Chapter 104: The Pride Before the Fall
The psychic battlefield of maternal one-upmanship between Kushina Uzumaki and Mikoto Uchiha was a spectacle of escalating venom and pointed jabs about developmental shortcomings and incontinence. It was a surreal backdrop to the physical drama unfolding in the grove.
Naruto Uzumaki, having achieved a surprising (if wobbly) mastery of tree-walking overnight, was basking in his moment of triumph, dangling upside down like a deranged bat. His declaration about carrying Sakura across the sea was the pinnacle of his social obliviousness.
Then, physics and chakra control, those cruel and impartial judges, intervened.
His focus, split between showing off and maintaining the difficult inverted stance, wavered. The delicate adhesion of chakra to the bark of the branch flickered. For a split second, the sole of his foot lost its purchase.
It wasn't a dramatic slip. It was a quiet failure of concentration.
His ankle unhooked.
He dropped.
This time, there was no comical swing, no triumphant "gotcha." It was a genuine, head-first plummet from twenty meters.
Sakura's scream was real this time, raw and unfiltered. Kakashi, his lethargy burned away again, moved—but he was too far, too slow from his initial position of relaxed disbelief.
A blur of dark blue and black intercepted the fall.
Uchiha Sasuke, who had returned from his own private business (the nature of which was now the subject of intense, horrifying speculation in the chat), launched himself from a neighboring tree. His movement was a display of the Uchiha's natural athleticism and the sharp reflexes honed by trauma. He didn't try to catch Naruto in his arms—that would have broken both their backs. Instead, he shot past, his hand snapping out to seize Naruto's flailing ankle in a vise-like grip just as the orange-clad boy passed the ten-meter mark.
The force of the catch jerked them both into a wild, spinning arc. Sasuke's own chakra flared, his feet slapping against the trunk of a tree to arrest their momentum. They ended up suspended, Sasuke clinging to the tree with one hand and one foot, Naruto dangling from his grip like a stunned fish.
The save was clean, professional, and undeniably impressive.
In the Pure Land, the emotional pendulum swung violently.
[Uchiha Mikoto: YES! THAT'S MY BOY! SEE, KUSHINA? PRECISION! REFLEXES! A TRUE UCHIHA DOESN'T JUST SHOW OFF—HE ACTS!]
[Uchiha Fugaku: A flawless rescue! Minato, it seems the bet is leaning in a certain direction. Start practicing your enunciation of 'Father.']
The Uchiha contingent erupted in smug triumph. The narrative of the hard-working but clumsy underdog was being overwritten by the cool, competent scion of a legendary clan.
[Minato Namikaze: He… he saved him. That was… good.] Even in his relief, Minato's text was subdued, edged with the looming humiliation of the bet.
[Kushina Uzumaki: …] Her silence was volcanic.
[The Brilliant Analyst - Tobirama Senju: Efficient interception. Utilized angular momentum and tree-surface friction to dissipate kinetic energy. A textbook field rescue. The Uchiha boy has practical instincts.]
The praise from the notoriously hard-to-please Second Hokage was the final seal on Sasuke's momentary victory.
Then, the analyst in Tobirama noticed something.
[The Brilliant Analyst - Tobirama Senju: Hm. Anomaly. The rescuer's posture is unstable. Not muscular fatigue. A tremors in the stabilizer limbs. Neurological?]
Sasuke, still holding Naruto's ankle, was pressed against the tree trunk. His face, visible in profile to Ren and the Byakugan-enhanced view of the stream, was tight with strain. But it wasn't just the strain of holding a hundred pounds of idiot. His jaw was clenched, his eyes wide with something beyond physical effort. A fine sheen of sweat beaded on his temple.
And then, a darker moisture appeared at the collar of his high-necked shirt.
[Hyūga Hizashi: (Clearing his throat with extreme discomfort) There is… fluid leakage. From the… lower thoracic region. Not sweat. Different density. It's… tracking down his spine.]
