’re doing?” His tone of voice indicated he already had a good enough guess. 

“I’m removing my son from an unfit environment.” 

At that, Kakashi grew infinitesimally more guarded. “Where is Sasuke now?”

“Somewhere safe.” Mikoto looked at him, at his borrowed sharingan eye, and felt a tactical remorse for him. He’d undoubtedly see thus as a personal failure, allowing one of his students to be kidnapped by someone he called a friend. "I owe you an apology, Kakashi. I'd like you to know that I'm sorry about this, and for everything that will come afterwards.”

"Appreciate it," Kakashi said. "I'd prefer if you brought my student back over an apology, though." 

"I won't be able to do that. I don't trust you or anyone else in this village to protect him." 

“Protect him?” His voice took on an inquisitive tenseness. “We just had this conversation back in the Hokage’s office. I respect that you’re his mother, but Sasuke’s not a helpless child; he’s a capable genin with more than enough skill to protect himself. Which makes me wonder how he feels about this.” 

“I’m well aware that Sasuke won’t be pleased.” That was putting it rather lightly. Mikoto expected nothing short of the worst in terms of Sasuke’s response to her interference, and that thought, even in her simplified clone state, made her heart twist. “I’ve considered the risks and the consequences and nothing is more important to me than his safety. I’d rather have his resentment for the rest of my life than face his death.” 

“Are you saying Sasuke’s life is in danger?” Kakashi was skeptical, but not dismissive, still trying to draw information out of her. 

“Yes. And if not his life, then his freedom.” Looking at him, Mikoto thought about Kakashi and his sharingan eye. Thought about Uchiha Obito. Wondered once again if respecting a dead child’s wishes truly was worth the allowance of granting an outsider access to their kekkei genkai. She’d never been a purist, even though she took great pride in the clan’s honor, but many of her advisors were. She wondered now if there had been merit to the way they thought. It didn't change her mind, but it made her introspective. “Let me ask you something, Kakashi. How much do you know about the night my clan was massacred?” 

A slight change of expression came over Kakashi’s face then. He became noticeably warier. It took him a moment too long to speak, as though considering the weight of his words. “I know Itachi killed everyone in the district,” he finally said. “All except for Sasuke.” 

“And you believe he did this simply because he wanted to?”

Kakashi didn’t answer that. 

“Now that I’m back, I’m the only living person here who was actually present during that night,” she continued. “I’m the only true witness. Because of that, there are certain people in this village who want to keep me quiet about it, and I have reason to believe they are not above using Sasuke against me.” 

Kakashi took a moment more to consider that. Then— “Alright. What do you know that these ‘certain people’ don’t want you to?”

Now they were finally getting somewhere. “That Konoha is at fault for the massacre. Itachi was used.” The words left her mouth like a weight from her shoulders. “I don’t know which one of them put the idea in his head, but Sarutobi enabled it and Danzo and the others are at the very least complacent. All four of them are still working to cover the truth today. If you’d like more first-hand information, get it out of them.” 

“And why should I believe you?” 

“I’m not asking you to mindlessly take my word for it, I’m asking you to figure it out on your own. You knew my son, Kakashi, I know you know there’s more to the story than what you’ve been told. But I will tell you this, and you can choose whether or not you believe me: he was weeping the night he killed us.” She thought about the sound of his supressed sobs behind her, the tremble of his sword. The beginning of an apology that she cut him off from. “And his last words to us were a promise that he would take care of Sasuke.” 

There was a thick, heavy silence between them for a few seconds. “He could have been lying,” Kakashi said then, keeping his composure even though he’d visibly stiffened, “because, as you can see, he hasn’t exactly been here taking care of Sasuke.”

“I know he hasn’t,” she snapped. The words came out raw with more harshness than she’d intended, but thinking about this dug up the still-fresh anguish in her. Her skills were degrading— she’d been so good at keeping herself controlled in the past, staying steady even under intense emotional stress. Now it took so little prompting to split her composure at the seams. “It’s why I’m going to find him and ask him what the hell he’s thinking. But he loved Sasuke more than anything; if you believe nothing else, believe that. I imagine it’s how the council convinced him— they used Sasuke, the same way they’ve tried to use him against me.” 

“If this is true, then what’s the motive?” Kakashi was still treading lightly, logical, but Mikoto could tell he was on the way to being convinced. “Why would the council want the Uchiha dead?”

“At the risk of tainting your opinion of me further, Fugaku and I were planning a revolution. It was years in the making. The Uchiha clan was going to take power from our oppressors in a bloodless coup d'etat.” Seeing his expression narrow, she added, “If you were in our position, you would understand. We were out of options. And, as it would seem, so were they.”

Kakashi straightened up, but there was an angle to his shoulders now, like she’d just transferred the weight of her burden to him. “And Itachi was in ANBU at the time,” he said. “That’s how they knew, isn’t it?”

Mikoto nodded.

Kakashi then sighed. He closed his eyes, reached up, and shifted his headband back over his sharingan eye. That simple gesture was enough to let Mikoto know she had succeeded, and a wave of relief washed over her. Even if Kakashi wasn’t fully convinced yet— even if the concepts were just a seed in his brain— she had told somebody the truth of what happened. She had let it out from under her skin, like steam from a boiling pot, and Sasuke was safe from the consequences. 

“They’ll never stop hunting you,” Kakashi said, quieter. “Is that really the life you want for Sasuke?”

“It’s not,” she admitted, “but I have little other choice, so long as ROOT is around.” 

Kakashi’s eye narrowed again at that. “ROOT was disbanded years ago.” 

“Clearly not. It should come as no shock that you’ve been lied to about that, too. And I’m sorry, but you can’t stop me from leaving. Even if you could somehow make it safe for us here, responsibility calls me elsewhere. I have to find Itachi before anything else can be done. But trust that this will not be the last time you see us. I will return here to clean up the mess I’m leaving behind as soon as I’ve finished tying up loose ends.”

“You won’t be welcomed,” Kakashi said. 

“I know. But if my plan pans out the way it’s meant to, my sons will be.” 

Kakashi pressed the heel of his palm to his covered eye, looking suddenly very tired. “I hope I don’t come to regret this,” he sighed. “What can I do?”

