Chương 24: Light - 1

Night. Konoha General Hospital. The room was dim, the kind of dim that settled in after the nurses finished their rounds. A drip line ran from the stand to the crook of Shin's arm. His color was better than it had been—less paper-white, more the color of someone who was simply, deeply asleep. Hana sat beside the bed and kept watch. Every few minutes she wiped his forehead. Every few minutes the sweat came back.

Kiba was in the chair in the corner, tilted at an angle that looked painful, head dropped back, mouth slightly open. He'd fallen asleep around the second hour. Why does it keep coming back to you? Hana thought, looking at Shin's face. The furrow between his brows hadn't smoothed. Whatever he was caught in, it hadn't let go. The door opened quietly. She stood. Her mother came in first. Shibi Aburame followed. Behind them—two faces Hana didn't recognize.

A woman close to her mother's age, striking, with red eyes that took in the room in one sweep. A man who looked unremarkable except for the way he moved, measured and deliberate, like someone who was always accounting for things.

"Mom," Hana said, keeping her voice low. Kiba was still asleep.

"Step back. Let them look at him." Shibi made the introductions quietly: Yūhi Kurenai, jonin, genjutsu specialist. Nagai Tomosane, jonin, Water release specialist. Genjutsu layered over chakra disruption was an unusual combination—they'd had to reach out to people who covered both angles. Kurenai looked down at Shin for a moment.

"Who does something like this to a child," she said, low, not really to anyone.

"The sweating has slowed some since this morning," Hana offered.

"The doctors were able to stabilize it a little. He's still severely dehydrated." Nagai nodded. He reached for Shin's hand. Blue light bloomed from his palm and spread—slow, methodical, working its way up Shin's wrist, his arm, his shoulder. Like water filling something dry from the bottom up. By degrees, some color returned to Shin's face. The cracked line of his lips softened slightly. Hana had her hands clasped together in front of her. She made herself keep them there.

Nagai worked in silence for several minutes. Then he let go of Shin's hand and turned to face the room.

"No," he said, before anyone could speak. The room held its breath.

"I can't detect any foreign chakra signature. No fire-natured trace, nothing consistent with an external genjutsu—only disruption. Internal disruption." He shook his head.

"I've restored his fluid balance for now. But whatever is holding him under, I can't reach it from the outside." Nobody spoke. Hana looked at Kurenai. Kurenai placed two fingers against Shin's forehead. Her eyes closed. Blue light. Then her eyes opened. She stepped back. Tsume caught her arm.

"Kurenai."

"I'm fine." Kurenai steadied herself. Her voice was controlled, but there was something careful in it.

"I'm fine. I just—" A breath.

"The Sharingan," she said. The word fell into the room and sat there. Tsume's hand didn't move from Kurenai's arm. Her voice, when it came, was very quiet. The quiet that wasn't calm.

"Sharingan…"

"If you try to force a conventional dispel, the technique reflects." Kurenai's jaw was set.

"It would snap back on whoever tried. I saw—" She stopped.

"Burning ground. A moon the color of blood, with three tomoe. Something massive. I couldn't see who." She looked at Tsume, and there was something apologetic in it.

"I can't break this. Not safely. I'm sorry, Tsume-san." Tsume said nothing at all.

"Thank you," Shibi said, into the silence.

"You can go." Kurenai and Nagai both bowed—short, precise—and left without looking back. The door clicked shut.

"Mom—" Hana started.

"Stay with him." Tsume's voice was flat. Decided.

"You're doing well. Stay." She turned and walked out. Shibi followed....... The hospital corridor was quiet. A clock ticked somewhere. A nurse moved at the far end of the hall without looking up. Tsume walked without slowing. Shibi kept pace.

"Tsume." No urgency in his voice. He said important things without urgency.

"You can't go to the Uchiha compound. Not tonight." A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation. She kept walking.

