Chapter 22 - White Wing
Sasuke was already calculating distances in his mind when he left the clinic. If he departed immediately from Karin's village he'd reach Tamina by the evening. That wasn't so much time.
His heart was beating so quickly, quickly, quickly.
How long had it been since he'd last seen Yakata? The mission had been in April. It was July now. April-May-June-July. That was three, almost four months. That hadn't been so long, had it? And yet, it seemed like it had been forever.
Did Yakata even remember him?
Oh, why did he even care? He basically had been told, to his face, that it was possible. That Yakata was, Yakata was…
No. Calm down. He had things to ask, he had things he needed to know.
He made a list of things to ask in his head as he went along.
He realized, when he settled down to rest somewhere on the border of the Lands of Silk and Rice, that he had far too many questions.
No, he didn't need to know what Yakata's favorite food was. No, he didn't need to know how many friends he had. He didn't need to know any of those million other things. That was all secondary. He had to be rational about this.
(Besides, Yakata's favorite food was probably rice balls, or cabbage. He probably hated steak. He probably had a few friends. Hadn't that been what those boys had been, when he had last been in the village? He had friends, there was nothing to worry about there.)
By the time he saw the hills in which Tamina was nestled, he had narrowed his queries down to two or three opening questions, and he figured, if the conversation continued, that he would just go on from there.
How had Yakata come to be their son? Was he adopted, or did his mother give birth to him?
Did he have the Sharingan?
That would be good enough to start.
Tamina was cleaner than he had remembered. Then again, he supposed that three months of being lived-in all anew would do that to a place. One would never have guessed that there had been a landslide there, that everything there was freshly-built.
It wasn't quite dark, but the sun was starting to set - just like how it had been when he had first arrived. But there were no lanterns, no dirty faces to greet him here. He wasn't paid much mind as he went through the streets, familiar in a faint, residual way, memorized unconsciously.
He knew where the Honbo house was.
He walked past the elder's house, where he and his students had once stayed. A pair of passing women nudged each other and whispered something he couldn't hear, though he could guess what it was they were discussing. Their tone was suspicious, after all.
His heartbeat was thick in his ears as he saw the house. He approached it.
He repeated his questions in his mind. To remind himself what was important here, what he needed to ask.
How had Yakata become their son?
Did he have the Sharingan?
He held his breath.
And knocked.
There was a rustling sort of clatter within. "Who could that be?" That was Yakata's mother's voice. Sasuke could remember her name - Satoko, he knew that.
"I'll go get it."
Yakata's voice.
Sasuke kept his face as still as he could. He held his mouth in a hard line that was neither a smile, nor a scowl.
When Yakata opened the door, and saw who was standing there, he gasped. "…Sa-Sa-Sasuke-san?" he said, softly. His eyes were wide, and full of fear.
He had remembered Sasuke's name. And Sasuke remembered his.
"Yakata, are your parents at home?" Sasuke said.
Yakata didn't answer. His hair was longer, Sasuke noticed.
"Please, I just want to talk," Sasuke continued, when he received no answer.
"You, you, you, you shouldn't have come back," Yakata said, a sudden anger in his voice. "If, if, if you were just… if you were just going to leave anyways then… then you shouldn't have come back!"
"Yakata, who's there?" That was his father's voice.
Yakata didn't answer. His head whipped over his shoulder, and then back at Sasuke. "Wha-wha-what do you… what do you want?"
"Yakata, who's there?" his father said again.
"I just… want to talk. To your parents," Sasuke said. He could feel his mouth stretching at the corners, drawing itself into a thinner line.
"Yakata!" There were footsteps, and then there was Yakata's father, Gishi, standing behind him, all brown skin and brown eyes and astonishment on his face. "What are you doing here?" he asked. He spoke like his son did.
"I wanted to talk to you," Sasuke said. "About Yakata."
"Talk to… me? After just leaving like that? Well. This is unexpected." Gishi did not sound pleased.
"I know that this is unexpected and I'm sure that I'm… unwelcome," Sasuke said. "But, please, just allow me… ten minutes with you."
There was such a fear in Yakata's eyes.
Gishi took a very long time to answer. "…fine. Ten minutes. Come in," he finally said.
