The Village Hidden in the Leaves at night was still.
The beginning of spring could be felt in the air, the temperature not as frigid as it had been in the months previous, much to the relief of the ANBU on duty. They still wore their cloaks for warmth as they sat on the rooftop of the outpost, the four ninja seated on chairs. Each had a large thermos flask, steam curling up as they chatted, occasionally glancing into the sets of binoculars arrayed before them.
Professional personal agents of the Hokage or not, you could only spy on people so many times before it became a dull chore. The dim early morning sky before the sun rose was just enough to illuminate the scene.
Badger huffed irritably. “I just don’t know where I went wrong. One moment everything was going great, and the next it’s like she caught a voyeur at the hot springs.”
Owl shifted in a way that made it seem like she was rolling her eyes. “The question is what didn’t you do wrong. I’m surprised Misaki is still putting up with you; she must have the patience of a saint.”
“Hey, I’m a catch!” Badger protested. “But I’m serious guys, we were having a great time; restaurant, romantic walk through the park, the works. Then when we get to her place and I think we’re in for a long night, she tells me she’s busy, not to bother her for the next week, and just shuts the door in my face!”
Owl hooted with laughter while Bear snorted tea out his nose, spluttering beneath his mask.
Horse leaned forward to take a cursory glance through the binoculars. “You didn’t forget her birthday, did you? Or maybe an anniversary?”
“No! I mean, I don’t think so,” Badger trailed off uncertainly.
“…you don’t think so? You do know when her birthday is, right? You’ve been dating for three years!”
“Uh.”
“Wow. You’re right, you’re such a catch.” The amount of sarcasm in Owl’s voice could have won her a medal.
The four shinobi chatted, unaware of the eyes watching them.
Yesterday evening, Zuko had slipped Hyuuga Iroha a laxative, ensuring he wouldn’t be on duty that morning. In fact, the entire ANBU roster had been specifically tailored by him; he had selected Bear to fill in, and every single person at the outpost or patrolling the village on the graveyard shift had no significant ability with genjutsu.
There could be no room for error.
Zuko ghosted up behind the squad, unseen and unheard, his pinwheel eyes beginning to spin. The elite shinobi didn’t move, didn’t even twitch as they continued their conversation.
Badger huffed irritably. “I just don’t know where I went wrong. One moment everything was going great, and the next it’s like she caught a voyeur at the hot springs.”
Owl shifted in a way that made it seem like she was rolling her eyes. “The question is what didn’t you do wrong. I’m surprised Misaki is still putting up with you; she must have the patience of a saint.”
Beneath their masks, their eyes were glossy and unseeing. The shinobi continued to repeat their actions as if time had reversed and started playing from a minute ago.
Zuko was tempted to poke them, but that was just asking for trouble; since his name wasn’t Sokka, he managed to refrain.
A thrill shot through him - the euphoria of successfully catching someone in an extremely complex illusion. This genjutsu targeted short-term memory, preventing the brain from saving the last minute in their minds. Because they believed they hadn’t experienced that time, they would carry out the same actions over and over again. The whole scene was surreally like a movie glitching in the real world.
When the illusion ended or was broken, it would be as if no time had passed at all. As if they had simply finished their conversation, and suddenly the world was no longer as it should have been.
To ensnare the senses so thoroughly that you controlled their actions, their memory, their very perception of time; this was power.
“Sensory division neutralised. Proceeding to the rendezvous point,” Shisui’s voice intruded upon the scene.
“Patrols and outpost neutralised,” Zuko spoke as well, tapping his mic.
“Acknowledged. Beginning the operation,” his mother said over the coms link.
Zuko walked past the still chatting ANBU to stand at the edge of the observation platform overlooking the Uchiha compound.
Because he was looking for it, Zuko could make out slight discharges of chakra coming from each house, beginning in the furthest dwelling from the village, continuing methodically through the entire compound. Shisui joined him soon after it began, a hand squeezing his shoulder before also turning to watch. It took time; long, tense minutes for the chakra discharges to make their way through every dwelling.
Behind them, Badger began to regale his squad of his romantic woes for the twelfth time, and Zuko spared a passing thought for Bear’s sinuses. This was the twelfth time he’d snorted tea out his nose, and he’d likely go through his entire thermos before being freed.
With the compound complete, he and Shisui turned their gazes to the streets. Uchiha police officers began vanishing in their pairs, one after another in puffs of smoke; they were whisked from the streets, from rooftops, from their desks in the police station. Those few deployed on missions also disappeared – some from their bedrolls as they slept, others mid-leap between branches to the utter bewilderment of their teammates.
