Chapter 319: Jealousy Is the Emotion of the Weak
"Bring Uchiha Sasuke in."
Uchiha Akira's voice cut through the quiet of the Hokage's office, calm yet carrying an absolute, unquestionable weight.
From the shadows of the room, a low murmur of acknowledgment echoed. Two Anbu operatives flickered into existence for a fraction of a second before vanishing just as quickly, leaving only the faint rustle of fabric in their wake.
Standing before the massive oak desk, Uzumaki Naruto shifted his weight from foot to foot. His bright blue eyes darted around the room, entirely at a loss. His hands fidgeted with the hem of his jacket. Was his teacher actually going to interrogate Sasuke right here? Right in front of him?
The heavy wooden doors of the office swung open a few moments later.
The two masked Anbu returned, flanking a small, battered figure. It was Uchiha Sasuke.
All the wild arrogance and frenzied madness he had displayed back at the training ground had completely evaporated. His injuries had received the most basic of field treatments, but he still looked like a wreck. His usually pristine high-collared shirt hung in tattered shreds. Dirt and dried blood smeared across his pale cheeks, and angry purple abrasions covered his forearms.
But the physical damage was nothing compared to the look in his eyes. The dark, piercing gaze of the Uchiha prodigy was entirely hollowed out, replaced by a suffocating mixture of dread and regret.
During the brief period he had been detained in a freezing, pitch-black holding cell at the interrogation department, the adrenaline had finally worn off. His fevered mind had cooled. And in that chilling silence, the reality of his actions had crashed down upon him.
What had he actually done?
During a formal graduation exam, he had launched a lethal ambush against a fellow Leaf shinobi. Worse, he had attacked the direct, personal disciple of the Hokage himself.
The Uchiha clan had only recently clawed its way out from under the crushing weight of the village's suspicion. They were finally reclaiming their absolute peak under Uchiha Akira's iron-fisted leadership. Yet he, the second son of Uchiha Fugaku, had risked dragging their name back through the mud over a petty, momentary impulse.
If his father found out... Sasuke swallowed hard. His throat clicked. He did not dare let that thought finish, his small frame trembling uncontrollably under the crushing weight of his own foolishness.
"Sasuke..." Naruto murmured, the name slipping past his lips before he could stop it. Seeing his eternal rival reduced to such a pathetic, broken state twisted something complicated inside his chest.
Hearing that voice, Sasuke flinched. He slowly forced his heavy head up, his dark eyes locking onto the blonde boy standing tall and unharmed in front of the Hokage's desk. The sight burned. Sasuke snapped his head back down as if he had been struck by lightning, his teeth grinding together. He could not bear to look.
"Release him." Akira's voice was devoid of warmth.
The two Anbu operatives immediately released their iron grips on the boy's shoulders and melted back into the periphery of the room.
Without their support, Sasuke's trembling legs entirely gave out. His knees hit the polished hardwood floor with a dull, heavy thud.
"Look up."
The command was quiet, yet it echoed in Sasuke's ears like a death knell. The boy's shoulders shook violently. He bit down on his lower lip hard enough to draw a fresh bead of copper-tasting blood. Fighting against every instinct screaming at him to cower, he used every ounce of his remaining willpower to force his chin up. He met the Hokage's suffocating, abyssal gaze.
"Tell me why." Akira leaned back in his leather chair, his fingers steepled beneath his chin. His dark eyes dissected the boy kneeling before him. "Why did you attack Naruto?"
Sasuke's mouth opened. His lips moved soundlessly, struggling to form a single coherent syllable.
What could he possibly say? That he was jealous? That he felt inadequate? Admitting such pathetic, fragile insecurities out loud would only cement his status as an absolute clown.
"Speak."
The temperature in the room seemed to plummet. That single, razor-sharp word slammed into Sasuke's chest like a physical blow, crushing the air from his lungs. Under the crushing pressure of Akira's aura, the last fragile remnants of Sasuke's psychological defenses shattered into dust.
"I just... I couldn't accept it!" Sasuke suddenly screamed, his voice cracking. He threw his head back, his bloodshot eyes locking onto Naruto with a ferocious, desperate glare. Every ounce of suppressed frustration, bitterness, and humiliation he had swallowed over the past months violently erupted. "Why him?!"
"Why does it have to be you?!" Sasuke roared, his fingernails digging into his own palms until they bled. "You were the dead last! You have been a joke since we were kids! A complete failure in the eyes of the entire village!"
He slammed a fist against the floorboards.
"And me? I am an Uchiha! I am the genius of the elite! I bled through the strictest training since I could walk! I was always at the top of the class!"
"So why! Why is it that in the end, you are the one standing there as the top student?! You are the one who earned the Hokage's favor! You get to graduate early and become a true shinobi!" Tears of pure frustration finally spilled over his bruised cheeks. "What the hell do I lack compared to a loser like you?!"
Sasuke's throat tore with the force of his screaming, vomiting out every toxic drop of grievance and envy that had poisoned his mind.
A heavy, suffocating silence descended upon the Hokage's office. The only sound was the ragged, wet gasps tearing from Sasuke's throat as he heaved for air.
Naruto stood perfectly still. He had listened to the entire outburst without interrupting, his expression unreadable. Seconds ticked by, thick and tense.
