The forest canopy smelled of pine resin and approaching rain, the kind of storm that built slowly over border territories where Fire Country met wilderness. Keisuke crouched on a branch thirty feet above the forest floor, his damaged vision reducing Team 7's campsite to blurred shapes around flickering firelight, but his chakra sense painted what his eyes couldn't see.
Four signatures. Three young, one experienced. The unmistakable pattern of a jonin instructor shepherding genin through what should be routine C-rank mission.
Except one of those genin carried chakra that made Keisuke's chest tighten with recognition so visceral it bordered on pain.
Uchiha. Unmistakably, undeniably Uchiha.
"He looks like Fugaku," Mirai whispered from her position ten feet to his left, her own three-tomoe Sharingan tracking the boy who sat slightly apart from his teammates. "Same bearing. Same intensity. Like he's carved from stone instead of flesh."
"He looks alone," Ayame corrected from Keisuke's right, her voice carrying understanding that came from watching isolation wear people down over years. "Surrounded by people but utterly isolated. See how he sits? Close enough to be part of the group, far enough that he's not actually with them."
The observation was painfully accurate. Even from this distance, even through Keisuke's failing sight, Sasuke Uchiha's body language screamed separation. His teammates—a blonde boy who gestured enthusiastically while talking, and a pink-haired girl who kept glancing at Sasuke with expression Keisuke couldn't quite read—created warmth around their fire. But Sasuke existed in pocket of cold that their heat couldn't penetrate.
Thirteen years old, Keisuke's intelligence had confirmed. Four years since the massacre. Four years of training alone, believing himself the last Uchiha, building entire identity around avenging clan that the world thought extinct.
Four years of carrying weight no child should bear, while twenty-nine survivors built lives in the Ghost Lands and watched from a distance they couldn't cross without risking everything.
Until now.
"Are we sure about this?" Shin asked through their communication network, his position covering the approach routes in case Team 7's jonin instructor proved less amenable to conversation than hoped. "Once we reveal ourselves, there's no taking it back. Sasuke will know. Konoha will know. Everything changes."
"Everything's already changing," Keisuke replied quietly, his hand resting on his tantō's grip more for comfort than tactical necessity. "The Akatsuki is moving. Konoha knows we exist. Sasuke deserves to know he's not alone before the world tears itself apart around him."
"And if he rejects us?" Mirai's question carried edge of fear beneath tactical consideration. "If he sees us as cowards who abandoned the compound? Traitors who didn't fight back?"
"Then at least he'll know the truth," Keisuke said. "What he does with it is his choice to make."
The conversation ended as natural conclusion, not because anyone was satisfied but because they'd reached the point where debate became delay. They'd come here—three days' travel from the Ghost Lands, careful positioning through hostile territory, risking exposure to make contact—for this moment.
Time to see if it was wisdom or catastrophic mistake.
They waited as full darkness settled over the forest, as Team 7 finished their meal and established watch rotations with the casual efficiency of team that had worked together long enough to develop rhythm. The blonde boy—Naruto, intelligence had identified him as the Kyuubi jinchuriki—took first watch with enthusiasm that suggested he viewed guard duty as adventure rather than responsibility.
Sasuke sat with his back to a tree at the camp's edge, his posture suggesting meditation but his chakra signature carrying alertness that never fully relaxed. Even at thirteen, even supposedly safe with his team, he was ready for threats that might come from any direction.
Smart, Keisuke thought. Paranoia was survival skill when the world had proven it wanted you dead.
The moment came near midnight, when the watch had changed and Sasuke had supposedly settled for sleep while the pink-haired girl—Sakura—kept vigil. The jonin instructor's chakra suggested light sleep rather than true rest, ready to wake at first sign of danger.
Perfect.
Keisuke gave the signal through subtle chakra pulse, and three Sharingan activated simultaneously in the darkness.
The effect was immediate and precisely calculated. Crimson light reflected off leaves and bark, three sets of tomoe spinning in the night like blood suspended in black water. Not attack. Not threat. Just presence impossible to mistake or ignore.
Kakashi Hatake reacted first—the jonin's single visible eye snapping open, his body shifting from rest to combat readiness between one heartbeat and the next, his own Sharingan revealed as his forehead protector tilted away from the eye he kept covered.
Four Sharingan eyes now, facing each other across forest clearing.
Naruto scrambled for weapons with a grace that suggested recent improvement in his shinobi skills, his confusion mixing with alarm in ways that would have been endearing if the situation weren't so fraught with potential violence.
Sakura moved to defensive position, her hands already forming seals for techniques Keisuke's intelligence suggested were more sophisticated than initial Academy rankings indicated.
But Sasuke—
Sasuke froze.
His three-tomoe Sharingan activated between one breath and the next, spinning faster as his gaze locked onto the figures emerging from the tree line. His chakra signature spiked in ways that suggested emotions too complex for his thirteen years to process cleanly.
Recognition. Disbelief. Desperate hope. Fear. Rage. Grief. All tangled together so completely they became indistinguishable noise.
"Uchiha," Sasuke breathed, and the word carried weight that bent air around it.
Keisuke stepped into the firelight, his hands visible and empty, his damaged vision barely able to distinguish Sasuke's features but his chakra sense reading the boy with painful clarity. Ayame and Mirai flanked him, their own hands showing no weapons, their postures suggesting readiness for combat but preference for conversation.
