Chapter Text
Tsunade’s iron grip is rumored to be strong enough to shatter bone, and for the first time in four years, Sasuke wonders if he’ll break one.
Itachi had warned him.
Sasuke remembers rain on the morning Itachi’s moon had appeared bruised and cold on the palm of his hand. The Uchihas’ old money home had been full of movement and voices and gray corners, like the world outside. Itachi clung to it like a wraith, pale in the shadowed corner of his room, like he was standing on the edge of a cliff. Sasuke waited with him in the gloom as the healer bowed, packed his bag, and left. He listened to the harsh whispers in the hall.
“He’s hired a witch!” hissed the healer to his apprentice, like it was a dirty word. “ Our services are no longer needed!”
“I heard,” Itachi said suddenly, as the door snapped shut and Sasuke flinched with it, “that this woman can snap your spine in two with one try if you make her angry enough.” Sasuke paused, looking back toward his brother, away from the door. Itachi snapped long, thin fingers, rubbing his fingertips together.
Sasuke listened to the rain, to the voices in the hallway, then said, “Don’t piss her off then.” Itachi smiled and huffed a quiet laugh. He looked at Sasuke out of the corner of his eye, then pointed at his younger brother, like they were small again, and he was teasing.
“I could say the same for you.” The cold tip of his finger knocked against Sasuke’s forehead, and he pushed his brother’s hand away. He knew this gesture; Itachi was silently asking him to leave, already growing distant in his thoughts, somewhere Sasuke couldn’t follow. Sasuke looked to the door again, and he felt that there was someone waiting beyond it. He could feel her presence before he heard her voice-
“I don’t know what the hell you were thinkin’ comin’ here, Uchiha, but this is the last time I’m gonna see you outside the estate, got it?”
Sasuke swears as Tsunade’s fingers twist over his arm like a vise, shoving him through the crowd in the bar. The wild boys are still watching, amber eyes bright and wild. One hops onto the bar counter to peer over the crowd, crouching like an animal while Momo hollers, “GET DOWN FROM THERE, YOU BEAST! ”
Tsunade sneers. “Seven hells,” she hisses, and when Sasuke throws an angry look over his shoulder she pushes him roughly forward.
“Walk. Go left.”
Sasuke bristles, turning on his heel, Tsunade looming two steps behind. He hangs his head low as they pass a hopeful group of gamblers babbling about the inn’s casino. He obediently turns when Tsunade spits, "right."
The hallway is empty, washed out in ruddy light and lazily spinning dust motes rising from the carpet eating the hardwood floor. Sasuke pauses to look at the painted room numbers. Tsunade slaps him over the head, and he swears through clenched teeth, his eyes watering.
“And I’ll hit ya again,” Tsunade snarls. In the quiet of the hallway she seems even larger than before, tall and imposing, built like a fighter. “ Stupid boy. Well good for you, Uchiha, the forest spat you out alive . How’d you get so far without something angry picking you off, hmm?”
Sasuke ducks another vicious swat, his brain kicking him into a fighter’s stance. He redirects the next hit Tsunade aims at him. She’s fast, and the weight behind her hand is impressive. He grits his teeth. Tsunade harrumphs, shaking her head. Her gaze dips and pivots back to his face, her lip curled.
“Get walkin’.”
He scowls. This is for his brother, he reminds himself, and his gut churns as he imagines Itachi swathed in the shadows of his room. Kaguya’s curse doesn’t wait for pride. Sasuke remembers his father looking him over one morning too many summers ago, saying, keep your shoulders straight, Sasuke. Don’t frown. A respectable man not only acts like he commands respect, he looks it. Sasuke straightens his shoulders, smooths his scowl, and relents. Tsunade’s lips quirk, her eyes creased at the corner with a sly smile. She looks then like a witch out of one of Mikoto’s fairy tales.
“Well?” Tsunade huffs.
Sasuke exhales, considering her. There is something extraordinary about witches. Something that isn’t demon-like, or god-like, and something that isn’t human-like either. It’s what keeps Tsunade’s skin youthful, what grants her magic most alchemists and healers take years to channel and perfect, or can’t at all. Something ancient and powerful lying in wait alongside her body’s natural energy, her chakra.
