Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Surely the path was the same.

The trees, the stones, the packed dirt of the road, they couldn’t have changed that much, nor the tall green panes of the Western Gate and its painted hiragana. They had to be the same.

And yet to Sakura’s eyes they felt strange and anew as if she was seeing them for first time.

Excitement and anticipation were rising in her chest as they closed the distance to Konoha’s walls, as the road grew wider and busier around them. The red torii flanking the gates peaked out through the trees, and then she could make out the buildings past the entrance, already trying to assess whether some were new or renovated.

She wondered if there was something or someone in the village more changed than herself.

At her side, Jiraiya was rambling happily about all that he would do once they were through with their report and various duties and he was free to wander Konoha’s streets and bars. Sakura tuned him out with practiced ease – she had learned to ignore most of his talking, for both their sake.

She was grateful for all he had taught her, for the strength and experience she had gained under his tutelage, but she couldn’t deny she would welcome getting rid of him for a while. Although she didn’t think she would so easily lose the habit of stirring him clear from any woman within a five miles radius.

But despite his many, many, many flaws, Jiraiya had turned out to be a great teacher, far better than she had thought he would be, once he had recognized in her a worthy successor. He didn’t think she had it in her, when they left – truth be told, she didn't either.

They had both been proven wrong, and she felt no small amount of pride at the fact.

Haruno Sakura had made a name for herself in the shinobi world.

As eager as she was to display it though, to show off the results of those two years on the road with the obnoxious Sannin, what she was looking forward to the most, above all else, was simply seeing her friends again.

She had written as often as she could, not as often as she would have wanted, and had received very little news, seeing as they were constantly on the move, and that Jiraiya insisted his toad network was for “important spy business only”. She knew for a fact he also used it to send the chapters of his trashy romance novels to his editor, but what could she do.

The toads still favored him. For now.

So she didn’t know what happened while she was gone, and she was impatient to hear it all, and to tell in return all she had done and seen. But there was this little core of apprehension too, lodged square in her throat, that prevented her from walking faster and hurrying their long-awaited return.

Because maybe they weren’t awaited at all.

Jiraiya had sent words to the Hokage that they were on their way back two weeks ago, because they were supposed to leave Tea Country and go straight to Konoha then. But an incident involving a marriage celebration, a lot of alcohol and an idiotic old man with whom she had no association with whatsoever mistaking a red kimono for a napkin had delayed their departure for several days.

They were late. And that was assuming that the Hokage had relayed the words at all. Maybe she hadn’t, because no one would care.

A lot could change in two years.

She stopped one step shy away from the stone slab paving the way to her home.

Two years and some, since she had crossed the threshold, and she wasn’t too proud to say that she hadn't spared that much thought to the village during that time. To her defense, she had a million other things to worry about, between her training, the managing of their day-to-day life, and the hassle of looking after a man with the mentality of a fourteen years old rascal. She had allowed herself little time to miss her friends, her family and her home, had endeavored to quench down the longing and the homesickness seizing her at times. It was all catching up to her now.

She had missed it all dearly.

“Come on, you’re not going to cry, are you?”

A good thing she could always count on Jiraiya to obliterate any foray into emotional territory.

“Now I’m certainly not,” she shot back, exasperated. He was allergic to feelings of all sort – that was the reason why she would never read any of his books.

Well, it was one of the reasons.

His callousness worked though, in a roundabout way. She wouldn’t go as far as to credit him for it, but he had effectively pulled her out of her melancholia.

She crossed the gates.

Home, at last.

“Sakura! Finally!”

Kiba jumped over the desk of the gate outpost to run to her, Akamaru in tow. At least she assumed it was Akamaru, even if he was thrice the size she had last seen him.

Behind him, Shino rounded the desk and followed at a much more sedate pace.

Kiba clasped a hand on her shoulder, shaking her a little, looking unorderly pleased. She wouldn’t even have been surprised if he’d forgotten her entirely, and yet here he was, greeting her with great enthusiasm, as boisterous as always. She couldn’t contain her smile.

“Ino is going to be so happy! She’s been bitching around all week, complaining to everyone who cared to listen that you were doing it on purpose just to mess with her.”

“She worried,” Shino interjected. Kiba laughed.

“Ah, yeah, probably! Though she would never say it of course. Oh, that reminds me! Akamaru!”

The dog barked happily and took off through the streets, expertly slaloming between the worried passersby.

“She knew we were stuck on gate duty this week. She asked me to warn her if I saw you,” he explained with a wink.

It wouldn’t do to cry so soon, so she did her best to fight it.

“We’re still on duty,” Shino remarked pointedly, earning a dramatic sigh from his friend.

“Yeah, yeah… We’ll catch up later, Sakura. It’s good to see you!”

“You too,” she said dumbly, a little mystified, as the boys went back to their post. To be guarding the gates, they had both made chunin then. She would need to get on with it too.

She turned to Jiraiya to ask to be dismissed, but he was already walking away without a care in the world. She decided not to care either, though she would have to find him again later. She had nicer things to focus on.

Sakura didn’t hear nor see her arrive as much as she felt her, felt her presence close the distance quickly, radiating excitement. She didn’t move though.

Ino barreled into her with the full force of her joy. But Sakura could wield a very big sword now.

She didn’t budge.

“Don’t start showing off already!” Ino complained, though the effect was quite dampened by her radiant smile. She wasted no time wrapping Sakura in a strong embrace and there was nothing else to do but respond in kind, holding tight.

Ino broke it off quickly though, both hands on Sakura’s shoulder to keep some distance between them and assess her, eyes sharp.

“Wh-what?” Sakura asked, unsure of what to make of Ino’s now hard expression.

“How dare you?”

“What?”

“How dare you get taller than me!”

Ino’s tone was so serious, so heavy that for a moment Sakura didn’t register she was totally being played. She laughed, free and unrestrained, joy sparkling like bubbles in her chest and on her cheeks as Ino did a very bad job of trying to look stern.

“I can’t believe you would do this to me,” she said dramatically, making Sakura laugh even harder.

“I missed you so much, Ino,” she said through her smile, sobering up when she realized how earnest she sounded. Ino smiled, soft and knowing. She took Sakura’s wrist and squeezed, grounding.

“Welcome home, cherry pie.”

And then came the tears.

.

Ino insisted to accompany her to the Godaime, claiming she had nothing better to do, and was immediately refuted by the woman asking her “why the hell” she wasn’t working on those decoding as soon as they stepped into her office.

“I finished this morning, the transcription team just needs to get a move on,” Ino declared with no small amount of satisfaction. The Godaime rolled her eyes, but she was smiling too, so Ino wasn’t in too much trouble. Though it begged the question…

“You’re working for the Intelligence Department?” Sakura whispered on the side.

"Codebreaker, among other things. I'll tell you later."

Right. Because Sakura was standing in front of the Godaime with her master, and she was supposed to participate in their reporting. Jiraiya had sent regular updates of their findings of course, but he still gave a thorough recollection of the information they had gathered, essentially on the Akatsuki.

Their main focus, for the man to whom Naruto had most likely gone to, Orochimaru, and his business were the affair of Anko’s team, to Sakura's frustration. They had crossed paths a few times – they were due back in Konoha a few weeks ago but had ran into delay too, something more dignified than her own misadventures she was sure, so she didn’t know if they were back yet.

The Hokage dismissed her quickly, both because she wanted to speak with Jiraiya alone, and also out of mercy, Sakura suspected, by the way she assured that Ino could catch her up on the rest and that they could both leave.

“Can I just ask… Naruto?”

Sakura felt small under the woman’s wistful gaze.

“Ino will tell you too. Now get out of here. Unpack your bags, go greet your friends. We will talk later.”

They didn’t need to be told twice. She didn’t need to unpack though, and if she was being honest there was only one thing she wanted to do, before anything else.

“Where to then?” Ino asked casually, sounding like she already knew the answer. She most likely did – Sakura still hesitated.

“I… would like to see Sasuke.”

Ino smiled warmly.

“Of course you would. Let’s go to the hospital. It’s the best bet with him these days.”

Ino offered to make a detour by her house so that she could at least put down her bag, but Sakura refused, giving a feeble excuse about it being in the opposite direction. She knew that if she went home, her parents wouldn’t let her back out for hours. She felt bad for them being so low on the list of people she wanted to see, but they didn’t need to know. She would go home soon enough.

“Tell me what happened?” she asked as they started strolling through the busy streets. “What are the news?”

She tried not to get too distracted by all the little changes she noticed, some freshly painted buildings, extra houses squeezed along the streets, new shops and new owners. Both familiar and foreign.

She discretely catalogued the changes in her friend too. Sakura’s body was almost as angular and sharp as when she was a child, but Ino’s was much rounder, softer. Her hair seemed longer too, but they were gathered in a thick, loose braid on the side of her head, so it was hard to tell.

She was beautiful.

“Well, I made chunin for a start, last year in Suna. We all did. It has to do with my position in Intelligence, actually…”

“How so?”

"I did some good snooping. Sasuke put me up to it because Naruto got close to that boy, you know? Anyway, I was the one to figure out he was missing.”

Sakura gaped at her. Ino chuckled.

“That was you?”

They had heard about it much later, when passing through Suna.

“Turned out Suna wasn’t any better than Konoha at keeping their asset on the line… But they were just as good as hiding it. They had no idea either, about Naruto. It caused a bit of a... an incident, not gonna lie.”

Suna had been pretty unwelcoming to Jiraiya and his disciple, as they seemed to hold Konoha responsible for Gaara’s disappearance for some reason. The fact that Jiraiya was there specifically to discuss the Akatsuki and their hunt for the Tailed Beasts had not contributed to put anyone in a good mood.  

“Do you… know? About Naruto, and that boy too.”

“Sasuke explained, the gist of it anyway. I tried to do some digging, but information is scarce, you can imagine."

It was so… So relieving, the bitterness in Ino’s voice, how she talked about it with distaste and disdain. That she knew, and that she agreed that it wasn’t right, that she shared Sasuke and Sakura’s indignation. Were they all in this then?

“Tsunade-sama was pissed, but she was also impressed. She recommended me for the Department – there was nothing they could say against it this time. I think it was also a way to stick it to the Kazekage. He was enraged, he wanted me to be punished, but she wouldn’t have it.”

It was so strange, how she talked about the Godaime, about politics they used to be as uninvolved in as was possible. She could only imagine how much pushing around Ino had done to get into all this so young, but the girl was an unstoppable force when she set her mind to something, and she had the skills to back it up.

“Do you think that Naruto…”

“I should have known that’s the only thing you’d care about,” Ino chided, though her tone remained light. “We don’t know for sure, but it would make sense, right? That boy, Gaara, he vanished from Suna like, three months after Naruto left.”

They had no way to be sure, but she found it oddly comforting, to think that he had done exactly what he had set out to do.

Where was he now, she wondered, with who? What was he doing? Was he alright? She longed to know. She thought about finding Uchiha Izumi, to grill her for answers, but then figured that if the girl was back in the village Sasuke would have surely beaten her to it.

She couldn’t wait to see him.

“We should have dinner tonight,” Ino suggested. “I’ll bully Shikamaru into cooking something, he always complains but he loves it actually, and he’s gotten pretty good too. He’s the only reason Sasuke has not starved to death yet really.”

“What?”

Sakura had a feeling she was going to say that a lot.

“Oh shit, that’s right, you don’t know that either. You missed so much drama around here, you have no idea. Yeah, it’s a long story, I’ll leave it to Sasuke, but it ended with them rooming together. They share a flat near the hospital. And believe it or not, it worked out pretty well.”

It was… she couldn’t imagine it. First of all, it meant Sasuke had moved out of the Uchiha district, which couldn't have happened for a trivial reason. She wasn’t aware of the two boys being particularly close, but then again, it could have been out of convenience before anything else. And they had had time to become friends, hadn’t they?

“I always thought Shikamaru would be the type to live at his parents until he was like, thirty.”

“I know, right? I’m sure that was his plan too. But he had a fallout with his father. That’s… been kind of a theme. I'm sure they bonded over that."

She would have hoped Sasuke had moved out for a different reason, but it made sense. What else but conflict with his father could have driven him away from his family home?

She had so many questions.

"I… should spend some time with my parents tonight. Tomorrow?”

“It’s a date.”

She liked the sound of that.

They finally made it to the hospital. The first thing she noticed was the extension – an entire new wing on the North side, spotless and shiny like only recent constructions were. The hospital looked busier too.

“They’ve been working hard to upgrade this place,” Ino commented as she led them through the corridors with an ease claiming familiarity. “It takes in people from the neighboring villages and farms now, they can treat chronic illnesses and pain, all sort of stuff like… You know what, I don’t actually know, but I’m sure Sasuke will be happy to nerd out about it to you.”

And as if on cue, they rounded a corner to reach an open consultation room and here Sasuke was, a mask around his neck and taking off disposable gloves while scolding a chunin she recognized as Yamanaka Ichinosuke, who had a fresh bandage around his arm and his friend Namiashi Ryoma hovering guiltily next to him.

“Next time please refrain from taking out the kunai yourself. And for Sage’s sake if you do, don’t put it back again.”

Ryoma at least looked a little sheepish. His friend just sighed.

Sasuke hadn’t seen her yet, but then he turned around to grab something on a nearby shelf and…

He froze entirely. She did too.

She was rooted to the spot. She didn’t know if she ought to move forward or wait for him to come to her, if she could call his name or if that would be ill-advised in the hospital. If he was too busy and she needed to come back later.

It stretched to an extremely awkward amount of time before he snapped out of it.

“Sukui, can I take a break? I’ll send Itachi to help if you need.”

“Don’t worry, I’m good,” a young woman answered from the other side of the room, giving him a thumb up. Sakura spared a quick thought at the information that Itachi worked around here too, apparently, but it was soon out of her mind as she followed her friend’s every move.

He ditched his gown and mask and made his way across the room. Sakura didn’t move a muscle. He stopped a respectable distance away. They stared at each other.

“Well, I see you have it handled. I’ll leave you to it, I need to go make fun of my cousin.”

Ino, the traitor, was out of there in seconds.

“Let’s…”

He motioned vaguely to the corridor behind her and she followed him out of the room, back into the maze of the hospital. She thought he was leading them outside, but they ended up in an empty office she thought was the Hokage’s. He closed the door behind them.

They stared some more.

He was taller, but apart from that, he hadn’t changed much. The only noticeable difference was a striking one though – square in the middle of his forehead, there was a small seal in the shape of a purple gem, much like the one sported by the Godaime.

“It’s… good to see you,” he managed to get out.

“You too.”

She didn’t understand what was happening. She had missed him so much, had thought so many times about going back just to see how he was doing, to talk to him and hear his voice.

Was she alone in this? Maybe he didn’t want to see her. Maybe he was still bitter about how she had reacted, back then when Naruto left, how she had blamed him even though she knew he was the least at fault in all this. Maybe she should have written more, tell him she was sorry, tell him she believed in him and the changes he would work to bring.

Maybe it was too late.

“It’s… it is. It’s really…”

He didn’t look annoyed or embarrassed. It occurred to her then that this was Sasuke.

And Sasuke was just… plain overwhelmed.

She let out a wet chuckle and took the reins because he surely wasn’t going to. She wrapped her arms around his neck, touched their foreheads together. His hand came to rest on her waist and he looked so stunned still, so out of his depth, she had to laugh again. She drew them closer to hug him properly. He was taller, but not by much. He was trembling a little.

“I… I’m sorry, I wasn’t sure…”

“Don’t be an idiot. I’m so happy to see you, Sasuke.”

He sunk against her and they held on tight, finally, finally closing the distance after two years apart. She was crying again, it was inevitable. She believed he wouldn’t mind.

They had to look a little ridiculous, clutching each other like this in the middle of an empty office, half laughing half crying. They managed to let go after a while, though they didn’t go far. Sakura wiped her face, unable to keep from chuckling, light-headed from the sheer relief and joy she felt of being home at last, by her friends’ side.

“My shift is still a few hours,” he said, piecing back his composure despite his reddened eyes and blotchy face. “I can come to find you after if you want. We can… talk."

He seemed mildly distressed by the idea. She chuckled.

“I’ll be at home. Don’t be too long rescuing me.”

That earned her a little smile and a lighter heart. He walked her back to the entrance of the hospital and she had a feeling he would have come with her right away if he could. But Sasuke wasn’t one to ditch his duties, especially this one, she could imagine.

She made her way to her parents’ house. It was unchanged, safe from the plants in the front garden, lush and blooming. Her father had taken good care of it.

She stood for a long while at the doorstep of her home, paralyzed by an unknown reluctance. It felt insurmountable to just put her hand on the door handle, to cross the threshold.

In the end, her mother took care of it for her – she opened the door wide and almost crashed into her daughter on her way out.

“Wha- Sakura?”

“Hey Mom. Huh, I’m back.”

Her mother was immediately in tears.

“Oh my, oh my! You’ve grown! And you’re… My little girl, you’re so different!”

Her voice was strangled by emotion and Sakura chose not to hear anything negative in the exclamation. She didn’t want to fight with them, and she was different. It wasn’t all that much of a physical change, but she assumed her mother could see that kind of thing. She hugged Sakura tight before ushering her inside, calling after her husband with great cheers.

“Sakura!”

Again, she was unsure of how it was going to go, and again she didn’t get what she bargained for at all – her father hugged her even tighter, if possible, smiling widely with shining eyes.

They had missed her, she realized, a lot more than she had missed them.

“How are you? You have so much to tell us!”

So she set out to do just that, bearing through their questions and the two liters of tea her mother insisted she drank. She skimmed over most of her time away though, both because it wasn’t that interesting, and because two years apart had not made talking to them any easier. She abused the excuse of confidentiality, as if their work had been so secretive. As if any work done by Jiraiya could be anything but a loud mess – it was a wonder how he could even do any spying. Oh, she was familiar with his style now, he did get good results, it’s just that his methods were unconventional to say the least, and not always very dignified.

She didn’t see herself telling her parents that though. She felt weirdly protective of those times and of the judgement they would cast upon it.

She was grateful for Sasuke knocking at her door.

“I won’t be home late,” she promised on the doorstep, battling the guilt her parents’ saddened face stirred in her. “We’ll have plenty of time to catch up. I’m not going anywhere.”

Yet, she added for herself. They didn’t protest – hopefully they would observe a grace period before resuming their quiet disapproval act around her.

“Maybe I should get my own place too,” she pondered aloud as they left the house.

“It’s not that great,” Sasuke answered with a pout.

“Really? Ino told me it was going fine.”

“I guess it could be worse.”

She waited for him to elaborate, but it didn’t look like he would.

“What happened?” she pried gently, to get a feel of how sensitive the topic was. He grimaced.

“I had a fallout. With my father. About… six months ago. It was… bad.”

“Bad” he said, when it had resulted in him moving out of his house, despite being from a clan where they spent their entire life all piled up in the same streets and built their lives in the family house more often than not. “Bad” probably didn’t begin to cover it.

“Will you tell me?”

He bit his lips, looking pained.

“Later?”

She nodded, agreeing to drop it for now. She had a feeling it would put quite the damper on any mood, and she was on board with trying to keep the evening joyful. They could lament later, she decided. 

“I can’t believe you live with Shikamaru of all people.”

"It was a question of timing mostly, though he moved out of spite, sort of. His father told him if he wanted to keep living under their roof, he would have to start taking his future as a member of their clan and the shinobi force seriously. And… well. He doesn’t like being told what to do.”

She wouldn’t have pegged Shikamaru as the rebellious type, but then again he always had this weird dedication to his claimed lack of ambition. She wondered how much of it was a reaction to everything he had been told he could do, if only he applied himself, if only he used the great gift he had been given, if only he cared to.

He didn’t. She suspected he didn’t want to care, wanted to less and less the more he was told. Maybe he would change his mind one day, but that would be when he decided to, not before.

“I clean and he takes care of the food. It’s such a hassle. I don’t know…

He stumbled on his words, face turning somber. The sun was setting and the residential streets they were crossing were dimly lit – she could hardly make out his expression, let alone the emotions hidden in his lightless eyes.

“I don’t know how Naruto did it.”

They were ten when Naruto had been sent to live with Shisui. Up until then he had been on his own, something they never questioned at the time. It was just how things were.

It made no sense though.

No wonder he would… In retrospect it made such terrible sense.

Sasuke looked sour now, and she knew he blamed himself for this, for never bringing it up before, for how blind they had been to Naruto’s life and its many daily, mundane struggles.

She had made peace with the fact that there was nothing they could have done, nothing that would have kept him by their side. His fate was sealed long before they had come into his life, from the start maybe. That didn’t mean she had given up on looking for him, far from it, but…

She wasn’t angry at him anymore.

Sasuke was different. He was closer to Naruto, closer maybe than he would admit, and he had a greater influence on his life. He still believed that he was at fault somehow, that had he done something different, sooner, had he said, if only… That it could have ended differently.

It wasn’t the first time, was quite common even, for him to manage to take the blame somehow. Harsh words thrown Naruto’s way during their Academy years – “Had I said something.” Right after their disastrous mission in Wave Country – “Had I been stronger.” After the chunin exam when Naruto withdrew for good – “Had I been better.” When he had eventually left – “Had I been enough.”

She had scolded him once, exasperated, that it was awfully pretentious of him to think he was good enough to be responsible for everything. She’d seen on his face that he did consider himself to be that good actually.

There was no changing it. And so he blamed himself.

She had added to that burden too, when she still believed it could be salvaged, that Naruto could be made to endure by their sides. She couldn’t imagine what it would have been like, had they dragged him back to the village back then.

It was best not to dwell on it, she thought.

“No news?” she asked, because it was better to look forward, to keep going. She had chased many leads about him and his… kind, with Jiraiya.

Jinchuuriki, he had explained, with great reluctance, having grown tired of her stubborn insistence and incessant questions. She had not talked to him for a week after that conversation.

“Anko and her team came back a few days ago. Izumi wouldn’t tell me much but… They did learn some things.”

“Really? What did they say? Do they know where he is?”

She knew it was a stupid question as soon as she asked. If they knew where he was, they would already be on their way. In fact, it was probably better they didn’t – she didn’t know where they stood now, the village, the senior shinobi, the Hokage.

“Naruto did go to Orochimaru. Ino did some digging – you know he’s the third Sannin, right? He was on the same team as Jiraiya and Tsunade-sama.”

“I know. Jiraiya told me about him.”

Another discussion that was like pulling a tooth. Sometimes it felt like the old man withdrew information on purpose.

And sometimes, like that time, it just felt like those things that are too painful to talk about. But Sakura wouldn’t be deterred.

“They… used to be friends.”

The three Sannin. Both of them had brushed up their history, it seemed. Sasuke was Tsunade’s disciple after all.

“It’s kind of funny,” she said, though she didn’t feel much like laughing.

“What?”

“Well… each of us went to one of them.”

Sasuke frowned.

“Ah. Yeah.”

Their fate would be different though.

“Izumi said… they are sure Naruto is not with him anymore.”

“What? How? Where is he then?”

“We don’t know. But for the past eight months at least Orochimaru’s men have been after him too, to no avail. No one can find them.”

“I know about Gaara,” Sakura added, pensive. “We did our research and… the host from Takigakure went missing too. As well as one from Kumo. The others, we’re not sure. And we don’t know if… If they just left. Or if it’s-if the Akatsuki got to them.”

No one was willing to breach the subject, each village staying stubbornly tight-lipped on the matter of their jinchuuriki. Jiraiya had warned them that the organization was after the hosts, and they had heeded his words, maybe, but they had refused any sort of help, any offer to share resources and knowledge, so that they could protect their own. Jiraiya said it was because they were all wary of other villages trying to steal a Biju for themselves in the process. It was infuriating.

She wanted to believe the missing-nins were safe, because they would have heard, right? If something had happened to them.

If something had happened to Naruto.

It wasn’t backed up by any rational thinking, but she just couldn’t accept that he could disappear from this world without them knowing about it. It couldn’t be. Naruto was somewhere out there. They could find him again.

“Tell me about your trip,” Sasuke asked. She was content with letting this subject go for now. Tomorrow the mission reports and the update on a worrying situation – tonight the catching up of the more mundane aspects of their life.

She mostly talked and he mostly listened. He was never much of a chatterbox, unlike her, and she felt a bit self-conscious of it at times, but he didn’t complain and she didn’t bring it up either. Her tales must have been quite disjointed, her mind jumping from one memory to another without much consistency. All evening a soft, private smile stayed rooted on her friend’s face though, so she figured it wasn’t that bad.

.

She had been waking up at dawn for the past two years and thus was also up with the sun the next day. But when there had always been something to do then – mostly training, wandering around, or apologizing to the owner of a hostess bar. Sakura found herself with a sudden abundance of time and nothing to fill it with.

What was she supposed to do? Did she need to report to the Assignment Desk, go back on futile missions? They had done their fair share of fighting with Jiraiya, but not in the way it was done in the village at all. Jiraiya did complete missions, in a way, just not things that had been assigned or that he was paid to do.

He called them “missions” but they weren’t really. Retrieving a girl kidnapped by bandits, driving away some wild beast from a scared village, helping a very old lady to bury her dog. It seemed to come naturally to him, and he didn’t ask for anything in return, although the people he helped would often give him something anyway, if only a meal, a place to stay the night, a worthless trinket.

Jiraiya had quickly gotten into the habit of offering her services too, whether she liked it or not, especially when those favors entailed physical labour. She had spent an absurd amount of time picking some strangers’ vegetables and helping fix their barns or fences while he fanned himself in the shade. And then he had the gall to take all the credit.

She couldn’t really be mad. It was nice, to be useful this way, to put her talents to good. She had built up quite the muscle's strength to be able to handle Zabuza’s sword. Jiraiya had taught her how to use chakra to increase her body’s strength too.

She was stronger than most now. She could protect herself, she could defend those who couldn’t. Even chasing a runaway cat had felt more rewarding this way, despite getting only a basket of apple and numerous cuts on her arms for her trouble.

She was quite aware that was no way to make a living though. Did that mean she had to help only those who could pay her for it? That didn’t appeal to her at all.

She thought about seeking out Sasuke or Ino, but her friends had their own life now, they had their part to play and the duties going with it, they were busy.

She would have to find her place too.

She settled for going through her morning training routine to start with, even though she didn’t dare pull out her sword, afraid of destroying her parents’ very small garden. She had worked up quite a sweat when someone interrupted her.

“I was going to suggest some friendly sparring, to assess your progress, but now I’m not so sure.”

“Kakashi-sensei!”

“Yo, Sakura.”

She ran to the gate to greet him properly. He pat her head with a smile in his eyes. He hadn’t changed one bit.

“Afraid I could take you on?” she laughed. It would be fun for sure. She didn’t overestimate herself, but she was sure she could give him a good show.

“I’m an old man now.”

She snorted.

“What are you doing here?”

“I’ve come to fetch you. The Hokage wants to see you.”

She nodded, grateful at how fast that was – she needed to know what she was expected to do now. They set off side by side.

"Was it good then? Your time away?"

There was some measure of guilt in his tone, she thought. She nodded.

“It wasn’t always easy. But I’m glad I went.”

He seemed relieved. She was okay with easing his mind over this, even if she did feel at times that he had simply not cared enough about her to be a proper teacher. It didn’t matter now either way.

“What about you, sensei? Trained some other terrible kids?”

“Yes.”

She faltered, caught off guard.

“Really?”

“For a little over a year. They’re not quite ready for the chunin exam yet, but they’ll get there. We have time.”

Things would have been quite different, she thought, had they not entered the exam when they did. They would have been spared a lot of heartaches and needless pain for one.

“Cool. That’s cool.”

She didn’t know why she was so weirded out by the idea of Kakashi training another team. Maybe because they had been his first, and so she had never wrapped her head around the fact that there would be others.

Maybe because she didn’t feel like he had quite earned the right to move on to the next so easily. Which was absurd – their team 7 didn’t exist anymore.

Jiraiya was in the Hokage office when they stepped in, joking with the Godaime. It was a little jarring, to know that they got along, were close and respected each other a lot, when she knew what a slouch the old man was. At least it helped to see the Godaime in a more approachable way.

“Sakura, hello. Thank you for coming.”

Sakura sketched an awkward salute, hating that she was still shy with the woman when her friends had obviously become well acquainted with her. What was that about anyway?

“You wanted to see me, Hokage-sama?”

“Hm. You must know that all your fellow ninja made chunin during the last exam. I wanted to discuss your own promotion.”

“I imagine the next exam isn’t too soon…”

“It’s several months away. And you don’t have a team anymore.”

She didn’t have to say it so bluntly.

“But you’ve been training under Jiraiya for more than two years, and he was very praiseful of your skills. Besides, you completed enough missions that it wouldn’t make sense to keep you as a genin.”

Sakura glanced at Jiraiya, but he looked up to avoid her gaze. She smiled, both exasperated and fond – the norm, when it came to the old man.

“What are you saying?”

“Kakashi has agreed to do your assessment. If he judges your level to be adequate, and if you pass the written exam, you’ll be promoted to chunin right away.”

She couldn’t help but feel a bit skeptical – wasn’t that too good to be true? But if a fight against Kakashi was all it took…

“Are you sure? Why would you want to rush it like this?”

“Genin can’t get more than C-level missions, but you’re way past that. It makes no sense holding you back. Unless you’d prefer to wait?”

She couldn’t tell if the woman was genuine or fucking with her. Well, she supposed it wasn’t in the interest of the village to deprive itself of higher ranking shinobi. And she did intend to go on missions… Specifically, one mission.

Indeed they wouldn’t send genin after the missing jinchuuriki.

“Alright. Thank you, Hokage-sama.”

“Don’t thank me yet, you’ve yet to pass.”

It would be arrogant to comment on that, even if she thought it. She bowed politely and turned to Kakashi.

“Ready when you are, sensei.”

He smiled.

“Right now it is then.”

.

Sakura was different, Kakashi pondered.

They all were, he supposed, after two years and some, but it wasn’t so obvious for the others, probably because he had been there all along to watch them grow and change. If he paused to think about how they were when Sakura had left, he could draw up the differences. But it wasn’t as flagrant as getting Sakura back like this.

There was something serious, almost menacing in the way she carried herself, the way she looked at the world around her. She had gathered a bit of a reputation among the people in the Land of Fire, as Jiraiya’s fiery apprentice, and he could picture it now, the one she defended and the ones she fought against, how they would all remember crossing her path.

There was no fear nor apprehension on her face and in her stature as she faced him on the training ground. That wasn’t to say that she was relaxed or carefree. But she was confident in what she could do against him. She had always been moved in part by fear, of getting hurt or seeing others hurt too, and she managed to turn it into fuel but it also made her reckless and easily destabilized.

It didn’t look like something that could happen now. Sakura knew her worth. She knew what she was doing.

Kakashi wondered who would win now, between his students. Maybe he would have them fight to find out. Sasuke was exceptionally talented and strong, but he hadn’t focused on battle training the way Sakura had in their time apart.

“What are the rules?” she asked, pulling out dark gloves from her weapon pouch.

“One hit?”

“That’s it?”

She seemed almost offended.

“One death blow then. Don’t actually kill me though, please.”

She nodded seriously and put her guard up. Kakashi thought she would draw her sword, but she seemed content to stick to her fists for now. Just as they were about to get going, a few spectators came to join them.

“I heard there was a show,” Ino said, waving at them with a smile, Sasuke in tow. Kiba was following with Shino – done with gate duty then. Or maybe they were on the run? Ah, Kiba would, surely, but Shino would never let him.

Kakashi ignored them to focus on the fight – they could infer what was going on for themselves. Or Ino would take great pleasure in telling them, since she probably knew everything already. It was frankly worrying that no one could figure out how she gathered her intel, but well, as long as she used it for good...

Well, not for harm at least.

Sakura didn’t seem bothered by the attention, though she was just a touch tenser than a moment ago. She didn’t back down nor say anything tough – she launched herself at him.

Her hits were fast and precise, packed tight with power. Efficient too – she was mobile but seldom flailed her limbs around, posture solid, close to the ground. Much more grounded than the usual style, including his.

She was spacing herself, he realized. Stamina was always one of her weak spots, so she didn’t waste any energy on unnecessary moves. She chased him near the tree line and launched her fist at his head – he dodged, as she wasn’t fast enough. It was too late to stop her hand from colliding with the nearest tree.

It turned out it was the tree they ought to worry about. There was a dent in the trunk and she didn’t bat an eye when she spun around to face him once more.

“That must hurt,” he said airily. Looking at the tree, he was glad he had moved out of that one. She gave a light chuckle, a little sheepish.

“It’s Tsunade-sama’s technique. I’m nowhere near her level but… I needed strength to wield my sword.”

“And you have great chakra control. It’s perfect then,” Kakashi praised with a smile. She blushed, caught a little off guard.

He had gotten better at this.

“Why don’t you take out your sword? I’m curious to see what you can do with it.”

“I can?”

“Of course.”

She looked pleased with the prospect, although she could be proud of her taijutsu already. More had gathered to witness the display, and they all paid rapt attention at Sakura unrolling a scroll directly from her weapon pouch, tapping lightly at the seal inked in the paper and pulling out…

It was even bigger than he remembered – even with the tip broken off, it was almost as tall as her. The muscles on her arms tightened to hold its weight, but she didn’t look to be struggling. She rested the dull edge on her shoulder, crouching into her guard.

“That must hurt too,” Kakashi commented. He was serious behind his carefree façade though, having recognized that she was too. He couldn’t help the wave of nostalgia and regret that seized him at the sight of Zabuza’s sword. When had Naruto taken it, and why? He wondered if, beyond Sakura’s affinity for heavy weaponry, she felt a particular kinship to the sword and what it had brought upon their team. Was she paying tribute by using it, or on the contrary, exorcising? Maybe he would ask her later.

The sword, massive as it was, didn’t slow her down – she was as fast as she had been with a regular katana, though she seldom waved this one around with only one hand. Kakashi had a hard time approaching her, and it was no use when he managed, for she wasn’t of Zabuza’s stature at all – the blade was large and sturdy enough for her to use as a shield.

Kakashi recalled her saying she liked kenjutsu because it allowed her to keep the distance between her and her enemies. In that sense, this sword was perfect for her.

There was something strange though, in the way she wielded it, that he couldn’t put his fingers on. She was focused and determined, didn’t brag nor taunt when Kakashi took a few steps back, assessing. She still looked a little proud when he reached up to uncover his left eye. 

The next time she swung the sword, Kakashi put up a long kunai to block it, but she twisted it at the last moment, skidding across the kunai, aiming straight for his forearm.

He wasn’t fast enough to get his arm out of the way.

But when the blade crashed against him, though he let out a surprised cry under the heavy blow, there was no blood in sight, where it should have cut his arm clean off.

She drew the sword away, looking smug.

“It’s dull,” Kakashi said, frowning.

“It’s hard to control it still. It would be too dangerous to sharpen it.”

“But then…”

She didn’t let him continue – she threw the blade in a wide arc that would have cut him in half had he stayed where he was, but the move was slow and obvious and he had no issue jumping back to avoid it.

He recognized it too late. She grinned.

“You’re dead, sensei.”

Though the blade had flown a good ten centimeters from his chest, his uniform was cut open and there was a long line of red trickling lightly across his skin. She had only grazed him, because he wasn’t an enemy. But there was no doubt if she had wanted the blade to be longer, it would have been.

“It only cut when I want it too,” she explained. She was a little embarrassed still, like she was trying not to brag.

She could though. He whistled, impressed.

She had been able to lengthen her sword against Sasuke during the chunin exam, but it was far thinner than this one and easier to wield around. Kakashi’s wound was visible but shallow, which meant she had controlled the length perfectly, so that he wouldn’t be wounded too badly but wouldn’t come out unscathed either. This, plus the chakra running through her arms and legs, all her muscles, to give her the strength to lift the sword…

Kakashi knew her chakra control was off the chart, but this was ridiculous.

“Any other tricks you wish to demonstrate?” Kakashi asked, gesturing at the gathered crowd. She blushed, only now realizing the sparring session had turned into quite the show.

“I’ll keep some suspense,” she said around a laugh. He wondered what else Jiraiya could have taught her. What he had seen wasn’t any passed down secret though, wasn’t anything rare or unique. It was just the result of tremendous work, a mastery of basic skills so refined that it took it all to the next level.

What would she top that with?

“As far as I’m concerned, you pass with flying color, Sakura.”

She beamed.

“Thank you sensei.”

.

Kakashi praised her and she couldn’t help but blush, her friends cheered and she reddened even more. She knew the scope of her improvement, knew she could be proud of how far she’d come, but it wasn’t the same to hear it from others, from the people she valued and cared about, from those she admired. Hayate and Yugao approached them, smiling lightly.

“I see you took care to make us look good out there, Sakura,” Yugao said, flustering her even further. She couldn’t handle the pride and softness shining in her teachers’ eyes, and she could only exhale an embarrassed laugh and avoid everyone’s gaze.

Fortunately for her, she had pretty good friends.

“Oï, Sakura!”

Sakura braced herself for Ino jumping on her back with great enthusiasm. She didn’t budge, to Ino’s delight.

“You know what, I like that. Carry me!”

Sakura rolled her eyes but complied, sliding her hands under Ino’s thighs for better support. Ino grabbed her shoulders more firmly. Only then did Sasuke join them.

“That was good,” he said, sounding genuine despite his neutral expression. Sakura tried to shrug – not easy with Ino weighing down on her shoulders.

“Sakura! We need to fight some times!” Kiba exclaimed, looking extremely taken with the idea.

“Ah, sure.”

“Not afraid to get your ass kicked Kiba?” Ino taunted.

“Hey! I’ve been training too!”

“How did you even know we would be here? Did you meet on the way?” Sakura asked. Sasuke scoffed.

“No. She slept on our couch, again. I’m going to start charging you for rent, Ino.”

“Yeah, yeah, you keep saying that. And I just know everything. We snatched the others on the way.”

He clicked his tongue, annoyed. She just laughed.

Sakura was seized with the urge to interrupt the exchange. Kakashi did it for her.

“We can go back to the Hokage right now Sakura, if you want,” he proposed. The rest of the group was dispersing, but Sasuke and Ino lingered.

“Yeah, that’s good. Huh, are you coming?” she asked her friends, Ino still firmly perched on her back. She sighed dramatically, blowing air on Sakura’s ear and cheek, making her shiver.

“I am,” Sasuke said. “Jiraiya is supposed to talk about his findings to the higher-ups.”

“I’m not,” Ino went on, pouting. ”I have work to do.”

“Just say that Tsunade-hime won’t let you sit in.”

“Don’t worry, I’ll still find a way to know.”

“Or you could just wait until I tell you,” Sasuke shot back with an eye roll.

“And let you have more information than me? Never.”

Sakura could hear the grin in her voice, and despite his annoyance, Sasuke looked faintly amused too. This was familiar territory for them, she could tell. Usual, a habit.

A habit that certainly didn’t exist two years ago.

“And you can go, Sasuke?” she kept on asking, not knowing what else to say. They started walking toward the Hokage Tower.

“Hm. Tsunade-sama lets me attend to this sort of thing, if I want to.”

“Really?”

“Didn’t he tell you? He’s her personal slave now.”

“I’m not her slave Ino, seriously.”

“She makes him write reports and official letters in her place,” Ino went on, ignoring him. “And fetch documents from the archive, assess the mission reports, make tea…”

“You’re just jealous because I get way more intel than you do.”

“In your dreams.”

Sakura tightened her grip on Ino’s thighs hard enough to divert her attention, and odd weight lodged in her throat.

“I thought she would only teach you medical jutsu,” she said.

“At first yeah, but he asked her to mentor him in her other duties as well, and she’s been taking advantage of him ever since.”

“She’s not taking advantage of me. I’m her best student, it’s normal that…”

“A-ha!” Ino cut, triumphant, while Sasuke’s expression soured as if he regretted his words. “Congratulations, you held on what, ten minutes, before mentioning it? You’re getting better.”

He cast her a murderous look.

“Am I missing something?” Sakura interjected before she was cast out of the conversation entirely.

“He didn’t tell you? You talked for hours yesterday and you didn’t tell her, Sasuke? You are getting better!”

“Ino, would you please stop.”

"It so happens, cherry pie, that our Sasuke here turned out to be exceptionally gifted at medical ninjutsu. A “natural talent with a promising future”, those are the Godaime’s exact words. And how do I know that? Because Sasuke has quoted them back to me many, many times.”

Ino was obviously taking great delight at teasing Sasuke, who was red and embarrassed and muttering curses under his breath. Kakashi was also amused. He was also in on it. Sakura was the odd one out.

Unpleasant.

“What about your brother?” she asked, regretting it instantly. That was unnecessarily mean – Sakura had listened to enough ranting on Sasuke’s part to know there was quite a large amount of frustration to be found in him when it came to his older brother. They were very close – Sakura was awfully jealous when she saw them together, as she always dreamed of having siblings instead of being stuck alone with her parents – but he also suffered from Itachi’s reputation as a born prodigy. Granted, it had lessened in the years before her departure, as Itachi had inexplicably distanced himself from his shinobi duties, but it was still a strong incentive for Sasuke’s drive to always push himself one step further.

To her surprise though, Sasuke didn’t look upset at all. He looked, in fact, like he was very pleased, but trying very hard to hide it.

“It… turned out he wasn’t gifted at everything after all,” Sasuke mumbled through his teeth, glaring at Ino when she laughed again.

He smiled, despite the teasing. As inconsequential as he was trying to pass it for – he hadn’t even mentioned it to her before – she knew what it meant to him, to come before Itachi for the first time in their life. He had seemed so at ease at the hospital,  so confident, completely in his element. He had found his path.

“Yeah, yeah, we all know you’re the very best, Sasuke.”

Sakura was glad when they reached the Hokage Tower. Ino hopped off, taking the direction of the Intelligence Department, promising she’d meet them later knowing more than they did. Sakura stuck her tongue at her.

The Hokage office was crowded with jounin and clan heads. Sakura greeted them with a nod, smiling politely at those who recognized her – namely, Ino’s father and her friends' instructors. Sasuke’s father looked grim and even grimmer when he spotted Sasuke, who deliberately looked elsewhere. Jiraiya ruffled her hair quite rudely, looking way too pleased that he could get away with it – she couldn't very well punch the Sannin in front of the village commandment.

Those were all expected faces. Except…

“Huh, Sasuke. What is Hinata doing here?”

She was flanked by two members of the Hyuuga clan Sakura didn’t recognize, a man and a woman, the first quite young, the other middle-aged, both standing straight and tall, serious. There was nothing to be read on Hinata’s blank face.

He gave her a look, as if to say “isn’t it obvious?”, and she rolled her eyes. No it wasn’t. It certainly was for him, but not for her. Understanding dawned on him and he bit his lips, embarrassed.

“Oh. Right. You don’t know.”

She made a face at him. Of course she didn’t know. She was tumbling around the countryside with an old jerk, she wasn’t keeping tabs on the Hyuuga clan.

“I should… have told you about that. It’s, well, Hinata… she’s the Hyuuga clan head now.”

What.

“Since, hm, since Neji left the village.”

What?

Chapter Text

The silence could be cut with a knife in the council room of the Hyuuga clan. Hinata sat as still as a stone.

Tokuma was standing in front of the gathered head of the clan, stoic and expressionless but tense as a bowstring, bent in a bow, jaw locked shut, Hinata’s father weighing him down from his seat at the center of the council with the full strength of his implacable authority.

It had been confirmed that Hanabi would graduate from the Academy with the next class, a full two years before the usual age. A source of pride for her father, and a blow for Tokuma, who was to teach in the Academy only as long as Hanabi attended.

Her father had stated that he would be returning to active duty as soon as Hanabi was promoted to genin.

Tokuma had just requested to be allowed to remain an Academy teacher.

Hinata was trembling from where she watched on the side, her father’s silence even worse than if he had been yelling or raging like anyone would. Tokuma bore the weight of his judging eyes on his neck – he wasn’t to meet his gaze.

“What did I just say, Tokuma?” the clan leader asked, cold and hard as ice.

“That I was to go back on the active roster after Hanabi-sama’s graduation.”

“And what is your answer?”

Tokuma was barely breathing. He still replied with a steady voice, without wavering.

“I would like to remain in my current position, Hiashi-sama.”

Her father’s anger barely expressed itself, yet it was unmistakable to any member of the Hyuuga clan. All those gathered in the council room now could see it, and they could only wait in fear for his wrath to break out on the young man’s back.

“You will not.”

Please say no more, she thought desperately. Please let it go.

But if Tokuma had found the strength and courage to ask once, he wasn’t going to just stop there, she was sure. Despite the consequences.

“I am asking again, Hiashi-sama.”

It could have been granted. It didn’t matter. They were well represented among the chunin and jounin already, and Tokuma did fine work at the Academy. It’s true he spent a lot of time with Uchiha Shisui, who worked with him as a teacher, and it was frowned upon, but it wasn’t such an issue that it would warrant his removal. There was no reason to refuse.

Apart from the principle of it.

That’s why Tokuma didn’t bother to ask for an explanation. He wouldn’t have received any even if there was one, but he had to know there wasn’t.

“Are you?”

“I am.”

Her father lifted his hand in the ominous hand seal so dreaded by the secondary branch.

“Are you still?”

“I am.”

Hinata bit the inside of her mouth, tasting blood. But before Tokuma’s defiance could be punished, there was movement on Hinata’s right side and…

It was foolish of her to hope Neji would sit through this without stepping in.

He had been getting increasingly volatile and rebellious in the past few months, defying orders and being insolent, and had been punished more times than she could count. He stood between Tokuma and her father now, wrathful and outraged, not unlike their clan leader, though for very different reasons.

“Step away, Neji!” he stormed, still ready to activate the seal, as everyone in the room held their breath. She wanted to scream but as always, the words were jammed somewhere down her throat, her whole body locked down. She couldn’t even close her eyes.

Neji was about to talk back and anything he said would only make this worse.

It was Tokuma who stopped him. Suddenly he tackled the other boy and slammed his head on the floor, falling down too to fold both of them on their knees, repentant.

