The door closed with a precise click behind Sasuke, the sound as final as a judge's gavel. He froze in the hallway, vision blurring at the edges while his palm pressed against the cold concrete wall for balance. Through the thin door, he heard Naruto begin to call after him—"Sas—" before abruptly falling silent, the truncated word hanging in the air between them like an accusation neither could take back.
He moved.
Down the corridor, past the clutter of beta's and the ghosts of late-evening arguments. His body was all muscle memory, the autopilot of a man who'd trained himself for decades to make every movement economical, deniable, forgettable. Each step was precise and unhurried, the stride of someone who would not—could not—be seen running away.
He cleared the lobby and burst into the heat, the sun so bright it seared his retinas. The quad was crowded with between-class traffic, just the shimmer of midday haze above the concrete and the indistinct murmur of a hundred conversations. Sasuke walked until the sweat beading at his temples cooled the burning in his chest.
He fished out his phone, thumb already moving to the first contact in his recent: Obito Uchiha. The screen lit up, a blue-white rectangle in the dark. He hit dial.
It rang twice, then kicked to voicemail.
He hung up and dialed again, this time listening through the entire prerecorded greeting—his uncle's voice, slick as an oil spill, "You've reached the office of Obito Uchiha. If this is urgent, please text the security line for a faster response." His phone vibrated against his ear. Naruto's name flashed on the screen. His thumb hovered over the accept button before he rejected the call. Sasuke texted the security line: CALL ME NOW. It came back with a bounce notification. Another call from Naruto. Another rejection. He tried Obito's personal number. No answer. His phone lit up again—Naruto, the third time. Sasuke stared at the photo he'd never admit to taking, Naruto mid-laugh in the cafeteria, before silencing it completely.
Instead, he kept walking. Out past the student union, across the short footbridge that spanned the retention pond. The city yawned beyond the edge of campus, lights smeared in the haze. His pocket vibrated with text notifications he couldn't bear to read. He didn't bother with public transit; he flagged a rideshare from the curb, the car rolling up so quietly it startled him.
The driver was a Beta, a woman with a tired face and hair knotted at the base of her neck. She glanced in the rearview mirror, took in Sasuke's face, then looked away. The interior smelled like mint gum and Febreze, with the undernote of engine coolant.
"Where to?" she asked, eyes never leaving the road.
"Tower South," Sasuke said. "Uchiha Corp. Downtown entrance."
She nodded, punched the address, and merged into the stream of city traffic.
The ride was silent. Sasuke watched the city slide by through the windows. The familiar rhythm of traffic signals and sodium arcs, the tidy geometry of warehouses turning slowly into the glass towers and neon loops of downtown. At every intersection, his phone vibrated against his thigh. The screen lit up—a cascade of notifications, all from Naruto. Seven missed calls. Three voicemails. Thirteen text messages. Nothing from Obito.
His reflection stared back from the car window, a mask he barely recognized—features arranged in perfect neutrality while something toxic churned beneath. His phone vibrated again. Naruto's face lit up the screen, eyes bright with a smile from before everything fell apart. Sasuke's thumb hovered over the green button before he let it ring through to voicemail. Eight missed calls now. Each one twisted the knife deeper. He couldn't answer—not without answers of his own first. Not when every word between them would be contaminated by half-truths and family secrets. His hands returned to his lap, fingers curling and uncurling like the legs of a dying spider.
The car peeled off the expressway and into the canyon of the financial district. Here the buildings pressed close, glass and steel slabs so tall the sky barely made a dent between them. The Uchiha Corp tower was the tallest, a monolith of tinted glass and gunmetal, its logo burning white on the top ten floors like a warning to aircraft. Like a brand on everything Sasuke touched, even Naruto now. The lobby was all light, reflected a hundredfold off the rain-slick sidewalks.
The car rolled to a stop at the main doors.
"You want me to wait?" the driver asked. There was something in her tone, not quite pity, but a recognition of someone about to do something they'd regret.
"No," Sasuke said. "Thanks."
She pulled away as soon as the door shut, the taillights winking red as she faded into the traffic of other cars.
For a moment, Sasuke just stood there. The September heat pressed against him like a second skin, the midday sun turning the concrete into a griddle beneath his feet. Sweat beaded at his hairline but refused to fall, as if even his body understood the need to maintain composure in public.
The security desk inside was staffed by two Betas, both ex-military types, their uniforms crisp and expressions set to "perpetual suspicion." They watched Sasuke approach, the overheads bouncing glare off the glass doors behind him.
He didn't slow. The older guard—gray hair, scar along the left cheek—snapped to attention, one hand hovering over the alarm panel just in case.
"Good evening, Master Uchiha," the guard said, and it sounded practiced, a phrase used at least a dozen times a week. "Here to see your uncle?"
