The Date of the Coup

One ordinary evening in June.

Dinner in the Uchiha household was fixed at six-thirty. Takuma had been coming home earlier lately—not because he had less work, but because most of the preparations that could be done during the day were nearly complete.

Shuo Ye sat beside the low table, waiting for his mother to bring out the last dish.

The living room was quiet. Sasuke was doing homework at a friend's house today and would be back later. Only Shuo Ye, Takuma, and Ayano were there.

Steam rose from the miso soup, turning into a thin mist beneath the light.

Takuma was drinking beer.

He did not drink often. At most two or three times a month, never more than one can at a time. But he had opened a beer at dinner the past two nights.

Shuo Ye had noticed.

He said nothing, lowering his head to pick up a piece of fried tofu with his chopsticks and chew it slowly.

Ayano sipped her soup beside him, moving very slowly, as though she were counting how many pieces of each ingredient were in the bowl.

The three of them ate in silence.

That kind of silence was normal in the Uchiha household. The clan was not good at chatting around the dinner table. But today's silence was different—it contained something, like a string pulled almost to the breaking point, ready to let out a sharp twang at any moment.

Then Takuma put down his chopsticks.

He pushed the beer can aside as well.

"Ayano."

Ayano looked up.

Takuma's voice was so low that no one would have heard what he was saying without listening deliberately. But Shuo Ye heard it.

What he said was—

"Next month."

Three words.

His voice was faint, like a bubble rising from somewhere deep below, making only an almost inaudible pop when it reached the surface.

Ayano's hand stopped.

Her eyes did not widen, her lips did not part, and the chopsticks did not fall from her hand. She simply froze, like a figure in a painting that had suddenly been stripped of motion, leaving behind only colors and lines.

Then her gaze dimmed.

It was not a sudden, dramatic change. It was like a lamp slowly being turned down—only slightly dimmer than before, yet that tiny difference seemed to lower the temperature of the entire room.

Beneath the table, Shuo Ye clenched his hand.

His nails dug into his palm.

"Next month."

He repeated those three words in his mind.

In the memories of his previous life, the Uchiha Massacre had taken place in the autumn of that year. The manga had never clearly stated the exact date. But judging from the plot—Itachi joined Akatsuki after the massacre, and Akatsuki's timeline...

He had once spent a great deal of time searching for information online in his previous life. Naruto wikis from different countries, analysis posts on forums, plot discussions on Twitter. The various claims differed by nearly two months.

But he no longer needed any of that information.

Because he had heard it with his own ears.

Next month.

Takuma and Ayano did not continue the subject.

Ayano put down her chopsticks, stood up, and went into the kitchen to serve herself a second bowl of rice. Her steps were steady, no different from usual.

Takuma picked up his beer can and took a drink.

Shuo Ye lowered his head and looked at the rice in his bowl.

The steam above it had already dispersed, and the surface of the grains had grown a little hard. He picked up a piece of fried tofu and put it in his mouth.

The tofu was cold.

He chewed twice and swallowed.

"Dad."

Takuma looked at him.

"I'm ready for next month's midterm exams."

Takuma looked at him for several seconds.

"Mm," Takuma said. "Do your best."

"Mm."

The conversation ended.

It was brief, like a thread swiftly cut in two, both ends falling onto the table with no one bothering to pick them up.

That night, Shuo Ye sat by the window until dawn.

The little flowerpot on the windowsill containing bellflower seeds had not changed at all. The soil was still flat, dark brown, and covered by a thin dry crust.

The seeds rested quietly inside.

Shuo Ye pressed his finger against the soil and felt its temperature. Cold.

He remembered the three words his father had said at dinner.

"Next month."

Next month was July.

What was the Hidden Leaf Village like in July? He searched through the memories of his previous life. There had been a scene in the anime showing the village in summer: people selling watermelons on the street, children from the Ninja Academy running around the field in short sleeves.

Those scenes had been bright, warm, ordinary.

But this July would not be ordinary.

At one in the morning, he heard the door to his parents' room open.

It was a very soft sound, one he would not have noticed unless he had been listening for it.

Then came a low murmur of voices. Takuma's and Ayano's voices blended together, the words unclear, only the rhythm audible—Takuma spoke for a longer stretch, Ayano interjected once or twice, and then Takuma continued.

Shuo Ye pulled his pillow over, propped it behind his back, and leaned against the wall on his bed.

He thought about what he could do.

The memories from his previous life had given him foresight, but that ability had a fatal flaw—he knew the outcome, but not every detail of how things unfolded. He did not know the exact day the coup would begin, who would make the first move, where the fighting between the ANBU and the Uchiha Clan would start, or whether Fugaku had changed his mind at the last moment.

He did not even know whether his actions in this timeline might alter details he was unaware of.

The butterfly effect.

Something he had worried about ever since coming to this world.

