Chapter 12: A Gilded Cage
Sasuke managed to haul Ren's unconscious form back to the hospital, leaving him in the care of the bewildered nurses. Then, alone, he turned and walked back into the rain, drawn like a ghost to the place that was no longer home.
The streets of the Uchiha compound were deserted, the silence a physical weight. The cold rain soaked through his clothes, but he barely felt it. Every familiar corner, every closed shopfront, seemed to echo with phantom sounds: the cheerful greetings of neighbors, the clatter of training from the grounds. It was a cemetery of memories.
He pushed open the door to his house—*their* house. The emptiness inside was deafening. He saw Mikoto's apron hanging by the kitchen, a half-finished scroll of Fugaku's on a low table. He remembered her gentle scolding when he and Ren would argue, her unwavering love for both of her sons. He remembered his father's stern pride, a mask for a deep, quiet care.
A faint, bittersweet smile touched his lips before it was wiped away by a colder, harder reality.
*The main hall of the Naka Shrine. Beneath the seventh tatami from the right…*
Itachi's cold, scripted words echoed in his mind. The smile vanished, replaced by a grim determination. He had a purpose now. A direction for his all-consuming hatred.
He made his way to the Naka Shrine, the spiritual heart of the Uchiha clan, now just another tomb. He found the tatami, moved it, and discovered the hidden door. The steps down into the darkness felt like descending into the clan's grave.
The secret meeting room was cold and still. And there, on the far wall, was the stone tablet. He approached it, his Sharingan activating instinctively, deciphering the ancient Uchiha script that was hidden from normal sight.
*Is that it? Is this the secret?* he muttered to himself, his eyes scanning the cryptic messages about the Curse of Hatred, the evolution of the eyes, and the ultimate power that demanded the ultimate price. It was a history written in blood and madness. When he finally emerged, his resolve was steel. His path was clear.
---
The next day, Sasuke went to the academy. The walk through Konoha was a gauntlet of whispers. Civilians pointed at the Uchiha fan on his back, their voices hushed but carrying.
"Look, that symbol…"
"Did you hear? The whole Uchiha clan…"
"…wiped out by one of their own! A boy named Itachi…"
"A genius, they said. The clan head's son…"
Sasuke kept his head down, his hands clenched in his pockets, and ignored them all.
In the classroom, the weight of stares followed him to his seat. Sakura immediately hovered over him, her face a mask of concern.
"Sasuke-kun… are… are you alright?"
He didn't look at her. "I'm fine," he mumbled, laying his head on his desk, shutting her out.
"Sasuke-kun…" she tried again.
He lifted his head, and the look in his eyes was so cold, so full of a darkness she couldn't comprehend, that she flinched back. "Shut up. You're annoying me."
Sakura recoiled as if struck, her eyes welling with hurt and confusion.
Soon, Ino and Akane approached, their faces equally worried. "Sasuke," Ino asked, her voice softer than usual, "where's Ren? Is he okay? Why isn't he here?"
"I don't know. Stop bothering me," Sasuke snapped, not turning around.
"But… you live together, don't you? Is something wrong with Ren-kun?" Akane pressed, genuine worry in her voice.
"I said I don't know!" Sasuke exploded, slamming his hand on the desk and making them jump. "Who cares about him?! Just leave me alone!"
The girls fell silent, exchanging a helpless, worried glance before retreating to whisper amongst themselves, deciding to find Ren after school.
Iruka began the lesson, his own gaze frequently drifting to Sasuke's empty desk and Ren's vacant one. He said nothing. Some wounds were too fresh for words.
---
In Konoha Hospital, Ren was awake. He had been staring at the same crack in the ceiling for hours, his mind a numb, empty void. A nurse had come in, tried to coax him to eat, spoken gentle, meaningless words. He had heard none of it. He just stared.
The numbness was slowly being burned away by a new, fiercer emotion: a cold, calculating rage.
*I will have my revenge,* the thought solidified in his mind, hard and sharp as a diamond. *I will have my revenge.*
He knew the truth Itachi had sacrificed everything to hide. The Uchiha's planned coup. Danzo's paranoid treachery in stealing Shisui's eye, forcing the kind-hearted shinobi to suicide to protect his remaining eye and his friend. The village elders' fear and prejudice that made negotiation an impossible dream. Itachi hadn't been the villain; he had been the ultimate sacrifice, a lone wolf taking on the sins of both his clan and his village to prevent a civil war and protect his brother.
His hatred was not for Itachi. It was for the architects of this tragedy. For the Konoha elders. And most of all, for Shimura Danzo.
*Danzo. I will make you pay. I will make you all pay in blood,* he vowed, the promise etching itself onto his heart.
But vengeance required power. Overwhelming power. And for that, he needed points.
*System. Check my points.*
***Host's current point total: 2,748. Would you like to open the Exchange Interface?***
*Show me Chidori,* he commanded.
A screen flickered in his vision.
**Chidori.**
**Type: Ninjutsu.**
**Rank: A.**
**Exchange Cost: 5,000 points.**
***Insufficient points.***
*Five thousand.* His current arsenal—the basic Academy Three, the Finger Gun, the Great Fireball—was pitiful against the enemies he would face. His daily stipend was a pittance. In a year, he'd have maybe 3,800 points. It wasn't enough. He needed to leave Konoha, to find missions, to hunt enemies, to discover treasures. Staying in this gilded cage, playing the traumatized orphan, was a path to stagnation and weakness.
*I must escape Konoha. Soon.*
***Ding! Host is under surveillance. Transmit surveillant's image?***
The system's cold voice was a bucket of ice water. *Surveillance? Now? Who?*
*Transmit the image.*
A new image superimposed over his vision: a thermal outline of a human figure, perfectly camouflaged against the trunk of a tree outside his hospital window. An ANBU operative. But the pattern of the chakra… it felt wrong. Colder. More constrained.
*Hokage's ANBU wouldn't be so sloppy as to let the system detect them so easily,* Ren thought, his mind racing. *And the Third has no reason to watch me this closely. Not like this.*
There was only one other possibility. The organization that operated in even deeper shadows than ANBU.
*Root.*
*Danzo.* The name was a curse in his mind. *Why? Why is he watching me? To kill me?* He dismissed the thought. If Danzo wanted him dead, he'd already be dead. *Then why…?*
A chilling possibility dawned on him. Itachi's deal. Danzo's promise to spare both brothers. But Danzo never made deals he didn't profit from. He had promised not to harm them. He had said nothing about not *recruiting* them.
He wasn't being watched as a threat.
He was being watched as an *asset*. A spare Uchiha. A container for a powerful bloodline. A future tool for Root.
Ren's hand clenched into a fist under the thin hospital sheet, his nails digging into his palm. The game had just become infinitely more dangerous. He was no longer just a victim grieving in a hospital bed.
He was prey, being circled by a predator. And he needed to decide, very quickly, whether to play dead or to become a predator himself.