Chapter 172: "Hangover"
Obito stopped.
He turned his head. The Sharingan beneath the mask had shifted — three tomoe pulling into the Mangekyo pattern.
"What?"
"You going to fight me over it?"
Kisame spoke before Itachi moved. His small eyes were fixed on Obito with open amusement, every bit of it deliberate.
Kisame had been Obito's recruit. Brought into Akatsuki under the Madara name, with all the weight that name carried. Now the name was gone, and Kisame had been lied to, and Kisame was not the type to let that pass without comment.
He wasn't going to leave the organization over it. But a reckoning could wait for the right moment, and this was a perfectly good moment.
Obito didn't dignify him with a response. Kisame's strength was real, but not a serious threat. Only Itachi warranted actual attention.
"One sentence and you can't hold it together?" Itachi said.
He hadn't moved yet. But his Mangekyo was open, and he was looking at Obito directly.
The night Obito had used the Madara name to set events in motion — the Uchiha massacre — Itachi had been maneuvered without knowing the full picture. Finding out that "Madara" was a fabrication did not produce relief in Itachi. It produced a specific, cold fury at having been deceived by something so transparent.
The real Madara did not hide. Everything about the name implied someone who operated in the open, who didn't need the cover of a mask or a borrowed reputation. That Itachi had not seen through it sooner was an irritation he would not easily set aside.
If the opportunity was there, a small amount of interest would not go uncollected.
The air in the corridor changed.
Kisame made no move to stop anything. If the two of them wanted to take Obito apart, he was available to assist.
Without the Madara name — without the borrowed legend — what exactly did Obito have left?
Kisame's killing intent surfaced without pretense.
Then Pain appeared at the end of the corridor.
He said nothing. He simply stood there, Rinnegan level and patient, watching all three of them.
Itachi's Mangekyo receded. He put one hand on Kisame's arm, and Kisame stilled. Then Itachi looked back at Obito one last time.
"Uchiha Obito." He said the name the way you'd set something down. "Now that your identity is exposed — what do you actually have?"
He left it unanswered. He and Kisame turned and walked toward Pain without looking back.
The moment Itachi had learned "Madara" was Obito, his first feeling had not been relief. It had been anger — anger at himself for having been fooled by something so crude. Madara would never have operated like this. In all of Itachi's planning, "Uchiha Madara" had been a significant variable. Learning the variable was hollow did not make things easier.
He walked toward Pain and let his eyes settle back into ordinary red. The irritation folded inward, as it always did.
Whatever Obito's identity turned out to be — the situation he was now looking at was, in different ways, more dangerous.
Itachi understood the gap between himself and Pain clearly. He had felt it. It was real.
"Itachi. Do you need something?"
Pain's voice was even.
"The Two-Tails has been captured by Konoha," Itachi said, expression unchanged. "To reliably locate it in future, it would be useful to gather intelligence from the village directly. I'd like permission to go."
Pain looked at him.
A request for intelligence-gathering wasn't Zetsu's role, and it wasn't technically in Itachi's scope either. But Pain considered it for a moment.
He had no particular concern about Itachi's divided loyalties. The man worked. He delivered. Whatever private interests he maintained on the side — Pain's confidence in his own capabilities was sufficient to let that run without interference.
Besides: could Konoha do anything about Akatsuki, even knowing Itachi was a member? To reach Akatsuki now, they'd need to first deal with Kirigakure, Kumogakure, and Sunagakure — three of the Five Great Villages already within the organization's sphere of influence. Sunagakure wasn't even fully under their control, but the village's depleted high-end strength meant it needed Akatsuki more than the reverse.
The world was moving into position.
"Approved."
Itachi received the answer he'd come for. He turned to leave.
"Kisame is needed at the Wind Country front." Pain's voice carried down the corridor after him. "Take Sasori with you this time."
Itachi's pace didn't change.
"Understood."
He turned the corner and was gone.
Sasori was a different matter from Kisame. Kisame had been Obito's personal recruit — functionally Obito's man, and now that Obito's credibility had collapsed, Kisame had cut that tie the same day. Sasori had been brought in by Konan after she defeated him. Sasori was Pain's, entirely.
The dynamic between them would be — complicated. Neither Itachi nor Sasori was the type to simply defer. Both had arrived at their respective positions by making other strong people listen. Throw them into the same operation and friction was essentially guaranteed.
Troublesome.
Itachi absorbed this without visible reaction and kept walking.
Pain, for his part, had not thought deeply about any of this. Itachi going to Konoha alone seemed unnecessarily risky, and Sasori and Konan were the only reasonable options. He wasn't sending Konan. That left Sasori.
The next morning.
Sakura arrived at the Senju family archive early and spread her research on yang-release across the reading table. She'd already cleared it with the Hokage — in two weeks she'd be joining the next supply convoy to the River Country front. From there, a four-person kill team: herself, Kakashi, Mei, and Guy. Purpose: Kakuzu.
The lineup was, by any measure, excessive. Those four walking into Sunagakure itself and killing the Kazage probably had better-than-even odds of working, extraction problems aside. The only genuine complication was getting clear of several thousand Sand ninja afterward. None of them could fly.
She turned a page, and there was the signature again — Senju Tobirama — with the term that had caught her attention before.
The Ultimate Weapon.
She stared at it for a moment, then closed the book and went to find Tsunade.
The smell hit her first.
Sakura pushed open the bedroom door and immediately retreated several steps, pinching her nose.
The room was a disaster. Empty bottles on every surface and across the floor, the ceiling, essentially everywhere. Tsunade was sprawled across the bed, clothes askew, arms wrapped around a bottle that was still dripping, producing a noise like distant thunder on a loop.
