Chapter Text
It turns out the problem with sending both sensors to spy is Sasuke's situational awareness is severely inhibited.
Itachi doesn't, actually, manage to catch Sasuke entirely unawares - Kagami and Hashirama are keeping at least a visual eye out - but Sasuke's definitely somewhere he shouldn't be when his brother steps into the apparently deserted shrine and looks right at him.
Sasuke goes still.
Itachi frowns and then beckons for him.
Sasuke bites his lip.
Itachi sighs, silent, and gestures more insistently.
"Sorry, kid, I think you're caught," Kagami mutters.
Sasuke slips out of his hiding place, as quietly as he can, heart racing - he usually waits for the underground meeting place to clear first - and pads over to Itachi. He stays out of super easy grabbing range, though. He figures his brother's at least less likely to use blatant techniques against him; it'd be hostile in a way this hopefully doesn't warrant.
Itachi turns, a silent 'follow me,' and Sasuke hesitates.
The problem, here, is if he leaves, even Tobirama will lose focus, and while Mito can probably manage and keep her memories it's super not ideal, what she knows from being away is always kind of patchy compared to what she hears while close enough…
Itachi's frown deepens.
Sasuke at least successfully avoids squeaking when he's suddenly picked up by his brother. And he avoids making noise while he squirms, but Itachi doesn't let him go.
Hashirama sighs, and he and Kagami follow the brothers out.
-
Itachi carries him into the woods, well away from the shrine - definitely out of Sasuke's ghosts' focus range - and says, voice hard, "You know you're not supposed to go in there alone, Sasuke."
Sasuke grits his teeth and resolves to remain silent. While he was obviously hiding, while it's probably obvious he knows about the underground meetings, that he can spy on them is a stretch since Itachi doesn't know about the ghosts, and Mito says the room's warded from other methods. But keeping quiet is more likely to not give him away.
Itachi raises an eyebrow. "Why were you there?"
Nope, Sasuke is not talking. Not about this.
His brother tilts his head. "You've been spying for a while, haven't you?"
Sasuke shakes his head a bit frantically.
"Sasuke… You could get in a lot of trouble, if someone caught you," Itachi says, voice gentling, as he kneels in front of Sasuke. "I have the situation handled, okay?"
"But you don't," bursts out of Sasuke's mouth. He claps his hands over his traitorous lips.
Itachi rests a hand on Sasuke's shoulder. Sasuke tries not to flinch. "What makes you say that, little brother?"
Sasuke's skin flushes, and his eyes sting. He shakes his head again. "You - you didn't even try to get the clan to not," he says after several long, uncomfortable moments. "Arguing with father doesn't count! Which you barely even - "
"You're the one who told the civilians, aren't you?" Itachi asks, softly.
Sasuke huffs, but, reluctantly, nods a bit. "They're not dumb or useless, and they'd - they'd get killed, too, even though they didn't do anything. And it's working. Can't run a village without someone washing clothes. "
Itachi regards him, silently, and the moments drag on until Sasuke's fidgeting and trying not to cry. His chest feels too full, like if he blinks he'll burst.
"You have a point, perhaps," Itachi says. "But - it's unlikely to work. Not at this point. Things have gone too far."
"They haven't, and you don't get that, because you're an idiot!" Sasuke doesn't quite shout. His skin feels like a balloon stretched too tight over a hot coal, and his vision's blurring. "The clan's backing off, and maybe it's not solved forever, but there's time if people would just calm down!"
"People usually don't calm down over treason," Itachi says, voice still annoyingly reasonable.
Sasuke stomps his foot and very carefully does not say 'even the Second Hokage thinks Danzo's plan is terrible.' "I'll fix it," he mumbles, jaw tight. "Just - stall on drastic action."
He's going to need to make the Uchiha a lot harder to quietly wipe out, he thinks, especially if Itachi is this far in Danzo's grasp. (He also needs to detangle his idiot of an older brother. But that can wait for after he makes sure they're all gonna make it out alive.)
"What will you do, if it comes to drastic action?" Itachi asks. (How can he not sound upset, how is he not crying - )
(Hashirama's making a distressed noise behind Sasuke, and Kagami is cursing under his breath. Sasuke's trying to block them out. This is hard enough already.)
Sasuke bites his lip. He knows what Tobirama or Mito would say. Knows what Kagami would say. Thinks he knows what Hashirama would say, however sad he'd call the action.
But that's one of the problems, isn't it? Old ideas in a new age.
"Reduce the damage. Become Hokage. Fix things so it never happens again because everyone in charge is an idiot who can't do anything right - " Sasuke spits out, each word falling off his tongue like fire. (He's not sure that's what he'd actually do. He's not sure if a world that harsh deserves to be fixed or burned. But - it'd be an option at least.)
(He knows, deep in his bones, that Itachi would never kill him.)
Itachi sighs, and…
Hugs him.
Sasuke stiffens. (Why is his brother making it so hard not to cry …)
"I'll try my best," Itachi says, "But I won't do anything that'll compromise your safety."