“We are in the wrong, Hiashi-sama. Please forgive us.”

Neji tried to struggle out of his grip, but Tokuma caught his gaze then, and they exchanged… Something. She couldn’t tell. Neji’s nose was bleeding, his lips too. Not from the fall, she realized, but from how hard he was biting it down.

He kept his lips sealed.

Her father assessed them for a long, long time, before dismissing them with a wave of his hand.

“We’ll sort this out later.”

They would no doubt be disciplined, but for now, it was reprieve. The whole room sighed in relief, the meeting was adjourned.

She had to put it out of her mind to go through the rest of the day, but it was haunting her now as she lied motionless on her back, eyes wide open, unable to find rest amidst the raging storm of her thoughts.

There was something, something. It wasn’t like all the other times. There was a reason why Tokuma had so abruptly cut Neji short, why he had changed gear so fast as soon as her cousin had gotten involved. There was a reason why Neji had followed through even if he wanted nothing more than to fight any and everyone these days, even if it was his master, even if it left him writhing on the ground, skull split open by pain.

The main house was silent as the dead around her, yet she still thought she heard the whispers of hushed conversations, some secrets running around her but staying far out of reach. Whatever was going on with Neji, she was sure to be the last one in the known, if she didn’t go looking for it.

She got up without a sound. She crossed the corridor, light-footed on the boards she knew wouldn’t creak under her weight. The night was chilly – she tightened her kimono around her body as she crossed the inner gardens to the barracks of the bunke.

It was quiet too. She moved toward Neji’s room. He shared with Tokuma, because the members of the bunke didn’t get their own pavilion until they reached twenty-five or got married. The two had always been close.

The room was empty.

Tokuma had a modicum of freedom when it came to leaving the Hyuuga compound, but Neji had nowhere else to go, and he wasn’t on a mission. She left the barracks, still careful despite her growing anxiousness, and called up her Byakugan to look for her cousin.

She found him leaving the kitchens, but it was impossible to tell herself that he had just gone to get something to eat in the middle of the night. One, because Neji’s discipline was ironclad and he never indulged in any whim, ever.

And two, because his clothes and weapons were gone from his room.

She intercepted him on his way to the garden gate, where only one member of the bunke would be on guard duty. Tokuma, if she had to guess, because Neji was carrying a bag, Neji was heading determinedly to the gate.

Neji was leaving.

“No.”

It was barely a whisper, just a breathy, pitiful sound, but it carried across the eerie silence of the garden. The next second Neji had a kunai under her throat.

“Don’t make a sound. I won’t hesitate, Hinata.”

She believed him. She nodded, too quick. The blade nicked at the soft skin of her throat. She didn’t flinch. He didn’t comment.

“Don’t go,” she croaked past the knot in her throat, past the rust of her voice she so seldom used.

“Don’t try to stop me.”

His voice was full of hatred and he would hurt her, she thought, if she tried to interfere.

But she couldn’t let him go. It couldn’t end that way. How could she keep on going, if he wasn’t there? He was the only reason why she hadn’t given up yet.

“They’ll kill you,” she whispered, trembling in fear, her mind rebelling at trying to conjure her father’s reaction to Neji’s disappearance.

“They won’t find me.”

What was he talking about? The Hyuuga could see for miles and their seal could reach for miles too. Who knew how far it could catch him? Where was he even going?

“No. No, no.”

She had to talk, she had to tell him… But she couldn’t. Talking was too hard for her. All the energy she spent putting a foot in front of the other, processing all that was happening around her, sorting through her messy thoughts… She couldn’t reach out to the world on top of it all, she couldn’t form all this into spoken words, it was too much.

“I don’t have to obey you,” he snarled.

But he did, didn’t he?

She raised her hand.

His eyes widened before his expression hardened even more, his rage turned on her now.

“Can you do it, Hinata-sama?”

She could, as in her father had taught her, a few months back, since she had been making progress with her training and Hanabi was having surprising difficulties with the Eight Palm Triagram – the succession of the clan leadership was still into question. So she knew how to.

Now to know if she could...

He scoffed, always so disdainful, so belittling. She knew how he despised her and the entire clan, but specifically her, for her weakness and inadequacy, her lack of talent, for how ill-fitted she was to this world and how privileged still, because of her birth. But none of it mattered. It didn’t matter that he hated her and that it ate away at her soul, it didn’t matter if he never forgave her. She could keep all her feelings to her own, she didn’t need them known nor acknowledged nor returned in any way.

But he couldn’t be gone. He couldn’t leave.

He couldn’t leave when she had to stay.

He made to turn away.

She signed.

She understood immediately. It took but a second, when his eyes widened in pure shock but he didn’t react otherwise and she understood why Tokuma had stopped him, had made them bow before he could get punished by her father.

He knew it wouldn’t work.

He knew that somehow, Neji’s seal would fail. That it had been damaged, or was simply gone.

She could only stare at the horror on his face morphing into hostile hatred, as she realized that she had broken clean off the bond that still existed between them, the last tattered remnants of their relationship. His rage couldn’t hide the sorrow in his eyes, that she would do this to him, that she would truly attempt to stop him this way.

She was disgusted too.

He raised a hand – she thought he would hit her, but understood he was already passed that, already removed from it all, from her, already gone. He raised a hand to his face, to tug at his forehead protector.

To reveal his skin, white and unblemished, only the faintest scar visible where the Cage Bird Seal used to be, stark against his pale complexion. Gone now.

She stayed frozen in place as he tossed the headband at her feet and turned away, went through the door without the slightest hesitation. Only when the Byakugan could no longer make out his fading shape did she sink to her knees, shaking all over and unable to breathe.

She twisted the headband around her hands, hard enough to bruise, staring but unable to recognize them as hers, neither their pain nor the fingers that had tried to bend Neji into submission, to hurt him enough that he would obey her.

What if it had worked?

She broke into a cold sweat and threw up on the ground, and then she passed out.

.

She was tucked in bed when she opened her eyes and for a moment she thought, prayed, that it had all been a nightmarish fever dream, that she had not betrayed her cousin in the most heinous way and that he had not turned his back on them for good. But she heard the commotion outside then, felt the agitation rippling through the compound and the taste of bile in her mouth.

She saw the forehead protector resting on the floor next to her futon, and she knew it was all very real.

She hid it in the pocket of her hoodie. When she stepped outside to see what was going on, she stumbled on two of her father’s lieutenants escorting Tokuma toward the council room.

He stared at her with steady eyes, resolute despite their infinite sadness. They had to know Neji was gone. They had to know Tokuma had been the one to help him. She thought she could remember, in her daze, him carrying her to her room during the night, setting her carefully on her bed.

They took him away. It wasn’t hard to guess what they would do to him.

It was so easy then. It was so simple, so intuitive, she was stunned that it hadn’t come to her sooner, that it had seemed so insurmountable just a few days, just a few hours ago. There was nothing easier than to go into the bunke’s side of the compound, to walk all the way to their common area, in an uproar over the recent events. It was the easiest thing really, to go kneel in front of Neji’s mother, who ruled over the bunke, to meet her despaired gaze.

“If you want,” she said, throat burning, eyes too, “I will help you.”

Easy for them too, to make the decision at that moment. It’s not like it hadn’t been brewing for months, years, decades now. Even counting out the members of the bunke loyal to their clan’s system, they still outnumbered vastly the main branch.

Easy to walk into the council room and stand beside Tokuma kneeling on the floor, easy to defy her father. She couldn't find a trace of the fear that had paralyzed her all her life every time she met his gaze, she couldn’t bring herself to care about the consequences, the pain to be endured and the punishment they might face, because Neji was gone with only hatred for her in his heart, and what could be worse than this?

“What is the meaning of this, Hinata?” her father asked, voice tight with fury, even though he had to know, had to have guessed already.

Hoheto, his second in command, stalked toward her, and the second branch members around her flinched away, because no amount of determination would free them of the fear that seized their heart in the presence of a member of the first branch.

But she had nothing to fear from him. Hinata has no seal branded on her forehead – not that it was guaranteed to stay that way forever, as her father often threatened, but for now, she didn’t need to bow to that pressure. And she had been spending a lot of time in the woods, training on her own, pushing herself too hard and worrying her teammates. But she couldn’t stop, because she was sure that if she trained hard enough, if she became strong enough…

Then maybe, finally, she would stop being afraid.

She slapped his palm away and slammed her own on his chest, bringing blood to his lips. In a proper fight she wouldn’t stand a chance, but he wasn’t expecting a proper fight. Being underestimated was Hinata’s only edge, and she made good use of it.

She had turned up quite the talent at assassination.

“Father,” she said politely, out of place in the war-like state of mind of the two opposing factions, the main branch on one side, the second on the other. “I have come to challenge your position as the head of the Hyuuga clan.”

It was probably the longest sentence she had ever uttered to her father.

Easy again, for all those present to assess the situation. She was still the heir of the clan, legitimate in her claim. She had numbers on her side and they were all aware that it would make up for the use of the seal, because they couldn’t take all of them down at once. They couldn’t wipe out three-quarters of the clan either, and maybe some couldn’t take arms against their own family either. The only thing her father could possibly do was dispute her status as the heir, but then…

Hanabi crossed the room to stand at her side, her face hard and unreadable. She took Hinata’s hand. Her grip was too tight. It hurt. Hinata didn’t flinch. Her other hand was buried in her pocket, clutched around Neji’s allegiance to Konoha, which he had left behind.

It was easy, easy.

And it was too late.

.

.

“Anyway. That’s more or less what happened.”

Kiba concluded this by a loud, obnoxious slurping of the rest of his juice through his straw, before shrugging at Sakura as if to say “what can we do?”.

He made sure to shrug with only one shoulder though, so as not to disturb Hinata who was resting her head on the other, unfocused and quiet, making no sign to want to join the conversation at any point. Sakura raised an eyebrow at Kiba, trying to convey her questions since it seemed rude to just ask aloud. He half-shrugged again.

“Words get bent easily. She wants it to be told as it was.”

Sitting on the bench by her side, Ino and Sasuke were engaged in an intense game of stress, cards flying around rapidly, giving the illusion of being out of this talk. It was old news for them after all, they had lived through it more than a year ago. Sakura was the only one stunned here.

She had wanted to kill Sasuke at the meeting, and Ino too for that matter. Couldn’t they have led with that? Wasn’t it on the list of things they should have told her first? They had placated her by promising Kiba would bring her up to speed. Which now found them sitting at the outside table of a cheap café, sharing sweets and heavy stories.

“And the Hokage didn’t say anything?”

“Technically, it wasn’t of any concern to her. The clan can appoint a new leader whenever and for whatever reason. As long as they all agree…”

Agree maybe wasn’t the appropriate term, she thought. He had glossed over the whole confrontation and how it had been resolved, but she supposed he would have mentioned bloodshed, had it happened.

“I see. But…”

Surely some people outside the clan ought to have said something anyway. Regarding the whole affair, regarding Hinata’s age, and her… How did that even work? She wasn’t any more loquacious than she had been as a child, Sakura couldn’t imagine her debating current issues and asserting herself in a conversation with other clan leaders and elders. But again, it felt rude to ask with the girl sitting right there, even if she gave no indication of being present in the moment whatsoever.

Sakura seemed to recall the main goal of the Hyuuga’s branch system was to ensure the protection of the Byakugan. But the Uchiha didn’t need it to keep a firm hold on their dojutsu, so she supposed the argument didn’t hold. More than a year, and it looked like it was working fine enough. Hinata wasn’t on her own, and she had the support of a large portion of her clan. Sakura would have to content herself with that for now.

“Does that mean…”

She made a vague gesture at her forehead, wincing at her own lack of tact. Hinata tensed up ever so slightly, but her eyes didn’t move from the spot she was staring at on the wooden table. Kiba pouted.

“No. They only managed to weaken them, so that they… eh. Couldn’t kill. Anymore. But no one has been able to figure out how to take them off for good, so the seals remain, for now. They’re just not to be activated anymore, under any circumstances.

“Then how…”

She knew the answer before she was done with the question. Kiba must have seen the understanding on her face, because he nodded with a helpless shrug.

“Neji met Naruto outside the village. We never got much more information, but he stayed in the hope that he could free other members of the bunke. Tokuma was in the known, but he doesn’t know how it worked. Neji’s been branded a missing-nin. We looked for him, of course, and we were not the only ones. The Byakugan makes him a valuable target but… No one found anything.”

There was no way it wasn’t linked, right?

“Do you think Neji’s with Naruto now?”

Kiba went to answer but a minute shift of Hinata’s stance called his focus to her. She only blinked once as a sign that she was tuned in now.

“We hope,” she said simply.

Sakura knew next to nothing about Neji, and what she knew didn’t endear him much to her, but she could get behind the feeling. It meant he wasn’t alone. If Naruto had Neji, and Gaara too, at least, if they had each other instead of being on their own…

Yeah, she hoped they did.

Kiba patted Hinata’s head gently, a sad look on his face, but wiped it off quickly to go back to a more cheerful disposition.

“So. That’s it, I guess.”

They chuckled lightly at the awkwardness of the conclusion. Hanabi approached the table then – she had been standing guard a little further down the street.

“It’s time to go back, Hinata-sama.”

Hinata nodded and complied without delay, following her sister out, both with matching serious expression on their pale face. Sakura and Kiba both watched them go with a frown.

“Is she doing okay?” Sakura asked. Kiba sighed, weary.

“She’s… holding on. That’s all she’s been doing really.”

“At first we thought she would… We didn’t think she would,” Ino said, rejoining the exchange but fumbling with her words. “It’s hard to know really. We’re all trying to help, but she doesn’t talk about any of it.”

Sakura could only imagine how hard it had to be, to shoulder this position now while carrying her pain, her guilt. Could only imagine the kind of regrets they would have faced themselves, Sasuke and she, had they pushed this far their desperation to keep Naruto by their side.

“I thought she didn’t get along with her sister,” she said, to keep the conversation going.

“It’s complicated,” Kiba conceded. “As long as Hinata stands, Hanabi will stand by her side. She won’t let her falter.”

Both a support and a pressure point then. Sakura recalled the girl being pretty harsh, with everyone. Both were always a bit feral if Sakura was honest. Not at all in Naruto's way, but as something unfathomable, removed from their world. She didn’t think she ever had a normal conversation with the Hyuuga girl. Didn’t know if she was even capable of it.

“What about their mother?”

It was absurd, how little she knew about her.

“You don’t know? Hinata’s mother died giving birth to her.”

Sakura raised a questioning eyebrow at Ino, not in the mood for her dramatic pauses.

“Hanabi’s mother is Hyuuga Hiashi’s second wife. The one he was supposed to marry from the start actually, from the will of the clan, but he married Hinata’s mother instead. It was quite the scandal back then.”

She said that like she was actually there. How could she even know that? Sakura doubted the gossip scandals were consigned in the village’s archives.

Oh, well, maybe there were.

“Where’s Hiashi now?

“Still at the compound,” Ino said. “Still a jounin. They don't cross paths if they can help it."

“My mother’s been visiting him, but she won’t tell me much,” Kiba added. “Lee says there’s been some… progress happening, recently? Nothing out there, but considering…”

Considering where they were coming from, she supposed Hinata and her father so much as greeting each other in passing was huge enough to make it to the newspaper.

“Lee?”

“They’ve grown close. With Tenten too. They took Neji’s departure pretty hard so.”

That’s all they’d been doing it seemed, getting closer to each other, getting to know each other better. She didn’t regret leaving, but she did wish she’d been part of it. She felt like she was lagging behind now, like she had much ground to cover before she reached them again.

She would need to visit Lee in the upcoming days.

“I guess my family’s alright then,” she said after a pause, trying for some levity. Ino elbowed her lightly.

“I always told you being a clan kid sucked.”

Sakura smiled and said nothing. It was an old argument that wasn’t worth revisiting – they couldn’t understand each other on that matter, they couldn’t help but envy the other and be blind to their struggle. Ino often complained about her family as a kid, about the responsibilities and expectations being the daughter of the Yamanaka clan leader put on her shoulders, and always told Sakura she was oh so lucky not to have to deal with any of it.

Except Sakura found those to be very bearable struggles, compared to her own.

Kids like her were nobodies at school, and in the village too. Sidelined by the teacher, ignored by the adults – having no expectations whatsoever placed on you was as bad as having too much in her opinion. Out of all the kids who dropped out of the Academy, most of them were from outside the clans, a lot were civilian children. Of course it was because clan kids weren’t allowed to change path anyway, but it was also because those kids ended up wondering why they even bothered. It was harder for them to make ranks.

From their year, Sakura was the only one, with Naruto.

In Gai’s team, there was Hyuuga Neji, and then there were the two others. Lee was an orphan, Tenten was raised by her civilian grandmother because her parents were traveling merchants, rarely seen in the village.

Who cared about those?

The death rate was also higher for them non-clan kids, something her parents had always dangled over her head, albeit not in so many words because it wasn't supposed to be a thing. During one memorable argument, her mother had screamed at her that she would just become “cannon fodder” too. Both her brothers had died in the war.

It was an argument Sakura had never made to Ino though. It was too heavy for their petty argument. Quite a mood-killer to talk about who was and wasn’t expendable among them.

“I have to go back to the hospital,” Sasuke announced, deeming the moment opportune now that the conversation had died down, as he had been impatiently tapping his fingers on the table for the past few minutes.

“I’m going too, I have to help my mother at the kennel,” Kiba added with an exaggerated eye-roll, not much enthused by the idea.

“I’m also due back,” Ino said, laying a couple of coins on the table. Sakura had always been the poorest of them all, but now that they all had jobs and several chunin-level missions under their belt while she had spent two years on the road, she felt like a toddler being taken out by her babysitting cousins.

An impression reinforced by the fact that she was the only one with nothing to do with her time.

She left the café too and set out to wander the streets of Konoha. She had promised her parents she would come home early so that they could spend some time together, and she had some errands to run for the house, as her mother had inferred not too subtly that Sakura was the only one who had nothing better to do and that she would have to contribute something to the household. For now though, she let her feet carry her around the village, subconsciously jumping from one familiar place to another – the Academy, the playground, the Yamanaka flower shop, where she popped in to find Sai handling the counter and came out with two plants and a small spray bottle she had strictly no use for.

He told her he worked there full time now. He didn’t volunteer much more information and didn’t ask for any in turn. It was quite refreshing really.

She was still wandering, reluctant to go home and face her mother’s nagging, when she ran into Shikamaru and… She needed a second to place the girl walking by his side.

“Yo! Ino told me you were back. Multiple times, and with great volume.”

“It’s good to see you too, Shikamaru,” she said with a smile. He shrugged the comment off, embarrassed. He didn’t get any better at genuine kind words then. They hadn’t crossed paths yet, dinner plans postponed because Choji was out of the village, on a mission with his father, and Shikamaru “absolutely needed him” in the kitchen, according to Ino’s exasperated retelling.

“And it’s… Temari, isn’t it?”

“Huh, yes. I’m sorry, I don’t recall your name.”

The girl from Suna looked sincerely embarrassed, so Sakura didn’t take it personally. It wasn’t like she remembered every last participant of the chunin exam either. But these siblings from Suna had made quite a strong impression on her.

“It’s Sakura.”

“Oh, right.”

There was an awkward pause where they looked at each other in turn. Shikamaru should have been the one to take it from there, being the only one to know them both, but it soon became apparent that they couldn’t count on his atrophied social skills to break the tension. Temari sighed loudly.

“We were going to the tea shop, our work is done for the day. Would you like to join us?”

Once again despite the girl’s harsh features and stubborn face, the offer sounded sincere. She didn’t look like the type to bow and scrape if she could help it.

“Sure.”

They soon found themselves in one of Konoha’s numerous teashops, though this one was of a higher standard than Sakura was used to. Shikamaru and she stared blankly at the vast selection until Temari, exasperated, ordered for them. She swatted Shikamaru’s hand away mercilessly when he made to pour himself a cup, hissing that is wasn’t done yet. It seemed best to listen to her.

“So… what are you doing here?” Sakura asked the girl after more stiff silence, hoping she didn’t sound too inquisitive.

“Tagging along on a diplomatic mission.”

“Ah, good.”

Temari poured the tea very seriously, which made this pause a little less awkward.

A little.

“And you’re…working diplomacy too, Shikamaru?”

Temari barked out a short laugh at that. He glared at them both.

“Not by choice,” he mumbled, crossing his arms.

“We’re trying to… exchange methods and processes. On education, training… There are ongoing discussions about exchange programs and a focus on cultural interactions between our villages."

“And we’re the kid committee, basically,” Shikamaru concluded.

He hid his face in his cup when the girl cast him a murderous glare. She seemed way more invested in this than he was. Unsurprising, really.

“Tea’s good,” Sakura said after a while, for lack of anything better.

“It’s from Suna. This place is the only one I found that sells it.”

Homesick then, even if she didn’t dwell on it. Sakura could relate.

“I was in Suna a few months back, but we didn’t try much of anything…”

It was good to see there was diplomacy happening after all, seeing how coldly they’d been received then. Jiraiya had chosen not to linger, reasonable for once. A shame – she wished she had had more time to get acquainted with their weird weaponry.

“Oh, right, you’re Jiraiya’s student. I was on a mission to Taki then, but I heard about your visit.”

There was no saying if she had heard good things or not. Sakura wisely didn’t ask.

They managed to talk a bit after that. Shikamaru seemed glad to leave them to it, staring out the window with vacant eyes while they drew up comparisons between Konoha and Suna. In a way it was nice to talk to someone who had no clue about Sakura and the people in her life. They seldom talked about themselves – a nice change of pace after retelling the events of her trip several times to different people in the past few days.

She was just about to gather enough courage to ask the other girl if she could have a look at her battle fan when someone entered the shop. Not the first customer since they’d been sitting here, and Sakura only looked up at the bell’s sound, but she stared this time, when she had just ignored it before.

It was Uchiha Itachi.

He didn’t see her at first, walking up to the counter to buy a frankly ridiculous amount of tea boxes. Who needed so much tea at once? The girl behind the counter chatted him up with naked enthusiasm, even though he barely responded.

He spotted her when he turned to leave.

“Hi,” she said lamely, because she sort of knew him and it would be rude not to say anything, but also she wasn’t quite sure he actually knew her name. Somehow in her mind he didn’t know anybody’s name save from the six people of his clan he hung out with.

Case in point – the corners of his lips barely raised in an attempted smile that looked more like a nervous tick, before he simply… left.

“What’s his problem,” Temari said, frowning. Sakura shrugged, nonplussed. She’d seen weirder. From him.

“He never went back to active duty right?” she pondered aloud. He was a jounin and a former Anbu, the first son of the Uchiha clan leader, and yet…

They both turned to Shikamaru. He was dozing off. Temari kicked him in the shin.

“Ah, what? No. He’s been out of the roster for a while.”

Sakura tried not to think back of all the times Ino and she had bitched about everyone they could think of while Shikamaru was napping by their side in the flower field. Was he pretending, or could that stupid brain of his actually register conversations when he was asleep? Either would be in character. That bastard.

“Why?”

She didn’t know why she dwelled on it now – it was a question they had asked themselves several times before, to no avail. It fed the gossip mill, but even Sasuke didn’t know why his brother had turned away from active duty, and most importantly, why he had been allowed to. Shinobi who wanted out weren’t uncommon, but that didn’t mean their wish was granted.

Shikamaru stared at her, pondering. She resisted the urge to squirm.

“Did Sasuke tell you about why he left?”

“No, not yet.”

“Ah. I guess it’s not my place to tell then.”

It was stupid to feel bad over this, over the fact that everyone seemed to know except her. Once again, they were there when it happened, they had seen him through it. It made sense he didn’t wish to revisit it just so that she would be in the known, especially if it had been as bad as they were all implying.

Screw all that. She still felt bad.

“It’s not what you think,” he said, as if he could hear her frustration in her silence. He glanced at Temari but she was absorbing herself in the teashop catalogue. Whether out of boredom or courtesy, it gave them a faint sense of privacy and it was appreciated.

“It’s not that it’s too painful to talk about it or something like that. It’s just that he’d rather you didn’t know.”

That wasn’t any better.

“I think I’m making it worse. But don’t take it personally. If he could, he would have kept it from us too.”

“Why?”

“It’s… unflattering. For the people involved.”

Shame?

She had a hard time believing Sasuke could be wary of her judgment.

“He had a rough time, after all this. Ah, you can ask him. Maybe he’ll even tell you the full story,” Shikamaru concluded with a helpless shrug, aware that he should probably have kept his mouth shut.

Temari slammed the catalogue on the table with way more force than necessary, declaring loudly that she wanted to buy some more tea to take back home. They went along with the unsubtle change of topic.

“Can you recommend me some?” Sakura asked in an attempt to move on from that whole issue. The girl looked pleasantly surprised and took the matter way more seriously than Sakura had expected.

She seemed to think tea was very serious business, and Sakura left with more than she could possibly need. She had a bag full of tea in one hand and a basket with the plants and the spray bottle in the other – she was starting to see a pattern.

Ah, at least her mother would be pleased.

.

They’d both taken off their shoes to soak their feet in the river. Sakura and Sasuke sat on the pier near the Uchiha district. Sharing a box of takoyaki, enjoying the sun – it would have felt like old times, if not for the one missing by their side.

Sasuke had said he wanted to talk to her – it wasn’t hard to guess about what. She wondered if Shikamaru had relayed her curiosity to him. It was a bit unnerving to know they lived together, that they shared an amount of time and proximity she couldn’t hope to match.

“I don’t know if you remember it but… The Uchiha’s reputation wasn’t so good, when we were kids.”

She shrugged – she couldn’t say she knew. Back then there wasn’t much distinction between the clans in her eyes – she just knew they were all above her and her family. Sasuke dismissed it.

“It goes back to the creation of the village. Anyway, the point is, there was a lot of discontentment among us at the time.  I never knew about any of that, just that when I was a kid we tended to keep to ourselves and didn’t get out of the district much. I remember there was even the question of whether or not to send us to the Academy at some point.”

“Really?”

“Hm. It was bad. Politically speaking. The clan felt sidelined and ostracized – it had been going on for years.”

Being so removed from the inner workings of the village, it made sense she would have been unaware of it. But by the time they had started the Academy, she couldn’t recall anything reflecting this.

“What changed then?”

“There was… a shift in perspective. But…”

She tried not to get lost in speculation as she wondered what this had to do with the strain in his relationship with his dad. This was more than eight years ago.

“Before that… and it was completely by chance, that it took a different turn, but… The clan leadership had come up with a… solution. To that problem.”

“Which was?”

“Taking over.”

She munched pensively on a takoyaki.

“Taking over what?”

“The village.”

The food went down the wrong way – she coughed, eyes watering as she forced the piece out. He tapped on her back with an apologetic look.

“Are you serious?”

“I found out by chance – I’ve been spending a lot of time in the Archives for Tsunade-Sama. There was a record… I confronted my dad about it. I was so… so angry, that they truly intended to go through with it, to take up arms right here in the middle of the village, to prompt a civil war just because… Because we didn’t get the respect we deserved, because we weren’t as powerful as we used to be. We got into an argument. It was pretty ugly. We haven’t really spoken since.”

To rule-abiding, righteous Sasuke, it was a capital offense to put selfish interests above the common good. He had carried his outrage around Wave Country the whole time they were there, confused as to why they couldn’t just help. He didn’t need the money they made from the missions, so it was even harder a pill to swallow. He would always choose to prevent a fight, if he could, but would always fight to right a wrong too.

“What did he say?”

“He talked about the clan. How I couldn’t understand what it was to be its leader – he also had to deal with the fact that neither me nor Itachi will succeed him… And I asked him how terrible a leader you had to be, to think the best thing to do for us was to overthrow the Hokage and put us in his place. It wasn’t a… very productive discussion.”

Sasuke hadn’t gotten any better at ill-fitted euphemism. The hurt was obvious in his voice – she could only imagine the kind of words they might have thrown at each other.

“Your mother?”

“In the end, she’s on his side, whether she approves or not.”

“And your brother?”

A different kind of pain crossed his face this time. She could tell he wasn’t being entirely forthcoming, and she couldn’t just let it slide – she had a feeling they wouldn’t discuss it again. If she didn’t get the truth now, he would keep it to himself.

“What aren’t you telling me, Sasuke?”

He rested his elbows on his knees to stare into the water. In the hospital he wore clips to keep his bangs out of his face, but they were free to fall and hide his face now. His hitai-ate was tied around his waist, holding his haori closed. It suited him, made him look older, kind of dignified. He looked more solemn than ever like this.

“I know it must be hard to recount. But I wasn’t there, I can’t just guess…”

“That’s not it. I didn’t… I didn’t tell anyone about it. No one knows.”

She let that sink in.

“Do you want to tell me?” she asked quietly, almost shy, not wanting him to shut off.

“I just… I couldn’t tell the others. It’s too… much.”

He clicked his tongue, displeased with his choice of words.

“What, you think they couldn’t handle it?” she joked. He didn’t catch her tone and was serious when he answered.

“I don’t know. I don’t know them like I know you.”

She gasped in surprise, caught off guard by the sudden admission. He blushed a little, as he did when he realized his words had been heard, couldn’t be caught back.

“Well. You know what I mean.”

“Do I?”

“Come on, don’t make me say it.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Sasuke had two standard getaways when he was being teased – get angry and shut it off, or out-tease his opponent. Unfortunately for her, she was often a victim of the second option. She wasn’t as immune to him as Ino was, maybe because they were much closer.

He sat up to stare at her, straight in the eyes.

“You’re my best friend, Sakura.”

Damn. She hated it when he did that. What could she do except blush to the root of her hair and bite her lips to temper her too wide smile? That bastard!

“I hate you,” she mumbled. She wasn’t ready to claim defeat though. “What about Naruto then?”

She didn’t think the name would slip so easily on her tongue. He looked stricken for a moment and she feared she had killed whatever mood they had managed to set up, but he decided to play along, to leave the pain at the door, for once.

“It’s… different.”

And it was, for both of them. Despite everything Naruto was still the one who had stepped in that day, who had seen her getting hurt and thought he ought to do something about it when he had no reason to. Who had pulled her up from the ground, and she’d looked up ever since – even though he was shorter than her.

And to Sasuke… he was the first, the first connection he’d made all on his own, without the intercession of his brother or his family name, without his clan factoring in in any way. And others had followed, but Naruto outshone them all.

“Don’t think I’ve forgotten about my questions,” she said, to pull them out of the spiral, banish the melancholia. Naruto wouldn’t appreciate them letting him cause them pain when he wasn’t even here.

In the face of his reluctance, she tried to find an angle to pry at, wondering what was missing from his story, that would make it a different matter.

“What happened that changed their mind? Your father, the others. Why didn’t they go through with it?”

He frowned, tensing up – it was the right guess.

“The… the Hokage knew. At the time, he knew what they were planning.”

“So they… talked it out?” she asked without much conviction. He wouldn’t look so anguished if they had, so torn.

“There was this whole affair. A man named Danzo, a higher-up, friend of the Sandaime. He was in charge of some secret operations, he had a lot of power. He was arrested around that time.”

“That… does ring a bell. My parents were very shocked. Wasn’t there a teacher who died?”

“Hm.”

“So? What about him?”

“This man, he had a solution. About the Uchiha planning an uprising. Do you get it, it was just luck, it was… That teacher died and he was arrested and they only find out afterward. They didn't stop him, we just got lucky."

“What didn’t they stop? What did he plan to do? Sasuke…”

“It’s easy, no? If a group of people is causing trouble there’s one very easy way to deal with it.”

She was struck speechless, staring at his hardened face, his shining eyes. He was griping at his hands in a hold that looked painful. He couldn’t meet her eyes.

“I couldn’t tell the others. I couldn’t. It was too much.”

How was this possible? Things didn’t work that way. They couldn’t just… She could see why he would keep it to himself. To process it on his own first, but then how? How to break such a story, to all of them and their name, so ingrained in their identity?

“Shikamaru said… you had a rough time. After. He said you might just tell me the whole story…”

“I think he suspects. He’s too smart. I think he tried to get his dad to talk about it, and he got mad when he wouldn’t. They all… Their parents knew, so maybe… But we don’t talk about it. It’s too much,” he said again, for lack of a better way to phrase it.

“How did you… move past it?”

He must have been so lost, adrift, if he couldn’t even turn to his family for support. She had never regretted being away as much as she did at this moment. She wished she’d been here, to see him through it.

“For a while I… I didn’t know what to do anymore. I mean, if it could get to this point… I didn’t know who to turn to. But I was pretty advanced in my training already.”

“Tsunade-sama?”

He nodded, and some tension let out in his body, easing just a little.

“She thought I was right to be angry, and distraught, and to feel betrayed. She didn’t try to make excuses, or to tell me that I just didn’t get it. She was… angry too. She told me not to give up. That it was up to us to take a different path.”

That’s why he was so defensive of her then, and devoted too. She took him seriously, a novelty for him – for all of them really.

“So… your brother?”

He shook his head.

“I didn’t ask. I know he was involved, somehow. He was in Anbu at the time. He… took orders from  that man. Shisui too. They left after that. I don’t… I didn’t ask.”

Someone had reported the clan’s plans to the higher ups, someone had been their eyes. For Itachi and Shisui to leave the Anbu altogether… But the clan hadn’t punished them. What then?

“Itachi was so shaken, I remember it clearly, because it was shocking, to see him that way. He was lost for a long time after that, aimless. He’s doing better now.”

She didn’t think she would ever see Sasuke talk about his brother this way.

Like he was the older one.

“Thank you. For telling me.”

“It’s not that I… I never planned to hide it from you. But…”

She thought back on what Shikamaru had said. He was terribly gauche with this sort of things, but he had good insight into Sasuke’s mind.

“I won’t… think any less of your family. And you. We move forward. Don’t we?”

He looked relieved. He nodded, determined.

“Always.”

.

“You look tired.”

“That’s because I am.”

Jiraiya raised a pointed eyebrow and Tsunade relented, threw her pen on her desk and raised her head from the letter she had been getting a headache over for the past hour. Trying to politely tell the Raikage that his concerns were appreciated but that no, Konoha didn’t need Kumo’s help to ensure their own security despite the disappearance of their jinchuuriki wasn’t her idea of an afternoon well spent. How dare that asshole, when he was short a Tailed Beast too? Did he believe the news not to have traveled as fast as Naruto and Gaara’s departure had, once the two villages had confronted each other about it? Tsunade needed to think carefully about what their strategy would be for the next chunin exam, set to happen in Kumo. A was getting way too enterprising for her taste – she was wary of his ambitions and knew him to be yet another party to be on the missing jinchuuriki’s tail. With so many people looking for them, it was astonishing no one had managed to find them yet.

“Nana.”

She startled out of her thoughts when her friend yanked her chair away from her desk, almost leaving her behind to fall on the floor.

“What the hell!”

“If you won’t take a break, I’ll make you.”

She glared up at him and his shit-eating grin, but there was real concern under his mischief. With a long sigh, she got up from her chair, stretching her numb limbs before taking the five steps needed to sprawl on her beloved couch. He came to sit too, lifting her legs to settle under before laying them back on his laps. She let out a long exhale when he started to massage her calves.

“You were always good at this,” she commented, eyes closed against the glaring light. He hummed but didn’t answer. She welcomed the silence and the attention, just for a moment.

She was tired. Terribly so, and it was a well-established fact by now, though she had to admit the clan leaders and senior shinobi had been pulling their weight more and more lately. Shizune was as efficient as ever, if not more.

And, well. She had her adorable student too.

“I still can’t believe you took an Uchiha as your apprentice,” he commented, wisely stirring the discussion away from current affairs.

“That’s not why I accepted.”

“Could have been why you’d refused though. What made you change your mind?”

“Are you still mad I stole him from under your nose?”

He didn’t rise to the bait.

“No. Sakura turned out just fine, even if she’s a horrible brat.”

The girl had merits to have followed Jiraiya around for two full years and not buried him in a ditch. He was obviously fond of her.

“Look at us. To think we used to swear up and down we’d never get saddled with troubling kids.”

It was a recurring joke between them when they were younger. Tsunade didn’t like kids and kids didn’t like Jiraiya – seeing how much white hair they gave their own teachers, they figured it wasn't worth the hassle.

There was only ever Orochimaru to be taken with the idea of passing on his knowledge, leave his mark on the next generation.

“I agreed because his father didn’t approve,” she confessed eventually.

“Ha, really?”

“It’s stupid, isn’t it? I can’t believe I’m still not over my own issues with my heritage… But those Uchiha, they were always so prideful, so attached to their name. It made me curious, I guess. But more importantly…”

She sat up, feeling it wouldn’t do to have this conversation sitting down. Jiraiya gestured at her to turn around. She did, taking off her haori so that he could massage her shoulders and back.

“You know what happened, or well, didn’t. With the Uchiha.”

“Ah, yeah. That.”

“They’re not so discontented anymore but… If Sasuke and Itachi, and anyone else for that matter, don’t feel like putting their clan above all else after all, I’m not about to discourage that.”

“Does he know about all this? The boy.”

Tsunade grimaced at the memory.

“He found out a few months back. Most of it anyway.”

“Must have been unpleasant.”

Sasuke and Fugaku were still not on speaking terms. Sasuke had been shaken to his core and his drive had wavered for a while as he doubted everything he had ever believed in. She wouldn’t have it though. She wouldn’t let him lose hope, give up, like she had.

“The kids have a lot of fight in them.”

“And you plan on using that.”

“I won’t make the same mistake our teacher did. I’m okay with doing this for ten more years, twenty, if I can be sure of what will come after. It’s not… It’s not power we need, it’s no strength. They all have plenty to spare but… I want to move us past it.”

“What do you need then, Nana? You only have to ask.”

But what she needed, he couldn’t provide. No one could, not for sure. She had to build up to it herself, she had to make sure…

“We can’t have another war.”

Tsunade didn’t sleep at night. She kept replaying the latest letters, the latest news. She kept thinking about Naruto – where he was, what he was doing, with whom. Kept wondering if he knew how much rested on his shoulders even if he did nothing, how unbalanced their world was becoming now that he, and others like him, were deciding not to weigh in anymore.

“You know, Hyuuga Hiashi, he had this kind of fight in him too. He believed he could change the world, when he was younger.”

“I heard about what happened.”

That mess was best not reflected upon. It was a huge liability to have the Byakugan roaming around unprotected, but if no one could find the kid, then no one could find him, and she washed her hands of it for now.

“It’s Inuzuka Tsume who told me,” she went on. “They wanted things to change, they wanted to have it different than their parents had. But the Third Shinobi War came, and it sucked everything out of them. They turned back inward, retreated, buried their heart behind thicker walls because the loss was too great and too senseless. And they had to give everything they had to the village then, to how things were, because it had to be worth it, if they sacrificed so much for it.”

She pressed her fingers into her eyes to push back traitorous tears. All those lives, all those dreams, all this energy and hope, wasted. And for what? What had they gained, what was the point?

“We have to spare them this.”

They had to finally raise a generation that wouldn’t go to war. That could focus on something else, on growing, on taking their world forward.

“Is there any unrest? Because of the jinchuuriki’s disappearance?”

“It’s hard to tell. No one dares move for now, because we don’t know where they are. Who’s to say they’re not being hoarded by one of the villages? Or dead already?”

“Come on. They’re not.”

She wanted to believe it too, but she couldn’t be sure, and neither could the other Kage.

“There’s something else I needed to talk to you about. Two months ago, we had an enemy intrusion. Not an attack, no one was hurt or killed.”

“What did they do then?”

“They dug up some graves. In the cemetery.”

Jiraiya’s hands stilled on her shoulders for a brief moment, before he resumed his work.

“Do you have a culprit?”

“Yakushi Kabuto, according to the investigation. We couldn’t catch him but- there’s little doubt. He was a genin here. And he was Orochimaru’s spy.”

She let the information sink in, let Jiraiya drew his own conclusions. Orochimaru never told them much about his works and they never took much interest either, but he still liked to ramble and they indulged him, as friends did.

Among the many forbidden jutsu he wanted to study, this one was particularly worrying, for everyone involved. And if he dared to come and collect samples within the village…

“I’ll ask around. See if other locations went through the same,” Jiraiya said, voice hard. She nodded. It was nice to have someone she didn’t need to order around.

“Hokage-sama.”

They turned to the doors. It was Yurika, from the cryptanalysis team. She bowed before walking in, handing a message to Tsunade.

It sported the Kazekage’s seal.

.

“I don’t like this.”

Naruto earned himself a strong punch on the shoulder for that comment. He rubbed at his arm, annoyed.

“What? What was that for?”

“Where were you when I was trying to talk them out of it,” Neji accused, glaring.

“I said I didn’t like it. I didn’t say they shouldn’t go.”

Neji’s frown deepened – Naruto was convinced it was perpetually etched into his face. He was a hypocrite too. If he really wanted to convince them, he could have done so, easily enough. As if Gaara would say no to anything he asked.

They watched from the side Gaara and Karin getting ready to head out of the cave, and not, as usual, for a quick trip to a nearby town where everyone actively pretended nothing was amiss with a group of teenagers looking nothing alike the locals and coming in and out of nowhere on a regular basis.

“I don’t like this,” Naruto repeated louder to catch their attention. Gaara didn’t react but Karin rolled her eyes, with an added sigh for good measure.

“We heard you the first ten times, and you agreed. I don't like it either but we’re going, so shut up.”

She flipped her long coat, just for the dramatics. Naruto stuck his tongue at her.

“Thank you,” Gaara said, voice low and barely audible, flat but heartfelt nonetheless. Karin waved a hand around, dismissive.

“Don’t mention it. Ready?”

Naruto was truly worried, despite their attempts at levity. Neji was sulking, so it was up to him to see their friends off – the rest were out collecting information and trying to find out what was being said about them in the world.

“You’ll be careful right?” Naruto asked, coming close enough to wrap a hand around Karin’s wrist, willing her to hear his concern. He saw her swallowing another jab – she knew to read the mood, on occasions.

“Of course we will. Everything will be fine. We’ll be back soon.”

Gaara squeezed his shoulder, eyes boring into his with his usual intensity. Naruto didn’t like them being apart, but it would have been a rare show of stupidity for them to both go – Karin’s words.

After all, they were heading to Suna.

Chapter Text

Sakura was out for yet another errand, stretching it as long as she could. She was so bored she was thinking about going to find Jiraiya for some training, that’s how desperate she was for something to do. She had passed the written exam for the chunin promotion the day before – a formality, and she would have regretted studying so much for something so basic if it hadn't occupied large portions of her time and if she didn't… enjoy studying. She hoped that once that was dealt with she could take up missions once more.

Letting her feet carry her as she was prone to do these days – she had discovered streets and corners she never even knew were there – she eventually caught sight of Shisui’s house.

Her parents didn’t like that she was friends with Naruto, so taking him to her house was always out of the question. In the same vein the Uchiha district was off-limit, for if Sasuke’s mother was always warm to their friend, the same couldn't be said for his father or the rest of his clan. Wherever they went in the village they would be followed by suspicious glares and unsubtle whispers, and there were just so many times they could eat at Ichiraku in a week.

All in all, they had spent a lot of time at Shisui’s place, in the three years Naruto had lived there.

Shisui always had a smile and some snacks in store, he always seemed happy to see them. They piled up into Naruto's room to read comic books and draw experimental explosive tags. Naruto was always tense and hostile as soon as he was out in the world – as the world was always hostile to him. Here was the only place they got to see this version of him, the one that didn’t have to bear the resentment of an entire village on his shoulders.

The one she missed the most.

“Sakura? Is that you?”

Lost in thought, she hadn’t heard Shisui approach. He was holding some grocery bags and he was smiling, warm and a little sad, still the same.

“Do you want to come in? I’ll make some tea.”

She followed him inside.

The entrance and the little kitchen were the same. She sat at the table and watched him putter around with practiced ease, so that he could soon put a steaming cup of tea and some biscuits in front of her.

He had always acted like an older brother to all of them. It seemed to come naturally to him, she could only imagine how good a teacher he made for the children at the Academy, and how great an instructor he would make to a future genin team.

Sometimes she wondered if Naruto would have left even sooner, had it not been for him.

“How are you, Sakura?”

It came naturally, to tell him the truth.

“It’s weird to be back. So much has changed, and I wasn’t there for any of it. I’ve missed everyone but… it was nice out there. I don’t know.”

“It’s normal to feel off-balance now. It will pass.”

“I guess. It’s just… they all seem to have found their place. They know what’s they’re supposed to do.”

Most of her friends had had their goals in mind for quite some time, since they were kids even. But what about her? She didn’t know where to go from there.

“That also means they’re set in their path now. You still have time to choose. It’s not a bad thing.”

It was something else she feared. Getting stuck. She knew she would soon want to travel again – she had come to love their wandering, going from town to town, meeting so many new people with lives so different from hers. But she didn’t want to be like Jiraiya, unattached and lonely. She wanted something to return to, wanted to know there was a place waiting for her at home. So that she would never be lost.

They were interrupted by the front door opening, and in came another man, about Shisui’s age, dark hair, white eyes, handsome but gloomy face…

It was Hyuuga Tokuma.

She wasn’t too proud of the way she stared. She had met him a handful of times before, as he often came by Shisui’s place back then, but she was seeing him in a whole different light now.

She couldn’t help but feel he had to think of the place the same way she did – sanctuary, away from prying eyes, from steadfast judgments. A lot of Shisui’s friends seemed to gravitate around the house. Maybe it was the reason.

“Tokuma. You remember Sakura, right?”

“Yes. Hello.”

“Ah, hi!”

She winced, cursing her terrible lack of manners.

“I’ll be out back,” the man said before disappearing down the corridor. She deflated, mortified.

“I take it that you heard about… that whole thing,” Shisui said with an indulgent chuckle. Her face was in flame but she resisted the urge to hide in her hands.

“Sorry. The others told me the other day and…”

“Ah, don’t worry about it. I guess it’s quite a shock.”

“I… was wondering why Sasuke didn’t come to live here.”