If he told Fugaku certain things in advance, would Fugaku make a different choice? If he approached Itachi beforehand, could he change the outcome of the massacre? If he told the Third Hokage about the Uchiha Clan's coup plan, would the Third take action—

But that action might be to wipe out the clan early.

Danzo had been waiting for a reason.

If the Third acted first, the reason would be, "The Uchiha are plotting rebellion. Suppress them preemptively." At that point, it would not only be the Uchiha adults who died. Even the children would not be spared.

Because Danzo would leave no survivors.

Shuo Ye closed his eyes for a moment.

There was only one thing he could do now.

Protect Sasuke.

It was the first ironclad rule he had set for himself after coming into this world.

In the plot of his previous life, Sasuke survived the night of the massacre, but Sasuke's life afterward... could not be called a life. It was hell. Revenge filled every part of him, squeezing everything else out.

If he could stop the massacre, he would try.

But if he could not stop it—

He would at least make sure Sasuke would not have to walk that path alone.

The next morning, Sasuke came back.

When he pushed open the door, he had a backpack on his back and a bit of dirt on his face, as though he had fallen on the way home.

"Brother!" Sasuke shouted, tossing his backpack onto the floor and running over barefoot.

Shuo Ye was sitting on the living room floor, helping his mother sort through the kunai in an equipment pouch—Ayano had started regularly checking the emergency ninja tools at home last week.

"You're back," Shuo Ye said. "Go wash your face."

"No!"

"There's dirt on your face."

"Where?" Sasuke reached up to touch his face, smearing the dirt and making the patch even bigger.

Shuo Ye sighed, got up, went to the washroom for a towel, wet it, then came back to wipe Sasuke's face.

Sasuke obediently tilted his face up and let him.

"Brother, you're like Mom," Sasuke said.

"How am I like her?"

"You just are."

Ayano came out of the kitchen, saw the scene, and smiled.

That smile was different from usual. Her usual smile was bright, like sunlight reflecting off glass. Today's smile was soft, like a thin sheet of paper pasted over her face, concealing whatever lay beneath.

"Breakfast is ready," Ayano said. "Come eat."

"I want miso soup!" Sasuke shouted as he ran toward the table.

Shuo Ye remained where he was, gripping the wrung-out towel in his hand.

He watched his mother's back—Ayano still walked as she always had, neither fast nor slow, her steps light like a cat's.

But her shoulders seemed narrower than they had been last week.

Not truly narrower. She had drawn them inward just slightly, as though she wanted to make herself smaller, to shrink into a place where no one would notice her.

Shuo Ye hung the towel back in the washroom and went to sit by the table.

Sasuke was drinking soup loudly.

"Slurp, slurp—"

"Drink in small sips," Ayano said.

"Got it—" Sasuke answered indistinctly, then continued slurping.

Shuo Ye picked up his bowl.

The soup was hot.

Steam washed over his face.

He took a sip.

It tasted the same as yesterday. The same as the day before. The same as every morning over the past year.

But something had already changed.

It was hidden in the words "next month," in his mother's dimmed gaze, in the can of beer his father drank at dinner every night, in the increasingly frequent footsteps of ANBU patrols through the Uchiha compound.

It was coming.

Step by step.

Very soon.

Shuo Ye held his bowl without drinking immediately.

He heard footsteps outside—neat, heavy, the sound of ninja boots striking the stone-paved road.

An ANBU patrol.

They used to pass by once a day. Now they passed four times a day.

As they went by, the shadows cast by the house lights swayed across the paper sliding doors.

Ayano lowered her head and drank her soup without looking up.

Sasuke was still noisily eating noodles, completely unaware of the sounds outside.

Shuo Ye finished his soup.

He stood and placed the bowl beside the kitchen sink.

"I'm going out for a while."

"Where to?" Ayano asked.

"The Naka River. Running practice."

"Be back within half an hour."

"Got it."

The wind blew fiercely along the Naka River embankment.

Shuo Ye sat on the grassy slope, watching the river.

The Naka River's water level was at its highest in June. Snow had melted upstream, and the water surged down from the mountains, carrying mud and broken branches as it flowed murkily downstream.

The river was loud.

He had once heard a claim in his previous life—when people were near running water, the sound unconsciously occupied their minds, and other thoughts temporarily stopped.

He needed that now.

The countdown to the massacre had entered its final thirty days.

He did not know how much he could do. But he knew one thing—no matter what happened, he could not let Sasuke face that night alone.

In the plot from his previous life, Itachi had spoken with his parents before killing them. Fugaku had said, "I'm sorry. Sasuke is in your hands." Mikoto had said nothing. She had only looked at Itachi.

Shuo Ye had watched that scene many times. Every time, it made his chest feel tight.

He pushed his hand into the dirt of the grassy slope.

The soil was wet and cold, the grass roots tangled together too tightly to pull free.

Next month.

He silently repeated the words.

Then he stood, brushed the grass clippings from his pants, and ran toward home.