Itachi needs extraordinary.
Sasuke starts walking.
Tsunade scoffs, like his silence answers all her questions. She slips ahead of him, stopping after another turn to the right to lead him toward end of the narrow hallway. There is a door hidden in the shadows of the corner, the lights mounted on the paneled walls flickering and weak.
Tsunade throws a look over her shoulder before unlocking it, turning to grab Sasuke’s sleeve. She shoves him ahead of her, and as the door slams shut behind them Sasuke finds himself waiting in the dark. The room smells like stale tobacco and wine. There’s a crash, and a curse, before candlelight washes Tsunade’s boxed-in room aglow. A desk littered with empty wine bottles sits by the room’s only window, light from a lonely old-fashioned oil lamp trying to break past the bottle glass. An unmade bed that’s seen better days is pushed up against a corner. Tsunade stomps over to it to sit. She doesn’t say “have a seat”. She sinks onto the mattress with a put-upon sigh. Her manners have always offended Yoshi more than anything else.
“What do you want?” She fishes out an unfinished bottle of sake from under her pillow and pops it open.
Sasuke looks back to the door. Even hallways away, he can hear a howl, roguish and human.
“Over at the bar-”
Tsunade cuts him off, ripping the bottle from her lips. She spills sake over her fingers. “Inuzuka clan. Keepers of half-gods .” She sneers as she spits out the word half-gods. “Those damned wolves. Momo pays ‘em to send human travelers the inn’s way. Sometimes they actually find some poor lost sap.” She laughs in her throat. “Better hope Tsume hasn’t already sniffed you out. You didn't come across her wolves in the forest, did you?”
Sasuke’s brow furrows as he remembers the wolves, but says nothing, only glowers and waits. Tsunade drinks until the oil lamp on the dresser flickers, nearly dies, then sputters again. She belches, slapping a fist to her chest, her eyes watering.
“So before they come sniffing down the halls I’ll ask you again: What. Do you. Want?” She takes a another swig of sake, and when she sets it down on the floor, Sasuke takes a breath.
“I want you to stall my brother’s curse.”
Tsunade sighs, mumbling something violent under her breath. She leans back against her pillow. “I can’t.”
Heat prickles along Sasuke’s skin, behind his ribs, that flame of anger burning brighter. “I’ve seen what you can do-”
Tsunade waves him off, reaching down to set her bottle on the floor after a pause. “I don’t interfere with last wishes.”
“You can’t do it?” Sasuke spits, "or you won't?" Tsunade looks at him with a strange half-smile. “You can’t expect me to believe you actually care about his last wishes.” He thinks of his father, his mother, alone in the hall after quietly ordering Kiyoko to fulfill Itachi’s wish of being bound to the bed whenever he was alone. It was, Itachi had said, because he didn’t want to risk experiencing weakness in his last moments. Kaguya never came to the weak-willed.
Sasuke’s chest aches. His hands shake, and his skin feels too tight, like it can't contain him.
“Or do you only put on a show for my father?” He kicks at a bottle on the floor. Tsunade watches it roll under the bed, her eyes bright.
“Get the hell out of my room before I call the dogs.” She throws an arm over her eyes.
Sasuke toes another bottle and imagines crushing it beneath his foot. He can’t leave. Not without magic.
Tsunade lifts her arm to glare at him. “I said get lost , kid.”
Sasuke doesn't flinch away from her gaze. His heart beats hard in his chest. “Whatever you need. Name it, and it’s yours.”
Tsunade snorts, looking him over. “Look at you, talking so big. You’re only a second son. What can you give me that your father can’t give tenfold? Fugaku’s a righteous man. I’m only there because your mother begged. He wouldn’t risk his clan’s future with the fury of god. He doesn’t expect me to cure shit. Only to make it easier.”
Sasuke stares, unable to think beyond the drum of his heartbeat. He can hear it in his ears. A whoosh like a river current against his temples. He looks away, ashen, a cold pit in his chest.
“I got nothin’ more to say, kid. Nothin’ to give.”
