Chapter 101 - Amazon Superqueen

Ino hugged both of her children, naturally. And Karai accepted it and returned in kind, while Inou just allowed her to wrap her arms around him, waiting for it to end.

But the rest of the journey home was entirely silent.

(Of course, Nadeshiko was not with them. She would sneak into the house, not expecting any recognition, a while later.)

Sasuke stayed ahead of them all, the unnecessary leader. And Ino stayed near to the children, with Hajime staying near the back. Every now and then, pieces of the audience would see them and wave and make other attempts at greeting and congratulation, but only Karai reacted, if anything. Inou stayed close to his mother, his eyes on his feet.

As they drifted away from the city center, where groups were now floating into restaurants and bars to celebrate, things grew quieter still. Onward through the residential areas, and into the barren corner of the city where the Uchiha grounds and their own house were located, nothing but birdsong and the wind could be heard.

This made it all the more shocking when Sasuke finally spoke, as they were nearing the gate of the house.

"Karai," he said, almost softly, "did you honestly think that I wouldn't notice?"

Karai didn't answer, for a while. "Um… notice… what, Father?" she said.

Sasuke turned around. His hands were in his pockets.

And he looked furious.

"That despicable trick you pulled, Karai. You really thought I was stupid enough not to notice what you had done?"

His voice was rising. Ino stepped forward.

"Sasuke, not now-"

He shoved her aside, staring his daughter down. Karai could do nothing but stare back up at him, biting down hard on her lower lip.

"I cannot believe you. Throwing the match? After you did SO well before?! HONESTLY, Karai?!"

His eyes were red and spinning.

"I, I, I didn't throw the match, Father, I swear, Inou beat me by-"

"DO NOT LIE TO YOUR FATHER!"

Karai flinched, gasping. She was starting to shiver a little.

"There were discrepancies, Karai. I saw them. My eyes DO NOT LIE. That technique never connected. It was OBVIOUS."

Karai had taken a few steps backward. Hajime took a few steps forward, to be nearer.

"You honestly thought that I wouldn't notice! You stupid girl. I am EXTREMELY disappointed in you, Karai."

"I'm, I'm sorry, Father, I, I didn't mean to-"

"Don't give me that BULLSHIT, Karai, and DO NOT LIE TO ME."

Ino got behind her husband.

"Sasuke, please, don't be so hard on her-"

"Stay the fuck out of this."

His voice was a growl, like a feral cat.

"I thought I raised you better. I thought I had raised children that weren't quitters. But I suppose I was wrong. Again."

Tears were rolling down Karai's face. Her lip was shivering with each breath she hiccupped in.

Hajime resisted every urge to hold her.

"B-But Inou, he…"

"Oh, I have some things to say to Inou."

Sasuke's eyes snapped to the boy, who was trying his hardest to become invisible, his arms attached to his sides.

"But right now, you have the most to apologize for."

"But, Father… Inou, he, he needed to win more than I did," Karai said, "an', an' I can always try again, and-"

"If Inou needed your help then he's weaker than I thought."

Inou closed his eyes tightly against at the merciless tone in his father's voice.

"And besides, Karai, the fact that you helped him, that you HELPED him… You're a disgrace. You're a complete and utter disgrace to our clan."

"Sasuke!"

Ino's voice was useless.

Sasuke was starting to pace.

"Siblings, if anything, should be… should be walls to each other, for each other to climb OVER. To BETTER themselves!"

His hands were clenching and unclenching in firework-like bursts at his chest.

"They're not supposed to HELP and CODDLE each other! You'll never learn ANYTHING if you keep on BABYING each other like this!"

Ino was rubbing her forehead.

"You're better than that, Karai. You're an Uchiha. You're better than this… this bullshit."

Karai reluctantly wiped the tears out of her eyes with her palm, half-nodding.

"And YOU, Inou!"

Sasuke pointed at the boy, halting his pacing.

Inou did not look up.

"You couldn't even beat your little sister in a fight?!"

And Sasuke scoffed.

"Maybe it wouldn't have come to this if you didn't dabble around with fucking mindgames and did some actual training for once."

"I don't. Just. Dabble. Around. In MINDGAMES!"

Inou finally looked up. He was seething.

"I trained until I collapsed for this!"

"Well," Sasuke replied, "that obviously wasn't enough."

"The fight barely lasted five minutes, Dad!"

"Yes, and I wonder why that is, really!" Sasuke said. Something like a monkey's smile, hostile and thin, appeared on his face. "What was that technique you were using? Oh, yes. YAMANAKA techniques. Absolutely useless. And look where that got you, boy."

"Sasuke, please, can we go inside at least, someone might hear…"

Ino, however, and whatever retort she might have received, was drowned out by her son.