"Hello, Sasuke," Keisuke said, keeping his voice steady despite the emotions churning beneath his carefully maintained control. "We need to talk. About the night your clan died. About what really happened. And about the fact that you're not as alone as you think."
Silence stretched between them, broken only by the forest's night sounds—wind through leaves, distant owl calling, the crackle of their fire consuming wood.
Sasuke stood slowly, his movements controlled but his chakra signature suggesting internal war between launching himself at the strangers and retreating to defensive position. His Sharingan never stopped spinning, cataloging every detail of the three survivors who stood before him wearing faces that might be familiar if his memory of the compound's residents hadn't been buried beneath trauma.
"Who are you?" Sasuke's voice came out rough, like he'd swallowed broken glass. "What compound?"
"Survivors," Keisuke said simply. "Of the Uchiha Massacre. We escaped that night. Twenty-three of us initially. We've been rebuilding in the Ghost Lands for four years while the world thought only you remained."
"You're lying," Sasuke said immediately, but his tone carried more desperation than conviction. "Itachi killed everyone. I saw it. He showed me through Tsukuyomi. Made me watch our parents die hundreds of times. Everyone died except me. That's what he said. 'You're the last.'"
"He lied," Mirai said, her voice carrying anger that four years hadn't diminished. "Or he failed. We were fleeing through the compound's eastern section when the massacre was happening. Some of us fought. Most of us ran. Children, elderly, people who weren't part of the coup planning. We escaped into the forest while Konoha burned everything behind us."
Kakashi, who'd been silent while assessing threat level and truthfulness of claims, finally spoke: "If you're Uchiha survivors, Konoha would have known. Tracked you. The Hokage—"
"The Hokage did know," Keisuke interrupted, turning his blurred vision toward the jonin. "Eventually. Your village sent you to investigate rumors, didn't they, Kakashi Hatake? To confirm whether survivors existed and what threat we represented?"
The fact that Keisuke knew about Kakashi's investigation clearly surprised the jonin, his chakra signature spiking with calculation as he reassessed how much intelligence the survivors had gathered.
"The Hokage's policy has been non-interference," Kakashi confirmed carefully. "If you're telling the truth, if you really are survivors building lives in exile, you've been left alone deliberately. But why reveal yourselves now? Why risk that policy by making contact with Sasuke?"
"Because the Akatsuki is moving," Ayame said. "Because Itachi is with them. Because when the conflict comes—and it will come—Sasuke deserves to know the full truth, not the lies his brother told him."
Sasuke's chakra flared at Itachi's name, his Sharingan spinning faster in response to rage that had become so fundamental to his identity that invoking his brother's name was like striking match to accelerant.
But beneath the rage, Keisuke's chakra sense detected something else: hope. Fragile, terrified, barely acknowledged, but there. The desperate hope that maybe, just maybe, he wasn't as alone as he'd believed for four years.
"Tell me," Sasuke demanded, his voice oscillating between command and plea. "Everything. From the beginning. What happened that night. How you escaped. Why you never came for me."
So Keisuke told him.
Not the sanitized version. Not the strategic summary. The full, brutal truth that had cost them everything and bought them survival measured in scars and trauma.
He spoke of the political tensions that had been building for years—the Uchiha's marginalization after the Kyuubi attack, the suspicion that hardened into policy, the clan meetings where coup was discussed with increasing openness as desperation replaced pragmatism.
He spoke of Shisui—brilliant, idealistic Shisui, who'd believed he could prevent conflict through his Mangekyo's ability to change hearts without violence. Who'd been ambushed by Danzo, had his eye stolen, and made choice to entrust his remaining eye to Itachi with hope that his death would mean something.
"Danzo," Sasuke repeated, the name clearly unfamiliar but the implications obvious even to his thirteen years. "Who—"
"A member of Konoha's leadership," Kakashi said quietly, his visible eye showing pain at having to explain his village's shadows to child whose family those shadows had destroyed. "He leads ROOT—a covert organization that operates outside normal ANBU structure. If what they're saying is true about Shisui's eye—"
"It's true," Keisuke confirmed, his damaged eyes unable to hide the grief that talking about Shisui still cost him. "I was there. I watched Shisui fall into the Nakano River. Watched Itachi receive his eye. Watched both of us awaken Mangekyo Sharingan from the trauma of losing the person who taught us that strength could be kind."
The revelation clearly struck Sasuke—the understanding that Keisuke and Itachi had been friends, that they'd shared the same tragedy that now separated them completely.
Keisuke continued, explaining the impossible choice Itachi had faced: allow the coup and watch Konoha tear itself apart in civil war that would invite invasion from other villages and kill thousands, or eliminate the clan and preserve his younger brother.
"He chose you," Keisuke said, the words tasting like ash even now. "Made a deal with Konoha's leadership—he'd eliminate the Uchiha if they spared you, protected you, allowed you to grow up without being targeted for your brother's crimes. He chose one brother over an entire clan. Killed everyone except the person he loved most."
Sasuke absorbed this in silence that stretched until it became oppressive. When he finally spoke, his voice carried hollowness that suggested something breaking rather than healing:
"So it was all a lie. The hatred. The test. 'Kill your closest friend to gain Mangekyo.' All of it designed to make me strong enough to kill him and prove his choice was right."