He smothers a fearful anger that leaves him feeling cold again, his jaw clenching, his fingers twitching with the need to rescue this last attempt at his brother’s life. There’s a slight weight settled inside a hidden pocket in his left sleeve, something he’d hidden away the night Kaguya’s curse marked him. He hadn’t known what to use it for then, if he ever would. It was the only night he’d allowed himself to feel true terror at the thought of death. He’d imagined leaving. Boarding one of his father’s zeppelins. He sighs, ignoring Tsunade’s glower. His right hand slips into his left sleeve. Tsunade tenses, then laughs, long and loud, when Sasuke reveals a roll of bills.
“What if we made a bet?”
Tsunade’s grin widens.
The casino squats behind the inn, sprawling over unearthed rock, forest roots, and weeds. Tsunade is still laughing. She whisks Sasuke out a back door by the kitchen, and Sasuke can hear the Inuzuka woman laughing and howling even when Tsunade closes the door. She skips through the dark yard, over each rock and root like a part of her is buried in the land so she can’t forget.
“Not even that money you brought will cover my debt,” she cackles, “and you just offered to pay it all off if I win! You know this isn't the only casino I play at, right?” Sasuke scowls, willing away the sliver of doubt that trickles its way into his thoughts.
“You’re gonna wish you hadn’t gambled!” Tsunade opens the door for him with an exaggerated after you gesture that leaves Sasuke swearing under his breath as he steps inside. The casino isn’t so much a casino as it is a large, gutted-out house, tatami floors still pristinely intact. Maybe once upon a time it had been something grand, rich even. Now it’s sparsely furnished, the long, wide hallways each leading to a different room with a different game. There’s a bar in the old kitchen, but no one’s sitting at it. The bartender’s dozed off on a stool, drooling on the counter. The noise of the gamblers settles over the house like the constant buzz of a hornet, and Sasuke wonders which door Tsunade will lead him to.
They pass an elderly patron digging through his coin purse. He looks to Sasuke as they pass, blinking owlishly at Tsunade and shaking his head.
“You there!” he calls, pointing at Sasuke. “Young man! You aren’t going to gamble with this woman are you?” The old man roots himself in the middle of the floor, and a few players shout at him for blocking their way. Sasuke flicks his gaze over to Tsunade, who purses her lips.
“Having a bad night, Haru?” Tsunade wonders, a hand on her hip.
“Poor boy,” Haru says dramatically, as if he hadn’t heard, “If she’s taking where I think she is, it’s the only game she’s got any luck with. I’d make a run for it if I were you.” He wanders over to pat Sasuke’s arm and stage-whispers, “She loses at everything else! A bit unnatural to have luck that bad, I say-”
“HARU!” Tsunade snarls, and the little man scurries away with a squeak.
“Hold onto your coin purse, boy!” he cries, darting out the door. Sasuke frowns after him.
Tsunade crosses her arms once he’s out of sight, her chin lifted. “Easiest damn money I might ever make. We can’t be long too long though. Shizune thinks I’m resting. Ha! If you want to back out to save some face, now’s the time to do it.”
Sasuke grits his teeth, and Tsunade only laughs. She claps him on the shoulder, like an old comrade, and Sasuke bites his lip as he grounds himself. She grips his shoulder with bruising strength before leading him down the hall.
Down the hall they go, further, and further still, taking a sharp left at the end. They pass the same, large group of gamblers from the inn, slowly migrating from room to room.
“We better hurry. We wanna finish our game before we get stuck with them.” Tsunade suddenly slides open the first door to her right with enough force to unsettle the dust in the hallway. The people inside jump.
“Ohhhh, Kenmaaa!” Tsunade sings.
Kenma is a bent old man with a thin face. He sits on his knees on the tatami floor, ink flitting over his bared chest in the snarl of a dragon. He squints at Tsunade, rubbing at the peppered stubble on his chin. “You,” he growls, wetting his lips before coughing over the dice. Sasuke wrinkles his nose.
Itachi’s fate is to be determined by a game as simple as chō-han . Even luck as bad as Tsunade’s has a chance to turn around here. Sasuke can feel his palms begin to sweat.
“Me,” agrees Tsunade serenely, yanking Sasuke to his knees on the floor alongside her. The two other gamblers stare, the woman looking morose.
“It’s not a good night,” she says. Her companion whimpers.
