"I..."
Fugaku got a single word out, then could not go on.
He had never considered this question.
Staring wide eyed at his son, he was blindsided by what Amane asked.
His own child bursting into the room with a blade raised at him?
He could not bring himself to picture it.
"I see."
"That so?"
Amane studied his father's lined face. His expression betrayed nothing, still that calm and easy gentleness, unruffled, like Aizen Sosuke with a different hairstyle and no glasses.
The answer seemed found.
Even with one more son, Fugaku would still choose to sacrifice himself when the time came.
Yes.
With another child in the mix, he would only be more desperate to prevent fratricide, more determined for Itachi to spare both younger brothers.
But if Itachi had two younger brothers now.
Sasuke's fate in the tale was already set.
What about him? What path would Itachi give Amane?
Amane did not know.
Maybe Itachi would not strike as hard.
After all, his severe nearsightedness from birth had been obvious to everyone.
This Uchiha could not rely on his Sharingan.
Sadly, they were wrong.
Before Fugaku came back to himself, Amane had already turned and headed for the door.
The single tomoe hidden deep in his pupil went unnoticed by Fugaku.
At the threshold, Amane narrowed his eyes, looked back at his father, and smiled with bookish grace.
"If you ask me."
"All the lives in Konoha added together are not as precious as the lives of my family."
"If the day comes when there is no peaceful answer, remember this, you are the father of three children."
"Sometimes dying is only cowardice."
"My father is never a coward, because only by living can you bear everything."
"Maybe I am weak now, but when I grow, I will crush those people's skulls and taste them for myself."
"Crisp as a cracker. As for the flavor..."
"I will leave that a mystery."
He turned away with an easy swing.
Uchiha Fugaku swallowed hard, stunned.
After a long silence, he finally set down his teacup.
"Amane..."
"Between clan and village and what they want, what I want to know more is..."
"How can you say such things and still smile?"
"My child."
"And it seems that from birth to now..."
"You have never called Itachi your big brother."
...
"Sasuke, suppose a clan is branded evil for some reason."
"One day, a righteous hero rises from that clan and, in the name of greater good, destroys his own people by his own hand."
"Do you call that justice or evil?"
The next morning.
On Konoha's most sacred ground, the Hokage Rock carved with the faces of the First through the present, a prim looking boy stood there, gripping two imaginary faucets and letting water flow, while asking his little brother beside him.
"Uh..."
Sasuke tried to copy Second Brother's pose, but he was not yet qualified to dual wield faucets.
In the end he shook his head, admitting he did not understand a question that deep at all.
"Mm. That was only the first question. Here is the second."
Snapping his loincloth tidy with crisp efficiency, Amane lit a Hua-zi and gave Sasuke's cheek a friendly pat.
"Under the same premise, if one day that village is suddenly branded evil, does the hero have the courage to strike the village too?"
"Or say he acts again in the name of justice and wipes out that village. Then where do we place the clan he once destroyed, in evil or in justice?"
It was a profound problem.
Mapped onto the shinobi world, the village was Konoha, and the clan was Uchiha.
He very much wanted to ask Itachi what answer he would give.
No one in this world has the right to define justice and evil.
A bigger fist is the only hard truth.
When your strength is enough, if I say you are evil, you are evil. That is all.
At Sasuke's age, of course he could not grasp what Amane meant or imagine that one day all of it would land on him.
Right now he was only a simple child.
Thinking that, Amane rubbed Sasuke's cheek again.
"Bro, you didn't wash your hands after you finished."
Face turning red, Sasuke wrinkled his nose in disgust.
"Hey! What are you two doing there?"
In the distance, the elderly shinobi who managed the Hokage Rock's cleanliness, red armband on his sleeve, jabbed a finger at them and started scolding.
Did they not know where they were?
This was the Hokage Rock.
The faces of the village's leaders, a place every Konoha shinobi revered.
And they dared drain their water here?
"Sasuke, it's on you."
Amane clapped Sasuke's shoulder with practiced ease, sprang from the Hokage Rock, and dropped out of sight.
"So, if I say it wasn't my pee, will you believe me?"
Sasuke hitched up his pants coolly and took a deep breath to explain.
The old man's look said everything.
...
"Today's daily quests are a bit unusual."
Away from the Rock, Amane glanced at his system and sighed.
Daily Quest 1: Lead your little brother to do something bold (Completed). Reward: 0.1 percent template progress.
He was not trying to set Sasuke up.
Daily quests were the fastest way to gain template progress. The amount depended on luck, but even a little was meat on the bone, and 0.1 percent was not small.
Lead little brother to be bold.
The quest did not specify how bold. Apparently emptying water on the Hokage Rock was bold enough.
"Huh? Amane-kun?"
Just then a familiar voice sounded behind him.
He turned. Pale yellow hair and a breath of floral scent came into view.
Her.
Amane nudged his frames and offered a polite smile.
Her name was Ino.
Yamanaka Ino, heir of the Yamanaka clan. Amane often visited her family's flower shop. After enough trips, they knew each other.
If he had childhood playmates, or a few he could actually talk to, besides her there was only the Byakugan princess.
It was early morning, but her outfit, the basket on her arm, and the straw hat on her head made it clear she was headed outside the village to pick wildflowers.
In her memories with Sakura, the story said she even had a secret base beyond the village.
Nothing but flowers, breathtakingly beautiful.
"Crooked."
Sunlight flashed on his lenses and painted a line across Ino's face. Amane had already stepped close, lifted his hand, and straightened the straw hat on her head. He nodded.
"I want to get out for a walk."
"Come with me?"
...