Chương 59: The Rooftop

"Right now — I'm going to beat you." Sasuke straightened to his full height. He lifted his chin, looking down at Shin with something between defiance and fury. The crimson of his Sharingan flared in his pupils — then stung, a sharp lance of pain behind his eyes. He winced. The red bled away, leaving only black irises. He didn't notice the change. He felt the discomfort, but his mind was elsewhere. Shin met his gaze evenly.

He said nothing for a long moment, studying the tangle of emotions burning behind Sasuke's eyes.

"Your body," Shin said quietly. A pause.

"You just—""I'm fine." Sasuke's voice was low. Hard.

"... Alright." ⸻ They walked out of the hospital room one after the other — Sasuke first, Shin half a step behind. Just outside the door, leaning against the corridor wall with her arms folded and eyes closed, stood Tsume Inuzuka. Shin spotted her and felt a flicker of surprise, but Tsume didn't move or acknowledge them. He didn't speak either. He simply walked past her, leading Sasuke up to the rooftop of Konoha Hospital. Shin crossed to the far edge of the rooftop and stopped.

Behind him, Sasuke had halted at the top of the stairwell, watching Shin's back in silence. It was still early morning. A thin chill hung in the air. Tall buildings hemmed in the rooftop on all sides, but somehow the space felt vast and empty. A gust of wind swept across the concrete, catching Sasuke's hospital gown and snapping it against his legs. He stood barefoot on the cold surface, his expression settling into something calm — but the hunger to fight hadn't dimmed at all. Shin turned to face him.

"Beat you," Sasuke murmured, stepping forward. His eyes locked onto Shin.

"That's where everything starts." He moved. No warning. No preamble. He launched himself at Shin like a loosed arrow. Shin exhaled through his nose and dropped into a defensive stance. Sasuke was fast — by the time Shin had set his guard, Sasuke was already on top of him. Sasuke's momentum died in an instant. His right fist whipped forward with every ounce of force his body could muster — a vicious, loaded punch aimed straight at Shin's center. Shin's brow creased. He couldn't take this one head-on.

He slipped sideways, bringing both forearms up at an angle to catch the blow from the side and deflect the worst of the impact. Sasuke didn't hesitate. His leg came up — a snapping kick aimed at Shin's midsection — and drove him back. Both of them separated, resetting.

"Shin." Sasuke planted his feet. Something wild crept into his expression.

"I'm going to beat you." His face twisted around the words — every syllable bitten off and spat.

"Come on, then." Shin lowered his center of gravity and raised his guard. Sasuke's pupils dilated. He shot forward like a bowstring released. Crack. Fist met forearm. Shin met kick. The staccato of impact filled the rooftop. Sasuke felt the rush flooding through him — blood pounding, muscles singing — but his eyes stayed ice-cold.

"I'm stronger than you." He was close enough that his words landed against Shin's ear, barely above a whisper, squeezed into the half-second gap between strikes. Shin didn't answer. He focused entirely on defense, parrying and redirecting the barrage of punches and palm strikes that grazed his cheeks and throat. Sasuke drove him back again, then twisted his entire body into a savage roundhouse kick aimed at Shin's head — but the moment his shin should have connected, it passed through empty air.

Shin's head was there and then it wasn't. The kick landed on nothing, the soft resistance of vacancy making Sasuke's stomach lurch. Shin's body shimmered and dissolved into an afterimage. A wooden log clattered to the ground where he'd stood. Clone and Substitution. Sasuke's guard snapped up instantly. He crouched and scanned — two figures were rushing him from both flanks, identical, both wearing Shin's face. No time to think. No time to analyze.

But instinct — the kind sharpened by years of combat drills — told him which was real. Both figures moved in unison, each driving a knife-hand strike at Sasuke's throat. A heavy crack — Sasuke caught one strike with both arms braced. The other Shin passed through his body and vanished in a shimmer. The clone dispelled, and Shin's eyes sharpened. He stepped forward, shifted his weight, and threw a hard right straight at Sasuke's face. Their reflexes were almost identical.