***

Underneath the ground of the Uchiha district, Sasuke sat tensely across from his mother and listened as she explained the extent of spying she had endured since returning to life. 

He was shocked by this, made anxious of the implications behind it. All the while, his head spun with the jarring urgency of the situation, information in loose pieces repeating on a track in his mind. They had to leave the village. His mother was going to make him leave, whether he wanted to or not. And the explosion she’d created was a deliberate attack— if she’d done it so openly like that, even if it was just a diversion, that meant she didn’t have plans to return. That this was both serious and permanent. 

He had so many questions, but kept his jaw shut tight. These conditions, in a strange way, called upon his ingrained knowledge from childhood: it reminded him of times at home when he would hear lectures from his parents in the sitting room, knelt across from them on the floor, and he had been raised to not speak in those situations unless invited to. He found himself falling back on that learned behavior here, perhaps for an unconscious sense of order amidst the chaos. 

She continued to explain further. "They’ve taken greater measures to keep me quiet, beyond the constant spying. Five days ago, the morning that you told me the truth of what Itachi did to you— I told you that you were wrong about Shisui’s death, that Itachi didn’t kill him.” Sasuke gritted his teeth to prevent himself from objecting. “After you left the apartment that morning, I was summoned once again to the Hokage’s office because I had revealed a piece of information that they didn’t want known. In that meeting, they bargained for my silence by offering me ownership of the Uchiha district. We weren’t allowed back in our home unless I complied with them.” A barb of bitterness showed through her words and Sasuke was surprised to see his mother so intense. 

“But you agreed,” he concluded, and Mikoto nodded. 

“But my agreement wasn’t enough. That same night, an agent sought me out and to ensure that I’d stay faithful to the bargain, they threatened your safety. From that point I knew I had to get you out. That’s why we’re here— I had to bring you somewhere we wouldn't be overheard, somewhere we could escape without being seen.”

A hollow pit formed in Sasuke's stomach. He became aware of the sweat on the back of his neck, of the tenseness in his body. She could probably see his discomfort displayed all across him like a signboard, and that thought only emphasized this residual state of angry vulnerability she’d forced him into earlier. He drew his hands into fists. “Why are they so suspicious of you?” 

“They’re wary of me because you, alongside everyone else in this village, have been lied to about the circumstances of our clan’s demise, and I know the truth. The village elders would prefer for the information I know to remain buried. You created problems for them when you brought me back. It’s no fault of your own, but it’s gotten you stuck in the center of this mess, and therefore put you in harm’s way.” 

Deeply confused and frustrated, Sasuke snapped, “What do you mean I’ve been lied to? I know what happened, I’m the one who lived through it!”

“You know only what Itachi chose to show you.”

That made Sasuke’s heart lurch. Before he could force an angry word in, Mikoto reached out to gently grasp one of his hands in her own. 

“Just listen,” she told him. “You can be angry later. Remember what I told you?”

Sasuke clenched his jaw. He struggled not to show how wary he was, how her touch felt both comforting and repulsive at the same time. Funnel your anger away where it can be made useful later. Sasuke bit the inside of his cheek to force himself not to interject. Despite his anger and tenseness, he did have it in him to feel a small shame for disrespecting his mother’s authority. He was supposed to be listening. He lowered his head stiffly, conceding to silently listen. 

She let go of his hand and continued. "In order for you to understand what's happening now, I first need you to understand the way things were back then. You were too young to know these things at the time, but had we lived longer, they would have been explained to you. Our clan has been in disagreement with the village for a decade, ever since the aftermath of the Kyuubi attack when you were a baby. Konoha falsely suspected that we launched the attack ourselves, and this suspicion turned into a long-standing mistrust and prejudice, which we bore for many years. It reached its peak around the time you were seven.” 

Sasuke struggled to fit this information into his current worldview. First, it drew up a faint sense of shocked anger, underneath the whirling apprehension of the circumstances, that the Uchiha were ever accused of betraying the village in such a way. Second, if Konoha and the clan had been at odds for his entire life, it sure explained a few things he could remember feeling confused about. The secrecy within the clan, the tenseness in his parents, the constant meetings and the importance placed on them. He could remember his father’s reactions when Itachi refused to go to these gatherings. The reminder just made Sasuke uncomfortable, drawing his thoughts to the multitude of signs Itachi had shown that he simply did not care about them. Sasuke wondered if his mother had noticed those signs or if she was just as ignorant as he had been.

“We were continuously being shut down, ignored, and confined in our attempts at argument, and with no influence in the upper levels of the village, we needed a pipeline in. That is what your brother became when he joined the ANBU Black Ops. Do you remember that?”

Sasuke did remember that, of course, because it was the catalyst of his first real feelings of resentment towards Itachi. He gave a short nod. 

“Now,” Mikoto continued, letting out a careful breath, “Itachi was never… deeply connected to the clan, as it was. There was always a distance within him. And during this time, he became more distant and secretive than usual. From my observation, I believe his involvement in ANBU, as well as the growing tensions within the clan, swayed his beliefs to the opposite side.”

At this point, Sasuke could feel his heart palpitating in his chest. It was as though a mental immune system had activated, sensing the uncomfortable thoughts and immediately seeking to destroy them. Memories resurfaced of overhearing arguments between his father and brother late at night, not understanding the context of the words they’d said. He remembered walking on eggshells around them both. Remembered fearing that they hated each other. Sasuke could feel the direction this conversation was going, even if it didn’t fully register, and it came with a deep and all-consuming dread.

“Eventually, it became clear to us that Konoha required a change of power if we were to be heard and respected, so your father and I along with our close council began to prepare plans for a revolution. Itachi disapproved, so he passed information about us to his superiors in ANBU. They decided—” Mikoto’s voice suddenly hitched, and she closed her eyes and exhaled sharply as though frustrated with herself. Seeing this lapse of composure in his mother increased Sasuke’s fear. “They decided there was only one way to stop us.”

Sasuke felt sick. His throat was so dry it hurt to speak. “I don’t want to hear this,” he suddenly said, and meant it so urgently he could barely breathe.

“They orchestrated the massacre of our clan,” Mikoto told him. “Your brother was the channel through which they chose to do it.”

