I woke up to an empty room, the sun just breaking across the roof.

It was quiet.

Itachi's room was quiet and lonely.

I put on my shoes and left the house. I walked through the district, following all the symbols of our clan along the walls.

The streets were empty. It was too early in the morning. But even when it wasn't early, our district was quiet, unlike the lively Konoha downtown, unlike the crowded Fire Capital.

As far as I remembered, it had always been like that. It had been like that on the first day my dad and I moved in.

The lake area really was demolished. An entire stretch of the forest was missing, just upturned earth and blackened, splintered stumps. The cliffs looked different. The lake had reshaped, the waters muddied.

It was hard to believe Michio did all this, what emotions he must have had inside him.

Whatever happened during that battle, Tomoe's house did not go unscathed. Half of the roof seemed to have collapsed from the aftershock.

The door slid open before I could knock.

It was Otoha.

"She's in the back room."

The inside of the house did not look better than the outside. The television screen was cracked. The lights looked busted. Entire rooms had crumpled, the walls folded and ceiling beams broken.

Remarkably, the floors were still spotless.

The back room was a tea room, with the doors open toward the garden. Otoha closed these doors for us.

Tomoe sat alone at the low table. Her clothes fitted across her body in clean lines. Her long hair flowed down her back, not a strand out of place.

Her tea pour was smooth and soundless.

She set the pot down.

I looked away from her hand and the ring on her finger.

"I had been informed of your return," Tomoe said, smiling her hostess smile. "What can I do for you, Ayae?"

"Can you answer some things for me?"

"Depends on the question."

I originally intended to ask Tomoe about Shisui.

But after the past week, I realized Shisui was not the mystery. I was not confused why Shisui left. There were a million reasons to leave behind the life of a child soldier, to leave behind a clan who'd rather he be dead and than free.

What I did not know was why, when Shisui extended his hand, Itachi did not follow.

"Why is Itachi a ninja?"

The tea paused before Tomoe's lips.

"That is what you want to know?"

"Yes." My brows furrowed. "He never wanted to be one, so why is he?"

Tomoe considered what was worth telling me.

"The heir did not become a shinobi out of his own desire, no," she said. "And frankly, he is terribly suited for the profession."

"Is it his dad? Why doesn't he fight back?"

"I said it was not out of his own desire. I never said it was not out of his own volition. Fugaku cannot force his son into anything he does not consent to."

"Bullshit."

No more twisted logic! I approached the table.

"No one chooses to do things they hate," I said, offended by how stupid they'd have to think I was. "They do it because they have to, because they're trying to avoid something worse. What's the thing that's so bad that Itachi has to go around killing people? Why can't he get out? Why doesn't he leave like—!"

My words got caught in my throat. It was like my voice had been ripped away by the wind.

Tomoe set down her cup. "An entire clan of Sharingan, and it is this child who sees through him."

My breath came back to me. I coughed.

"You're right, Otoha. Three months make all the difference," Tomoe said, her eyes gleaming with amusement. "There is no more need for illusions with this one."

Otoha remained unreadable in the corner, her arms folded.

I glared at Tomoe, rubbing my neck. Rude!

I thought now was the time that Tomoe named her condition. That in exchange for the truth, she would send me out on some errand, or worse, make me sign another annoying contract. I was desperate enough that I would probably do it.

Tomoe had no conditions.

What Tomoe hated was wasting time on fools. They could bark at shadows and chase their own tails all they wanted; it was her job to train dogs, not educate them.

She was pleased that I had come back clear-eyed. And with a single question, pierced through the heart of the matter. It meant finally a conversation worth her time.

Tomoe rose.

She threw her kimono jacket over her shoulders.

She found her naginata and strapped it to her back. She took her bow too.

Her morning tea finished, she beckoned me to come along.

I had to scramble to keep up, refinding my shoes and slipping them on. I followed her outside into the bright morning.

Tomoe walked along the uneven lake, Otoha quietly following by her side.

"The problem with dropping responsibility," Tomoe told me, "is that someone else must inevitably pick it up, lest unwanted consequences follow."

