"Grief is really just love. It's all the love you want to give, but cannot. All that unspent love gathers up in the corners of your eyes, the lump in your throat, and in that hollow part of your chest. Grief is just love with no place to go." — Jamie Anderson
Warning for a brief description of corpses and an adult yelling at a child.
Ahō is perched on his windowsill.
Shisui stares at her until she caws at him, her body hopping from side to side with impatience. He scrambles and she jumps back in surprise, forcing him to project an air of calm towards his former crow, not letting any of his greedy emotions show. Itachi, Itachi, Itachi his brain rambles on as Tomodachi elludes an aura of dismissal towards his nestmate, preening pointedly in the corner.
Since all of the other crow summons had been dismissed, Shisui had decided to move him and Sasuke into their new home within the compound that was previously owned by an older clansman who died from natural causes. Even Hatake's funeral rites weren't enough to curb the incessant feeling of wrongness that permeated throughout the compound, and something told Shisui that living in the place where their parents were brutally murdered wouldn't be the best play.
The house is now empty with Sasuke silently and stubbornly leaving for the Academy that morning. Shisui tried to reason with him, tried to tell him that wasn't necessary, but it was hard to convince Sasuke even when he wasn't mute.
Now, Shisui thinks about how he is thankful for the quiet as he quickly grabs a piece of dried fruit from his drawer as a treat. Ahō easily jumps towards the familiar perch and Shisui gently pets her throat with the treats pointedly laid out on the other hand. She gets the hint and gags, letting a small scroll fall out of her throat pouch and onto the floor. Shisui has never been so happy to see one of his crows vomit.
He throws the treats in the air and dives for the contained scroll, Ahō's disgruntled caws disregarded for opening and pulling out the thin paper.
Shisui,
His heart jumps at the familiar handwriting. Hands slightly shaking, he continues on.
We are watched. I'm sorry I could not reach you until now. I'm sorry I did not think to warn you this would happen. I miscalculated due to my arrogance.
Please let me know if Sasuke is safe. Take care of him.
Do not worry about me.
Itachi.
Shisui stares at the sparse letter for a few moments, letting his sharingan sear it into his brain before ripping it up into as many pieces as he feels needed and setting it on fire. He doesn't let himself think about the wording, mechanically finding a paper and ink brush to reply with.
Sasuke is fine.
S.
He stuffs it into Aho's container haphazardly. She lets out a soft caw before swallowing it and flying back, disappearing into the air as a seal Shisui just noticed on her leg activates, obscuring her position with a shimmering genjutsu.
There are piles of errands he needs to run and he abandons them all, pacing around the floorboards in an effort to help the wheels in his brain turn.
Twenty-one, Itachi once told him three years ago, I died when I was twenty-one.
Right now, Itachi is thirteen, almost fourteen. If Danzo had come after his eyes in the original timeline, it would have happened almost half a year before the massacre.
A creak in his ankle sends a twang of pain at Shisui's sharp turn. He ignores it, too engrossed to even think about putting on his shoes to walk outside.
I'm sorry I did not warn you this would happen. I miscalculated, Itachi wrote.
"You won't forgive me." Itachi once whispered to him.
Shisui keeps pacing, chakra swirling in agitation. The wood under him creaks in protest as he tries to rein it in, but he's so close to something so monumental he can taste it.
Shisui stops, centering himself and his mind into calmness, letting his contradicting emotions pass him by in order to focus on the past.
The clan was going to enact a coup. Danzo full-heartedly wanted their complete eradication. Itachi worked in ROOT full-time then, under Danzo's command. The Hokage decided on diplomacy, but that aspect was waning by the time Shisui approached him. Before kotomatsukami was used, Danzo took his eye for his own purposes. Shisui knew showing up with a stolen eye would lead directly to the coup, and left Itachi.
He left Itachi alone.
Chillness, ever so slowly, ever so gently, creeps along his feet and settles into the nook of his heart.
Itachi, thirteen, without a friend or an ally, was directly contacted by a powerful man known to go against the Hokage's orders with impunity.