Sasuke jolted to his feet, stumbling back. “You’re delusional! ” He spat the words out, shrill. “You’ll make up anything just to believe he’s innocent, won’t you? I told you what he did to me! He did it on a whim, to test his own ability! There was nothing else to it!” 

“As I said, you only saw what he chose to show you.” Mikoto remained deathly serious. She kept calm, still kneeling, and Sasuke barely noticed the fragility in her. “Itachi lied to you on that night. He was coerced into killing his own kin. There is only one purpose in the world that would drive him to do such a drastic thing, and that is your safety. Your brother loves you, Sasuke, he always has.”

“Stop lying!” It felt like his ears were ringing and he pressed his hands to them, stepping back. 

Mikoto rose to her feet and came towards him. “Sasuke, look me in the eyes.” 

Sasuke shook his head violently, hating every second as it passed. He finally forced himself to meet her gaze, only to find himself staring into sharingan— a black star-like pattern on red— and being reeled at once into an unfamiliar memory. 

It was dark in the head bedroom of their family house and deeply, inhumanly quiet. 

Mikoto sat still in the center of the floor, eyes closed, hands resting in her lap. Behind her, there was a soft rustling as Fugaku adjusted one of the wall tapestries. There was an air of knowing finality between them.

“He will be here soon,” Fugaku said, ringing clear in the silence. 

Mikoto said nothing, but stood and crept toward him on silent feet, coming close. She looked up at him, and for a moment, their eyes met.

Then Fugaku cast his eyes down. “I’m sorry, my love,” he murmured to her. He took her hand in his, raised it to his lips briefly, then touched their clasped hands to his forehead. Mikoto leaned in to meet him there, resting her brow against their interlocked fingers. Her other hand came up to cup his face, tracing the line of his cheekbone with a featherlight touch. 

It had been months since they’d last touched like this. Affection lost from their relationship, resurfacing in the approaching end. With it, cresting wave of gratitude hummed between them, unspoken but mutually felt. 

They then parted from one another. They didn’t speak again, instead simply finding their places in the dark and kneeling down side by side. 

Moments of long, heavy silence passed before they sensed the presence and Fugaku spoke again. “There are no traps,” he said, so stark against the soundlessness that it may have traveled throughout the compound, though there was no one left alive to hear it. “Come inside.” 

Quiet, mediated footsteps. The door behind them squeaked open, expanding a plane of blue moonlight on the floor, Itachi’s silhouette carved dark within it. He stepped silently into the bedroom.

“I don’t want to participate in a death match with my son. I see… that you’ve aligned with the other side.” 

Itachi’s footsteps halted. “Father,” he began, voice hardly above a whisper, “Mother, I…”

Mikoto spoke into the hitch in his words, calm and composed. “We already know, Itachi.” 

Fugaku spoke after her without lapse. “Itachi, promise me this. Take care of Sasuke.”

A wordless lull. Then: “I will.”

“This is the path you’ve chosen,” Fugaku continued, delivering advice to his son for the last time. “Do not fear it. Compared to yours, our pain will end in an instant. Our philosophies may differ, but I am proud of you.” 

The sound of a half-suppressed sob broke the silence this time. Mikoto had never wanted to comfort her son so much, but the time was long past. All she could do to help him now was to say nothing at all. 

Fugaku filled in the words for her, as Itachi’s sword flashed with a reflection of moonlight and Mikoto closed her eyes. “You truly are a kind child.” 

The memory ended abruptly. 

Upon being ripped back to reality, Sasuke gasped so hard it burned his throat and stumbled back, nearly falling before his mother caught him firm around the arms. She lowered him gently to the ground with her instead as he fought for air, head spinning. 

“We cast aside the burden of our grief in order to ease his own,” Mikoto continued, withdrawing her hands from Sasuke’s arms. “We allowed him to end our lives, our solace the knowledge that the two of you would survive us. In that moment I wasn’t an Uchiha or a clan head. I was just a mother.”

“It’s not true,” Sasuke croaked once he found his voice, hoarse and trembling. He shook his head. “It’s a genjutsu. It’s not real. ”

“Do you really believe that?” 

Sasuke made an anguished noise and clutched his hands in his hair. The fading oppressive sorrow of the memory hammered low in his chest like a sickness, the images of his parents’ final goodbye— the moments before their deaths— lingering with it, so different from what Itachi had showed him. He could feel his voice splintering, too tired for hysteria but on the knife’s edge of it. “Then why would he do those things to me?” Nearly a sob. “Why would he make me watch it over and over and over again? Why tell me to kill my best friend, why tell me to—” He inhaled sharply, sniffled. Foster your hatred, echoed his mind like a mantra, and when you’re strong enough, come find me. Those words had been his survival. He no longer knew what they meant. 

“I don’t have those answers for you,” his mother told him, soft and direct, “but we’re going to find them. I promise you that. I told you I was angry, too, remember?— and I am. We’re going to get answers, no matter what it takes. So please, I know this hurts, and it’s going to for a long time, but I will help you work through it. We will be okay.”

A multitude of terrible thoughts spun through Sasuke’s mind. He wanted to say no. To pull back, run away, and assess the situation himself; to somehow discover that she was lying and his entire world was not turned upside-down after all. He found himself unable to focus his eyes, staring down at the blurry floor. 

“Sasuke?” Mikoto laid a warm hand on his cheek and he flinched back, like the touch stung. She retracted her hand immediately. 

There was something— something stiff and tightly coiled inside his chest, compressing his lungs. It was hard to breathe. He didn’t like this. He didn’t like being trapped underground in this unfamiliar place, didn’t like knowing what it was meant to be used for, that his clan were traitors, and that their deaths were not an act of random, violent murder by his unfeeling brother, but a calculated genocide by the village he lived and trained in his whole life. That the brother who killed his parents, tormented him and degraded him did it all, in some twisted sense, out of love. 

Itachi loves me, he thought, and the words felt so wrong in his mind that he wanted to purge them. He had spent five years convinced they were a lie. It wasn’t just that he didn’t believe them, he knew they weren’t true, as well as he knew anything else real and perceptible in his life. 