Yakata disappeared.
They had, apparently, been in the middle of a meal. Yakata's mother, still wearing that rough, rope-like braid, had a bowl of rice in her hand. She gasped when Sasuke entered. "What is he doing here…?" she said.
"He wants to talk to us. About Yakata," Gishi said. "Go on, shinobi. Sit." He'd left off the honorifics this time, Sasuke noticed.
"About Yakata? What about Yakata…?"
"I just have a few questions," Sasuke said.
How had he come to be their son?
Did he have the Sharingan?
"You seemed to have a few questions when you came to visit last time, but you just ran out all of a sudden," Satoko said. She put down her bowl of rice and glared at him. "Why?"
"I… have my reasons. It's complicated. But things have changed," Sasuke said. "Please, just allow me this time, I can explain myself later. Trust me."
"Ask your questions," Gishi said. He sat, cross-legged, across from Sasuke, ignoring his food.
Yakata was nowhere to be found.
Sasuke almost didn't want him there. Maybe it was for the better.
"I need to ask you… Is… Yakata your son? Biologically, I mean."
Already, he was deviating from his plan. He clenched his fists, trying not to show his frustration.
But Satoko and Gishi glanced at each other, something Sasuke found curious. Satoko's chest rose and fell. "Can I ask you a question in return, then…?" she said.
Sasuke tilted his head, slightly. "I… suppose?"
"Are… you Yakata's father, then?"
The words hit him harder than he had ever thought words were capable of. His own words slipped and stuttered as they shot out of his mouth. "E-excuse me?"
"Satoko!" Gishi said.
"Well, I had to ask! Especially because Yakata was just so convinced…" She bowed her head, staring at her lap. "I'm sorry," she said, her voice hard. "I shouldn't have said anything."
"Why did you think I was…?" Sasuke said. He paused, and thought. "…so this means he isn't your child?"
"No," Gishi said. The anger in his voice had softened, but his expression had not changed. "He isn't."
"I had a feeling," Sasuke said. "He… doesn't resemble either of you much at all."
"But you two, he was convinced you were…" Satoko said, but couldn't finish. Sasuke found that her eyes were suddenly brimming with tears. "Do you have any idea how much pain you've caused him?"
"Satoko, calm down," Gishi said.
"Pain? How did I…?"
"When you first showed up, Yakata was convinced, convinced, that his real father had come back!" She sniffed, but tried to quiet herself with her sleeve. "And the way that you just followed him around like that… You're a sick, sick man!"
"Satoko, don't say things like that."
It took a while for Sasuke to process. Yakata thought that he…?
"So just tell me now! Are you his father or aren't you?" Satoko said. She was yelling. Wherever he was, Yakata could probably hear her. Sasuke didn't doubt that she knew this.
"…I'm… I'm not his father," he said. "But…"
"But what?" Satoko said. "Why have you come back? Why would you do something like this to him?"
Gishi took his place her side. He had his arms around his wife, who covered her face in her hands and began to openly sob. "Satoko, it's okay…" He looked up at Sasuke, eyes burning. "Why did you come back?" he asked.
"…I needed to ask how Yakata came to be your son. Did… someone leave him with you, or did you-?"
"Yes!" Satoko cried out. She sniffed, wiping her tears away with her sleeve. The fabric was turning dark. "We… I can't have any children, and we prayed and then one day he came and gave us…" There was another sob. "He thought it was you."
A cold weight fell into Sasuke's stomach. "He? Who's…?"
"We never got a good look at his face," Gishi said. His voice was level and even with recollection. "He was wearing a black cloak, had everything covered up. Just came to our house in the dead of night and he had Yakata with him."
"He told us he, he came from where we came from, and he told us to take care of him until he c-came back," Satoko sniffed. "Said he'd… he'd do something to us if we didn't… Just told his name was… name was Yakata and he gave him to us and then he just left…"
"Yakata always knew he was adopted. It's… not an uncommon thing in these parts. And… because you two looked so similar, when you showed up and started following him around, he thought, well…" A shade of anger entered Gishi's face again. "Why did you have to come back? Why are you even here?"
"…listen, I'll leave if this is a bad time. I'm making you upset," Sasuke said. He already began shifting his position, to move.
