Sasuke's Brother

On Saturday afternoon, Shuo Ye wandered around the Uchiha Clan District.

Calling it wandering was not quite right. His mind had been spinning the whole time. Last night, he had another nightmare—not about the clan massacre, but about exams. He dreamed he was sitting in a university classroom, staring at a test paper filled with calculus, unable to write a single word.

Then he woke up and found himself lying in a bedroom in the Uchiha Clan District, with a crack running across the ceiling.

He stared at that crack for five minutes before remembering: he no longer needed to take calculus exams.

But he still had to take the Ninja Academy graduation exam.

Five more years.

He rolled over and went back to sleep.

Now he walked along the stone-paved roads of the clan district, sunlight stretching his shadow long behind him. He had walked this road countless times, from home to the Naka River, from the Naka River to Naka Shrine, back and forth.

But today, the atmosphere on the road was different.

II

The streets of the clan district were usually lively.

The Uchiha Clan had once been one of Hidden Leaf Village's proudest clans. Clan members came and went, children chased and fought on the stone roads, and women washed clothes and chatted beside the wells.

Not anymore.

Shuo Ye followed the main road toward Naka Shrine. Every adult he passed—every Uchiha adult—wore the same expression.

Their lips were pressed tight, their gazes lowered, and they walked twice as fast as usual.

No one stopped to greet him.

Not because they were unfriendly. It was because they all carried the same matter in their hearts.

Shuo Ye knew what that matter was.

After the Nine-Tails Incident, Hidden Leaf Village's upper ranks had shifted the blame onto the Uchiha Clan's Sharingan. The trust between the village and the Uchiha had shattered overnight. The Third Hokage had tried to mediate, but Koharu Utatane and Homura Mitokado—those two old men—had kept smearing mud on the Uchiha.

Now, the Uchiha Clan's radicals were secretly planning a coup.

And the outcome of that coup, everyone who had read the original story knew—

The clan massacre.

Shuo Ye clenched his fists, then slowly relaxed them.

He passed the Uchiha Clan assembly hall. Its doors were shut, and its curtains were drawn tight. Two guards stood outside, kunai pouches at their waists and sharp eyes fixed ahead.

One of them glanced at Shuo Ye.

"Kids shouldn't linger here."

His tone was not harsh, but it was clear.

Shuo Ye nodded and kept walking.

But his eyes swept over the entrance to the assembly hall—the chakra fluctuations of those two guards were unstable, carrying a suppressed tension. They were not carrying out routine duty. They were guarding a secret.

Shuo Ye calculated the timeline in his head.

Year 56 of the Hidden Leaf calendar. Based on the clues from the original story, the Uchiha coup plan had already been underway in secret for at least a year. Fugaku—Sasuke and Itachi's father—was already preparing for the final showdown.

There were about two years left until that night.

Two years.

Or less.

III

Shuo Ye continued toward Naka Shrine.

Naka Shrine sat at the southernmost edge of the clan district, backed by the Naka River and surrounded by a bamboo grove. The shrine itself was not large. Its red torii gate had faded somewhat, but the place was kept spotless.

This was where the Uchiha Clan worshipped their ancestors.

And also—in the timeline of the original story—the place where Shisui and Itachi met for the last time.

The place where Shisui jumped from the cliff.

As Shuo Ye approached the torii gate, a voice stopped him.

"You. What are you doing here?"

An adult Uchiha man emerged from the bamboo grove beside the shrine. He held a broom in his hand, but his eyes did not belong to an ordinary groundskeeper.

A guard.

"Taking a walk," Shuo Ye said.

"Children aren't allowed here." The guard's tone was firmer than the man at the assembly hall entrance. "Go back."

Shuo Ye glanced at him.

The guard's collar was slightly open, revealing a faint tattoo of the clan crest beneath his collarbone. It was not an ordinary clan crest—it was the mark of the Uchiha secret police.

Someone from Root.

No. Root belonged to Danzo. This was the Uchiha's own internal guard unit.

Shuo Ye did not argue. He nodded, turned around, and left.

But after walking more than ten steps, he stopped and looked back toward the shrine.

The bamboo rustled in the wind.

Something was there.

Not something dangerous. It was an atmosphere. Like the heavy, stifling pressure in the air before a storm, weighing down on the chest.

"How much time do I have left?" Shuo Ye murmured. "One year? Two?"

No one answered him.

IV

On the way back, Shuo Ye's path was blocked by two children.

No, more precisely, one child was chasing another, then ran straight into Shuo Ye.

"Urgh—!"

The smaller one slammed into Shuo Ye's leg, then landed hard on his backside.

Black hair, big eyes, and no more than six years old. His delicate face made him look like a little porcelain doll.

Sasuke Uchiha.

Chasing after him was a boy a head taller.

His black hair hung to his shoulders, and his eyes were gentle enough to melt ice and snow. He wore the Uchiha Clan's dark training clothes, a kunai at his waist, and moved as lightly as a falling leaf.

Itachi Uchiha.

Shuo Ye's breathing stopped for half a beat.