Sasuke nodded, face a study in zero emotion.
"I'm afraid he's in a busy, sir. Would you like to wait in the executive lounge?"
"I'll go up," Sasuke said.
The guard's eyes flickered to his console, then back to Sasuke. "I'll authorize your access immediately, sir," he said, fingers already tapping the security clearance. "Twenty-fourth floor is available to you now."
He punched the button for the top floor. The elevator's interior was mirrored glass and brushed steel, a sensory deprivation chamber of soft music and softly glowing floor numbers. He watched his own reflection, He watched the floors tick by in the chrome display, one after another, steady and relentless. The elevator climbed smooth and unbothered, the only movement the slight sway at each passing floor.
His mind, on the other hand, raced.
Naruto's face flashed in his mind—that stupid grin, the way he'd leaned in for that kiss. Sasuke's throat tightened. He'd let Naruto believe in him, trust him, while his family's name was stamped on every document authorizing the experiments. The same experiments that had taken Kurama. He'd held Naruto through his heats, promised to help find his brother, all while his family could be the ones directly involved. His stomach twisted with something worse than nausea—the knowledge that he was exactly what Naruto would soon see him as: another Uchiha, another betrayal.
When the doors opened, a long marble hallway greeted him, plush runner bisecting its width. At the end, the secretary's desk was manned by a Beta woman with perfect makeup and an expression that said she'd once managed a pack of feral investment bankers and survived. She stood as Sasuke approached, voice immediately going from pleasant to business-class cold:
"Mr. Uchiha, your uncle is not to be disturbed. He's in a—"
Sasuke walked right past her, his stride so sharp she instinctively flinched out of the way. Her hand hovered near a panic button, but she hesitated—maybe, in that moment, unsure if the heir's privilege outweighed whatever protocol said to do about angry family members.
Sasuke reached Obito's door, pushed it open without knocking.
Obito was alone, as if he'd staged the scene for maximum effect: lights low, the city spread behind him in a neon crucifixion, his laptop open to a page of indecipherable financial code. He looked up, his scarred face half-shadowed by the blue glow of the screen, one eye gleaming with unnatural brightness while the other remained dull beneath the twisted tissue that pulled at his right cheek. The crisp white collar of his shirt cut against skin that seemed too pale, too perfect on the undamaged side, and when he straightened his broad shoulders beneath his tailored suit jacket, the movement was liquid, predatory.
"Ah, my favorite nephew," Obito said, closing the laptop with a single smooth motion. "You look like hell."
Sasuke didn't answer. He walked straight up to the desk, hands at his sides but flexed into fists. The room, an echo chamber of expensive art and intimidatingly empty space, seemed to shrink until only the desk and the two of them existed.
"Tell me the truth," Sasuke said, each syllable sharp as a glass splinter. "Are we funding the Chimera Project?"
Obito's eyes narrowed, mouth twitching into a thin smile. "You're a curious one. Always have been."
Sasuke slammed his hands on the desk, leaning forward until they were nose to nose. "I'm not here for riddles. Just answer me."
Obito leaned back, steepled his fingers. "I'm not denying it."
A pause, heavy enough to make the city lights behind them flicker in Sasuke's peripheral vision.
"We are," Obito said finally. "The board voted. The shareholders want a solution to the Omega crisis, and the Registry can't do it alone. The money flows from R&D to our subsidiary, Juinjutsu, to their partners. You already did the research, didn't you?"
Sasuke's jaw locked. "You're using people. Kids. My friends."
Obito shrugged, the gesture casual, almost bored. "That's business. It's for the good of everyone. Someone has to make the hard calls."
Sasuke stared, searching for any scrap of regret in the other man's eyes. "You disgust me."
Obito's smile was reptilian. "You'll thank me one day. Or at least, you'll understand."
"I won't let you do this," Sasuke said, his voice trembling now, not from fear but from the weight of betrayal.
Obito stood, rounding the desk to close the space between them. "You don't have that kind of power," he said, voice pitched low and dangerous.
Sasuke held his ground. "This was my parents' company. Their legacy. Not yours."
Obito laughed, a dry sound with no warmth in it. "Your parents were visionaries, but they were also weak. They couldn't do what needed to be done. That's why I'm here." He stepped even closer, his breath tinged with astringent cologne. "You think you're the first Uchiha to grow a conscience?"
For a moment, they stood toe to toe, silence roaring between them. Then Obito patted Sasuke's shoulder—a mockery of affection—and turned to the intercom on his desk.
"Security to the executive suite, please," he said, not looking away from Sasuke.
In less than a minute, two Betas arrived, uniforms sharp and faces blank. They moved to either side of Sasuke, but waited for the order.