Sasuke jerked his head to the side, and in the same motion seized Shin's lead leg, using the grip to wrench himself away. Sasuke's hands were burning. His mind was electric. Every nerve in his body was firing, and the only thought left was a single bright point. Beat him. His gaze grew colder, even as his pulse hammered. Chakra that had been drifting loosely through his body surged inward, flowing down his legs — pooling in his ankles, the balls of his feet, the tips of his toes.

Under his precise control, dust shuddered off the concrete around him. Then he launched — an explosion of speed — hurtling toward Shin like a cannonball. Shin planted himself. His own chakra pulsed in response, gathering in both hands, and a faint blue shimmer rose from his palms like heat off asphalt. Sasuke closed the distance in a heartbeat and threw everything he had into the punch. But Shin had been watching — had been watching every shift in Sasuke's weight since the fight began.

His hands shot out, caught Sasuke's arm, and in one fluid pivot he hurled Sasuke across the rooftop. Sasuke flipped through the air — once, twice, three times — before he found the ground and skidded to a halt. Shin let out a slow breath. He raised his hands to chest height, knees slightly bent. His eyes had gone hard and heavy, his whole bearing shifting into something denser, more grounded. Sasuke rose to his feet. The corner of his mouth curved upward. They'd barely started.

In full view of Shin, Sasuke formed hand seals. His body blurred. Whoosh— Two silhouettes burst from either side, streaking toward Shin. Fast. That was Shin's first and only impression, but he didn't panic. Sasuke's clone technique was near-perfect — no worse than Shin's own — and in the span of a breath, he couldn't tell which was real. Rather than risk getting pinned between them, Shin kicked off the ground and vaulted backward, putting distance between himself and both attackers.

Sasuke saw Shin leave the ground and stopped dead. On the opposite side, the clone dissolved into nothing. And Sasuke — the real Sasuke — was already weaving hand seals where he stood. No— This story has been unlawfully obtained without the author's consent. Report any appearances on Amazon. Shin's stomach dropped. He understood the trap too late. In midair, he caught the final seal — Tiger — and his hands blurred through the same sequence, racing to match.

"Fire Release: Great Fireball Jutsu!"

"Fire Release: Great Fireball Jutsu!" The rooftop erupted. Two torrents of flame collided in midair and detonated. Heat bloomed outward in a shockwave, the temperature spiking so sharply that the air itself seemed to ripple. A sea of fire roared to life above the rooftop. Their jutsu were evenly matched in power, but different in form. Sasuke's fireball was a dense column of flame — a concentrated lance boring toward Shin's position. Shin's was a massive sphere, a roiling sun of fire that met the column head-on.

The collision birthed something monstrous: a churning orb of crimson, like a ball of molten stone sheathed in living flame. But Shin was still in the air. Gravity pulled him downward, and the fire came with it — an avalanche of flame rolling toward him with gathering speed. He gritted his teeth. He abandoned the fireball, and his hands flew through a different set of seals. Substitution— BOOM. The flames swallowed him whole. The rooftop blazed red, the air warping and shimmering in the heat.

Sasuke lowered his hands slowly. His eyes never left the spot where Shin had been. The fire guttered and died, revealing a blackened stump of wood — charred beyond recognition. Sasuke wasn't surprised. He stayed alert, scanning every direction. Tap. Tap. Tap. Shin emerged from the stairwell at the far side of the roof, unhurried, looking entirely unharmed. The only signs of the exchange were a sheen of sweat on his forehead and a few strands of hair stuck to his skin.

Sasuke noticed a scorch mark on the hem of Shin's shirt. Shin's pulse was still racing beneath his calm exterior. Another tenth of a second of hesitation — just one — and his hand seals wouldn't have finished in time. It was his own mistake. He'd chosen to match Sasuke's fireball from midair, surrendering the advantage of solid ground. A miscalculation, pure and simple. Still too green. The bitterness of the thought surprised him.

A shinobi's combat instincts — battlefield experience — Sasuke had more of it than he did. Shin knew perfectly well that Sasuke had an entire clan's training behind him. But in a real fight, that kind of excuse was worth nothing. He reached up and pulled the red cord from his hair, shook the loose strands free, then gathered them back and tied them into a high ponytail. He exhaled. Set his stance.