He had watched every episode of Naruto in his previous life. He remembered every scene Itachi appeared in. He remembered the night Itachi used the Mangekyo Sharingan to cast Tsukuyomi on Sasuke. He remembered Itachi saying, "Forgive me, Sasuke. This is the last time," before tapping Sasuke on the forehead.

That forehead tap had been the gentlest secret signal between Itachi and Sasuke in the original story.

And now, Itachi stood less than twenty meters away from Shuo Ye.

He was smiling.

"Stop running, Sasuke," Itachi said, his voice light and gentle, the voice a good older brother should have. "I'm not chasing you. I'm playing with you."

"Liar! You're obviously chasing me!" Sasuke climbed to his feet, puffing out his cheeks. "And every time, you make sure I can't catch you!"

"That's because you're still not fast enough." Itachi reached out and ruffled Sasuke's hair. "Once you get stronger, you'll be able to catch me."

Sasuke pouted, but he did not avoid his brother's hand.

Itachi ruffled his hair twice more, then lowered his hand.

Just that one movement.

Itachi's fingers lightly brushed over Sasuke's forehead—not a tap, just a casual stroke—but Shuo Ye's pupils contracted.

He remembered that scene.

In the original story, before the night of the clan massacre, when Itachi saw Sasuke for the last time, he tapped Sasuke's forehead with his index finger.

That gesture appeared three times in the original story. The first time was when they were young, when Sasuke chased after him calling, "Brother, brother," and Itachi tapped his forehead and said, "Forgive me. This is the last time." The second time was on the eve of the clan massacre. The third was before Itachi fell during the brothers' battle.

Shuo Ye stood where he was, watching that scene—Itachi standing in the sunlight while Sasuke looked up at him with puffed cheeks—and it felt as though a hand had closed around his heart.

This person.

This thirteen-year-old boy smiling as he ruffled Sasuke's hair.

Before long, he would personally—

No.

Shuo Ye closed his eyes for a moment.

He could not think about that.

V

Itachi led Sasuke toward the northern side of the clan district.

After taking a few steps, Itachi suddenly stopped and turned around.

His gaze passed over Sasuke's head and precisely caught Shuo Ye standing by the roadside.

Their eyes met in midair.

Itachi's eyes were very black, very bright.

What was hidden in those eyes?

Shuo Ye could not understand.

All he felt was a chill crawl down his back—not fear, but the sensation of being seen through. As if, in that brief glance, Itachi had already read every thought in his mind.

Itachi looked at him for about two seconds.

Then he turned back and continued walking.

Sasuke glanced back at Shuo Ye and wrinkled his nose—six-year-old Sasuke did not yet know every child his age in the clan—then trotted after his brother.

"Brother, who was that?"

"Uchiha Sakuya," Itachi said calmly. "He lives on the eastern side of the clan district. He's one year older than you."

"He was staring at you the whole time."

"Was he?"

"Brother, aren't you scared?"

Itachi smiled.

"Scared of what?"

"I don't know... It just felt like he was thinking about something really heavy."

Itachi did not answer.

They walked farther away.

Shuo Ye remained where he was.

The wind stirred the bamboo leaves with a soft rustle.

He looked down at his hands. His fingers were trembling slightly.

Not from cold.

It was because, during those two seconds of eye contact with Itachi, he had seen something deep in those eyes—beneath that gentle smile, beneath the face of a good older brother—something was burning.

That thing was called resolve.

And Shuo Ye knew that resolve would eventually turn those gentle eyes into the eyes of an asura on the night of the clan massacre.

"This person..."

Shuo Ye whispered.

"Before long, he will—"

He did not finish.

A seven-year-old child should not have worn such an expression. But if anyone had seen Shuo Ye's face at that moment, they would have found that the expression on this Uchiha child's face did not belong to any seven-year-old.

It was the expression of someone who knew the ending and could only watch the story move toward it.

Helplessness.

Weight.

And an indescribable pain, thin and sharp as a needle.

Shuo Ye turned and headed home.

This time, his steps were slow.

VI

That night, Shuo Ye sat in the corridor, looking at the moon.

It was still full.

He suddenly remembered a line he had seen online in his previous life: the cruelest thing in Naruto was not who died, but that Itachi loved Sasuke until the day he died, while Sasuke did not understand until Itachi was already dead.

When he had seen that line in his previous life, he had sat in front of his phone screen for a long time.

Now he sat in the corridor of the Uchiha Clan District and thought over those words again.

Then he stood up and went back inside to sleep.

Before lying down, he glanced out the window.

The night sky over the clan district was clear, and there were far more stars than in Hidden Leaf Village proper.

Beneath those stars, a thirteen-year-old boy was practicing with a blade in some room.

He practiced seriously and quietly.

As if he knew he did not have much time left.

Shuo Ye lay down and pulled the blanket over himself.

He closed his eyes.

The image of Itachi tapping Sasuke's forehead for the last time flashed through the darkness.

Then it disappeared.

All that remained was the breathing of a seven-year-old child, rising and falling in the quiet night of the Uchiha Clan District.