"Or to die trying and prove his sacrifice was necessary," Mirai added quietly, her young voice carrying understanding beyond her sixteen years. "Itachi created a scenario where either outcome validated his decision. You become strong enough to kill him, his death has meaning. You die trying, his elimination of the clan prevented worse tragedy. Either way, he wins."
"That's not winning," Naruto interjected, his voice rough with emotion despite barely grasping the complexity at play. "That's just messed up! That's both of you losing! Sasuke, you can't—I mean, your brother did all that just to—"
He broke off, clearly struggling with how to articulate outrage at manipulation that spanned years.
"Yes," Keisuke agreed. "Which is why we're here. To give you choice Itachi didn't. To tell you the truth he's been hiding behind lies. And to offer you what we never had—knowledge that you're not alone. That the Uchiha didn't die completely that night."
"How many?" Sasuke asked, latching onto concrete detail rather than philosophical complexity. "How many survived?"
"Twenty-nine now," Ayame said. "Twenty-one from that night. Most were children. We lost two more during the flight—injuries, exhaustion, one child who fell into a crevasse before we could reach him. The rest made it to the Ghost Lands. We've been rebuilding there. Training the survivors. Preserving what we could of our heritage."
Sasuke was quiet for a long moment, his Sharingan tracking between the three survivors as if trying to determine whether this was elaborate genjutsu designed to break him more completely than Itachi's Tsukuyomi ever had.
Finally: "Four years. You've been alive for four years. Building lives. Training. Preserving traditions. While I was alone in Konoha, training every day to avenge a clan I thought was extinct. And you never—" his voice broke, revealing the child beneath the cold exterior, "—you never came for me?"
The question landed like kunai in Keisuke's chest, the guilt he'd been carrying for four years crystallizing into physical pain.
"Because revealing ourselves would have endangered everyone," Keisuke said quietly, knowing the explanation was inadequate but also knowing it was all they had. "You were in Konoha. Under watch. Protected but also monitored. If you'd known we existed and Konoha discovered that knowledge through interrogation or Sharingan techniques Danzo had access to, they would have hunted us. Finished what Itachi started. We had to choose between comforting you and ensuring the survivors lived."
"That's not your choice to make!" Sasuke's chakra exploded outward, rage and grief mixing in proportions that suggested imminent violence rather than control. "You don't get to decide I'm better off alone! You don't get to—"
"Sasuke." Kakashi's voice cut through the rising emotion, quiet but carrying authority that demanded attention. His single visible eye tracked between his student and the survivors with expression suggesting he was reassessing everything he thought he knew. "They're telling the truth. The Hokage confirmed months ago that Uchiha survivors existed. He tasked me with investigating. We chose not to interfere with them, and they chose not to endanger you by making premature contact. Neither decision was made lightly."
The revelation that Hiruzen had known added another layer of betrayal to the already complex situation. Sasuke turned toward Kakashi, his Sharingan spinning with emotions too tangled for his thirteen years to process cleanly.
"You knew?" The words came out barely above whisper. "The Hokage knew? Everyone knew except me?"
"The Hokage knew survivors existed," Kakashi corrected carefully, his tone suggesting he was choosing each word with precision that acknowledged how easily this conversation could explode into violence. "Not their location. Not their exact circumstances. And his decision was to leave them alone—to let them build lives without further persecution from the village that had already taken everything from them."
"How merciful," Sasuke's voice dripped with bitter sarcasm that made him sound decades older than thirteen. "The village that ordered my family's murder decided to let some survivors live. Should I be grateful?"
The words hung in the air like suspended kunai, sharp and dangerous and pointing at everyone present.
Naruto, who'd been processing information that clearly contradicted everything he'd been taught about Konoha's heroism, finally found his voice: "Wait, what? The village ordered the massacre? But I thought Itachi just went crazy and—"
"Itachi was following orders," Keisuke said, and the admission cost him visibly despite four years to prepare for this moment. His hands clenched at his sides, his damaged eyes unable to hide the grief that statement carried even now. "The Uchiha leadership was planning a coup. Konoha's leadership—the Hokage, his advisors, Danzo—decided that pre-emptive elimination was preferable to civil war. Itachi was the weapon they used because both sides trusted him. He was the bridge that they used to burn everything."
The information seemed to physically impact everyone present in different ways. Naruto's expression cycled through confusion, horror, and something that looked like his worldview shattering in real-time. Sakura looked between Sasuke and the strangers, clearly trying to reconcile heroic village mythology with ordered genocide while maintaining composure that her two teammates were losing.
Even Kakashi's visible eye showed pain—the kind that suggested he'd suspected some of this but having it confirmed still carried weight that left marks.
But Sasuke went very still.
His chakra signature shifted from explosive rage to something colder, more controlled, infinitely more dangerous. The kind of stillness that preceded either absolute violence or absolute shutdown.
"Tell me everything," Sasuke said, his voice devoid of emotion in ways that frightened everyone who heard it. "Every detail. What you saw. What you know. Why Itachi did it. Why Konoha ordered it. All of it. I want to understand exactly what happened before I decide what to do with this information."
So Keisuke told him everything.