“It’s a VERY good night.” Tsunade rubs her hands together, and Sasuke thinks she looks too much like a cat with a mouse between her teeth. Kenma waits patiently.
“I want a game,” Tsunade gestures to Sasuke, “just between us. Best two out of three.” Her smile is sharp.
“Got nothin’ left anyway, and this was our last game,” mutters the young man next to Sasuke. The woman beside him sniffs.
Kenma shakes his bamboo cup, the dice inside rattling. He upends it, smacking the cup down on the mat in front of him. He looks up at Sasuke expectantly. “What’s it gonna be, boy?” he rasps.
Sasuke swallows his doubt. “Odd,” he says, and pulls out the neatly folded wad of bills from his sleeve. Kenma licks his lips as Sasuke plucks a quarter of it from its hold and sets it down on the mat. Tsunade wriggles on her knees. She reaches into the folds of her shirt to pluck a single bill out from under her breast. She lets it fall, and Sasuke watches it flutter down to the pile.
“Even,” Tsunade hums.
Kenma lifts the cup to count the sum, and Sasuke’s stomach sinks. “Even,” Kenma growls. The onlookers begin to drink.
“Breakfast’s on me if duckbutt wins.”
The woman laughs. “Don’t make bets you can’t pay up on, Shinichi. I’ll order the most expensive thing on Momo’s menu.”
Tsunade hoots, rubbing her hands together. “Hell I’ll buy everyone in the kitchen breakfast tomorrow if this kid wins!”
Kenma shakes his bamboo cup once, twice, then slaps it down on the mat, waiting for a bet. Tsunade gestures to Sasuke.
With cold fingers, Sasuke pulls away another quarter and sets it down. “Odd,” he says again, trying to be louder than the heartbeat in his head. Tsunade grins, snatching another crumpled bill from the cradle of her breasts. She smooths it with a snap.
“Even,” Tsunade repeats. Kenma removes the cup to reveal the dice, and Tsunade swears viciously. Sasuke smiles, honey-slow.
“Odd,” says Kenma, with a razor-sharp grin.
“Ooooohhhhh,” says the couple. Sasuke releases another breath.
Tsunade smooths another bill. “Don’t get cocky, kid, you only got one more shot.” Across from them, Kenma shakes his cup.
“If I win,” Sasuke whispers, and Tsunade forgets about her crinkled bill to glance at him with narrowed eyes. She snorts, short and mean.
“If I win, you’re going to cure my brother.”
Tsunade laughs, maybe from the impossibility of it. “Uchiha, if you win-” Tsunade jabs at Sasuke with a manicured finger, her voice dipping low, “I’ll tell you how to kill a god.”
Sasuke’s blood runs cold. The noise in the casino seems to dip and whine, bleeding away until all that’s left is the beat of his heart. Tsunade is still smiling, like it’s a game she’s already won. Before Sasuke can stop himself he says, “No one can kill a god.”
Tsunade’s smile never falls as she calls out, “Odd.”
Sasuke inhales deeply before setting the last of his money on the mat. “Even.”
Kenma reaches for the cup with an arthritic slowness that makes Sasuke grit his teeth. The cup lifts, and Sasuke’s eyes widen. The room seems to hold its breath, like it's about to jump over a cliff.
“Odd,” says Kenma, and Sasuke can feel the breath leave his body with the old man’s laugh. Tsunade smacks Sasuke on the back twice. He winces.
“Good game, kid,” she cries. She reaches over to shake Kenma’s hand, knocking over the bamboo cup as she lunges forward. Sasuke stares, too aware of Tsunade’s laughter, of the hollow pit in his gut. The cup rolls to a stop and rests against his knee. The door to the room slides open, and the loud laughs and voices of the tourists slip inside before they do. Suddenly the room is filled from corner to corner, and Sasuke is being jostled aside. An old man is standing before him.
“Move! Respect your elders and all that, boy!” laughs the old man, and his foot knocks away the cup. He’s too drunk to notice or care, only laughs harder, pulling a giggling woman down to the floor with him. He reaches into his coat pocket to shake a small velvet pouch.