“I’m not sure he would have wanted to. Use that room, I mean, even if it had been free. But yeah, I… I was the one to convince Tokuma. To give it a try, so that he could keep working at the Academy with me. I didn’t think… Well, neither of us expected it do go down that way. He didn’t want to stay at the compound after everything. And I had a spare room, you know? It was the least I could do for him.”

Life went on, she supposed. She wanted to be crossed at him for giving Naruto’s room to somebody else, but what else was he supposed to do? Leave it sealed forever?

“I didn’t touch it for a while. In case… But well.”

In case Naruto was coming back. But he wasn’t, was he?

“I don’t think he blames you,” she said, to stir them away from that topic. “Tokuma, I mean.”

“In the end, it was all for the best, probably. But it’s… It’s frustrating, you know. If it had to end that way, surely we could have avoided a lot of suffering in the process.”

She wondered what they were talking about exactly. She supposed it went for everything. If they knew the outcome from the start, surely they would do things differently. Spare themselves some heartache. But who was to say it wasn't their struggle and pain that brought about those endings? 

Nothing was ever set in stone.

She couldn’t help thinking about what Sasuke had confessed to her, how the Uchiha could have risen to power or be crushed mercilessly, how it had been avoided by chance, how it took so little, to change fate.

She was racking her brain to find something to say, that would alleviate the heavy mood they had unwittingly brought down on themselves. In the end they were saved by…

Meowing?

Shisui got up hastily to open the kitchen’s window, where a small, lithe cat, black as the night or the Uchiha’s hair, was meowing with great insistence.

“It’s Sasuke’s cat,” Shisui explained.

He took a swipe of its claws for that remark. She didn’t think it was possible for a cat to look so haughty.

“Ouch, I know, I know, you’re not his cat. What is it Jiji?”

The cat meowed in her direction.

“Follow him. Sasuke probably sent him after you. Ouch, I know, I know, you came because you wanted to! Stop that!”

She jumped to her feet. He sent her off with a nod, still massaging his clawed up hand, and she dashed after the cat through the Konoha streets.

She thought he would lead her to the hospital, but she soon recognized the way to the Hokage Tower. She climbed the stairs in rush, sparing a quick thought to the inherent impracticality of the Hokage office being so high up.

She arrived out of breath and sweaty and she swore the cat was mocking her. He climbed Sasuke’s clothes to perch on his shoulder. The boy gave him an absent pat, looking preoccupied but relieved to see her.

She bowed to the Godaime and her assistant, by her side as always. Kakashi was here too, along with Shikamaru, and Temari. It was her face that set the alarm, that made worry spike in Sakura’s guts.

“We received words from Suna,” Tsunade began immediately, waving a piece of paper for emphasis.

“My brother was poisoned,” Temari cut in with a rush. Sakura held back at the last moment a comment the likes of “isn’t your brother gone?”. She remembered the other one. “He was attacked outside the village, that’s all it says,” Temari said, shaken but fighting to keep it together. “The poison is unknown but they… it says it’s slow going. He should have five days, at most, before…”

“They asked for our help,” the Hokage went on. “Kakashi, your team will stay under Kurenai’s supervision for now, I want you to take these two and go to Suna. Sasuke, I’ve taught you enough to send you. Ask Marco to give you some resources that could help you with the poison. Sakura, your written test was flawless – I’m told it was to be expected, coming from you. We’ll indulge in a bit of protocol later, but for now I’m granting you the rank of chunin informally. You are to escort Temari back to her village and assist them in any way you can."

It was three days to go to Suna. There was no time to waste.

.

Temari didn’t expect anything from the Hokage. She was fully prepared to leave Konoha on her own, with a pack of medicines and good luck wishes.

But maybe she should have known. She had seen how things went in their village these days, how the Godaime Hokage handled her duties.

Temari couldn’t deny being inspired.

The woman had taken the news as seriously as if it had been from her own people. “We are allies,” she had simply said at Temari’s shocked expression, and of course Temari couldn’t tell her that had the situation been reversed, her father surely wouldn’t have interpreted this word the same way. She didn’t doubt the woman knew anyway, and it made it even more puzzling – she had to know alliances were fleeting things between the villages, short-lived and almost inconsequential. Yet she was determined to honor it anyway.

“He made it back on his own but collapsed at the doors of Suna, so it’s not a paralytic at least,” the Uchiha rambled, citing the message from memory. “Five days as a first estimation, but there’s a good chance they’ll manage to slow it down.”

It would take them almost three days to make it to Suna, and so much could happen in that time…

Was she going to find her brother dead upon returning home? She couldn’t bear the thought.

“If it’s a slow process, it can be controlled in some way, even if they don’t find a cure, he just has to hold on until we arrive.”

“Because you’ll find it, you?” she called out, unable to keep the venom from her tone. He didn’t pick up on it though. Simply answered, full of conviction.

“Yes.”

Somehow it was a little reassuring.

Hatake Kakashi wasn’t just anyone. Uchiha Sasuke was the Hokage’s head disciple, and Haruno Sakura’s master was the Sannin Jiraiya himself. Konoha could have spared any number of expendable low-ranking shinobi to send to Suna’s aid, but it was with those three Temari was traveling the way back now.

She would have taken the time to appreciate this development, had she not been consumed with worry for her brother.

Kankuro and she had grown a lot closer in the past few years, as she fought her way up Suna’s hierarchy with his support. He accused her of working too hard to distract herself, and she said nothing because he was probably right. If she didn’t work her ass off to the brink of exhaustion, she was left to think, and if she was left to think, she would think of Gaara.

And there were only so many nights she was willing to lose to tears and regrets.

In retrospect, she didn’t understand how she could have been so blind-sided by Gaara’s escape. As if it was surprising in any way. Their father had been enraged by Gaara’s closeness with the jinchuuriki of Konoha, and he had restricted his movements more than ever upon their return to Suna after the chunin exam, under the guise of protecting him from a group seemingly after him. Temari had thought it would make her brother snap, but there didn’t seem to be anything left in him of the innate violence that had inhabited him all his life. Whatever the Nine-Tails host had done to him, the change was hysterical – Gaara simply… didn’t have any of that rage left in him.

Maybe that was why she hadn’t seen it coming. She had thought, in her supreme naivety, that it meant he would be returned to them, that they could finally try to build something between them.

The worst thing was to know he had not hesitated for one damn second. At first, they had thought he had been kidnapped, with terrifying efficiency, for who could subdue Gaara like this, in a matter of minutes, in the very heart of the village without alerting anyone?

Of course it wasn’t what happened. Not that they knew for sure, but they wasted so much time wondering how someone could snatch Gaara like this while the most likely scenario was far simpler. It was that Naruto kid, who made it to Suna a few months after deserting his own village and snuck in undetected. Maybe if he had stayed longer, they would have been able to catch him. But he was in and out of Gaara’s room, Gaara in tow, leaving easily.

Gaara had just been waiting for him all this time. She felt so foolish now for her attempts at reaching out to him, for feeling so pleased when it seemed like he would indulge her.

Kankuro had turned to anger. He was mad at Gaara, at Naruto, at the Biju, their father, the village, the world. At her too, she was sure, but she had decided to turn all her energy into fixing everything within her reach that could be fixed in Suna, and he was on board, if only to get in the way of their father.

She couldn’t lose him too. There was no way she would be able to bear it.

They didn’t talk much during the trip. Well they didn’t talk much to her – the two chunin whispered a lot between themselves during what little break they took. Sakura was just back home after a long time away and they had a lot to catch up on, and they respected her need to freak out in peace, or they just didn’t care, fortunately. She didn’t need to make any friends in Konoha, thank you very much.

She couldn’t help observing them though. Temari never had a team of her own. She was only ever paired up with her brothers, to look after them and keep them in check since no one else would. Not that anyone would have wanted her either. She was Gaara’s brother, guilty by association.

The two chunin were close to the man too, their former instructor, if she got it right. They joked and teased, they were comfortable with one another. Sakura had spoken fondly of them, the little she had talked about them in the teashop.

Temari didn’t long for a team, she didn’t long for friends. But she wished they could have had that, her brothers and her.

Three weeks in Konoha had been a bit much for her. She missed Suna already, and she felt uncomfortable in the Leaf, even if it wasn’t supposed to be enemy territory anymore. Shikamaru’s presence had made it bearable because it was funny how he was never on board with anything but went along anyway. He tried way too hard, but it wasn’t any performance for the sake of an audience – it was solely to fit his own requirements.

It was sort of endearing.

Shikamaru was probably the closest thing she had to a friend, as depressing as it sounded.

They traveled as fast as they could. At the beginning of the third day, they intercepted a Suna hawk on its way to Konoha.

It dumped a message in Temari’s waiting hands, a copy of the one making its way to the other village. It was the second message from their fastest hawk in as many days, and she dreaded to read the news it carried. The message was sealed, for her eyes only.

She read it once. Twice. She read it again.

The paper slipped from her fingers.

The jounin picked it up as she stood there, shaking, but only to give it back to her.

“I don’t know the code,” he said, apologetic. They couldn’t read it. She had to tell them.

“It was… It was the Akatsuki that ambushed my brother on his way back from a solo mission. And they… They launched an attack on Suna. Just a few hours ago.”

“What did they want? What did they do?”

“They… They fought with my father. The Kazekage. He’s…”

She cleared her throat of the panic clogging it, slowly rising.

“They don’t know. If he’ll… They don’t know.”

“Critical condition” could only be a euphemism if it concerned the leader of their village. It was now two members of her family at death’s door, and she wasn’t there. And to top it all…

“There were two assailants.”

“Just two?”

“According to this…”

There was no reason to doubt these words, but she still had a hard time wrapping her head around it.

“The one who poisoned my brother is a master puppeteer. The most famous one Suna ever knew, actually. His name is Sasori. Sasori of the Red Sand.”

She couldn’t help but believe it was on purpose. One of their own, to bring them down.

“I’ve heard of him”, Hatake Kakashi said. “He made quite a name for himself during the Third Shinobi War.”

“Why the Red Sand?” Sakura asked. Temari grimaced.

“Can’t you guess?” she shot back, harsh.

She could, judging her expression. Temari remembered the not so kind things said about him. He wasn’t twenty when he had earned the title. People found him strange, unsettling. But for them…

“Sasori, Sasori! Can you do another puppet show? Please, please!”

That was where Kankuro had gotten it from. Sasori had vanished from the face of the Earth eleven years ago. He had been declared dead. Kankuro had been inconsolable.

And Gaara… It was a few months before Yashamaru’s death. Sasori was the other one of the two persons who willingly spent time with the child, even if it was just to study his control over sand.

Gaara had asked for Sasori a lot, after he was gone. Then he had come back home one night with a bloody tattoo on his forehead and a crazed spark in his eyes, along with the news that their uncle was dead, after attempting to murder him.

He had stopped calling for their older cousin after that. He had stopped asking for anything really.

And here was the Red Sand resurfacing now, with the Akatsuki. It didn’t make any sense.

“There was another one. Young, but that’s all we know. An adept of explosives, apparently.”

Which made the damage to Suna impossible to determine. The message was vague on the matter. How many casualties, how many injured? How many destroyed buildings, how spread out the attack?

“We need to hurry then,” the jounin pressed, pulling her out of her trance. They resumed running, at double the speed. They ran the remaining distance in record time. Under those circumstances, it was shallow relief to see the rising shadow of Suna floating above the sand. She barreled through the gates, jumping on the first guard she could find.

“Temari-sama, you’re back! You…”

“Where’s my brother? Tell me!”

“The-The central hospital. But you have to know…”

She didn’t wait around to listen to what she “had to know”. She would know soon enough, whatever terrible news it had to be to make the guard look that way.

She dashed through the streets, trusting the Konoha tag-along would follow. She saw traces of fighting, damaged buildings, rubbles blocking the way. Few people were wandering about when the streets should have been bustling with activity, and they looked stunned, somber.

There was a hole in the side of the hospital, a few rooms open to the dry air of the desert as the external wall had been blasted out.

She scared the nurse at the front desk, who could only point her in the right direction with a weak hand gesture, and burst into one of the rooms.

Several things happened at once.

She recognized the old Chiyo and her brother in a corner of the room, no doubt here to assist with the poison. They in turn recognized something in her back – the old Chiyo jumped forward, but Temari was focused on her brother laying on an observation table in the middle of the room, shaking and sweating profusely, face contorted in pain. The Uchiha was close by. Baki was there too.

There was a commotion. Something about Hatake Kakashi killing someone – talk about some news. She ignored them.

“I’ll set to work,” the Uchiha said to no one in particular, hands glowing green already.

“Please,” she whispered, not sure who she was talking to either.

He put two hands on Kankuro’s torso. In went chakra. Out came the poison.

“Hand me that basin,” he commanded without looking away from his task. She obeyed. He dumped the poison in, repeated the process.

Baki tried to talk to her, but she couldn’t hear him. She was focused on Kankuro’s face, pale like the dead and shining with sweat. His lips were bitten raw, his brows knitted painfully.

After a few minutes though, fewer and fewer poison came out, and his body relaxed bit by bit. He exhaled, breathing again. She did too.

“He’s out of trouble,” the Uchiha declared, wiping his brow. "We need to prepare an antidote, to purge the rest, but he'll be fine."

Her knees nearly buckled under her weight and she had to seek support from the table, fighting to stay upright. The day was far from over.

“As good as the slug,” the old Chiyo commented from behind the boy. He turned, bowed respectfully.

“I am Tsunade-hime’s student. I’m here on her behalf.”

She looked at him with some measure of distaste, but he had just saved Kankuro’s life – as far as Temari was concerned, he was her new best friend.

“Where is my father? What’s the situation?”

“He’s in the operation room right now,” the old Chiyo replied with a light tone, perfectly casual. “No way to tell if he’ll pull through.”

It was Sakura who brought back a semblance of order into the room. Old Chiyo was still casting nefarious looks at Kakashi, Temari was struggling to put her thoughts in order and the Uchiha was busy examining Kankuro – it was good of the girl to step in.

She went to stand in front of Baki, sketched a quick bow.

“Hello again, Sir.”

“Ah. I remember you, Haruno Sakura. You’re Jiraiya’s student.”

“We were sent to help by Konoha.”

“It’s only the three of you?”

“We were to assist with the recovery of your men. We got your second message on the way, Konoha will have received it by now. Reinforcements will come. Please, tell us what happened.”

Kankuro sat up with some difficulties on the observation table. He looked up at Temari, regrets and rage dancing in his feverish eyes. The Uchiha tried to stop him – Kankuro batted his hands away with a snarl.

“It was a trap. It was all a trap, all of it, from the start.”

Baki looked reluctant, but now wasn’t the time for petty rivalry. If they had sent for help, then they needed it, there was no point in backing off now.

“Six days ago, Kankuro was attacked by two members of the Akatsuki and mortally poisoned. One of them identified himself as Sasori of the Red Sand, the other remains unknown. They came back today.” His tone was blank, and he was avoiding Temari’s gaze. “They infiltrated the village and wreaked havoc, despite our best efforts. These people are unlike anything we’ve ever seen. The Kazekage fought them but…”

How powerful did they have to be to take her father down like this?

“Why? What did they want? Why did they come?”

“I told you. It was a trap,” Kankuro said bitterly. His body was full of tension, not out of pain anymore, but a familiar frustration and outrage.

“A-a trap? For father?”

She was flexing and unflexing her hands, longing to reach out but unable to move, rooted in place.

“For Gaara.”

She was getting dizzy from the whiplash.

“What… What does Gaara have to do with anything?”

“He came for me! It was the trap, don’t you get it?”

No she didn’t, but she managed to lay a hand on his shoulder, when she realized his eyes were shining, chest heaving with contained sobs.

“You saw him? He was here?”

Kankuro nodded once.

“It went exactly as they planned. Temari, they were waiting for me. For me, specifically. I guess they didn’t get any more luck than us at tracking him down, and they grew tired of trying. They figured… they thought it would lure him out. If I was…”

“No. No, that’s not… why would he…”

“It worked. He came.”

It was probably the most outlandish thing, the hardest to believe, out of all the things she had heard today. It made no sense, there was no way.

“He was with another girl. A medic. They spread the word on purpose, he heard about what happened. He brought her here. To me.”

Temari couldn’t be blamed for her body giving in then. She had the good sense of dropping on the observation table instead of sinking to the ground. She sat against Kankuro’s back. They leaned subtly on each other as she tried to process what he was saying.

Gaara had heard Kankuro was in grave danger, and he had come. He had brought help. That wasn’t…

No, she couldn’t wrap her head around it.

“How do you know all that?” Kakashi asked, tone deceptively light where she could swear he was in the mindset of an interrogation. “How do you know it was their plan?”

“Because they told me.”

“You knew it was them then,” the Uchiha pointed out, taking his attention away from his patient for the first time since his arrival. “You knew it was the Akatsuki from the start. Why didn’t your first message said so? More of us would have come!”

She would have doubted that a few days ago, but the Godaime Hokage had proved her goodwill, and Konoha also had a vested interest in the pursuit of the Akatsuki.  Temari recognized Baki’s closed off face right away, for having seen it many times before. The one that said “I followed an order I didn’t agree with.”

“What did you do? Baki, what…”

“We can assume that Gaara knew the Akatsuki was after him,” Kakashi went on, calm but relentless. “Why would he risk coming here, out in the open for the first time in years, if he knew they were behind the attack? And why would they reveal their plan to you, knowing you could spread the information? Warn him off?”

She understood then, just as the man did, it seemed. Kankuro looked down. Ashamed, she realized with a start.

“No. No.”

“It worked out exactly as they planned,” Kankuro said again.

“They told their plan to you,” she whispered, dumbstruck. “They told you, knowing you would report it to Father. And knowing that…”

“That he would try to take advantage of it. That he would go along with the plan, right?” Kakashi said, managing to sound calm and conversational still while she was boiling up in rage. “To lure Gaara here. So he didn’t know it was the Akatsuki’s doing. He came because he didn’t know.”

The absolute fury of their father when they had discovered Gaara was missing. The countless missions they had sent out to find him, dozens of spies, hundreds of coins spent for information, but nothing had turned out. Gaara was untraceable, and they would only learn almost a year later, during the chunin exam and the whole debacle with the meddling Yamanaka girl, that the jinchuuriki of Konoha was missing too, that they had most likely eloped together. Their father had been obsessed with finding him again.

Enough to go along with the Akatsuki’s plan. Enough to let them set a trap for him within the village, using Kankuro’s imminent death, probably convinced he could retrieve Gaara himself and fight off the organization, finally bring Suna’s jinchuuriki back in line.

“Wh-What happened then? Where’s…”

“They took the fight outside of the village. We sent teams after them. It seems… It seems that they managed to subdue Gaara. We’re tracking them down.”

The taste of blood flooded Temari’s mouth – she had bitten too hard on her tongue. This was a nightmare. She had come in worrying about her brother’s health, and now that he was fine, it was the two remaining members of their family who were in mortal danger.

“I need to go after them.”

She got up, reeling on her feet for a moment before she found her balance back. Actually no, she didn’t – it was Baki holding her arm that saved her from toppling over.

“You can’t.”

“Try and fucking stop me!”

“Enough, Temari! You’re in no state to be of any use in an outside mission. Many of our forces went out already, and many more were injured in yesterday’s attack. The one who isn’t Sasori used some kind of explosives, there is a lot of damages and casualties. Your father is down. You are needed here!”

It was all she had been working for, for the past two years, as she fought tooth and nails for a place among the commandment, for a chance to be listened to. She wanted to throw it out the window right now.

Baki squeezed her arm, shaking lightly, as if to wake her up. Unconsciously, she mimicked his breathing, as she used to when she was a child, to calm herself down form rising panic. They never spoke of it, pretending it didn’t happen.

She forced her mind to clear up, to get out of its hysterical state, to come back. For the sake of her family and her village, she needed to keep it together. She couldn’t afford to wallow. She wasn’t a child anymore.

“We’re here to assist, despite these new circumstances,” Kakashi interjected smoothly, giving her the time to catch her breath and calm her mind.

“We need to go after them!” Sakura exclaimed. “If…” She seemed to remind herself then, forced her voice to take on a milder tone. “If Gaara has been taken then… Others will come too.”

“What happened to the girl that was with him?” Kakashi asked Baki. Her mentor was still reluctant to share intel like this, but they were in too dire a situation to be picky.

“Vanished,” he said curtly.

“So she could have gone back to wherever they came from. Fetch help.”

The two Konoha chunin exchanged a loaded gaze. They weren’t going to say it, but their thought process was crystal clear, and pretty sound.

The chances were high that Konoha’s jinchuuriki would be found where Suna’s was.

“Our intent is to bring Gaara back to Suna,” Baki said, and there was something of a warning in his voice. Did he expect them to get in the way of this?

Temari would have missed it, had she not happened to be looking at Kankuro at that moment, but he looked… his eyes narrowed, just a fraction, his mouth thinned down to a displeased line.

“We will let you deal with your own, as we deal with ours,” Kakashi replied.

The exact same expression, on the Uchiha’s face. Keeping their lips tightly shut against… Against what?

A protest?

Wasn’t it what they wanted, for them to come home?

She didn’t know why it sat so badly with her too.

“Sasuke, how long do you need, to come up with an antidote?”

“I’m not sure… It depends on whether they have what I need here or not. But a few hours at least.”

“Don’t be pedant, child,” Old Chiyo said, sounding very pedantic herself. “We are well furnished here.”

“My apologies,” he answered immediately. “I meant no offense.”

It was impossible to say if he was genuinely contrite or practically polite, and the old woman was infuriated with no reason to say so. Whether intentional or not, it was well played.

“We’ll head out without you then. You’re needed here,” Kakashi insisted, when the boy made to protest.

“Your tracking skill will be no use in the desert,” Baki said. They had all agreed on the pedantic, it seemed. “The first scouts will return soon, with an idea of the route to follow. They’ll guide you through the desert. Wait until then.”

“Very well.”

They moved then, going to occupy themselves until they could head out. The old Chiyo took the Uchiha to the greenhouse, his friend in tow, Baki and Kakashi went to discuss strategy, or erotic literature, for all she knew.

She found herself alone with Kankuro, the silence blessed after such agitation. She had things to do too, maneuvers to plan, defenses to organize. She couldn’t bring herself to get up. She was sat back at Kankuro’s side, leaned against his arm.

“How… how was he?” she whispered, loud in the now quiet room.

“He seemed… fine. He didn’t talk much. The girl said more than him, as she examined me. I wasn’t in a good state so I couldn’t… I thought I was hallucinating.”

Gaara had been here. He had come back, all the way into the heart of the village, he had stood in this very room, just a few hours ago.

“Really, he was… He was fine, he was…”

She knew what he was trying to say.

Of course she had hoped and prayed that he was safe and sound somewhere, that he was okay. But maybe a tiny part of her had clung to the idea that he had been taken, that he had gone against his will and needed to be rescued. How awful was she, to wish he had been suffering, to wish him ill because he was away from them?

But he was fine. Whatever he had been doing, he was okay.

It hurt. It hurt.

.

The old woman had said they were “well-furnished”, and Sasuke could concede that for a greenhouse set up in the middle of the desert, their reserves were more than adequate.

But had he been working in Sai’s greenhouse, he would have been able to produce about two dozens doses of the antidote. As it was, he managed to scrape up just enough for three.

Maybe it was unfair to put it all on the climate though. Sai was just… like that. He had started working at the Yamanaka shop to lend a hand, because they were short on labor with Ino’s generations rising up the ranks in the ninja force, and now he grew almost everything they sold there and more. He had a disturbing passion for poisonous plants of all sorts. He could grow anything and everything, and he never took any precautions to handle those, no matter their toxicity. And he did it as a hobby – it had taken at least six months for him to mention in Sasuke’s vicinity that he effortlessly grew plants any doctor would kill to have for creating medicine – or poisons – and he had had the gall to be puzzled by Sasuke’s irritation at the late discovery.

Anyway, Sasuke was used to working with it now. He had packed a few essentials, but Suna missed some basic herbs that would have made this a lot easier. He wondered how ill-advised it would be to give them some suggestions on the matter – that old woman, Chiyo, seemed irked enough by their presence already.

“Sasuke, the first patrols are back, we’ll head out soon. Are you done?” Kakashi asked, striding into the greenhouse with his usual nonchalance.

“Hm,” he confirmed, turning off the heat and meticulously pouring the medicine in three glass vials.

The old woman was glaring daggers at his teacher – Kakashi’s father had killed her son and his wife, apparently. Her grudge was strange to Sasuke, for ninja killed each other all the time and surely if he had been ordered to take these two down, or had fought and defeated them during an attack, he wasn’t the one who should be held responsible.

Kakashi’s father was dead anyway, and where would they end up if they started charging children with the crimes of their parents? Besides, she was that Sasori’s grandmother...

“I’ll administrate it now, a few minutes will be enough to know if it was efficient. Then we can go.”

Sakura had been hovering around him at the beginning of the process, but he had soon shooed her away, her impatience too distracting. She didn’t like staying idle, but they couldn’t do much before the scouts were back. Sasuke had improved greatly his reserve of patience after two years of precise surgery, slow-going medical ninjutsu and medicine preparation… and the hassle of whining patients.

Some things couldn’t be rushed.

Her agitation was contagious though, knowing that those two men were getting further and further away with each minute, dragging with them Gaara and, maybe, a chance to enquire about Naruto.

Thinking about his friend wasn’t a distraction to him anymore. It was a constant, always playing at the back of his mind, and he could get through most of his duties without it disturbing him. He could walk back to Kankuro’s room and wonder how far Naruto was from him right now, he could pour the antidote down the boy’s throat and sort through the things he most wanted to say to his friend and which one would come out first. He could monitor the antidote’s effect and check his patient’s pulse while calling Naruto’s face to his memory, and trying to guess what changes could have occurred in him, how he would look. How he would look at him, if they came face to face, what his expression would be, what feelings would shine through, trying to find a balance between what he wished to see on that face and what was more likely to appear.

“You’re out of trouble. You’ll still feel stiff and aching for the next few hours, so rest until it passes.”

“Thank you.”

Sasuke was a little addicted to this very specific sort of satisfaction.

The main reason why he had decided to properly train in medical ninjutsu was to get close to Tsunade. She was the highest-ranking member of the village he could get as a master, the Hokage herself. He needed both her tutelage and the reputation it would get him, if he managed to keep up of course.

And oh, he had.

He worried it might be shallow of him, but the praise, the satisfaction on the woman’s face the first time she had watched him perform what he had learned, how she had immediately taken him aside to move on to the next level while the rest of her students stayed under Shizune’s patient guidance… Had he had any doubt about his choices before that, it would have been snuffed out in an instant right then. Tsunade had made no secret of how little she thought of his lineage and family name, it was even a downside in her eyes. So she wasn’t doing him any favor, her recognition wasn’t empty.

Proof enough was that it didn’t extend to Itachi.

He wasn’t bad, of course. Itachi wasn’t bad at anything. He was good, even.

Sasuke was just better.

It came naturally to him in a way offensive ninjutsu never did. It was easy to bend his chakra to the need of an injury or a disease, easy to know where to go, what to do. He had worked a tremendous amount on his chakra control, jealous for the first time in his life of Sakura and her gift in that department, but he made do with his own because this sort of control had nothing to do with what they did when training in attack. Medical ninjutsu required very little chakra at a time, but it had to be controlled to the utmost precision.

And Sasuke liked that.

So he had come for convenience and stayed because he was good at it, but very soon he had realized that… well, simply that nothing compared, and nothing ever would.

There was no such thing as village rivalry when it came to medic-nin. Kankuro was from Suna and there was no link whatsoever between them, but Sasuke could help him, so he had, and now his pain was gone and he would be fine.

Being a medic meant Sasuke could help everyone. Not just his village, not just the shinobi world, not just his superiors. Everyone, anyone. He could be useful, no matter the situation, he could make a difference.

And he would never tire of this.

“Our scouts picked up their trail at the doors of the deserts. Several teams are already on it, but the enemy is covering their traces well, so one more is more than welcome,” the jounin from Suna said – Baki. Sasuke couldn’t figure out what his role was, if he was more than a jounin or was simply close to the Kazekage’s family. He seemed protective of them anyway.

“Matsuri!”

A young girl, about Sasuke and Sakura’s age, stepped into the room. She tripped on her feet and though she managed to catch herself before falling over, it earned her a scornful look from her superior.

“Matsuri will take you through the desert.”

“Once we’re out, I’ll be able to pick up,” Kakashi said.

“I know your reputation as a tracker. You might have a better chance than our teams, but I count on you to relay your findings."

The man counted on it, but he didn’t trust it in any way. That was probably another mission of the girl – to make sure they didn’t do anything to Suna’s jinchuuriki in the process. It was pointless to be irked by this, since no words or sentiments would convince anyone of their goodwill on the matter, but it irked him all the same. Did they have to doubt each other still, to be wary and guarded, even now? Ah, of course they did. Trust if you want, Tsunade would say, but always assume that no one trusts you.

“I will accompany you.”

All heads swiveled to the old woman who had the gall to look surprised at their wide eyes. She silenced her brother before he, or anyone else, could protest.

“I need to take care of my grandson.”

Her tone booked no argument. Sasuke worried she would slow them down, but the Suna nin, despite their reluctance, didn’t protest. Age didn’t factor in the strength of a shinobi.

“I’ve lived long enough anyway,” she said with a laugh, uncomfortable in its misplaced cheerfulness. They didn’t have time to argue.

“It’s settled then,” Kakashi declared, final. “Let’s go.”

.

Tsunade crushed the message in her hand, hard enough that it would be barely legible anymore.

The Akatsuki hadn’t made any significant move since their intrusion in Konoha – why now? What was their goal, what were they trying to achieve, attacking Suna out of the blue?

“What team is closest to Suna now?” she asked Raido, who was handling the Assignment desk. He did a quick check through his notes.

“That would be Team Gai.”

“Send them a message immediately, they need to go to Suna.”

Did she need to go too? She could read between the lines – if something happened to Rasa… but she couldn’t afford to leave Konoha unprotected, no matter what her instincts demanded of her.

She was stuck under that hat – she couldn’t help any more than this.

.

It was lucky, that the two men were moving so slowly, but it was also infuriating. To move at such a leisurely path, to be so unguarded, they had to be confident enough in their own strengths, to know that they didn’t need to worry about their pursuers.

Unfortunately, Karin had seen what they could do. She knew it was well-founded.

At least it allowed her to tail them without too much difficulty, and without them noticing – had they been more alert, maybe they would have spotted her, but they simply didn’t care. For even if they knew she was there, what would it change? It wasn’t like she could do anything against either of them, let alone both at the same time.

For now she could only follow and focus on not losing sight of Gaara.

They were carrying him in some sort of flying bird made out of clay, but she knew not to take the younger man’s creations lightly. She had seen what it could do, the skin of her right arm still tender after she’d healed in a haste the burns caused by the first explosion. Gaara was unconscious, had been ever since one of those bombs had exploded inside his shield. Chakra depletion more than anything, if she had to guess.

They wouldn’t be in this situation if he hadn’t spent so much trying to protect his village, from yet another explosion that would have flattened half of Suna. It would have been good riddance in her opinion, one less problem to worry about, but she knew Gaara was still attached to that place, for some unfathomable reason.

It wasn’t supposed to go this way. There shouldn’t have been any trouble – get to Suna, heal the brother, get out. Easy, straightforward. And then barely five minutes after their arrival at the hospital, the wall in their back had been blasted away. The red clouds, familiar by now. She could as well have been a piece of furniture, for they went straight after Gaara.

A fucking trap. Of fucking course, because Gaara’s brother on the verge of dying just had to be a damn trap.

It hadn’t even occurred to them. The intel was sound, confirmed by one of Naruto’s foxes – Gaara’s brother was indeed poisoned, and they were indeed struggling to find a cure. Nothing about the Akatsuki. Because they didn’t know? Or was it on purpose? She didn’t put it above Suna to try and seize the opportunity to retrieve Gaara. Out of all the villages, they had been the most tenacious by far, compared to Konoha half-assed attempts. Not that Kumo and Taki had been that mellow, but they had different priorities.

Then again, Suna was the only one looking both for its jinchuuriki and its Kazekage’s son.

Karin suspected Gaara’s motivation to go to Suna at once had something to do with this too. Maybe he wanted to show them, that he was so far beyond their control that he could get in and out without care, that he was truly free from those shackles. Except it had backfired, quite spectacularly.

And now he was unconscious and she could only follow, sick with worry.

Akiko would have warned the others by now, but would they get there in time? And even if they did, would it be enough? The Akatsuki was no joke. And if Naruto came…

Ah, of course he would, that idiot. No way he would stay idle while Gaara was in danger. Neji couldn’t come alone anyway. That’s what they got for having only damn jinchuuriki in the team.

That would almost, almost make her regret Suigetsu’s obsession with running around the hills looking for stupid swords. Almost.

She had Suna to worry about too. They would soon catch up, and maybe other villages would join on the fun, once the news spread. It could spread fast.

She tried to calculate their position, where they were heading and what they could expect to encounter on the way. No matter how dire the situation, as long as they regrouped with Naruto, as long as they could touch, they would be fine. That was what she needed to focus on. Snatch Gaara back, grab Naruto. His trick being uncovered didn’t matter anymore, as long as they could get far away from there.

She had promised him they would be home soon, and she never went back on her words.

Chapter Text

“Well, this is inconvenient,” the blond one said mildly, annoyed but not overly alarmed.

“Inconvenient” was one way to put it, Karin supposed.

It wasn’t her best move, she could admit that. But they had reached that massive boulder, sealing the entrance to whatever den those men were returning to, and her instinct had screamed at her that if they got in with Gaara, she wouldn’t get him out. Not alive, anyway.

There was no way she could take either of them on, but surely help was on its way, she just needed to buy some time, she needed to prevent them from going into that cave.

Raising barriers was one of Karin’s specialties. If she had one thing going for her, it was her bottomless chakra reserves and her skills with barrier seals – the two went hand in hand. Karin could make clones and perform the Four Violet Flame formation all on her own. She could also sneak on the Akatsuki men while they were busy unlocking some seals and snatch Gaara from the clay bird. She could trap herself in a kekkai with him before they had a chance to stop her.

And now she could do nothing else but wait.

“Girl, can you please let it go? We’re on a bit of a schedule.”

She thought she had heard his partner call him Deidara. Annoyed and annoying, but not worried. Understandable – she was safe inside the barrier, but also trapped, and she couldn’t maintain it forever. It was burning through her chakra reserve fast – a few hours, maybe half a day? That depended on how hard they would try to breach it.

Then it would fail and they would kill her.

Gaara wasn’t going to wake up, she had seen the creepy one stab him with a needle and could only hope it wasn’t lethal, since they had gone through the trouble of capturing him alive and surely needed him in that state a little longer.

Her only consolation as that they were certainly underestimating how long she could keep it up. But who would reach them first? She was defenseless – the weakest of their underlings could kill her off easily. If it was people from Suna, they would engage in a fight, but they surely wouldn’t try to save her, on the contrary. And they would want Gaara back.

“I’m going to rip off your skin,” the creepy one said – what was it, Sasori? The other one rolled his eyes.

“Not if I get to her first.”

“I’m not asking for your opinion.”

“You’re not? I’m wounded.”

It was a bit insulting that they would be so carefree about this situation, but really, they had no reason to worry, unlike her. They started arguing about the most effective way to break her out of the barrier, and the Four Violet Flam formation was technically unbreakable, but sustaining their attacks would take its toll on her.

Naruto needed to get his ass here fast.

.

They reached the limits of the desert after a few hours.

The girl, Matsuri, was quite good at this, leading them through the markers left by the previous teams without hesitation. When the landscape started to change around them, sand to rocks to trees, Hatake Kakashi took over the tracking with several ninken.

The man looked so much like his father, it was uncanny, and it made it difficult for Chiyo to resist the urge to bury a kunai between his shoulder blades.

It wouldn’t bring her any comfort, just as killing the White Fang for what he had done to her son and his wife wouldn’t have either. She would settle for the satisfaction though. How frustrating, to have heard all those years ago the man had chosen to kill himself, and not, as would have been the courteous thing to do, by surrendering to one of his many enemies. She would have been glad to grant his death wish. Had he no consideration for those who longed to kill him themselves?

Had her son not died… Ah, they wouldn’t be here at all, would they? Sasori would still be in the village. He couldn’t bear his parents’ death – surely, things would have turned up different, if only…

If only what? If only they weren’t shinobi? Dying was their prerogative. She was the anomaly, for how old she was, how stubbornly long she had survived.

It was a relief to see it drawing to a close.

They stumbled upon the first team a few hours out of the desert.

Three chunin and a jounin from Suna, bodies torn to pieces or turned purple and distorted by poison. They should have known better than to engage with Sasori, or maybe they didn’t learn his tale anymore? One of the chunin was a puppeteer. She must have known.

At least it meant they were on the right track, and the team had put up a decent fight – this would have slowed their targets down. Chiyo remarked as much and received a teary glare for her words, as Matsuri collected the identification tokens of the four dead and set up a mark that would lead others to them, so that their bodies could be brought back to Suna. Chiyo shrugged it off, unaffected. It was so long since death had any hold on her, hers or others’. This was simply their fate.

They found a second team, an hour later. One of the jounin was still alive, if barely – at least, until the Uchiha boy got to him. They had no time nor chakra to waste on medical ninjutsu, yet waste both they did, until the man was a few steps further away from death door. He had nothing of import to say about the enemy. The kids seemed reluctant, but still they left him there to be found by a rescue team, as they should.

She wondered if she used to care like they did. She couldn’t imagine, but her memory was doing poorly these days.

They took a brief rest hidden among the trees before resuming the chase, the trail leading them along a river to a short cliff, where finally, they came face to face with their opponents, in a rather unexpected position.

They were trying to break into a purple kekkai, raised square on the water in front of a stone torii and the opening of a large cave, the boulder meant to seal it hovering above their heads. The barrier was held up by a single girl split in four. Red hair, a flat white mask marked with a red spiral – she fitted the description of Gaara’s companion.

The boy laid at her feet, unconscious, as a fifth iteration of the girl – probably the original – seemed to work on healing him.

The two Akatsuki members wore the black cloak adorned with red clouds of their organization. The young one, she didn’t know, and didn’t care about. But the other…

It was Hiruko, without a doubt. Sasori’s armor, and it could be no one else than her grandson hiding inside. Did she really hope it would be someone else, an impostor? She did. Sasori had been gone for ten years, and she had hoped… But was this what he was doing? Colluding with this ragtag band of mercenaries and criminals?

His parents would be so ashamed. Oh, how she had failed her family.

“Some fuckers from Konoha now? We don’t have time for this,” the young man sighed dramatically. They had disposed easily of the two previous teams that had the misfortune of running into them. They weren’t to be taken lightly.

“Let’s get rid of them now,” Sasori said, voice rough like he was choking on sand. “The girl will tire out soon.”

“Don’t tell me what to do.”

Both men turned their attention fully to their group. Chiyo was confident she could take on Sasori, but the other would complicate the matter, and she had no idea what those Konoha nin were worth…

“We are here to retrieve Gaara,” Hatake Kakashi said, voice even. “Please, hand him over.”

“But look, we don’t have it!” the young one said, showing his palms to the Heavens.

They were split open by two gaping mouths – they blurted two clay hummingbirds that flew toward them at startling speed.

“Take cover!”

They had just the time to jump back before the birds exploded in the air, rousing the water around them.

The man laughed, wildly pleased.

“Don’t be shy! We’re only getting started!”

“Is that the best you can do?” Sasori growled, disdainful. He seemed to despise his partner, but it was no use counting on internal dissent – no doubt the two agreed on their goal either way, to kill whoever stood in their path. They had to change the parameters of that fight somehow.

The water settled down, but it took them a moment to notice still.

The girl was gone.

“WHERE THE FUCK DID SHE GO.”

The man wasn’t amused at all anymore. She had dropped the barrier and made a break for it, Gaara in tow. That was admittedly well played.

“Go after them you moron!” Sasori growled.

They had to make a decision now.

“Go. Leave Sasori to me,” Chiyo ordered, sorting through her storage scroll with careful consideration. She was the only one who stood a chance against him, but he surely had made modifications to his creations.

“You? Alone?”

She would have loved to make Sakumo’s son swallow back his disrespect, but there was no time to waste – already the younger one was on the move, and if that girl had hidden in a kekkai for so long, she was no match to him.

“You’re an Uchiha, right?” Chiyo asked the medic boy. His eyes were already bright red.

“Yes.”

“A good one?”

“Yes.”

She could appreciate the confidence.

“Stay with me. The others, go. You’ll only be a nuisance.”

The Konoha girl seemed about to protest, but her teacher silenced her. Chiyo couldn’t spare them a thought – she focused on Sasori, in case he would want to stop them from leaving.

He did. Hiruko’s tale darted toward them, inhumanly fast.

But not too fast for her.

She pushed the boy behind her back, drew a kunai string from her sleeves – it wouldn’t touch him, but it didn’t need to. He took his tail back to protect from the attack – the rest of the team took the opportunity to flee.

“Are you defying me, grandmother?”

“I’m sending you to your grave, if you don’t repent.”

He laughed.

“You two will make fine additions to my collection.”

He ripped off his cloak. At her side, the boy gasped.

Hiruko was quite the sight after all.

“What is this?”

“A puppet. An armor. Puppeteers are vulnerable when they manipulate their weapon, and this his solution. Sasori is inside. We need to force him out.”

It was different from the last time she had seen it, starting with that massive shield on the back.

But the mechanisms were the same, and Sasori was still in the village when he had completed the first version of this puppet.

“It’s Sasuke, right?”

“Yes. Uchiha Sasuke.”

“Uchiha Sasuke, how good is your aim?”

He took out a few long senbon from his weapon pouch. His eyes were glowing red and he was perfectly calm and focused, not inclined to ask questions nor voice doubt.

“As good as it needs to be.”

Always sure of themselves, those Uchiha. But at least in that particular field, there was hope that it was justified.

“And your Katon?”

He assessed the other man, the armor. He frowned.

“I’m not sure I can break through this,” he admitted, though it seemed to cost him. At least he didn’t lie.

“It doesn’t need to. Listen, here’s what we’re gonna do.”

.

Sakura wasn’t sure who they were chasing exactly.

They meant to rescue Gaara, right? And the Akatsuki was their enemy. But the girl…

She was running away from both groups. And both were chasing after her.

Why were they here then?

Suna wanted to take Gaara back. As they should, surely. Was that their mission too? Were they just going to… hand him over?

For all she had wished for Naruto to be returned to them, she had never imagined for a second someone else just… delivering him to their door, bond and beaten, subdued by some strangers. What would they have done of him then?

What would they do with Gaara, if he was returned to his village?

They kept their distance from the younger member of the Akatsuki, Deidara, but he wasn’t paying much attention to them for now, busy, as they were, with tracking the girl. It made sense to avoid engaging in a complicated fight if they could, but still she felt uneasy at the whole situation. She wished she could discuss it with Kakashi, but they still had the Suna chunin with them – they had to be careful about what she would report.

“We should split up,” Kakashi said after a while, when it became apparent that the girl, even if she couldn’t have gone far, was pretty good at hiding. They stayed concealed by the cover of the trees as above them, the man circled the woods on a flying bird of clay, growing increasingly frustrated at the search.

“I’m going to deal with him,” Kakashi went on, pointing up. “I’ll keep him busy. You find the girl.”

“How?”

“You’ve been training at sensing, haven’t you?”

Jiraiya must have told him – she had kept it to herself, because even if she had a natural sensitivity to chakra, she was far from proficient enough to be called a proper sensor.

She would have a hard time tracking a complete stranger. Well, she had seen the girl’s barrier, had felt the slow, steady current of her chakra. The flavor… yes, if she focused enough, maybe she could point it out. She nodded.

“Find shelter and try. Matsuri will cover for you.”

The Suna girl startled at being included in any way. She didn’t look much at ease, but she agreed without a word.

They split, going deeper into the woods while Kakashi focused on their enemy. A moment later, the air rattled with the sound of an explosion – the fight was on then.

There was no time to waste – Sakura selected a large rock that would provide a modicum of cover, and sat at its foot on the forest ground. That Matsuri girl took position too, her back to Sakura so that she could keep an eye on their surroundings.

Sakura closed her eyes.

She had no spatial awareness or anything that refined – she could only tell that there were beings thrumming with chakra around them. She struggled to see past the black hole that were Kakashi and Deidara’s presence. The girl was more subdued, in every way. It was hard to tune in on her faint signature.

She found it though. And the weird, fluctuating thing by her side had to be Gaara.

Sakura could only come up with a general direction, but she got a feeling that the girl wasn’t moving for now. Hiding?

Waiting for something, someone?

“This way,” she called, trusting the other one would fall in line. “Can you hide your presence?”

“Well, enough, I think.”

Here was to hoping the girl wasn’t too good a sensor herself.

It only took a few minutes to find her, in a sheltered clearing where she was kneeling by Gaara’s unconscious form, tucked between the roots of a massive tree, so focused on him she didn’t notice them right away.

“Dammit, Gaara, wake up!”

She had taken off her mask, carelessly discarded in the grass.

Sakura recognized her at first glance.

Karin, her memory supplied. Karin, the girl she helped during the chunin exam and who helped her in turn… Why was she here? What did it mean?

She didn’t think she would get the chance to ask.

“I recall you were pretty good at healing.”

In a heartbeat Karin was facing them, a kunai raised to her face, shielding the boy with her own body. Her face was hard and stony, though the intimidating effect was dimmed by her obvious exhaustion. Sakura raised her hands up, placating.

“We mean no harm, I promise.”

“Really? What do you mean then?”

Frustratingly enough, Sakura didn’t have an answer to that. Karin scoffed.

“I won’t let you take him.”

“That’s not…”

“That’s not up to you, Red Head.”

Again the stances changed in an instant – from facing off Karin, Sakura found herself showing her back to the girl, focusing on the new threat.

It was Deidara.

“I have to thank you, Pink. I’m shit at tracking. You saved me a lot of time.”