"The Uchiha are a live wire right now. If you walk in, you won't just be starting a fight—you'll be handing them a reason to accelerate everything. It will spiral out of the Hokage's reach." Nothing.

"Tsume." He moved slightly ahead—not blocking her, just present.

"Go to the Hokage. He already knows. He has to already know." She stopped. Not gradually. She simply stopped. She turned. Shibi looked at her face and, for a moment, he understood completely why the Inuzuka were a clan you didn't push. Something behind her eyes was very, very still. That stillness was worse than anything loud.

"Shibi," she said. Her hand came up and caught the front of his shirt.

"Do you know how old Shin is?" Her voice was barely above a whisper.

"He's eight years old." Each word came out precisely, like something forced through a narrow place.

"Eight. He behaves better than adults twice his age. He never asks for anything. He never complains. He never—" She stopped. Her jaw worked.

"Fugaku Uchiha is going to pay for this."

"I know," Shibi said.

"Don't." Her grip tightened.

"Don't tell me the bigger picture. Don't tell me about the Hokage's plans. Hiruzen let Tsukasa become a pawn for the 'bigger picture,' and I watched it happen, and I didn't—" She stopped again. Something in the corridor air thinned.

"Why him?" The words came out low and even and somehow that was the worst part.

"Why does everything keep coming back to him? He's eight years old. He's never done anything wrong. Why does he have to be caught in this?" Shibi held her gaze. He didn't pull back.

"Tsume," he said, after a moment.

"The only thing that helps Shin right now—the only thing—is finding a way to wake him up. If you go to the Uchiha compound tonight, nothing that happens next will help him. It will make everything harder."

"And if I don't?" The grief was there, under the anger, visible only if you'd known her long enough to know where to look.

"Then what? We wait? We accept that an Uchiha can do this to a child and we just—stand here and do nothing?"

"Not nothing." From his sleeve, a single dark insect emerged and moved slowly, deliberately, across his knuckles. It settled there, still.

"Not this. Not tonight. Not alone." She looked at him. He looked back.

"Shibi," she said. It wasn't a question.

"Are you actually going to try to stop me."

"Yes," he said. Flat. Without hesitation.

"When have I ever joked with you." Tsume let go. Her hand opened and Shibi's collar fell slack. She crossed her arms, turned her head, and said nothing for a moment.

"So what do you suggest," she said finally. Her voice had gone flat.

"To break a Sharingan genjutsu, you still need an Uchiha to do it. That's just how it works." Shibi smoothed his collar. The kikaichu vanished from his palm without a sound.

"We start with Inoichi," he said.

"The Yamanaka clan will have some way to approach this."

"And then?"

"We notify the Hokage. He'll send an Uchiha. The trouble it causes—it's within acceptable range." Tsume made a sound in her throat. Not agreement. Not disagreement. Just acknowledgment that she had heard him, and that she found it insufficient, and that she had nothing better.

"The Uchiha who did this to Shin," she said.

"Will they face consequences?" Shibi was quiet for a moment.

"Yes," he said. Tsume didn't answer. She just turned her face away and let out a short, cold laugh. The kind that wasn't really a laugh at all. The Uchiha compound was quiet at this hour. Fugaku sat at the low table while Sasuke and Mikoto talked about their day—about class, about small things, the kind of conversation that filled a room without requiring much of anyone. He listened with half his attention. The other half was somewhere else.

"Shin Takami is in the hospital?" The words left his mouth before the decision was fully made. Both Sasuke and Mikoto turned. Sasuke blinked.

"... Yeah."

"He wasn't there all day today. After school, a lot of people from class went to visit." Fugaku sat with that information. His brow drew in.

"Do you know why he was admitted?"

"No." Sasuke shook his head. He was watching his father the way he always did—trying to read something that wasn't being shown.

"I didn't go."

"Oh, our Sasuke," Mikoto said, smiling. She reached over and ruffled his hair.