“My lucky dice!” he says, holding it beneath the woman’s nose, “give ‘em a little kiss, sweetheart.” The cup rolls away as the woman giggles.
Sasuke reaches it, and as his fingers close around it, he can feel the shift of the dice inside. His whole body freezes, and his heart leaps. He chances a look at Kenma, who is still listening to whatever Tsunade is telling him with a stony look, ignoring the questions of all his new players.
Sasuke falls back as Kenma warily looks over the heads of the gamblers. Slowly, keeping out of sight, Sasuke presses against the wall, the cup behind his back, his fingers probing for a cheat. His heart races, faster and faster with each second that drains away. At first there’s nothing unusual about the cup. No small grooves or buttons or anything to show him that it’s not what it seems. Yet Sasuke can feel the dice shifting inside. His frustration climbs higher and higher, until he feels cold all over again. The backs of the gamblers in front him have formed a wall, and Sasuke chances a look at it. It’s empty. Brown and round and nothing special. Desperately, he looks up again, over the shoulders of the gamblers’ wall, and notices that Kenma is searching. He grips the cup one final time, his thumb ghosting over the bottom, and it suddenly gives way like a button. A die falls to the floor, materializing out of thin air.
It lands on eight. His heart pumping harder, Sasuke presses the bottom again, and another die falls by his feet. Five. An odd outcome. Curious, he drops the dice back inside and releases them again, one by one. The sum, this time, is even. Sasuke’s brow furrows. Once more, and it’s odd. The next, even. It’s a mean little trick-it shifts and changes with each fall, but there’s a pattern to the sums. That old anger begins to burn again in Sasuke’s chest. He finds Tsunade at the back of the room, leaning against a wall. Magicked dice. He stares at the bamboo cup, rolling it over in his hands. It's one of the more perfect illusions Sasuke has ever seen, and he’s only seen two up close: the illusion that hides an airship at night, and even then a practiced eye might be able to find its shadowy shape drifting through the sky, and the one hiding the protective barrier of the very inn and casino he’s sitting in.
Kenma’s eyes find him then, and his disinterested look becomes hard and suspicious, but Sasuke is quick on his feet. The old man up front is trying to bribe Kenma to use his own dice, making a show of dropping them to show they aren’t a cheat. He throws them too hard and they bounce away. He scambles after them while the group laughs, cursing as he combs the floor. He’s even more surprised when he stumbles into Sasuke, who holds out his hand, two dice in his palm. The old man rips them from him.
"I'll take those!"
Sasuke smiles, and pushes past the crowd, handing the cup back to the dealer.
“I want another game,” he says, and Kenma’s laugh is raspy and dry. Tsunade stops speaking to a flirty older woman to gawk, as if she’d forgotten him.
“No one likes a sore loser, kid."
“And what have you got to bet?” Kenma wonders, ignoring Tsunade as she sputters. Sasuke reaches for his sword, and lets Kusanagi fall to the floor at Kenma’s feet. The room grows silent.
“I don’t deal in weapons,” Kenma rasps, and Tsunade’s eyes take on a hard glint.
“Gift from your father?” she asks in a low voice.
Sasuke doesn’t answer her. “This sword is worth more than everything you just earned.”
Kenma hums. “Put a gun down,” he haggles, already losing interest, “and then we’ll talk value.”
He looks away, and Sasuke can almost feel his brother’s life slipping away from a cheat, and impatiently he grabs for Kusanagi, unsheathing it. Kenma instinctively reaches for a dagger, a woman screams, and Tsunade rolls her eyes as the gamblers gasp and shout, scrambling over each other, spilling cups and bottles of hard liquor. Sasuke brandishes the blade with a proud anger.
“Look. At. It.”
Kenma stares at him as if he’s gone mad, but Sasuke doesn't move. He only holds the sword straighter. A long moment passes. Kenma’s tongue nervously darts past his lips, his eyes squinted. He takes a tentative step forward, as if Sasuke might run him through at any moment. The old man’s gaze falls down the sword’s length before landing on a symbol near the hilt. His suspicion melts away, until his mouth curves into a cruel grin.