Sakura didn’t let her mind ponder, and she didn’t ask – the man was here now, whatever the reason. She had a mission. She didn’t have time to worry, she didn’t need to know. If Kakashi was held back by someone else, or if he was… For now, no one was coming.

“You’re not taking them,” she declared, drawing her sword.

The man beamed.

.

Kakashi had guessed the Akatsuki would have reinforcement at hand, but this… this was incomprehensible.

The man, Deidara, despite his nonchalant attitude, was very intent on his goal. “I’m pissed I won’t get to fight you,” he’d said, before taking off to chase after the girls. Not without leaving Kakashi with another handful to deal with, of course.

He’d summoned them from a scroll. A body scroll, as far as Kakashi could tell, and in a way, they did contain bodies. 

Two bodies. Two people long dead, and yet…

Kakashi was facing two jounin from Konoha. They still had their headband, they looked the same as the last time he’d seen them, though it had been years. The only difference was the black of their eyes, their ashen complexion.

The fact that they didn’t recognize him. Didn’t smile, as they would have if they did.

Kakashi’s way was blocked by two of his father’s friends.

.

It was taking up all of Sasuke’s self-control to surrender to the pulls of the woman’s threads, to let her guide his body to dance against their enemy’s weapons.

The fight had moved to the cave, that had apparently been the Akatsuki’s destination. It was vast enough that fighting inside wasn’t a problem, but Sasuke was uncomfortable with the enclosed space. He couldn’t tell if their enemy had lured them in on purpose or not.

He was mostly focusing on relaxing his muscles so as not to go against the move she wanted to impose him – her mastery was impressive, even moreso because he was, in fact, a human being, and not a puppet. The puppeteers of Suna were used to manipulate weapons, inanimate and deadly, to smash them around and sacrifice them if need be. At times he couldn’t help but tense up, sure that she would pull too far on his legs and arms, bend them in a way they wouldn’t agree with. But she never did – all his moves stayed perfectly within the range of his flexibility.

Once he was able to relinquish control, he couldn’t help but find it exhilarating. He could never have moved and reacted as fast as she was making him, as she stood outside of the fight and could see the whole picture, where he was in the heart of it. The only moment where she let loose her thread but a tad was when…

There.

His Sharingan zeroed on the tiny, almost invisible hole drilled into the wood of the armor. Between a move and the next, Sasuke threw a needle, fast and precise, lodging it precisely in the hole.

Four more to go, and they would have loosened the armor enough that a Katon would be able to blow it apart.

He had to be careful, or the man would notice. According to the old woman, Sasuke needed to jam the juncture points to put a strain on the various articulations, enough that it would weaken the armor’s integrity. He understood why she had been concerned about his aim – being a weakness, the man had been careful to make those building points as small as possible, and regular shinobi wouldn’t have been able to spot them, let alone to aim for them.

But Sasuke wasn’t a regular shinobi.

He started to sign even before the last senbon had hit its target, so when the man understood what he had been doing, as the last of the joint came loose, Sasuke was already launching a fireball his way.

The armor, already loosened, dislocated under the explosion.

Sasuke’s eyes followed the silhouette of the man jumping out of the ruins of his puppet to the other side of the cave, as he went back to the old Chiyo’s position.

“Not bad. But it’s going to take a lot more than this, grandmother.”

He didn’t look like what Sasuke expected. But judging by the woman’s reaction, she was equally surprised.

He looked youthful and harmless, with a childish, pretty face and innocent eyes. Though the look he threw at them was anything but. Hair a bright blood red and skin smooth, flawless, almost unnaturally so. They didn’t get to dwell on it though, as the man wiped out another puppet, resembling a middle-aged man with dark hair and fine features, if one excluded the articulations and the soulless eyes.

His face looked familiar though. The old woman gasped audibly, shocked.

“That’s… How is that possible? Sasori!”

“It was never solved, was it? The mysterious disappearance of the Sandaime Kazekage. I should know, I was sent to look for him at the time…”

Ah. Yeah. Sasuke had seen his picture in the Kage record.

“But you… it was years before you left. All this time, you were already…”

“Oh, grandmother. Did you think it came after, somehow? That I was corrupted by some outside influence? Your faith is touching but foolish, old hag. This is two Kage I ended myself. Aren’t you proud of me?”

That guy was awfully annoying.

It was almost a relief when he seemed to deem the conversation uninteresting, and launched the Kage puppet at them. Almost, because that thing was fast.

Chiyo yanked Sasuke away, put up the severed tail of the armor to shield him. It shattered on impact – that new puppet had quite the strength.

And blades dripping poison, of course.

The thing spurted out half a hundred arms, and Sasuke avoided getting impaled solely thanks to the chakra strings moving his body around. The puppet spat poisonous gas at him then, and trapped him with wires before he had a chance to get away, for good measure. But Sasuke used those on the regular, and he had learned his lesson – he managed to cut himself free before the need for air was too much. The old woman pulled him toward her, and protected them both from the next attack with puppets of her own. A man and woman, looking quite tamed compared to the Kazekage, but who turned out to be Sasori’s parents, that he had crafted himself as a child out of grief, after their passing.

That was pretty weird, even by shinobi standards,  though they could find equally disturbing practices in Konoha. He wisely didn’t say a thing – clearly, this was not his fight.

And he couldn’t deny it was quite impressive seeing those puppets at work, as they lashed out at each other under their master’s command. The tactical advantage was undeniable – as violent as their attacks were, they left the puppeteers unharmed, so long as their creation could withstand the onslaught. It was to the first one to give, the first one to break.

“We’ve wasted enough time as it is,” the man said, growing impatient. Some thick black powder came pouring out of the puppet’s mouth, floating shapeless around them both.

Sasuke’s mind did a rapid check of what he knew of the Sandaime Kazekage. The main point was consistent with what he was seeing.

Iron Sand. But how…

“How can it use this technique,” he asked, curious despite himself, even if now clearly wasn’t the time for a lecture. “How can it wield chakra?”

“Sasori’s creations are unlike any other. They are carved out of a real human body, and they retain their chakra system and accumulated power.”

This was a terrifying thought. It reminded him of how careful they had to be, in the Uchiha clan, not to let their dead bodies fall into enemies' hands. The quest for power pursued them even in death. The Sandaime Kazekage was said to be the strongest they ever had, and well respected too.

And here was how he had ended up.

“We need to retreat,” Old Chiyo said, wary eyes fixated on her grandson and its nightmarish creation. “It is suicide to go against the Iron Sand in an enclosed space. It can infiltrate everywhere, one contact will render my puppets useless.”

Being in the cave also limited the ranges of Sasuke’s own preferred attacks – most of his Katon wouldn’t spare the old woman or himself here.

“Alright, let’s…”

Of course the man would have the same reasoning.

The Iron Sand was at the entrance before they had even turned on their heels, filling up the narrow opening. Effectively trapping them in.

“You are not going anywhere, grandmother.”

This was not good.

.

Sakura’s disadvantage was undeniable.

Ironically enough, while she meant to shield Gaara and Karin from the man’s attack, it ended up working the other way around – only because she stayed close to them did her opponent have to restrain the scale of his explosions. The few times she had wandered far enough from their reach…

She was burnt all over, skin tight and pulling. And she couldn’t get close to him.

Her sword could shield her from the smaller explosion – the ants and spiders crawling all over the mossy ground and falling from the trees. Karin, in her back, had keen eyes, and could spot them better than Sakura could. The Suna girl was focused on making sure none of the ugly clay creatures would snatch Gaara away while they weren’t looking, decent enough with her johyo to keep the creatures at bay. But they were backed up on defense without much leeway to retaliate.

All the more frustrating was the cheers of the man. At least one of them was having a great time. But she wasn’t entirely without a strategy, even if it wasn’t a very refined one. He kept pulling clay from the satchels at his waist, molded by the mouth in his hands – and what was up with that anyway. But she had noticed he was reaching deeper and deeper. He was bound to run out eventually, right?

He had to be aware of that too though.

“Okay, you know what?” he said, irritated now. “I don’t care if I maim the guy a little. Jinchuuriki are supposed to heal fast anyway, right?”

The next sculpture to spurt out of his hand mouths – some sort of flying squirrel – was much bigger than the birds and insects. And the size was the strength of the explosion, right?

“Shit.”

It set off after her – a few sidesteps proved that it zeroed on her position. They couldn’t withstand such a blast.

She dashed to the side, to put the distance, to get away, because Gaara maybe would survive the blast, but the others wouldn’t. Karin yelled after her, “come back here you moron!”, but Sakura was running out of idea and she had to…

She had to what? Protect those people? That wasn’t her mission. That wasn’t…

Ah. But what else could she do?

She was far enough, she hoped, when the clay squirrel caught up to her.

“Shit.”

.

Sasuke didn’t pack a strong enough punch to counter the huge blocks of dense iron sand that Sasori was throwing at them. Sakura would have, maybe, but Sakura wasn’t there. The old woman’s puppets were useless, filled with black sand that blocked all their joints and weapons. She had to make do with him, but steel weapons were inefficient against the iron sand, as were fire-based jutsu. Which left…

“You said it worked with magnetization right? That’s how he’s able to control it?”

“Yes.”

Old Chiyo would run out of steam soon.

“I’m going to try something.”

Sasuke had trained a fair amount with Kakashi during these past two years. Mostly out of spite – his father kept making unsubtle comments at the fact that he and Itachi spent all their time at the hospital and were neglecting their combat training. Not an unfounded concern, as Sasuke did have trouble pacing himself and was caught napping in the nurses’ break room about a hundred times, but he didn’t want to give his father the impression that he listened to him.

He wasn’t as comfortable with lightening release as with fire, and the technique put quite a strain on his chakra system and reserves. But preserving his stamina was useless if he was going to be poisoned or trampled to death anyway.

“Don’t make me dodge the next block.”

It came fast, but he could sign faster, even such a long combination. Someone ought to work on shortening those sequences though.

“Chidori!”

The familiar rush of static exploded in his palm as his chakra thundered like a lightning strike. And as he had hoped, before it could even come into contact with the block, the iron sand suddenly lost its cohesiveness, pouring down unrestrained.

Demagnetized.

“It won’t last,” the old woman remarked, and he almost snapped back at her, but there was no point. It was the truth – as long as the puppet had its peculiar chakra, it could perform its jutsu again.

“How many times can you do that again?”

“Four,” he lied. “If only I could strike that puppet directly…”

Well. There was always a way.

“Well, boy,” Sasori sneered, displeased but strangely endeared. “Let’s see how you’ll avoid this one.”

.

Temari organized the rescue teams tasked with clearing up the streets and assisting the people affected, with instructions to report on the injured and eventual deaths, and to assess the damage with as much precision as possible, so that they could start drawing up plans for compensation and rebuilding.

She went to the intensive care unit.

She listened to the first reports of the scouts who went after the attackers, some coming back empty-handed, others with precious intel that drew a more and more precise picture of their movements.

She went to the intensive care unit.

She walked the streets, trying to offer some comfort and reassurance to the wandering citizens, even if they were almost as wary of her as they were of what could befall them again at a moment’s notice.

She went to the intensive care unit.

The light remained on, a glowing red, harsh and unforgiving. They were still operating on her father. The ninjutsu was too delicate and complicated to allow the slightest disturbance, so she couldn’t enter the room, couldn’t get an update on what was going on inside.

She could only pace the corridor, stare at the door in case she suddenly developed the ability to see through it.

They had their best medic-nin on it, but she feared that wasn’t saying much.

Suna was lacking in the medical field, as they were lacking in many other areas, compared to the other hidden villages. Temari was well aware of Suna’s position and shortcomings – the weakest of the five, the least developed and the most vulnerable. It was only thanks to the desert that they had survived despite their weaknesses, but then again, wasn’t it also the desert’s fault, that they couldn’t improve as they wished?

No, it was hypocritical to blame it on the land. It wasn’t the sand and the sun's fault if they neglected their medic-nin's training program, if their children’s education was incomplete, if they had so many people struggling.

Temari had been raised to believe a group was only ever as strong and capable as its leader.

Her father was to blame for what had happened. There was no going around it. He knew, he knew how dangerous the Akatsuki was. The Sannin Jiraiya’s warning had been quite explicit, and even if he lacked information on some of the members, what he had was enough to get the idea.

Arrogance was her father’s flaw. Hers too, probably, but she trusted she could fight it, if only so that she wouldn’t come to resemble him too much. He had thought they could handle it. He had gambled the village’s safety on that assumption. And for what?

Gaara wouldn’t return to them.

What was even the point? Suna had many, many other issues to be dealt with. The loss of their jinchuuriki was a hard blow, but no harder than a variety of others. Besides, Konoha had lost theirs too, and wasn’t there a rumor that the one from Taki had also vanished shortly after Suna’s chunin exam? It wasn’t what they should have been focusing on. As much as she wished to see her brother again, it wasn’t in the best interest of the village to waste time and resources on the search.

But her father… if he had neither the village nor Gaara as his prime motivation, why was he so focused on finding him again?

She believed she could venture a guess, but she needed to hear it from him.

She needed to hear from him. She needed to talk to her father. He couldn’t just… They had never talked. About Gaara, about their mother, about the future of the village. She had so many things to ask him, and to lay on him too, resentment and accusations that had built up over the years like sand slowly rising over the empty ruins of her distant childhood, when she had been happy, for a while.

He couldn’t leave like this. It wasn’t fair. He had no right. He had to fix this mess, he had to talk to her. She had to talk to him. To tell him that she didn’t approve, that she thought he was wrong and had thought so many times in the past. She should have said it sooner. She should have said something.

And she would. Starting now she wouldn’t stay silent anymore, she wouldn’t grit her teeth and bear the council’s bullshit when she knew they were wrong and half the people around the table thought so too. She would stand up to her father, she would call him out, she would…

He had to hear her out.

The door opened.

The light was still on – out came stumbling a haggard medic-nin, a lithe man with shaved hair and clear eyes. Temari started walking in order not to betray how she had been standing motionless and spacing out in the middle of the corridor, but she had to change course when the man swayed on her feet. Temari caught him before he fell.

“I’m sorry, it’s been…”

The man trailed off when he looked up, when he recognized who he was talking too. He struggled upward, trying for a bow.

“My apologies, Temari-sama.”

There was no mistaking the uncertain fear in his voice.

Temari ground her teeth together to reign in on her rising frustration. The Yondaime Kazekage wasn’t a cruel or unjust man, he wasn’t a tyrant either, he seldom got angry. And yet he inspired fear more than respect, he always had. The people from Suna had a reputation for being austere, but it stemmed mainly from their leadership, who were the sternest of them all. Her father was intransigent and unsmiling, far more generous with critiques than compliment.

And of course, he was also the father of the beast. As she was its sister. Temari didn’t have much of a public presence, more focused for now on administrative duties. And yet they all knew her, of her.

And as they feared her brother, and her father, so they feared her too.

“What is the situation?” she asked in her commander’s voice, since that’s what she was here, to that man. She didn’t miss the grimace, the flicker of doubt as he pondered what the best answer was. But the medic-nin had more of a backbone that it seemed – he was determined when he spoke next, almost challenging.

“We did our best. We are maintaining the jutsu until his vital signs improve.”

If they ever did.

“But we… More of us could do more. And maybe…”

Temari remembered then, when she had seen him before. She remembered that council meeting, a few months ago. The medic-nin arguing their case – they were understaffed and undertrained, behind on their skills compared to other villages. Especially Konoha of course, who had spared no resources on the matter since the appointment of the Sannin princess as its Godaime.

Remembered the council voting, not unanimously, but still with a comfortable majority, voting that issue not to be a priority. Deciding they had other matters to focus on, better use of their funding and focus.

Remembered the medic-nin storming out, furious and defeated.

She wondered if the man thought this was deserved then. But it was mean-spirited of her to lend him such petty feelings, as it wasn’t how these people tended to think.

Yet had he been feeling vindictive, he would have been in the right.

“I see,” Temari answered lamely, hit once again with the full force of how powerless she was in this scenario.

She would never become a medic-nin, she had no desire to, but had she spoken out back at that meeting, had she had the leverage to sway the council’s decision…

There were people in this world who could save her father. There were places where they would have had a better chance. But here and now, maybe he would die, and there was nothing to be done about it. The decision was in the past, already set in stone, and the past couldn’t be changed, no matter the amount of wishes and regrets.

They both turned to footsteps approaching to see Kankuro making his way down the corridor, Baki at his back. Temari could tell her brother was making a conscious effort to walk steady, even if he still had to be in pain, but there was no use telling him to rest some more. In times like this, she could relate to his need to move, to do something, even inane, even useless.

“We just heard from some of the scouts. The Konoha nin engaged with the enemy. Another one of their team should be on the way, and some of ours need assistance.”

Things were handled here for now – people had their orders and purpose, and the head jounin could see to any issues that would arise. She was losing her mind staying idle.

“Let’s go.”

She took a few steps after them before remembering the medic-nin. He was still unsteady on his feet, but he stood to attention when Temari focused back on him.

“Please, just… keep doing your best.”

For a moment she feared she had offended the man, but maybe she sounded as desperate and pleading as she felt, because she only got a firm nod as an answer.

.

That idiot.

“Reel her back in!” Karin yelled to the Suna girl. She didn’t know her name and she couldn’t care less. The girl hesitated, looking back at Gaara with clear worry on her face. Her devotion was commendable, but if she didn’t do what she was told, Karin was going to break her nose.

“Just do it! I’ll take care of it!”

That idiotic girl and her idiotic sense of duty – no wonder she was Naruto’s friend. Sakura dying here was absolutely out of the question, especially now, without Naruto meeting with her again even once. He would never get over it, and Karin wouldn’t either, by extension. No one was dying here today, save from that Deidara asshole.

Mercifully, the Suna girl obeyed. The rope of her johyo wrapped around Sakura’s waist and she pulled as hard as she could, bending the girl in half.

Served her right.

The clay squirrel flew after her, close, but far enough. Sakura crashed at their feet. Karin signed. No time for clones.

“Violet Flames Barrier Dome!”

The barrier rose seconds before the bomb detonated. Just a few centimeters away from her face, but with the strength of her shielding to stand between them – the blast shook the ground around them, toppled trees and flung dirt everywhere. They were uprooted from their spot, sent flying a few meters away. But the barrier held, with the four of them safe inside.

Karin let it fall as soon as she safely could, exhausted beyond belief. Holding up the dome on her own was more taxing than spreading out the flow between her clones, and she had several hours of that to recover from already.

“Are you alright?” Sakura asked. She had the gall to look concerned. Karin shoved her away.

“Don’t go throwing your life away you dumbass! You don’t get to die, do you hear me?”

The girl stared, dumbstruck, and Karin felt the urge to punch her. Really, she and Naruto deserved each other. She was ready to bet the third one was just as bad. Why couldn’t they think about their own ass for a change?

“You won’t be able to keep that up for long, will you?” the man snarled. He wasn’t wrong.

He put up his two palms in front of him, had them churn out that disgusting clay again – it had to be covered in slob right? What a freak.

The mouths combined, it was going to be a huge one.

“I have an idea,” Sakura said. She stopped there, obviously not about to elaborate. Fine then. She could do her things, see if Karin cared.

Damn, she did. But she was also useless here.

Sakura planted her sword in the ground behind her. She put her hands behind her back, grabbed one of her wrists, and, as far as Karin could tell, started concentrating chakra in her other palm.

Above them, the mass of clay was shaping itself into another squirrel, twice as big as the previous one.

“I can shield us again,” Karin said, though she wasn’t that confident her barrier would be strong enough. Sakura ignored her, putting two fingers up in a seal in front of her face, eyes closed in concentration. Whatever she planned on doing, would she be faster than the man’s creations?

She put a foot against the flat of her sword. She jumped.

She jumped, but she also stayed where she was. The man didn’t launch his explosive, despite Sakura speeding straight toward it.

He couldn’t see her, Karin realized suddenly. The genjutsu was rough, but it was enough to trick him, enough that he missed her jumping toward him. Enough to catch him entirely by surprise when she tore through the clay with a jutsu Karin had never seen before, the chakra in her palm dense and spiraling, obliterating the creation.

So close to him, he wouldn’t risk detonating it. He piled in more clay to stop her track, but even if the jutsu was exhausted when she broke through, she could still punch him in the face.

He was sent flying back, the girl hot on his tail to press in her advantage, to make the best of finally being within arm’s reach. Her taijutsu was better than his.

But he still had his weapons. And he needed only a second to command them.

A dozen of clay birds fell from the tree above them. Not toward Sakura, but toward Karin and Gaara and the Suna girl and Karin had a few kunai but she also had terrible aim, and the Suna girl didn’t look confident that she could do anything about it either. Sakura was too far away. Karin went to put up her barrier, when she noticed the rat. A fucking clay rat looking up at her with its stupid face, right in front of her feet. She kicked it away with a shriek, and that was enough of a delay. The birds were too close, she wouldn’t have time…

From above her in the trees came out a swarm of kunai, one to each bird, taking them out with deadly precision. They exploded at the other end of the clearing, out of reach.

The man used the distraction to get out of the range of Sakura’s fists, but he looked supremely annoyed at the new development, that came in the form of another Konoha kunoichi, who leapt from the tree to land next to Karin. She had dark hair tied into two high buns and didn’t care to turn around and show her face. Sakura took her briefly in her arms when she regrouped with them, relief clear on her face.

“Team Gai’s here to the rescue,” the girl said with a laughing voice.

Karin hated her already.

.

The Iron Sand gathered in an ominous mass above their head, before exploding in a hundred deadly spears, planting themselves in the ground like the roots of a giant tree. Chiyo shielded herself with the remnants of her puppets, but the boy…

That he hadn’t been impaled by one was a short relief – the iron tendrils had cut deeply through his clothes and skin in several places.

He collapsed.

“You poisoned the iron,” Chiyo said, not bothering phrasing it as a question. Sasori never passed on an occasion to weaponize his arsenal as much as possible – blades, poisons, projectiles, traps, chakra, all piling up on top of the other, his enemies never good enough to avoid all of them.

“Don’t worry, grandmother, I won’t leave him to suffer a painful death.”

He launched the Sandaime’s puppet at the boy.

Chiyo was trapped in the iron forest, and could only watch, helpless, the facsimile of the man aiming its deadly blades at the paralyzed kid.

The scene was eerily familiar.

Asao was always a ruthless man.

She wasn’t as involved in the Third Shinobi War as she had been in the Second, but she still had numerous occasions to see him in action. That war became infamous for how young the children they sent to it were, years of pointless conflicts decimating the shinobi ranks until they had to pluck them straight out of the Academy.

She wondered if at some point someone had also hoped that it would maybe deter the enemy, to come face to face with children on the battlefield.

It hadn’t.

Asao wasn’t a cruel man, but nor was he an emotional one. Neither belligerent nor passive. He had led them to war because war was raging. He had killed children and seen the children of his village been killed in turn, and hadn’t been moved by either.

He had looked unsurprised, when Chiyo had told him it was the last fighting she would ever take part in. Unsurprised and maybe a little wistful, though it could be her own indulgence talking.

And then, just as the war had ended, he had suddenly disappeared. Sasori wasn’t twenty yet, but had just earned himself his nickname. He too had killed children. He too had been little affected by it.

They had kept at it after the war. They had never gone back from sending genin out on high stakes mission, something that wasn’t common when she was a genin herself, and even later. The Second War was a different sort of carnage – with a huge amount of civilians casualties and a minor country decimated.

To each their sin. Expect for her brother and her, so old yet still here, against all logic and reasoning, against common sense. Collecting crimes while the children kept on dying.

It was despicable of her, to think it would have improved when she had chosen to turn her back on it.

The child didn’t die though.

He sprung back on his feet just before the puppet was on him, he slammed the same lightning jutsu he had busted out earlier square on its face and blew it to pieces.

The Iron Sand melted away.

He was pretty banged up, but he was up on his two feet. He trotted obediently to her, green chakra at the tip of his fingers closing the cuts on his arms and legs as he went.

“Are you hurt?” he asked.

“Shouldn’t I be the one asking that?” she countered, since he didn’t wait for an answer to heal the bruises on her arm anyway.

“Those injuries are minor. But I’m running out of chakra. And I only have one dose of antidote left, and it’s not effective for long.”

He was pale from blood loss and chakra exhaustion, yet he said that as if that wasn’t akin to issuing their death sentence, shaking the lone dose under her nose. Teenagers.

“You made extra?”

“I figured it would come in handy. But there weren't enough herbs to do more."

She let the jab pass, if it even was one. She had not missed the pity on his face when he had been lead into the greenhouse. But was he wrong? It used to be far more stocked, back when she tended to it, but then…

“I am impressed,” Sasori said from the other side of the cave. The praise was genuine – he wasn’t one to shun talent, and the Uchiha boy had no shortage of it. But Sasori had barely fought, by his standards, while they were both exhausted. And she had no doubt he wasn’t done yet.

He had moved in front of the entrance of the cave. He was determined to see them die here.

“It’s been a while since I had to resort to fighting myself… but it’s not so bad. I want to show you this, grandmother. You were always the most supportive of my art.”

She had praised and encouraged him, hoping the passion for his craft would stimulate his shriveling heart, stricken a deathly blow by the death of his parents. She had taught him all she knew, had trained him, because she didn’t know how to communicate with him any other way, didn’t know how else to show her care. Her son had reproached her this once – “being a teacher is not the same as being a parent”. He still thought he would do a better job than her then. He had been killed shortly after, so he really couldn’t criticize her.

She supposed it was a good thing he and his wife weren’t here to witness what she was seeing now – Sasori unbuttoning his coat, to reveal why he still had the juvenile face of his youth. Then again, would they be here, had his parents not die? Was it already in him? What had turned him into this? Their death, the war, something wicked he was born with? They would never know. But it felt disingenuous to argue he was simply bad to his core. Sasori had been a good, obedient boy, serious and fair, loving. And now…

“A human puppet,” Sasuke whispered, vaguely disgusted. She could hardly blame him. There was nothing left of Sasori’s human body, except the heart shoved in the middle of his wooden chest. Weapons in place of intestines, weapons in place of his arms. The sight brought tears to her eyes, but she chased them away. To hell with sentimentality – it was pointless here.

Chiyo reached inside her weapon pouch. She grabbed the Chikamatsu Collection.

She had been the one to forbid its use, and then had lied to the village, claiming she had destroyed it. Asao had probably seen straight through it, he had to know she wouldn’t have the resolve, that despite what she said she was as weak to power as anyone else. She could justify it with a number of reasons, the fact remained that she had kept the scroll, and worse, she had been carrying it with her all this time. As if she knew – hoped? – she would use it again.

“Shirohigi, Chikamatsu’s Collection of Ten.”

An army of ten against one enemy, and that wasn’t even guaranteed to be enough. Were her fingers nimble enough now to play the ten of them at the same time? She was so old.

“As expected from you, grandmother. But you know, I have been to many battlefields.”

Sasori took out a scroll of his own, and she knew they had lost.

“Akahigi, Performance of a Hundred.”

The puppets filled the cave, forcing them to back down against one of the walls. They all looked different, of various ages and nationalities. How many had he snatched before they could have a chance to be buried, how many had he killed himself?

“I am sorry, Uchiha Sasuke. I don’t think we can defeat him.”

The boy frowned, greatly displeased. He still had fight in him, she knew. It wasn’t to say they couldn’t best Sasori. Maybe they could. But the cost would be too great. At this age, they couldn’t imagine they would lose, and die. It had to be fortunate, that he thought this way still, that he believed in the weight of his own fate, as young people did.

It didn’t change the fact that they were most likely going to die right here and there. She cursed herself for her arrogance, for thinking she could so easily beat Sasori. She had never wanted to admit how strong he was, stronger than her by any measure. She thought her experience would always make up for it, but Sasori had done nothing but hone his skills in the past decade, regardless of the bonds of moral and his own body, and what had she done?

He geared the puppets for battle. The earth shook.

The earth… shook.

The earth shook, and the walls, and the stone roof over their head. The earth shook and they raised equally puzzled gaze at the distant noise coming from above, sounding like…

The roof exploded inward, raining rocks and dirt on them. Chiyo and her young ally were relatively safe, close to the wall. Sasori’s puppets took most of the hits.

When the dust settled, the sun was beaming down on the inside of the cave, largely collapsed on itself, and in the middle of the rumbles stood a strange boy in a bright green jumpsuit and with an even brighter smile on his face. He had an orange Konoha band tied around his waist.

"Ladies and gentlemen, Rock Lee has arrived!"

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Sasuke roll his eyes.

.

They sped through the forest, following the slithering light of Akiko’s tails as fast as they could.

No fast enough.

Naruto took care to lay the hiraishin kunai on the way, carefully hidden so that they wouldn’t be discovered. This way they would be able to come back easily, but first they had to find the others.

Once again he cursed the limited range of the technique and his inability to track the kunai that he hadn’t set up himself. One day, he would make it so that his friends only had to carry one with them to be within his reach no matter the distance. For now, he could only rely on Akiko and her eyes, set on Karin miles and miles ahead.

We’re coming, he kept swearing to himself, and her, knowing she couldn’t hear him, but would be convinced of it all the same, and that he would not let her down.

We’re coming.

Chapter Text

There was no doubt possible. 

Kakashi had grown up with those people. Back when he was a child, before that fateful mission, his father’s teammates were always at their house. Sharing meals, napping, training in the backyard. Most didn’t have a family of their own – he would only understand much later that his father and he were an exception.  

After, there had been no more of it, of course. Some had made a nominal effort at reaching out to him, but he was the one to push them away. The world was at fault for what happened, and people were part of the world. He blamed them all – and them especially. By the time he had turned around and decided to shift the blame solely on his father’s shoulders, so that he could go back into the world after all, it was too late. They had moved on, or they were dead. 

They were dead, there was no doubt. He had been to the funerals. Uzuki Miyako, victim of an ambush during a solo mission near the Ame border. And Maboroshi Kyosuke… 

Suicide. Six years after. 

Kakashi was at the funerals, yet he was facing both of them now. 

They didn’t seem to recognize him – he didn’t know if he ought to count it as a blessing or not. They didn’t seem to recognize much, truly, eyes empty and stubbornly quiet despite his calls. 

What sort of jutsu could do such a thing? 

There had been the grave robbing case, a few months back in the cemetery, but no bodies had been taken. That was what made it such a weird but trivial story – the dirt had been moved, some coffins opened, but nothing was missing, nothing taken. 

Besides, Kyosuke wasn’t buried at the shinobi cemetery. Just like Kakashi’s father wasn’t. They were in a remote corner of the civilian graveyard. 

He was fairly certain no one had bothered to check it.  

“Katon! Fire Bullets!” 

One thing was for sure, they had lost none of their abilities. 

His reluctance to attack them was starting to put him at a serious disadvantage, but he couldn’t just… he had to understand what was going on here. They weren’t being very cooperative though. Both were highly skilled jounin when they were alive, and he couldn’t subdue them so easily.  

A much more troubling issue arose rapidly though, when instead of dodging a Chidori aimed to her chest, Miyako just… stood there. She received the full force of the jutsu. Kakashi’s arm went all the way through her chest. 

There was no blood. No scream, no pain, no indication that the woman felt anything whatsoever. She didn’t blink an eye, and she didn’t waste time taking advantage of their position to try and crush his head between her palms. 

Once extracted, he watched the hole in her chest close slowly, leaving no trace on her greyish skin. 

That was going to be a problem. 

He was not outmatched yet, but he bled and he tired out, unlike his opponents, and more importantly, the distant explosions they could hear coming from deeper into the forest were growing increasingly louder. He needed to get back to his team, now wasn’t the time to get emotional. 

He centered his will around his left eye. 

Uchiha Tekka had made him swear he would keep their training and the ability to himself. Both because it was generally kept quiet, and specifically because there were still some among the Uchiha who believed Obito’s Sharingan should be returned to his clan. Uchiha Fugaku didn’t like Kakashi’s possession and use of it, but had always stood by the decision to respect Obito’s dying wish, while making it clear they would never support it. 

As for Tekka, he had never given an explanation as to why he was willing to go behind the clan’s back and actively teach him how to use it. It had taken years for Kakashi to open up to him about the evolution of the eye and the strange shape that would swirl in and suck up his chakra.  

Tekka had not looked surprised. 

The Mangekyo was still a drain, but he was getting better at handling it. And it was going to be very handy now. He was uncomfortable showing his cards like this, knowing that the two dead shinobi he was fighting had to be controlled by someone, somewhere. But he didn’t have much of a choice. 

Kyosuke was the first one to go. 

Kakashi’s aim was quite bad, but he wasn’t after finesse – as long as he could open up a hole close enough, wide enough…  

The air distorted around the man, sucking up the very space where he stood. In a few seconds, he was entirely gone. And Kakashi was very dizzy. 

But there was no time for that, as Miyako was on him again, saber ready. He knew her specialty to be Doton, specifically for ambushes and traps, but she was sticking to her saber and he couldn’t tell if she couldn’t use jutsu in her state, or if she knew it was ill-advised against him and his copying technique. By all account he was more vulnerable to close range kenjutsu, especially when he didn’t have a sword with him. 

He had a hard time dodging her attacks and focusing on his eye at the same time, until he finally managed to kick her away and turn the Mangekyo to her.  

She had caught on the first time – she managed to move enough that the hole didn’t snatch her entirely. Instead, it cut her body in half, most of her legs disappearing into thin air.   

As expected, though he would have preferred to be wrong, that didn’t stop her either.  

But it gave him the opening he needed to slap a binding seal on her forehead, hoping it would work against weird reincarnated corpses. It did – she fell inanimate, though her legs kept growing back. 

Kakashi stumbled, vision swimming. Someone caught him before he crashed on the ground. 

“Won’t you ever let me save you, my friend? I come all the way here to assist you, and look! Your enemies are all disposed of already!” 

Kakashi made no effort to regain balance or take any of his weight off of Gai’s grip. The man wouldn’t have let him anyway. 

“Don’t worry, you’re still gonna have to help me.” 

He didn’t have to look at his friend to picture his stupid, bright smile. 

“Wonderful!” 

Gai lowered him gently on the floor so that he could deal with Miyako’s body. He sealed it in a scroll, bringing it to Kakashi so that he could add an extra lock on the binding seal. 

“Are you with your team?” 

“Of course. They have gone to help your kids. We should join them.” 

He always said it like this. “Your kids”. Gai had been a jounin instructor for several years, and there was never an outing in the streets of Konoha that wasn’t interrupted by one of his former students greeting him enthusiastically. Gai had a kind word and a bright smile ready for all of them. He was constantly invited to weddings and birth celebrations. 

He had also gone to countless funerals. 

“Can you get up?” 

No doubt would the man offer to carry Kakashi on his back if the answer was no. Kakashi nodded. He could be the most stubborn of the two. 

Gai helped him to his feet, concern showing through his playful jabs. But it was far from the worse state he had seen Kakashi in. He always reacted to it the same, with his steady sympathy and gentle comfort, even when he knew Kakashi had been careless on purpose, even if it had to hurt him too, to see his friend like this. But Gai was incapable of passing judgment. His empathy and understanding extended to everyone and anyone, as did his indulgence and patience. Not that he had ever shied from telling Kakashi how heartbreaking was his lack of self-preservation. Gai had no capacity for emotional manipulation, and that was why it had worked – at the time where Kakashi was unable to care about his own well-being, making it his priority to not hurt his friend any further had no doubt saved his life. 

Nowadays, Gai was mostly exasperated at his blatant risk-taking tendencies. Because he didn’t fear it would lead him to an early grave anymore. Progress, progress. 

The Suna team ran into them just as they were ready to take off. The Kazekage’s children, their instructor, and a few more shinobi. They didn’t offer any new insights on the situation, and Kakashi postponed asking after Rasa’s status. 

They were urged on by a huge crash, reminiscing of a mountain-scaled Doton. 

The day was far from over. 

. 

Sasuke stabbed Lee in the thigh with one of the two remaining doses of antidote while the boy was busy standing on a rock and striking a cool pose. 

“Ouch! What was that?” 

“The enemy’s weapons are poisoned. This will give you five minutes of protection, but don’t take it as an immunity charm and be careful.” 

“Yes! Thank you Sasuke!” 

The Uchiha rolled his eyes in an over-exaggerated way, but the change in his demeanor was obvious. He was more relaxed now that the other Konoha boy was here, back to his calmer self. Chiyo wondered if this Rock Lee was that good, or if they were simply good friends. Could be a mix of both – the help was more than welcome either way. 

“There is only one left, so we have to end this quickly,” Sasuke said, falling into position by his friend’s side.  

Chiyo carefully hid the long gash running down her forearm. 

“You rest up! I’ll take care of those ugly dolls,” the green boy said, cracking his knuckles. Chiyo was about to put a word in, warn him it wouldn’t be so easy, but Sasuke stopped her.  

“Don’t bother,” he sighed, shaking his head in resignation. “He’ll be fine anyway.” 

“Here I come!” the boy yelled, quite idiotically. 

It soon appeared that being warned wouldn’t help Sasori much. 

The boy was incredibly fast. At first she thought he used some variation of the body flicker or another space jumping technique, but he wasn’t using any jutsu at all. He was just that fast, body trained both for speed and strength, as he punched a puppet in the chest and tore it to pieces.  

It flew apart. Suna’s puppets were far from fragile, and Sasori’s even less so. Chiyo was experienced and observant enough to be sure that the boy wasn’t using any chakra whatsoever to enhance his body. It was just brute force and nothing else. 

By her side, Sasuke looked almost proud. 

Rock Lee quickly tore through most of what remained of Sasori’s army as Chiyo’s puppets took care of the rest, and the man didn’t manage to nick him once. 

“I like those dolls! Are there more?” the boy asked when he came back to their side, knuckles red and breathe shortened, but with a delighted smile on his face. 

“He’s just like that,” Sasuke said as an explanation, to her stricken expression. 

She was just too old to understand those dumb children. 

“There’s just this one left,” he claimed, pointing at Sasori.  

“Cool!” 

“No, wait…” 

Of course he didn’t listen, neither to Sasuke nor Chiyo. He was on the other side of the ruined cave in a heartbeat, not much impressed by the display of Sasori’s body, going as far as grabbing the cable unrolling from his abdomen to throw him around, and at last… 

One well-placed punch and this puppet, too, dislocated into pieces. The boy turned to them with a thumb up and a bright smile. 

“It won’t be enough!” she screamed.  

Already Sasori was reforming – Rock Lee barely avoided his next attack. 

“You have to destroy the core!” 

It had to be the last organic part of Sasori’s body. The heart, of what was left of it. He started chasing the boy around. Chiyo realized too late as they were coming nearer… Sasori changed course, running straight to her.  

He had the same face. He was so beautiful, he looked almost gentle like this, excited too, like when he wanted to show her one of his projects. She didn’t lift a finger. 

She didn’t account for the Uchiha boy.  

The blade coming for her went through him. Of course, of course he had jumped between them, as stupid teenagers did with no regard for their own lives and the parents they were leaving to mourn. Was it something they were taught in training, to be so universally keen on it? Were they told it was expected of them, to sacrifice themselves, to die for the mission? 

Was it for the mission though, or was it for her, a desperate, pathetic little old lady he couldn’t help but want to protect? 

Sasori looked a little shocked. Sasuke recovered quicker than him. She realized, impressed, that he was healing himself around the blade – the blood was barely flowing, held in by his will and the green glow of his chakra. 

“Lee!”

The boy materialized behind Sasori. He punched him straight through the chest. 

Sasori’s core flew out of his chest cavity and hit Sasuke square on the face.  

Sasori stumbled backward, taking his sword with him. Sasuke fell to the ground, grabbing at the core out of reflex, Lee stepped back, confused.  

Sasori spotted the core in Sasuke’s hands, but he didn’t try to get it. On the verge of death, with so few options left, he made his choice. 

He raised his blade to Chiyo’s face. Finally. Finally. 

“Die!” 

“Sasori!”

The tip of the blade stopped, suspended in the air, a few centimeters away from her face. 

They both turned to the origin of the voice. To Rasa’s children standing above them on the split rocks, dumbstruck. There were others too, from Suna and Konoha both, but Chiyo couldn’t look away. 

They had changed, unlike Sasori. He looked the same as in the memories where they were barely a meter tall, running in his legs and asking to be shown some puppet tricks. Kankuro especially – he had taken up the art because of his cousin. Had tried to turn to her after he was gone, but she had no patience nor will to teach anyone anymore, especially children. 

They landed by their side, still shocked. Sasori was unnaturally still, his blank, frozen face turned to the kids further than his neck should have permitted.  

“Temari. Kankuro.” 

His tone was almost conversational. Kankuro took a step forward. 

Sasuke ran a kunai through the core. 

Just like that, the light went out of Sasori’s inhuman eyes. He fell, limp and lifeless, at Chiyo’s feet. 

Once again, death was stubbornly avoiding her. Once again, she had to survive as her family died.  

. 

Having a long-range weapon specialist sure changed the tide of the fight. 

Of course, Tenten was also great at short range. Sakura really wanted to practice kenjutsu with her, once all of this was over.  

She wondered when that would be though. She wondered what would have happened by then, when they were back home. What the next few hours would bring.  

The girl’s projectiles made the threat of Deidara’s bomb far easier to deal with, to the man’s growing rage. Sakura was anxious to finish the fight, fearing he would do something drastic if he lost it entirely. He was running low on clay, having to scrape the bottom of his satchels for the remaining bits. There was no telling was he would do once it was gone. 

Tenten blocked his path when he tried to flee. He turned around hastily.  

Straight into Sakura's sword. She slashed the blade down on him, though he managed to jump back and escape the bite of the steel. She saw the satisfaction on his face, of managing to evade her yet again. It lasted but a split second. 

His arm detached from his body. 

It was almost comical, the surprise on his face as he failed to understand what was happening. She had kept the chakra extension of her blade purposefully short so that he wouldn’t notice, so that he would feel confident about the range he had to avoid.  

So that she could trick him into thinking he could easily stay out of her reach. 

“You fucking bitch!” 

He flickered away – she kept on his tail, pressing her advantage. He wouldn’t be able to hold on for long with such a wound.  

He dropped to the ground. He manages to scrape off some more clay, but instead of feeding it to the hands in his mouth, he ate it directly. 

“Well, kiddos. You’re in for quite the performance. I hope you'll enjoy it."  

His body started to contort and swell, like… 

“Shit! Run!” 

She dashed toward the others, but there was no time, it was… 

The guy freaking exploded. 

Sakura got a glimpse of the fire and smoke rushing to tore her to piece before her sight was blocked by… 

Sand? 

“It’s about time you fucking woke up, Gaara.” 

Despite her words, Karin sounded nothing but relieved. 

. 

“Are you okay, Sasuke?” 

“…Shouldn’t I be the one to ask that?” 

Kakashi could barely stand, leaning heavily against Maito Gai who seemed weirdly smug about that. Sasuke couldn’t say he was at the top of his game either – healing the sword wound had taken out what little chakra he still had and he was shaking with exhaustion and blood loss. 

He finished checking up on the man – he wasn’t hurt, but his chakra was depleted to the point of alarm and his whole chakra system had been shocked, suggesting he had spent most if not all of it in one go. He remained vague about what happened though, claiming they didn’t have time for a debrief. He wasn’t wrong – Sakura was still out there. They needed to move. 

He didn’t feel like it was his place to speak up though. First, because they were still on Suna’s territory and here to assist them, and they were the ones supposed to call the shots. But mostly because Gaara’s siblings were obviously going through something and it felt rude to interrupt. 

For a fleeting moment, Sasuke had thought Temari was going to attack him for dealing Sasori the finishing blow. He didn’t know what was the link between them, but since he was Old Chiyo’s grandson and a deserter from their village, it was probable they had known him in their childhood.  

There was little left of the man now but scattered pieces of machinery and wood and his perfect, blank face. Kankuro set some of the Suna shinobi to collect it all, including the rests of the puppet army – it would take them a while. 

A massive explosion shook them all out of their indecision. 

They didn’t have the luxury to mourn and lament – they took off toward the forest, the heavy smoke a beacon to both their enemies and their allies. 

And their target, he supposed. 

When they finally reached the clearing, the smoke had dispersed, and the scene wasn’t what he was expecting at all. 

There was no trace of the Akatsuki member. There were only Sakura, Tenten and the Suna girl, Matsuri, on one side, and Gaara and the red-haired girl on the other.  

Gaara was awake, but he looked weak, and the sand dancing around him was sluggish, disarrayed. 

Poisoned, Sasuke recognized immediately. Most likely the same poison they had been dealing with, courtesy of Sasori. Gaara was still strong enough to shield himself and his companion, but they both stiffened when they saw the newcomers – that would be too much to handle for them. 

“What happened?” he asked Sakura once he had joined her. He took her arm, started to work on the burns and blisters littering her skin, the consequences of an explosion coming too close no doubt. Fortunately, the damage wasn’t too deep – he still had enough strength to help her. 

“We… We fought that man, Deidara. But he blew himself up. And now…” 

She looked lost, distressed. She kept darting looks at Gaara and the girl, entrenched on the other side of the clearing.  

“We fought that man.” They had no doubt helped each other out against their common enemy. But that didn’t mean they were on the same side. And now… 

“Gaara.” 

 Temari choked on the name, but when she took a step forward, the jounin, Baki, stopped her, hand on her shoulder and a warning look on her face. For a second Sasuke thought she was going to tell him off. But she followed his cue. 

“Gaara. You need to come back to Suna with us,” the man said. Though he didn’t manage to put in quite the conviction that would imply he actually believed in that possibility. 

The boy was sitting on the ground, maybe too weak to stand, his friend by his side. His expression was very cold. 

“Why?” 

His people had no answer.  

“That poison is lethal,” Sasuke stepped in. “You won’t be able to find a cure in time.” 

“Because there is no good medic outside of your village?” the girl shot back. 

“It’s not so simple!” 

“Jinchuuriki don't die from this kind of thing," Gaara declared steadily. The Suna shinobi stiffened at hearing it mentioned so casually.  