"Heh... heh heh..." Across the rooftop, Sasuke let out a low, broken laugh. It built — swelling, cracking — until his whole body was shaking with it, one hand pressed against his face, shoulders heaving. The laughter stopped. When his hand fell away, both eyes burned crimson. A single tomoe orbited each iris, spinning slowly. Sharingan. Shin's gaze darkened. He knew what the Sharingan could do. Enhanced perception. The ability to copy jutsu. And genjutsu — the ocular illusions that came hardwired into those eyes.

One of the most powerful kekkei genkai in the shinobi world. With the Sharingan active, Sasuke's combat ability would jump another tier. Shin's jaw tightened as he weighed his options. The genjutsu was the real concern. The Academy had covered the basics — how genjutsu worked, how to break it — but Shin had never faced it in actual combat. His brow furrowed. The wind tugged at his ponytail.

"Shin!" Sasuke called from across the roof, that sick grin still carved into his face.

"Let me show you—" He raised one hand and clenched it into a fist in the air between them.

"—exactly what makes us Uchiha strong." He vanished. A blur — a whisper of displaced air — and Sasuke was on top of him. Faster. Shin registered the difference immediately. But he didn't fall back. Instead, he did something reckless: he abandoned his guard entirely and threw a punch of his own. Sasuke's eyes widened — not with fear, but with a feral thrill. He matched the motion. Fist for fist. CRACK. Their knuckles collided. In the same instant, a wall of force slammed up through both their arms.

Pain — blinding, nauseating — shot from wrist to shoulder. Sasuke staggered back two steps. His right arm hung limp, completely unresponsive. Agony gnawed through his nerves like acid, and cold sweat broke out across his skin. He looked up — A shadow filled his vision. A rush of wind. And then a fist — solid, unyielding — filled the world. CRACK. Shin's left fist connected squarely with the side of Sasuke's face. The force lifted Sasuke off his feet.

The world spun — sky, concrete, sky again — and then the ground slammed into his back with a sound that rattled his teeth. In the last fraction of a second, before the dizziness swallowed him, he glimpsed Shin's face. Expressionless. Perfectly blank." Cough— cough—" Sasuke clawed at the concrete, trying to roll over, trying to rise. Blood spattered from his mouth. The right side of his face had already swollen into a grotesque lump. Shin hadn't pressed the attack.

He stood where he was and watched Sasuke struggle to his feet. Sasuke coughed again, braced his left hand against the ground, and pushed himself upright. His right arm dangled uselessly at his side. He wiped the blood from his mouth with the back of his good hand — and then he looked at Shin. Shin's right arm hung just as limp as his. Sasuke laughed.

"Heh... heh heh..."

"Whatever pain you can take—" His face contorted, and the words ripped out of him like a scream.

"—I can take it too!" He threw himself at Shin again. But his speed had dropped. His form had holes in it. Under Shin's eyes, every opening was laid bare. Shin caught a strike, redirected it, pinned Sasuke's kick with his own leg.

"Sasuke." Shin's voice was steady, his face inches from Sasuke's.

"Pain isn't something you endure once and stop fearing."

"WHY?!" Sasuke roared. He threw every ounce of remaining strength into shoving Shin back — but Shin twisted with the force and flung him sideways. Sasuke barely kept his feet. He charged again. Shin put him on the ground.

"What the hell do you know about anything?!" He tried to stand. His body screamed at him from every direction — his arm most of all, a white-hot wire of agony that made his vision swim. He bit down and bore it. He looked at Shin. At Shin's equally damaged arm. At Shin's perfectly calm face. It made him furious. Furious that Shin stood there as if nothing had happened. Furious at himself for being this pathetic. The crimson tomoe of the Sharingan spun wildly in his eyes.

He wanted to use ninjutsu — but his right arm was useless.

"Sasuke." Shin looked down at him. His voice was quiet.

"Being weak hurts. But you shouldn't lose yourself to anger. Hatred won't get you anywhere." Sasuke knelt at Shin's feet, head bowed. Whatever he was thinking, he kept it behind his teeth. Slowly, painfully, he forced himself up. Shin reached out with his left hand to help— Sasuke's head snapped up. Twin crimson eyes locked onto Shin's. Sharingan— Something strange washed over Shin's vision — a force, reaching for him from behind those red eyes, pressing against the edges of his awareness.