“Well,” he chuckles, “you are bold, aren’t you, boy? Bringing a Sannin weapon here.” He shakes his head, like Sasuke is nothing more than a foolish child ready to wave his family fortune under Kenma’s nose for the thrill of a gamble. He taps at the the symbol with a crooked finger, his smile growing like a little boy’s.
“Well, well, well. What’s a pretty thing like you doing here?” he whispers to the sword. Kenma runs his fingers over the cold steel. “The Sword of Snakes...it’s supposed to have an elemental affinity…” His hands glide over the hilt like it’s made of gold. A spark licks up the steel, and Kenma laughs when it shocks him.The crowd murmurs in awe.
“Lightning,” Sasuke tells him needlessly, and Kenma looks up, his dark eyes catching the light.
“I don’t deal in weapons boy,” Kenma lies, and his smile grows wider, “But I always got time to bet on a little magic.” His smile hooks, like a true shark’s, and he sinks to his knees onto the floor.
Behind him, Tsunade is grim-faced and furious, her lip curled in a snarl. “Fine,” she agrees, reaching for another bill, but Sasuke stops her.
“If I win,” he begins, and she narrows her golden eyes, “I’m holding you to your word .” Something flits across her face , but it’s gone in an instant. Her expression becomes carefully blank, and with a flourish, she reaches for another bill. Sasuke doesn’t miss her glance at Kenma, who remains stoic and still.
“You got yourself a bet, brat. Three out of five this time.”
Kenma slams the cup to the floor.
“Odd,” Sasuke calls out, a spark of adrenaline coursing through him. Tsunade glares at him.
“Even,” she says, her lips stretching over her teeth in a sharp smile. The large group of gamblers watches with bated breath.
Kenma raises the cup. “Odd,” he announces, and Sasuke releases the breath he's been holding. Tsunade shakes her head, tight-lipped. “Even!” she belts out, before Sasuke can place a bet. He takes his time to say, “odd.” Tsunade throws him a wary look.
Kenma’s easy confidence begins to chip away when he lifts the cup. “Five and two. Odd,” he says, his brow furrowed. Tsunade’s face seems to lose all its color. She looks at Sasuke then, calculatingly. Sasuke grins at her.
“Call your bet.”
Tsunade picks over her answer too slowly, and Sasuke tenses. The group behind them begins to chant, “bet, bet, bet”. Sasuke counts the seconds, his fingers digging into his knees. He can only hope Tsunade will fear exposure and say nothing. There are no good fates for cheaters. There’s the story of one casino owner every new gambler knows, the one who would string up cheaters for a wild game of darts before having security throw them out on the street, penniless after making a “donation”. Another who’d made headlines one winter after throwing a cheat overboard from one of Fire Country’s famous Glittering Cities-cruise zeppelins glitzed and gilded and glittering with white lights, like all the gold its casinos promised if you ever got lucky (no one ever did). Tsunade squints at the cup, as if might speak to her, and suddenly Sasuke is struck by how familiar the expression is.
He remembers lazy days playing shogi near the koi pond, when sparring had lingered on too long and Jiraiya would insist that “exercise of the mind” was as important as the exercise of the body. Naruto would ponder over the board, his eyes cut to slits.
“You’re a cheat!” he’d cry, whenever Sasuke won three or more times in a row.
Sasuke would move his piece and drawl, “Prove it.” Naruto would only grumble, his face lighting up whenever he saw a possible move.
Tsunade’s lips quirk, in a way Naruto’s never did, a not-quite smile that promises something dangerous. “Even,” she decides, and Sasuke watches the cup. Her grin widens.
“Six and two. Even,” Kenma calls. Tsunade rubs her hands together, like a prayer. Sasuke’s stomach twists and sours.
Kenma slaps the cup down onto the mat. Twice more it slaps on the ground, until there is only one try left.
Tsunade mumbles a prayer, her eyes screwing shut. “Odd!” she cries, clapping her hands together. Sasuke takes a breath, trying to ignore the tremor in his hands.
“Even.”
