"Princess Kou, we didn't do anything wrong this time."
"Hold on. What did you just call me?" Sarutobi Kou frowned at the Chunin the tentacles had dropped on the ground. These guys had still been calling her Young Miss a couple of days ago. Why were they changing their tune now?
"Come on, doesn't it make you sound more noble?" The thinner Chunin brushed the dust off himself and stood up.
His beady eyes swept over Sasuke Uchiha and Shikaru Nara with a sinister look, then he put on a fawning expression.
"Such a silver tongue," Sarutobi Kou scolded. Then she turned to Sasuke Uchiha, who had just gotten to his feet.
"Tell me, Uchiha boy. What exactly happened?" she asked. "Don't rush. Take your time. Your home is nearby, after all."
"She should've seen everything." Sasuke turned toward Shikaru Nara, standing off to the side. He hoped the Nara Chunin would tell the truth.
But it seemed things weren't going to turn out as he'd hoped.
"Do you really want me to tell you everything I saw?" Shikaru said with a smile. "All right. You nearly killed these two Chunins with a Great Fireball Technique. Luckily, I arrived in time and saved them."
"That's everything I saw." Shikaru shrugged, sounding remarkably casual.
"You!" Sasuke shouted. "That's not what happened!"
"Hey, that's exactly what happened..." The other two Chunins chimed in, embellishing the story they'd told Shikaru earlier and repeating it all over again.
Sasuke could only glare at everyone around him, his eyes wide with anger.
To him, they'd all already conspired together. His proud clan had fallen, leaving him all alone. And as for that man...
"Fine. I think I have a pretty good idea of what happened." Sarutobi Kou nodded. She glanced at Shikaru, who was taking notes nearby, and signaled for her to write up the ruling.
"Sarutobi Tai and Sarutobi Xiu, for deliberate provocation: seven days in detention." As she spoke, she watched the smug looks on her two clansmen's faces twist into grimaces.
"Sasuke Uchiha is to be released without charge," she continued.
"On what grounds?" Sarutobi Tai shouted. "Maybe we provoked him a little, but you know, just a little! We'd never lay a hand on anyone!"
"Exactly! He almost killed us with that Great Fireball Technique! He was this close!" Sarutobi Xiu protested loudly.
As clan shinobi, they were usually left with nothing to do when they had no missions. In the past, though, they'd had to keep their heads down in the village, because the Uchiha Security Force was responsible for keeping the peace.
The Red Eyes had once bullied people by throwing their weight around. They'd been weak, but now times had changed. Konoha's Security Force had new members, and its new captain was a Sarutobi.
That should have been a good start—and it had been. They could hold their heads high. In fact, they did more than that. After all, the newly appointed chief belonged to their clan, and their clan had plenty of members and elders.
"I'll tell my dad!" Sarutobi Tai yelled, sounding like a spoiled young master.
"I really will have a talk with the Elder about his children's upbringing. You two useless fools picked on a Ninja Academy student who'd only just come home after being seriously injured, and you nearly got killed by him in one move."
"You've disgraced the clan. And if anyone else witnessed this, you'd have disgraced all of Konoha as well."
"But before that, you can go sit in detention for seven days." Sarutobi Kou's voice was ice-cold.
The reason she'd been so busy lately wasn't just the endless stream of problems that kept popping up. There was also all the water carrying the gourds along.
The old clan members had pushed her into this position, but they didn't want her to have full control over the Security Force. They kept trying to undermine her and trip her up in every way they could, even playing on her feelings.
They wanted to pack the Security Force with more of their "own people," and they wanted her to go easy on those "own people."
"Then what about him? Why does he get off without punishment?" Seeing that arguing on their own behalf wasn't working, Sarutobi Xiu started picking on Sasuke Uchiha instead. If they couldn't avoid punishment, they wanted to make sure the other boy suffered too.
"Exactly! He threw shuriken at us, and then there was that Great Fireball Technique that nearly killed us. The little Nara girl saw it all!"
"Even if we provoked him first, he must've done something wrong too, right? Or maybe his offense was even worse than ours!"
"This is what Lord Hokage requested. If you have a problem with it, go tell Lord Hokage yourselves." Shikaru Nara finished writing the ruling and spoke languidly.
"Don't be ridiculous. Lord Hokage's been at the Hokage Building all day, and he's still there reviewing documents instead of going home. How could you have heard that from him?"
"Exactly! We didn't see any Anbu delivering a message, either. Did Lord Hokage say ahead of time that the Uchiha Clan could break the law? Does that mean he'd been turning a blind eye to everything the Uchiha Clan did before?"
"You can yell at Lord Hokage after you've served your seven days." Sarutobi Kou pulled a sheet from a stack of documents.
The rule was simple: most of Konoha's laws didn't apply to children under ten, unless they'd already graduated from the Ninja Academy and become shinobi.
Of course, children weren't completely exempt from punishment. Their parents bore most of the responsibility. Any property damage had to be paid for in full, and their classroom teacher would give them a proper talking-to.
"Oh, right. There's one exception. Everyone who breaks the rules, children included, has to copy The Will of Fire from beginning to end, in full. Not a single word can be left out."
"When you're done, hand it to your homeroom teacher. I believe his name is Iruka, right? I'll explain your situation to him."
Sarutobi Kou read the final line of the document. Sasuke Uchiha had no family left, so there was no one to pay for any damages. This was the only punishment she could give him.
"One more thing, Sasuke Uchiha. Tomorrow, after school, you need to go see Lord Hokage. He has something to give you."
With those last words, Sarutobi Kou and Shikaru Nara escorted their two clansmen away. Sasuke Uchiha alone returned to the now-empty Uchiha Clan Compound, completely baffled.
Compared to what had happened that night, today's events were nothing. Still, they were enough to leave him confused.
He'd been picked on for no reason, but the new chief—who he'd thought would protect the two Chunins—had let him go and punished her own clansmen instead.
None of that mattered. He returned to his family's house, opened the door, and called out instinctively, "I'm home!"
Then he stared into the dark, empty space and clenched his fists.