He'd had a plan, he was there to ask two questions.
One of the questions had been answered. It was so easy to ask the second, and yet…
And yet he had a hysterical woman on his hands and an angry husband and Yakata was nowhere and they all hated him, they absolutely did.
Everything was going wrong. It wasn't the right time, none of it was right.
But then Gishi, said, demanded, "No, just… answer my question." The farmer's stare was intense and full of months, maybe years of frustration. "You came back for a reason. Tell me that reason."
He couldn't say it.
Why would he say such a thing?
Their son was his brother.
They didn't know anything, they didn't… He couldn't say that!
Gishi's stare was increasing in intensity. "Well, come on, shinobi! Answer me!"
He knew that Yakata was watching, from somewhere. Listening, like Sasuke had done from the trees.
And not quite knowing where it had come from, Sasuke said it. "I'm… not Yakata's father. I'm his…" He swallowed. "I'm his uncle," he said. "My… late brother, that's who his father is. I never thought he'd left behind any children, but when I first saw Yakata the resemblance was so strong, I just couldn't…"
"Your brother…?" Gishi's voice was suddenly rather hollow. "That's what you think…?"
Sasuke swallowed, again. They couldn't have known Itachi. Itachi was dead. He could say this.
And, after all, couldn't Yakata be considered something like a son? That had been what he had first thought, hadn't it?
"They look exactly the same. Trust me, I never forget a face," Sasuke said. "I thought I was… deluding myself, for the longest time. Hah, I even… I even I thought that maybe my brother was still alive. That you were my brother." He nodded his head toward Gishi. "That's why I ran, the first time, because you weren't and I didn't want to make a fool of myself." Even though he clearly, clearly, clearly had. "But after I left, something happened that changed my mind, and now I'm… convinced. He is my brother's son."
"Your nephew…?" Satoko said. She was starting to calm down, just a little. Her sobs were devolving into gentle weeps. "Oh, heavens…"
"It wasn't my intention to cause any pain," Sasuke continued. His voice had gotten soft, unexpectedly. Comfort was a foreign thing to him and it felt strange, coming out of his mouth. "In all honesty this… probably could have been cleared up if I had just bothered to stay and explain myself."
Hindsight was twenty-twenty, after all. Wasn't it?
"That's my fault. And this revelation was very recent, I should perhaps have sent a letter or something… But I got…" He looked at his lap. "...a little excited."
Well if that wasn't the understatement of the century. Sasuke's heart was beating at speeds he rarely felt outside of battle.
"Just how recent?" Gishi said.
And Sasuke thought. Quickly.
"My wife… found some letters of his, when she was cleaning the house. About a week ago. There were mentions of… a lover. A child. It all added up. I was confused and scared and… excited. And when I saw Yakata's name, near the later entries, I just… I had to come back. I left the house so quickly that I forgot to bring them with me…"
It amazed himself, how easy it was to construct the lie. How easy it was to cover his tracks, to piece together the holes.
"It's just… for three months, I just thought it was a coincidence," Sasuke continued. "Now I don't know what to think. I hardly know what to do. I'm only here on a… whim. I'm acting irrationally, I'm…" And he shut himself up there because he felt his throat tightening and he clenched his fists together ever-tighter to keep his emotions in.
Somehow, it seemed to help. "I guess I should apologize to you, then," Gishi said. Satoko seemed to have burst into a fresh batch of tears. "You have to understand, though, Yakata was just so upset over this. We didn't know what to do."
"And my actions didn't help," Sasuke said. But really, who was to blame? "Whatever he had to go through, I'm certain that some part of it is my fault."
"He thought his real father had come back. But when you left, when you left…" Satoko's voice was muffled by her sleeves. "So he's dead, he's dead, isn't he…"
"He passed on quite a few years ago. It was… it was very sudden. So to find out he'd left behind a child…" Sasuke actually started to believe his words. "Yakata's… all I have left of him, I suppose."
That, yes, was the truth. Yakata was the only thing left of Itachi. He was Itachi.
"This must be hard for you," Gishi said.
"I imagine it's not terribly easy for you, either," Sasuke replied, dryly.
