Chapter 150: A Boy Full of Hatred

Shimon turned slowly beneath Tonbo's hand.

"Captain," he said, proving the title had already become dangerous.

"You distributed a name using my position without asking."

"An accurate name."

"To people who now think I fought two Kage and can arrest Itachi alone."

Shimon offered to correct the rumor through the same contacts. Tonbo accepted. Every person who had received the title from him would receive the limits attached to the campaign: team effort, no guaranteed capture, no invented duels, and no access to Tonbo's family.

"That is a week of conversations," Shimon complained.

"Yes. Repair usually costs more than spreading."

Meguri looked relieved that the consequence involved no genjutsu.

Shimon, however, had heard about Tonbo's refined Eightfold Flavor and asked whether the older prank technique had truly become useful. Tonbo refused to demonstrate it as punishment. Shimon then volunteered as a test subject under the Analysis Team's ordinary protocol: written consent, immediate release signal, medic nearby, no lasting conditioning, and the right to stop before activation.

Curiosity survived the paperwork.

The medic established Shimon's baseline taste, speech, pulse, and coordination. Meguri observed the release signal. Tonbo explained that the effect could produce nausea or panic even without physical poison, and that consent could be withdrawn during the countdown. Shimon chose to continue because Analysis Team work depended upon understanding emerging techniques before an enemy demonstrated them without warning.

Tonbo applied a one-second version.

Eight familiar tastes divided into overlapping intensity, sequence, temperature, and texture. The volume of information exceeded Shimon's ability to categorize it. He released the stop signal immediately. Tonbo ended the genjutsu, and the medic confirmed orientation, speech, movement, and normal sensory response.

Shimon's eyes watered. He could not describe the taste because the effect had not created one unpleasant flavor. It had made classification itself fail.

"I could not choose a response," he said. "Not because my body stopped. Every thought arrived unfinished."

Tonbo recorded the observation without adopting the source's crude theory of one half of the brain switching off. Sensory overload could disrupt attention, language, memory, and motor planning through several interacting systems. A genjutsu that exploited the effect might interrupt a technique quickly, but intensity varied between people and could trigger panic, aspiration, or neurological harm.

"Not for casual discipline," Meguri said.

"Not for discipline at all," Tonbo replied. "Potential combat use requires medical review and a release plan."

They added contraindications to the record: recent head injury, seizure history, airway risk, extreme exhaustion, or inability to signal. Tonbo would not teach the amplified form until independent testers reviewed the protocol. A clever mechanism discovered during a prank lineage did not become responsible merely because it worked.

The test ended. Shimon drank water, rested, and began his list of corrections.

Conversation shifted to his wife, whose child was expected soon. Shimon and his wife had chosen not to learn the sex before birth. Meguri congratulated him without accepting the smug look that followed. The Analysis Team had lost enough people to make an ordinary future worth mentioning without turning marriage into a competition.

Tonbo had come for a different reason.

"Who received the Uchiha bodies?"

Meguri checked the restricted ledger. "ANBU retained the entire scene. Nothing came to Analysis or the hospital's postmortem unit beyond medical examinations authorized for burial."

Standard procedure divided responsibilities. Medical specialists protected clan secrets in Konoha bodies and determined cause of death. Analysis extracted operational evidence from enemy remains. ANBU could restrict access during an active security investigation, but complete exclusion removed independent verification.

"I wanted attack-pattern data before joining pursuit analysis," Tonbo said. "Itachi's methods, the order of deaths, evidence of a second attacker."

"The official report says he acted alone."

"The official report explains less than the scene should contain."

Shimon asked whether the request would make Tonbo appear disloyal during a public campaign. Tonbo answered that loyalty which prohibited verifying a massacre was only protection of the current report. The request did not accuse a named official. It asked the village to preserve evidence before burial made independent review impossible.

Meguri signed as department witness. Shimon, still pale from the test, checked the chain-of-custody references. Their ordinary paperwork became the only action available inside current authority.

Tonbo did not attempt to seize files or enter the sealed district. Instead, he filed a written request for preserved evidence, chain-of-custody records, and independent medical review. A denial would become part of the audit. Authority ignored in secret became trespass; authority challenged in writing created a trace.

The memorial ceremony took place that afternoon.

Shinobi wore black and gathered before the Memorial Stone. Civilians connected to the Uchiha stood in a separate area with seats and medical support rather than being forced into military formation. Flowers accumulated beneath names already carved and temporary tablets for those whose records had not yet been completed.

Hiruzen spoke briefly. He did not describe the dead as forgiven for being difficult or reduce the massacre to Itachi's betrayal. They had been Konoha citizens, relatives, officers, shopkeepers, instructors, and children. The village had failed to protect them.

Names were read where records allowed. Uchiha Tadashi appeared among Academy students who would never graduate. His grandmother's name followed with the civilian dead. Individual names resisted the convenient phrase "the Uchiha" that turned hundreds of lives into one political subject.

Sasuke stood near the front under medical supervision.

Condolences passed around him as if addressed to the last visible piece of an institution. Some people spoke about the clan. Others spoke about strength, revenge, or how proud his parents had been. Very few knew what to say to an eight-year-old whose home had become a sealed crime scene.

Naruto remained at a distance because Iruka had explained that support did not mean forcing company. Kiba and Akamaru stood beside him. Sakura and Ino left flowers without asking Sasuke to respond. Shino used his insects to keep the path clear rather than approaching.

Chōji placed a sealed snack beside the flowers, then removed it after realizing food at a memorial would spoil. He left a written meal invitation instead. Shikamaru stood beneath a tree and said nothing. Their imperfect gestures recognized Sasuke as a classmate without demanding that he perform gratitude.

Sasuke watched each gesture and felt almost nothing. The emptiness frightened him more than pain. It suggested the clan could become stone, flowers, and careful voices while the world continued. Then Itachi's face returned inside memory, and hatred gave the emptiness a boundary.

His hands closed. Tonbo observed from the Analysis Team group. He noticed the Sharingan flicker, Sasuke's attention narrow, and the way every mention of survival became another demand placed upon the child.

After the ceremony, he did not offer training or explain that revenge was wrong. Advice from a newly public hero would sound like another person claiming the right to define Sasuke's grief. He asked only whether Sasuke wanted the reinforced figure removed from his hospital belongings.

Before approaching, Tonbo obtained permission from Sasuke and the assigned advocate. Public status did not grant private access. The brief conversation occurred within sight of the medical escort and ended when Sasuke turned away. Sasuke looked at him for the first time.

"No."

"Then it remains yours. The locator inside activated when you struck it. It stores distress only until I check it; it does not watch you continuously. I can remove the seal whenever you choose."

Sasuke considered the information. "Leave it." The figure had become proof of weakness, a target, and a warning that objects could endure what people did not. Removing it would feel like allowing Itachi to disappear until the next nightmare. Tonbo accepted the choice.

Sasuke turned back toward the Memorial Stone. Solitude gathered around him, and hatred burned inside it—not healing, not destiny, but the only structure he could hold that day.