“You can’t be sure,” Sasuke insisted, though he had no idea why. Pretending it was in the boy’s best interest to go back to Suna was absurd and surely doomed to fail. 

“Don’t you have some antidote left?” 

All heads turned to Matsuri, their Suna guide. She reddened and ducked her head, embarrassed, as her superiors glared her down, furious. Gaara’s friend scoffed. 

“I wonder what it will take for you to give it to us,” she snarled. 

“Gaara. Come back with us, please. We can fix this, I swear.” 

It was painful to hear Temari talk about and to her brother. Her pain was familiar – she wanted him back to her, but whatever she did, it wouldn’t happen. Sasuke could almost guess what the boy would say next. 

“I would rather die.” 

He certainly meant it too. There was quite the shift in the air between them, as they slowly came to accept this wouldn’t get resolved peacefully. Sand gathered around the two rogue shinobi – if they were ready to die, they were also ready to take their opponents down with them. They all squared up, prepared for a fight, but then… 

But then. But then. 

They materialized out of thin air, on a low branch behind Gaara and the girl. Two masked shinobi, with no visible affiliation to any hidden village. But there was no mistake possible. Sasuke could only speculate about the second one and their dark hair, but the first… 

“Naruto,” Sakura whispered. It carried in the heavy silence of the clearing. 

He lifted the mask – always the same, Haku’s mask, still engraved with its “monster” kanji on the forehead, but with a new addition. Under the right eye, another kanji.  

The number nine. 

Under the mask, the face was the same – though the hair was a little longer, the skin a little more tanned, the lines a little deeper.  

The eyes a lot colder, when they landed on them. 

“No one here is dying.” 

. 

Naruto remained motionless as Neji dropped to the ground next to Gaara and Karin, face hard but hands gentle when he fussed over the other boy. Tenten gasped softly when he lifted his mask too, but he didn’t spare a glance to his teammates. 

His forehead was bare. The seal was gone. 

“Are you okay?” Naruto asked from above them, voice warmer, full of worry. 

“I’m dead on my feet, but I’ll be fine,” Karin said, stubborn, despite the injuries Sakura knew she had sustained. “He’s been poisoned though. I guess Shukaku is battling it for now, but I don’t know if it’ll be enough. It was probably designed with this in mind.” 

“Can you do something about it?” 

“…Maybe.” 

Her expression told a different story. She was aware there was a chance they couldn’t come up with a cure, as Sasuke had said, even if she was too proud to admit it. 

“They can though,” she added, pointing a finger to the other shinobi group. She didn’t look at them though. Neither did Naruto, as if they weren’t even there, as if they were irrelevant. 

Sakura felt her anger rise. 

Naruto deigned to turn his attention to them then. She couldn’t help but catalog the changes, the threats – he had a long staff strapped to his back, that could have been bamboo except for the off-white color, as if it had been washed out. A row of scrolls stored in his belt. He was wearing a patterned haori, red shorts, sandals. Still no sense of style. 

His forehead protector was nowhere to be seen. 

“I don’t want to fight you,” he declared loudly. The way he talked, the way his companions listened – was he the leader of that little band? Was that was they were seeing? She couldn’t imagine Neji, nor Karin for that matter, deferring to him so easily. And yet, here they were.  

“You won’t have a choice,” Kankuro retorted, heated. The Suna shinobi’s focus had shifted – Naruto was an easier target than Gaara in their mind. They could even blame him, she was sure, for their jinchuuriki’s departure.  

By her side, Sasuke tensed up. This could get out of hand really fast.  

Sakura was quite lost. 

Who was whose enemy here? Suna and Konoha were decent allies these days, but it’s not like they would go to war for each other either. Naruto and Gaara were wanted by their village, but there wasn’t a price on their head, they weren't designated as public enemies. Yet. 

Gaara, his sand, had protected her. Karin too. “You don’t get to die”, the girl had said. 

Who were they supposed to fight? Why? 

“Let’s just get out of here. We can sort this out ourselves,” Karin said, looking more nervous by the minutes. Relatable, as Sakura wanted nothing more than for all of this to be over too – without having to go through what it would take to get there.  

She couldn’t take her eyes off Naruto, though he did his best not to look at her. It soon became clear that it was deliberate. He didn’t want their gaze to meet. He similarly avoided the others.  

What would she see, she wondered, if she looked into his eyes? She wanted to yell at him, to grab his head to force his attention on her. 

“What have you been up to? Are you okay?” she burned to ask. 

Did you miss us? We missed you so much.  

He seemed to be doing fine. 

“Please,” Temari said. “Give up. You don’t stand a chance.” 

Gaara was still mostly out of commission – it was just three of them against their whole party, with Karin not much of an offensive weight, and Naruto and Neji’s skills transparent enough to the Konoha nin. They wouldn’t all be able to escape.  

“Won’t you give it to us?” 

Naruto sounded pleading now. But resigned too, as if he already knew the answer. As if he had so little faith in them and their choice. 

She realized, mortified, that he was right. 

It was obvious there was no convincing any of them to surrender themselves and go back where they belonged. It was obvious they would have to fight this out. But she had a hard time believing it. Was it that horrible a prospect, to be brought back to Konoha, that Naruto would rather go to war against them? That he would truly defy both villages and their whole group, when they were clearly outnumbered and when this couldn’t end in anything but a horrible disaster?  

Couldn’t he ever give up?  

Just as the tension was reaching its highest point, just as it was about to break… It did. But not in a way anyone expected. 

Matsuri, who had been standing in Sasuke’s back, took three steps forward and threw something at the other group. At first Sakura feared it was an explosive or poison, but Neji caught it in one swift move and held it between his fingers with a puzzlement shared equally by all present.  

It was the antidote vial. 

“Gaara-sama, run!” 

The scene descended into chaos as she managed to break a smoke bomb before two Suna chunin tackled her to the ground. Sakura tried not to lose sight of Sasuke – they had to move, they had to protect Naruto. 

Protect him? From what, from who?  

Catch him?  

She didn’t know anymore. 

“We need to go after them!” a voice yelled from somewhere in the fog. Someone grabbed Sakura’s arm – it was Kakashi, dragging Sasuke with him. 

“Let’s go.” 

“But, the others…” 

“We have no friends here for now.” 

She recoiled, but he was right, they had no way of deciphering the true intentions of the people around them, who could turn allies or enemies in a blink. 

They needed to reach Naruto. She had no idea what they would do when they did, but they had to. 

Pakkun led them on their tail, through the forest and away from the clearing. The ones from Suna would recover from the confusion soon enough. They had to hurry. 

Kakashi was weakened from his fight – Sakura and Sasuke went ahead, although they weren’t in the best form either. But none of them were. 

The Konoha nin managed to catch up just at the edge of the woods. 

“Naruto! STOP.” 

Sakura’s voice rang loudly in the still, eerie air of the forest. Naruto froze. His mask was still up – when he turned around, he finally deigned to meet their eyes.  

“What do you want?” he asked. Demanding – almost accusing. Karin and Neji were staring too, face set in grim resentment. Gaara was looking at Naruto. 

Sakura was at a loss for an answer. 

Sasuke stepped in, eyes glued to their friend’s face, hands raised just a little, like he itched to reach out. 

“Are you alright?” 

Judging from his face, that wasn’t what Naruto expected to hear, nor anyone else. 

But of course, that was what Sasuke wanted to know. That was all he cared about. The question always on his mind, the one that had been eating away at him ever since that terrible day when Naruto walked away from them.  

Neji laid a hand on Naruto’s shoulder. 

“We’re leaving,” he said firmly, pulling toward him. 

“No!” 

She didn’t mean to scream again. Naruto’s face hardened. 

“You’re just going to disappear like this? You owe us an explanation!” 

“I don’t owe you anything.” 

She recoiled at the hardness of his tone. There were noises coming from behind her – Team Gai getting closer, she believed. The Suna nin were sure to follow. 

“Let us go.” 

“Nothing will happen. You don’t have to…” 

“Let us go!” 

“No!” 

It lasted but a second.  

A kunai appeared at her feet – atypical, with three points. The next moment Naruto materialized in front of Sasuke and her. He slammed his palm against their chest, hard enough to knock the breath out of them. Another heartbeat, he was back by his companions’ side.  

Sakura looked at his hands, the seal, and she knew what he was going to say. 

“Fuuinjutsu. Heartbreaker Seal.” 

Time froze above their head. 

Sakura’s chest constricted and her throat closed around her breathe. Her vision blurred for a moment, so much that she could barely make out the harsh expression on Naruto’s face anymore.  

She remembered perfectly the effect of that seal, but she couldn’t process it, couldn’t believe. Naruto wouldn’t… 

A few seconds passed, a few more. She still felt like she was dying, but it had more to do with the panic, she realized. Naruto’s hand was still up in a seal. By her side, Sasuke stood dumbstruck, arms hanging, but he was still up too. 

“If you make to follow us,” Naruto said, threatening, “I’ll trigger it. Please don’t test me.” 

It was too much. It was too hard to believe, Sakura didn’t want to. 

She didn’t move, because she was too scared to find out if it was true. If Naruto would really go this far. If this was really where they stood now. She didn’t want to believe it, and yet… 

It was pure instinct. Sasuke made to take a step forward, and she held him back. 

. 

It was Naruto. It was Naruto. It was him, right here. It was two years since the last time they saw each other, since he heard anything from him at all. And he was here, right here.  

Sasuke looked at him, and his heart ached so fiercely, it could have been the boy’s seal at work. By the time Sasuke caught up to what Naruto had said, to the technique he had used, it was clear the seal wasn’t acting up. Sasuke barely gave it a thought – Naruto was right here. 

But when he tried to reach out, to go after him, Sakura stopped him, a firm hand on his shoulder.  

He didn’t understand at first, the hard look on her face, why she tightened her grip when he tried to get away. But when he asked, “what are you doing?”, he had figured it out. She didn’t answer – she didn’t need to. 

He pulled harder and the hand on his shoulder grew firm enough to hurt. 

“Sakura!” 

“Don’t move!” 

She couldn’t be serious. This couldn’t be happening. She looked back at Naruto with such resentment, such hurt. But she couldn’t seriously believe… 

“Thank you,” Naruto said. He turned away, the others following. It seemed that was the way – he walked in front. He led. 

They left. They vanished, actually. Here one moment, gone the next. 

No. No.  

“Let me go!” 

“You can’t go after him!” 

“He won’t hurt me.” 

“You don’t know that!” 

He knew. He knew. He had nothing to fear from him, Naruto wouldn’t… 

“How can you say that? How can you think…” 

“He has other people to protect now, Sasuke!” 

That gave him a pause. 

Gaara of the desert, and the girl Karin. Naruto had not been spotted anywhere, by anyone, for two years, but he had come all this way for them. To help them, to save them. And Hyuuga Neji… it wasn’t much of a surprise, but it was still jarring, to see him here, with Naruto, to see that he was part of this. 

What would Naruto choose? If it came to it, if they were cornered, what would happen? What would they do? 

Thank you.  

Sasuke always ended up doing as Naruto wished, didn’t he?  

“But he’s… he’s right here.” 

It had dulled a little, over time. But it was hitting back full force now. How much Sasuke wanted to see him. To talk to him, to hear his voice and to see his face, to be close to him, to have him near, at eyes and arm’s reach. Naruto was so close now. 

“I know. But he’s not… He’s not here for us.” 

And oh, how that hurt. 

Naruto wasn’t here for them. Worse, they were a hindrance, they were in his way, and he would even… 

He wouldn’t. Would he? 

Sasuke didn’t know anymore. 

. 

They searched the whole area, to no avail. Temari wanted to tear the whole forest down, but they soon had to face the truth. There was no trace of the group left. They had effectively vanished. 

“You said he used a three-pointed kunai, right?” Kakashi asked his students. Sakura nodded. Sasuke seemed out of it – full of rage or despair, it was hard to tell. 

“It’s a space-time ninjutsu,” the man explained. “If Naruto does have the ability to use it, they are already far away, and untraceable.” 

“You think it’s the hiraishin?” Old Chiyo asked. He nodded, and if Temari had no idea what that was, recognition flashed on Baki’s face and a few of the older shinobis’. 

“Most likely. Or a variation.” 

“There is no point in staying here then. They’re gone.” 

Temari wanted to scream. 

Instead, she stalked toward Matsuri. 

The girl was kneeling on the ground, hands bound behind her back and a chunin holding a blade to the nape of her neck. Temari grabbed the collar of her shirt, lifted her so that they were face to face. She took vindictive satisfaction in the fear playing on the girl’s face, but even now, it was clear she wasn’t repentant, nor remorseful. She hadn’t acted rashly, she wasn’t being manipulated or suffering a brief lapse of judgment. 

“Why? Why did you do that? Answer me!” 

She had stayed stubbornly silent until now, but she would talk now that Gaara was far away, now that she had reached her goal. Was she a spy, a traitor? But who would she be working for then? 

She wouldn’t meet Temari’s eyes. 

“I-I-I-” 

Temari shook her once, just in case she thought about keeping quiet after all. 

“I repay kindness.” 

Temari scoffed. Getting a Path quoted at her face was certainly the last thing she expected.  

“What kindness could that be?” 

“Do you… think Gaara-sama to be unkind?” 

Temari dropped the girl in a blink. Matsuri stumbled and nearly fell over, destabilized by the sudden shove and her still bond hands. 

Only then did Temari managed to place back the girl in her memories. A survivor from one of the desert tribes, trained like the rest of them as a shinobi, though she had little talent for it. Two years ago, she was an unpromising genin.  

She had been assigned as one of Gaara’s guards.  

His room was warded and sealed and no one could enter it any more than he could leave it. The guards were mostly for show, a weak attempt at getting him some contact, however small, with the outside world. Most of them blew off that particular duty. No one cared. 

Temari would walk up to the room, when she felt brave enough. When the guards were gone, she even attempted to talk to him, though he rarely answered. When they were still at their post, she turned back before they could spot her. 

That was where she had seen the girl. Sometimes standing, sometimes seating by the door. Sleeping, a few times.  

She was one of the guards knocked out when Gaara had fled the village, all of them put to sleep by a seal slapped on their neck. They had been interrogated, but no one had seen anything. 

“Were you in contact with him? Do you know where he went?” 

“We just-just talked. He helped me. He was kind. I…” 

There was no way she was lying, with her gullible face and wavering voice.  

He helped me. He was kind.  

We just talked. We just talked.  

As if there was anything “just” about that. 

As if he hadn’t spent those few months in near-complete mutism, withdrawn and unreachable. As if Temari hadn’t tried her hardest to connect to him, and failed miserably. And that girl… 

Then again, it made sense, didn’t it? She was the one to let him go in the end. He had chosen well. What had Temari done for him? 

What did she plan to do just then? Bring Gaara back? Put him back in that room? 

What else could they do? 

They locked the girl in one of Kankuro’s puppets, to be jailed and questioned in the village. She was crying quietly, but she didn’t protest nor beg. Temari had a few memories of her stammering over her words as she was mocked by the rest of her class. They said she was scared of weapons. For a coward, she had shown impressive strength. 

Far more than Temari, at any rate. 

She didn’t know what she was hoping for. That he would return to them? But why would he do that? What incentive did he have, what was she offering her little brother that would make him want to come home? Just because it was his place, his role, his fate… 

A fate he had decided to go against. And since she was part of it… 

She wondered how much he hated her. 

. 

“Well then, I guess there’s no need wasting any more time here," Chiyo concluded. 

The fever was rising and all her joints were starting to ache fiercely. It would soon be difficult to move at all, let alone run.  

Pathetically enough, she wanted to see her brother one last time. 

“You’re hurt.” 

Sasuke grabbed her wrist before she could escape his overbearing care. The cut on her forearm was bleeding again, the skin sickly swollen and oozing. He gasped softly, taken aback. 

“That’s… what… why didn’t you say anything?” 

He drew the attention of the others of course, exactly what she was trying to avoid.  

“We need to go back now. We need to…” 

"You know it is of no use. I don't have as much time as Kankuro had.” 

The poison soaking Sasori’s weapon was far more potent, more concentrated probably. His intent in poisoning Kankuro was to lure Gaara out, it had to be slow going. No such qualms in combat. She was still up solely because she was regulating her circulation, but it wouldn’t last. She was doomed, and they both knew it. 

“Why didn’t you ask for the antidote? It would have bought us time, enough to…” 

“I figured someone else might need it. I was right, wasn’t I?” 

It was kind of ironic, but well-fitting too, that she had foregone the saving cure to the profit of Rasa’s youngest child, the sacrificed jinchuuriki of Suna. Even if he was maybe the most deserving of a mercy killing… Or was he? He had gone to follow his own path, he had joined his fate with the Kyuubi’s host. She would almost feel regretful, that she wouldn’t get to see what would come of it. 

But she was so tired. 

“Why?” Sasuke asked, voice broken. She smiled sadly at him. He couldn’t understand, he was so young, so undamaged still. He was ready to throw himself in front of danger, to protect his friends and those he deemed weaker than him, but he knew little of regrets. Of the pain of the living, of longing for some rest, at last. 

“I atone,” she said. She had been surprised to hear a Path fall from young Matsuri’s lips – few were the younger ones who still abide by the old faith. Though she seemed to be native of the desert, and they were still the most fervent, however few of their tribes left. I repay kindness, she had said. And Chiyo? Chiyo had to atone. 

She was responsible for it all. Sasori’s decay, her fault. Gaara’s life chained to the Ichibi, her fault. The worst of her offenses, for she was well aware her seal mastery wasn’t up to the task of sealing the Biju. She had done it anyway. Rasa had nothing to pressure her with, she couldn’t hide behind that excuse. Why had she agreed then, why go along? 

Well, why not? She did not care. He asked, she complied. The challenge was almost exciting, she had no concern for the child, or the future of the village. 

She was at fault. It was only fair. 

The trip back was a blur. Baki had to carry her as they crossed the vast expanse of the desert. The sight had always soothed her, unlike the ugly shape of Suna rising above the sand, the long shadows it cast all around it.  

She wouldn’t get to see it again. 

. 

The old woman died.  

It was inevitable and there was nothing Sasuke or anyone could do to prevent it. It was still a shock. 

The others didn’t notice right away, except probably the jounin who was carrying her. Sasuke saw, because Sasuke was a medic – he had seen many people die and dead, and he was monitoring her condition as best as he could while running the desert.  

It never failed to fascinate him – one moment she was still here, still tethered to this world, among the living. The next, she was gone.  

There were no warning signs, nothing of note happened. Nothing showed, when the soul left the body, when it went from warm and alive to empty and dead. This process was irreversible, the whole of their knowledge and expertise could do nothing against it. The old woman died. She was now dead. And there was nothing that could be done to undo that.  

They crossed through the gates of Suna. Sasuke thought about just a few hours ago, when they had gone out, when they couldn’t possibly know what was waiting for them. Sasuke knew the future now. He knew what came next. 

They would fail. One member of the Akatsuki dead, the other presumed so, but Old Chiyo dead too, and the jinchuuriki of Suna still at large, and Naruto… 

Naruto, closer and further away than he had ever been. 

They crossed the gate and knew right away that the trials of the day were yet to relent.  

Sasuke had come with no care for Suna and their trouble – he did his duty, as a shinobi of his village and a medic, but their issues were not his. And yet… 

Tsunade often told him he was too emotional. She didn’t exactly brand it as a bad thing, but he understood why it concerned her. He still remembered vividly the first time they had lost a patient in the operation room – how despite the surgery and the medical jutsu they had kept up for hours, the chunin’s life had still slipped away from their grasp. That terrible feeling of loss, of being utterly powerless, facing the grief of those left behind that they had failed completely. Sasuke didn’t know how to be indifferent to any of it. His mother had been worried, his whole family really, and Tsunade too. He recalled it as one of the moments he had missed his friends the most during these two years. He had been mad at himself for wishing so much for the comfort and warmth of people that were simply not within reach.  

So it wasn’t that he wanted to care. But he couldn’t not.  

Chiyo’s brother was waiting for them beyond the gate. He didn’t look surprised, already grieving even before they confirmed life was gone, that she would never open her eyes again. 

“You have no time to mourn that old fool”, he told Temari and Kankuro, before they rushed to the hospital.  

The Yondaime Kazekage died without ever waking up. 

It didn’t concern Sasuke in any way, yet he felt their pain, the fear and uneasiness that descended on a village deprived of its leader, the confused hurt of mourning someone they didn’t exactly know yet cared about in some way. And of course, the depth of the siblings’ despair, fresh from seeing the third of them turning their back on them yet again and now losing their only remaining parent. Kankuro looked angry, Temari, stoic and inscrutable. They debriefed this fiasco of a mission with the Konoha nin, and then turned around to start making preparations for the funerals. 

Sasuke and his team could offer no help nor comfort, it would be ill-advised even. 

They were done here.  

.

Temari couldn’t tear her eyes away from her father’s ashen face. 

The hour was late, she was exhausted. Just thinking about all that would need to be done in the next few days, weeks, months, made her wish she could fall asleep and never wake up. Yet she couldn’t move at all. 

She ought to be sad, she supposed. All she could feel was rage. 

How dare he, how dare he leave this mess for them to sort through, how dare he abandon his village. How dare he leave her like this. 

She never got to talk to him. She never got to tell him all that weighed on her heart, all she blamed him for. She never had the chance to see if he could repent, if he could be changed, if she could forgive him and if they could reconcile, mend their bound, heal. She would never know. He was gone. She would never talk to him again. 

Would he have bowed in humility, as Chiyo had done in her last moments? I atone. Would he have? He was never much taken with the faith, seldom went to the temple. She didn’t much either, she didn’t know why she thought of it now. Because of Matsuri, probably, locked down in their jail, awaiting her fate. Was she praying now? Was she reciting the hundreds of Paths that guided their lives, to comfort herself? She probably knew them all by heart. Temari could never recall more than a few. 

There was one sticking to her now though. 

“I let go of the dead,” she whispered in the empty parlor, to her father’s deaf ears.  

There would be the old Chiyo to bury too, and even Sasori, for he was one of them still, despite it all, always would be. She didn’t even get to entertain the idea of seeing him again that he was gone too. Maybe it was a blessing.  

She got up, body stiff and aching from running around for days and then staying still for hours.  

“I let go of the dead. I worship the living.” 

She had work to do. 

.

Once the antidote worked its effects, the fog finally lifted from Gaara’s mind.  

He had never felt anything like this – he had never been sick nor hurt, so this weakness, this failure of his body was completely new and quite scary. Shukaku was raging in his corner, outrage covering a growing sense of panic. This wasn’t something any of them was accustomed too. 

But all was fine now. Their friends had come, of course, and all was well. 

“I’m okay now. Let me down.” 

Neji didn’t look convinced, but he complied willingly enough. Gaara touched his cheek briefly, soothing – it was telling enough that Neji leaned into it for a second. He had been very worried. Gaara didn’t like it, didn’t like anything troubling the other boy, but there was little he could do against it. And, ah. Even if he would rather Neji’s mind to be at peace, it felt warm and sweet, his concern for him. 

Gaara walked up to Naruto. They had to walk for a while – Naruto had miscalculated the placement of one of his hiraishin kunai. It was too far from the next on the line, out of reach. They were far and remote enough that it wasn’t much of an issue, but he knew Naruto would still berate himself for it. 

Karin was walking by his side. She looked angry, but then again, she always did. Whether she was mad at Naruto or not, she still made sure to stay close, a silent support. She nodded at Gaara when he approached and fell back. Naruto startled a little when he saw him, so deep that he was in his own thoughts. 

“Are you alright?” Naruto asked, full of concern. He reached out – Gaara took his hand. 

“I am sorry.” 

Naruto shook his head. 

“It’s not your fault. I guess we should have known but… Ah. We all agreed. Everything is fine.” 

That was far from the truth. 

“You didn’t have to do this,” Gaara said. He didn’t mean to be accusing, but Naruto tended to make it harder than it needed to be for himself, and Gaara didn’t know how to break him out of it. 

“Yes, I did.” 

“Not like this.” 

Naruto frowned, ready to argue, but the fight left him after only a moment. 

“It’s better this way.” 

They had had this discussion many times before. Naruto was afraid of his friends coming after him and the rest of their group. He was afraid for all parties involved, and Gaara knew both hopes battled their place in his heart – the hope that they would give up and stay a safe distance away, and the hope that they would never stop looking for him. 

They were all still a long way from peace. 

“Will they be able to remove the seal?” 

“No. Never.” 

“It must have hurt.” 

Not physically, he knew. But it was obvious Naruto’s friends had been worried about him. Been waiting for their reunion. 

Gaara kept going back to Temari’s face and her pleading voice. He had meant what he said – he would never go back. 

That didn’t mean he didn’t long for it in some way. 

A light breeze ran between the trees and rocks. A second later, Akiko materialized at Naruto’s feet, slithering up his body to wrap around his neck. She was closest to a spirit that the others of Naruto’s foxes, looking more like a snake with fur than a fox. She was also the youngest, and the most attached to Naruto. 

“What news from Suna, Akiko?” Naruto asked, running a hand along her body as a greeting. 

“The Wind Shadow. Dead.” 

Gaara forgot how to breathe. 

“What? Are you sure? Akiko, the head of the village? The Kazekage?” 

“Dead.” 

Neji’s hand grabbed his arm – Gaara hadn’t felt him coming closer. Sand danced around them for a short moment before he could get a hold on his emotions. It still hovered, agitated. 

His father was dead. 

It was… He didn’t know how to feel. There was no love in his heart that went to his father. There had never been, not even when he still believed he could have worth in the man’s eyes. It was never about love – his father was so far removed, Gaara had never come to associate him with a family figure.  

He had not known what that was at all. 

And yet… Gaara knew what a father was. He knew Temari and Kankuro had had one, more than him anyway. And even if they weren’t close either, they had to be very sad right now. What about the village? Gaara knew too little. Was Rasa loved? Did it count? 

He was dead. He would chase Gaara no more. Gaara would never see him again. 

Naruto gripped his hand tighter. Neji put his other hand on his shoulder. 

“I am okay. This is sad news.” 

He would leave it at that for now. 

“What else, Akiko?” 

“The old woman, dead. The red cloud without a body, dead. The red cloud with three mouths, alive.” 

Karin winced. Chiyo’s death was unsurprising. Sasori’s, less so, but it was good news, though Gaara felt some inexplicable measure of sadness at this too. As for Deidara, it meant he had survived somehow, unfortunately. 

“The scroll people, dead, and not dead.” 

That gave Naruto a pause. 

“What people? What did you see, Akiko?” 

The little fox recoiled slightly at his urgent tone. 

“A man and a woman. Summoned from a scroll. Dead. Not dead.” 

“What do you mean?” 

“Isn’t it obvious?” Karin butted in, irritated. They glared at each other. Naruto wanted confirmation, because he didn’t want to draw the most likely conclusion. Karin had no such qualms. 

“I heard the Konoha ones talk about it. Living corpses, has to be. It’s not like it’s a fucking surprise,” she muttered.  

They were expecting it indeed, to one day find the reanimated corpses in the Akatsuki’s ranks. But they had kept hoping it wouldn’t happen, except for Karin, who was a dedicated pessimist. 

“Orochimaru is helping out the Akatsuki for sure.” 

This was terrible news.

Chapter Text

The girl is tasked with showing him around.  

Her name is Karin, and Naruto can’t decipher the way she looks at him. Curious, inquisitive, on the verge of asking a question that never makes it past her lips. The attention isn’t bad though, nor hateful, so he doesn’t mind. She looks unwilling and annoyed, but she dutifully takes him from one corner of the base to the other.  

Well, "base" isn't the right word. For lack of a better one, Naruto would have to settle for "village."  

Otogakure, they call it. They have the headbands to go with it, and they have the pride too, that Naruto is accustomed to in Konoha. Though he left his own headband with Sasuke – he isn’t about to pick up another one.  

He wonders what Sasuke will do with it. Keep it, throw it away, destroy it?  

Will he try to give it back, one day? Will Naruto take it?  

He tunes back into Karin’s instructions to distract himself from those thoughts. She is talking about bathroom turns and communal kitchen, and Naruto is reminded, quite unpleasantly, of his years at the orphanage. Well, maybe he will have to battle for his share of food here too, but at least no one will try to punish him or stop the fight.  

Naruto didn’t expect to see so many people. There isn’t a single one he feels like talking to, but he will have to do with their presence. They are all under Orochimaru’s command, according to Karin – either indebted to him or pledged to his services, often both. Orochimaru is their master, ruler of this little kingdom. One could say Kage. He offers them shelter, sanctuary and, Naruto guesses, some sort of purpose. In exchange, they do whatever he orders them to do.  

There is little doubt about the nature of their work.  

She mostly ignores the people they cross paths with. Naruto recognizes her particular brand of haughty dismissal as what it is – she doesn't want any of them getting too close. Naruto isn’t expecting this new life to be pleasant.  

He wonders what all these people are still doing here, wonders about her. Then again, the same could be said about himself, and the answer is as simple for him as it probably is for most of them.  

He has nowhere else to go.  

Eventually, she leads him to his room. Set in a long corridor of identical rooms hosting some of Orochimaru’s men, it has a bed, a desk, a couple of shelves for personal belongings. A marked improvement from the orphanage – at least he won’t have to share with five other boys. But he can’t help the weird double vision of another room, overlooking a small garden left untended because Naruto liked the plants to grow unrestrained and Shisui…  

He shakes his head as if it will dislodge the thought. It almost works.  

“My room is a few doors down. I’ll leave you to settle, then I’ll take you to the master.”  

She leaves him to his own devices.  

The room is dimly lit – no sunlight underground. He doesn’t have that much to unpack, the picture of team 7 stays carefully wrapped at the bottom of his backpack. Looking around, it strikes him suddenly, what this reminds him of.  

The ANBU headquarters.  

He doesn’t remember how he ended up there and how he managed to wander around. He explored a lot of places in Konoha he shouldn’t have, by virtue of being easily ignored and forgotten.  

The ANBU and their blank mask, their uniform, their hidden blades. Lurking around the village and spying on him at random. They didn't all live at the headquarters – as far as he knew, Shisui and Itachi never did. But most of the ANBU didn’t have any family. Kakashi, and his friend Tenzo, and the ones who taught Sakura kenjutsu… Though those two eventually moved in together, no? Maybe that was the point. To not be alone. To have something resembling a family.   

Naruto looks around him, at the bare walls and the used furniture. It seems fortunate that neither family nor a home is what he came looking for.  

.  

.   

They made it to the hideout just before nightfall.  

There was no light and no sound coming from the old temple, which meant the others weren’t back yet. Karin hoped they hadn’t run in as much trouble as their group.   

It had only been a few days, less than a week, yet she felt like she was returning from war. This felt as much like a home as anything, despite them only living there for a few months, and when she dropped on the wooden patio, she could finally, at long last, relax a little.  

Naruto rushed to her, concerned.  

“Are you alright? Are you hurt?”  

She tugged at his haori hard enough to make him tumble down next to her. She grabbed his arm, rested her head on his shoulder, and let out a long sigh.  

“Don’t move. I’m so tired I might pass out.”  

He obeyed and stayed still – only for a minute, before shifting to wrap an arm around her shoulders. She grumbled, but it was more comfortable like this, so she let it pass.  

Behind her she heard the others move around the common area – Neji was moving, most likely, getting dinner started while Gaara watched his every step. It was creepy, but Neji didn’t seem to mind. He didn’t seem to mind most of Gaara’s weird behaviors, which was the reason why they got along so well.   

They didn’t have to share a room, as there were enough for all of them, yet they did. She couldn’t pretend to understand it.  

The temple was a gift from the foxes, a sanctuary protected by their blessings that couldn’t be found if they didn’t want it to be. Karin paid for it as much as Naruto did, even if she hadn’t signed their contract. They both had more than enough chakra to spare for the greedy foxes, and the foxes gave back well. They were safe here.  

It had become riskier for them to step outside and roam the nearby roads, remote as they were. The nearest village was an hour away by foot, and they visited when need be, but kept to themselves as much as they could. The villagers – mostly fishermen and construction workers employed in the larger cities of the South – asked no questions and let no eyes nor ear wander. They didn't seem fond of shinobi, and their sympathy stemmed from their impression that this weird group of mismatched teenagers was on the run from the hidden villages. They weren't wrong.  

That didn’t leave much room for aimless wandering. Maybe that was part of the reason why she had agreed so easily to their trip to Suna, despite the risks.  

Ha. She was never leaving the temple again.  

“I’m sorry,” Naruto muttered after a while. She scoffed.  

“About what? What could you possibly be blamed for this time?”  

“About Orochimaru.”  

She gritted her teeth. He never knew when to let go. Granted, she wouldn’t let him – she had a hard time letting it go too, even if she knew he had done his best in the heat of the moment, that things would probably still had gone to hell either way. Even if she was just as much to blame, for warning him too late, for her hesitation.  

She couldn’t help being mad at him though. Had he just stopped to think, for a second…  

“How is that counter seal going then?”  

“It’s… going,” he admitted, sheepish. He wouldn’t have the nerve to lie to her.  

Everything would be solved – or well, that particular Orochimaru issue would be solved – if they could just come up with that stupid counter seal the man wanted so badly. But they couldn't get it to work, no matter how hard they tried. Naruto tried harder since he was much better at sealing than her, but he was still not the best reader and she was the one deciphering the Uzumaki scrolls they had snatched up on their way out of Otogakure for him.   

The counter seal worked, in theory. It just had the inconvenient side effect of killing whoever it would be applied to in the process. Granted, that would also solve the issue, but even if Orochimaru wasn’t able to come up with the counter seal either, he was certainly proficient enough in their art to recognize a seal that would kill him. After all, he had taught them a large part of what they knew of fuinjutsu.  

“We’ll figure it out.”  

“I’m sorry.”  

“Shut up.”  

Naruto was very good at playing the blame game with himself. Fortunately, he was the only one. Gaara probably didn't have enough of a grasp of what happened around him to draw causes and correlations. As for Neji, he could have been just as bad – he was, after all, equally to blame for this mess by sole virtue of his presence back in Oto. But he did that neat mental trick where he managed to lay the blame for literally everything that happened to him at his clan's feet, and its leader specifically. It was their fault he had ran away and ended up in Oto in the first place, so the fact that it was him catching Orochimaru's interest that had eventually driven them away from the hidden village was his uncle's fault too.  

Karin didn’t find much fault in the reasoning – the man seemed perfectly detestable, and if that saved her from having to convince another idiot that they weren’t, in fact, responsible for everything wrong in their world, she was more than fine with it.   

Naruto helped her to her feet when Neji called them in to eat. She wasn’t joking when she said she was on the brink of passing out, and only the growling of her empty stomach convinced her to make a stop at the dinner table before going to crash on her bed. Even the benefit of a bath didn’t seem worth the effort right now.  

She knew she wouldn’t settle fully until they were all safely back home. The temple was nice, the nicest they had had, but it wasn’t the point. They needed to be together for things to be okay. As long as they were, nothing bad would happen to them.  

.  

.  

Karin can’t help but be drawn to the boy.  

She is mad at herself for it. It is pointless, stupid. What does it matter, if they are from the same clan? Would he even care if he knew? He doesn’t seem much interested in his family and origins, all he does is brood about the friends he left behind in his village. Karin doesn’t get it – she would have given anything to be part of a village, live safely behind its walls, to have a place in this world.  

She doesn’t like him much, yet she is drawn to him all the same. It doesn’t help that his chakra is so appealing to her, sharp and bright, tempting. That despite the bitter edges of the Kyuubi’s presence, it reminds her of her mother. 

It’s not like there is anything really binding them together. He has the name but not the history, he doesn’t even know what it means, while she has the history but not the name. Her mother forbade her to ever use it, fearing it would put a target on their back. It didn’t save either of them from being enslaved anyway.  

Yet she kept the secret. Most of the people who were aware of her name died in the attack on Kusagakure, that saw so many casualties that her mother worked to death trying to heal them all. The last one to know was Zosui, her personal shackles once she took over her mother’s duties.   

She took advantage of the attack on their outpost to sneak up on him and nick him with a poisoned blade. He didn’t have time to get back at her – the whole place was razed to the ground, and she survived because she had no qualms about using these people’s corpses as a cover and hiding away until it was all over.  

Orochimaru found her then. He was curious about her abilities, and he put it to good use just like Kusagakure had done, but he never cared much about her origins, beyond what it made of her. A chakra source, and nothing more. 

It was almost offending – she has their physical traits, her mother told her, and she has their signature chakra reserves too. But the Uzumaki are considered extinct by most. Of course it is better that it remained a secret, yet foolishly, she longs for someone to know, for it to exist outside of her own heart.   

Which is why it is so, so tempting, to grab one of the Uzumaki scrolls lying around on Naruto’s desk, to just open it and to let someone know, for the first time in years.   

She has to follow him around, keep an eye on him. He meditates a lot, and he talks to the Nine-Tailed Fox if his muttering is anything to go by, but mostly he pours over the scrolls.  

Naruto stole some from his village – the rest, Orochimaru had his people found it for the boy. The clan’s inheritance only opens for its descendants, to her master's great frustration, so she is supposed to spy on Naruto, now that he is no longer so skittish in her presence. But the boy is not a complete idiot. He keeps the scrolls hidden when he’s not using them and carefully closed when she's near, unaware that she could open them too, and she itches to do so, so badly at times that she has to leave the room lest she gave in to the urge.   

It’s not worth it, she keeps telling herself, and she ignores the small part of her heart that is cowering in fear, that the scrolls won’t open, that for some reason she won’t be worthy of it. She doesn’t bear the name. Nobody knows. Maybe it is not even true.   

So she watches him, still and silent. They have nothing to say to each other. Well, there is that one thing, but no matter how much time she wastes thinking about it, she can’t find the time nor the way to broach the subject. It is absurd to cling to this. It is just a name.  

Maybe she should go back to the Southern Hideout. The work up there is boring, but at least it’s solitary enough that she wouldn’t have to deal with self-pity and inadequacy. The loneliness is appealing after months stuck in Otogakure. It’s not like she’s needed here.  

Except Orochimaru insists she helps, though Naruto seems to be doing fine on his own, bent over his sealing, testing it on himself, his walls, and the Sound shinobi foolish enough to try to bully him. He has already destroyed two training grounds and had to change rooms after blowing a hole in the last one, but still Orochimaru seems pleased by his experiments. Naruto is a direct access to those secrets, to the lost art of the Uzumaki fuinjutsu, and Orochimaru is nothing if not patient. He is biding his time.  

“He’ll ask for your help,” he says to Karin. He seems certain of it.  

He is right, as he always is. One day Naruto lays a scroll in front of her.  

“Read it to me.”  

She snarls, displeased at his tone.  

“Why would I do that?”  

His bravado is much thinner than her own – he is usually the one to back down. The scowl eases as he scrambles for an answer, uncharacteristically nervous.  

“It’ll be easier to follow. Just read the steps to me. Please.”  

Suspicious, she agrees with a frown, making sure to convey she’s onto him and his bullshit, before moving to the scroll.   

She chokes on her spit, outraged.  

“What the... What’s wrong with you?”  

“What? What did I do?”  

“This is a scroll for... for...”  

She must be as red as her hair. She can’t just say it out loud, that’s probably what he wants, he’s just trying to mock her. She wants to storm out, but it’s the first time he does let her get a look at the scrolls. Even if it’s...  

He looks at her with confusion, as if he isn’t aware of what he’s doing. Very well. Two can play that game. She picks up the scroll, clears her throat, and does her best not to stumble on the words.  

“Prolonged Erection Seal.”  

He screeches higher than even she did.  

“What the... that’s not! That’s not it!”  

“That’s what is written right there!”  

He looks at the paper dubiously, as if he didn’t believe her, while she taps the characters furiously. Is he trying to make her believe he didn’t do it on purpose? Does he think her that stupid?  

“Ah. Yeah. Well. No. Take – that one. Instead.”  

He throws another unrolled scroll at her, unable to meet her gaze. Serves him right for doing such a dumb joke – what did he think would happen? Why is there even such a seal in there?  

“Soul-binding seal,” she reads out loud.  

“Yeah,” he answers awkwardly. “That.”  

It doesn’t look that complicated for such an ominous title. He waits, expectant, and she makes a point to let the uneasy silence linger for a while, just because, before deeming him punished enough.  

“It starts with a five-point seal, downward.”  

“Really?”  

Next thing she knows he’s at her side, peering over her shoulder.   

“Yes, really. Why?”  

“Well, it’s drawn upward here!”  

“But it says downward! See?”  

She points at the scribbled instructions. She doesn’t know which one they ought to follow – the next drawing looks nothing like the first, at least five steps lacking the accompanying illustrations, so there’s no telling.  

But the way he squints his eyes and looks unsure, the way he keeps staring at the sentence, as if...  

"Next it says to lay those symbols at each point," she adds, pointing at a string of characters spreading across the sheet. "It will have to be folded later, and it must be straight enough."  

“Okay, okay, let me see.”  

His hand is steady and precise as he copies the small marks on the blank sheet he laid on his desk. There are dozens of them scattered around the room, pinned to the walls, pilled in every corner. He is almost manic in his studies – she wonders what he hopes to achieve.   

“These have to be linked twice... it says “in the twelfth order”. You know what that means?”  

“Hm. But it’s twelfth? You’re sure?”  

“I can read, thank you.”  

He scowls harder. She has to test it out.  

“And next, what does it say?” he asks, looking at her expectantly. She points at a character.  

“Another five-point seal. Up this time.”  

“What? That’s not possible!”  

“It’s written right there!”  

It is not, in fact, written right there. The word says the opposite. She has her fingers right under it.  

“That’s... You can’t lay two seals in opposite direction on top of each other.”  

“I’m just telling you what’s written here.”  

She sees the moment he gives up, and she feels bad all at once, when he clenches his jaw and takes a step backward, when he glares at her and tries to look angry, when he is just hurt.  

“You’re lying.”  

He knows because he’s very proficient in sealing, but not because he can tell the difference between the two characters. Because he can’t, not for sure anyway, not confidently enough that he can judge if she’s having him on.   

Because he’s not a good enough reader to tell. That’s why he asked her. Most of the scrolls have very detailed illustrations, but some are much more verbose. And he can’t handle it.   

And he gave in and asked her. But he won’t anymore, surely. He is packing his scrolls aimlessly, to appear busy more than to give any semblance of order to his messy room.  

He is embarrassed. Ashamed, even. And here she thought he was mocking her... it ended up being the other way around. Except she isn’t laughing either.   

It was her mother who taught her. On pieces of paper she could scrape up and pens lifted from open pockets, with her complicated medical textbooks that she held onto like precious gems. Late at night, exhausted and weak, she told Karin to learn, while she could.  

He makes to take the scroll still in her hands. Her grip tightens reflexively because she is not laughing, and this is something she can do. This is something she can do.  

“You’re right. It does say downward too. Here.”  

She grabs a brush and a blank piece of paper, she traces the right character carefully, with an arrow pointing down next to it.  

“Upward would be like this”, she adds, another character and another arrow, and she doesn’t look up to see if he’s listening or if he’s ignoring her or glaring at her, if he wants her to leave. She doesn’t dare. She writes another one instead.   

“Five-point seal, six-point seal. Centered, identical, symmetrical. Then there are the base seals – dog, boar, rat...”  

He sits back down without a word as she keeps rambling and writing until she runs out of paper. She tacks them to the wall then, where she can find some space, before picking up the seal they barely started trying.  

“So. Another five-point seal. Downward too.”  

He doesn’t say a word, but he follows her instructions.  

.  

“Any progress?” Kabuto asks.  

She lies.  

.  

She is always watching him, and as such she is immediately aware of him disappearing without notice. She elects to keep it to herself – she can leverage it against him if he comes back, and if he doesn’t, good riddance. She will get scolded, punished maybe, but at least he will be far from her sight.  

But he does come back. And he isn’t alone.  

“Karin, this is Gaara. Gaara, Karin.”  

It’s not just “Gaara”. It’s the jinchuuriki of Suna, snatched right out of his village by that Konoha idiot. He didn’t ask anyone, he simply settled Gaara right next to him, as if he could just… do that.  

Frustratingly enough, he can.  

The master isn’t exactly pleased with that development, as it doesn’t settle well with him to host not one but two Tailed Beasts within his walls. He can’t very well move against them nor underestimate them. The test in the Forest of Death proved that Oto is unlikely to withstand the full assault of a Biju, let alone two.  

But he is also delighted to see them deserting their village. It’s not like he plans on attacking either – she believes he just takes pleasure in the ensuing chaos.   

Maybe he hopes for another war.  

All in all, Gaara is here to stay, and he’s even less entertaining than Naruto is. He stays quiet and does a whole lot of nothing beyond trailing after Naruto everywhere he goes.  

Which was Karin’s spot.  

Damn it, she’s fucking jealous.  

Not even of the boy per se, but of what they have. They share a strange brand of intimacy that shows in their every move, an understanding she can’t hope to share. They don’t talk much, but they don’t need to.  

They also spar with horrific violence, thanks to their fast recovery rate. Even Orochimaru’s toughest fighters can’t keep up.  

She had no place by Naruto’s side before, and it‘s even less now.  

“It’s like family,” Naruto says to her when she snaps and asks what is so special about that weirdo, why he matters so damn much. She can’t help what comes out of her mouth next.  

“What about me?”  

She regrets it immediately. She flees the room before he can react in any way.  

She needs to go back to the Southern Hideout. She will feel better there, far from that boy that isn't part of her family. She doesn’t need him, nor anyone else.  

She finds herself a quiet corner of the living quarters, to calm down and settle her nerves before going to the master. She can’t let him know how affected she is – she can’t hand him her weaknesses so easily.  

“Yo, Karin. We need a fix.”  

Ah, and if she goes back South, she’ll avoid that too.   

She looks up to the three men effectively trapping her in the corner that seemed so welcoming a few minutes ago. She can’t recall their name – she doesn’t care.   

“I’m busy,” she deadpans, defiant.  