She stopped.

She was looking. She was looking at everything at once. The water, the sky, the cliffs, the forests. Her hand slowly lifted, gesturing to Otoha to remain still.

After a quiet moment, Tomoe settled her hand back down.

She continued walking.

"The heir can't leave because he is the only thing keeping the next world war at bay."

I missed a step.

I had to have misheard.

She couldn't have said…

World…

War…?

"What he is doing, it's about as futile as stopping the changing of the seasons," Tomoe went on, unbothered. "War is the manifestation of millennia of karmic debt. It is not within the capacity of any one generation to absorb, much less any single person."

She stopped again.

This time, her bow was level.

The shot was so strong, I could feel the air around me snapping. An arrow speared across the lake, violently parting the water, and into the woods on the other side.

"The Uchiha don't fear war."

Tomoe tucked her bow away, moving onwards.

"Our people are the masters of adaptivity. During one of the bloodiest eras in history, we not only survived, we prospered. If war is the demand, then an army is what we will supply.

"We were so gifted in the art of battle, we used to be one of the most prized mercenary families. We might have even ruled supreme, as the deadliest clan the world has ever seen.

"Part of this was due to our exclusive access to the Sharingan.

"Originally a rare blood gift, it became quite common amongst us. The hostile environment ensured children without it would not survive. Then strategic marriages came in to ensure every generation's Sharingan would be more powerful than the next."

Tomoe paused here, studying me slowly.

"Do you know where the Sharingan derives its power from?"

I jolted, not expecting to be asked a question.

I realized Tomoe was testing me. Testing if I was worth her time. And the story was going to cut short if I couldn't figure it out.

Great, except no one told me anything about the Sharingan. All I knew was that it was the name for the red eyes that my clan had. And every time I had seen them, the circumstances had been pretty terrible.

All my memories brought me back to the first time I ever saw them, that day Itachi fought his dad in the field. I remembered the way Itachi had looked at me.

"Pain?" I guessed.

I had meant it as a hateful joke.

It wasn't supposed to be true.

"Yes."

We reached the edge of the forest. Or at least, the ruins of it.

"The Sharingan is a defense mechanism," Tomoe said. "The greater the pain, the more it tries to protect the person, by placing them under a state of incredible hypervigilance, amongst others. Do you know where the greatest source of pain comes from?"

This time, I didn't have to guess.

"The heart," I said.

Tomoe was pleased that I got it right again.

"There are limits to the physical that do not appear to exist for the emotional, the spiritual. Love is an ocean, or so the poets say."

Tomoe extended her hand. From her sleeve, Otoha withdrew a seal-inscripted bag.

The arrow Tomoe had shot was in sight.

"And in comes the beautiful paradox of our clan. The clan, in breeding for shinobi of excellence, had selected for the most unfeeling and ruthless of children. But sociopathy is fundamentally incompatible with the powers of the Sharingan. Pain requires not immunity but vulnerability, not apathy but compassion. And so, in our psychotic chase for greater and greater power, we had unwittingly also selected for the most tenderhearted."

We stopped at the base of a tree. Pierced right through the eye was a rabbit.

Horrified, I looked away while Tomoe went on to collect it.

"His existence is no accident. None of us are."

The bag poofed away.

Tomoe extended her hand again, and this time, Otoha gave her a handkerchief.

Tomoe wiped the blood from her fingers.

Uneasy, I looked away again, facing the lake instead.

"I'm confused," I said. "You said there's a war coming."

"I did."

"Who are we fighting? What do they want? Why does it have to be Itachi?"

I didn't care about this Sharingan stuff. I didn't see how it was related to why Itachi was stuck being a ninja. Did he have some special eye powers that no one had or something?

"What I provided you is context. Ignorance of our history makes it easy to misinterpret the stories of our clan." Tomoe looked at the temple further ahead. "Your answer is there."

Her gaze went to me, then to Otoha, before she walked away from us both.

"The story you want is the story of Uchiha Madara."