Kenma reaches for the cup so slowly Sasuke fidgets. The cup is raised. The crowd holds its breath, and finally, Kenma's face reddens in anger. “Even,” he says. The tension drains from Sasuke’s shoulders with a single breath and he slumps forward. Kenma meets Sasuke’s gaze furiously, resting the cup on the floor. There’s no use in making a scene. Word travels fast, and there is no good fate for cheaters. If Kenma is going to do anything about the switch, it won’t be here, but Sasuke wills the thought away. The game had been fair, and he'd won. He smiles, accepting the pats on his back, the excited hollers. Reluctantly, Kenma hands Kusanagi back, but makes a show of keeping Tsunade’s single bill, the lines in his tanned face deep with his frown. Tsunade doesn’t move. She looks away from Sasuke, keeping her gaze locked ahead.
Sasuke turns to speak to her when a howl pierces the hum of the casino, long and high and slow. The patrons freeze. Kenma retracts his hand before he can deal for the crowd. The lights flicker. Tsunade hisses in a breath through her teeth.
The wolf howls again, and Sasuke wonders how anything can make a sound this loud, this piercing, when Kenma apologizes.
“It is late,” he admits, and rises. The other players whisper and scurry out of the room, white-faced. Sasuke looks out past the doorway into the hall, which has become congested with a crowd. There is no panic, only quiet fear, an urgency Sasuke can feel like a charge in the air.
Sasuke glances to the windows, but all he can see is inky forest. The trees shudder, but it might have been the wind. He straps Kusanagi to his back with quick fingers. “What was that?”
The howl sounds again, and behind it, there’s thunder on the rise, but it sounds alive . A chill snakes up Sasuke’s spine.
Kenma backs away. “It is late,” he echoes, and without another word disappears through a hidden door in the wall, locking it behind him. The lights flicker once more, and when they blaze back to life, Sasuke notices the half-empty bottle of sake next to the mat. He watches the wine slosh and shudder when a rumble shakes the casino. It seems to travel through his skin until the tremors worm into his bones. The bamboo cup jumps on the mat.
Tsunade doesn’t move from her spot on the mat. “You switched out the dice.”
“I gambled,” says Sasuke. “And I won.” Tsunade scoffs.
“Remind me to bring you along next time I need to play a game.”
Against his shoulder blades, Kusanagi sparks in its scabbard, slowly coming to life with the storm outside. Behind him, Tsunade looks to the door, silent and unafraid. She stands.
Sasuke takes a breath. “What’s out there?”
Tsunade smiles as she says, “A demon.” There is a faraway look in her eyes, something familiar Sasuke knows all too well when a sword settles in his hand.
The bottle of sake shakes once more. Sasuke braces himself against a wall. Tsunade stands tall in the middle of the room and walks to the door.
“I believe we had very specific terms, Uchiha.”
Sasuke’s head snaps up to meet her gaze. Tsunade nods at him, and the look on her face is both fierce and resigned. “You wanna know how to kill a god?”
Sasuke stares at her. He doesn’t need to say yes. He knows Tsunade can see it in the way he watches her. A part of him wonders what sort of lie she’s going to spit. Another part of him waits, and wonders, and hopes. Because this is Tsunade, the only human being who has ever stalled Kaguya’s killing curse.
Tsunade’s shoulders heave with a sigh. “Take a bough from the Yakusugi tree overlooking the grave of Kaguya’s son.”
The lights flicker again, and from somewhere deep in the belly of the wood, something roars, like the thunder. Sasuke pictures Fugaku, taking him by the hand to the Yakusugi tree. Pray, he remembers his father saying. This is a holy place. A shudder crawls over Sasuke’s skin.
Tsunade’s grin is crooked, made bolder by the rice wine. “Long ago, your ancestors killed him with an arrow made from the bough of a god-tree. It was war; they needed to protect their own. Kaguya’s son was just a casualty.” She looks out the window, and the casino groans. “You corrupted her.” There’s something sad in the way she says it, and Sasuke watches her carefully. “Gods aren’t supposed to feel hatred.” The roar in the wood makes the hairs on the back of Sasuke’s neck stand on end.
Tsunade looks over at him, her eyes hard and bright as gold. “Take a bough from the Yakusugi tree and strike her dead with it. If you’re fast, Uchiha, you’ll cure your brother, not me.” She is gone before Sasuke has time to process her secret, and then he’s alone in the empty casino, listening to the angry cries of the demon prowling outside the inn’s barrier.