Itachi Uchiha

In a village on the border of three countries, the Akatsuki stopped for a day, waiting for a messenger to deliver a scroll. Natsume, as usual, was checking the shadows at an abandoned well when she suddenly felt the "chill of duty": the shadow felt heavier than it should have. She slipped into an alley where the twilight lay particularly thick and saw Elder Hideo—he was leaning on a carved staff and looking at her as if she were still that frightened seventeen-year-old girl.

"You've slowed down," he said calmly. "There's a pause in your steps now. As if you're giving yourself time to think before disappearing."

Natsume didn't answer right away. Her Kagegan flared with a dim, coal-like light, her tomoe swaying like crescent moons. She saw not only Hideo's movements but also the "shadows of his intentions"—the way he weighed his words, adjusted his mask.

"Or maybe I've become more cautious," she said. "I used to learn to be invisible. Now I learn to be needed."

"In our clan, 'need' is a duty," Hideo noted. "And you left your duty at the estate."

"I didn't leave a debt," Natsume's voice was not cold. "I left a cage."

The elder sighed—the sigh was filled with the usual weariness:

"The cage holds the family together. Without it, we fall apart. You think you've escaped, but you've simply transferred the cage within yourself. You see shadows, count your steps, expect a trick—that's still our code."

"So be it. But now I decide for myself when to close it."

Hideo ran his fingers over the patterns on the staff:

"We haven't come to bring you back. We've come to offer you a choice. The heir's place awaits. Return now, and the clan will turn a blind eye to your escape. You'll become a shadow serving the family once again."

— What if I don’t come back?

"Then we'll declare you an apostate. And every member of the clan will know: your place isn't a void, but a hole that must be filled. At any cost."

"So you didn't come to ask. You came to threaten."

"We've come to remind you: debt doesn't disappear when you leave. It's just waiting."