Chapter 4 - The Sun Sets

Uchiha Izumi sat down in the back of the bakery after one hell of an afternoon, thankful now more than ever that she had Emiko and Sae helping her out. They had gotten dangerously close to selling out on choco-buns less than an hour into opening the afternoon promotional. Apparently there was a larger-than-usual number of tourists in the village right now since there was supposed to be a festival happening in one of the nearby towns over the coming weekend.

While the bakery didn't normally restock on choco-buns after it sold out, many of their usuals hadn't even come by yet, especially the kids in either civilian apprenticeships or in the academy, and Izumi didn't have the heart to tell the little guys that the choco-buns were all gone.

Unfortunately for her, her mother wasn't around today ─ or hadn't really been around much for the entirety of the last week, really. Which meant that right after she arrived from her deliveries, to find her girls looking mildly worried after what should have been considered a very successful afternoon, she'd put on her apron and went out back to work.

Thankfully, they had just enough time for her to get a new batch going and freshly in the oven. At most, the kids would have to wait just the five or so minutes where she let the bread cool before taking it out front by the basketful. Izumi was certain that everyone would be happy to have it oven-fresh, anyway.

A cool glass of barley tea was offered to her by a grinning Emiko. Izumi accepted the drink gratefully and took down half the glass in one gulp.

"You were like a whirlwind in there, boss." The older girl said. "I don't think I've ever seen you move so fast."

Izumi laughed. "That was probably the most I've used my ninja training since I retired from active duty." She drank the rest of the glass at a more sedate pace, sighing in relief afterwards. "I got another hundred or so buns finishing up in there. Think that'll be enough?" Emiko's eyebrows rose at that.

"More than enough, I'd say, boss. We'll probably have extra, too, for the evening."

Izumi nodded, satisfied. "Any leftovers you guys can take home if you want. And any that you don't, I can give out tomorrow to our regular deliveries. I doubt they'd mind the freebies."

From the front she heard Sae laugh. "Freebies are why I wanted to work here in the first place!"

"Well," the Uchiha called back, leaning forward so her voice would carry through the door more. "You can take home all the chocolate buns you want later, Sae-chan. I'm sure your brothers would love them."

"Boss, who said I was sharin'?."

Izumi shook her head, grinning.

Since her mother had started stepping back from handling the bakery a few weeks ago, Izumi had needed to step up with handling Emiko and Sae directly. It was tricky for her at first, especially since she was usually gone for a lot of the day once the morning rush finished to take care of her deliveries, but both members of her staff had been working for them for a few years at this point, and were more than ready to handle themselves.

Any issues that usually came up were when they'd sell out on their products earlier than expected, for one reason or another. Usually, her mother would be the one to handle that, at least for things that they could get ready in an hour, but with the woman gone on clan business most times these days, it would fall to Izumi for when she got back.

It got better after Izumi played with her schedule a bit to start the day out earlier. Her mother still helped out most mornings, so with the extra hours in from Izumi, she'd have more than the usual stock readied.

After this last issue, though, Izumi was seriously starting to consider hiring themselves a baker, or teaching the girls how to work in the back, if they were willing. They were doing well enough that an extra hand was more than affordable, though it didn't really seem necessary.

How this all happened still bothered her, though.

She and her mother had been sitting down for dinner after closing up shop for the night. Any unsold stuff they had, they put up for half-off at the end of the day, and anything left after that were given to Emiko and Sae to take home.

The woman had told her without much preamble that due to some things that she needed to take care of with the clan, she'd be busy and not around all that much over the next few weeks. Izumi was to be in charge of the bakery in the meantime on top of handling the deliveries.

It was unexpected, but not something Izumi wasn't prepared to do, ultimately. She'd always been planning to take over in the long-run. It's why she'd retired from being a kunoichi, after all. This was all still earlier than she'd ever expected though.

All the same, she didn't ask her mom too many questions. Whatever the clan was up to wasn't her business as far as she was concerned. Her mother was occasionally called to help out with stuff since she was actually closer with her relatives than Izumi was, but Izumi barely ever talked to anyone that wasn't Itachi, Sasuke, or Mikoto, and that was only ever when they were in the village proper. So really, it was either Itachi or Sasuke.