And yet, with the sound of his brother’s sobs from the memory in his head, Sasuke remembered something else. 

He remembered being full of grief and anger, running after Itachi and throwing a kunai as hard as he could. He remembered collapsing on the ground in exhaustion afterwards, head swimming, feeling faint. He remembered Itachi turning around to look at him. 

There had been tears on his face. Sasuke had seen the shine of them in the moonlight, just before he passed out.

He didn’t know what to do with the knowledge. It confused him, even if he knew now that it was real. Suddenly his vision swam, he became dizzy. He closed his eyes, clutching his head in his hands and curling in on himself.

“Sasuke,” his mother said softly. “May I remove the seal on your neck?” 

Sasuke barely heard her. After the time it took him to comprehend the words, he slowly withdrew his hands from around his head, allowing her to reach toward him and pull the seal free delicately. He refused to look at her. As soon as it was off his skin, he felt something stutter to life inside him, as though his chakra system was rerouting all over again. 

Upon completing this, Mikoto turned to the packs leaning against the wall beside them. She dug something out of a pocket— a small fabric bag, which she opened and held towards Sasuke. “Hold out your hands,” she said. It took Sasuke a moment too long to comply, unwrapping himself like a small child coming out of a nightmare. She then tipped the bag slightly into his palms, causing a food pill to roll out. “This will help you get your energy back.” She closed the bag and returned it to its place. There, she also brought out a bottle of water, which she handed to him. 

Sasuke blinked, finding the act of lifting the tablet to his mouth and splitting it between his teeth to be immensely difficult. With weak hands, he uncapped the bottle and just looked at it, unable to drink. “Where are we going to go?” he managed, voice hoarse. 

“Sora-ku,” Mikoto responded without skipping a beat. “I’ve sent a message already so they know we’re coming. Do you remember Nekobaa and Tamaki? We’ll be staying with them.” 

Sasuke swallowed dryly, nodded. He did remember. All of his memories of that place had Itachi in them. That reminder tightened the coil in his chest, heightening the sense of crushing panic that loomed just outside his emotional field. 

There was nothing he could do to process this knowledge. It just existed, in the air between them and in him, now, and he couldn’t get rid of it. He could only let it hibernate. He couldn’t tell if his body wanted to scream, cry, throw things, run, or hide, and in this confusion it managed to do absolutely nothing but shake. 

“We’ll stay here until you feel strong enough to run,” his mother told him in a murmur, and he focused on her voice. Looked over to find her cracking a food pill between her teeth, too, and taking a sip of water. The action reminded him of the open bottle still in his own hands, and he finally summed up the will to drink from it. It soothed his aching throat. “So just let me know when.” 

They stayed there for several more minutes, which felt stretched into hours. Eventually she prompted him again and he responded with a wordless nod, and then he was being draped in a dark cloak, pulling a backpack onto his shoulders and following his mother through a doorway, which turned into a dim tunnel lit by paper seals that eventually sloped upward and ended at a sort of trapdoor. Mikoto opened the door, spilling dull evening light around them, then ushered him forward and out of it. Sasuke’s feet hit grass. They were in the forest outside the village. It was dark out now, the sky indigo, tinted pink with the last trails of sunset. 

Despite having his energy back, his legs felt like they might give out at any moment. His mother stepped out, and as she closed the door behind her, he watched it assimilate and disappear into the ground. A genjutsu.

Her hand found his shoulder and she said something to him, but her voice felt too far away to hear. Everything was muffled and muted, both inside and out. 

As they traveled out into the trees, Sasuke chose not to think about what he was leaving behind, because he feared it might make him turn around. 

***

The sun had long since set, the sky dark and sprinkled with stars outside the wide glass windows of the Hokage tower. The village lights were visible below. Hiruzen sat facing the view, smoke trailing up from his pipe. “I presume the incident at the wall was related.” 

Kakashi’s exhaustion weighed him down like a physical burden. “Yes,” he said. “That was her means of escape.” A half-truth, technically.

Hiruzen sighed, lifted a hand to rub the bridge of his nose. “I never wanted this to happen.” 

Kakashi didn’t, either, but that didn’t mean he was shocked. “She told me quite a few unsettling things before she left. So…” He was hyper-aware now of the pulsing ache behind his sharingan eye, of his promise to Obito; this connection to the Uchiha clan he carried with him. “...if you don’t mind, Sarutobi-sama, there’s something I’d like to ask you.” Hiruzen looked over at him, face worn and tired a way that showed he’d seen lifetimes too much. Kakashi held his gaze firm, despite the knowing disrespect in it, as though to plead on the basis of their history: of Kakashi’s ANBU service, of their shared grief for Minato and Kushina, and of his own credit as Sasuke’s teacher. “Did you enable the Uchiha massacre?” 

There was a heavy silence. The Hokage turned back to the window, took a puff of his pipe. “In the work that I do,” he finally began, “there are times when you are faced with deeply difficult decisions.”

Kakashi closed his eyes, let out a breath, and slowly raised a hand to his face. Pressed the heel of his palm to his aching sharingan eye. “So it’s true,” he said, not a question. 

“You must understand, Kakashi, that this was not a choice made lightly, nor is it one I am proud of. I did everything I could to avoid violence.” 

Something grave and terrible settled in the pit of Kakashi’s stomach, reminiscent of what he felt when he first heard the news, in the dead of night when he was summoned to the Uchiha compound to help clean up the bodies. The most familiar, unnerving part of it was the fact that he wasn’t surprised. “Where is Itachi now?”

Hiruzen didn’t answer that for a moment, seeming to consider his options. “You understand that this information is to be kept strictly confidential.” 

Kakashi felt a twinge of discomfort knowing now that he, too, would be a part of the carefully woven lie. “Of course. But with all due respect, I don’t think there is much that can be done to prevent the truth from getting out now.” 

Another pause. “No. There is not.” Removing the pipe from his lips, Hiruzen turned from the window and walked back to his desk, lowering himself slowly into the chair. “That’s why I believe it is best we place full priority on undoing the jutsu that brought Mikoto back. If we are able to do it soon enough, Mikoto will return to rest, the Uchiha clan’s name will be preserved, and Sasuke will be retrieved and brought safely back to us. The scroll will be blamed as the source of the problem.” 