On a chilly morning in late March, sixty-one years after the establishment of Konoha by the Senju and Uchiha, the last remaining founding clan vanished from the village they had helped build. Himself and Shisui remained the final two left in the village, and soon they too would depart.
Fugaku had left yesterday accompanied by two clansmen on the grounds of issues in Sora-ku. The Hokage would have been suspicious of the Uchiha Clan Head leaving at such a critical moment, but Zuko told him he’d secretly set fire to several key buildings in the Cat Clan home to stall the coup preparations. He was half-insulted, half-amused when the Sandaime didn’t question his methods, though he wouldn’t be surprised if Fugaku was tailed anyway.
But with the Head who was also one of their best fighters out of the village, the Hokage could relax, knowing the coup wouldn’t spring without Fugaku to head it.
And with the Hokage’s guard down –
They had seized their chance.
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The Uchiha compound had never been so lifeless.
He and Shisui touched down outside the familiar gates to what appeared to be a ghost town. There was a silence in the district which before had been just quiet – a difference any experienced shinobi could detect. A void that itched at their senses, telling them something was off. They did their best to ignore it, vanishing into the trees to watch the gates.
With the clan now safely out of the village – Zuko had counted each and every chakra flare, all two-hundred-and-sixty-four of them – he and Shisui were left to guard the compound. It was a nerve-wracking wait. Every second they expected someone to come by and discover them, or for ‘Madara’ – the interfering menace – to stick his swirly orange nose into their business.
Zuko wasn’t worried for his family; Mikoto would be in her element over in Uzushio, organising the next part of the operation. If everything went well, the kids too young to be in the know would wake up tomorrow in their own beds in the Uchiha Compound; it just wouldn’t be in Konoha.
Just as they had settled, a familiar head of grey hair appeared on the path heading to the district.
Zuko and Shisui shared identical looks of alarm and dismay but readied themselves for a fight. Just as they had practiced, Shisui began, his chakra sinking into the newcomer’s system like mist joining a cloud. Layers of illusions blanketed the man, and Zuko readied his own in case it was needed.
Hatake Kakashi, his old captain, collapsed to the ground.
There was a long moment as they both stared, checked, and tripled-checked to make sure he was truly unconscious and not simply faking it.
“What is he doing here?” Shisui hissed as they leapt from the trees, surprise stark on his face. “He’s not even a sensor.”
“Kakashi always had excellent instincts,” Zuko said uncertainly, “he must have felt something was off.”
“From all the way across the village, while he was asleep?” his cousin asked nervously, prodding the man with his toes.
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Zuko shrugged, scanning the area. He had no clue why Kakashi was here either. It didn’t bode well though; if Kakashi knew something was off, others would too.
Behind, chakra roared, nearly blinding them and they both leapt out of their skin. In a flare that no doubt awoke every sensor in the village, the entire Uchiha compound disappeared in an enormous eruption of messy chakra smoke.
The compound hadn’t gone cleanly; there were huge clods of dirt missing along with the buildings, and large craters where their foundations had stood were empty. All that was left were the pathways that weaved between the holes, and footprints that led to them and disappeared.
Zuko had to calm his pounding heart, seeing Shisui doing the same. They shared a mutual look of embarrassment, both agreeing that it had never happened. Then, before they actually were attacked, they also departed.
Leaving Kakashi passed out on the ground with a guilty grimace, their last stop in the village was to drop off the Uchiha Clan’s collective resignation letters to their appropriate places. It was a ridiculous requirement demanded by bureaucracy; in order to legally secede and not defect - there was a difference - the clan all had to resign from their jobs. And to do that meant to turn in their resignation papers.
So that’s exactly what they did. Every member of the Konoha Police Force, every civilian who worked in an establishment outside the district, their healers, and regular shinobi; everyone had written a resignation letter. Parents also had letters of withdrawal for their children from the academy.
It wouldn’t do for anyone to say they had been derelict in their duties.
Zuko had never had to inform his boss he was quitting before, having A) never had a boss (did Ozai count? Spirits, Zuko hoped not), and B) because Fire Lord wasn’t exactly a job you could resign from. His abdication had involved a ceremony with all the pomp and splendour of Fire Nation royalty. Writing a resignation letter had been a novel experience, and he’d ended up referring to a civilian help book before penning his.
The career advise had narrowed it down to four steps:
1. Be honest, confident, and direct.
So he’d blatantly tattled, ‘given immoral orders of genocide by commanding officer Shimura Danzo,’ and continued to list the numerous complaints and poor working conditions he’d been preforming under. They’d included traitorous teammates, overwork, unreasonable supervisors, and a stressful work environment (see aforementioned).