"Oh, heavens…" Satoko said again.
"I'm still… not entirely sure about all of this," Sasuke said. "Though… though there's one thing that would… prove it. That he's my brother's son, more than anything else."
He had come to ask two questions. The first had been answered already.
Satoko sniffed. Her eyes were dark brown and rimmed with red. "What is it?"
"Have his eyes ever turned red, like mine? Under stress, or fear?" Sasuke asked. He pointed to his left eye, for emphasis.
"No, I can't say I've ever seen that happen to him," Gishi said. "Why, is that something…?"
"It's a trait within my family's clan," Sasuke said, "called the Sharingan. It's a very, very unique talent, and an enormous gift to have. If Yakata were truly from my and my brother's clan, then surely it would have manifested by now."
"No, his eyes have never looked like yours," Satoko said. "Not ever… Would they always be red, if that were the case?"
"No, no, it's only temporary. Something you can turn on and off," Sasuke said. He closed his eyes, and when he opened them again, they were black. "Like this, you see."
"Oh, I… I see…" Satoko said. She sniffed.
"So what does this Sharingan… do?" Gishi asked. He'd moved slightly away from his wife, his face filling with a sort of empty curiosity.
"It… lets you see things that others can't… normally see," Sasuke said, returning his eyes to the red he much preferred. He picked his words carefully, remembering who he was talking to. These were civilians, not ninja. "You can memorize things in an instant. Notice things that other people don't notice."
"That's just like him…" Satoko said, softly.
Sasuke's eyes widened slightly. "Just like who…?"
"And he's so smart, he learns things just right away…"
"Who…?" Sasuke said, though he had a feeling she was talking about…
"Yakata, he says he can tell what the weather's going to be like, just by watching the clouds," she continued. She held her fingers in themselves with a weak grip. "And he was the one who… he knew when the landslide was going to happen." A tear rolled down her cheek again and she wiped it away with her already soaked sleeve. "From the way the mountain looked. He said it looked different and we had to leave and…"
"People around here call him a… witch-boy," Gishi continued, as Satoko began to weep again. He put a hand on her back, resignedly, and his face tightened, as if the words physically pained him to say. "And the… kids in the village tease him so much. It's been hard for all of us. He's just smart, he can't explain how he knows these things."
He sounded, to Sasuke, like a genius. Like the genius he knew he was.
(Though to hear that he'd predicted the landslide sent a chill through his bones.)
"It's not… unusual for Uchiha clan members to have exceptional observation, even before their Sharingan manifests. Keen observation, intelligence, all run in the family. And my brother, well…" Sasuke almost had to smile, there. "People have said he was the greatest genius my clan's ever produced. So I'm… I'm not surprised that Yakata's the same."
"A genius…" Satoko said.
"So he should have these eyes by now?" Gishi said.
"My brother had his Sharingan activated by the age of eight. How old is Yakata now…?"
"Ten. He was… given to us in January but he was already a few months old by then…" Satoko said.
(None of Sasuke's children had developed the Sharingan yet. Even Hajime, twenty-one years old, almost twenty-two, an ANBU and everything, had eyes that remained as black as anything. But Sasuke was patient, even with his fears that their Yamanaka blood would… delay their development, somehow.)
(But his children would develop the Sharingan.)
"Well, I'm sure it should be soon," Sasuke said. "The Sharingan's, uh, not the only way to tell if he's part of the family, of course."
"What, what is it?" Gishi said. He leaned forward.
"…a blood test, naturally," Sasuke said. His voice was forced-flat.
He had suddenly gotten an idea.
"Oh, one of those…" Gishi said, in a way that suggested that he didn't know a blood test from a math test. "Yes, that would definitely prove it."
"And… just, pardon me for asking, but I want to make sure," Sasuke said. His heart began beating even faster. "I'm wondering if… maybe I could take Yakata back home with me, not only to have the tests done, but to have him trained a little in the ninja arts, as well."
"What?" Satoko said. Her hands clasped themselves over her chest. "A ninja? Oh, heavens, why would you… But for how long, how long would you keep him?"
She hadn't even said no. Sasuke tried not to smile, and he tried even harder not to panic. "Yakata… no doubt has enormous amounts of untapped potential."