Startled by the suggestion, Kakashi immediately took up the defensive. “Don’t you think that’s hasty? It could cause more problems than it solves. We could end up with a vengeful Sasuke on our hands.” 

“That is a possibility.” The Hokage leaned down to pull open a file drawer, rummaging through it. “And there is also the necessity to ensure Sasuke remains unharmed. I fear if anything were to happen to him, we would have a much larger issue to contend with.” 

Realization thrummed in Kakashi’s chest at that. “You’re talking about Itachi.”

Hiruzen gave an affirming hum. He withdrew something from the file drawer, straightening up, and placed it on the desk. “Itachi is currently positioned within the mercenary group Akatsuki. Assuming Mikoto and Sasuke are going after him, if we are to locate the organization first, we should be able to intercept them. This is, of course, in the case that we are unable to reverse the jutsu in time.”

That’s a dangerous gamble, Kakashi thought, but didn’t voice it. “Hokage-sama, I formally ask you to assign me as the head of the retrieval team.” There was an uneasiness in him, knowing he would be betraying the village soon, but it would be far from the first time he had gone against orders for the sake of his better judgment. The ache in his eye seemed to intensify. Those who break the rules are scum, but those who abandon their friends are worse than scum. 

He really needed to rest off this chakra exhaustion soon.

“She is more likely to trust you than any of my agents, and it does seem reasonable now that you are aware,” Hiruzen conceded. “Granted. You may put together a team of your choosing.” 

“Thank you.” Remembering Mikoto’s last request to him, to keep ROOT away from her son, Kakashi added, “And if I may ask, please keep Danzo-san uninvolved in this. I’m concerned that Sasuke’s safety would not be in his range of priorities.” He’d had suspicions that ROOT was still active, but Mikoto’s confirmation of it had still chilled him, and he knew with almost full certainty that the Hokage had to be aware of it. 

“The council members have no authority over the ANBU Black Ops. There is nothing they can do to involve themselves without my consent.” 

“You know that’s not entirely true,” Kakashi said, once again invoking their history for leverage— his own firsthand experience with the shadow and depth of ROOT. “Danzo can and will interfere if he isn’t prevented from doing so.” 

Despite Kakashi having no authority to make such a statement, Hiruzen sighed in admittance that this was true. “If it will ease your worry, I will write up a document. I intend to keep the full extent of the situation between us, for now. Details will be revealed to the ANBU Black Ops and Sealing Corps as needed.”

“What will will tell the public?” 

“That the scroll is to blame. The resurrection made her unstable. As long as I’m able to, I would like to preserve the Uchiha clan’s name in good standing. I do not want the village to think Mikoto has betrayed us."

Kakashi had to take that for what it was worth. “If you’ll let me, I’d like to look at the file on the Akatsuki now.”

Hiruzen slid the file across the desk to him. “Infer what you can from the information there. We can discuss it further once I send a summons to the head of investigation at the Sealing Corps.”

Then, almost as if on cue, there were footsteps in the hallway outside and then a sudden, frantic rapping on the door. The knob turned and it swung open just as Hiruzen began a response, and into the room rushed a ragged-looking woman with a thick scroll and a stack of documents in her arms. 

“Hokage-sama!” Tsuru said, breathless. “I’m sorry, I had to speak with you directly. I’ve reached a breakthrough with the reanimation seal.” A couple of documents slipped out of her grip and fell to the floor, and she made a distressed noise and stooped awkwardly to reach for them. Kakashi quickly walked over and gathered them up for her— and his eyes caught an Uzushio symbol on one of the pages. “Thank you, thank you, Kakashi.” She accepted them from him, glancing hurriedly between her papers, the Hokage and Kakashi as she scrambled to regain her grip. “Do either of you know where Mikoto is? I need to speak with her as soon as possible.” 

A silence fell. Kakashi glanced back at Hiruzen. 

A grave expression came over the Hokage’s face. He withdrew the Akatsuki’s file from the desk and tucked it away, then said, “Kakashi, please shut the door.”

Chapter Text

Kakashi took it upon himself to explain the situation to Tsuru. As he did, her face cycled through a series of emotions— shock, fear, and then the guilt of the sinking realization that she was too late. She turned panicked eyes to Sarutobi. “Hokage-sama, I had no idea she was planning this,” she rushed, “if I’d known, I never would have—”

“That doesn't matter now,” Sarutobi told her. “Just tell us what you’ve found.”

The air was tense as Tsuru assessed the room, glancing from the Hokage to Kakashi as though either one of them could offer up a solution to the problem they were facing. After registering that no further clarity was to come, Tsuru finally let out a resigned breath and approached the Hokage’s desk, setting down the documents in her arms. “I wanted Mikoto to be the first to hear this,” she mumbled. “If I’d discovered it just hours sooner, it might have even stopped her.” She began unrolling the first scroll, and Kakashi moved in to get a better look. Amongst the writing, he caught sight of the Second Hokage’s signature. “As you’re already aware, the seal used to bring back Mikoto had some resemblance to that of the Nidaime’s Edo Tensei jutsu. In my search through the records, I came across a file documenting some of his early trials for the jutsu. One of them contained this diagram.” Upon fully unrolling the scroll, Tsuru revealed a diagram of a complex seal— one that matched the seal on Sasuke’s scroll almost exactly. When Kakashi had uncovered his sharingan to jump to his students’ defense on the day of the summoning, he had inevitably preserved the memory of what the scroll had looked like with his eye. That memory came back to him vividly as he looked down at the page.

Tsuru then pulled another document to the forefront. “For comparison, this is a copy of the seal that reanimated Mikoto.” Placing them side-by-side confirmed that the seals looked close to identical. “I read through all of the trial notes in this document, and this seal was the closest match. Assuming that the jutsus themselves are similar,  there are some concerning elements that we must address. It says here that the goal of the jutsu was to revive a dead person in as true-to-life of a form as possible. The experiment used a fresh corpse as a base as well as chakra from a living relative of the deceased to create a reanimation, and this is where it becomes worrisome. The notes say that the living relative whose chakra was sacrificed experienced a rapid deterioration of their chakra reserves. It was a parasitic relationship: the longer the reanimated person lived, the weaker the living sacrifice became. After six weeks, they lost most of their strength and mental capacity. After eight weeks, they died.”