You won't forgive me.
Itachi, desperate, easily known for loving his brother more than anything in this world.
Take care of Sasuke.
Shisui sits.
And he waits.
It takes four days for Sasuke to talk to him again.
The event doesn't happen gradually or with any semblance of sense to Shisui's mind. One day, Shisui is simply serving Sasuke dinner, herding him towards an improvised outdoor table that wasn't going to suffocate both of them within the four noiseless walls of the kitchen Sasuke still refuses to move out of, even after moving into another house.
As Shisui sets down the last of the plate of clams, Sasuke mutters something too low for Shisui to hear.
Shisui startles, looking up from his meager dinner. "What was that, Sasuke-chan?" His heart thuds in his chest, excitement and trepidation coursing through his veins.
"He never even talked to me," Sasuke mutters, eyes focused on his rice. Shisui's excitement turns into ice. "He didn't even tell me why he did it. He was there, and then he wasn't, and now everyone is dead," Sasuke repeats, voice growing louder as he rambles on.
Shisui grips his chopsticks hard enough that he distantly worries that they'll break. "Your brother was under a lot of pressure. He might not have even known what he did—"
Sasuke's hands slap on the table with a loud thud. "You're lying to me! Niisan would never do something like that! He- he loved us! Someone made him do it, or- or it wasn't him! It was something with Niisan's face on! It doesn't make sense, and you're lying to me just like everyone else!"
Fear grips Shisui's throat as Sasuke gets too close to the truth. If Sasuke shouted out something like that in public, if he blabbered like that where ANBU could hear—
Protect Sasuke, Itachi's voice whispers in his ear.
"You're acting irrationally," Shisui clips out, voice stern. "You're just a child; you can't see the whole picture."
Sasuke lets out a horrible, guttural noise of rage and frustration, letting the dam that had been filling up those past four days burst open. "And you're just Shisui! He was my brother, mine! You weren't ever in our family in the first place, you don't know anything!"
The chopsticks in Shisui's hand snap.
"Maybe he just left us because he doesn't give a shit about us. Why do you think you are so special, huh?" He spits out. Shisui lets his brows furrow and frown deepen, making his voice take on a disgusted tinge. The words aren't just lies now, but taken out of real anger, fear, and frustration.
Sasuke suddenly looks terrified, but he doesn't leave the table, his body instinctively leaning backward in shock.
"I- I'm s-sorry—" Sasuke tries to say, blubbering. Tears start gathering in the corners of his eyes. "I was just—"
"What?" Shisui says, snarling. He hates it, a part of him is screaming at him to stop but he's so tired, he's so tired and he can't stop. "You thought what? That he loves you, so he wouldn't hurt you? You think a shinobi like him won't hurt other people? You're a fucking idiot Sasuke, always thinking in black and white. Grow up. He's just never thought of you as being worth his time." Shisui punctuates his statement by grabbing Mikoto's- his plates and moving them to the side. Sasuke flinches at the noise, body curling inward as his eyes cast down to the floor.
Shisui can't bear to look at him, can't bear to see the familiar eyes and face accusing him of all his failures and anger and helplessness.
So he does the only thing he was meant to do, the only thing he was ever good at, and he runs.
Shisui sprints out into the woods, uncaring of his yukata flapping in the wind and his naked feet digging into the wet earth. He makes sure not to use chakra, letting the natural ache of muscle and sting of branches push him away from his thoughts of shame and tears and Itachi and his parents and the clan—
He runs faster and faster, lungs gulping for air as he picks up speed.
A tear rolls down his cheek and then he can't stop. The clan, the entire clan. He's alone now in a way he never knew he could be, never knew to be possible. The silence of the mornings and afternoons and evenings are new and gut-wrenchingly lonely every time and he can't fucking help it when Sasuke steps into room and for a split moment Shisui wants to say Itachi? but it's never him, it's never anyone he truly needs except a child he's supposed to lie to and care for without breaking.
It's too much, Shisui wants to scream, eyes burning from the wind and tears, Please, it's too much!
