A bar somewhere in the Hidden Leaf.
"You don't have to do this to yourself, Tsume."
Shibi Aburame watched Tsume Inuzuka pour another drink and get it down before he'd finished the sentence. Her face carried the particular flush of someone who'd been at it a while.
"Why not?" She gave him a sideways look. "I got my heart broken. I can drink."
"…Fair enough." He pressed two fingers to his temple.
She set the cup down and stared at it. "Yuki's perfect," she muttered. "I'm not."
"She's just—" Another pour. Her voice went up. "Ugh. Infuriating."
Shibi lifted his own cup and took a small, quiet sip.
Yuki Kuriyama and Tsume Inuzuka were, personality-wise, almost perfectly opposite. Tsukasa's choice wasn't hard to understand. It was her unique combination of mindfulness, warmth, and a comforting presence that truly won his heart.
"I was there first," Tsume said. "I was first. And she just—"
"Tsume," Shibi said, choosing his words with care.
"Love doesn't really work on a first-come basis."
She turned and fixed him with a look.
"…I didn't say anything."
"Right." She poured again. Her gaze drifted to him, appraising. "You've got an arranged marriage, don't you."
Something cold moved through him. He straightened. "I do," he said, very carefully.
"I wasn't even—" She waved him off. "Why would I want you?"
"…Good," he said, and let out a quiet breath.
She sat there running something over in her mind, and he watched her with the wariness of a man who'd known her long enough to recognize the signs.
"Tsume," he said, when the silence had gone long enough to feel like weather. "Don't make any decisions right now. Get back to the front. Get out of your own head."
"I'm not going back!" The cup hit the table. "Tsukasa said the Land of Water's almost done anyway, just go by yourself."
"I'm not stationed at the front," Shibi said.
"I know that."
He pressed his fingers to his temple and held them there.
A week passed.
There were few jonin left in the village. Tsukasa—nominally assigned to logistics support—spent most of his days walking the market streets with nowhere to be. He had nothing to do and he knew it.
Fugaku hadn't come to find him since the Hokage Monument.
That conversation sat in the back of his mind like a stone he kept stepping around. Fugaku's expression. The things he'd said. Every time Tsukasa turned it over he felt a low, specific dread.
Yuki told him, when she visited Mikoto at the Uchiha compound before returning to the front: Fugaku seemed different now. Quieter. More contained. Like something had settled into him and decided to make itself permanent.
Tsukasa didn't know how to pull his friend back. He wasn't even sure pulling was possible.
He was on the market street, watching the day go nowhere, when he noticed the rooflines above him had gotten busier—more shinobi than usual, all moving in the same direction.
Toward the Hokage's building.
He watched a moment, then jumped up to the rooftops and stopped the nearest one.
"What's going on?"
The man recognized him immediately. "Tsukasa-san." His expression was respectful. "Emergency summons from the Hokage. Word is—the Land of Water has submitted terms of surrender."
Something lit up in his chest.
"Good news," he said. "Go on."
"Sir."
The shinobi left. Tsukasa stood on the rooftop and watched the stream of jonin flooding toward the building. Then he followed.
.....
Two ANBU were waiting at the door.
"Tsukasa-san." They stepped forward together, arms out. "You can't go in."
He stopped.
He looked at the jonin filing past him on either side—unchecked, unquestioned—and then back at the two ANBU.
"Excuse me?" he said.
"The Hokage's orders. You're not authorized to attend today's meeting."
The people walking by noticed. None of them said anything. Looked, briefly, and kept moving.
"The Hokage's orders." He said it quietly. Then his voice sharpened. "I'm a jonin. I am a jonin in this village. Why am I the only one being kept out of a jonin meeting?"
"These are the Hokage's orders, Tsukasa-san. Please step back."
He looked past them at the open door.
"Lord Hokage!"
He knew every person inside could hear him.
"Lord Hokage—why? Why?"