A silence fell over the room. Kakashi stared down at the documents on the table, heart pounding low in his chest in time with the headache in his skull. “So what you’re saying is that Sasuke is going to die.” 

“I’m saying it’s a concern.” Tsuru averted her eyes, refusing to meet the gazes of the others in the room. “The seals aren’t exactly the same, but all the research I’ve done has led me to little else beyond what I’m showing you here, so I don’t know how much the jutsu has been modified from this form. I’ll continue my studies, but I worry that any solutions I could provide would take more time to develop than Sasuke may have.” 

Kakashi just looked at her. He knew his anger was misplaced, but he wanted to shout at this woman. “So what are you suggesting we do?”

“The only reasonable solution is to undo the jutsu,” the Hokage finally said. “Doing so is the only way to resolve every problem the reanimation has caused. Tsuru, I want you to focus your efforts on finding the way to reverse it.”

“But most jutsus of this type require the caster to release them themselves,” Kakashi interjected, “meaning we’d have to get Sasuke on board, which won’t happen. And even if we could figure out a way to do it, what then? You can’t expect Sasuke to just come back with us after we kill his mother.”

“That is a risk we may have no choice but to take,” Sarutobi continued. “With Mikoto defecting in this way, I worry that the village itself is in danger. Because of that, we must do what is necessary to protect the people of Konoha.” 

That hit Kakashi with a sudden blow of anger. Now that he knew the truth about Sarutobi’s involvement in the Uchiha massacre, all he could imagine was the Hokage saying those same words to a thirteen-year-old Itachi. He had given the stamp of approval on the murder of the entire clan five years ago, and now he was content and willing to eliminate its last remaining members for the sake of avoiding conflict. It all caused Kakashi to view the Hokage in a way he never had before. He never thought Sarutobi was perfect, although he understood the amoral complexity of being Hokage, but this was a different feeling— closer to disgust than anything else. He did his best to bite it back, keep it controlled for the time being.

“We don’t know what will happen if the jutsu is undone,” Tsuru murmured, “but we do have an idea of what could happen if it isn’t. The bottom line is, regardless of what we do, there is a possibility that Sasuke will come to harm.” 

And the only way to save him is to let Mikoto die. Again. Kakashi let out a breath. This information complicated things. He’d promised Mikoto he would help her, but he had a responsibility to prioritize Sasuke’s life. That meant a change of plans. If only she’d waited just a day longer. 

“I understand your reservations about this, Kakashi,” Hiruzen said. “Especially since this situation is personal to you. But according to law, now that she is a missing-nin, Mikoto must be hunted down and eliminated regardless. If you can track them down and convince them to undo the jutsu willingly, then perhaps we can avoid further violence.”

Kakashi clenched his fist. “I understand, Hokage-sama.” 

“Then that’s that.” Saruboti then turned his focus back to Tsuru. “Tsuru, what will you need to move forward with this investigation?” 

“I’ll need an ANBU squad to track down the origin of the scroll,” Tsuru said. “Starting with the person that sold it to Sasuke.”

“I will make arrangements for that. Kakashi will be heading the tracking squad, so I will be communicating your findings to him as they come. For now, both of you are to keep the full extent of this situation confidential. I will make an official statement later, but I do not want to rouse up any unnecessary panic. You are dismissed.”  

Tsuru quickly bowed and gathered her things. “Yes, Hokage-sama.” She turned and left in a hurry, likely to return to the confines of the Sealing Corps, clinging tightly to the many documents in her arms. 

Kakashi lingered for a moment longer, saying nothing. The tension in the air was palpable. 

“I know you don’t like this, Kakashi,” the Hokage said.

“That’s a severe understatement.” 

“As I said, my position at times requires me to make deeply uncomfortable decisions.” Sarutobi opened up a filing drawer and retrieved the documents on the Akatsuki from earlier. “I don’t like it any more than you do. But, if you are able to catch up with Mikoto and Sasuke, I have faith that you can convince them to cooperate. It doesn’t have to end badly.” He handed Kakashi the file, and Kakashi took it stiffly. “That file documents all recent sightings of the Akatsuki. It may help you.”

The Akatsuki. In just one short day, Kakashi had gone from preparing his genin for the Chunin exams to accepting a mission to track down a dangerous mercenary group in hopes of intercepting his runaway student. Not to mention, he was now privy to highly confidential political intel which had the power to threaten the stability of the entire village. The idea that Itachi really wasn’t just a monster after all was still settling in his mind, though in some ways, it made perfect sense. He supposed he'd have more time to contemplate that once the mission was underway. For now, all he could afford to think about was what he could do to save Sasuke's life. 

“Thank you, Hokage-sama. I’ll be on my way.”  Kakashi then turned and left the office, shutting the door behind him. He took a slow, deep breath, then let it out in a huff.  

As he walked, he prepared himself for the task of telling his students what had happened to their teammate. That not only was Sasuke gone, but his mother had kidnapped him, and there was a chance his life was in imminent danger. All of their hopes of taking the Chunin exams together would be dashed and replaced in an instant with dismay and fear. 

Kakashi knew none of it would go over well. He could already anticipate the response. They’d be devastated, angry, and they’d undoubtedly demand to be a part of the rescue team. And even though the Hokage likely intended for him to put together a team of experienced, highly trained jounin for this mission, Kakashi had full intentions to let his students win him over. He knew it would seem like an impractical choice to any reasonable shinobi, taking only his two naive genin with him for a mission of as high a caliber as this— but to him, the qualification his team needed the most was the genuine desire to protect Sasuke, and he knew he wouldn’t get that with anyone else. 

As he exited the Hokage tower into the night, the pulsing pain in his sharingan eye flared up again and he sighed, pressing the heel of his palm to it as though that would somehow soothe the ache. 

 ***

Mikoto and Sasuke arrived at Sora-ku in the dark hours of morning. As soon as the dilapidated buildings came into view on the horizon, a thrum of relief radiated through Mikoto’s body with the realization that it was nearly over. Her plan had been completely successful. Sasuke would be safe here, and she would finally be able to breathe. 