The chat, which had been buzzing with Uchiha pride, fell into a confused, then horrified, silence.
[Uchiha Mikoto: What… what leakage? Sasuke is just sweating! From the exertion!]
[The Brilliant Analyst - Tobirama Senju: The fluid's point of origin is not consistent with sudoriferous glands. And its path… Hizashi, confirm trajectory.]
[Hyūga Hizashi: It… originates from the… sacral region. And is… migrating upwards due to his inverted angle against the tree.]
The awful truth dawned on everyone at once. The "private business" Sasuke had attended to. The strange tension in his body. The "old injury" Kushina had viciously mocked.
Sasuke Uchiha, in the adrenaline spike and intense physical contortion of the rescue, had suffered a catastrophic failure of a very specific, very embarrassing kind of muscle control.
He had, quite literally, pissed himself.
The dark stain was spreading, unmistakable against the dark blue of his pants and now wicking up the back of his shirt.
On the tree, Naruto, still dangling, blinked. "Uh… Sasuke? You okay? You're… shaking. And it smells kinda weird over here."
Sasuke didn't answer. His face was a mask of utter, soul-crushing horror. The pride of the Uchiha, the avenger who had just performed a heroic rescue, was currently experiencing the most profound humiliation imaginable, in front of his rival, his crush, his sensei, and an unseen audience of dead legends.
He let go.
Not of the tree. Of Naruto.
His grip on Naruto's ankle simply opened.
"WAH—!" Naruto yelled, plummeting the remaining five meters to land in a bush with a crash and a yelp of pain.
Sasuke didn't wait. He shoved off from the tree, landing in a crouch that was meant to be graceful but was ruined by the obvious, damp discomfort. He didn't look at anyone. His Sharingan, which had been inactive, now blazed to life with a single, spinning tomoe, fueled by pure, incinerating shame. He took off into the woods at a dead sprint, a faint, dark trail marking his path of retreat.
The grove was left in stunned silence, broken only by Naruto's groans from the bush and the distant sound of Sasuke crashing through undergrowth.
Kakashi stared after the fleeing boy, his single eye wide with a mixture of professional concern and the dawning, hilarious understanding of what had just happened. He coughed, turning his head away, his shoulders shaking slightly.
Sakura looked from the bush to the direction Sasuke had fled, her face a picture of confused concern, slowly morphing into dawning, horrified comprehension. She took a step back, her nose wrinkling.
Ren Arakawa stood perfectly still, his face an impeccable blank. Inside, he was howling. The sheer, cosmic comedy of it was too perfect. The Uchiha's glorious moment, undone by a weak bladder and Kushina's vicious curse. The butterfly effect wasn't just changing battles; it was weaponizing incontinence.
In the Pure Land, the silence was absolute for three full seconds.
Then, it broke.
[Uchiha Mikoto: NOOOOOOOOOOO—!]
Her psychic wail was a thing of pure, maternal agony.
[Uchiha Fugaku: (A sound like a dying engine)]
[The Ultimate Sister-In-Law Connoisseur - Uchiha Izuna: …Well. That's one way to make an exit.]
[The Brilliant Analyst - Tobirama Senju: Fascinating. The psychological-physiological feedback loop under extreme stress. The bet is now… inconclusive. And the Fourth Hokage's son, while not the victor, is arguably the less… stained party.]
[Minato Namikaze: (Quietly, to Kushina) Honey… maybe don't curse people's children. It seems to have… rebound properties.]
[Kushina Uzumaki: (A strange, hiccuping sound that might have been a sob or suppressed, hysterical laughter)]
The Uchiha legacy, for that day, was not one of sharingan prowess or heroic saves. It was of a damp, shameful sprint into the mist. And Ren was left in the clearing, the smell of salt air, crushed leaves, and something else lingering in the cold morning, wondering how the hell he was supposed to keep a straight face for the rest of this mission.
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