Every painful detail, leaving nothing sanitized or softened, trusting that Sasuke—who'd survived four years believing himself alone, who'd been tortured by Tsukuyomi showing his parents' deaths hundreds of times—could handle truth even if that truth was more complicated than simple narrative of brother-gone-mad.
He explained the years of building tension after the Kyuubi attack, how the Uchiha had been relocated to the compound's edge, how they'd been excluded from village leadership, how suspicion had hardened into policy that treated them as threats rather than citizens.
He spoke of the clan meetings where younger Uchiha had advocated for coup with increasing desperation, where Fugaku had eventually agreed that forcing recognition was preferable to continued marginalization, where plans had been made with terrible specificity about taking the Hokage's office and redistributing power.
He described Shisui's attempt to prevent bloodshed through Kotoamatsukami—the Mangekyo ability to change someone's heart without them knowing, to guide Fugaku away from coup through manipulation so subtle it would seem like his own reasoning. How that plan had been stopped by Danzo's ambush, by the theft of Shisui's eye, by the death that had awakened both Keisuke's and Itachi's Mangekyo through shared trauma.
"And after Shisui died?" Sasuke asked, his voice carrying dangerous calm. "What happened then?"
"Konoha's leadership made their decision," Keisuke said. "Called Itachi in. Gave him impossible choice—allow the coup and watch thousands die in civil war that would destroy Konoha and invite invasion from other villages, or eliminate the Uchiha and prevent the conflict before it started. They framed it as mathematics—hundreds dead to save thousands. The greater good through terrible sacrifice."
"And Itachi chose to kill us," Sasuke stated flatly.
"He chose to save you," Keisuke corrected, the distinction mattering even if the outcome was the same. "Made deal with Konoha's leadership. He'd eliminate the coup leaders and enough clan members to prevent immediate retaliation if they spared his brother, protected you, allowed you to grow up without being targeted for your brother's crimes. He sacrificed everyone else to ensure you survived."
The explanation hung between them, and Keisuke watched Sasuke process information that rewrote his entire understanding of identity and purpose.
"So everything he told me was lie," Sasuke said eventually. "The hatred. The test. The way to gain Mangekyo. All designed to shape me into weapon that would eventually kill him and become hero. All manipulation."
"Yes," Ayame confirmed. "But manipulation born from genuine love, twisted by impossible circumstances. Itachi didn't massacre the clan because he was evil or insane. He did it because he was trying to save both you and Konoha, and couldn't find way to save everyone. So he made choice that cost him his soul but preserved what he loved most."
"That doesn't make it acceptable," Mirai said sharply, her own anger at Itachi clear despite understanding his reasoning. "Love doesn't justify genocide. Protecting one person doesn't make murdering hundreds right. Itachi made choice that seemed logical to him, but it was still monstrous."
The philosophical divide between the survivors was clear—Ayame's pragmatic understanding of Itachi's impossible position versus Mirai's absolute moral judgment against the massacre regardless of motives.
Sasuke stood abruptly, his chakra spiking in ways that suggested fight-or-flight response overwhelming his normal control. "I need to think. Process this. I can't—" He broke off, his control fraying in ways his teammates had rarely seen. "You've given me truth that changes everything I thought I knew. But I don't know what to do with it. Don't know how to reconcile the brother who showed me nothing but kindness until he killed everyone with the brother who was following orders from village I'm supposed to be loyal to."
"You don't have to do anything yet," Keisuke said gently, understanding the paralysis that came from having too many revelations too quickly. "We're not asking you to join us. Not asking you to abandon Konoha or change your path immediately. Just... know we exist. That the choice about what the Uchiha become, about what you become, isn't yours alone to make. There are others who share your blood and your loss, even if we've taken different paths since that night."
Before Sasuke could respond—before he could reject the offer or accept it or do anything that would define the relationship going forward—Ayame pulled out a small scroll from her equipment pouch.
The scroll was sealed with wax bearing the simplified Uchiha fan symbol that the Hidden Uchiha Village had adopted—one fan instead of the traditional two, its edges stylized to suggest both fire and the mountain peaks that surrounded their settlement.
"Our location," Ayame explained, extending the scroll toward Sasuke with hands that showed no weapons, no threat, only offering. "Instructions on how to find us if you choose to. The Ghost Lands are vast and dangerous, but if you follow the chakra signature we've embedded in the seal, you'll be able to reach our settlement. And techniques—" she gestured to the scroll's weight, "—clan jutsu that Konoha doesn't teach, that only Uchiha should know. Fire techniques passed down through generations. Genjutsu specific to Sharingan users. Your birthright, regardless of what you decide about us."
Sasuke stared at the scroll like it might explode, his Sharingan tracking the seal with attention that suggested he was analyzing its construction, its authenticity, its potential dangers.
For a long moment, he didn't move. Didn't reach for it. Didn't reject it outright.
Then, slowly—so slowly it seemed he might change his mind with every centimeter—he extended his hand and took the scroll.
His fingers trembled slightly despite his attempt at control, and Keisuke's chakra sense read the emotional storm beneath Sasuke's carefully maintained exterior: hope warring with suspicion, desperate need for connection fighting with years of learning to trust no one, the child who wanted family opposing the weapon who'd been shaped by isolation.