"SHUT UP. JUST… JUST SHUT UP."

Inou's chest rose up and down, causing his ruined shirt to flutter.

"I didn't… I didn't get a chance to show off my true skills!"

Inou very quickly closed his mouth, after that, bracing for the inevitable command to not talk back.

Sasuke, however, was quiet in his response. Dangerously so.

"True skills, hm. So you have more to share beyond your little…" He waved his hands in the air, all wishy-washy. "…techniques?"

"Yes." Inou's voice hissed between his teeth. "I trained for this."

"Then why don't you show me," Sasuke said. "If you're as strong as you say you are."

Inou, to his mother's horror and Sasuke's indifference, wore a face that had once been his father's, when they were the same age.

"Maybe I will."

"Fine, then. You and I are going to have a duel, Inou. Family training grounds, no-holds-barred." Sasuke crossed his arms, apparently pleased. "If you impress me enough, then I'll believe your victory was legitimate. Though I'm not yet finished with your sister."

Karai shivered in place at Sasuke's glance, with Hajime behind her like her shadow.

"Fine. Let's… let's do it, already," Inou said. "I'll fight you right now."

Ino spoke, again, finally seeming to gather some strength in her voice.

She still sounded like she was being choked.

"Sasuke, be—be reasonable."

"Be quiet, Ino. This is none of your concern." Sasuke's voice was unusually cool, which only made it that much more terrifying. "Besides, if it weren't for your family and their worthless techniques then we wouldn't be in this predicament in the first place."

The man and the boy began down the road towards the family grounds, together, yet separate.

Ino chased after them, Hajime holding Karai's hand as they followed.

She threw out attempts at halting them along the way. But none of them worked.

Inou didn't even hear her. All he could think about was what he had to do.

He had to prove himself to his father.

He'd been so foolish, before. Why the hell did he even think his father would have even an ounce of respect for his Yamanaka innovations?

He was an Uchiha, he was an Uchiha, he was an Uchiha.

And he would have to use Uchiha techniques.

He was weak, but he would win.

Because otherwise…

Because there was no otherwise.

They reached the family training ground, his mother still pleading for Sasuke to be reasonable, for him to stop this, to just go home and cool his head for a while.

But Inou didn't want things to stop.

He had to do this.

Sasuke stood across from him in the grounds, Ino still near him, very close to tears. Karai was still crying, surrendering to Hajime's embrace on the sidelines.

The only way that Inou knew the match had even started was that his father had said "Begin," and darted forward, leaving his mother coughing in the cloud of dust behind.

It took Inou every ounce of effort he had to merely dodge Sasuke. He was faster than Inou had ever remembered him being, during their training, and he was making faster swipes, the near-misses feeling anything but safe.

Inou struggled.

Come on, come on, come on.

He hurled shuriken, both big and small. But his right arm was weak, and they missed, or bounced harmlessly off of Sasuke's sleeves.

Stupid, no, none of that Yamanaka crap, you're an Uchiha, he told himself.

He ducked away from a charge forward just long enough to weave his hands together and suck in his breath for a fireball.

The result was impressive, for him. The heat made his eyes water.

But his father sliced through it effortlessly, as if it were a cloud.

Sasuke didn't say anything. No insults, no calls for improvement.

Just silence.

That was utterly worse than anything else.

Ino had gotten out of the way, paralyzed with indecision. Inou could see her hands curled into deformed shapes near her chest, as if she were considering possessing one of them to get the fight to stop. But she did nothing.

(She feared what punishment she would receive for such a thing.)

(Sasuke had never beaten her, but that night, and all of the weeks before had her second-guessing.)

(Though not for the first time in her life.)

The minutes passed like frames in a film. And Inou was beginning to get tired.

He and his father stood across from each other again, each bent slightly over. Inou's breaths were deep and dry, and he was coughing.

Sasuke's breaths, however, were measured and even.

And he finally spoke.

"So this is all you have, isn't it."

"No! No, it's… it's not!" Inou called back, and he struggled to swallow to keep his voice from cracking again. "I'm… I'm not done yet!"

"No. I think we're done here," Sasuke said.

And then.

The air began to smell of ozone.

Inou could feel the hairs on the back of his neck and arms standing on end.

And there was a curious sound, almost like birdsong.

Coming from Sasuke's left hand.

Inou knew that sound. And he knew the technique that it heralded.

There was a flower of chakra-lightning in Sasuke's hand.

And a murderous expression on his face.

And then Sasuke began to run.

And in that moment, Inou knew that he was done for.

He couldn't dodge this.

His father was going to kill him.

He was going to die.