Obito looked at Sasuke with a flat, pitying stare. "Just go home. Don't meddle in things you're not ready to understand."
Sasuke's hands shook. He tried to speak, but the words wouldn't come.
"Take him out," Obito said, turning his attention back to the laptop.
The guards escorted him without force—professional, detached. Sasuke offered no resistance as they flanked him to the door. Halfway there, he halted. The men paused, exchanging glances, protocol momentarily unclear. Sasuke turned back toward the office. Obito's lips curled upward in that familiar expression—the same one that had once comforted him as a child. Now, illuminated by the blue glow of the laptop, Sasuke recognized it for what it truly was: calculated artifice concealing something predatory beneath.
Sasuke's voice dropped to a low, controlled burn. "You'll regret this."
Something shifted in Obito's expression—a predator scenting blood in the water. "How fascinating," he murmured, leaning forward. "I'd almost forgotten what an Uchiha with spine looks like."
The muscles in Sasuke's jaw tightened until pain radiated through his temples. His fingers twitched with the urge to sweep everything from that polished desk, to shatter the careful arrangement of power, but reality anchored him in place. The contract he'd signed on his eighteenth birthday—the one that had seemed so reasonable then—now strangled any authority he might claim. He'd handed Obito the keys to his inheritance with his own hands, believing in the man's guidance. The betrayal sat like poison in his throat. Without another word, Sasuke pivoted on his heel and let the guards escort him from the office.
"Have a good night, sir," the Beta at the desk said, voice gentle, maybe even a little sad.
Sasuke tried to keep his head up, but the fluorescent lights in the lobby sliced through his eyes, too harsh, too clean. Every voice was a little too loud. He felt the stares from the night shift, the late meetings, even from the janitorial staff in their blue coveralls. They all knew who he was, what he was supposed to become. Every step toward the glass doors was another step away from that, and by the time they reached the atrium, he felt the loss not in his mind but in his bones.
The guards peeled off at the entrance. Sasuke stepped out, surprised by the sudden assault of rain that had begun while he'd been inside. He stood blinking at the shifting grid of city lights through the downpour, droplets immediately soaking through his thin dress shirt. The doors hissed shut behind him with pneumatic finality, and he was alone on the front steps, marooned in the glare of the Uchiha Corp signage.
He stood there for a minute, maybe longer. A pair of Beta techs exited a side door, smoking and laughing, only to hush mid-sentence when they recognized him. One of them dropped their cigarette; the other fumbled for a lighter with nervous fingers. Sasuke ignored them. His eyes were fixed upward, on the illuminated logo carved into the building's skin—a red fan, spread open, backlit so it glowed even through the storm.
He started walking. The adrenaline and shame had burned off, leaving only a sour, vibrating emptiness. Rain plastered his shirt to his back, soaked through his dress pants until the expensive fabric clung to his thighs like a second skin. Each footstep splashed and echoed up through his legs, into the concrete, and back again. He didn't know where he was going until he stopped, knuckles white and stinging from where his nails bit his palms, water dripping from his hair into his eyes.
He looked at his hands, saw the tremor, and hated them. He drew back his fist and punched the wall—hard, once, then twice more. The pain was sharp and clean, and the third time his knuckles split, blood blooming instantly. He didn't register the injury at first, just the dull vibration in his arm and the pink streaks running down his wrist, mixing with the water and pooling on the sidewalk.
He stood there, hunched and bleeding, for a long minute. The cold bit at his skin, and the wind stripped the heat from his body until he was shaking with it, but he didn't go back. He wouldn't give them the satisfaction.
Somewhere in the distance, a siren wailed, the sound carrying all the way to the waterfront. The city pressed in, uncaring.
He wiped his hand on his shirt, watched the color seep in, and tried to remember the last time he'd felt anything besides this—anger, humiliation, the sick knowledge that he was just another disposable part in a machine too big for him to break.
He pressed his forehead to the cool concrete of the building, the surface smeared with rain and sweat and now a little blood. He let his eyes close.
When he opened them again, the world was the same, but the pain in his hand was steady and real. He flexed his fingers, feeling the torn skin pull tight, and fished out his phone with the other hand.
He scrolled through his contacts. The list was short—Naruto at the top, a handful of classmates, a couple of numbers saved under labels like "Chem Lab" or "Fencing." Most of the names blurred together, but one at the bottom was sharp and out of place.
Itachi.
He hovered over it, thumb trembling.
He thought of the fire, the years of silence, the way every adult in his life had twisted the memory until even he didn't know what to believe anymore. He thought of Obito's voice, soft and final: Just go home. Don't meddle in things you're not ready to understand.
He pressed the call button.
The phone rang twice, then three times. On the fourth ring, a voice picked up—not a recording, but the real thing, sleepy and unguarded.
"Sasuke?"