"We need him for the harvest," Gishi said, in a tone that allowed no dissent against it.
"Then I'd… return him by then. And I promise, I'd care for him as if he were my own. He's my brother's... only son, Gishi-san." The desperation in his voice was… strange to hear, from his perspective. Stranger still, he found himself adding, "I haven't told you this, but… apart from him, and my children, he's the only living member my clan has left. I have to take care of whatever we have."
"Oh, that's awful," Satoko said, after a while. "Gishi, should we…?"
Gishi's expression was hard, and skeptical. "I'm wary of this, Uchiha-san," he said. So he'd finally decided to stop calling him "shinobi;" that was a good sign. "Taking him to have blood tests done I can understand, but training him to be a ninja…?"
"I'm just thinking of the potential he has," Sasuke said. "My brother was a genius, and from what I've heard, much of that had to have been passed on to him. Not just anyone could predict a landslide from the shape of the land alone."
Gishi thought on this for a very long time, not saying anything. Sasuke squirmed.
"…besides, I'll only train Yakata if he wants it," he added, softly. "But please understand, this is probably best for him."
The house was quiet, in the wake of the offer, save for the crackle of the fire and Satoko's muffled sniffles.
The strain of being so polite almost hurt. He could easily have demanded to take Yakata by force. Why was he being so careful?
And then he remembered what Karin had said and became even more self-conscious. "You'll have to be careful, in how you talk to him, how you treat him."
Sasuke was being careful. And he wasn't mentioning her theory, not in the slightest.
"…if you need to think about it then I'll leave and come back in the morning. I need to be home soon, but I'll give you as much time as I can afford," he said, as he began to stand. "I understand that this is a lot to process. Really, I'm… trying to figure out what's going on, myself."
"Thank you, we'll… we'll talk to Yakata about it," Gishi said. He didn't stop Sasuke as he began to move away.
"Thank you, thank you," said Satoko. "For telling us about this."
"It's… what I needed to do," Sasuke said, over his shoulder. "I'll be back in the morning."
He left. Yakata remained in the shadows the entire time, not even emerging to watch him go.
Sasuke made camp at the forest's edge that night and barely managed to sleep, marveling at what he had just done.
He had deceived those people, basically. But what harm was done? It was as close to the truth as he could afford, and even he could believe in it, to some extent.
Yakata was… more like Itachi's son, than Itachi. But he was still Itachi, wasn't he? He was still Itachi.
But why had he come up with that plan, to take him to Konoha? Why did he even want to do that in the first place?
Obviously, he could have blood drawn and tested and everything. Probably have some of it sent to Karin - he'd promised her that he'd keep her posted, after all, and this was all very, very valuable information to her too, no doubt. To prove, without a doubt, that Yakata was who he was.
But then, what? To offer to train him as a ninja? Where had that come from?
In the back of his mind, he heard Karin's voice, again. "I wanted to give him a life that Orochimaru didn't. Couldn't have."
He could do the same for Yakata. Honing those innate talents of his in a world where he wasn't the puppet of twisted, broken, militant elders. A world where one's superiors didn't order you to kill your own family. A world of peace, an environment that fostered supreme growth.
(And weakness and uselessness and sloth and Sasuke didn't want to mar his thoughts with all his current frustrations with the present educational system. They were far too soft on children in that day and age, and it disgusted him. Children - especially his children - had so much more potential than that.)
He could give Yakata a life as a ninja that Itachi could never have dreamed of having. That's where that had come from, hadn't it? He felt a warmth in his chest, at this realization.
If Yakata wanted it.
And the warmth was gone.
But… who didn't want to be a ninja? To a child it would be an adventure, yes?
Karai was eleven years old, almost the same age as Yakata. Her head always in the clouds, making every mundane little thing a quest, a journey. Surely Yakata had some of that same sense of excitement?
It was only until their harvest, at least. Two, three months at most. It wouldn't be permanent.
Yakata would say yes. And everything would go right.
Sasuke slept soundly, after that realization, holding fast to his beautiful delusions and his dreams and waking with the sunrise and the crow of roosters.
He ate breakfast slowly, taking his time. And, when he thought he was ready, he began on his way back to the house.