But Izumi was very different. She didn't grow up in the compound, or really felt much a part of the clan. She had the name, but this was the life she'd grown used to, waking up every morning and baking, walking around the village making deliveries and saying hello to her regulars when they came by to grab a bite and have a drink.

Of course, she was polite to any Uchiha that greeted her, or bought from the store, but they didn't feel like family to her.

"Hey boss," Emiko called from the front of the store. Izumi got up and walked out of the backroom to see the girl pointing at the wall clock. "Weren't you going to be heading to the academy to pick up the kid today? Classes end in ten minutes."

Eyes wide, Izumi checked the clock to see the time, herself.

"Ah crap."

She was out the door in seconds, her apron flying in Sae's face. Both girls laughed and told her to take care.

Well, Sasuke was a cute enough kid, and if things worked out, Izumi supposed they'd be family anyway. She liked to think she was close with him, at least.

~TtT~

Uchiha Itachi wasn't accustomed to disagreeing with many people.

He considered himself an obedient son. When he was asked to push himself at a young age, he did. When he was asked to keep an eye on his brother, he did. He followed orders, did what was asked of him, and listened to all of the things he was taught.

Itachi was good at that. Very good at that. It's what got him into ANBU at thirteen.

With what his father was asking him to do, however, he couldn't really help but vehemently disagree.

"No." No, Uchiha Itachi would not spy on the Hokage, or on the council that advised him, or on ANBU, or Root and its members. "Why would you even ask me to do that?"

His father answered like it was the most obvious thing in the world. "Because you're in ANBU."

"The first Uchiha member of ANBU in decades." He threw his arms up as he responded. Itachi still remembered how big of a deal it was when he had been offered the position two years ago. He remembered how proud his father was, his mother, how everyone else in the clan gave him pats on the shoulder and told him how happy they were that Itachi was going places. "Why would you want to throw that all away?"

Uchiha Fugaku didn't answer. Maybe he couldn't answer. He lowered his head and the darkness of the already unlit room covered his face and made him look like something menacing.

Itachi knew he was strong. As far as he was concerned, he was one of the most competent ninja in all of Konohagakure today, bar a few, but right now what he saw in his father tugged at the part of Itachi that was still a child, the part that still feared his father. He turned to his mother and saw Uchiha Mikoto looking off to the side, but remaining silent.

Again, he asked, "Why?"

"We need to know about our enemies, Ita-"

"This is our village, father!" Itachi cried, louder than he ever remembered himself speaking before. He wasn't used to raising his voice, and he thought he heard it breaking. Whether that was from puberty or from emotion, he didn't know. "We don't need to be spying on our allies."

Itachi was getting up before he realized what he was doing.

"And where are you going?"

"My shift on protection duty is coming up. You know I was on the way out when you asked to speak with me."

"Those are not our allies, that live outside those walls, and you know it."

Itachi wanted to stop, to turn around and talk some sense into his father.

"You're not an idiot, Itachi!" The man was shouting now as the younger Uchiha approached the door that led to the main hall of their house. "You know that they've been watching us, know that they've been watching us for years. They're going to kill us, Itachi!

"Are you really going to let them wipe us out without a fight?" He could hear shuffling behind him, probably his father getting up. "For what? To serve as a glorified bodyguard for some whelp of a child?

"You could be Hokage! You should be the next Hokage!"

Anything else his father may have said stopped when the door slid open. Itachi stepped out, and closed it behind him.

"Itachi," Black eyes and spiky, black hair greeted him in the sunlit hallway. "Heading out?" Uchiha Shisui was looking at him from the front door. "I let myself in when no one was answering."

"Here to speak with my father?"

His best friend blinked. "Yes, actually."

Itachi nodded. "I figured." Shrugging, he put on his sandals as he gave the older ninja a pat on the back and passed him. "Yeah, I'm off to my assignment. I'll see you later, Shisui."

"Uh, sure." Before Shisui could say anything else, the door to where Fugaku and Mikoto were opened.

"Ah, Shisui-kun. Please, come in."