She blames Naruto for this too. He was friend with that pink-haired girl from Konoha, so she can totally lay the blame on him by proxy, though it’s the girl’s fault. Ever since the Chunin exam, ever since that girl rescued Karin for some bewildering reason, ever since that look on her face when Karin offered her a chakra fix as compensation…   

Ever since then, Karin has been remembering how much she actually hates to do that. How much she wants to scream and tear her skin off, and their skin too, when they approach her, when they take their teeth to her skin and suck the life out of her without any qualms. She had forgotten that she used to fight this, however useless it was.  

But it’s her purpose here, isn’t it? It’s her value to her master, the only reason why he took her under his wing. It used to make it easier to bear, to see it that way, to know that this was how she could be useful, this was her sole value.   

But the girl had refused. She thought it was wrong. And Karin is stuck remembering that now.  

Damn, she hates those Konoha fuckers.  

“Don’t be difficult, Karin,” the closest one says, patronizing. He tries to grab her arm.  

She punches his teeth out.  

A stupid move, as there are three of them and one of her, and she was never that good a fighter – in these situations she always regrets not trying harder, but still that doesn't push her to train more seriously. It’s pointless berating herself now, as the second man closes a strong hand around her wrist, tight enough to hurt. He seems almost amused by her little display, like the indulgence shown at a child’s tantrum. He knows she can’t stop him even if she wanted to.  

And hell, but she wants to. He brings her arm to his mouth and she feels like throwing up. She wants to rage and fight, even if he would most likely break her arm if she did, because she hates this, hates it, hates their teeth sinking into her flesh, the marks that won’t fade for days.   

But they have every right and she has none. She can’t refuse them – it is the sole reason why she’s even allowed to be here. She’d be best to remember that quickly. There is no escaping it. There never will be.  

She hears a weird noise.   

The man lets go of her wrist to grip at his crotch before falling to his knees. Behind him stands Naruto, looking pissed, and Gaara, looking as unconcerned as ever.  

The men quickly assess the situation – Naruto built himself a bit of a reputation these past few months. He likes to pick fights, and he often wins too, by sheer stamina. He sure has some aggression to work out.   

Karin isn’t worth getting into a fight with him. The three men take off.  

“Are you alright?”  

“Don’t touch me!”  

She can’t stomach any more fingers on her skin. Surprisingly enough, he complies, though it seems to be hard for him, as his hands hover, aimless, above her bare arms. She remembers she had resolved to wear long sleeves more often, but it’s not like she could go shop for new clothes that easily.   

“You shouldn’t have done that.”  

“You should have! If you didn’t want them to touch you...”  

“Do you think that’s up to me?”  

He could do what he wanted because no one could oppose him. She has her purpose. She can deal with it.   

“I don’t want you to suffer,” he says, helpless and nonsensical. As if it was about what he, or she, or any of them wanted. She ignores the warmth, the comfort – stupid, stupid.  

“That’s nice. But that’s not up to you either.”  

“What if it was?”  

She frowns at him, puzzled.  

“How?”  

He seems hesitant then, for the first time since the beginning of that conversation. He just as easily slipped into righteous fury than he reverted back to his reserved, taciturn self. She can't decide which side is truer to his character. Maybe it's both in equal measures.  

“You know. What you said,” he mumbles awkwardly.   

“What did I say?”  

“About family. Do you want to?”  

She chokes on a dismissive retort, caught off guard. But she’s not about to let him have the last word.  

“We already are.”  

“What?”  

“We already are. Family. I was born in the Uzumaki clan. We’re like, cousins or something.”  

She can’t quite believe how easy she makes it sound when she’s screaming in her own head, both revolted and exalted by her sudden breach. It's his turn to be taken aback. Take that.  

But she didn’t expect him to look so…  

Happy?  

“Really?”  

He sounds almost awed. She blushes, feeling shy again. Oh, how she hates his guts.  

“Yeah. Really.”  

He doesn’t question it, and he looks so pleased it hurts. She almost takes it back, tells him she lied, that it was an obvious joke and he fell for it like an idiot, because it’s too much, it doesn’t mean anything, she can’t bear his feelings, on top of her own.  

His expression loses a bit of its shine though, getting shy again when he asks next, “But… Do you want to?”  

For a moment she wonders if he didn’t understand what she just told him, until it hits her that she’s the one who didn’t get it.   

It's not sharing the name that would make them closer. He doesn't expect her to want to, maybe.  

It's a choice to make. And the answer isn’t so easy.   

She knows what she wants, what she longs for, deep down, an ache that couldn’t be soothed and wouldn’t go away no matter how she wishes it to. She’s mad at herself for not having grown accustomed to it after so many years, for craving still such a dangerous indulgence – companionship, safety. Protection.  

Love.  

It is childish and imprudent, in the world they live in, in their situation. She fears it will turn against her, she fears it will be harder after, when it inevitably fails and she’s alone again. Some reached out to her before, even in this place – that gentle boy, Jugo, who shadowed Kimimaro, Guren, on the rare times she was in Oto, and even Dosu and his group, because they too were stranded alone in this place.  

But she couldn’t trust any of them to choose her before the love and fear they had for Orochimaru, who was both savior and persecutor to them all. She suffered the betrayal before.  

This time though. This time…  

“We’re cousins, I told you. You’re stuck with me now.”  

She means it as a threat, but he only laughs.  

.  

Naruto somehow manages to strike up some… friendships, in Otogakure.  

Karin is so baffled by this development that for a while she’s convinced it is some sort of strategy he’s working on to gain support among the Sound ninja or something. It quickly appears that Naruto isn‘t capable of such deceit though.   

He is just… like that.  

The funniest thing is that he seems equally miffed by this. He doesn’t realize that the basic attention and compassion he shows to those around him already place him leagues above their crowd.   

Most famously, he got rather close to Kimimaro – and Jugo, by extension, as those two come in pair.  

Naruto says Kimimaro reminds him of someone he knew. He says it with a painful kind of nostalgia, one that hints at a tragic fate for them. He is quite distressed by Kimimaro's poor health and how little can be done about it. For some strange reason, that seems to be Orochimaru's worst offense in his eyes, and not… everything else.  

That is, until he stumbles upon one of the labs for the first time, until he meets Suigetsu, and then he storms into her room, furious, and asks why she never said anything about this.  

She is surprised Suigetsu mentioned her at all. They didn’t know each other that well. Before.  

And she certainly never visited him in his prison.  

There has been a shift since then, one that she worries about. Naruto never acted like he felt in his place in Oto, but it was the same for all of them – they simply made do long enough that it did become the only home they could hope to have.   

She worried about his choices without ever wondering about hers. About what she would do, if he decided he couldn’t stay here anymore.  

He still learns from their master, because it’s also why he is here. Naruto’s talent for sealing is natural but blunt, unrefined, and Orochimaru is all about refinement. She wonders if he truly hopes to seduce the boy into his service – he has to know it’s not going to happen. Naruto has... For all his rage and resentment, he has this drive. He is fine with doing what it takes to survive and protect his friends, but he still doesn’t like to hurt people. He doesn’t seek power for himself, he’s just not interested. What he truly wants, Orochimaru can’t give him.  

Still Orochimaru teaches him because he is a teacher. Above all and despite everything, that is how she would describe him. He taught her a lot too, though not things she ever wanted to learn. She helped with the Curse Seal experiments. She doesn’t sleep very well.  

Still, he teaches. Still, they learn.  

.  

A little over a year after his arrival, Naruto disappears yet again, and again comes back with another stray. One from his very own village no less.  

One that Karin dislikes instantly.  

Hyuuga Neji, of the Hyuuga clan. The eyes are a dead giveaway and a huge liability. She curses Naruto for doing this behind her back. Had he told her, she could have warned him, because…  

Because Kimimaro is getting worse. And Orochimaru can’t set his sight on the jinchuuriki, as the Biju would most certainly object to any harm coming to their vessel.  

The Hyuuga boy, however, is just too perfect a temptation for him.   

She knows what he will do to him. She saw it before. All in all, despite her limited usefulness, she is quite close to Orochimaru, because of her endless chakra reserves and her decent grasp at medical ninjutsu. Kabuto trained her in the art, when he could, and she imagines it is so that there would always be a medical expert available in Oto, even when he isn’t there.   

She knows that Orochimaru’s latest body is decaying, that he will soon need another one. She knows who he will choose.  

She says nothing.  

They will want to leave, and what will she do then? She can’t. There is nothing out there for her, she couldn’t escape this place even if she wanted to, and she’s not sure she does. And Orochimaru… He saved her from a life as a slave that would have ended a long time ago. So what if he kills the Hyuuga boy? It’s not like she could stop him.  

It’s barely a month after the boy arrived that Orochimaru asks her to fetch him. She obeys. She dodges the Hyuuga’s questions about what Orochimaru could possibly want with him, she leaves him on the doorstep of Orochimaru’s lab, where Kabuto is waiting with an inscrutable expression but a discreet smirk, for her, when he shows Neji inside.  

She walks away.  

She goes to Naruto.  

She thinks about his chakra, so welcoming, so alike her own. Gaara’s, colder and neutral, biting at times but somehow calming too, a steady anchor. Neji’s even, its chiseled refinement and undeniable beauty despite how little she wants to approach it.  

Naruto would know, for sure. He would find out, one way or another, that she knew. And he would never forgive her. She keeps going back to his words, to him shy and blushing, asking if she wants to be part of that small, fragile thing they were trying to build with Gaara, between the two of them and with the Hyuuga too now, something they never knew yet craved all the same, something that for some unfathomable reason, they were willing to include her in.  

She runs to him.  

“Orochimaru is going to kill Neji,” she says.  

It's all downhill from there. 

Chapter Text

It’s Gaara who snatches Neji’s wrist and tells him to run.  

Sand has already engulfed and overflowed most of the compound, the flood of Gaara’s rage only receding to let them pass. Naruto is behind them and Neji wants to wait, but he’s weakened alarmingly by whatever Orochimaru tried to do to him, and it’s all he can do to keep stumbling behind Gaara.  

Soon, he can’t even do that. His vision is blurring – he has never been so chakra deprived before, the life sucked out of him by the snake in just a few minutes. Had the others not burst in...  

Gaara catches him before he falls. It is not unfamiliar – they have been touching a lot lately, as though by chance, but it’s too frequent and too deliberate, even if they have said nothing of it. Of all the things to come out of him running away, of trusting Naruto and deciding to follow him, this is surely the strangest and most unexpected. The scariest, but the most exciting too. He doesn’t understand it, but just the idea that it exists, that it can grow and change, is exhilarating.  

But for that they need to get far away from here.  

“Do not die,” Gaara says. He cups Neji’s face, so that their eyes can meet. His face never shows much, but the contrast in his eyes is the same as usual – serene peace and ablaze fury, and the sand is still raging around them, stained with blood, birthing and smothering cries of agony of the unfortunate caught in the tide.   

Gaara’s hands are gentle on his face.  

“I won’t.”  

There is no way. They’ve barely lived – they deserve more time, a lot of it, enough that it will outweigh all the time they lost already, trapped in their cage, alone.   

They hear a scream. At first Neji isn’t even sure that’s what it is – it doesn’t sound human, this shriek of wrath and pain, but he recognizes the voice.  

What could Naruto have done to Orochimaru, to reap such a sound off of him?  

There is no time to wonder as the boy appears by their side, guided by the hiraishin taped to Gaara's gourd so that Naruto can reach him at all times. He grabs them both – the jump is never pleasant, but Neji feels so terrible already that it barely registers. They pop out in the main training ground, then in one of the labs, where the sand makes quick work of freeing those imprisoned and where Naruto grabs that water boy he's been talking to. Neji thinks he sees Kimimaro too, but then they are at the main gate where Karin is waiting for them, and he and Jugo aren’t here. Naruto doesn't let the girl get a word out that he is already moving them all, once, twice, thrice, until their surroundings are no longer recognizable.   

Neji falls to his knees as soon as they stop, on the verge of passing out. Karin is yelling above him, and he would tell her to shut up if he could make a sound.  

“What happened? What did you do? What did you do?”  

Naruto seems reluctant to answer, but it’s best not to deny Karin, especially in that state.  

“That seals works after all.”  

It seems the better option to lose consciousness right there and then.  

. 

. 

Neji startled awake at the loud sound of the temple’s main door sliding open forcefully. He winced, thinking of the repairs they would most likely have to do, again, and cursed whoever it was that couldn’t open the door like a normal person.   

The list of suspects was limited.  

Gaara was already up, meditating in a corner of the room, unbothered by the commotion. Little could startle him. His fellow jinchuuriki in particular couldn’t hope to get the drop on each other, as they were strangely attuned to each other’s presence.  

“They’re back,” he stated in a low voice.  

His face barely changed, but he sounded pleased.  

They heard Karin yell, Suigetsu laugh, the other talking softly. Neji sighed, long-suffering, but he felt like smiling too.   

“They are.”  

In the main room they found Karin chasing Suigetsu around, while Naruto, as usual, did his best to look unaffected as Yugito ruffled his hair gently. Fu was mocking him, but she launched herself at him as soon as she could and hugged him viciously, so she didn’t really have a leg to stand on.  

Neji often missed the tension wrapped around Gaara’s body until after it was gone – he looked at the three hosts and the difference was so obvious it didn’t make sense not to have seen it before.  

They were better at it now, but they still didn’t like to be apart.  

Karin and Suigetsu’s fight was mostly for show. It was how they demonstrated affection, and it gave the others a moment to greet each other. Neji waited a little before stepping in.  

“Hello, Neji,” Yugito said, always mindful and polite to a fault, always with the faintest, softest smile that was as hard to decipher as Gaara’s blank expression. She was the latest to have joined them, and she was several years older than them – he wondered if she felt out of place sometimes. She had confessed a sense of responsibility toward them, though she didn’t see them as children. They were all shinobi, age didn’t factor in their strengths and the dangers they could face.  

“What news then?”  

“You mean, aside from what happened in Suna?” Fu asked, cheeky, though there was true worry hidden underneath. Whatever they had heard on the way, it couldn’t have been pleasant when they were so far away, out of reach and unable to help.  

“That could have gone better,” Neji conceded, an understatement. With a look, Yugito agreed to let it go. She would get the story later.  

“We met with the hosts of the Yonbi and the Gobi,” she said.  

“Really?” Naruto exclaimed, eager to tune back into the conversation. Neji rolled his eyes. It was the only thing he cared about.  

"Yes. We were right, they are both deserters, though it is kept on the down-low by Iwa. They were traveling together – they are good friends. They weren't interested in joining us, for now, but we warned them about the Akatsuki, and they took your seal. We will meet again."  

Naruto smiled, pleased, though he had to be a little disappointed their little group wouldn’t gain any new faces for now. It made sense, as the two jinchuuriki from Iwa were much older, and probably well settled in whatever compromise they had struck with their village.  

“What about Kumo?” Neji asked, never one to lose sight of the hard questions.  

Yugito’s face lost some of its warmth, though she kept smiling at him. They didn’t have the specifics, but her feelings toward her fellow jinchuuriki were rather… complicated. Killer Bee’s status was unique among the lot of them, as he was recognized and well-loved by his people, something that had always been hard to reconcile for Yugito, who wasn’t related to the Raikage and thus wasn’t so lucky.  

“He… wasn’t interested. But he didn’t report us, and he did give us some pointers regarding our relationships with the Biju.”  

Killer Bee had no reason to want to leave the comfort and safety of his village, unlike Yugito, exploited, Fu, restrained, and Naruto, cast aside.   

“That’s good,” Naruto said. “We need to train!”  

Neji had yet to leave Konoha when Naruto had started to make real strides in his link with the Kyuubi, so he wasn’t clear on the details. Naruto didn’t like to talk about it, but the two had come to an agreement of sort. Still, they all worried about losing control, about the power of the Biju unleashed onto the world.  

At the same time, even if Naruto had never spelled it in so many words, Neji was pretty sure his end goal was to free the Nine-Tail for good. How he would achieve that remained a mystery for now, one Neji didn’t feel like thinking about.  

“We also confirmed that Orochimaru is working with the Akatsuki.”  

Naruto’s mood dampened significantly.  

“We… found that out too.”  

“He doesn’t seem to have any trouble finding bodies for his jutsu. We need to find a counter-strategy, and fast.”  

“I know, I know.”  

“And what about the seal? He doesn’t want anything from us beside it.”  

“I know, I know.”  

“So we have to…”  

“Yugito.”  

She turned to Neji, surprised at the interruption. She was a great tactician, and she tended to get lost in the logistics – she often ended up talking to herself, as no one could follow her train of thoughts. It also meant she was lost to the effect of her words. In this case, Naruto looking more and more guilty by the second.  

“All in due time though,” she amended, a little awkward. Neji held back a sigh. Karin had said something surely, for Naruto to feel so bad about it again. It was absurd. None of them were responsible for Orochimaru’s greed and thirst for power. If anything, Naruto had done them a great service by incapacitating the man in some way, even if it meant he would turn to their enemy in retaliation. Neji wasn’t about to feel bad about it, even if he could have taken the blame too.  

Yugito cornered him and Karin a few moments later, once Fu had dragged Naruto outside for some sparring – she never ran out of energy, having arguably the best stamina of them all. Neji found her exhausting and didn’t dismiss Karin’s theory that she was always this fired up because she sucked the energy out of the people around her.  

“Is he beating himself up over it again?” Yugito asked. Neji glared at Karin.  

“I didn’t say anything!” she protested. “He brought it up himself. The animated corpses are a hard blow, and we wouldn’t have to deal with it if we had left Oto peacefully.”  

“We can’t even be sure about that. For all we know, Orochimaru would have tried to stop us all the same.”  

“But he wouldn’t be out for Naruto’s blood now.”  

They hadn’t heard directly from the man, since he couldn’t find them, but they had had a few very unpleasant encounters with some of his people. Orochimaru was enraged. Enough that he would ally himself with the Akatsuki to track Naruto down.   

“He needs to get it into his head that he is not responsible for this,” Yugito stated, a tad angry. She had an inflexible sense of duty and justice, right and wrong, that Neji couldn’t help but admire, impressed by her strength as much as her resilience despite the trials of her life as a jinchuuriki.  

“I’ll talk to him again,” Karin assured, always eager to please the older woman. “And we’ll come up with that seal. Orochimaru will leave us alone. The rest, we can handle.”  

It was probably a bit too optimistic of them, but what else could they do? The Akatsuki was a huge threat on its own, but at least there were very few of them. With Orochimaru’s forces joining in, especially his corpses, the odds were much more dreadful.   

There was also no guarantee that he would actually back down once free of the seal Naruto had doomed him with, but for all his terrible traits, Orochimaru wasn’t especially resentful. He was pragmatic above all, and couldn’t be that thrilled to associate with the Akatsuki, whose contempt for he made no secret.  

There was an easier solution to this though.  

“We should just kill him and be done with it.”  

After all, it was more or less the beginning and end of their plan to deal with the Akatsuki. None of the members would be an easy target but their group was seven strong now, with four jinchuuriki. Their chances weren't so bad, including against the snake.  

Karin didn’t agree.  

“Don’t be ridiculous,” she retorted, in her usual “I’m not calling you stupid out loud but I’m sure you can hear it anyway” tone of voice.   

He wouldn’t let it fly this time.  

“How is that ridiculous? Orochimaru will still be a threat even if he is not personally after us anymore. We can take him out if we plan it carefully.”  

“What’s the point in seeking him out? We are safe here! We don’t need to engage!”  

“You had no qualm risking running into the Akatsuki on the way to Suna. We can’t just hide here forever, we will have to fight them eventually.”  

“I know that!”  

“You just don’t want him to die!”  

She recoiled as if he had hit her, sputtering in indignation.  

But she didn’t deny it.  

He had never leveled the accusation out loud, even if he was sure of it from the start. He didn't believe she regretted following them instead of staying in Oto, regretted her choice.  

But she would have rather they stayed. For all the venom she spewed about the man and the place, for all that she hated it there…  

He had seen it in a lot of them. It was baffling, but undeniable – despite how Orochimaru treated them and the life they led in Oto, they were grateful to him.   

Loved him, even. And she was no different.  

Yugito cast him a disapproving look, as if he was the one at fault for voicing the truth out loud, when Karin was the one still too attached to her former master to bear thinking about his death. A reluctance Orochimaru surely wouldn’t repay toward her, or any of them. He had proven enough time how little he cared about the people under his orders.   

And yet, and yet. They stayed loyal to him, sought out his approval, obeyed his every wish, desperate that they were to give meaning to their existence by his side. Kimimaro had even chosen to stay, despite everything.  

“Fuck you,” she spat, voice tight. “You can come at me when you’re ready to slaughter your entire family!”  

“Is that what you consider your family then?”  

“You fucker and your rich clan in your nice little village have no right to pass judgment on that!”  

“That’s enough.”  

Yugito didn’t raise her voice nor physically step in between them. She didn’t have to. The warning in her tone was enough, and they both took a step back even if Neji wanted nothing more than to twist the knife deeper. Karin and he were too good at this – he hated that this was a trait they shared.  

They weren’t going to start getting along now, but he had promised Naruto he would make the effort, so instead of pressing on, he walked away.  

.  

“You shouldn’t have talked to her like that.”  

Neji almost snapped back a scorching retort. He would have, had it been Naruto coming for him, or even Yugito. But it was Gaara.  

His voice carried no judgment nor acrimony. He simply stated a fact, and he was right. Anger abating, Neji realized that he shouldn’t have, indeed. That didn’t make it any easier to hear.  

“I know. I’ll apologize later.”  

It wasn’t their first fight and wouldn’t be the last. She usually apologized too, albeit as reluctantly as he did.   

“I don’t understand her,” he added after a while, since Gaara wasn’t leaving which meant he expected to hear more on the matter.   

“I do.”  

“Really?”  

“If Orochimaru had been the one to take me away from Suna, I would have loved him too.”  

Neji winced.  

“Even knowing what kind of person he was?”  

“You are indebted to Naruto, because you took his offer to set you free. What would you have done, had he been a bad one?”  

“I would have refused.”  

Gaara looked pained for just a moment, before his face softened.  

“Hm. Maybe you would have.”  

It nearly sounded accusing, but Neji wasn’t sure of who.  

“Morals don’t matter much to abandoned children,” Gaara added, almost as an afterthought. But that was the one Neji didn’t have an answer to.   

Karin was evasive about her past, but she had arrived several years before them in Otogakure, alone. Who knew where she would be now, if not for him?   

That didn’t change who the man was though, his many crimes, how bad he treated those people and her. She deserved better yet she clung to it all the same. It was infuriating.   

He shook his head – there was no use dwelling on the matter. They would apologize and play nice, if only for Naruto’s sake, up until their next fight.  

“Did you need something else?” he asked Gaara, who wasn’t in the habit of lingering when he had said his piece. The boy marked a short pause – a world of hesitations, in his case.  

“Fu said you were going to the river.”  

“Yes. You know she doesn’t want to be alone on laundry duty, and I need to wash my hair.”  

Gaara didn’t add anything. He just stared, unblinking, as he did when he was waiting for someone to ask him what he wanted to say, so that he wouldn’t have to speak first.  

“Do you want to come help me?”  

“Yes.”  

Neji had to smile.  

. 

.  

Karin bursts into his room, panting heavily, eyes shining. “Orochimaru is going to kill Neji,” she says.  

Naruto’s first instinct is to lay a hand on the back of Gaara’s neck before he explodes into a murderous rage. It works, if barely – Gaara doesn’t get the urges much anymore, but his emotions are still brittle and easily overthrown, and he only has one response to any kind of emotional distress.  

Plus, he has grown very close to Neji.  

Some try to stop them as they rush to the labs. Those, Naruto cannot help – anyone who gets into Gaara’s way has to be ready to bear the consequences. Death, more often than not.  

Naruto gets more and more frantic as the commotion increases, as they are slowed down on their way, probably on Orochimaru’s orders. What is going on? Why now? What is he planning to do, after all these months?  

Naruto gets his answer as soon as he reaches Orochimaru’s private lab.  

He needs but a glance to identify the seal and its purpose. It is much alike the ones he has been studying for months now in hopes to learn more about what tied the Nine-Tails to his body and mind.  

A soul-binding seal. Except this one goes even further. A soul to crush another soul. A soul to be bound to another body, and the host...  

He doesn’t have time to think, to refine a plan and to foresee consequences. Kabuto is busy with Gaara – rather, busy with preventing Gaara from drowning them all. Naruto doesn’t fear the sand. But he fears the lines painted around Neji’s body and the grip Orochimaru has on him. He doesn’t have time to think. He overwrites the seal. He throws his chakra into it.  

They fight for a while in the seal, there is no way to tell how long. Each to their will, pushing against the other, and Naruto draws deeper and deeper, chakra pouring out, disorganized and unfocused, but enough to hold his ground because this is the reason why the Uzumaki clan was always leagues above all others when it came to sealing. Orochimaru’s precise refinement against the bluntness of Naruto’s style, and he fears it won’t be enough for a moment because Orochimaru’s power is overwhelming, devastating in its intensity, and he starts to infiltrate Naruto’s body too, turning the seal against him.  

That is his mistake though – as soon as his chakra creeps in, the Fox roars.  

Oh, I don’t think so.   

Naruto’s body isn't for the taking.  

Orochimaru recoils at the onslaught and Naruto takes the opportunity to push back with all his might. He doesn’t need to win, doesn’t even need to put an end to it, he just needs to...  

It is only timing that makes it work – the seal keeps going, but Naruto manages to free the grip Orochimaru’s soul has outside of his body, to box it back in just in time that when he realizes what is happening, it is too late. The seal closes, and so his soul is bound. But not to Neji’s body.  

To his own – or is it? There is no way to tell. Whoever body it is that Orochimaru is living in, he will have to contend with it from now on, because the seal is locked and Naruto already knows, just looking at it, that he wouldn’t be able to open it again even if he wanted to, and that anyone who tries will have a hard time too.  

Orochimaru screeches, hysterical. Naruto flees.  

.  

.  

Fu managed to drag them all down to the river with her. “Come on,” she said, cheeky. “It will be fun.”  

Naruto knew it was a big deal for her. To have fun. She was tight-lipped about Taki, sidestepping the subject entirely, but she didn’t need to talk about it for them to understand. It was in how she hated being alone, hated the silence, how she touched them and liked to be touched in return, how eager she was to meet new people and see new things.   

She had Gaara etch the kanji for “joy” on her shoulder.  

It wasn’t hard to indulge her. So down to the river they went, just a short walk away from the temple. Suigetsu wasted no time diving in while Yugito helped Fu with the laundry. A bit apart, Gaara washed Neji’s hair for him – his fascination for it never seemed to abate, and Neji pretended to only indulge for his sake, but he secretly loved it, Naruto was sure.  

It was nice, being cared for.   

They had found Fu during the Suna chunin exam. Or rather, right after, when she was on her way back, as they had heard Taki’s jinchuuriki was among the party. She had sensed them before they did, had managed to sneak away, and had not bothered to look back once. As if she had been waiting for that her whole life.  

Maybe she had.  

Yugito, they had rescued by chance as she was being chased down by the Akatsuki in the outskirts of Kumo. Naruto had never been more grateful for the hiraishin than on that day. He’d thought she would tire of them, and she had contemplated going back, for a while. But she’d elected to stay, when he had expressed his desire to find the others and to make something of it, of them together when they shouldn’t have been, them walking out of their village, their place, their fate.  

It was four of them now. It would become more, maybe. But only if he could give them something to look forward to.  

For now, they were essentially outlaws on the run. They could defend themselves just fine, but they had to be careful not to be seen, they couldn’t travel much. They couldn’t go back to places they held dear and people that still had a place in their heart despite everything.  

They were still trapped, and Naruto hated it.  

There wasn’t much to be done as long as the Akatsuki was a threat to them. It was frustrating how little they knew of the organization, their members and their abilities, and most importantly, their goal. They had attacked Naruto in Konoha, Yugito in Kumo, and now they had gone after Gaara too. And for what? It was a mystery. Naruto had been tempted to straight-up meet with them and ask, but had their goal not been nefarious, they would have taken that step first.    

Naruto remembered the forest. Kisame of Kiri and that mysterious orange mask. He remembered his hands covered in Shisui’s blood.   

No, there were no allies to be found there.  

Orochimaru had been an ally. Not the most reliable one, for sure, but Karin was right. Had they wanted to leave, he would have let them. They had never been chained to Oto, not truly. His people stayed by his side because they didn’t have another option, like Naruto when he had arrived, and Orochimaru would try to stop the most valuable of them from leaving, if it came to it, but he wasn’t overly concerned with their wanderings.   

But then there was Suigetsu, and the Cursed Seal experiments, so maybe Naruto was entirely in the wrong about all this and it was always bound to end badly. Neji reproached Karin and him to be too lenient on the snake's character and intent, and he was in the right in some way.  

But Karin had reasons to be grateful to him, and so did Naruto. It was because of his offer that Naruto had been able to leave Konoha at all. What would he have done otherwise, where would he have gone? They would have caught him in a matter of days, the village or another or the Akatsuki.   

And Orochimaru did teach him. He really did, basics on sealing and chakra manipulation that he had only ever studied by himself before, or with his friends who were just as inexperienced as he was, just less inept. It was thanks to his teachings that Naruto managed to master the hiraishin, that he could refine the bluntness of his techniques. That he could learn a little more about his origins, even if that maybe wasn’t such a good thing.   

And that he could recognize what he was going to do to Neji that day, that he could counter it. Orochimaru probably regretted that bitterly now.  

And truth be told, Naruto regretted it too.  

Who cares about the snake.   

Naruto sighed.   

Leave me alone.   

Stop thinking so loud then.   

Why are you here anyway? Didn’t you miss the others?   

Physical distance means nothing to us.   

Why then did they feel so uneasy when they were apart, and so relieved when they found each other again? The Fox had settled down a great deal ever since Naruto had gotten closer to the other Biju. Not so much with Gaara, for the Nine and One-Tailed didn’t get along so well, it seemed, but with Fu and Yugito...  

Especially now that they could visit each other at will.  

You have him to thank for that, you know? Naruto snarled at the Fox, because he didn’t like being reproached for his mixed emotions for his time in Oto.  

The tweaks Naruto had made to his seal were done under Orochimaru’s guidance, though of course, as with all things, the snake had his own interests at heart, beyond Naruto’s wish to pacify his relationship with his unwilling host. The man probably hoped that with more control, Naruto would gain more power, but also be more volatile – and rely on Orochimaru’s ability to restrain, in some measure, the wrath of the Biju. The true goals of the man remained a mystery. Naruto had no doubt he wouldn’t like them though.  

I have no gratitude to show for the expansion of my prison.    

Naruto knew that to be untrue. They shared their emotions in some measure after all, even if the demon’s were so different from his own, so much larger and deeper, barely comprehensible for Naruto’s little human heart. Still, some were easier to grasp than others.  

Opening the seal was out of the question, of course. Even trying to loosen it just a little had proven disastrous – Naruto didn’t want to think about it. There was no compromise to be had – the Fox wanted to be free, that was all, and wouldn’t willingly settle for anything less. Naruto couldn’t very well fault them, since he was driven by the exact same urge.  

So it wasn’t the bars of the cage Naruto had managed to shift, but the other side. The back of the prison that didn’t lead to Naruto’s body and mind, nor to their world.   

Naruto didn’t know what it was, couldn’t go there without crossing the gates. But the cage no longer had a bottom. Instead it led out, somewhere, and somehow, back to the other cages.  

To the other Biju.  

They couldn’t pretend to know how it worked. Gaara and Naruto had worked on it in Oto as a compromise, once it became evident that doing the smallest change to the seal was out of the question.   

Orochimaru had been able to help with that for some inexplicable reason, even though he couldn’t have met such a specific situation before. Or could he? He remained a mystery. Maybe he had met other jinchuuriki before. Maybe the souls of the bodies he took over still lived down there, trapped in the bottom of his mind.  

Later they had taught Fu and Yugito, so that the Biju could meet. Fu’s Nanabi, Chomei, was weirdly protective of her host, while Yugito’s Nibi was mostly indifferent. The Kyuubi and the Ichibi were the most vindictive, with Gaara getting the worse of the lot for sure. At least the Fox took a break from time to time.  

But little could off-set Gaara these days, and the Biju was mellower as a result.   

It was still no solution. As long as they were all chained to each other, as long as they had this power, they wouldn’t be able to live the life they wanted, they wouldn’t be left alone.  

They couldn’t go back.  

Fu spoke of a teacher sometimes. Yugito, of other women trained by her side, subjected to the same violence. Neji worried about his clan, half of it anyway, and Gaara had been affected by his encounter with his siblings. Karin wondered at her mother’s family. And Naruto...  

Despite everything, there was always something, someone to miss, and it would always hurt, because the choice wasn’t theirs, and so they couldn’t make peace with it.  

“Come on, stop moping. You’re ruining the mood,” Karin chastised, sitting down next to him on the riverbank. He wasn’t a fan of water, although it didn’t make him as skittish as it used to, as she had taught him, among many other things, how to swim.   

“No one seems to mind.”  

“Fine, you’re ruining my mood then.”  

“You can just sit somewhere else.”  

He cringed at his harsh tone, but he couldn’t do as she said. She sensed the shift, scooted closer.  

“Are you still thinking about Orochimaru? Because you should stop. He’s not worth it.”  

She was always aggressive, even with her caring. Naruto found it funny, a little endearing even, that she couldn’t bring herself to be gentle even if she tried.   

“That’s not it,” he denied. He didn’t think about Oto when they were all together like this. This brought on a different kind of regret, as he watched Gaara comb through Neji’s long hair, that he tied high at the back of his head, his forehead carefully cleared, while Yugito chastised Suigetsu for splashing water on the sheets she and Fu had just wrung out, the boy sheepish but always weirdly pleased by the scolding.  

“Ah. It’s about your little friends, right?”  

She was disdainful of Konoha and the people there he still thought about. She believed he was better off without them, but that was mostly due to her stubborn refusal to dwell on the past, to have any regret at all. Since he couldn’t be with them anyway, she tried to convince him it was actually a good thing. It didn’t work, but it was nice all the same.  

Because he didn’t regret leaving. He didn’t think it was a bad decision, he didn’t wish he had made a different choice.  

He missed them all the same. Somehow more and more as time passed, which was absurd – shouldn't it have been the other way around? But in Oto it was easier not to think about it, as he was always on alert, aware of the hostility of the place, the precarity of their situation.  

Here they were much safer. He had more time to think.  

He didn’t like it.  

“I knew we wouldn’t... But still. I hoped we could... talk.”  

They hadn’t parted as enemies. They weren’t supposed to be. But seeing the Konoha headbands in this setting, and Suna’s too, it was a sharp reminder that if they didn’t want to make an enemy out of their village, their village had no such qualms.  

“I just wanted to ask. ‘How have you been? Are you alright?’”  

“‘Did you miss me? Are you still mad?’”  

He shoved at her, annoyed.   

“Don’t mock me.”  

“I’m not. But they can’t be your friends anymore.”  

He knew that very well. Now the villages would know for sure, that they were still alive, still out there, regrouping, growing stronger. There was little chance they would ignore it, especially since it would spread through the shinobi world, both that jinchuuriki were up for the grab, and that some villages were now unprotected. It would make it more urgent for them to recover their Tailed Beasts, or acquire others.  

It would make it harder for them all to pretend they weren’t on opposite sides of this story. Their face, when he had laid his seal... Gaara was right, he didn’t have to do it that way. Was it a coward’s move on his part? He just couldn’t afford for them to give chase.  

“We’re far from done,” Karin added, almost threatening. As if he would refute that. He knew what he had to do. She lacked the empathy to comfort him, she who decided never to miss anyone. Sometimes he wanted to tease her about missing him if he were gone, but she would have punched him and he didn’t want her to be upset.  

She sighed, realizing she needed to say more since she had committed herself to bother him about his sullen mood.  

“You’ll ask once we are. They’ll still be there. You’ll ask, “did you miss me?”. I bet they’ll say no.”  

Naruto chuckled. Sakura, for sure. But Sasuke, who was terrible, would probably say “yes”, all earnest and serious. Naruto could almost picture it. And he would say, “I missed you too” and mean it, and maybe he would smile, and he would forgive him.  

Maybe they wouldn’t have to miss each other again.  

Akiko slithered into existence next to him, bright white against the tall grass. She went to wrap around his shoulders.  

“The Red Cloud is on the move.”  

Maybe one day. 

Chapter Text

This part was always strange, when the mission was done and they had to go home, but it had rarely been with such a heavy weight on their mind. Even Lee was unable to lift their spirits as they made their way out of the desert and back into the lush forests of the Land of Fire. They remained silent and forlorn, lost in their own thoughts. Sakura avoided Sasuke and he didn’t try to breach the gap. She was angry, he knew – at how things had turned out, at the Akatsuki, at herself, at Naruto of course. For her, it was often anger. It was a good thing – easier than to see her sad and defeated.  

It was also why she was avoiding him. She was never that good at dealing with his sadness.  

Sasuke stopped just as they were about to cross the gate. The others went on, but he got stuck a step away from the line, the demarcation that separated Konoha from the outside world, the limit to their village.  

For the past two years, every time he went out, every time he walked over the line, he would spare a moment to the same fleeting thought.  

“Maybe when I come back, Naruto will be with me.”  

It wasn’t any real wish – he didn’t expect to stumble upon his friend by accident. And yet. The thought would cross his mind, there and gone, and would come back as he did, as the gates came into view and as he went back home, once more, on his own.  

They had left Konoha in quite the rush this time, yet the thought had lingered longer. For the very first time, he had cause for hope. Going after Gaara was the closest he would come to Naruto, he was sure of it.  

The same foolish hope, every time. Maybe this time would be the one. 

Maybe they would cross paths with Naruto. 

It was absurd that his wish never got past that. They would cross paths. Then what? What did he think would happen? Naruto had left for a reason and there was a reason why he didn’t come back. Was seeing Sasuke again supposed to change that? 

Maybe he had hoped it would. 

The disappointment was a sharp and bitter weight on his tongue, heavy on the nape of his neck. He had a hard time wrapping his head around the idea that… This was it. This was all their first encounter after more than two years would turn out to be. They barely exchanged a word. They barely exchanged a look.

Sasuke hadn’t realized until now, how soothed he would have been by Naruto suffering the distance like he had. Was it wrong of him? To wish his friend was missing him too?

Sasuke looked down at the line. In, out. The village and the rest of the world.  

And for the first time, he forced himself to acknowledge the possibility that he would never again step over this line with Naruto by his side.  

He wasn’t one to doubt. All these months, he had managed to put it aside and focus on his study and training because he was confident that time wouldn’t affect them. That whenever they managed to finally meet again, it would be enough. After all, they had not parted as enemies, right? Naruto had not said he was leaving forever. He had not said he didn’t want to see Sasuke again.  

But, ah. Sasuke supposed a lot could change in two years.  

The circumstances were far from ideal, and Naruto was right to be wary of where they stood. Not as friends, but as a shinobi of Konoha and a deserter from that very same place. Even now, Sasuke wasn’t sure what he expected, how he thought this would go. And how he thought others would react as well. He had not asked Kakashi, had not dared, aware somehow that he wouldn’t like the answer. Did the man receive his orders, without Sakura and Sasuke knowing? Was there a contingency plan for Naruto, now that they were sure he was out there doing his own things, gathering his own group? Really, it was Sasuke’s mistake, for failing to foresee any of it.  

But why the seal?  

It didn’t hurt, he couldn’t feel a thing. Yet he found himself rubbing at his chest as if he could. Sakura did the same, though she caught herself quicker than he did. They hadn’t talked either. She was angry, and Sasuke was in no state to comfort her.   

Naruto could have threatened them in any number of ways. He could have just trusted... Didn’t Sasuke let him go once? He could do it again. And again, and again, if he had to, no matter how much it hurt. So why?  

Even at the height of their fight in the Valley of the End, Sasuke had never once entertained the possibility that Naruto might really try to kill him.  

A lot could change in two years. Was that it? Whatever Naruto had found out there, it had changed his perspective enough that he was ready to go that far to ensure they stayed out of his way. That he could change that much, Sasuke could wrap his head around it, but not that Naruto could assume the same from him. How could Naruto have grown to distrust him so? To see him as an enemy?

Naruto didn’t care anymore. He didn’t care at all. He was ready to fight them for a way out. To kill them, maybe. 

Was that where they stood now?  

His heart hurt.  

“We’ll go report immediately, then you’ll be free to go,” Gai said. He had taken the lead of the group, Kakashi still out of it and shaken enough that he was in no position to do so. Right, they had to report to the Godaime. So much had happened, so many threats had arisen. The Akatsuki, the reanimated corpses.  

Naruto and his friends. Gaara, others like them? Neji too.   

Sasuke felt like a fool. He didn’t know if it was on him, if he should have known better, if he had missed something. But no, no. He had no reason to expect something like this from his friend, right? He couldn’t have seen it coming. It wasn’t normal, wasn’t right.  

Or was it? Would others be surprised, or not? Would Tsunade just shrug, nonplussed? Was he the naïve one?  

They went to the Hokage Tower. Tsunade was waiting, having been warned of their arrival no doubt. They had sent a preliminary report already, as they left Suna, so that she got the news as soon as possible. If only the hard facts – the Kazekage was dead, Suna’s jinchuuriki still on the loose and confirmed to be colluding with Konoha’s, the Akatsuki going after them and the huge threat they posed.  

That first report said nothing of the turmoil, the confrontation in the forest, of Naruto’s determined face.   

How cold, how distant. Sasuke would have rather they didn’t meet at all.  

“You have that corpse sealed?” Tsunade asked Kakashi. He nodded, handed her the body seal containing the reanimated corpse that had attacked him. A jounin from Konoha, who had been dead for years. Sasuke felt like he should have felt more concerned and alarmed by this, but there was too much going on in his head. He would think about that later.  

He tuned back into the conversation when Tsunade slammed a heavy hand on his shoulder, his knees nearly buckling under the sudden pressure.  

“Are you alright, Sasuke?”  

He looked around him briefly – the others were gone. This part was even stranger, when they had to split up after a mission, to go home or to the hospital, or when they took the same way to have a drink, unwilling or unable to let go just yet. Lee and Tenten had gone home, to the small flat they shared near the training grounds. They were each other’s family – they would know how to comfort each other. Sakura didn’t wait for him, and he didn’t expect her to. They weren’t so good at comforting each other, as they both needed it, as they shared the same pain and dealt with it in very different ways. She would go to Ino, would probably crush a few trees with her sword or just rant and rage well into the night. He didn’t have to worry about her – she would be in good care. They would meet when the wave had passed for them both.

“I’m fine. I’ll go back to the hospital, if that’s all...”  

“Oh no. No way. You boy are going home right now.”  

She didn’t let him open his mouth to protest.  

“I don’t want to hear it. I’ll tell the staff not to let you in until tomorrow morning. Go rest, get drunk. Wait, how old are you again? Whatever. Go to your family, or your friends. I don’t know, cry.”  

She wasn’t good at comfort either. But it made him smile anyway, however faintly. They weren’t close in that sense, he never confided in her and she didn’t share anything about her either, yet she always seemed to know. He supposed it came from experience – she could tell what was bothering him and why, be it about his father, his brother, his missing friend. She was never dismissive of it, which was why he appreciated her clumsy care.   

Unlike most of the adults around him, she seemed to believe his emotions were worth having, however mundane. It was a nice feeling.  

“Okay. I’ll go. But I won’t cry.”  

He didn’t know why he said that. He sounded petulant, and, to his horror, not that convincing. She just waved him away, mind already moving to the next task at hand. If he couldn’t sleep tonight, he would come back and help her sort through paperwork or just waste the darkest hours away with her. She didn’t sleep much. At least he could keep her company.  

His mother when she was upset would focus all her attention on caring about others. She said he took after her in that regard. He didn’t know if she saw it as a good or a bad thing.  

“Oh, one last thing, Sasuke. Your father wants to speak with you.”  

“...About what?”  

“I’ll leave the explaining to him.”  

Sasuke didn’t like the sound of that, but she turned away from him, clearly done with the conversation.  

He went to the grocery store, just to be contradictory, and because Shikamaru had complained about them running low on the strange balls of flavored sugar he used to sweeten his coffee. Sasuke piled on a few more things the other boy would like and pointedly didn’t think about his mother.  

He was tempted to go to her, to rest his head on the kitchen table while she cooked and let himself be infused with the warmth, but he wasn't up to run into his father just yet. The man wouldn’t go as far as saying something like “I told you so”, but Sasuke would be able to hear it anyway, to see it on his face. He was glad he didn’t live at his parents’ home anymore. The rash, somewhat unreasonable decision to get his own place, that he had made on the heat of a bitter argument with his father, had turned out to be a blessing in many ways. Away from his father’s prying eyes, he didn’t have to suffer his scrutiny and judgment, and his father was willing to keep the peace when Sasuke was visiting, if only for his wife’s sake. 

His father had been among the ones pushing for a more active search into Naruto’s whereabouts, one of the rare times he and Hyuuga Hisashi agreed. Before the second became irrelevant, and the Uchiha focused back on tracking the rogue Sharingan user still on the loose somewhere in this world. Sasuke wondered how Hinata was doing these days. So much had happened, in only two years.  

Sasuke was greeted by Jiji in front of his building, who climbed up his clothes to settle on his shoulder. The black cat was technically a summon, though he loathed being called enough to ignore it most of the time, and Sasuke didn’t know if he couldn’t talk or just didn’t deign to. But he rubbed his head all over Sasuke’s face and the grip on Sasuke’s heart loosen just a tad.

Sasuke grabbed at his shirt, in the center of his chest. Tsunade would need further tests, but she had confirmed there was indeed a seal newly wrapped around Sasuke and Sakura’s heart. He didn’t want to think about it. 

He climbed the stairs up to the fifth and last floor.

The door wasn’t locked, when he arrived home, and the flat wasn’t quiet.  

Four pairs of eyes looked up at him from around the coffee table, just long enough to greet him before Choji, Kiba and Shino went back to their card game. Shikamaru kept staring though, as he wasn’t part of the game, and was annoying too.  