Sasuke's breath catches in his throat. He wants to call Itachi an idiot again, but the words get tangled up in his brain.
Instead he just starts crying.
-
After a very long discussion with the ghosts, even Tobirama reluctantly agrees that the only way to make the Uchiha clan harder to just vanish is if more people know. If there'd be people up in arms about the village leadership overstepping their mandate in the execution of traitors. (The Third Hokage is a dictator in a way the First and Second never were, but you can't run a village without laundresses and you can't fight a war without soldiers, and there's got to be a line even Danzo won't cross - out of self-preservation, if nothing else.)
So he waits after training one day, waits for Tobirama to confirm they're not being spied on, and says, "Sensei. We need to talk."
(The Inuzuka aren't powerful nor popular, but they're embedded. And Hashirama says the Inuzuka of his time fought the hardest for children's rights, and respected the office of Hokage least of all the clans.)
-
Inuzuka Tsume won't openly associate herself with Uchiha Fugaku just yet, out of wariness for her own clan's health, but according to Sesshi-sensei she starts going to clan council meetings again. The council is entirely a farce without even the right to make resolutions, but it lets her stick her foot in the door to influence.
-
Sasuke finds himself roped into tutoring Kiba, Tsume's son.
The things he does for his clan…
-
He isn't, of course, the only Uchiha genin in Konoha. And the genin are hardly less observant, less hooked into gossip than the civilians, though the rumors take longer to filter to them.
Which is how Sasuke finds himself in the middle of a semi-secret meeting of every genin in the compound.
-
"They can't do this, right?" one girl asks, biting her lip. She's the second youngest genin, at ten. Sasuke's never spoken to her in his life. "Just - the clan knows better?"
"Adults are stupid," says one of the 'ka twins. Reika or Mouka, he doesn't know which - they don't even look alike, so it's dumb he gets them mixed up, but, well. They're twelve. Of course, the oldest genin here is fifteen. Sasuke's the youngest, at seven. "Why is it surprising they'd do something dumb?"
"Do you know anything, Sasuke?" the oldest, a boy possibly named Kemuri, asks. Everyone turns to look at Sasuke.
He bites his lip. And to think he'd successfully avoided talking so far… But he's the clan head's prodigy. It's reasonable, to think he might know something.
"It's talk," he mutters. "And - plans. Not gonna happen for sure." He pauses. "But… The Hokage knows."
That causes some unease, a few wide eyes, and the 'ka twins muttering to each other. "...Aren't traitors killed?" another boy asks, setting off a cascade of anxious back-and-forth.
Kemuri stands, calls for order, but people aren't really listening to him, and it takes the 'ka twins jumping on the table and shouting to get people to calm down a little. Kemuri regards Sasuke evenly. "I'm not going to ask how you know that," he says, and then glares at the assembly. "No one will." Of course, the obvious answer is probably 'Itachi.' Sasuke doesn't spend a lot of time with clan shinobi other than him. Not that he spends much time with his brother at all anymore...
Sasuke stares down at his feet, shoulders hunched. "The Hokage hasn't done anything yet. He might."
"How do we - how do we make them not?" the first girl asks, face blotchy and expression scrunched up.
"Make it hard. To kill us without - without admitting it's a traitor thing," Sasuke says, recalling what he and his ghosts talked about. "People outside the clan don't - know."
There's some more worried murmuring, but Kemuri and the other older genin look thoughtful. "You're too young to remember, but we lived elsewhere before the Nine Tails, all over the place," Kemuri says, looking at Sasuke. "There's a law that we gotta live in the compound now. For safety. Makes it easier to be clean about getting rid of us, I guess. But the law doesn't say we gotta sleep where we live, or that we can't spend all our time with our teams." He looks over the assembly. "My jounin-sensei likes me. I think. If the Hokage knows… There's not much harm in making sure our teachers do, too. We can make sure none of us are ever all in the compound together. Moving out might be hard; frequent team sleepovers is - it'll be obvious, if they object to that."
Sasuke nods. That's… Really a lot like what Kagami proposed. Team is basically family, and you count on family.
"And we leave Sasuke out of explaining it," says one of the 'ka twins. "Don't say who told us what."
There's nods; they know well enough that it's easiest to vanish one person. Even a prodigy like Sasuke might go missing.
"What about Academy students?" someone else asks. "My little siblings… They don't have jounin to hide behind."
"Maybe they can stay over with Academy friends or chuunin teachers some?" another older genin says. "I know a lot of us weren't ever really popular in class, but… If everyone tries, it'll be - less people all here."
There's some murmurs of agreement. Sasuke nods along.
It's risky. There's no guarantee a purge won't simply spill over to anyone seen as allied, but - "Try the Inuzuka," he suggests, quietly. He's not saying Tsume knows, but… There's understanding looks.
They're kids. Fixing this shouldn't be their job.
But maybe they're all the world's got.