Those were the last things Itachi heard before he was flying over the rooftops of the Uchiha district and crossing over the walls that separated them from the rest of the village.

As he did so, he felt himself being watched and turned to see another member of ANBU with a modified uniform, this time with the vest in black instead of Konoha's traditional grey.

Root.

The masked agent nodded to him, a nod that Itachi returned.

Of course Itachi knew that the clan was being watched. He was one of the people keeping an eye on them.

And it was really looking like the situation was turning unsalvageable. There was a bitter taste filled his mouth that he tried to swallow down. He failed.

He needed to speak with the council.

~TtT~

Namikaze Naruto hated having to memorize stuff.

It felt boring and he didn't really feel all that smarter when he did it. Memorization didn't really ask much of him besides remembering things, after all. You didn't need to understand why or how something worked. You just needed to know it.

Despite that, here he was, spending the past hour or so of his Sunday afternoon writing and rewriting every one of the characters used in the basics of fuinjutsu. It was mind-numbing work, and he was slowly getting to the point that his hand could move and write out the character by just wanting to.

He took solace in the fact that it was the whole point.

That was something that Naruto always liked. Asking why something was done, or why it was important in his training. Both Rin and Jiraiya always liked to indulge him when he did, and explained in as much detail as he wanted them to what the purpose of an activity was.

In this particular case, the goal was to have it be so that he could write out all of the basic fuinjutsu-related characters with his eyes closed, literally.

In the distance, he heard what sounded like a cry of pain and wood breaking.

Was that Sakura?

There was a brief moment of silence before he heard the crash of something heavy hit the ground.

Yeah, that was Sakura. Why did her training seem so much cooler? She got to smash things.

Meanwhile, he got to practice his writing when he wasn't exercising.

He kept at it, though. Even if he was sometimes bored out of his mind, and his hand felt like it was falling asleep on him.

Fuinjutsu was one of the biggest parts of the Namikaze legacy. His dad and his uncle were good at it. His granddad was even better, and his great grandmother literally wrote the book that his lessons from Rin were coming from. Also, it let you learn some really cool things, too!

Being able to teleport was one hell of a power to have, and his dad used fuinjutsu to do it. He was so good at it, that they gave him a nickname and everything.

So Namikaze Naruto knew that this was worth it. It was so very worth it, and he was going to do his best to be good at it.

But he couldn't really move his arm much anymore and he was tired, and thirsty, and he'd been doing this since he'd finished having lunch. The bread that Izumi delivered an hour ago also started to smell really good to him.

He felt a hand on his shoulder. Naruto looked up to see his not-mom look over his work. She sent him a smile and gave him a squeeze.

"Looks like you have it down. Good job, Naruto-chan." She ruffled his hair and set a plate before him. It was a sausage roll that was spiced enough he could smell it from his seat. So that was why he thought he was smelling bread. "I think you've got this down enough that we can start having you do the writing blindfolded starting next week."

Naruto wasn't sure what face he was making at that, but Rin gave him a quick look and leaned back to laugh.

"Fine, fine," She said after she'd managed to get control of herself again. "How about this: if you manage to get the ink to move by next weekend, we'll skip that step altogether and get to the hardest bit."

The blond boy wasn't sure how he felt about skipping straight to the hardest bit.

"Also, I'll get Jiraiya to take you on that trip with Sakura-chan and her family."

At this Naruto's eyes narrowed. "The one out of town?"

Rin just nodded. "The one out of town."

"I'll do it." Naruto had never left the village before. He'd never been allowed to. He'd only gotten to hear stories from Jiraiya whenever he got back from his trips, and when Rin told him stories of all of her travels before she'd stepped in to take care of him. Sometimes, his grandmother would tell him about the place she lived in, though the thing that stuck most was the big inn and all the rain.

"You'll have to practice every night if you want a shot at it." Rin took the seat next to him and was staring at him intently.

Naruto nodded.

"And you can't miss any of the homework Iruka-sensei is giving you, so you'll have to do that first."

He nodded again.

"You'll give it your best?"

At this, the boy frowned, offended. Rin giggled before planting a kiss on his forehead. His cheeks felt warm with affection.