If anyone outside this house ever saw this, the goddess image would not survive it.
"Sakura?"
Kushina appeared in the hallway behind her, carrying a basin of water with a towel folded over the edge.
"Kushina?"
Sakura hadn't finished registering this before Kushina had already walked past her into the room, without breaking stride, without any visible reaction to the smell.
She's done this before. Many times.
Sakura steeled herself and followed, going immediately to the windows and forcing them open. Fresh air began to circulate. She exhaled slowly.
How does Kushina just walk into that.
"...Water..."
Tsunade produced a sound.
"Water? Lady Tsunade, just a moment!"
Kushina handed the basin off. "Sakura, can you wipe her face? I'll get water."
She was already out the door.
Sakura took the damp cloth and got to work.
"...Sakura..."
Tsunade registered the pink through the fog.
"How much did you drink?" Sakura said, working through the grime.
This was apparently the wrong question. Tsunade's expression immediately crumpled.
"Sakura..." hic "...do you think some people are just — born to be poor..."
She had Sakura's sleeve in her fist. The hiccup was audible. Sakura leaned slightly away.
"I saw a shooting star last night. I made a wish." Tsunade's voice had the quality of someone recounting a genuine tragedy. "I wished for wealth beyond counting. Enough to rival a nation."
"And then—"
"The shooting star broke."
Her bleary eyes had actual moisture in them.
The image would have been affecting if not for the smell and the bottles and the snoring that had been ongoing until thirty seconds ago.
"Lady Tsunade." Sakura finished the last of the face-wiping with efficiency. "Wishing on shooting stars doesn't work. It's not real."
Kushina came back with a water jug. Tsunade took it without ceremony and drank directly from the spout — a long, thorough drink, roughly half the vessel, uninterrupted.
She lowered it. The color in her face was starting to make more sense.
"How are you feeling, Lady Tsunade?"
Kushina leaned in close to check on her.
Tsunade opened her mouth.
What came out was a belch of genuinely impressive magnitude.
Kushina absorbed this at close range with total equanimity.
Sakura looked at Kushina with what she hoped conveyed appropriate sympathy.
Shizune was at the front with the medical corps. That meant Kushina was handling this alone. Twelve years old, sole caretaker of a fifty-year-old woman who was, in private, exactly this.
Shizune actually has it worse, though. She's been doing this her whole life.
"I feel much better, Kushina."
Tsunade sat up, pressing one hand to her head, and managed to focus on the red-haired girl in front of her.
"Breakfast is ready, and the bath water's hot." Kushina had already moved on. "Would you like to eat first or bathe first?"
Not a word about the belch. Not a word about any of it.
Tsunade considered. "Bath first."
She peeled off her stained outer layer and dropped it. Kushina caught it without looking, evidently having anticipated this, and left at speed — presumably to reheat breakfast and start the laundry simultaneously.
Sakura watched this and exhaled quietly.
Tsunade was, in the ways that mattered, genuinely trustworthy. Sound judgment on things of real consequence. Someone whose opinion you could actually rely on.
And then there was this.
She'd been the apple of Hashirama's eye since childhood, indulged without limit, grown into someone who'd never quite needed to learn the ordinary disciplines. Even the Hokage's lectures came out one ear and went out the other.
Hard on Shizune. Hard on Kushina. Sakura looked at Tsunade, who was now sitting on the bed trying to smooth her hair. That's just how it is.
"Sakura. Was there something you needed?"
Tsunade had reached the point in the morning where her eyes were focusing.
"Yes." Sakura produced the book. "Lady Tsunade — this reference. The Ultimate Weapon. Do you know where it is?"
Tsunade barely glanced at it.
"No idea. Ask the old man — check the Uzumaki clan records or the Sarutobi clan archive."
"Alright."
Sakura tucked the book away and moved toward the door. She paused at the threshold, looked back at Tsunade, and almost said something.
She didn't.
"Tch. Little brat."
Tsunade watched her leave and pulled a face.
I know what she was going to say.
She didn't need it spelled out. Clean up after yourself, stop letting Kushina run around after you like a housemaid, you're fifty years old—
The thing was, she couldn't. She genuinely couldn't. This had been her life since she was a small child, and asking her to simply not be who she was, at this point, was more than she could manage.
That's not an excuse. She knew that.
She knew exactly what it was.
In the kitchen hallway, Sakura nearly walked into Kushina coming the other way with a plate.
"Leaving already?"
Kushina smiled at her.
"I have more to do."
"I won't keep you then." The smile didn't dim. "Come visit when you have time."
She was already moving back toward the kitchen — breakfast to reheat, laundry running, the next thing, always the next thing.
Sakura watched her go.
Maybe for Kushina, this is enough. Somewhere she belongs, someone who treats her like family, no one looking at her sideways. Maybe that's the whole equation for her.
It's not my place to decide otherwise.
She left the Senju residence and turned her thoughts back to the archive.
Uzumaki clan records or Sarutobi clan records. She'd start with whichever the Hokage pointed her toward first.
And then there was the other thread. Uchiha Hikaru — whoever that was. The name had appeared twice now in material that didn't explain it.
If it was interesting to her, it would be interesting to Sasuke too. She was certain of that much.
☆☆☆
-> 20 Advanced chapters Now Available on Patreon!!
-> https://www.pat-reon.co-m/c/Hollowborn
(Just remove the hyphen (-) to access patreon normally)
If you like this novel please consider leaving a review that's help the story a lot Thank you