"I'll think about it," Sasuke said, his voice rough. "The information. The techniques. Whether to visit your settlement. But I'm not making promises. Not joining you just because we share blood and trauma. I need to understand what this means before I decide anything."
"That's all we're asking," Keisuke said. "Time to think. Freedom to choose. Knowledge that whatever path you take, you're not as alone as you've believed."
The survivors began to fade back into the darkness, their movements smooth and practiced from years of avoiding detection. Three Sharingan dimmed in sequence, the crimson light extinguishing until only Kakashi's and Sasuke's remained active in the night.
But before Keisuke disappeared completely, he turned back one final time, his damaged vision unable to see Sasuke's expression but his voice carrying weight of four years' worth of watching from distance:
"We didn't abandon you, Sasuke. We protected you the only way we could. Whether that was right or wrong, wise or cowardly—that's for you to judge. But know that we've been watching. Worrying. Hoping you'd survive and become strong enough that when we finally made contact, you'd understand why we waited. Why we chose your survival over our own comfort."
Then they were gone, vanishing into the forest as completely as they'd appeared, leaving Team 7 around their fire with information that reshapes everything.
Silence settled over the camp like ash after fire, heavy and oppressive and impossible to ignore.
Sasuke stood motionless, the scroll clutched in his hand, his Sharingan still spinning as if searching the darkness for threats or answers in equal measure. His mind was reeling, every certainty he'd built his identity around for four years undermined by single conversation.
He'd trained to kill Itachi to avenge the clan. But if the clan wasn't entirely dead, if other Uchiha had survived and built lives in exile, what did revenge even mean? If Konoha had ordered the massacre, if his brother had been following those orders rather than acting from madness, was he supposed to hate Itachi or hate the village that had given him impossible choice?
"Sasuke," Kakashi said quietly, his visible eye carrying concern that suggested he understood some of what his student was processing. "Are you—"
"I need to be alone," Sasuke interrupted, his voice flat. "To think. Process this. Don't follow me."
He walked into the forest without waiting for permission or response, putting distance between himself and his teammates, seeking solitude to sort through information that felt like it was tearing him apart from the inside.
Kakashi watched him go, his instinct to provide security warring with understanding that sometimes people needed space more than protection. He'd give Sasuke ten minutes, then follow at a distance—close enough to intervene if danger threatened, far enough to respect the need for privacy.
Naruto looked between where Sasuke had disappeared and where the Uchiha survivors had vanished, his expression cycling through confusion and determination in ways that suggested he was already planning to help despite barely understanding what help would look like.
"Kakashi-sensei," Naruto said, his voice uncharacteristically serious. "Is it true? About the village ordering the massacre? About Sasuke's brother following orders?"
"I don't know all the details," Kakashi admitted, his tone carrying honesty that acknowledged complexity rather than hiding behind platitudes. "But yes—the Third Hokage ordered the Uchiha Massacre to prevent civil war. Whether that decision was right or wrong, necessary or monstrous, isn't something I can judge with certainty. I can only say that it happened, and Sasuke is living with the consequences."
"That's messed up," Naruto said, his simple statement somehow capturing the complexity better than elaborate explanation could. "The whole thing. Sasuke thinking he was alone when he wasn't. His brother killing everyone but telling him it was to test him. Konoha ordering their own people killed. All of it's just... messed up."
"Yes," Kakashi agreed. "Yes, it is."
Miles away, traveling through the forest toward the Ghost Lands with speed born from years of avoiding detection, the three survivors maintained silence until they were certain they'd cleared any potential pursuit.
Finally, Mirai spoke: "Do you think he'll come? To the settlement?"
"I don't know," Keisuke admitted, his damaged vision making the forest a blur of shadows and shapes that he navigated through memory and chakra sense. "We've given him truth that rewrites everything he thought he knew. Offered him community after four years of isolation. But we've also complicated his path from simple revenge to moral labyrinth. He might resent us for that."
"Or he might thank us," Ayame countered. "For giving him choice. For telling him he's not alone. For offering him clan and heritage that Konoha couldn't or wouldn't provide."
"Or both," Keisuke said. "Resent us and thank us simultaneously, unable to separate the emotions because they're too tangled together. That's the burden we've given him—knowledge that liberates and imprisons in equal measure."
They traveled in silence for a while longer, each processing what they'd done and what it might cost.
"We've stepped into the light," Mirai observed. "Made ourselves known to Konoha shinobi, given them our location, offered techniques that might be used against us if Sasuke chooses the village over the clan. We've gambled everything on trust that a thirteen-year-old boy will make decisions that don't endanger us all."
"Yes," Keisuke confirmed. "But the alternative was watching from distance while Sasuke built his life on lies, never knowing that he had family beyond his brother. That felt more cowardly than revealing ourselves. More cruel than any risk we're taking."
"I hope you're right," Mirai said, her voice carrying doubt that four years of survival had taught her to maintain. "Because if you're wrong, if Sasuke tells Konoha everything and they send forces to eliminate us, we'll have traded four years of safety for one moment of sentiment."
"Then we'll face that when it comes," Keisuke said. "But at least we'll have chosen our path rather than having it chosen for us. At least we'll have tried to build bridges instead of burning them all."
The forest continued around them, dark and deep and full of dangers that had become familiar through years of navigating them. And behind them, in a camp they'd left hours ago, Sasuke Uchiha held a scroll and wrestled with questions that had no easy answers.