"That's a good boy. I'll talk to Jiraiya over dinner, okay? And we'll start tonight."

~TtT~

Shimura Danzo didn't like to consider himself a worrier.

Oh he had things he was worried about, of course, but he didn't sit about not doing anything about them. Danzo considered himself a planner. If something concerned him, he'd make a plan to deal with whatever it was, then do it.

Granted, it didn't always work out for him, but he liked to think he had a decent enough track record.

In better circumstances, this was probably where Hiruzen would have pointed out to him that he never did anything about Mitsuko Nabiki.

Hah, he was doing something about that now.

It was maybe thirty or so years overdue, but he was doing something at least.

Still, he made plans, prepared, and then acted. It was how Shimura Danzo ran his life. It was how he ran Root, and by the Will of Fire it had worked out for both him and the village. Root produced some of the best specialists the village had access to, and he knew his oldest living friend would agree with him on that.

Despite all of that, when Uchiha Itachi had sent him a message asking to gather the council and citing an emergency, he couldn't help but worry.

The possibility of an Uchiha revolt was never really a far thing from his mind, not since Minato's death and how everyone reacted to it. The plan for discreet observation did not work out at all.

And so the Uchiha were spooked, and they reacted by cloistering themselves up, hoarding their secrets and their power. The village reacted by reducing how frequently they relied on the services the clan provided such as that of the police force. It wasn't the smartest thing to do in hindsight, but neither Hiruzen nor Danzo trusted them, either, and that was what they believed to have been a good idea at the time.

It would weaken Uchiha influence on the village, and make it a bit harder for them to exert power through authority. The nightly patrols continued, of course, but it's not the same being allowed the power to enter someone's home for one reason or another.

Then Uchiha Shisui had approached them about the elders of the old clan considering more violent means, and things started going downhill from there.

Because now they were talking treason, and Danzo had more than one heated argument with Hiruzen about how to deal with that.

On one hand, they couldn't really keep a threat as volatile and powerful as the Uchiha around as they were. On the other hand, there was still a chance to de-escalate the situation.

So he and the council worked with Shisui and later Itachi to try and bridge the gap between the village and the Uchiha.

It wasn't working. It was buying them time, but it wasn't anything permanent.

Taking his seat in the small board room that they had commandeered for the meeting with Itachi felt like walking to an execution, but one where he didn't know the person being put to death.

Aburame Shibi was the first to speak. "This is bad news, isn't it?"

Considering the time in the dead of night, it likely was. Danzo saw no need to point that out. Shibi was just doing them all a service pointing out what no one else was willing to say.

Hiruzen sighed, leaning back. "What news have you, Itachi-kun?"

Uchiha Itachi took a deep breath before looking up. "I have been ordered to spy on all of you. My clan wants to know your schedules."

"Our schedules are hardly a secret." Nara Shikaku scoffed with humor he didn't have. "We're councilmen. Our secretaries can give you our schedules for the week on any given day. You just need to ask them. If you wanted, I could have it forwarded to Uchiha Fugaku's desk by tomorrow morning." He chuckled, this time with actual humor. "Though I doubt he'd appreciate the joke."

The real meaning of the order to Itachi went unsaid.

"I have further bad news, unfortunately." All eyes on the table turned to Shibi, who continued, "Aikuchi Nana gave these to me this morning." Taking a sheaf of papers out of his coat he started passing them around.

Danzo looked down at the paper. It was an itemized list of kunai, shuriken, explosive tags, smoke bombs, storage scrolls, chains, rope. For all intents and purposes, it was an order for supplies, which was hardly out of the ordinary.

To his right, he heard Koharu and Homura gasp.

It was all perfectly normal until you looked at how many of those supplies were being ordered.

"These work orders were filed through the Namikaze Corporation, but not through any of the shops inside Konoha." Aburame continued. "The order had already been placed and the shipments are en-route to the village as we speak. Aikuchi-san only learned of this when she was checking-in on active orders inbound to the village."

So they'd tried to get around Aikuchi finding out by not filing the order through her. As the representative of the corporation in Konoha, she'd have had to approve of the order before it went out, otherwise.