Sasuke hadn’t spoken the entire trip. It was as though he was barely there, drifting along like a specter behind her, unresponsive to everything. His movements were automatic. Though this reaction wasn’t entirely unexpected, it still worried her. She’d anticipated anger, rage, possibly tears. His utter blankness was unsettling, and she desperately longed for him to express something — anything, just so that she could know what he was thinking, but she held herself back from pushing him any harder than she already had. He was enduring not only the upending of his entire worldview, but a grief for the home he was leaving behind, and he needed to be allowed to deal with that in his own way. She knew this. Still, she struggled with how to best support him through it. It forced her to contend all over again with the fact that Sasuke was no longer the child she knew, and she had to let go of the image of her son she was familiar with in order to meet him where he was now. The idea of that was painful, but for Sasuke’s benefit, she would do it. She didn’t know how much time he would need to process the new information, but the good part about that was the fact that they would have that time now, sheltered within the safety of Sora-ku.

She hadn’t been here herself in decades, and approaching the cats at the front gates made her wary, even though she already had Nekobaa’s explicit permission to enter. They’d corresponded via letter after Mikoto had sent a crow to her, explaining their situation and asking for asylum, and she had the letter tucked into her flak jacket to show the guards as confirmation. She unzipped her pocket to remove it as they approached the gates. With rest only a short distance away, her body and mind were beginning to shut down after the constant state of exertion she had been in, and she fought with herself to maintain alertness for just a little while longer. 

To her surprise, as soon as they reached the front gates, the ninja cat guards wordlessly parted to allow them through. Mikoto politely bowed her head to them as she passed. 

Walking through the dimly-lit halls of the stone stronghold sent waves of relief over her, despite the dark atmosphere. Finally, they were concealed from the outside world. She could be honest here. She could let her guard down. Sasuke moved quietly at her flank. In all directions, cats flitted through the shadows and silently looked down on them from holes in the stone walls. The sounds of meowing were faintly audible in the distance. 

They arrived at last to the main foyer of the stronghold where trade took place. Many members of the Uchiha clan had been here on business through the years of their allyship with Sora-ku, including herself and her sons. She wondered if Sasuke could still recall his memories of being here, or if he’d forgotten them with the passage of time. He had been young, after all, and after the massacre, it likely would have hurt him to hold onto the memories of better times. 

As soon as they entered the dark foyer, a kunai whizzed past Mikoto’s head, slicing a strand of her hair and lodging in the stone behind her. Sasuke jolted in surprise and whipped out a kunai of his own, prepared to fight. Unfazed, Mikoto raised her hands in a gesture of peace. “It’s just us, Nekobaa-san,” she said.

A candle flared to life in the center of the room, illuminating Nekobaa. She sat in a cushion, shaking out a match. “Uchiha Mikoto,” she said, “is that really you?” 

Mikoto made an affirmative sound, bowing respectfully. “If you need further proof, I can provide that.” 

“Hmm. No need.” Nekobaa eyed her analytically, as though seeking out flaws in an illusion, then picked up a cigar from where it sat on a tray beside her and used her candle to light it. “Living as long as I have, I thought I’d seen everything. But this is the first time I’ve heard of someone being brought back from the dead. I’m surprised, is all. When I received your message, I’d been inclined to believe it was a trick, but the idea alone was too outlandish even for that.” 

“Everything I wrote in my message to you was the truth, as unbelievable as it is.”

“So it would seem.” Nekobaa laughed then, a short chuckle. “If there is anything to be said about you Uchiha, it’s that you’re resilient.” Nekobaa took a drag from the cigar. She then leaned to look past Mikoto at Sasuke, who was still standing somewhat behind her. “Hello, Sasuke, dear, it’s been a while. Don’t be so timid, now.” 

Mikoto looked back at her son to find him glowering. He didn’t offer a greeting in return, nor did he step any further into Nekobaa’s line of sight. “He’s exhausted from the journey,” Mikoto said, turning back to Nekobaa. “Is there somewhere we can rest?”

“Yes, I’ve prepared rooms for both of you.” Nekobaa removed the cigar from her lips and replaced it on the tray. “I’ll get my grandaughter to help with your things. Tamaki!” Her shout startled a cat that had been sleeping in the corner of the room.

After a few moments, the sound of footsteps could be heard from the hallway and a young girl sheepishly emerged from around the corner, looking as though she, too, had just been roused from sleep. “Yes?”

“Say hello to our guests, will you? You remember Sasuke and Mikoto-san.” 

Wide-eyed, Tamaki shyly glanced between Mikoto and Sasuke. “Hi,” she mumbled. 

Mikoto mustered a smile and a wave at the girl, who looked to be about Sasuke’s age. 

“Tamaki, why don’t you show Sasuke to his room,” Nekobaa said gruffly. “Mikoto, I’ll take you to yours.”  

The fact that they would be lead to their rooms separately indicated to Mikoto that the rooms were far apart from each other, and that realization unsettled her. She turned to face Sasuke, seeking his opinion. “Are you alright with being alone? If not—“ 

“Yes, ” Sasuke suddenly snapped, still refusing to look at her. 

That was the first word he’d spoken in hours. The intensity in his response saddened her, though she couldn’t be surprised. Truthfully, she didn’t want to leave him alone for a second after all they’d just been through, but she took a deep breath and relented, trying to force herself to accept that he would be okay without her for a while. He had been looking out for himself all this time, after all. The least she owed him was to give him space to process on his own. “Alright,” she murmured, “but if you need anything, just come find me, okay?” 

That only made Sasuke angrier. “Just leave me alone!” 

“Oh, don’t worry your head, either of you,” Nekobaa said, waving her hand dismissively. “You’ll both feel better after a good night’s rest. Tamaki, go take Sasuke to his room.” 

Tamaki, taking this instruction quite literally, approached Sasuke at once and grabbed his arm to pull him off in the direction of a hallway. Sasuke jerked his wrist out of her grasp. She timidly looked back at him and apologized . 