His voice fell into the silence and stayed there. Nobody answered.
The jonin around him were beginning to look uncomfortable. A few tried.
"Tsukasa-san, please—"
"The Hokage must have his reasons—"
He stood there, jaw tight, and could not find a single thread that made sense of any of it.
Then two more ANBU appeared at his flanks without a sound. No warning, no words—they formed seals, and black markings crawled up Tsukasa's body like vines, fast and total.
His chakra locked shut. His limbs stopped answering.
"A sealing jutsu?" He couldn't keep the disbelief out of his voice.
He fought it. Got nowhere. Eventually he stopped fighting and let them hold him.
"Lord Hokage…"
The ANBU marched him away from the building.
In the crowd at the back, Fugaku watched in silence.
"I thought you might step in," Sayama said, beside him.
A cold smile crossed Fugaku's face.
Let him lose faith in them first.
That's what I need.
......
The meeting proceeded without him.
They released Tsukasa in an empty lot somewhere in the village, dispelled the sealing jutsu, and bowed.
"We apologize for the inconvenience, Tsukasa-san. Please refrain from disrupting official proceedings going forward."
"…disrupting," he said, mostly to himself. A quiet sound came out of him. Not quite a laugh.
The two ANBU bowed once more and vanished.
He stood there, face blank, looking in the direction of the Hokage building.
Then he turned and walked away. He knew he was still being watched. He didn't care.
The same bar. Later that afternoon.
Tsukasa was drinking alone, the hours moving nowhere in particular, when someone sat down across from him uninvited.
He looked up.
The face across the table was young—too young, given everything he knew about what this man had already done and what he was still going to do. Short blond hair. A forehead protector. The kind of face that inspired trust on instinct, which was exactly as useful as it sounded. He was wearing his flak jacket, which meant he'd come straight here.
"Minato," Tsukasa said.
"Senpai." He dipped his head. Something worried was sitting in his expression and he wasn't working hard to hide it.
"I thought you were stationed on the Land of Earth front."
"Shikaku-san sent me back."
Tsukasa went still, very slightly, mid-pour.
"He sent me to find you," Minato said. "There's something you need to hear."
"…Somewhere else?"
......
The forest outside the village.
Tsukasa leaned against a tree and looked at the younger man standing a few feet away.
"You were at the meeting," he said.
"Yes." Minato nodded. "That's exactly what I need to tell you about."
"The Land of Water submitted terms of surrender."
"Good news," Tsukasa said. He meant it.
"It would be." Minato's expression didn't match the words. "Except Lord Orochimaru refused to accept them."
"He—what?"
"Not many people know this. The Hokage knows. The Elder Council knows. The jonin remaining in the village weren't told. Shikaku-san's unit got word through a Yamanaka relay in real time. He sent me the moment confirmation came through."
"As for today's meeting—it wasn't about the Land of Water at all. It was about redeploying forces to the Land of Earth front."
"Then the Land of Water—"
"Lord Orochimaru's orders, after refusing the surrender, were to annihilate the remaining Kirigakure forces currently deployed overseas. All of them."
The words landed somewhere behind Tsukasa's eyes. The world got very quiet.
"Annihilate them," he said.
"And Danzo Shimura was sighted on the Land of Water front."
"…Lord Hokage," Tsukasa said, barely a breath.
The quiet lasted about two seconds.
"They're all insane." His voice came out shaking. Then it came out loud. "Kirigakure still has at least a quarter of their forces over there—wiping them out entirely, the casualties that would take—"
"They surrendered. They submitted terms. Why isn't anyone accepting them? Whose decision is this? Who—"
"It's most likely Lord Orochimaru's," Minato said quietly.
"—Orochimaru—" Tsukasa shoved off the tree and started moving. "I need to stop this. I need to see the Hokage—"
"Senpai!" Minato stepped in front of him.
"It won't work. Don't you understand now why they kept you out of that meeting?"
He stopped.