"There's enough in here to arm the entirety of our active-duty shinobi." Grunted Homura as he threw his copy onto the table. "There's only one reason they'd want to be this heavily-armed."

War.

Shimura Danzo was a planner. Of course, this meant that he had contingencies for what would happen should the Uchiha Clan finally decide to stage a coup against the village's central government.

One of those plans included the two Uchiha boys that had been reporting to them, the entirety of ANBU, himself, and every Root member he could pull in from active duty. Maybe with Jiraiya of the sannin thrown into the mix, too. He knew his friend's student was still chafing at never being able to get back at whoever was responsible for Minato's death. This would have been a close enough substitute.

But he didn't like that plan even though he knew it was as good as he could come up with if worse came to worst. It meant a lot of spilled blood, and a very, very visible civil war.

"How long do we have until the shipment gets here?" He asked Aburame, turning to give Hiruzen a meaningful look before the younger clan head could respond.

"Within the next two weeks, according to her."

Nara then chimed in, "We could probably buy more time by tightening customs checks on goods entering the village. It would slow down the merchants, too, and the Uchiha may know what we're doing if they notice."

"Not if we only have the checks happen outside of the village." Answered Koharu. Nara nodded in acknowledgement of the point.

"That would buy us an additional week at most. Any slower than that, and they may get suspicious."

So three weeks, give or take.

From where Danzo could see him, Uchiha Itachi's jaw was clenched tight and the boy's fists were shaking. Danzo felt his eyes widen in realization that the child probably didn't know about the weapon shipment either.

The others continued to talk. Hiruzen directed a question at Danzo regarding which Root members he could recall from outside the village within the three-week window, which Danzo answered without turning away from Itachi.

Eventually, the boy raised his head, lips pursed and eyes squinted.

"I have an idea. But I also have a request, one I'm begging the council to consider."

Hiruzen turned from Danzo to the Uchiha. "What is it?"

And so Itachi told them.

~TtT~

Born by death.

To rise, eternal.

The words played in repeat in her ears as she woke up.

Nohara Rin couldn't really describe it as being startled awake as she took deep breaths, opened her eyes wide, and leaned up on her arms.

Honestly, it felt more like coming out from under the drink after nearly drowning. If only the fire in her veins would subside, maybe she could pretend she'd gone for a swim and had a mishap.

No, unfortunately, she wasn't that lucky, so here she was recovering from her own brand of personal 'training.' Rin cursed the name of Namikaze Kaguya for ever putting ink on paper detailing the procedure that she'd spent the last few years having to suffer through.

Rin was still amazed at what a vial of blood and some seals could do to you when done right. She hoped she'd never know what it was like to get it wrong.

It had been in the last quarter of the book that she was teaching Naruto with. The same book that opened with the words that she'd hear every time she lost consciousness due to the effects of the technique that was changing her body, along with the painting of the black tree. Rin reached to her side where the book lay open and closed it. She'd put it back in the vault later.

With the bucket and towel she'd brought down with her, the woman wiped herself down and changed into some fresh robes before she started to fold up the futon she'd been laying in.

The Namikaze had done a really good job of thinking ahead when they had Azuchi built. The room she was in was an indoors dojo built beneath the house, only accessible through a hidden staircase that opened into the hallway of the master's apartments.

It was also locked up by so much protective fuinjutsu, Rin doubted anything shy of the Hiraishin could get in here. Which was important because it also stopped any chakra from getting out. Chi no Yaritori (Barter in Blood) did cause her to flare up like the sun whenever she was subject to the jutsu's effects. It had spooked Jiraiya when she'd first done it. He'd been there to spot for her in case she'd done it wrong and inadvertently gotten herself killed.

Thankfully, she'd executed it perfectly, sealing script, hand seals, and all.

Waking up was even shittier the first time, though.

With the futon folded up, she took the bucket and towel she'd cleaned herself with and started wiping away the seals painted on the ground. They washed away easily enough, and by the time she was done, she had a bucket of murky water and a pristine dojo.