Back at Team 7's camp, Sasuke sat alone against a tree, the scroll unopened in his hands, his Sharingan deactivated but his mind racing faster than any Sharingan could track.
Four years. They'd been alive for four years while he'd thought himself the last. While he'd trained every day with singular focus on killing Itachi. While he'd built entire identity around being sole survivor who'd restore honor through fratricide.
And now—
Now everything was more complicated.
If the clan hadn't died completely, was he still avenging them by killing Itachi? Or would he be killing the brother who'd saved him by sacrificing everyone else?
If Konoha had ordered the massacre, was he supposed to hate the village that had protected and trained him? Or understand that they'd made impossible choice between civil war and genocide?
If other Uchiha had survived and built lives in exile, was he obligated to join them? Or could he maintain his path in Konoha while knowing they existed somewhere in the Ghost Lands?
The questions spiraled, each answer generating more questions, until Sasuke felt like he was drowning in complexity that his thirteen years hadn't prepared him to navigate.
Footsteps approached—careful, measured, carrying weight that suggested experience rather than youthful enthusiasm.
"You know I said not to follow me," Sasuke said without turning.
"I gave you space," Kakashi replied, settling against a nearby tree with casual posture that belied his readiness to intervene if necessary. "But that doesn't mean leaving you completely alone when you're processing information that's clearly devastating."
"I don't need comfort," Sasuke said, his tone harder than his words. "Don't need someone telling me it'll be okay or that I should focus on bonds rather than revenge or whatever platitude you're planning."
"I wasn't planning platitudes," Kakashi said. "I was planning to sit here quietly and let you think while being available if you want to talk. Those are different things."
They sat in silence for several minutes, the forest's night sounds providing backdrop that somehow made the quiet between them less oppressive.
Finally, Sasuke spoke, his voice carrying vulnerability he rarely allowed: "If you'd known survivors existed, would you have told me? Or kept the secret like the Hokage did?"
Kakashi was quiet for a long moment, and Sasuke appreciated that he was actually considering the question rather than providing instant answer.
"I don't know, Sasuke," Kakashi finally admitted, his tone carrying honesty that hurt more than reassuring lie would have. "I'd like to think I'd have chosen truth. That I'd have valued your right to know over strategic considerations. But I've kept many secrets in service to Konoha over the years. Participated in missions where people died because information was classified rather than shared. One more secret might not have seemed significant until it was too late to change course."
The admission settled between them—uncomfortable but honest, acknowledging complexity rather than pretending easy answers existed.
"The survivors said Itachi was following orders," Sasuke said, still not looking at his teacher. "That Konoha leadership gave him choice between allowing coup or eliminating the clan. Is that true?"
"I believe so," Kakashi said. "I wasn't part of those decisions—I was still in ANBU but not at that level of command. But yes, from what I've been able to piece together, Itachi was given orders by the Third Hokage to prevent the coup through elimination. Whether those orders were moral, whether Itachi had alternatives he didn't pursue, whether the whole situation could have been resolved differently—those are questions I can't answer with certainty."
"But you have opinions," Sasuke pressed.
"I have doubts," Kakashi corrected. "About whether genocide is ever justified, even to prevent civil war. About whether children should pay for their parents' political decisions. About whether the Uchiha were given fair chance to negotiate before elimination was chosen as solution. But doubts aren't the same as answers, and I don't have authority to judge decisions made above my rank."
Sasuke processed this, his hands tightening around the scroll that represented connection to survivors he'd never met, to
community he'd never known he could have.
"They gave me this," Sasuke said, holding up the scroll. "Said it contains their location and clan techniques. Jutsu that Konoha doesn't teach. My birthright, they called it."
"Will you use it?" Kakashi asked, his tone suggesting genuine curiosity rather than judgment.
"I don't know." Sasuke's thumb traced the wax seal, feeling the slight warmth that suggested chakra embedded within—the signature Ayame had mentioned, the thread he could follow if he chose to seek them out. "Part of me wants to learn everything they can teach me. Wants to visit their settlement and see Uchiha who chose survival over fighting back. Wants to understand what they've built from the ashes."
"And the other part?" Kakashi prompted when Sasuke paused.
"The other part is angry," Sasuke admitted, the words coming slowly as if he was discovering them while speaking. "Angry that they left me alone for four years. Angry that they watched from distance while I suffered. Angry that they've complicated my path by existing. It was simple before—kill Itachi, avenge the clan, restore honor. Now it's all questions without answers, moral complexity I don't know how to navigate."
"Welcome to being a shinobi," Kakashi said with dry humor that carried understanding beneath it. "The missions we remember aren't the ones with clear enemies and simple objectives. They're the ones where every choice has cost, where helping one person means failing another, where right and wrong become so tangled we can't separate them cleanly."
Sasuke was quiet for a moment, then asked the question that had been building since the survivors appeared: "What would you do? If you were me?"
"I'd probably make the wrong choice," Kakashi said honestly. "I've made plenty of them over the years. But if you're asking what I think you should consider—I'd say talk to them. Visit their settlement. Learn about the Uchiha outside of Konoha's version of your clan's history. Then make informed decision about where you belong and what path you want to take."
"That sounds like you're telling me to leave Konoha," Sasuke observed.