Mikoto wondered if the girl had grown up with only Nekobaa and cats to teach her social skills. It seemed to be the case with the way she was carrying herself around Sasuke. Those thoughts were overwritten, though, by the pang of guilt and sadness in Mikoto’s heart as Tamaki led Sasuke around a corner and he disappeared out of sight without looking back. 

“Come on,” Nekobaa said then, gathering up her skirt in her fists as she heaved herself to her feet. “Let’s get you to your room. I imagine you’re tired.” 

“Yes,” Mikoto agreed, although ‘tired’ didn’t nearly encapsulate the brutal exhaustion she was feeling. After days and days on end of being on her guard to the highest degree, finally being in a safe place seemed to make all of her functions sputter to a halt with the desperate need for rest. She followed Nekobaa’s slow pace as she shuffled into the hallway on their right, the opposite direction from the way Sasuke went. She knew she was being too worrisome for her own good, but she didn’t like the feeling of leaving him alone in his state. There was a deep-rooted instinct inside her that needed to be watching over him at all times, guarding him, because what if Konoha’s agents found them quicker than she anticipated? What if they were tracked, despite all the precautions she took? At any moment, a new danger could arise and she needed to be there to prevent it from taking her son away from her. 

“Quit worrying about your kid,” Nekobaa grumbled without looking back at her, as though reading Mikoto’s mind. “He’ll be fine without you for a few hours.” 

“I’m not—“ Mikoto began to protest, but cut herself off as she realized had no real argument against that. 

“Kids learn best when you set ‘em free and let them figure the world out on their own. That’s what I did with Tamaki and she turned out fine.” 

Mikoto didn’t know if she particularly agreed with Nekobaa’s definition of ‘fine’. But as irritating as the nagging was, it brought up an unexpectedly nostalgic and familiar feeling that Mikoto didn’t realize she missed. It reminded her of traveling here with her sisters on clan business as a little girl, enduring all of Nekobaa’s lectures and scolding as she and Toshiko repeatedly got themselves into trouble. This time, she was able to hold onto the warmth of the memory for a moment before it was replaced by an inevitable twinge of grief. 

Finally, they reached Mikoto’s room, which was rather small and lit only by a dim lantern. There was a futon in the center and a change of clothes folded on the sheets, which was a kind gesture that Mikoto appreciated. 

“Go on,” Nekobaa said. “Rest. I mean it. You’ll be of no use to your son or anyone else if you worry all night about nothing.” 

Her son’s well-being wasn’t ‘nothing’, Mikoto thought, but she recognized that Nekobaa had a point. She needed to rest. Her body was on the verge of giving out, and in order to prepare for the next stage of the plan, she needed her strength. 

Mikoto sighed. “I know,” she conceded, stepping into the room and lowering down her belongings. 

“The nearest bathroom is down the hall to the left. You have my apologies in advance if the cats bother you. I can’t do anything about that. You know how cats are.” 

Mikoto bowed her head respectfully. “Thank you for your hospitality, Nekobaa-san. I’m in your debt.” 

“We’ll discuss your debt later. Now quiet yourself and go to bed.” With that, Nekobaa shut the door and left. 

Now alone, Mikoto practically fell to her knees at the futon. Her fatigue was catching up to her, and even though her worry for Sasuke remained, the knowledge that he was at least safe from imminent danger gave her more reassurance and comfort than she’d had at any point in the past few weeks. 

***

Upon reaching his room, Sasuke dropped his backpack carelessly on the ground and removed the kunai pouch from his waist, tossing it to the side. He headed straight for the modest futon in the middle of the room and sat down, beginning the process of unwinding the athletic tape from his legs. 

Tamaki awkwardly lingered by the doorway. “So, um,” she said, dragging her foot across the floor, “there’s a bathroom down the hall. It has a shower and stuff. And there’s towels. Also, there’s extra blankets in the closet over there. And if you need anything else, let me—” 

“Just get out, ” Sasuke snapped.

“Okay, sorry.” Tamaki quickly stumbled back out of the room, hiding her face in embarrassment and shutting the door behind her. The lantern in the room flickered from the movement. 

Sasuke barely had it in himself to feel guilty. He was so deeply exhausted he could feel it in every cell of his body. His bones felt like dead timber, weak and ready to crack, and his hands shook violently as he ripped the wrappings from his legs. Finally, he reached up and removed his headband. For a moment he stared down at the Konoha symbol on the metal plate, illuminated by the dim light. 

Then he threw it across the room. 

It hit the wall with a loud thud, clattering to the floor. He crawled to where it lay and picked it up, then slammed down it into the concrete floor again and again until the metal plate began to bend, the force punching pained grunts out of his chest. The shaking in his hands traveled all throughout his body until it was everywhere and his breaths turned into dry sobs. He finally stopped when the forehead protector was thoroughly damaged and then threw it again, this time not caring where it landed. 

He then clutched his chest, struggling to breathe. The sobs wouldn’t stop. His breathing kept picking up speed until heaving lungfuls of air felt like not nearly enough, like he was drowning, like there was sand slowly filling up his chest. All he could feel was blinding, all-consuming rage. Rage at the way that nothing in his life was ever in his control. Rage at the amount of things that had been taken from him and how the world couldn’t seem to stop taking more. Rage at Itachi, at the village, at his mother for coming back into his life just to ruin it again. Her reanimation had given him a grace period of peace and safety, a short span of time where he felt real happiness again, and then it was ripped away from him just as every other solace in his life and he was once again left with nothing. 

The crushing feeling of loss consumed him, escaping in the only way it knew how. 

He didn’t have a life purpose anymore. He’d learned, for the second time, that the world Itachi created for him was a lie. The village he grew up in was darker and deeper and crueler than he could have imagined. He wouldn’t see his teammates anymore, maybe never again. And he had no way of knowing what would happen next. 

Itachi loves me.

A wave of sickness and dread swept through him at the thought. It still hadn’t fully registered, and he didn’t know if it ever would. 

By the time his breaths slowed, his head was spinning, his chest and throat hurt, and the rest of his body felt numb. A final few sobs escaped him in shaky exhales. The anger left him bone-tired, and he slowly sunk to the ground, shifting onto his side and curling up. 

He didn’t bother crawling back to the futon. He let sleep envelop him there on the concrete.