"The Hokage understands exactly what's happening. His choices today made that clear."
"…"
"Bastards." His voice was shaking. "Those bastards—"
"Senpai—"
"Bastards!" He turned and grabbed Minato by the collar.
"Do you understand how many people are going to die if they keep fighting? How many more die over nothing?"
"What does Orochimaru actually want? Land? Resources? What's left in the Land of Water that's worth taking? Does Konoha need any of it? Do we—"
"Senpai." Minato held his gaze, expression balanced somewhere between helpless and steady. "I know." A painful, barely-there smile. "What can either of us do?"
The grip went slack. His hands fell.
He stepped back. Put himself against the tree. Two steps down and he was sitting against the roots, eyes on the canopy.
"I'll organize the jonin," he said, voice going flat and drained. "File a collective objection. Get enough signatures. Force the Hokage to rescind the order."
"Senpai," Minato said, soft. He shook his head slowly. "Even if you used your reputation to push it through—even if the Hokage actually reversed it—Orochimaru's in the field. Do you think he'd listen?"
"And Danzo's there with him."
"…"
Tsukasa sat against the tree. He took the pieces he had—beginning, middle, consequence—and strung them together until the shape emerged. Ugly. Clear.
Why they pulled his post. Why they kept him out today.
He laughed. It wasn't a good sound.
"Minato," he said.
"Shikaku understood all of this from the very beginning, didn't he."
Minato answered carefully. "He said—you understand strategy, senpai. But not politics. He said you'd find out about the Land of Water eventually. He sent me back to stop you."
"…Right." Tsukasa stared at the leaves overhead.
Fugaku's words came back, word by word.
Rotting roots. The shadow that goes along with them.
"You want to be Hokage," Tsukasa said.
"That's always been my goal." Minato's earnestness was genuine. Total. The kind that didn't waver.
"Then keep working toward it," Tsukasa said. He was still looking at the canopy above. "Don't stop."
The Uchiha compound. A private room.
"Orochimaru refused the surrender?" Sayama said.
"And Danzo Shimura was sighted at the front."
The clan member kneeling before them finished his report and waited. Sayama and Fugaku were quiet.
Sayama spoke first, slow and deliberate. "It tracks. Once Kirigakure's overseas forces are destroyed, their national power collapses. Orochimaru and Danzo can demand far more at the negotiating table."
"And Tsukasa—the reason they pulled him from the start. If he'd been there, he never would have allowed a strategy this costly. His reputation alone would have made it difficult for even the Hokage to hold the line."
"Orochimaru working the front. Danzo behind the scenes, using Uchiha pressure to force the Hokage's hand on removing Tsukasa."
"This was always the two of them. The Land of Water campaign—most of what was gained will end up in their hands."
Sayama fell quiet.
Fugaku was already moving.
"Fugaku—where are you going?"
No answer.
......
He moved through the compound at speed, turned through a gate, and pushed open a door without knocking.
Inside, a woman looked up from her cleaning, startled—apron still tied around her waist.
"Fugaku-sama?" Confusion moved across her face. "Is there news about Akihiko?"
He looked at her. The Sharingan in his eyes was already turning.
"You're Akihiko Uchiha's wife."
She nodded, blinking.
"Good."
The tomoe in his eyes dissolved into something else. A pattern of bloom and scatter—complex and moving, spiraling inward, then opening outward again. One of the elders who'd followed him to the doorway stopped breathing.
After a long moment, the woman's eyes went blank. She crumpled to the floor.
"Danzo," Fugaku said.
"ROOT."
His voice held nothing.
In her memories, he had seen it: Akihiko, meeting in shadow with a figure in an ANBU mask—the kind that belonged to no squad Fugaku had ever encountered.
The Uchiha. Made into someone else's blade.
Two lines of blood traced down Fugaku's face, from beneath his eyes, and fell to the floor.
Danzo Shimura.
You will pay for this.