"I'm telling you to gather information before making choices that will define your life," Kakashi corrected. "Whether that means staying in Konoha, joining the survivors, or finding third path entirely—that's your decision. But you can't make good decision with incomplete information. And right now, you only know what Konoha and Itachi have told you. The survivors can provide different perspective, even if you ultimately reject it."
The logic was sound, but Sasuke felt resistance to it anyway. Visiting the Hidden Uchiha Village meant acknowledging they existed, accepting that his isolation had been chosen for him rather than being inevitable reality, confronting survivors who might judge his choice to stay in Konoha after learning the truth about the massacre's orders.
"I need time," Sasuke said finally. "To think. To process all of this. To decide what I want versus what everyone else has planned for me."
"Fair enough," Kakashi agreed, standing with fluid grace that suggested his casual posture had never actually been relaxed. "But Sasuke—whatever you decide, know that Team 7 will support you. Naruto would probably follow you into the Ghost Lands himself if you asked. Sakura would worry but come anyway. And I'd make sure you all returned safely, even if I had to drag you back by your collars."
The statement—delivered with Kakashi's characteristic lazy tone but carrying genuine warmth beneath—made something in Sasuke's chest tighten unexpectedly.
"I'm not leaving Team 7," Sasuke said, the words surprising him with their certainty. "Whatever else changes, whatever I learn or decide—they're still my team. That hasn't changed."
"Good," Kakashi said simply. "Now come back to camp before Naruto convinces himself you've been kidnapped by mysterious Uchiha and launches rescue mission that will wake up everything within five miles."
Despite everything—despite the revelations and the confusion and the weight of choices he didn't know how to make—Sasuke felt his lips twitch in something almost like a smile.
The remaining hours of night passed slowly, Team 7 taking turns on watch while pretending to sleep, all of them processing what had happened in different ways.
Naruto kept glancing at Sasuke as if expecting him to disappear or explode or do something equally dramatic. His mind was clearly racing through everything he'd heard, trying to reconcile the heroic village mythology he'd grown up believing with the reality of ordered genocide.
Sakura sat with her back against a tree, her medical texts unopened in her lap as she processed implications she was barely equipped to understand. She'd joined Team 7 believing she'd be going on adventures and learning to be stronger shinobi. Not confronting village secrets and watching her teammate's worldview shatter.
Kakashi maintained his post with practiced ease, but his mind was elsewhere—calculating what the survivors' revelation meant politically, what Konoha's response would be if Sasuke reported everything to the Hokage, what his responsibility was as jonin instructor whose student had just learned his village ordered his family's execution.
And Sasuke sat with the scroll in his hands, unopened but present, a physical reminder that his reality had fundamentally shifted.
Dawn broke slowly, painting the forest in shades of gray before color returned, and with it came the necessity of continuing their mission. The merchant they were escorting would be expecting them, and professional responsibilities didn't pause for existential crises.
But as they broke camp and prepared to move, Sasuke made decision that surprised even himself.
He broke the seal on the scroll.
The techniques inside were written in careful script that suggested multiple authors contributing their expertise. Fire Release variations he'd never seen in Konoha's libraries. Genjutsu applications specific to Sharingan that went beyond what his Academy instructors had taught. Taijutsu forms designed to work with Sharingan's prediction capabilities.
And at the scroll's end, written in hand that seemed less formal than the technical descriptions:
"These techniques are your heritage, Sasuke Uchiha. They belong to you by blood and by right, regardless of what you choose to do with them or where you choose to stand. We don't offer them to bind you to us, but to give you tools that Konoha either can't or won't provide.
Your path is yours to walk. But know that if you ever choose to visit us, to learn about the Uchiha outside of Konoha's narrative, to understand what we've built from the ashes—we'll welcome you.
Not as prodigal son returning home. Not as weapon to be shaped. Just as Uchiha among Uchiha, family among family, survivor among survivors.
The choice, as always, is yours to make.
—Keisuke Uchiha, on behalf of the Hidden Uchiha Village"
Sasuke read the message three times, his Sharingan memorizing every character, every nuance of phrasing that suggested the writer understood exactly what burden they were placing on him and regretted its necessity while believing in its importance.
"What does it say?" Naruto asked, his curiosity finally overwhelming his attempt to give Sasuke space.
Sasuke considered not answering. Considered keeping this private, processing it alone as he'd processed everything else for four years.
But the survivors had said he wasn't alone. And maybe—just maybe—that meant he didn't have to carry everything by himself anymore.
"It says I have a choice," Sasuke said quietly, rolling the scroll carefully and tucking it into his pack where it would be safe. "About who I am. Where I belong. What the Uchiha mean beyond what Konoha or Itachi told me. And that whatever I choose, there are people who'll accept it without trying to shape me into weapon or tool or anything except what I decide to be."
"That's good, right?" Naruto said, his tone suggesting he desperately wanted it to be good despite not fully understanding the complexity. "Having choices is good. Better than being alone. So you should totally visit them! Learn cool Uchiha techniques! Maybe they have ramen in the Ghost Lands?"
The suggestion—delivered with Naruto's characteristic enthusiasm and complete inability to read the room—was so absurd that Sasuke actually laughed. Brief, startled sound that felt foreign in his throat, but genuine.