2. Thank your employer – you may need them as a reference.
Zuko wasn’t sure what crazy person would ever approach Konoha in the future looking for his reference, nor did he think a simple thank you would let them overlook his current actions to give him a good one. But he thought he might as well, and had included a small paragraph about how he’d enjoyed his ANBU training and time spent with his former team.
3. Don’t leave tasks unfinished or your team unprepared.
He’d recommended Danzo choose a new captain from his own ANBU division, with the thought that not having an illegal mission to spy on their captain would enable the rest of the members to perform better on their actual missions.
4. Leave well wishes for the company.
He’d wished his former team well, wished his traitorous teammates freedom from their homicidal boss, and hoped Konoha would one day free herself from the parasites infesting it.
Zuko ended up attaching an entire essay to his form. Supposedly you were meant to keep it short and not complain about your terrible co-workers and boss, but by the time he’d read that part, Zuko hadn't felt like changing it.
It was like he’d finally popped a huge pimple, and all the pus was oozing out in a revolting, yet extremely satisfying display; it was cathartic.
Shisui finished unsealing his own stack of resignation letters and set them down next to Zuko’s pile in the office they had broken into. He pitied the person who would come into work this morning and find a truly mind-boggling number of forms to process.
“Well. That’s it. You think that’s enough time for them to send people after us?”
Their job now was to let Konoha see them leaving and lay false trails away from Uzushio; hence why they hadn’t dropped the forms off beforehand.
“We have one more thing to do,” Shisui said.
Zuko blinked, going over his mental checklist. “We do?”
“Yep,” Shisui chirped cheerfully. “Don’t worry. It’s on the way.”
He grinned, that grin of his that Zuko had come to simultaneously love and dread.
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The sunrise on the cliffs overlooking the city was beautiful. In the centre was their destination, standing tall and proud, surrounded by urban life that stretched out for miles in all directions. Fugaku inhaled the fresh air, his two men behind him eating breakfast and enjoying a pot of tea. They had arrived at this spot yesterday after losing their tails and had been waiting anxiously ever since.
A quiet popping sound and a puff of smoke appeared at his elbow, instantly capturing their attention. Fugaku took the note from the tabby cat, scanning it swiftly. He nodded to his clansmen.
“It’s done.”
The three men relaxed, nerves and tension vanishing now that the clan was safe. Determination took its place, and they share a mutual look of resolve. Their family had succeeded in their missions – it was their turn to complete their own.
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The Court of the Fire Daimyo convened every third day for two hours at sunrise. Here, the Lord of Fire would listen to his lords’ concerns, ministers’ proposals, and resolve any issues that had cropped up since the last court session. It was amazing how many problems could appear in the span of three days, and more often than not, they weren’t resolved in a timely manner.
The latest – supposedly urgent – issue plaguing Fire Country was the rising price of mushroom imports from the Land of Mushrooms. Lord Kurosaki had Opinions.
Fujiwara Hideyoshi, the twelfth Fire Daimyo of the Fujiwara clan, was of the opinion that 6am was far too early to be on the receiving end of a lecture on mushrooms. He desperately wished his ancestors had chosen to hold court at a later hour as he stifled a yawn for the third time. While rising with the sun was all well and good, to be ready for court at sunrise meant he had to be awake even earlier so he could get the robed monstrosity that passed as appropriate royal garb on in time.
A well-dressed guard entered from a side door at the back of the long hall, catching Hide’s wandering attention as he walked hurriedly behind the standing courtiers. Satoshi was one of his trusted men, not prone to haste or panic, and the daimyo felt curiosity kindle in his gut.
“Your majesty, Uchiha Fugaku, Lord of the Uchiha, requests an audience,” his guard bowed and spoke quietly in his ear.
The daimyo refrained from frowning. It was the Uchiha clan’s right to request a meeting with him at any time, but to not give warning beforehand simply wasn’t done and poor manners besides. Furthermore, the Uchiha had not exercised this right in many decades.
Hideyoshi straightened on his throne in anticipation.
“Admit them in,” he ordered, and Satoshi bowed low before leaving again through the side door.
Lord Kurosaki hadn’t ceased his droning.
“Thank you for your extensive report,” the daimyo nodded when the man finally paused for breath. “You have given me much to think on. Please submit the details to my aides and I will review them when the time permits.”