“I take it didn’t go too well,” he said casually, pretending he could read Sasuke’s mood when he had probably just heard it from the Hokage’s office and Ino’s hot gossip channels. Granted, Sasuke’s mood couldn’t be that hard to assess at the moment, even for Nara “Shogi is easy people are hard” Shikamaru.  

Sasuke didn’t answer. He went to sit on the couch, as far from Shikamaru as possible, and ignored him long enough that his friend tuned back into the game with a sigh. He didn’t play, but he gave pointless commentaries and unhelpful advice to all – his way of engaging. Kiba protested loudly while Shino, much like Sasuke, ignored him entirely. Choji was just amused.  

The party ended with Kiba’s resounding defeat. He gathered the cards to shuffle them before the next round.  

“We ran into Naruto,” Sasuke said into the lull of their chatter.  

Kiba kept shuffling. “We heard,” he answered into his cards, casual as could be.   

Sasuke had to wonder if that was the reason why they were here. They gathered at the flat often enough, as Sasuke and Shikamaru were the only ones not still living under their parents’ roof, but it couldn’t be as often as they wanted, what with their missions, training, and clan duty. Had he had a choice, he would have rather they didn’t come, so that he could mope in peace, face down on his bed.  

That was probably the exact reason why they had come.  

“Better luck next time,” Kiba said awkwardly, before he started dealing the cards with an expert hand. Sasuke settled deeper into the couch and let their joyful banter replace his own muddied thoughts.   

“Last one?” Kiba asked. “Winner takes all.”  

“All what?” Choji asked, mocking.  

“All the cookies your mother made for us but that you didn’t take out of your bag hoping we wouldn’t notice!”  

Choji had the gale to sound offended.  

“I made them myself!”  

“Is that supposed to be better?”  

They had a loose policy on snacks and drinks providing for this sort of situation, but between Choji hoarding food, Kiba hoarding money and Shino being unconcerned by both, it often ended in raiding the flat’s cupboards anyway.  

It felt strange sometimes, to think about this. Their friendship, their bonds, the time they spent together, how well they knew each other. Sasuke had no friends growing up, besides the children his age in the Uchiha clan that he had to hang out with more out of obligations than anything else.   

Naruto was the first friend he made on his own. But Naruto wasn’t there anymore.  

They left after Shino won the last round, as expected. He insisted Choji leaves his cookies at the flat, as repayment for their friends’ hospitality. Choji’s mournful eyes at the box were mostly for show – he would be back the next day anyway.  

Sasuke only waved from the couch, feeling a little bad at his poor manners but unable to find it in him to see them to the door. Shino laid a hand on his shoulder, just before turning away.  

“Do not give up,” he said, face and tone as inscrutable as ever, hidden by his collar and glasses.  

Sasuke nodded, grateful. But it was easier said than done.   

He didn’t move as Shikamaru closed the door on their friends and went to start diner. He rummaged through Sasuke’s groceries himself, making non-committal noises at his findings. Some times later, he put two steaming bowls of ramen on the coffee table.   

“Ramen? Really?”  

“Bury your brooding face in your bowl so that I don’t see it anymore.”  

It also required for Sasuke to sit up more or less properly, as he wouldn’t risk lifting the bowl filled to the brim. It was instant, of course, but Shikamaru had made the effort to throw in an egg and some cut-up vegetables – Sasuke must have spaced out longer than he thought.  

Ramen, soba, okonomiyaki. The endless debate among team 7, when it was time to decide where they would go to eat. Endless in theory anyway – in practice, it was ramen more often than not. Not because Naruto was any good at arguing his point beside repeating “ramen ramen ramen” over and over like a nuisance, but because the Ichiraku shop was the only place – and they had tested many, all of them really – where it wouldn’t end up with Naruto closing up like a clam at the unspoken hostility. Or storming off at the spoken one.              

Sasuke didn’t like to go anymore, but the old man still asked, when he saw him. “Aren’t your friends with you?”  

No, they weren’t.  

“I’m sorry,” Shikamaru said after a few minutes of silent slurping.  

“For what?”  

“Geez, I don’t know. It’s just a thing people say, you know.”  

Sasuke snorted. He spilled some broth. He felt like crying, just a little.  

“I’m sorry it... didn’t go the way you hoped. Or something.”  

It was Shikamaru’s turn to hide in his bowl.  

“I think I should... focus on something else”, Sasuke said. “For now.”  

And it wasn’t like he hadn’t. He had not spent much time looking for Naruto those past few years. It was only when the circumstances allowed it, an adjacent of some missions and trips, and steady harassment of Ino for any news.   

Yet he had, in a way. It had stayed huge and alive in his mind, never quiet, never still. He had been waiting, even at his busiest, even when he had no thought to spare, he was waiting still. 

And now he couldn’t remember what he had been waiting for exactly.  

Naruto surely wasn’t waiting for him.  

“Your father wants to see you,” Shikamaru said, and there was no telling why he thought that was a good change of subject.  

“Do you know why?”  

“He wants you to accompany him. Some diplomacy visit, I think. Your brother is coming too.” 

Sasuke did his best to be polite and amiable to his father, for his mother’s sake, but their relationship was still more than strained. It wouldn’t be so bad if his father had agreed to talk, properly, calmly, after the initial fight, after he had admitted to almost taking the Uchiha clan to a coup and Sasuke had almost broken their house’s door on his way out. But there was no broaching the subject without it devolving into a shouting match, and so the solution was to ignore it entirely. It worked out fine, mostly. Except that Sasuke was physically incapable of talking about anything else with him. It just wouldn’t come out – he needed so badly to hash out that one matter, no other could have its place between them.  

And so, they were cordial. But they didn’t talk.  

Itachi had received some of the fallout since he was in the known and never deemed wise to bring Sasuke up to date, but it was easier to let it go for the simple reason that Sasuke was far better at fighting with his father than with his brother. He didn’t want to be mad at Itachi, so he wasn’t.  

He quite wanted to be mad at his father, so he was.  

His mother understood this – of course she did – so she had soon ceased her attempts at pleading his cause, though she had answered Sasuke’s questions and acknowledged his outrage. She seemed deeply regretful of the whole matter, sorrowful even, which led Sasuke to suspect that there was still more to it that he didn’t know. “Have you ever considered it was better for you not to know?” she had asked once. “Better for who?” he had retorted. She had no answer to that.  

And yet, despite everything, Sasuke still craved so badly for his father to recognize him as relevant and mature enough for him to share his thoughts, for them to talk on equal footing, if not in rank or status then in the validity of their opinions and feelings.  

He also was in dire need of a distraction, and what better than a long fight with his father for that?  

“Sounds fun.”  

“Not as fun as mine.”  

“You got a mission?”  

“Akatsuki hunting. I was assigned to Asuma’s platoon. Or more like, requisitioned. I’m leaving tomorrow.”  

Sasuke had hoped they could have a few days off to laze around on the couch and commiserate about their lives, but the Akatsuki was a huge threat, one that Tsunade took very seriously. If he chose not to go with his father, Sasuke would probably be sent out with the task force too.  

“Which medic are you taking with you?”  

“Marco.”  

Could have been worse, but could have been better too. Marco was the most knowledgeable of them all, and very skilled in theory, but he was still squeamish in practical situations, and his social skills were abysmal. Well, as long as he wasn’t required to make conversation and to put some guts back into place, they would be fine. 

One medic per team for sensitive missions was mandatory now that they had enough trained medic to spare a few without running the hospital into the ground. Every shinobi was also required to learn the basics of medical ninjutsu, just in case. Sasuke had run classes for his father and the other senior members of the Uchiha clan. It was quite the memory.  

“You’ll be careful.”  

“Are you worried?”  

Sasuke grimaced at the jab, but he was indeed worried. He kept thinking about Sasori, about how close a call it had been despite the old woman’s presence. Sasuke had come out of it relatively unscathed, but it had cost the woman her life and without Lee’s arrival...  

And the Akatsuki seemed to travel by pairs. They weren’t to be taken lightly.  

“I’ll be careful,” Shikamaru amended, sensing the shift in mood. “Do you want to run me through your fight?”

He really didn’t want to think about it anymore.

“No, it’s fine. I’ll study for a bit.”

That would be easier. No complicated feelings, no doubting about the future.

He settled on the couch with a scroll on post-traumatic stress disorder. Tsunade had been not so subtly orienting him toward psychology and psychiatry lately, no doubt the most underdeveloped of their field of study. She said that with how mentalities were progressing in the village, it would mature to an actual subject of global concern by the time he was her age. 

Shikamaru sat at the other end of the couch with a book – one of those stupid erotic romances Kakashi was so fond of. 

“You don’t have to keep me company,” Sasuke commented weakly. He was desperate to not talk about any of it, and he was also desperate not to be alone. He couldn’t voice either desire. 

“Don’t flatter yourself,” Shikamaru shot back before opening his book and proceeding to ignore his flatmate altogether. 

Sasuke’s despair was soothed by a wave of affection and gratitude for his friend, and it was easier to breathe and swallow back traitorous tears after that. Just for tonight, he figured he was allowed to just not think about anything at all. 

.  

“What do you think?”

Tsunade pulled her hands out of the insides of the corpse. They had managed to sedate enough what remained of Uzuki Miyako that she almost looked as dead as she was supposed to, but the wards had to be remade constantly lest she’d try to escape. For now Tsunade had no idea how to make her death permanent again.  

“It has to be his work”, she said, pulling off her gloves. “Even with all the hypocrisy I could muster – and that’s a lot – I can’t draw another conclusion.”

Jiraiya’s frow deepened, though it couldn’t come as a surprise. As soon as Tsunade had gotten Kakashi’s report, about old teammates of his father up and about and making his life difficult on their way out of Suna, she had been unable to even formulate another hypothesis. Who else could, and would, do such a thing? Who else would be talented enough, bold enough and amoral enough?

Orochimaru was always so good at everything.

He had always been obsessed with life and death, with prolonging one and banishing the other. His experiments were already off-putting and controversial when they were barely in their jounin uniforms. War had both stopped his endeavors and encouraged them – he didn’t have as much time to study, but suddenly coming by shinobi corpses full of ninjutsu and secrets was the easiest thing in the world. And back then the village even had a vetoed interest in his discoveries, so who would have stopped at the decency of it all?  

Plus, the fact that it was shinobi from Konoha, specifically from their generation or just below, that it was Sakumo’s old friends of all people to go against Sakumo’s son... That just reeked of Orochimaru’s twisted sense of irony. His very own brand of cruelty.   

She had sent people to check the civilian cemetery, but she already knew what they would report.  

“It’s a line he was bond to cross eventually,” Jiraiya said grimly.  

Regretful.  

She wondered if there was truly a point where they would finally manage to turn on him for good. Even now, Yaya had to be thinking, “this is it, this is the one I can’t excuse”. But was it? How many times had they had that exact thought? Only for the boundaries to be pushed yet again, shifting further and further away, and always they took the extra step, to stay right behind it, because...  

Because they couldn’t let go. It was the sad, naked truth. They just couldn’t.  

“We need to find a way to neutralize them,” she said. Talking shop was easier – they didn’t talk about their feelings for their friend and each other. What would be the point? They knew already. They were too old for denial.  

“I’ll get on it. What about Naruto?”  

Her glare didn’t deter him, but he did take on an apologetic expression.  

“I’m just asking.”  

She sighed. She would have to answer to it soon enough anyway, to the head jounin and the clan leaders at least.   

“It’s best to consider him lost to us. For now. If we keep pressing on, he will go from deserter to enemy.”  

If it wasn’t the case already. She didn’t believe him to be vindictive enough to seek out revenge or retribution, but he wouldn’t be bullied around either. She was impressed with his determination. Impressed, and greatly saddened.  

“Ask Sakura. He put a seal on them. You should check it.”  

It was hard to believe Naruto would do such a thing to his friends, would threaten their lives in such a blunt, tangible way. But what did she know? Maybe his resentment was that strong after all.  

“Can’t you?” the man whined. “She won’t be happy about it.”  

“Who’s the seal expert here? Besides, she’s your student. No matter how little you got along, you were together for two years. She’s still yours to look after.”  

She wasn’t sure why she was so adamant. Maybe because she was let down so thoroughly by her own mentors, one after the other?  

“Alright, alright.”  

Tsunade checked the wards and pulled the sheets back over Miyako’s body. They hadn’t contacted her remaining family. It seemed pointless, seeing how she couldn’t speak nor did she seem to understand or recognize them. She was ten years buried.  

Tsunade shuddered at the thought. If they couldn’t even trust the dead would stay this way, how was she supposed to sleep at night? She was haunted enough already by those who were gone, she didn’t need to run into them in broad daylight as well.  

“Do you know who will take Rasa’s place?”  

Sage, there was that too. She didn’t know how stable Suna was these days, didn’t know if the succession would bring on more conflicts. She was so tired.  

“Let’s go for a drink”, she said as an answer. Jiraiya followed readily.  

.  

Sasuke meant to go see his father, he did. At first he planned to go to the police headquarter early in the morning before the man was too busy, but then he figured lunch break would be better since his father wouldn’t appreciate wasting working time for any reason. The appeal of going to the headquarter instead of home was that they were less likely to lose their temper with an audience, but he wasn’t that confident in that statement, and he decided lunch would probably be too awkward. His father often skipped it anyway.  

So he resolved to go in the afternoon, but then he became worried that his father would be out and he would be left to wait awkwardly for him to come back. It made more sense to go home after all, though there was no way to know what time his father would be back and if anyone would be there at all. Itachi would be at the hospital, their mother with her genin team.   

That left dinner, but they had ruined enough family meals with their arguing for Sasuke to feel guilty about it, so it was best to have that kind of talk away from the kitchen table.   

In the end Sasuke didn’t even make it to the Uchiha district, turning back in front of the gates when he decided he would just go tomorrow for sure.   

His steps faltered when he passed by Shisui’s house though.  

He stayed standing there for a while, undecisive. What was it with him and making decisions today? He obviously didn’t dread meeting Shisui like he did his father.  

But Shisui would ask about Naruto.  

“You can come in. Shisui’s home.”  

Sasuke didn’t startle before he spun around to come face to face with the blank, judging stare of Hyuuga Tokuma. It was impressive, this clan’s capacity for looking disdainful without doing anything at all. Maybe it was the eyes – Sasuke had come to know Tokuma well enough and knew the man wasn’t so bad. It was still unpleasant, the weight of his gaze.  

“Cool.”  

He followed the Hyuuga inside.   

Shisui was grading tests at the kitchen table. What was supposed to be a temporary position at the Academy before he moved on to become a jounin instructor had become far more permanent, when Tokuma decided – and was able to – stay with him as a teacher and they could get on with making the changes they wanted to the school. It wasn’t to everyone’s liking, but they had Tsunade’s support, as she enjoyed far too much the looks on the older staff face when they came to complain about “those young ignorants and their dangerous ideas”.   

She was also very fond of children in any case, but that she wouldn’t admit so easily.  

“Welcome back. Oh, hello Sasuke! Welcome back too,” Shisui greeted warmly.   

“I found him outside,” Tokuma said, because he had to embarrass Sasuke further. “I’ll leave you to it.”  

“Are you sure?”  

They exchanged a look. Sasuke resisted the urge to clear his throat or something.  

“Why?”  

“Don’t you want to ask him something?”  

At least all were equal before Shisui’s truly terrible habit of putting them on the spot and forcing them to talk about their feelings and all. They had lived together for a year, so Tokuma ought to be used to it, but as a member of the Hyuuga clan, he had started with a handicap, so he was still helpless to it.  

As it was, they stared until the Hyuuga relented. He turned back to Sasuke, but he didn’t meet his gaze, looking at some wood pattern on the wall instead.  

“You saw Neji,” he stated. He finally deigned to meet Sasuke’s eyes when the silence stretched long enough to be uncomfortable, and Sasuke understood he wasn’t going to say another word. He kept an eye-roll to himself, barely.  

“He... seemed fine. He was with Naruto. They both looked okay.”  

Tokuma closed his eyes, only briefly – in relief, in pain? He gave a short nod and disappeared into the backyard.  

“I could just have told you so you’d tell him later,” Sasuke said as he sat across Shisui at the table. His awful cousin just chuckled.  

“And where would be the fun in that? He can’t go through life only talking to me. I’m trying to ease him into it.”  

He smiled fondly at his paper. Sasuke didn’t dare ask if there was something there, something more than Shisui offering hospitality and support to a mere friend. It would have been borderline scandalous just a few years back – and indeed, just them being close had stirred some comments back then. But the Hyuuga clan was very different now, and truth be told, the Uchiha clan was too. Such a relationship was still unheard of, as the two clans didn’t mingle, but it wouldn’t be as frowned-upon as it once could have been.  

Not that it would have stopped either of them, Sasuke thought.   

He had heard from some gossips at the hospital that Izumi was maybe going out with one of Ino’s cousins. Even Itachi was being weirdly courted by his friend from the tea shop, though it was hard to tell if he reciprocated in any way. He also had some strange form of flirting going on with Marco – maybe it was just that Itachi was awkward with everyone period. Ino had gone on a few dates, Kiba too – the wildest rumor said with each other, but no one had dared ask them directly. 

And Sasuke’s mother asked, from time to time, albeit not that much, maybe because of the face he made when she did.  

“What about you? Are you seeing anyone?”  

He didn’t know why he was so surprised by this development, but it was a subject that had never concerned him in any way. When they were kids and a lot of girls chased him around, trying to offer him gifts or get him to agree to a date, he couldn’t feel anything but annoyance toward the whole matter, and when that had stopped, he had put it out of his mind, never to be revisited.  

There just wasn’t anyone he could think about in that way. His mother had asked about Sakura and Ino, but it was unthinkable for both. They were good friends, close friends, but he felt no attraction to either. The idea of dating anyone made him vaguely uncomfortable, like it wasn’t for him, only others. Though picturing it for others was weird too.  

Hence why he didn’t ask. He didn’t really care about knowing. And he didn’t want the questions to be returned.  

“What happened then?”  

“Huh?”  

“You saw Naruto.”  

Sasuke frowned. That was why he hesitated to come here. He didn’t know what to say – didn't know what Shisui wanted to hear.  

Didn’t want to disappoint him.  

“Didn’t you read the report?  

“I did.”  

“Why do you ask then?”  

“I figured you might want to talk about it.”  

He did.   

Shisui was good like that. Half his students were convinced he was psychic – it had started a wild rumor that the Sharingan granted mind-reading abilities to its users, something that Sasuke’s father was not amused by at all and that Izumi found hilarious. She had used it to prank some chunin under her supervision. The clan leader was not pleased, but she was strangely impervious to his authority. It just slid over her. Sasuke envied her confidence.  

“Don’t you... have doubts?”  

He needed to ask. He needed to know if he was alone in this, if he was in the wrong. He couldn’t ask anyone else, they wouldn't understand, or would understand too well, and he couldn’t be influenced by their thoughts on the matter. Shisui was different. He was often right.  

“I choose not to.”  

“How? I thought... I thought it would be easy. But then he... looked so cold. And he used that seal.”  

It wasn’t unreasonable of him to be hurt, was it? They all knew what this seal could do.   

“I’m sure he had his reasons.”  

“How can you know?”  

“Sasuke. I said I wouldn’t doubt, so I won’t.”  

His tone was a bit harsh, but he softened immediately.  

“It doesn’t cost me anything to trust him. I am staying here, I’m waiting.”  

“What if you had to chase him down? What then?”  

“You don’t have to wonder about that right now. You think you need to make a choice now, but you don’t. For now what he does is of no concern to you, or us. He is not your responsibility, not your burden to bear. Do you understand? Naruto is not here, Sasuke. He is not with you.”  

Didn’t he know that all too well? Yet he couldn’t help but think about him. Couldn’t help but feel like he could have done differently, done better, and they wouldn’t be where they were now. It was absurd and maybe even pretentious of him – Naruto wouldn’t appreciate this line of thought. He had made his choice, built along the years long before Sasuke could hope to have an impact on his life, and even then... Naruto had asked, “do you ought to be reason enough for me to stay?”. And Sasuke knew the answer, yet selfishly, he still wanted to say “yes”.  

“Will you go with your father then?”  

“I... guess. I’m not sure.”  

“Why? It’s a good opportunity.”  

He doubted his father cared about Sasuke gaining political knowledge. Or if he did, it was because he still clung to the idea of seeing either him or Itachi succeed him as head of the Uchiha clan – why else would he suddenly be adamant they both went out on a diplomatic mission with him? He still didn’t think much of Sasuke’s ambition.   

And for the first time in a very long time, Sasuke didn’t think much of it either.  

“Does anyone care if things change, or not?”  

Maybe Naruto would never come back anyway. Was there a point then? Should he bother? No one seemed to think some things needed to change.  

Well, that wasn’t true. Ino had some ideas. Tenten too, and Kiba and even Choji, and it had become something of a joke between them. “When you’re Hokage, Sasuke, we can...”. They laughed, but they were serious too. Maybe.  

“If you think to improve things only for Naruto’s sake, then I guess it would be best you gave up indeed.”  

There was a hint of anger in Shisui’s voice and Sasuke scrambled to find an answer. He didn’t mean it that way, it was just...  

He had this plan. “If I do this, and this, if I do everything perfectly, if everything works out, then he will come back”. And now he had to consider that it wouldn’t work. That no matter what he did, it wouldn’t change a thing.  

“I should go,” he announced, getting up in an unpleasant rattle of the chair against the floorboard. Shisui got up too, a little apologetic.  

“I’m sorry, I know you’re frustrated. I didn’t mean...”  

“It’s fine. I shouldn’t have brought it up.”  

He regretted opening his mouth, showing this side of him to Shisui, who had talked too, at times, about what he would want to ask of Sasuke when he stood at their head. How disappointed would they be if he gave up on this? Were his ambitions so shallow? Maybe his father was right, it was only children’s fantasy. Maybe he wasn’t strong enough for his goals if it took so little to make him question everything.  

“I’ll see you later.”  

“Sasuke, come on...”  

He fled the house.  

.  

His mother didn’t ask how he was or how it had gone. It raised the question of how fast words traveled among the shinobi, including words that didn’t have any business traveling, but he was glad for the leaks for once, because he would have hated having to explain it to her with words of his own. As it stood, she didn’t need to ask and she didn’t - she just drew him into a hug, strong and firm, compassionate. He leaned into it for quite some time. They were almost the same height now, and he would probably stand above her soon, but he didn’t imagine ever getting tall enough that she wouldn’t be able to encase him whole.  

She went back to making dinner as he settled at the table, anxiously fidgeting until she put a peeler and some carrots into his hands. His father would be home soon.  

Itachi came back sooner though, quiet and tired but looking serene, as he was after a full shift at the hospital.   

“Hello Sasuke. Welcome back.”  

“Hi. Everything’s good back there?”  

“Yes. You don’t need to worry.”  

Sasuke struggled a bit with knowing when to stop, how to let go. There was always someone to help and something to do at the hospital, and if left unsupervised, he would attend to it all until he dropped from exhaustion.   

It’s not that he thought the place would fall apart without him, but he almost felt guilty as soon as he was doing anything else. (Un)fortunately, Tsunade was inflexible when it came to rest and proper schedules. Extremely hypocrite of her, but he couldn’t protest. She was the Hokage after all.  

Itachi was arguably worse than Sasuke at this, he would live at the hospital if he could. She often complained about them both, but Shizune was never far to remind her that she wasn’t any better.  

Just a few days and Sasuke had managed to miss this.  

Itachi filled him on what happened in his absence, and Sasuke almost relaxed fully, almost forgot the reason why he had come in the first place, and thus was stupidly caught off guard when the front door opened again and his father joined them in the kitchen.  

“Hello, Mikoto, when do we... Ah.”  

Sasuke failed as much as his father to come up with a proper reaction. His mother had to step in with an audible sigh.  

“You can set the table, dinner will be ready soon.”  

Sasuke didn’t understand how he could simply have lost his ability to talk to his father like this. They were never overly close, but they used to talk to each other. He would tell his parents about his day, ask the man for advice. Where had it gone? When had this block grown into his throat, getting heavier every time he tried to casually converse with his father? Why was he so exasperated by everything the man said, even the most mundane, the most inconsequential? He didn’t know how to fix this.  

“I am meeting with the Fire Lord,” his father said after ten minutes of awkward small talks, when he finally understood why Sasuke had come.   

“For what?” Sasuke asked, and it was absurd, how he managed to sound antagonistic in that simple question. He wasn’t doing it on purpose.  

His father’s frown deepened but he didn’t comment on the tone, electing to pretend he didn’t notice.  

“To talk about the threat of the Akatsuki, mainly. I also plan on visiting Nekobaa in Sora-ku. It’s been a while since you’ve been there, right?”  

It had, Sasuke just realized now. Itachi and he used to go every few months to run errands on behalf of the clan, but he didn’t think they had gone ever since he had graduated from the Academy, and even before that. The way his father phrased it, it almost felt like bait – was he saying this so that Sasuke would have more incentive to come?  

It was... nice. In a way.  

“Is that why you think I should come?”  

Again with the accusatory tone. It was a disease at this point. His father reigned himself in, placated by a warning look from a long-suffering Mikoto.   

“Partly. But it’s also a good opportunity for you to go up to the capital, meet some administrators, see how this kind of thing goes.”  

Sasuke let the silence hang instead of asking more, not trusting his tone. His father’s eyes narrowed just for a second, a sign that he was hesitating.  

“You have a lot to learn. If you are serious about your... ambitions.”  

The admission seemed to cost him, but he didn’t sound disbelieving or disapproving like he usually did every time the topic came up. Sasuke didn’t know what to say. His father took it as further doubt from his part and kept going.  

“And it will be the three of us. We can use this time. To talk.”  

It was almost worrying – did something happen while Sasuke was gone? This was so out of character for his father. But then again, did he know the man so well? They didn’t get along and disagreed on most things, but his father wasn’t a bad person, nor did Sasuke hate him at all.   

He felt embarrassingly giddy and pleased, like when he was a child and his father deigned to train him or watch him go through his routine, correcting his postures and advising his use of ninjutsu. It was the first time he didn’t feel alone in his efforts to mend the breach, to reach out. His mother smiled at him encouragingly – he figured she had a lot to do with this turn of events. But it didn’t matter, the result was the same. They could meet halfway. They could make it better.  

“Okay. That sounds... good. Okay.”  

If his father was surprised, he didn’t let it show. He seemed pleased though, and Itachi even more so, though it wasn’t that easy to tell. Their mother looked at them in turn, smiling fondly.   

Sasuke’s heart settled a little. This was something he could work with.  

This was something he could fix.  

.  

Shizune was wrapping up Sakura’s checkup when Jiraiya showed up in the examination room.  

“Hello, student!”  

“What do you want?”  

He held up his hands, placating.  

“Jeez, relax. I came to check on that seal. Didn’t Shizune warned you?”  

Sakura’s cheeks warmed as the other woman gave her an encouraging smile. Shizune did warn her, but she had trained herself to filter out information that had the name “Jiraiya” in them.  

“Ah. Yeah.”  

She put down the mesh shirt she was about to put back on. Health checkups were mandatory after a high-ranking mission. Shizune assured her that she was fine, save from some chakra shortage that would sort itself out in a few days. Her stamina was still nothing to write home about.  

“No funny business,” she warned emptily as he approached her. He rolled his eyes, as if to say “come on now". She was being unfair, probably, but she didn’t like it when he was like this, all serious and competent. She knew she had nothing to fear from him though. For all his womanizer tendencies, he had never been inappropriate toward her. He had told her once that he didn’t see her as a woman at all, which could have been offensive, probably, but she knew he saw most people as youngsters or even children. Even Kakashi and the other jounin his age got the kid treatment from the Sannin.   

He liked mature women. Ah, she hated the fact that she knew so much of his preferences. The number of women he had hit on in front of her was distressing, but even more baffling was how many of them had reacted positively to his lewd comments and mushy eyes. Single middle-aged women inexplicably fell for that, to her endless incomprehension.  

Yeah, she was entitled to treating him rudely. Plus, she was already in a terrible mood. Ino had left with one of the platoons, and she was still too high-strung to seek Sasuke out after the disaster of the Suna mission. Jiraiya could bear the brunt for once. As compensation.  

He tapped at her chest and her back, roughly where her heart would be. Try as she might, she couldn’t decipher the face he was making. Good news, bad news? She didn’t know why this was even necessary.  

They knew very well about Naruto’s seal.  

The Hokage came in just as Jiraiya was finishing his exam and Sakura scrambled to put her clothes back and look somewhat presentable to the other woman.  

“So? What do you think?”  

“There is indeed a seal around her heart. I will check on the Uchiha boy to be sure, but I guess it will be the same. I have no idea what it would do though. It seems...”  

He trailed off, pensive. Sakura frowned at him when he stared for too long.   

“We know what it does,” she muttered angrily. She was not about to get over that any time soon. How dare Naruto, how dare he?   

“Anyway, I think it’s unwise to try and remove it without studying it further. It’s stable enough for now. I guess as long as they don’t run into Naruto again, there’s not much to worry about.”  

She wondered if he meant to be reassuring, comforting even. It didn’t work.  

She had to run into Naruto again, because she had to give him a piece of her mind and maybe hit him on the head too. Though she would have to tread carefully now.  

Would he try to kill her if he saw her again?  

She was so angry and confused, she felt like screaming.  

“You’re free to go, Sakura. Report to the Assignment Desk when you’re ready.”  

“Yes, Hokage-sama.”  

Sakura stepped out of the room with a quiet sigh of relief. She still wasn’t overly comfortable in Tsunade’s presence – the woman was intense, her power palpable, both in the physical and political sense. She expected to be listened to and obeyed, and Sakura could never tell if her harshness was ingrained or simply due to the circumstances and her position. At least she didn’t have that problem with Jiraiya. Who would take him seriously.  

She briefly considered hunting Sasuke down but chickened out, reasoning with herself that he would be busy and that she shouldn’t bother him. Nothing to do with how she sucked at comforting him and was afraid of making things worse by saying the wrong thing.  

He was busy, for sure.  

She hesitated in front of the hospital, between going to train and trying to meet with Hinata. Ino had tasked her with making sure the girl got some breaks from time to time, because Hanabi would never suggest it and no one around them had any sway on Hinata’s decisions beside her sister. Sakura didn’t think she would have much luck, but at least she could disguise it as some “needing to catch up on current events” thing. If she was in need, Hinata wouldn’t refuse her, Ino had said, and she’d sounded a little sad.  

Jiraiya cut her thoughts short with a heavy hand of her shoulder that had her almost flipping him over, if his reflexes weren't better than hers.  

“It’s just me!” he exclaimed, having the gale to sound offended.   

“Don’t jump me like that if you don’t want me to deck you!”  

“You need to chill, girl.”  

She huffed through her nose and tried to stay calm. There was no use arguing with him.  

“What do you want?”  

“I figured you would be up for some training.”  

Surprise chased the anger as she stared at his nonplussed expression, as if that was a normal thing to ask. Well, it would be, just not from him. She could count on one hand the number of times he had deigned to train her without her begging him for it or annoying him to death first.   

“You... really?”  

“Not interested?”  

“No, yes, I am, I am.”  

They took the direction of the training grounds.  

“I... I could only use it once,” she said, knowing that would be what he would focus on. “It’s still too much. And I wasn’t fast enough. I couldn’t finish off my opponent.”  

“Huh. That’s too bad.”  

She gritted her teeth. Another teacher would try to cheer her up or tell her she did her best, but he was uninterested in sparing her feelings. After two years enduring his callous words and thoughtless jabs, she didn't think she could ever get offended on her own behalf ever again.   

Still, couldn't he try?  

At least he didn’t say something along the lines of “I told you so.”  

It had taken her almost the entire two years to master the Rasengan. One year of relentless training, and before that, one year of relentlessly wearing him down until he agreed to teach her. He said it would be wasted on her, that she didn’t have the reserves to pull it off. She could admit to herself that she had persevered out of sheer spite, just to prove him wrong. The technique wasn’t the best fit for her, true, because it burnt massive amounts of chakra in one go. But then again it was the right fit too, because it required precision and refine control, and she excelled in both. As a result, her Rasengan was much smaller in scale and strength than his own, but it was more focused too, easier to direct and harder to stop, with how condensed she made it.  

Now if only she would whip out more than one per day...  

“How are you, Sakura?”  

She almost tripped on her feet.  

“What? I’m... okay? Why?”  

He seemed as baffled as she did by the turn of the conversation, yet he pushed through.  

“I know things went rather badly, with Naruto. So I’m asking.”  

No such thing as sugarcoating with the great Sannin Jiraiya. It sounded like he had no idea why he was even asking.  

Yet he was. Asking. Making the effort.  

Maybe the Hokage had bullied him into it.  

“It’s okay,” she lied, because there was no way she would spill his gut to him out of the blue, effort or not. He didn’t seem offended by her standoffish answer. But he still had things to say.  

“I hope you won’t let it go. It is hard, but some friendships are worth fighting for.”  

She couldn’t help the next question that escaped her lips.  

“Was it worth it for you?”  

His steps faltered. For a brief moment, the way he looked at her... stunned, almost betrayed. He didn’t recover as quickly as he usually did. The question wasn’t that easy.  

She didn’t have the details, it wasn’t like he had ever willingly shared much of anything with her. But he got drunk often, and when he was drunk he was talkative, and when he was talkative, she filled his cup again. There was the Godaime in his tales, and there was Orochimaru too. He laughed talking about it – he always laughed, it was annoying. Because it was fake. It wasn’t funny at all, yet he laughed.   

He had given chase. He never gave up.  

And for what?  

She had never wondered before because it was a given that Naruto would eventually return to them. So she didn’t mind the heartache and the wild chase, she didn’t mind the building resentment, having to miss him and to worry about him. None of it would matter once he was back by their side.  

It was a different story though, if it never came to pass.   

If this was hopeless, she would rather let it go right now.  

It was also why facing Sasuke felt so daunting at the moment. She knew he would never choose that path. Sasuke could, and would, wait forever. She was well aware it was the height of the emotions talking, that it was still too raw and bleeding for her to give it proper thoughts, that she wouldn’t be so radical once she had calmed down a bit. But that was where she was at the moment.  

On the verge of giving it up. Of letting go.  

It didn’t help that Jiraiya never answered her question.  

.  

Sakura was avoiding him. Which was fine, it was fine, she needed time, he got it.   

Shikamaru was gone on his mission, the flat was empty, and so Sasuke spent all the time he could at the hospital. Those were the only places he went to, so it wasn’t like Sakura couldn’t find him, if she wanted to.  

She didn’t, for now. Which was fine.  

Ino wasn’t here to annoy him day in and day out either. He hadn’t gone back to Shisui’s house after last time, even if he knew they needed to finish this conversation.   

He needed to finish it. With anyone, really. To talk it out of his system.   

So when he heard a yelled “Asuma’s team is back!” through the hospital corridors, he enjoyed a split second of relief and satisfaction, knowing his roommate was back. Until the tone kicked in, the sounds of a rushing stretcher and shouted out instructions in a not quite panicking but definitely not calm voice.   

The medic team zoomed past him, hurrying to the operation room. He only got a glimpse of Marco maintaining a respiratory ninjutsu around Asuma’s lungs, the young man as pale and sickly looking as his patients, hands shaking but holding on firm.   

“Sasuke.”  

Still stunned, Sasuke looked back to the end of the corridor. There stood Shikamaru, haggard and trembling. His hands, arms and chest were splashed with blood. His face too, stark red against the unusual pallor of his skin.   

“Sasuke. You have... you have to...”  

His first instinct was to step forward, to try and offer comfort, reassurance, support. But Ino and Choji could do that. It would be meaningless, it wouldn‘t help at all. Sasuke knew exactly what his friends needed from him.  

He spun around and ran to the operation room. 

Chapter Text

Shikamaru needed to plan.  

They needed to take care of both members of the Akatsuki at the same time, but separately if possible. They played in each other’s strength. If Kakuzu hadn’t been there to sew Hidan back together, then the jashinist wouldn’t have been able to get back into the fight and to...  

That was a lot of blood. He should research how much blood that was, should know to make an estimation, to be able to tell if he could stay hopeful or if the cause was lost already. Was there even a point waiting, hoping?  

There would be no permanent solution for Hidan for now, but it didn’t matter as long as he was neutralized. They had pushed him pretty far into his skills, or so Shikamaru believed. Kakuzu was another story, he had barely shown his own powers, and they would no doubt be on par with his partner’s, if not worse.  

He needed to plan. Who best to take with him? What abilities did he need, which were available? Choji and Ino would want to come, and he wouldn’t refuse them. He knew them the best, knew intimately of their strengths and weaknesses, and he would need them by his side, especially if...  

He needed to contend for his emotional distress, the intensity depending on the outcome of the night. Would they need to postpone the mission to organize funerals, or would it be better to go right away and take care of it later? He would need contingency in case his resentments and anguish took the best of him and his critical thinking. 

How long did they have before the duo was too far away to reach? They had hinted at staying in the area, on the tail of one of the jinchuuriki. Could he use that to his advantage? Would they expect retaliation?  

Would Kurenai be mad at him?  

Was the jinchuuriki alone? Most likely, if it was only two members of the Akatsuki after them. They were strong but... Would others come to their aid, to one side or the other? This too needed to be taken into account, but bringing too many people would become a liability, and he needed to have a perfect view of all parameters to plan efficiently, which meant a limited number of people under his command. He would need to convince the Godaime to let him lead, he wondered which argument would work best on the woman.  

He wondered if Kurenai’s child would grow up without a father. Wondered if they seriously thought they hadn’t guessed why she had stopped taking missions and training her team all of a sudden.  

His thoughts refused to cooperate, to stay on task, insisted on going back to their last game of shogi and their last shared meal and how easy it had been for his mentor to step in front of him, to protect Shikamaru’s weak, useless body with his own. No matter how he tried, he couldn’t escape the loop of his memories, couldn’t dislodge Asuma’s ashen face and bloody lips from his mind.   

Shikamaru sat on the cold floor of the hospital corridor and brought his hands together.  

This, too, he owed Asuma for.  

.  

Shikamaru used to spend a lot of time in detention as a kid. After Naruto and Kiba, he was the one who was there the most. Choji came next, but only because he kept Shikamaru company, while he had to copy the lessons for the classes of the day that he hadn’t bothered to pen down.  

It just seemed so useless to go through the hassle of taking notes when all of this was so simple and easy to remember. The teachers kept asking how he expected to review the lessons for the tests if he didn’t have it written down, and he kept telling them he didn’t need it, that he would remember anyway.  

A statement that would have been more convincing if he actually managed to perform well in the tests. The teachers were always smug when they handed back the sheets as if they were refraining from saying “I told you so” when he received another grade slightly above average, and more detention to redo it again.  

But it wasn’t a question of not studying enough or studying wrong. He knew all of this, it was so basic, only an idiot would fail it. But the tests were so long and boring, he couldn’t manage to focus on it more than a few minutes before giving up in frustration at being asked the same dumb things over and over. He often got a “explain your reasoning” and “how did you get that answer?”, as if it wasn’t obvious enough. Some teachers went as far as implying that he cheated when he didn’t write ten lines of calculation and justification for the most painfully obvious questions.  

He also tended to daydream a lot and nap during class, bored to death and unable to pay attention to what was being said. When he did, it wasn’t any better anyway, as he would ask questions that the teachers didn’t want to, or didn't know how to answer. It ended up with him being punished again if he insisted.  

So his grades were bad, and he went to detention. Neither bothered him – bad grades meant no one would bother to ask more of him, as they did for well-performing kids like Sasuke or Sakura who were inexplicably eager to do more work than average. And detention was just free time, and they could mess around the classroom with the other boys, penning obscene jokes and crude drawings in textbooks, hiding the backboard eraser and chalk sticks and unscrewing the door handles to waste a few minutes for the next morning class.  

That was, until one day Naruto was put on sharpening kunai duty for a whole week for all the pranks, despite their protest that he wasn’t the only one involved. They had kept their distance after that.  

And then Shikamaru had met Asuma.   

It was still three years until he would graduate from the Academy, but his future team and team leader were pretty much set in stone already. He had been made aware that this man, a former student of his father who had worked regularly under his command, would become his jounin instructor down the line.   

Shikamaru was determined to hate him on sight.  

He knew to be subtle about it though, and people were too stupid to see through it. His father could tell sometimes, but he couldn‘t call him out on it in front of others. His father was often crossed with him, said he was too lazy and uncaring for his own good, but he didn‘t really try to talk him out of it either. His mother tried harder, mostly with scolding and forcing him to do house chores. It did little to make him more involved and responsible, but it brewed in him a strong distaste for any kind of house maintenance.   

One day, Asuma asked if Shikamaru played shogi, because he quite liked to play himself. His father answered for him that he did and wasn’t too bad at it. Asuma offered they played. Shikamaru had no choice but to accept.  

He both loved and hated shogi. He liked to play with Choji, but that was because Choji didn‘t actually play – he sat at his end of the board and moved the pieces where Shikamaru told him to, Shikamaru pretty much playing with himself. He couldn‘t help it – Choji was just too average at it, Shikamaru had to correct him. He felt guilty afterward, but Choji was never mad. “I don’t mind,” he said. “I don’t mind if you enjoy yourself.”  

He did. It was the exception.  

His father played like an adult would play against a child, and every time Shikamaru tried a more advanced move, his father would look over it, dismiss it as accidental luck. And Shikamaru never tried to dispute it, because as much as he wanted to tell them sometimes, to yell to the top of his lungs, “this is easy, I can do better, I can do more”, he always refrained, because what next? If they knew he could do more, they would ask more of him. And he wasn’t interested. He wasn’t interested in his father's life, always busy, always worrying, always with a deep scowl between his eyes, so much that it was stuck there now. He didn’t want to make big decisions, to be responsible for others, to have expectations piled on his shoulders.  

Besides, adults didn‘t like it when he played well.  

So he resolved to go through the motion and be done with it. The game couldn’t hope to hold his interest anyway if Asuma was going to treat him like a beginner, if he was going to be as mediocre at it as all the others.  

Except, he wasn’t.  

Asuma cornered him on his very first opening. He was serious and still, focused on the board. Relentless in his moves.  

Shikamaru had no choice but to retaliate.   

For the very first time, it didn't cross his mind that he ought to be careful, that he was going to blow his cover. Because Asuma was methodical and vicious, because this felt more like a battle than any mock fight Shikamaru had ever been in. All other thoughts flew out of his head as he gave all his attention to the board, as he was overcome, for the first time in his life, with the urge to prove himself, to win.  

He did.  

Immediately came the regrets, the fear. What would the man say? Could it pass as dumb luck? It could have in another game, but shogi wasn’t so easily cheated, and the man was good, good enough to recognize that Shikamaru was good too.  

Was better.  

The boy waited anxiously, but Asuma said nothing. Nothing more than “not bad, kid,” before lighting up a cigarette that made Shikamaru wrinkle his nose in distaste. The man laughed at his expression. They stayed a little longer sited there on the patio, the board between them, in silence but seemingly in understanding too.  

It was a new feeling.  

If Asuma told Shikamaru’s father about it, the boy wasn’t there to hear, and since nothing changed, he decided not to change anything either. Except they started to play. And then, they started to talk.  

Shikamaru often felt like a fool in Asuma’s presence. He had been so good at pretending up until now, so good at keeping his cards close to his chest, never disclosing anything he didn’t want to. But the man had a way of making him talk, and he didn’t even have to try that hard. Maybe it was because there didn’t seem to be any expectations behind it. When he asked why Shikamaru was doing so poorly at school, he didn't try to scold him, to imply that it was a shame because he could clearly do better. He was just curious. He was seemingly uninterested in Shikamaru bettering himself, doing more.   

And so he tricked Shikamaru into talking. Though he didn’t reveal that much, Asuma managed to coax out of him both the ridicule easiness of the whole thing and how hard a time he had to stay focused on anything, to give proper attention to the task at hand. Everything was so slow and his thoughts were so fast, out with one and in with the next, and he couldn’t hold onto a single one. So far shogi was the exception. But in class the teachers would ask a question, and by the time they were done and had left the students some time, by the time they had to answer, Shikamaru had bounced five topics ahead and he couldn’t, for the life of him, remember where he had started.  

“I can’t go all the way back,” he confessed, frustrated by this absurd twisting of his own brain. Ino had told him to “just stop thinking”. She had not liked him replying that only she could do that so easily.  

Asuma didn’t say that. What he said was, “why is it a line?”  

“What?”  

“Your thoughts, why is it a line?”  

“What else could it be?”  

“A circle. So that the beginning is right by the end.”  

It shouldn’t have made sense. And yet, and yet. Queue them in a circle, Asuma said. He made Shikamaru visualize it. He made him close his hands, so that instead of passing through, his wandering line of thoughts would be stuck on the loop, bond to come back to him.  

It shouldn’t have made sense, yet it worked, anyway.  

.  

He closed the circle. Out with the regrets, the grief, the fear – they could wait in the queue, to be dealt later, because he needed to plan.  

.  

The first moments were always frantic – assess the damage, stop the blood flow, keep the heart going. Quick decisions and even quicker actions, to buy some time, always more time, buy a little time to be able to buy some more.   

Then came the laser focus, as they ran their jutsu and wielded their knives, all controlled precision and patient raveling and unraveling of the life laid beneath their hands.   

And after that, it was the long haul. Maintain the jutsu as the flesh slowly pulled back together, control the chakra flow, the strength of the seals, the patients’ condition, monitor it all for hours at end until, until...  

.  

The red light went out. The doors opened.  

Shikamaru only registered that very distantly. He knew he had to move, but he had to stop the flow first, to get out of his mind, not so easy a task when he had not yet thought things through to the end. Asuma had expressed concern over it, saying that they would have to find a way to snap him out of him, just in case.  

The fear slammed back into him full force, as he wondered if they would even get the chance now.  