At this point, the fire in her veins had transitioned into a pleasant ache that reminded her of hard exercise. She'd gone up, disposed of the dirty water and set the towel aside for washing. She'd probably heat up a few sausage rolls from Izumi for dinner since she didn't have to cook for anyone else tonight.

Goodness, when did she last have a house to herself? Sure, she didn't always have to do the cooking. Anko was more than happy to handle that during the day, and sometimes Jiraiya would surprise them with the reminder that he could actually cook something that tasted good. And had she really wanted to, Rin could have sequestered herself in one of the other apartments. Azuchi was a big place, and could get her alone time if she put her mind to it.

But it was different to not really have to worry about obligations, and that's what this was to her.

No Naruto she needed to worry about. The boy had pushed himself to meet the challenge set before him. Even if it had been little more than getting the blood-infused ink to start swirling in the seal-treated jar that kept it liquid despite exposure to open air, the boy had done it.

He was now on the first step to actually using the Namikaze bloodline limit.

It meant more work for him, technically, but at least the annoying part of having to write sealing characters blindfolded was something he could skip.

Instead, Naruto got to work on writing the sealing characters using only ink.

Her little boy had looked practically horrified at the idea at first, but it turned into excitement when he started to think about the possibilities.

After all, the sealing formula of the Hiraishin no Jutsu did not require you to take out a brush and write on your target when you wanted to mark them.

So Naruto, Jiraiya, and the Haruno family were out on what was Naruto's first ever time outside of Konohagakure. It wasn't anywhere far. Just a village over where Nabiki's eldest son had set up shop. There was a local festival happening, and the man had invited his family to come and visit him.

Of course, since Naruto was leaving the village, it meant they actually had a full continent of both normal ANBU and Root, as well as Shimura Danzo himself present. Officially, he was there as Nabiki's escort ─ which was true, and he was a smart enough man to not bother trying to hide it anymore ─ but he was also there to keep an eye on one of the most important little boys in the village.

This meant that Anko was at Root headquarters holding down the fort, and Nohara Rin was all by her lonesome, enjoying a quiet evening in Azuchi without anyone to bother her.

As the sausage rolls were heating up in the toaster, she took out the newest copy of Icha-icha, a spinoff series involving one of the side characters.

Reading through the first chapter once her rolls had finished and she'd poured herself a tall glass of barley tea, Rin realized something: The main character of this spin-off novel was a retired samurai that was settling down to raise his godchild with a much younger woman.

Rin felt an almost feral grin creep up on her lips.

Oh Jiraiya…

There was a knock on the door.

With a puff of smoke, her book was on the table and Rin was talking towards the door with a black tanto in hand and her arms clad in dark armor.

Azuchi did not receive surprise visitors under normal circumstances, and it was even less likely that someone would be visiting the old house at this hour. The trek up from the village wasn't practical once the sun started setting.

Naruto and Jiraiya weren't due till well past midnight, and it was too early for that.

So that only left an emergency, or an intruder. The seals that guarded the estate were all still active, and could alert her to an intruder even when she was in the hidden dojo. So either this was someone that was authorized to be here, or someone that could bypass the security seals.

Either way, Rin would have to be ready for a fight, and her blade and arm guards would be enough for her to buy time and beat a hasty retreat to Root headquarters.

The door opened to a sight that Rin wasn't entirely expecting.

Uchiha Itachi looked so small. He stood hunched with his head bowed, his ankles just barely on the stone porch at the door.

"Nohara-san." He was breathless and his eyes brimmed with unshed tears. "I need your help."

So this chapter and the last chapter were supposed to be just one chapter titled 'The Sun Rises, the Sun Sets.' The goal was to show how the sun was rising for the people of Azuchi and those associated with them, while it was setting on the Uchiha. It's why I had almost the entirety of the segments this chapter be Uchiha-related.

After this, we have two more chapters before we hit the academy graduations. I realize that this may feel a bit draggy as a result, but I was making changes to how these events played out, and it involved greatly changing how characters acted moving forward. The time spent here felt warranted.

I hope that I delivered that, and that the next two chapters will be a satisfying payoff.

Would love to hear what you guys think so far.

Cheers!