"I don't think the Ghost Lands are known for their culinary excellence," Kakashi observed dryly. "But Naruto's not entirely wrong. Having choices, even difficult ones, is better than having none. And learning more about your heritage from people who lived it rather than just reading about it in history books—that's valuable, regardless of what you ultimately decide."
"I'll think about it," Sasuke said, the words becoming his default response to everything related to the survivors. "After we complete this mission. After I've had time to process. After I understand what visiting them would mean."
"Fair enough," Kakashi agreed. "Now, shall we continue toward our client? He's probably wondering why his escort is running several hours behind schedule."
They moved out, Team 7 returning to the mechanics of being shinobi on routine mission, but the undercurrent had changed. Sasuke was quieter than usual, his mind clearly elsewhere even as his body went through the motions of travel and security and all the small tasks that made up C-rank missions.
But there was also something different in how he moved among his teammates—less isolated, perhaps. Less rigidly separate. As if learning he wasn't the last Uchiha had somehow made it slightly easier to be part of team that wasn't Uchiha at all.
Naruto noticed it first, his social awareness occasionally surprising everyone by being more acute than his academic performance suggested. He didn't comment directly, just positioned himself slightly closer to Sasuke during their formation, his presence offering solidarity without demanding response.
Sakura noticed second, her analytical mind cataloging the subtle shift in team dynamics even as she struggled with her own processing of what they'd learned about Konoha's darkness.
And Kakashi noticed last, which was really first since he'd been tracking everyone's emotional states throughout, but he was skilled enough to pretend he hadn't noticed anything at all—which was sometimes the greatest gift a teacher could offer.
Miles away, back at the Hidden Uchiha Village, Keisuke stood before the council and delivered his report on the contact with Sasuke.
"He took the scroll," Keisuke concluded. "Listened to everything we told him. Didn't reject us outright, but didn't embrace us either. He's processing. Deciding. We've given him the information and the choice. Now we wait to see what he does with both."
"And if he reports everything to Konoha?" one of the council members asked, the concern evident despite their attempt at neutrality. "If he tells them our location, our numbers, our capabilities?"
"Then we deal with consequences," Keisuke said simply. "But I don't think he will. Not immediately. Sasuke is many things, but he's not someone who makes impulsive decisions about loyalty. He'll think. He'll weigh options. And then he'll choose path that makes sense to him, even if that path ends up hurting us."
"That's a lot of faith to place in a thirteen-year-old boy," Ayame observed.
"It's the same faith we're asking him to place in us," Keisuke countered. "We revealed ourselves to him. Trusted him with our location and our secrets. If we don't believe he deserves trust in return, why should he believe we deserve his?"
The logic was sound, but several council members still looked uncomfortable with how much they'd gambled on single conversation.
"The Akatsuki is still moving," Shin reminded everyone, pulling the discussion back to broader strategic concerns. "Sasuke knowing about us is complication, but it's not our primary threat. We need to prepare for when Itachi and his organization make their move against Konoha or against us directly."
"Agreed," Keisuke said. "Increase training intensity for the combat-capable survivors. Continue fortifying our defenses. And maintain our intelligence network so we have warning when major powers start moving. Sasuke is variable we can't control. But we can control how prepared we are for what comes next."
The meeting continued, tactical discussions replacing philosophical ones, the community focusing on what they could control rather than worrying about what they couldn't.
But that night, alone in his quarters, Keisuke allowed himself to feel the full weight of what they'd done.
They'd revealed themselves to Sasuke. Stepped out of shadows and into the light. Given him truth that might liberate or destroy him depending on how he processed it.
And now they waited—to see if their gamble would pay off, if Sasuke would choose to learn about the clan beyond Konoha's narrative, if the bridges they'd tried to build would hold or collapse under the weight of four years' worth of decisions made in isolation.
Keisuke pulled out Hana's historical scrolls and added new entry:
"We made contact with Sasuke Uchiha. Told him everything—the massacre's truth, the survivors' existence, the choice he faces between the path he'd planned and the reality we represent.
I don't know if we did the right thing. Don't know if we've helped him or hurt him by complicating his simple mission of revenge with moral complexity he's not ready to navigate.
But I know we couldn't stay hidden forever, watching from distance while he built his life on lies. Couldn't let him believe he was alone when he wasn't. Couldn't deny him the choice about what kind of Uchiha he wants to be.
So we took the risk. Made ourselves vulnerable. Hoped that honesty was stronger than lies, even when lies were more comfortable.
Now we wait to see what he chooses. And prepare for consequences of either choice, because both will reshape what we are and what we're building."
He set down his brush and looked out at the village—small, hidden, but undeniably alive despite every attempt to extinguish them.
Twenty-nine survivors and one brother who remained in Konoha, all trying to understand what it meant to be Uchiha when the world had decided they should cease to exist.
The answer, Keisuke thought, would come from Sasuke's choice as much as from their own actions.
And whatever that choice was, they'd face it the way they'd faced everything else—together, determined, refusing to disappear just because disappearing would be easier.
The moon rose over the Ghost Lands, and somewhere in Fire Country, Sasuke Uchiha carried a scroll containing his heritage and a choice that would define not just his future but the future of everyone who'd survived the night that was supposed to kill them all.
The paths were converging.
And when they met, nothing would be the same for anyone involved.