It met something and stopped. Blocked. Turned away at the threshold.

"AHHH—!" Sasuke screamed. His hand flew to his face, clutching both eyes. Terror twisted his features, naked and raw, and he collapsed to the ground. He didn't move again. Shin dropped to a crouch beside him. He pressed his hand against Sasuke's chest and felt the chakra inside roiling — wild, chaotic, completely destabilized. Genjutsu? Shin frowned. He couldn't understand it. Sasuke had been the one trying to cast a genjutsu. Why had it rebounded onto him? How do I fix this... The Academy had touched on it.

To break someone else's genjutsu, you channel your own chakra into the affected person's body. Shin placed his left hand on Sasuke's chest and was about to attempt it when a figure flickered into existence beside him.

"I'll handle it." He looked up. Tsume. She knelt down, pressed one finger to Sasuke's forehead, and raised her other hand in a sword seal before her face. Her brow furrowed.

"A Sharingan genjutsu?" She looked at Shin, eyes sharp with disbelief. Shin was still processing the fact that Tsume had been watching the entire fight. She'd been outside the hospital room when they left — so she'd seen everything. Tsume studied him for a moment, suspicion and something else flickering behind her eyes. Then she turned back to her work.

"Release." Her gaze hardened, a single sharp syllable — and she lowered her hand.

"Done." Shin looked at Sasuke. His brow twitched. A faint stirring behind the eyelids.

"The genjutsu wasn't high-level," Tsume said.

"But why would he get caught in a Sharingan genjutsu?" She was asking Shin. He shook his head. He didn't know either. Tsume's frown deepened.

"It's a spar, not a death match. Did you have to hit him that hard?" A beat of silence.

"... How's your arm?" She glanced at his dangling right arm, her voice softening despite herself.

"It's fine." Tsume looked at him — this boy who was far too small and far too quiet to be standing here with a fractured arm like it was nothing — and felt a familiar ache behind her ribs.

"Get it looked at downstairs," she said. Shin nodded. Sasuke's eyelids fluttered, then cracked open — a thin sliver of dark iris, glazed and unfocused.

"Sasuke." Shin leaned closer. He slipped his left hand under Sasuke's head and gripped his shoulder.

"Shin..." Sasuke's lips barely moved. A whisper of sound.

"I'm here."

"Shin..." The wildness was gone from his eyes. Whatever storm had been raging inside him had spent itself, leaving something clear and still.

"I..." His voice dropped away. His throat worked, but nothing came. Shin leaned in closer.

"Shin... I have nothing left." Shin's fingers tightened on Sasuke's shoulder.

"Nothing..." Sasuke murmured, almost to himself. A thin, desolate laugh escaped his lips — then cracked apart, fragmenting into sobs. He laughed and cried at the same time, tears streaming down his face without end. Tsume stood and turned away. Two children, close in age, both carrying losses no child should know. She hated Fugaku Uchiha — but not enough to let that hatred touch his son. Sasuke passed out again. Tsume carried him downstairs. The medics took him for treatment, and Shin's arm was seen to as well.

A minor fracture, but the muscle damage was severe. Tsume told him he'd need proper treatment and rest, so Shin stayed at the hospital. While Tsume went home, Shin — arm wrapped in a sling — walked back to Sasuke's room. Sasuke had been treated and was sitting up in bed, staring at nothing. Other than the arm, his injuries were superficial. The genjutsu's aftereffects weren't serious either.

But he'd been barely recovered from his previous condition before throwing himself into the fight, which meant his body needed time — real time — to heal. Shin pushed the door open with his good hand, stepped inside, and pulled it shut behind him. He leaned against the door. Sasuke didn't turn around. He already knew who it was. The room was perfectly still.

"We're both too weak." Shin's voice was soft. His ponytail was long undone, black hair falling loose around his shoulders. Sasuke turned his head. He looked at Shin with quiet, settled eyes — the bandage on the right side of his face a white patch against his skin.

"Beating me wouldn't have changed anything." Sasuke's fist clenched silently beneath the sheets.

"Let's get stronger. Together." Shin paused.

"Once we're strong enough... we'll find the answers." Shisui... Shin closed his eyes.

"Once we're strong enough... we can protect what matters."