But before Ino's hands could come together and take her husband away, before Hajime could let go of his sister to intervene, there was a blur of purple and black, and it took Inou with it and somersaulted away.

Sasuke's chidori hit a tree, and it exploded into shards of bark and leaves.

His expression, however, only became more infuriated when he saw that it was Murasaki unwrapping Inou from her arms.

"DAMN IT, NOT YOU!" Sasuke yelled, his smooth rage disappearing.

"Inou, are you all right? Are you hurt?" Murasaki said, softly, touching his face, brushing his hair away with careful fingers.

Inou was gasping for air, his heart thumping painfully in his chest and throat.

If she had been one second too late, then his father would have…

He really would have…

"WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU DOING HERE?!" Sasuke was approaching them, quickly, his breath hot through his teeth.

Murasaki looked up at him. Her eyes were open, and wrinkled with anger.

"I should ask the same of you," she said. Her voice was shaking, but strong.

Sasuke growled and reached down to pull her up by her collar, but Murasaki managed to dodge him, almost too gracefully. And when Sasuke stood back up, she had already grabbed him by his collar, and pulled him towards her, so that his face was equal with hers.

"Are you absolutely out of your MIND?" She was yelling, now. "Sasuke, this is your SON! Do you realize what you could have DONE? You were going to KILL him!"

Sasuke wrenched himself away from her, stumbling a little. "Do NOT tell me how to treat my own CHILDREN!" he shouted. "And don't call me SASUKE like you KNOW me, madwoman!"

Murasaki's face did not suit her expression. It was hard, and her teeth were bared behind her soft lips. "I thought you were better than this, Sasuke. You were going to kill your own son over… over the outcome of a match? Over strength?" She gestured behind her, at Inou, and her lilac-colored sleeve fluttered like a banner. "This boy is a GENIUS, Sasuke! But you're too hung-up over what the clan USED to be to even NOTICE! You have no IDEA what he's capable of, what he's DONE!"

"HOW THE FUCK WOULD YOU KNOW!" Sasuke screamed back.

(A tiny thought, solid and cold within his hot hurricane of anger, wondered how in the world she knew what they had been arguing about, why they had been fighting, when it had just been his family present for many minutes.)

Her voice suddenly got very quiet, but not breathy, like it usually was. "Because I've been watching, Sasuke. Every day, I've been watching. And I'm tired of just standing by any more."

She turned back to look at Inou. And she smiled a desperate, miserable smile. "Inou, my precious, precious Inou, never, ever let anyone tell you that you are inferior because you are different, because the rules weren't made for you. You have a gift, and I am so proud of you."

"Shut up," Sasuke said, lowly. "Shut up and stop TALKING to him!"

"And Karai—Karai, what you did today was BRAVE!" Murasaki's voice was rising again, to overpower Sasuke's muttered curses, and his coming closer. "A HUNDRED MEN could not do what you did today, you are STRONG!"

"THAT WAS NOT BRAVERY, THAT WAS NOT STRENGTH, THAT WAS WEAKNESS." Sasuke was shouting in her face now, close enough to get flecks of spit on her cheeks

His thoughts were red and incoherent, his only desire to eliminate her, to make her hurt.

But Murasaki blinked, slowly, her glass-gray eyes narrowing.

"If what your daughter did today was weakness, then the sacrifices that I made for our clan were cowardice of the highest degree… little brother."

An icy fog fell over Sasuke. His jaw shuddered, slightly, his words frozen to his tongue.

Murasaki leaned in closer, so that her face was directly in front of his.

"Listen to me, little brother. Mark my words. If you continue to treat your family like this, then the clan will die for good. And it won't be my doing, this time."

With those words, Murasaki's head fell forward, and the rest of her body followed, collapsing against Sasuke's shoulder.

Sasuke's hands shot upwards on reflex, not to catch her, but to push her away.

His limbs, however, felt weak, like straw. He couldn't do anything but back away, her body slumping forward further with each step.

Eventually, and mercifully quickly, she came to. And she jerked away from Sasuke, looking quite a bit shocked herself.

"…what… what happened?" she said. Her voice was no longer forceful, but windy and weak. "…Shusuke, are you there? Shusuke…?"

Sasuke grabbed her by the arm. "Get… get out, get out." His voice sounded almost like he was retching.

Murasaki blinked several times. "…Sasuke-san? Did something happen? What did I do?"

"Get OUT." He whipped her forward and she fell into the dirt, her dark hair falling into her face.

"…I-I'm sorry, did I do something wrong…?" she said, sounding utterly terrified.

"GET OUT!" Sasuke pointed away from him.

Murasaki pulled herself to her feet and ran off, almost stumbling, clutching her head, her palms on her temples.