His legs lead him to the outcrop of land scattered with headstones, some marked with traditional black marble and others hastily plotted with common stone and a wooden pike carved with numbers and the phrase 'To be finished at 23.08.78 — Konoha Public Funeral Services.'
His legs trample the ground underneath, uncaring, as he spots his mother and father's grave.
Shisui's sobs turn to weak sniffles as he lets out all his grief into the uncaring earth even as his nails hurt from digging into it with desperation, trying to atone for his actions with his remaining family sleeping restlessly among the earth. Shisui can't do much right, but at least he can make sure they don't have a fucking Senju burial.
He never got to see the bodies, he remembers. He never got to burn them as Uchiha and he doesn't even know if they're dead or not. Did they even die? What if his mother is slowly suffocating under the dark dirt and has been calling out for him- Shisui, Shisui, help me-
Shisui digs faster.
It's just a joke, he thinks, mind spinning, This has all been just a really bad joke everyone has been playing on me.
A guttural laugh wrenches out of Shisui even as he keeps crying, finding sadistic humor from his brain twisting to find any explanation for this fucking terrible world.
It isn't long before his hands strike something soft. He pants, getting his bearings and wiping the moisture on his face away with the clean part of his arms. Letting out a shaky sigh, he softly moves the dirt away, choking back a wail as he recognizes the dark curls coming out of the earth, strand by strand. He pushes the soil away faster, desperate to see his mom's face even as he screams at himself about the ugliness of decomposition, about how it won't even look like her—
Shisui stops. His arms tremble.
The corpse has no eyes.
Twenty-two.
Shisui finds out that there are twenty-two pairs of Uchiha eyes missing from the cemetery after grabbing his uncle's shovel from a shed. Careful examination of each one revealed that they were not crushed within the socket, as is procedure, but sloppily ripped out.
Officially, seventeen Uchiha had registered with the village as possessing the activated dōjustu. Shisui had unofficially disclosed the remaining five to the Hokage and his council.
It adds up to twenty-two.
Shisui starts thinking about how Danzo managed to corner him that evening by breaking out of his genjutsu. Shisui had looked over the file on Shimura later, scanning it for his weaknesses and strengths. His hair received a lot of abuse that day as he pulled on it and found zero affinity for displacements or the illusionary arts.
He thinks about the warnings Fugaku gave him, about clan members found without eyes or the increasing number of them sent on unnecessarily dangerous missions.
He thinks about the official documents in the main clan building's office, about the vetoed applications for increased infrastructure funding and weapon purchasing delicately signed, By Order of the Hokage Council.
A seething rage, dark and cruel and deep, curls around Shisui's raw heart.
Shisui has no more tears left to cry.
The Hokage looks at him with intensity, huffing away at his pipe in slow motions. Shisui resists the urge to grab it and snap it over his knee, if only to get a different look on Sarutobi's face.
"This is a serious accusation you're levying, Shisui-san," The Hokage says.
No shit. "I can find no one else who had the opportunity and motivation to do so," He replies, bowing his head, "I believe you know the signs to be obvious as well, Hokage-sama."
His leader sighs, a relenting sound full of what Shisui rabidly associates as the situation being an insignificant inconvenience.
The Hokage peers at him from under his hat, as if understanding his thoughts. "I will pursue my own investigation into the matter and enact justice as necessary. However, please be aware that ANBU will be given more duties than they are used to due to the… recent situation, which will limit the scope. Please remember to be patient, as these are troubling times for us all. Perhaps the ANBU would be good for you until you get your bearings," The Hokage says. Shisui feels the patronizing language soak into his skin, anger flaring at the new fuel. He almost thinks he can hear his bones rattle in rage.
Down, boy, he tells himself.
"Thank you for the opportunity, Hokage-sama," Is all he says, is all he's going to say, is all he's ever said.
The Hokage makes a sound of acknowledgment. "I'll put you on as an active jonin, but you don't need to expect a mission until a month or so, Shisui-san." He levels the younger boy with a stare, eyes tilting under the wide hat. "Please recover well. Dismissed."