Which would be never, he refrained from rolling his eyes. When the price of mushrooms was judged to be more important than the on-going flooding in the south-west, he and his descendants would no longer sit the throne. Honestly, didn’t these fools have more important things to do? Just because Kurosaki’s lands weren’t affected by the floods didn’t mean he could inflict his mushroom obsession upon the rest of them.
The large ornate throne room doors opened, and the herald announced the newcomers.
“Announcing Uchiha Fugaku-sama, Head of the Uchiha Clan, Prince of the Emperor’s Court, Guardian of the Heavenly Jewelled Spear, Lord of the Central Plains, and entourage.”
Uchiha Fugaku was wearing a rich purple sokutai as befitting a noble of the first rank, his clan symbol elaborately embroidered along the hem. Rather than the traditional kowtow of the commoners, the two men at his side knelt while Fugaku himself bowed.
Hundreds of years ago, before mystical powers had graced the land, there had been a hundred different kings and kingdoms. Then came the advent of chakra, and with it, the unification of the continent under a single aegis. Every human to call the elemental nations home had been united under the rule of a man whose name has long since been lost to time, now known only as the First Emperor.
The Uchiha claimed direct descendance from the eldest son of the Sage, who legend has it was the eldest son of the First Emperor. These titles belonged to them by right. Many of their titles had become obsolete, land had changed hands along with the wars, but their legacy remained.
“A thousand blessings, Uchiha Fugaku-dono. Welcome and welcome again to the Court of Fire.”
Hide shot a glance at the permanent Konoha delegation stationed at his court, and saw none of them knew why the man was here.
Fugaku straightened. “A thousand blessings, Daimyo-dono. We thank you for your gracious and warm regards to our imposition.”
Hide smiled politely, impatient to get the formality out the way. “How can your presence be an imposition? The Uchiha are a most noble people, Uchiha Hikaru-dono having once saved my ancestor Hidenari’s life. Your clan is forever welcome at my court, your voice always heard.”
Now you can say what you’ve come here to say. A petition for something? A complaint?
“Your generosity to my clan humbles us, and we ever remain your loyal subjects. Though such grace cannot easily be repaid, the Uchiha will strive to be worthy of the gifts bestowed upon us.”
Yes, yes, my benevolence reaches the skies, my greatness the heavens and all that rot. Get on with it already. Hide revealed none of his thoughts while smiling and nodding courteously.
“In my role as the Head of the Uchiha Clan and subject of the Land of Fire, I have come to inform Daimyo-dono of the Uchiha Clan’s secession from the Village Hidden in the Leaves.”
At first the words didn’t compute and Hideyoshi continued to smile, only for his face to freeze as the meaning finally sunk in. He found himself stunned speechless, and when he regained his wits, the instinctive thought popped into his head unbidden:
Oh no. This is going to be so much more work than the mushrooms.
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Fugaku had faced countless enemies during the war who had such hatred for him they would have danced on his corpse had they the chance, and yet he had not been as nervous then as he was now. As the Daimyo continued to stare, he kept his hands clasped behind his back to prevent them from trembling, and it was only due to extensive practice that he kept his voice from doing the same.
No mission he had undertaken, no battle he had fought was as pivotal as this moment right now.
“As stated in the treaty we signed at the founding of Konoha, in the seventh year of the Tenth Fire Daimyo Sahoro-dono, we exercise our right to secede on the grounds that Konoha has not fulfilled their obligations to us by observing discriminatory hiring practices, and impinging upon our right to privacy.”
Fugaku would have loved to claim they were also bloodline-thieving scum, but Mikoto had argued that they had no proof, whereas the discrimination was there for all the village to see. The spying was also known to most of the upper-ranks, and Konoha would have no defence against these claims if it was brought to trial.
The entire court seemed to be stunned silent, because not a single person twitched, coughed, or did anything besides look at him. Fugaku used the opportunity to continue.
“The Uchiha Clan will graciously continue to permit Konoha’s habitation as it stands. We will, however, require them to pay rent – as is appropriate for an occupier to their landlord.”
Fugaku surveyed the gobsmacked sea of faces, as well as the deep shock and dawning horror of the Konoha delegation, and his nerves were replaced with immense satisfaction. He wanted to grin like a shark.
Instead he kept his face firmly marshalled into a suitably austere expression and delivered the final blow:
"After all, half of Konoha was built on our land.”
As the court finally dissolved into chaos around him, Fugaku idly wondered if Senju Tsunade would be interested in pressing her own claim for the lands that lay on the other side of the Naka River.
If nothing else, she would probably appreciate more money to gamble away.
[End of Arc I]