Chapter 346: A Meeting Long Overdue
A couple of hours before Keiko's arrival…
Even if it hadn't been for the clan crest on the formal kimono, even if it hadn't been for Atomu's overawed introduction, Hazō would have recognised Uchiha Sasuke by his eyes that blazed with the same light as Itachi's, even when their Sharingan was off.
"Gōketsu Hazō," he said without preamble, "it's time we talked."
"Lord Uchiha," Hazō replied neutrally, hiding his shock behind an urgent Iron Nerve mask. "Thank you for coming. May I offer you tea?"
The visit had been a bolt from the blue. Ordinarily, one did not turn up at the home of an unfamiliar clan head unannounced. One sent messengers and arranged meetings, or, if necessary, bumped into the other clan head by accident at a time and place where it would put them off balance or make them feel vulnerable (sometimes Hazō wondered what it would be like to have an honourable and direct person as his mentor, but he had a feeling that the two of them would end up amplifying each other to scary extremes, like Gai and Rock Lee). Still, Hazō should have seen this coming earlier. He must have been the only person from Leaf to see Uchiha Itachi outside mortal combat in years, maybe even the first since Itachi left the village. If it hadn't been such a busy few days, he'd surely have thought to take the initiative himself. Now he had no idea what he was in for, and it had already been a rough day for surprises.
"Gōketsu," Uchiha said, ignoring the offer of tea, "I want you to know that I believe you."
Hazō sat down on one of the sofas in the meeting room, indicating for Uchiha to do the same.
"You believe me?"
"It has his signature all over it," Uchiha said with the fierce excitement of a hunter who's finally tracked down his prey. "Immensely powerful on the one hand, and strangely subtle and hard to figure out on the other. You can't even tell if it's a sadistic prank or part of a bigger plan, never mind if it's succeeded or failed. All the others can sneer and talk about how they're too clever to be taken in by your cover story, but you and I both know that he'll have seen that coming too."
"Thank you," Hazō said as a stopgap. He'd expected that some people would doubt what was really quite a flimsy excuse when you stripped away the politics of the situation, though "all the others" was a little alarming. He'd hoped some would believe it. He hadn't expected that somebody would
believe.
Uchiha nodded as if the gratitude was his due.
"Please, Hazō. Tell me everything. Tell me how you met him. What he said. What he was like. Don't miss a single detail."
The fire in Uchiha's eyes was even brighter now, and the resemblance stronger. Hazō might almost have been disturbed, but he knew what it was like to be separated from the one you loved most, perhaps forever, and then have them re-enter your life in one sudden burst of rediscovery. Even if he couldn't guess what feelings were giving fuel to that fire, he felt a sudden need to feed it what it wanted. Somewhere in the back of his head, his inner Mari reminded him that his memories of Itachi were precious currency right now, and he could play Uchiha like a biwa by doling them out in a gradual and teasing way, but he denied her just as firmly as he'd denied the Heartbreaker.
"All right," Hazō said. "But this might take a while. In the village of Todoroki on O'Uzu, there's a shrine with an oracle…"
-o-
"He's in good health," Uchiha said. "And he's in pain."
His voice was unreadable. It was completely flat, as if the emotion in it had been heated to unbearable temperatures, then pounded into shape, then heated, then pounded, over and over again, until the result was a perfect blade with no trace of the impure steel it must once have been.
And, like all blades, it would cut anyone who touched it carelessly. Hazō waited.
And waited.
And waited.
"I hated you, Gōketsu Hazō."
Hazō could not have been more startled if the ghost of Captain Zabuza had popped out of the ceiling to drench him with a bucket of cold water.
"I—I'm sorry?"
"When you first came to Leaf, I hated you," Uchiha said in a low voice. "You, the missing-nin. The missing-nin from Hoshigaki Kisame's village. The Kurosawa. Gone from a monster to a citizen in good standing just like that. Why you and not him? If we were in a world where missing-nin could be redeemed and welcomed back, why
you?
"I looked into you later, and found out that you weren't even a proper missing-nin. You didn't massacre anyone. You were just some random guy who'd been in the wrong place at the wrong time. I still hated you. I was almost as grateful as I was insulted that you never invited me to your gaming nights.
"I was being a dick.
"Then, after Nagi Island, I hated you again. You, the heir who was busy chasing crazy dreams and turning this puny clan into a slightly less puny clan while I was rotting away in the Uchiha compound because I was just that little bit too young to take the reins. I hated you—when you'd ascended because you lost
family."
Uchiha stood up.
"Now I can feel myself hating you because I was the one who should have been there, talking to him, face to face, and you were there instead of me, and you didn't kill him
or bring him back. It's bullshit, and I've had enough."
He paused.
"I'm not saying we're friends now. This thing you're doing, trying to give cattle wings? It's dangerous, and wrong, and it goes against the Will of Fire."
"Hold on," Hazō interrupted. He'd been meaning to let Uchiha say his piece, but this was a thought he had to head off here and now, because it was only a short leap from "against the Will of Fire" to the T-word. "How can helping the people of Leaf be against the Will of Fire?"
"This is why you're a foreigner," Uchiha said dismissively. "Think about it. The Sage of Six Paths set the ninja to be shepherds for the civilians. You don't try to teach a sheep to walk on two legs and use tools. If you fail, you're a loser who's wasted his time. If you succeed, it's still just a sheep, but now there's no limit to how much damage it can do. And you
certainly don't ask a sheep to be a shepherd unless you want to lose the whole flock.
"But," Uchiha said after a second's hesitation, "you talked to him. You offered him the chance to use his power for good. And you hurt him badly. I feel like I owe you one. I won't support your insane experiment, but if you ever want advice on how to run a proper Leaf clan, feel free to turn to the Uchiha."
Hazō bit down on his urge to respond to the dehumanising metaphor (for now) and considered. In practice, he had more actual clan head experience than Uchiha did, but on the other hand he hadn't spent half his life watching his father run a clan and the other half studying to rebuild it.
"Thank you. I'll bear that in mind."
Uchiha nodded.
"That's all I had to say," he said.
Hazō felt like he should be doing something. There had to be some way to take advantage of this first meeting with Uchiha, some way to make a strong impression or plant the seeds for a better relationship later on, but quite honestly, he was tired. Ami, paperwork, and romantic woes all took their toll on a man's strength. Right now, he just wanted the conversation to be over.
"Thank you for coming," Hazō said. "I'm glad we've finally met."
Uchiha nodded again, his store of words apparently exhausted.
"Goodbye, Gōketsu. Bear my warning in mind."
Itachi believed people were too stupid to be uplifted. Sasuke, more enlightened, only believed it of civilians. Hazō found himself less intimidated by the Sharingan every time he saw its wielders fail to see past the ends of their noses. Still, even if Itachi was a lost cause, maybe it wasn't too late to save Hazō's other ever-so-distant cousin from moral myopia?