Shisui bows, his feet instinctually pressing him in to the Record and Signing office.
The secretary gives him a bright smile as Shisui walks towards him, the boy proudly displaying a shiny Konoha headband. The overwhelming cheeriness is enough to churn Shisui's stomach.
Shisui critically eyes the teenager no more than a few years younger than himself. Well, Shisui placates himself, if he could handle assassins before reaching double digits, paperwork should seem reasonable for a career genin.
He plops down on the uncomfortable seat across from the other, making no move to twist his lips into a friendlier expression.
Annoyingly, the genin's smile doesn't let up. "Hello, Uchiha-sama!" Shisui carefully doesn't flinch at the title. "I'm here to give you some documents to sign concerning the Uchiha estate and guardianship. Hold on a minute, please," He says, leaning down to rifle through the creaky drawer next to him.
Shisui blandly watches as several files are displayed in front of him, each thick with bound print and typed kanji.
"So, these are the guardianship papers for Uchiha Sasuke, temporarily placing you under as the acting Uchiha Clan Head," He points to one pile, "These are to nullify Uchiha Itachi's affiliation with the clan," He points to another, not pausing in his rapid pace of talking, "And these are the modified forms concerning property inheritance. Once you sign, I'll get you the tax forms related to them," The genin finishes, pulling up a bright smile that dims a little at Shisui's blasé stare.
Shisui lazily riffles through the documents, feeling a certain calmness wash over him as the nostalgic action pushes forward memories of late nights spent filing Fugaku's documents when the older man couldn't spare the time to do it himself.
Shisui pauses. Flipping back, he reads the document again, ignoring the flinch across from him as he activates his sharingan. He grabs the other folder, passing his eyes through it quickly. Shisui doesn't stop the hurried actions as he grabs the third folder, opening and flipping through it like a man possessed.
Shisui's ears fail as the rush of blood drowns out everything else, the full weight of what is occurring in front of him raving through his mind.
"Shinobi-san," He asks calmly, quietly, "Are you aware of the contents of these folders?"
The grin in front of him falters. Shisui has no idea what his face looks like right now, but it must've been obvious enough for a genin to notice. "I mean no offense, Uchiha-sama. This is simply the paperwork I've been told to give you. If you would prefer a different inheritor—"
"Inheritance?" Shisui hisses. The chakra behind his eyes swirls, begging to be let out, pulsing under the weight of the wrath that clings to him like a warm blanket. "These documents are for the disbandment of the Uchiha in all but name. Properties, classified documents, political positions, farm animals, cemeteries, shrines, summoning scrolls, shinobi benefits — all to Konohagakure. While Sasuke and I are still here." He leans in closer. "Is this a joke to you?"
The ninja stays perfectly still, not even daring to breathe. A wise move. "No, Uchiha-sama."
"The Uchiha clan isn't dead," Shisui grits out, continuing on. "The inheritance will go to the next of kin, even if they are only half an Uchiha, a quarter of an Uchiha, or one-millionth part of an Uchiha. I won't even disbar Itachi because of possible offspring. Understood?"
The genin swallows. He gently sets down his pen. "Understood, Uchiha-sama," he answers, voice quiet. "I will give you the files you requested at a later time."
Shisui rigidly stands up from the desk and gives a departing bow, hands carefully visible at his sides. He turns away, quickly patching up his leaking killing intent and turmoiled mind. Shisui's feet turn towards the door as his mind races, unwillingly bringing him back into that awful room with Danzo staring down at him as the Hokage walks back out, bureaucratically covering his ears as the council member coerces Shisui to fuck a foreign general for the good of the village.
With a sinking feeling, full of despair and betrayal and fear, Shisui realizes that nothing will change.
He doesn't stop thinking about all the signs that were there, doesn't stop wandering through the building in a hyperventilating daze until he reaches an abandoned alley and collapses, hand clutching his chest as tears stream down his face.