"You should make more of an effort with your classmates."

"Tch." Sasuke tilted his head out from under her hand.

"Why would I go see him?"

"Sasuke." Fugaku's voice stopped the room.

"Yes." Sasuke straightened immediately.

"Go visit Shin tomorrow." A beat of silence. Sasuke stared at him.

"... Okay. Yes." He didn't ask why. He was too used to not asking. But Fugaku could see the question sitting behind his eyes— you don't even know him —and chose to leave it there. Fugaku stood.

"You're going out?" Mikoto asked, surprised.

"This late?" He didn't answer. He stood in the doorway for a moment, something pulling at the edge of a decision he hadn't finished making. Then he stepped through it and walked out into the dark. The hospital room had gone still. Kiba opened his eyes slowly. For a second he didn't know where he was, and then the white ceiling and the medicinal smell came back to him all at once, and he remembered. Akamaru stirred against his neck, warm and small. He turned his head.

Hana was still sitting at the edge of Shin's bed, her posture a little tired but her back straight. She had been there when he fell asleep. She was still there now.

"Hana-nee." She looked over. The smile that crossed her face cost her something, but she wore it anyway.

"You're awake. You'll sleep better at home—go on." Kiba pushed himself upright. He crossed to Shin's bed and looked down. The waxy, wrong color was gone. Shin's face was still pale, but it was the ordinary kind of pale—the kind that just meant he needed rest. The tightness had gone out of his brow. Something in Kiba's chest settled a few degrees.

"Yeah." He exhaled.

"Okay. Yeah." He looked at his sister.

"You'll stay?"

"I'll stay," Hana said.

"Go home." He took one more look at Shin. Then he turned and walked out. The door clicked shut behind him. Hana listened to his footsteps fade down the corridor, and then there was only the quiet sounds of the hospital at night—distant, muffled, far away. A heaviness she had been keeping back for hours came rolling in. She shook her head once, trying to surface. The heaviness didn't care. It settled in anyway. Just for a minute, she thought, meaning it. Just a minute.

She was asleep before she'd finished the thought, her head tipping forward and coming to rest against the edge of the mattress." Shin..." she murmured, barely audible. Then nothing. The room went quiet....... The window opened without a sound. He came in from the dark the way he always moved—clean, deliberate, leaving no impression on the air behind him. Standard ANBU-issue clothes, a regulation tantō across his back, no mask. Slightly curling dark hair.

A face that was handsome in an easy, unconsidered way, the kind that looked younger than it was until you caught the eyes. Shisui stood at the foot of Shin's bed. The boy looked—diminished. That was the word for it. Like something had been turned down very low. His brow was still drawn even in sleep, whatever was happening behind those closed eyes too loud to let the rest of him relax. Shisui reached out. He touched the crease between Shin's brows with two fingers, trying to smooth it flat. It didn't work.

Of course it doesn't, he thought. The chakra came slowly, coiling green around his fingertips. He let his eyes close....... Black sky. Burning ground. A moon the color of blood, three black tomoe inscribed across its face. And a shadow that blotted out everything else.

"... Patriarch." Shisui stared up at the figure—vast, unmoving, immovable—and felt the weight of it pressing down on him like a hand. That's stronger than mine. He had always assumed. Not arrogantly—it had simply been the data. Of every Uchiha living, he was the one whose eye power was the most developed. That was just the truth of the situation. The tomoe in his eyes began to spin. Faster. Faster.

They dissolved, reshaped themselves into something else—a pair of black, four-pointed windmills, turning against the dark. Why, he thought, looking up at the shape that had done this. Patriarch. What possible reason would you have to put Shin Takami in here? Something stirred at the edge of the space. A new light—low at first, then growing. A second moon rose into the black sky. This one was red as well, but different. No markings on its face. Just a deep, burning crimson. Shisui stepped into its glow.

He looked across the gap at the enormous, unmoving figure." Light," he said quietly.