Ino finally managed to move, running to her son's side. Inou was still on the ground, too overwhelmed to stand since Murasaki came in and rescued him. His eyes were wide, slightly unfocused from shock.

Sasuke, with Murasaki gone, looked around in what could be best described as furious confusion. He saw Hajime holding Karai protectively, one hand on her head and the other on her back, though she didn't seem to be crying any more. He saw Ino on her knees in the dirt, shaking Inou's shoulders, wordlessly asking if he was all right, and Inou's face remaining blank.

The afternoon was playing over and over and over and over and over in his mind.

The sound of that woman calling him "little brother."

What the hell was going on.

"I've… had enough of this… shit," he muttered. "I'm going home. And the rest of you can meet me there, for all I fucking care."

And he left. And once he had arrived home he took refuge in his bedroom, because his sanctuary had been invaded by cowards and failures and—

That hadn't been Itachi. That was not Itachi.

That wasn't, that was just an illusion, that was just him seeing what he wanted to see, that was just Murasaki being the poison that she was.

(But how had she known all those things, how had she suddenly gotten so agile, so graceful, so familiar in her movements.)

That was not Itachi. It wasn't it wasn't it wasn't.

Eventually, the rest of the family returned home.

Karai refused to leave Hajime's embrace half the time, either in the form of his hugs or his hand, and ended up falling asleep that first night with him next to her, stroking her on the head. She had curled up against him like a baby, after tiring herself out with another bout of wordless crying.

(Karai never talked about her problems. Her family had enough troubles, and she didn't want to increase the burden with her own.)

(Karai hated making anyone feel unnecessarily uncomfortable. And this included making people look bad.)

(This was the reason why she had graduated at the age of eleven, why her nickname was Second Place Karai.)

(She could have easily become a genin at age seven or eight. But seeing Inou's struggles, and the pressures her father put on all of her brothers brought her to the decision to hold herself back. Inou had become a genin at ten. She would allow herself out at eleven. He'd look better by comparison, then.)

(This was just one of many decisions Karai made, on the behalf of others.)

(But she never talked about them.)

Hajime was beginning to regret the plans he'd made with Ninako.

Beyond their vacation-honeymoon, he had a feeling that she was going to take him out to dinner for his birthday—not on the actual day of his birthday, since, oh joy of joys, his birthday actually fell on the tournament day that year. And given how upset Karai was and the fact that Inou wasn't coming out of his room and his father was stewing in his own juices—well, he just worried about his mother, and the family in general. He couldn't leave them like this.

When he called Ninako the next day, the day after his birthday, she wasn't around, so he left her a message on her family's answering machine, being as terse as possible: "My family made plans for after the tournament, so our team's get-together will have to wait. I'll call you again once things get back in order."

He returned to Karai, after that, watching television with her leaned against his chest, her little hand in his.

He couldn't leave the house like this.

But he couldn't stay for very long. He had to get away somehow.

Inou retreated to his room and stayed there after Ino ushered him home, doing far too much thinking.

His own father was willing to kill him.

Because he wasn't strong enough.

These two facts were enough for hours of torture.

When his mother brought him food, he barely touched it. When he tried to sleep, he was restless and dogged by uncomfortable dreams.

Ino did not call Sakura about this.

She couldn't have anyone find out about this.

What would people say about the wife of a man who did these things to his own children?

That she hadn't done enough, probably. To prevent it, or to stop it.

That she was worthless.

So she stayed quiet.

She left Sasuke alone to take his walks and glare at anyone that dared talk to him, and she left him his meals outside his door, like she did with Inou. She slept on the couch so Sasuke could have his space, even though Nadeshiko had offered her own bed.

(Nadeshiko ran into Murasaki on the way home from her grandfather's, after the tournament.)

(She was curled up under a tree in one of the parks. Her hands were wrapped over her eyes and forehead, muttering desperately to herself. One of her shoes was missing.)

(As she passed, Nadeshiko caught some of her rambling: "…please I swear I swear he told me that it was an emergency please Mikoto-sama I'm sorry please believe me if it was him I didn't know please I swear I'm sorry please please…")

(Nadeshiko lowered her eyes, in passing, and informed a shopkeeper along the way that there was a young woman having a psychotic episode nearby, and that they should probably send for help.)

Nadeshiko told her grandfather that she wouldn't be coming into work for a while, after her mother managed to explain to her what had happened after the tournament.

And Takeru merely observed everything. Almost fascinated.

This was the state that the Uchiha household was in when a messenger arrived the evening after the tournament, with an order for Sasuke and Hajime to meet with the Hyuuga clan leaders.

Immediately.