Finally, the blonde boy took a slow step forward.
"Are you done?" Naruto asked, his voice surprisingly quiet.
Sasuke froze, his breath catching in his throat.
"You... are actually jealous of me?" Naruto stared down at the kneeling Uchiha. A bitter, self-deprecating smile tugged at the corners of his lips. "Do you have any idea how I lived before Sensei found me? Every single day, I survived on discounted food that was hours away from rotting. And on the bad days? When the shopkeepers chased me away? I ate the expired garbage they threw in the alleys."
Naruto's fists clenched at his sides.
"Do you know what it feels like to walk down the street and have every single adult look at you like you are a plague? To have them pull their children away, whispering about the 'monster'? To see nothing but pure disgust and fear in the eyes of the people you are supposed to protect?"
His voice trembled, carrying years of buried agony.
"Do you know what it feels like to go back to a dark, freezing, empty apartment every single night? To sit in absolute silence because there is not a single living soul in the world who wants to speak to you?"
The manic anger contorting Sasuke's face slowly dissolved. A blank, stunned bewilderment washed over him. He stared up at the blonde boy, entirely speechless.
He had never once considered any of that.
In his narrow, privileged worldview, Naruto had simply been the annoying class clown, a pathetic loser who had somehow stumbled into a mountain of blind luck and caught the eye of the Hokage. Sasuke had only ever looked at the power and glory Naruto wielded right now. He had never bothered to look at the bloodstained, miserable road the boy had crawled across to get there.
"Everything I have right now, my ability to stand in this room, my strength to become a shinobi, the fact that I no longer have to freeze or starve, is entirely because of Sensei!" Naruto declared, his voice ringing with absolute, unshakable loyalty. "He gave me my life!"
Naruto took another step forward, his blue eyes boring into Sasuke's dark ones.
"And you? You are jealous of me?"
"Sasuke, when you walk through your front door, the lights are on. You have a hot meal on the table and a gentle mother waiting to ask about your day." Naruto's voice cracked slightly, though he fought to keep his chin high. "When you catch a fever, someone sits by your bed and wipes your forehead. You have a father to guide you. You have an entire, powerful clan standing behind you like an iron wall. You already possess every single thing I have ever dreamed of having!"
Naruto took a ragged breath. The silence in the room stretched tight, brittle enough to snap. When he spoke again, the words carried a crushing, devastating weight.
"Sasuke... you still have your parents." He looked away, staring at the polished wood of the desk. "Mine have been dead since the day I was born."
Sasuke felt the blood drain completely from his face.
How could he have forgotten? Everyone knew the rumors, even if they were forbidden to speak of them. Uzumaki Naruto was an orphan. A boy who had never known the warmth of a mother's embrace or the steady hand of a father.
And what had Sasuke done? He had thrown a murderous tantrum, consumed by a pathetic, fragile ego, entirely jealous of a boy who had started with absolutely nothing.
A suffocating, nauseating wave of shame crashed over Sasuke. He felt physically sick. He was utterly, irredeemably despicable.
He opened his mouth to speak, but his throat felt as though it were packed with dry cotton. He choked on his own breath.
"I'm... I'm sorry."
The apology was barely a whisper, squeezed out past the massive lump of guilt lodged in his airway.
Naruto's shoulders gave a minute jerk at the sound of those words. He aggressively turned his head away, refusing to let the Uchiha see his face. Raising his arm, he haphazardly scrubbed the back of his sleeve across his eyes, wiping away the stray moisture threatening to fall.
"Uchiha Sasuke."
The cold, commanding voice of the Hokage sliced through the heavy atmosphere, demanding absolute attention. Sasuke's spine snapped straight. He forced his eyes back up to the man seated behind the desk.
"Jealousy is an emotion reserved exclusively for the weak," Akira stated, his tone dripping with icy disdain.
"It blinds your vision. It distorts your mind. It twists you into something pathetic and unrecognizable." Akira leaned forward, his imposing aura pressing down on the boy like a physical weight. "The truly strong do not whine when they see someone superior. They use that gap in power as fuel. They push themselves tenfold, a hundredfold, to bridge that gap and surpass their rivals. They do not resort to the cowardly, despicable methods of a cornered rat, trying to stab their betters in the back."
Akira's eyes narrowed, flashing with a dangerous glint.
"What you did today did not merely shame yourself. You have smeared dirt across the crest of the entire Uchiha clan."
Every single syllable landed like a brutal, stinging slap across Sasuke's face. The sheer magnitude of his disgrace burned through his veins. He wished the floorboards would simply open up and swallow him whole.
"I... I was wrong, Hokage-sama!" Sasuke cried out, his voice entirely breaking. He threw his upper body forward, slamming his forehead against the cold hardwood floor in a desperate, deeply ingrained bow of submission. Tears finally spilled from his eyes, splashing against the wood. "Please... I beg you, give me another chance!"
Akira looked down at the trembling, sobbing heir of the main house. His expression remained an unreadable mask of cold authority.
"You are young, and you allowed yourself to be momentarily consumed by a weak emotion," Akira said slowly, letting the silence stretch before delivering his final verdict. "However, a mistake has been made. And in this village, mistakes demand punishment."
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