I trusted them, He thinks, not even having the energy to speak in-between gasps of air. Shisui's body trembles and his eyes clench shut in a futile attempt to stop the screaming voice in his head from continuing on, I trusted them. They killed my family and I trusted them. They destroyed my life and I bowed to them. They took everything from me. I trusted them. I'm not safe.
And as Shisui leaves the room, the secretary sighs, pushing up his glasses. After checking to make sure no ANBU are snooping around, he starts composing two separate report scrolls for Sasori and Orochimaru, tediously coding each letter.
Kabuto grimaces. Politics and sharingan were quickly becoming messy business.
Shisui feels like he's going to collapse, feet almost dragging as he takes the long way back to that compound personifying all of his sins and failures.
He steps closer to his and Sasuke's new place, but thinks better of it, veering his path towards the main branch house where he can easily spot the flicker of Sasuke-shaped chakra. With the kitchen window slightly ajar, he enters, making sure to make enough noise to be heard.
"Sasuke," He whispers to the chakra signature under the blankets after climbing in, feeling an awful sense of deja vu like the one from less than a week ago.
Fuck, but it doesn't even feel like it's been five days. Five days ago his clan was alive. Five days ago Sasuke was laughing at him. Five days ago he didn't pull up his family's corpses and five days ago he didn't know that Itachi was- That Itachi most likely killed—
He pinches the bridge of his nose and breathes.
In.
Seven seconds.
Out.
He brings himself back to the present, tired eyes roaming over Sasuke's figure. Shisui crouches low to the ground, knees popping as he folds into a seiza.
"Sasuke, I just wanted to say I'm sorry," He whispers. The lump of blankets doesn't move. Shisui takes another breath. "I took my anger out on you and you don't deserve that," He swallows, "I'm scared, and I'm hurt, and I lashed out. You should never have been treated that way," He confesses. He feels like he's been confessing a lot of things lately, yet the truth seemed ever murkier.
There's a minute of incriminating silence, the dim light of the covered kitchen window lazily draping over the dusty furniture.
"I thought you left me like everyone else," A soft, muffled voice finally answers him.
Shisui softly exhales, not even realizing he was holding his breath. "I won't leave you, Sasuke-chan. I'll never leave you," He promises. He doesn't even know if that's a lie as well, but words were always cheap to him anyway. Itachi learned that from him.
A pause. "Can I give you a hug?" Shisui half-jokingly asks. Sasuke turns around, eyes lidded but free of tears and redness.
"I don't need a hug," Sasuke unconvincingly states.
Shisui resists the urge to twitch his lips up in a smile. Still stubborn. It was a good sign.
"Well, maybe you don't, but I'm in desperate need to fill my hug-meter."
"Hug-meter isn't a thing," Sasuke huffs out, but lifts the blanket in invitation. Shisui slowly crawls in, making sure to take off his jacket and shoes beforehand.
The blanket's weight settles over him as Sasuke shifts closer, wrapping his small hands around Shisui's warm neck. Shisui simply holds him, quietly feeling a sense of humbleness at Sasuke's easy forgiveness. He grips Sasuke that much tighter as his thoughts drift back to Itachi.
He still isn't sure how to parse out all his thoughts and feelings about what Itachi did, what he could've done, but as Shisui settles into Sasuke's embrace, he thinks he may now understand his choices — his lack of choices — a little better.
They stay like that for a few moments, neither speaking, feeling the soft rise and fall of their chests.
Shisui almost drifts off to sleep before Sasuke breaks their silence.
"I'm going to find him," Sasuke says with determination. Shisui's heart drops. "I'm going to find him, and I'm gonna stop him from hurting us ever again."
Shisui blinks, feeling the ache in his head throb faster as he moves his body deeper into the blankets. "Okay," He simply says. He doesn't have the energy for anything else. "Okay."
Shisui sleeps.
Okay, this is a last chapter before my hiatus to work on other fanfics and catch up to this story! Thank you for reading and I hope to see you soon :) I still have 30k more written for this, but I just need to bridge those gaps before publishing anymore
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