Tsunade approached them, Sasuke on her heels. Shikamaru thought he would be able to tell, just by looking at them, but he wasn’t that good at reading people, and he supposed they made a point of being undecipherable at the moment. Tsunade walked to Kurenai – Shikamaru hadn’t even noticed when she arrived. She was standing straight and solid, face set in a determined scowl. Unwavering. Bracing for impact. His father was here too, and it was surprising that he hadn’t tried to shake Shikamaru out of his reflections. Choji had probably run interference, as he always did.  

He went to stand by Kurenai’s side. Choji took his hand, and probably Ino’s in the other.   

Tsunade gave them the tiniest smile.  

“We’ll be watchful over the next few days. But he’s out of the shallow.”  

It shouldn’t have come as a surprise, yet it did, when Shikamaru felt the tears start to fall.  

.  

Sasuke should have made an effort to at least reach one of the break room, but as it was he only made it as far as the next corridor before collapsing on the floor. Just a quick rest, it couldn’t hurt. He would get up and find a proper place to sleep when he could feel his legs again.  

He didn’t hear the footsteps and startled when a juice box was thrust in his face.  

“Here,” Shikamaru said, before sitting next to him against the cold wall. After a few seconds of Sasuke staring dumbly at the box, Shikamaru rolled his eyes and planted the straw in for him, going as far as guiding Sasuke’s hand to his mouth so that he could suckle on the drink. He had his own can of coffee in hand, and they drank in silence for a moment.   

“Can you get up?” Shikamaru asked once they were done, seconds away from Sasuke falling asleep right there and then. He shrugged.  

“I could. But I don’t want to.”  

“Okay. Face this way then.”  

Puzzled, he obeyed, shuffling so that they sat cross-legged in front of each other. Shikamaru scooted closer then, shifting to Sasuke’s side so that he could reach out.  

So that he could wrap his arms around him and hold on tight.  

“Thank you,” he whispered in Sasuke's hair.  

His voice was raw and packed with more emotion than Sasuke had ever seen or heard him express. He leaned into the embrace, too tired to give it back properly, but Shikamaru had to get it anyway.  

“Anytime,” Sasuke muttered weakly. The tension was draining at last – he was often so wound up after a difficult procedure, and it wasn’t the knowledge of danger passed that could make him unwind, but this. This was the reward, the naked relief, the gratitude, the visible releasing of all tension and fear, a long exhale after hours or days of holding breath.  

He had done good.   

“Are you alright?” Sasuke asked after a moment, because this was still very out of character for his stoic friend.  

“We’ll leave soon,” Shikamaru said instead of answering the question. “We need to move fast if we want to catch them again.”  

“Don’t you want to wait until he wakes up?”  

“Tsunade says it could be days.”  

This was another kind of anxious waiting, one filled with frustration and nerves. Shikamaru didn’t like to do things, but he liked to feel them even less. It made sense for him to get moving.  

“I can’t come with you.”  

“I know. I wanted to ask but... you should go with your father. Might do you good.”  

“I’m not too sure about that but, yeah. I want to try.”  

They were still hugging, Sasuke talking to the back of his friend’s head, and he startled him how rare a thing it was. They had never been much for physical affection in his family, even less as the years passed and Itachi and he grew out of their childhood proximity. He had carried the distance into his relationships with his friends, it just wasn’t something that came naturally to him. Sakura could drag it out of him because she dared to demand it, but a lot of them were just like him.   

He had never hugged Naruto. Not once. It was crazy, especially compared to the number of times he had wanted to, not as an explicit desire but a confusing urge to close the distance, to get within reach, to touch. He had never acted on it. It would have been weird, right? And probably ill-received.  

He still wished he had. The nagging fear that he would never get to had him press further into Shikamaru’s embrace, worried, suddenly, that this could just vanish, slip from his fingers, never to be found again. He was confronted with death almost daily, yet somehow it still hit him as hard every time. How fragile it all was, how fleeting.  

“We’ll talk more when I come back,” his friend said, sensing the shift in mood maybe. Sasuke nodded wordlessly and didn’t move. Shikamaru didn’t either.  

Sasuke didn’t make it to the breakroom on his own, but he woke up on the couch anyway.  

.  

They said goodbye to Shikamaru’s team at the Western Gate.  

Tsunade had agreed to let them go on the condition that they had a new jounin leader. Kakashi would look after them, though Shikamaru was the one with a plan. Sasuke was relieved to see his former teacher go with his friends. Sai had joined them too, despite seldom taking any mission lately. Both because it was a personal matter, and because few others were available.  

Another team would come to their aid as soon as possible, but their resources were stretched rather thin at the moment. Sasuke could tell it worried his master a great deal. Their forces were scattered throughout the country and the village was under-protected, but it was hard to decide which threat was the most urgent to deal with.  

Team 10 bowed to Kurenai, solemn and deferential. She didn’t look happy about it – Sasuke supposed she would have rather they stayed, safe in the village and out of harm's way. He was nervous himself, even if he trusted his friends and their strength.  

He didn’t want to have to fight against their death too.  

Sakura was also here, bidding a stern farewell to the team. It would have made for too big a group had she joined, so she was waiting for enough of their comrades to be cleared so that they could form another team. Tsunade would not compromise on the recovery time between missions unless there was a foreign army at their door, and even then she would probably still enforce some kind of rotation.  

“Good luck,” Sasuke said from one side of the line, the departing team already on the other. “Please don’t make me sew your guts back in.”  

“We’ll do our best,” Choji promised, good-natured as always. Kurenai left once they were out of sight.  

Sasuke glanced at Sakura.  

“Let’s go buy something to eat,” she said while he was trying to find something to open the conversation. He should know by now to leave it to her. He hummed in agreement and followed her to the shopping district, where they bought some snacks and drinks before heading to the flower hill.  

The choice was meaningful, maybe. After all, this was team 10’s special place. Shikamaru came here to nap and gaze at the clouds, Ino came to pick flowers while Sai sketched the hills and her. Choji provided them with snacks and a bit of levity when their mood turned somber.   

Team 8 would camp in the woods between the Inuzuka and Aburame lands, far from the Hyuuga estate. For Gai’s team, it was the shooting range near the Academy. And for team 7...   

They had the fourth training ground, the one remote enough that few people bothered to go. And they had Shisui’s house, his backyard where they practiced taijutsu and wrestled with the invasive weed in exchange for baked goods, and Naruto’s room, where they read comics and painted seals or, when they were tired of that, ugly flowers and silly doodles.  

These days Sasuke had a hard time projecting himself into the future. Imagining what their life would be like in five, ten, twenty years, when they would be adults with added responsibilities and families to take care of. Or at least he supposed they would, but he had no idea. Would Shisui still live in this house? Would they still come to nap on the flower hill?   

Would they still all be alive?  

“What are you thinking about? You’re frowning,” Sakura asked. She pressed a thumb between his eyes, teasing. He batted her hand away.  

It was the first time they spoke since coming back from Suna.   

“I just wonder how we’ll be like. When we’re older.”  

“Oh. That.”  

Sakura munched on some crackers and didn’t add anything. He wasn’t sure he wanted to share his thoughts either. But he couldn’t help wanting to be reassured, that he wasn't the only one feeling adrift, doubting.  

Somehow his brain jumped to the most loaded question possible.  

“Do you think you’ll have kids?”  

She choked on a piece of crackers and almost spit out the water he hastily handed to her. She took a moment to compose herself before glaring at him.  

“Where is that coming from?”  

“I don’t know!”  

Her frown eased a little at his silly answer. He was never much good at this, but it worked in a way, putting people at ease because it was hard to stay somber when he was so awkward.  

“Well, maybe? I would have to get into a relationship first...”  

“Yeah.”  

He had no idea how people did that. She went on.  

“I feel like we already know everybody our age in the village. It would be weird for our relationship to change, no? I know it happens all the time but the idea that it's someone I know already... I don’t know, it's weird.”  

The thing was, they didn’t exactly know all their age group. They didn't know the civilians – for all intent and purposes they were an entirely different kind. They didn’t mingle with shinobi, and couples formed by a civilian and a shinobi were a rarity. She was right on that front – most of the adults they knew, their parents and the rest of their family, their teachers and superiors, they had known each other pretty much since childhood, had gone to school together, had grown up around each other. It would most likely be the same for them.  

Would they start seeing someone in a new light someday, despite knowing them for years? Sasuke wasn’t attracted to any of his friends.  

“Have you ever kissed anyone before?” he asked out of the blue.  

This time she spat her water in his face.  

.  

Sasuke truly had a talent for spurting out nonsense unprompted. Sakura wiped her mouth, a little embarrassed, but she didn’t apologize. He had it coming.  

“Why are you asking that?”  

“It’s relevant to our conversation! And you were gone for two years so...”  

Before she had left, they never really had anything to tell each other. They spent most of their time together already, the only time they were apart was when they went back home, and they had always been a little reluctant to talk about their homelife in Naruto’s vicinity. He had never made it feel like he resented it, but she couldn’t help feeling bad complaining to him about her parents, especially before he went to live with Shisui.   

Back then there was barely anything they didn’t experience together. But two years was a long time, and if they had gotten into the broad strokes of their time apart, they hadn’t really gotten into details. Certainly not this kind of detail.  

“What about you?” she countered, mostly to hide how flustered she was. She didn’t expect him to get flustered in turn.  

“I... sort of? You know.”  

“I do?”  

“Yeah. That day at the Academy.”  

She needed a moment to place the memory, before it dawned on her. Ah, it wasn’t that surprising. Someone else probably wouldn’t even have counted that – it was on par with kissing a friend on a dare at a birthday party or wanting to try it “for practice”.  

It was a silly mishap during recess, Naruto getting in Sasuke’s face as he was known to do, and a badly timed shove pushing them together. A crash of lips, a concert of snickers and scandalized exclamations, and her two friends beat red for the next hour.   

All in all a fond memory. Tinged with bitterness now, like they all were, but still vibrant in her mind, and, it seemed, in Sasuke’s too.  

“Does that even count?” she teased, a little mean-spirited maybe. He didn't get the bite, simply frowned, puzzled.  

“Why not?”  

Because it wouldn’t have, she was sure, had it been anyone else.  

If she had a hard time picturing herself with anyone from their circle, she couldn’t even entertain the idea of him being interested in anyone at all. There was only ever one person in his line of vision, she didn’t think another could ever compete. He was mostly unaware of it, which was for the best. It spared him some anguish, for now. But she couldn’t help worrying about it.  

After all, she doubted Naruto would ever be able to pay him back his devotion.  

“Alright, alright. Well, there was... we stayed in one tiny village for a few weeks because I kinda blew off my arm the first time I tried the full Rasengan.”  

Sasuke’s eyes widened and she could feel his urge to check on her arm. Maybe she would indulge him later, if only so that he would leave her alone.   

“Anyway, it was mostly the healer’s daughter who took care of me so we became... friends.”  

It wasn’t exactly the right word. The girl was blunt and fierce, hardened by a difficult life in a remote place, at the mercy of passing thieves and harsh weather. Her bedside manners were awful and Sakura had been convinced at first that the girl hated her guts.   

That fire wasn't hatred though.  

The girl had kissed her on the morning they were set to leave and wasn’t there to bid them farewell with the rest of the villagers when they took the road again.  

There had been three others after that, shy brushes of a hand and a few stolen kisses among the trees. In general she had attracted more attention from boys, but somehow they couldn’t hope to catch hers.   

Hiding this from Jiraiya had been a whole training program of its own.   

But she didn’t know what it meant. Didn’t know how she felt about those girls, didn’t know if it was love and what love even was. She felt like it wasn’t exactly the question, in the stories around her. Her parents loved each other, she believed, but it seemed tame and dull compared to the grand feelings described in the novels she secretly devoured in her free time. Sasuke’s parents never stroke her as living a deep passion either, nor Shikamaru’s. Ino’s mother wasn’t even around most of the time. Same for Kiba’s father.   

Hayate and Yugao were in love. It always seemed a little miraculous, the way the other jounin talked about it. She didn’t find it very reassuring.  

Kurenai and Asuma were in love too, but now...  

She realized they had been silent for a while, lost in their own thoughts. It wasn’t so easy, to talk about all this.  

“Will Asuma be okay?”  

“He’ll live. But... I don’t know. I don’t think he’ll... be able to be a shinobi. Anymore.”  

Kurenai would have a child soon. It was a badly kept secret – Shikamaru had deduced it, Ino had acquired the information somehow, and Choji just knew, like some sort of sixth sense. By extension, all of their friends knew too.   

She wondered what they were supposed to do, if they weren't shinobi. Maybe it was only her. Sasuke had the hospital, Ino had the Intelligence. Asuma... he could be a father. Did that count?  

She had no idea what else she could be. Thinking of Asuma, she was suddenly desperate to find out.  

Before it was too late.  

“At least you know where you’ll be.”  

“I do? Where?”  

“Well. In the Hokage’s chair. No?”  

For the first time, she saw him hesitate at the statement.  

She sighed. He was too easily swayed sometimes, too vulnerable to others’ opinions and thoughts. How many times had she seen his father drain some solid determination out of him with just a few words? And Naruto held similar power over him, but it wasn’t that much of a problem since Naruto was more than okay indulging Sasuke in whatever endeavor he wished to pursue.  

Until now, that was.  

“Nothing has changed, you know,” she said, failing to keep the exasperation out of her voice. She had come to dislike how much Sasuke’s moods were tied to Naruto in so many different ways. There laid the fundamental difference between them.  

If it came to it, she believed she would be able to move on, but he wouldn't.  

“Hasn’t it?”  

“No. Not really. Your goals are the same, aren’t they?”  

Still pretty nebulous for now, but they boiled down to one main idea – things had to change.  

Jiraiya and Sasuke would have driven each other crazy, had he gone in her place. Jiraiya had a “there is nothing we can do about it” approach to a lot of issues, and he was often right. There was nothing they could do about how villages conducted their businesses, treated their people. As strange as it was to say it, it was one thing the man was very reasonable about. He was always down to give a hand and offer his (or her) help, but he also knew when to step back.  

Sasuke didn’t, wouldn’t. She didn’t think it was a fault, but it wasn’t exactly a quality either. He had a tendency to make everybody's problems his business, without pausing to consider that his help could be, at best, unneeded, at worst, unwanted.  

And yet, for the first time, she believed, since he had started to make his ambitions clear, she saw him waver. Hesitate. He frowned minutely, bit the inside of his lips.   

He was doubting.  

It was about Naruto surely, maybe his father too. The reason hardly mattered – she just needed to snap him out of it. She wondered if he did doubt before, but just didn’t show nor tell, or if it happened when she was away. She didn’t think twice about her answer.  

“Sasuke. If you don't become Hokage, it will have to be someone else.”  

It was so funny, how he froze, struck dumb by the most obvious statement that had eluded his reflections somehow. The thought did its round in his head and suddenly Sasuke relaxed, exhaled a relieved sigh like he was putting down a heavy load, at last.  

Like it was that simple. And luckily, she thought, sometimes it was.  

“You’re right.”  

She knew it would work. After all, she had never met anyone who enforced more than him the “if you want something done, do it yourself” motto. If he could, he would do all the things, always. She supposed it wasn’t that great a quality in a leader either, but she would always be there to force his hand and relieve his burdens.  

It couldn't be anyone else. This world, they would fix it themselves. They wouldn’t leave it into someone else’s hands.  

.  

Sasuke’s mother was strangely emotional when they said goodbyes a few days later.  

It was the first time all three of them would be out on a mission at the same time. Both Itachi and his father seldom left the village these days, all in all she was the one who went out the most. She wouldn’t go on any mission while they were away – it was an old superstition, that it brought bad luck to leave the house empty. Ino said it stemmed from needing some excuse for the women to stay home once they got married, but she had also insisted to sleep at Shikamaru and Sasuke’s flat while they were gone. To water the plants and feed the cats, she had said, although the strays could sort themselves out and Sasuke was taking Jiji with him.  

He had not mentioned that. He liked the sentiment, liked that when they would come back, whoever came first wouldn’t find the house empty. This, he believed, was the true reason behind this tradition. To have someone to return to, always.  

“Be careful, alright?” his mother said for the tenth time that morning while fixing Sasuke’s collar, again. He refrained from batting her hands away, even if her fretting made him uncomfortable, like he ought to be worried too.   

“We will,” Itachi promised, dutiful. Sasuke pointedly missed any exchange of affection between his parents, and then they were on their way.  

He had hoped to hear from Shikamaru and his team before leaving, but there was no news. He felt a tad guilty about wishing they had simply not found their target at all. Sakura was gone, out to give them a hand, and strangely enough Shisui had been sent along too, with Tenzo. And odd team-up, but their options were limited after all.  

It was a lot of people he cared about gone on the same high-risk mission, and he felt agitated and uneasy. The perspective of spending the next several days with his father and brother for company did nothing to calm his nerves.  

They would reach Sora-ku by noon the next day and stay the night, and then they would go to the Capital. He was looking at a week of the three of them alone on the road, sharing meals and sleeping quarters and long hours traveling through the forests and fields of their land, knowing his friends could be in need of assistance he wouldn’t be able to provide.  

It was, regrettably, too late to change his mind now.   

“Your friends will be fine, Sasuke, don’t worry”, his father said as they made their way to the village gates. Sasuke was so caught off guard by the sudden sympathy that he didn’t find anything to answer. He couldn’t tell if his father’s tone was condescending – did he disapprove of Sasuke’s preoccupied mind? He wished he understood his father at all.  

He hummed. They would be fine. They had to.  

.  

The duo was, indeed, after a jinchuuriki. And they did, unfortunately, bring reinforcement.  

.  

“What is it? What is happening?”  

“It’s Roshi. He activated his seal. He needs help.”  

“Where is he?”  

“We need to go to Fire Country.” 

Chapter Text

“How is it? What do you feel?”

If Naruto had asked, Karin would have clicked her tongue at him, maybe snap back that she wasn’t a surveillance system and that she needed more time. But when it was Yugito asking she would just answer helpfully, tone casual as if this was the easiest thing in the world.

Judging by Fū’s knowing look, she had caught on to it too and would probably tease the girl later. Naruto wouldn’t risk it, so it was consolation enough.

“The two Akatsuki members split up. One is fighting a man in this direction” – Karin pointed at the forest behind Yugito’s back – “while the other is around there. Three more people with him, and Roshi too, though it’s hard to say if they’re engaging or not.”

“Any corpses?”

“Not yet.”

If Yugito was there, she took the lead. She was the best strategist by far, and she was level-headed and steady in all situations. Naruto was a little embarrassed sometimes by how much they looked up to her, sure that she would come to resent their constant attention.

She didn’t. She smiled, soft and distant, she sat at the doors of the temple while they trained to give advice and encouragement. She meditated with them – the four of them, they sat in a circle, and they dived in. It was easier to keep their head and control the raging of the Tailed Beasts when they were close as if the proximity of their kin soothed them somehow. She was the one with the most control over her transformation and the use of her Biju’s power, and she had the most experience.

She also had a habit of cleaning up Naruto’s scratches and wounds even though she knew they would be gone in a matter of hours. She said it wasn’t the point – Naruto couldn’t help but blush every time, a little overwhelmed.

“We need to split. If possible we have to keep our association in the dark. Naruto, you go to the one who is alone. Keep your mask on and don’t engage. Your task is to keep them from joining back with their partner, and to not get found out.”

He wanted to protest – they should want to eliminate the Akatsuki members if they could – but she narrowed her eyes at him, daring him to say more. He snarled in displeasure yet said nothing. She didn’t like being contradicted, and he had agreed to leave her the lead.

“Karin, you keep cover, and you update us. We don’t know if others will come. Fū and I will try to remove Roshi from there. Our best course of action is to let those shinobi fight the Akatsuki for us. We will leave as soon as it’s safe without being followed.”

He still couldn’t make it so that they would be able to activate his seals on their own, except for Karin, as they had designed them together. He would have to collect them one by one. They all kept one of his hiraishin with them so that he could reach them at all times, as long as they weren’t too far away. Karin would guide him if they were. Still, he didn’t like when they went their separate ways.

“Mask up. Do your best to conceal your identity. The Akatsuki might figure it out, but not the other shinobi, and we don’t know who they are yet.”

“We might,” Karin piped up, somewhat reluctant. Yugito frowned minutely, but enough that the girl squirmed under her gaze.

“I can’t say for certain, I don’t know these people but… I’m pretty sure they’re from Konoha.”

Karin didn’t look at him and he didn’t either, yet it felt as if she was talking solely to him anyway. It wasn’t like they didn’t expect it. They were in Fire Country, it was the most likely outcome. Karin didn’t want him to come, Yugito wasn’t too keen either, but they couldn’t spare his space displacement seals. Karin had been working hard to master it too but the seals were replicated from that first three-pointed kunai, and they had theorized that Naruto could bond to them easily because…

That wasn’t anything he wanted to plague his mind about right now. It was frustrating enough not to be able to alter them the way he wanted, to have to rely on that man’s skills.

“Naruto, do your best to stay hidden, I mean it. Don’t intervene if you can help it, and knock the shinobi out if you have the chance.”

She didn’t have the warning tone that Karin would have had in her voice, but she worried all the same.

“It doesn’t matter where they’re from,” Naruto said. It wasn’t exactly true and they all knew it, but it bore saying still. Because it didn’t matter, it couldn’t. Wherever they came from and even if they were here to fight the Akatsuki, no shinobi, no matter their village, would be friends to them. As it stood for now, the whole world was their enemy. Naruto didn’t wear his headband anymore, and the others didn’t either. They were loyal to a different cause now.

Still he wondered, who had come, who he would run into. No one he truly wanted to see and desperately wanted to avoid – Karin would have recognized them.

It didn’t matter. It didn’t.

“Stay in touch,” Yugito said, taping at the radio around her neck. “Split.”

They ran, each to their goal. They had come to the help of Roshi, it was their sole reason for being here, and they would see to it. Naruto was glad the man had made use of his seal even if he wasn’t interested in joining them. He hoped they would have a chance to talk still, that maybe Roshi would come back to the temple with them, if only for a while. The longer they spent together, the more they were, the more Naruto felt settled, at peace. The Biju should have been able to reach out easily to each other, within themselves, but they couldn’t. Because of their chains probably, and it took physical proximity for them to gain the spiritual one, for these spaces to merge and for the creatures to meet.

It wasn’t unpleasant. There was irony there somewhere, Naruto thought, at the idea that they simply wanted to reach out to their kin and be reunited with their… what, friends, family? They didn’t know. The Biju didn’t share much. Still, this was what it felt like.

It was so relatable, so mundane. Maybe they were just all after the same thing.

Will you shut up with your stupid longing? We are nothing alike and I’m sick of it.

You can’t hide it from me. I can feel it, you know?

You’ve infected me.

Maybe it was true. Just like the Fox’s rage could bleed through Naruto’s mind, maybe he too could spill his feelings over, infiltrate the snarling beast.

Either I’m right, or you are weak.

The fox surged in response and Karin cursed in Naruto’s ear, urging him to conceal himself and his freaky chakra better. He shouldn’t have laughed. She cursed some more.

He focused back on her stilted instructions but he soon didn’t need it to find the fight he was looking for, as he heard a loud rumble, like the earth cracking up.

He slowed down and took care of hiding his presence to the best of his abilities – “that’s it, really?” Karin mocked – and approached the clearing. There was a mess of ninja wires strewn between the trees and his heart rate spiked for a second but no, Karin would have told him, if it was anyone they knew. Particularly this one.

It wasn’t Sasuke, but Naruto recognized him still. At the center of the clearing a man with the swirling red clouds of the Akatsuki stood wrapped in wires and covered in seals, utterly trapped. The earth was open beneath him, and in front stood Shikamaru.

It shouldn’t have come as such a surprise but… He was wearing the chunin uniform, and he looked grim and determined as he stared down his immobilized opponent, calmly answering to his provocations. There was never a doubt that Shikamaru was capable, but that he would be willing… They had probably changed a lot, all of them. They would be strangers when they met again, as Naruto had changed too, and, he believed, not in the same direction.

Shikamaru lit a cigarette, took a drag. For a moment the resemblance with Asuma was striking. He flicked it at the man. Naruto couldn’t decipher the seals from this distance, but their purpose became obvious when at the first touch of flame, they blew up all at once in a deafening crack.

Naruto almost fell down the tree he was hiding in.

The man from Akatsuki was torn to pieces, down at the bottom of the pit. And he could still speak somehow, still spew curses and threats at Shikamaru looming above him. “My God will rain wrath upon you for this,” he promised. Shikamaru was unfazed.

“I don’t share your faith.”

He threw another exploding seal. The pit collapsed on top of the man, drowning his rageful howls, shaking the whole clearing.

And this time Naruto did fell from the tree.

.

It wasn’t like Neji’s eyes, as far as she could tell. Even if they sometimes asked what she “saw”, she wouldn’t have described it as some sort of enhanced vision. Yugito more often asked what she “felt”, and it was closer to the truth.

Case in point, Karin’s sensing worked best when she closed her eyes.

She felt it all around her. Chakra, life, both intertwined. She felt its wave and current as it ran through the earth around her, and she felt its knots, entangled in a pack where life took a more definite form. It was second nature to her, but she didn’t think she could have explained it to anyone even if she lent them the sense, even if they could feel what she felt.

That it was Naruto by her side and Yugito across from her, that she knew that for certain, she couldn’t explain it. She simply recognized them, the feel of their presence, their heat and weight and shape. It extended far beyond her regular sight, but it wasn’t evenly distributed. Strangers, she felt from a few miles away. Naruto, she could pick up, it seemed, from the other end of the country, like a compass pointing North. Karin could never get lost if she had people to return to.

She knew the shinobi were from Konoha. She couldn’t explain it, they just had this… taste. She almost didn’t tell the others, because Naruto was still shaken from their recent encounter with his friends and this had the potential to go very poorly, again, but he would have found out anyway. Better be prepared. Maybe they would avoid any drama this time.

They were never very lucky though.

Yugito and Fū had reached the other group, and all they had to do was escape notice with Roshi in toe. The fight was raging between the Akatsuki and the other ninja from Konoha, their opponent was tough, as all the members of this damn group. It was of no concern to them though, they could all kill each other and it would only be a win in her book.

Of course it couldn’t be that simple. Roshi got away, Yugito on his heels. Fū stayed behind though, and above that…

“Shit. Yugito! You have corpses on your trail!”

“I know. We’ll deal with them.”

“Fū, why aren’t you following?”

“Don’t sweat it Red. These people are not half-bad. We can finish him off.”

“That wasn’t the plan! Yugito, that wasn’t the plan!”

“We’ll circle back to you Karin, don’t worry. Keep Naruto out of it and wait for us.”

She cursed, enraged. Once, just once, couldn’t they stick to the plan? Couldn’t they have consideration for her and that fact that she really didn’t want to fight and that they had to get out of there as fast as possible? They had argued about going all out and taking down the two members of the Akatsuki. They hadn’t only because Gaara was still a little worse for wear, but they were ready to throw hands anyway, without knowing anything about these people and their abilities.

“I’ve been working on something, for the corpses. I’ll come to you.”

“Thank you, Karin.”

“Whatever.”

They thought they were invincible, with their beast and their inhuman powers, but Karin had seen Sasori and Deidara subdue the Fourth Kazekage and Gaara too, she had seen entire parties being wiped out by a much smaller group, all while thinking that they would make it, it would be just fine, because they were strong and nothing could take them down.

There was always stronger. It was easy to die.

And of course, because things could always get worse, she caught on another presence. Three others.

“Shit.”

“What is it?”

“Three more incoming. Konoha.”

She didn’t add anything. Naruto was listening and this was the last thing they needed.

One of them was unknown. The second one too, but not completely – she recognized the burning coil of chakra in the eyes, bleeding red. There was a whole family of them back in that village.

And the third one, she only recognized too well.

.

“Still as graceful as ever I see,” Shikamaru said, loud enough that Naruto could hear him from the other end of the clearing. He wanted to answer “still as annoying as ever,” but he had to at least try and pretend they didn’t know each other.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“I knew you would come. Or I suspected, at least. I planned accordingly.”

He pointed at the pit, now filled with rubbles, a tomb for the man trapped below.

“He’s pretty much immortal. He won’t be able to put himself back together, but just in case, wouldn’t you happen to know how to seal this for good?”

Under his mask, Shikamaru couldn’t see his expression, so Naruto didn’t bother hiding his annoyance and worry. He knew it was what Shikamaru did, predict all the possible outcomes, plan for all contingencies. But to this extent? Were they so transparent in their goals? He didn’t like that at all.

He still approached the pit. At that very moment the Akatsuki was the bigger threat and Naruto could at least trust that Shikamaru was well aware of that too.

“I can try something,” he said, uneasy. Shikamaru had his usual bored, uninvolved expression, but he was on a mission and he had just taken down a very dangerous opponent. Naruto wasn’t about to let his guard down.

He drew hastily, not his most refined work for sure but he didn’t have time to linger. He was wondering what was the best course of action. Just opt out of there and find the others? Or should he knock out Shikamaru first?

“Sealing, kekkai.”

Karin would have done a better job at it, barriers were her thing after all. But this would do.

“The rocks won’t move as long as the seal isn’t broken.”

“Thank you.”

This was all so weird. The weirdest part was how similar to their previous interactions this whole exchange was. Shikamaru had always thrown Naruto a little off balance. He didn’t think like others did and nobody could really parse out what went on in his head. He had the strangest reactions and inputs, when he bothered to react to anything at all. Part of it was an act, Naruto knew, because the boy did care about his friends and he could get emotional too. But his detachment wasn’t fake either – just that a very few limited things could hope to catch and hold his interest.

It made Naruto wonder why Shikamaru was so serious today.

“So. What now?”

Karin and the others were arguing over the coms, Naruto needed to get going. The man in the pit could be considered dealt with, that was already a win for the day, but their priority was to get out of here together and without being followed. He grabbed at the staff in his back. He hoped Shikamaru would take him seriously.

“You can leave. I won’t go after you.”

“What?”

Shikamaru started to gather his kunai and cables as if this was just a normal meeting, as if he wasn’t supposed to want to subdue Naruto in any way he could. Damn, he was annoying.

“It will make Sasuke sad if I’m mean to you, and it’s unpleasant when he’s sad.”

Shikamaru’s tone was disaffected, casual, yet it hurt, sharp and precise, unexpectedly harsh. He was also good at that. The implications – that he cared, that Sasuke cared, that they were close, that Naruto hurt him… Even if he looked detached, weren’t there some accusations too?

Naruto’s grip tightened around his staff. It wasn’t Shikamaru’s place to judge him. What did he know? And did he think that he was doing Naruto a favor?

That Naruto couldn’t take him on?

“But as I said, Naruto. I knew you would come.”

The timing was perfect for Karin’s voice to shout in his ear, “they have an Uchiha with them.”

Naruto’s body grew very cold.

If Shikamaru knew he would come, he had told the others – the higher-ups, the Godaime. They were coming after him.

He had no qualm jumping Shikamaru and slamming a Slumber Seal on his forehead. The boy didn’t have time to react, or didn’t bother to – he was out of chakra anyway and no match for Naruto in his state, or any state probably. Naruto wouldn’t be beaten by freaking Shikamaru, come on. He dragged his unconscious body to the nearest tree, just so that he wouldn’t be left out there in the open, completely defenseless. He would wake up soon enough but Naruto and the others had to be long gone by then.

He had to focus on that or he would start to panic. He didn’t know if it was the fox’s fear pervading his thoughts or if he had made it his own along the road. It wasn’t like he could even remember being subjugated by the Uchiha’s dojutsu.

Expect he could. He remembered the Forest of Death and Sasuke’s forehead pressed to his, hard enough to bruise. And it wasn’t Sasuke coming after him this time. It was both a disappointment and a relief – Naruto would have liked to catch a glimpse of him, as stupid and contradictory as it was.

Just a glimpse. From afar, so that he could look uninterrupted. He didn’t get to, last time. It made him restless and worried not to know when he would, if he would even.

He shook his head, willing the thought away. Now wasn’t the time. He bit at his thumb, clapped his hands together.

“Summon!”

Akito appeared out of thin air, hanging at Naruto’s arm. He was becoming too heavy for this, but it was still his favorite way to answer the summon, so Naruto bunched up as the fox made his way up to perch on his shoulder.

“Lead me to the others?” Naruto asked, already on the move.

“Let’s go!” Akito said cheerfully.

.

The man – his name was Kakuzu, according to his partner – kept saying that he wouldn’t lose to a bunch of kids. It would be his downfall, Kakashi thought.

Shikamaru’s careful planning had given them a definite edge in the fight, exploiting his teammates' capabilities to their max and having their opponent at a disadvantage rapidly. He had even turned Hidan’s techniques against them both. It wasn’t enough, but the boy had foreseen that too. After all, they had a lot of information on Hidan, the other Akatsuki member, from his fight with Asuma, but this one was too much of a mystery still.

He wasn’t as immortal as his partner, but he was no joke either. Shikamaru had planned for them to need more help, and had planned for them to get it too.

It wasn’t Naruto. Maybe it was better this way. They didn’t need any more emotional blow right now. But the girl was surely one of his allies, because when the laughing face of one of Kakuzu’s masks came at them next, the black tendrils of his inhuman body faster than most could be able to avoid, she leapt into the air, carried by insect-like chakra wings. More than this though, what gave it away was the feeling of it, of chakra vastly different from anything they had encountered before.

Except in Naruto, and Gaara. Even if it seemed under her control, it was the same heavy power and the same fear creeping into Kakashi’s veins like an instinct response to a too large threat. Her face was hidden by a mask similar to Naruto’s, a seven carved on the forehead, so Kakashi could only guess but she seemed young, Naruto’s age or maybe even younger, and she sounded… cheerful, very pleased to be here battling Kakuzu. The other jinchuuriki was gone, along with the girl’s partner, a young woman with a serious expression that had displayed very little hesitation at leaving her friend behind.

It wasn’t surprising, for the girl was holding her own well. There was an edge of savagery to the way she darted attacks at the man, the way she laughed as she escaped his attempts to strike her down.

“You have to destroy those masks!” Ino screamed from her venture point on the side. She too was a skilled strategist, astute and observant, and she didn’t spare a thought to the fact that the girl wasn’t exactly their ally, that she was an unknown variable. They had an enemy in common and Ino didn’t look further than that. Similarly, the girl – Fū, was it? – didn’t hesitate to follow the girl’s voice, easily trusting her intel.

A bunch of kids, they were anything but. Or maybe they were exactly that, and the older shinobi just failed to see that it had no meaning, that it didn’t speak for the outcome of this fight at all.

Kakashi couldn’t be of much more help. It was absurd, the toll Kamui took over his body. It made the technic almost useless, for what was the point of an attack that left him incapacitated after one use?

Not that it mattered now. The girl shattered one of the masks with a concentration of chakra Kakashi had never seen before, tightly coiled and corrosive, seemingly unstoppable. Kakuzu was steaming with rage but far from done. It didn’t faze the girl at all.

“You will die before I let you take any of us.” It sounded like a promise.

Kakashi was distracted from the fight by more people joining the fun. He went tense in anticipation of a new threat, but he recognized them soon enough.

“We were sent as reinforcement,” Shisui said when he reached Kakashi, “though it might not be needed.”

Shisui had the worst timing.

They heard a scream – Kakuzu had managed to trap the girl in his restraints, laughing as she struggled, and there was no time to assess the situation or ponder at it in any way. Tenzo leapt into action, sent his wood release after the man who had to duck to avoid it. He was distracted enough that Sakura could smash her swords through the black tendrils, setting the other girl free. Sakura grabbed at her and beat a hasty retreat while the wood chased Kakuzu further away. Only when they landed next to Ino and Choji did Sakura take stock of the situation.

She stared at the green-haired girl, who wasn’t too preoccupied with losing her mask along the way, as she smiled brightly, orange eyes crinkling in uncanny delight.

“Who the hell are you?”

“I’m Fū, it’s nice to meet you! Thank you for saving me! I’ll pay you back someday.”

And with that she jumped back after Kakuzu.

“What is going on?” Sakura asked, exasperated. Ino patted her on the shoulder, placating.

“They just showed up. The man the Akatsuki was after took off. There is another woman, she followed them.”

“We’ll try to find them again,” Shisui said, as casual as if he was planning a game of hide-and-seek. “You can handle it here, right?”

Kakashi knew him well enough to infer that his laidback demeanor was for appearance's sake only. This was not his type of mission and there was little reason for him to have been sent here. Either he had volunteered, or he had a specific task to fulfill. Maybe both.

Naruto could still be around. Other jinchuuriki too.

Shisui held Kakashi’s gaze, sure and steady. Kakashi had never had any reason not to trust him but he had no idea what the man truly wanted, and for what it was worth he didn’t know what he hoped for himself either.

“Fine, you go. Sakura, you too. Ino, Choji…”

“We will see this to the end,” Ino interrupted, inflexible.

“…you stay here in support of… Fū? Don’t get far,” he told the others. “We will meet back here in one hour, there is no use chasing them to the other side of the country with no plan.”

He looked insistently at Sakura as he said so, to her displeasure. He didn’t doubt that if she caught a glimpse of Naruto’s back, she would tail him to Wind Country without even thinking about it. They needed information more than conflicts right now.

Another mask shattered with a loud crack further down the clearing. Fū’s laugh rung above them, clear and chiming.

“Go.”

.

Naruto had to be here, and if he was here, Sakura would find him, and if she found him, she was going to kick his ass.

To her great frustration though, he wasn’t the one she stumbled upon in the forest.

She had been told before that she was too impulsive and that she would benefit from thinking before acting, and well, it wasn’t too out there. But then what was she supposed to do when she happened upon people fighting, besides immediately getting involved? Granted, she didn’t know who they were and what they were fighting for but…

She recognized at least one – the one she jumped in front of to protect from a man whose ashen complexion and dead eyes made it not too much of a moral quandary to cut in half with her sword.

She was impulsive, but at least she was quick-thinking – and what she had in front of her, she had guessed correctly, as the man kept trashing around despite lying in two parts on the ground, no blood in sight.

They knew they would have to deal with these walking corpses again, but did it have to befall her?

“What the hell are you doing here?”

She spun around to cast a scandalized look at Karin.

“I just saved your face, again! You could at least be grateful!”

“I didn’t ask!”

Unbelievable.

Sakura didn’t have the time to chew her off as the severed man was already back together and ready to attack. She counted five more corpses, and two more people battling them off, a man and a woman, skilled and strong as far as she could tell.

She easily fended the corpse off but it didn’t matter how weak it was if she couldn’t take it out. The others seemed to arrive at a similar conclusion.

“This is getting us nowhere, and more are sure to come”, the unknown woman said. “Karin, what do you have?”

Sakura was tempted to reply something mean as Karin was clearly the weakest one here. She caught herself when she realized that there was really no reason to be rude and that it would be stupid too. They had a common enemy for now, but these people weren’t her friends.

“I’m not sure it will work, but I’ll try,” Karin said, taking a paper seal out of her weapon pouch. “I need you to bring one of them to me.”

Sakura rolled her eyes. That girl couldn’t do anything on her own.

The other two went to work and well, it wasn’t like Sakura had anything better to do. Karin was close to Naruto, he might come to her. Were these two people his friends too? He was well supported these days.

It was cruel of her to resent this, but she couldn’t help being jealous. He didn’t give them the chance. It wasn’t fair.

She might have gone a little harder than necessary on the reanimated shinobi that tried to take her down. They wore headbands from Iwa and she had no idea who they were, which was just perfect. They were awfully resistant, persistent too, which was also perfect, as she was very taken with the idea of ponding someone to the ground.

She cut down the first corpse again, in a few more pieces to buy some more time. She brought the next one at Karin’s feet, face down, and the girl hastily slapped her seal at the base of the dead shinobi’s neck, where a small mark was already etched into the skin.

The corpse went limp as a puppet with its strings cut off. Sakura stood up, still on high alert in case it decided to move again, but it was now as lifeless as a corpse was supposed to be.

Which, okay, it was impressive, and the smug smile Karin cast at her meant she was well aware of that. Sakura frowned harder.

“Yugito! Good news is that it works!”

The woman punched a hole right through the chest of the corpse she was fighting as if it was made of smoke before focusing back on Karin with perfect calm and composure. Sakura was impressed by her serene control, the efficiency of her every move, and she wondered what kind of training she had received. Instead of the symbol of one of the hidden villages, her headband sported the kanji for “two”.

“And the bad news?”

“I only made one.”

The other man cursed loudly and colorfully at that while the woman remained quiet, assessing.

“We need to leave. What is Fū’s status?”

Karin closed her eyes, focusing her senses maybe. She had seemed skilled at it, from Sakura’s limited observation the last time they had had to help each other out. Weird how this had been a thing three times now.

“She won! The man is dead,” Karin exclaimed, relief clear in her tone despite her face still set in a scowl.

“Is your cousin on his way?”

“He’s on the other side of the fighting ground. There are others after him, we’d better snatch Fū up now and try to meet him halfway.”

“For fuck’s sake!”

They turned to see the man shake off yet another corpse coming at him. With another curse, he took a deep breath and spat out…

“Yoton! Burning grave!”

Lava release. Lava release? Sakura jumped away, chased by the heat. The three corpses let out inhuman shrieks as they were buried in molten rock. It solidified as soon as they disappeared from sight.

“That should hold them a while. Let’s go.”

“Are you coming with us?” Yugito asked, incisive. The man shrugged.

“What else am I supposed to do? You were right, and it would have saved you the trip if I had followed you from the start. For now, I’ll be one of you.”

This one, he still had his village insignia, tacked on his leather headpiece. Iwagakure – Four Tails, Five? Information on the jinchuuriki was frustratingly scarce. In any case he wasn’t moved by the use of his fellow villagers as cannon fodders, but Sakura seemed to recall Iwa having two Tailed Beasts and neither under its proper control.

“What about her though?” he asked.

He was pointing at her.

She tensed up although she had no idea either. She couldn’t take the three of them, that was for sure. Would they go after her if she fled? It wouldn’t be in their best interest. But they wouldn’t let her follow them either.

“We can’t touch this one,” Karin declared, deadpanned.

Sakura glared at her. What was that supposed to mean?

“Why not?”

“Come on, don’t you know? It’s not that I don’t want to, believe me, but I wouldn’t risk it. I can’t compete.”

Sakura decided it was best to let it go – she wouldn’t get a real answer. And there were more important things to worry about.

She drew a shunshin and had the satisfaction to hear Karin curse her before she vanished.

.

Shisui wondered if the Godaime knew what she was doing, sending him here.

Did she just go along with it because he was willing and also the only one available then.

Did she know to send him because Shikamaru had affirmed Naruto would show up, it was almost a given, and they had to at least try to bring him back in, and she knew he had the power to do that, even if they had never discussed it and the idea that others had plans for his use of the Sharingan made him sick. Or did she believed he could reason Naruto somehow, because of their link, was she aware of it, to what extent.

Did she know, or did she know. Did she send him fully aware of what she was doing, knowing that it was an attempt at getting Naruto in line, but a futile one, just for show. Knowing that it wouldn’t be successful, not because he was unable, but because he fully intended to make it so.

When she said she cared about the boy, did she truly mean it.

The result would be the same either way, but still he hoped that maybe she knew. That she was on their side, for real, that she understood. What face would she make when Shisui came back and said that Naruto had gotten away. What would she say. Would she be surprised?

He hoped she wouldn’t be.

Shisui saw the fox before the boy.

It wasn’t any less of a shock because he was expecting it. That was the whole point of being here, and yet. He didn’t expect to be hit so hard by melancholia and longing as he caught a glimpse of Naruto’s face for the first time in over two years.

Nor did he expect the pang of hurt as Naruto quickly drew his mask down, hiding from view as he faced Shisui. The boy fell into a defensive position, staff in hand. Shisui understood why Sasuke had been so dejected when he came back from their mission to Suna.

“Hello, Naruto.”

He got no answer.

From what Kakashi had said, Naruto had developed the teleportation seal of the Fourth Hokage. But out of his own territory, he could only jump as far as he could throw his own kunai.

And Shisui didn’t get his nickname out of nowhere.

At least it seemed like Naruto didn’t intend to fight him, but he didn’t want to linger either – he threw a three-pointed kunai, he disappeared from view. But Shisui had the Sharingan, and he could sketch a shunshin faster than Naruto could throw. The boy was never the best at projectile weapons.

Shisui appeared in front of him, seconds after he had popped up next to a huge, dying tree. The boy jumped, caught off guard, and Shisui realized that they had never fought much, the two of them. The sporadic training sessions they had shared were mostly about chakra control and taijutsu. Naruto had never truly met Shisui of the Body Flicker.

Shisui couldn’t know what face he was making under his mask. The Sharingan had its limits. It was a shame.

Naruto jumped again. Shisui followed, again. They could cross half the forest like this, except if Naruto had scattered his kunai further away. But he wasn’t trying to escape for good, for now. Shisui supposed he had to regroup with his allies first.

The third time, Naruto tried to punch him.

Fair enough. Shisui bent back, avoided a second punch, a kick toward his chest. Naruto jumped. Shisui followed.

Naruto huffed in annoyance and Shisui could picture his scrunch-up face, his pinched lips as he tried to rein in his frustration. Shisui was no stranger to masks – he used to be in Anbu after all. They were very useful, they did a perfect job at hiding them from the world, changing them from a person with emotions and tells to a blank slate devoid of feelings. It had certainly helped to carry missions before.

It was easier to kill masks rather than people.

But he hated it now. He needed to see Naruto’s face, the foils of his expression that he thought he hid so well but were transparent to Shisui’s trained eyes, to how attuned he was to the boy’s mood.

Besides, he did have a purpose coming here. Naruto’s attacks became more aggressive, purposeful, and Shisui had to know. Naruto had laid a seal on Sakura and Sasuke’s heart, he had threatened them that he wouldn’t hesitate, if they tried to stop him. Shisui had to know how much he meant it.

“How are you, Naruto?” he asked after dodging the swing of his staff. He couldn’t tell what it was made of – the white, polished surface wasn’t wood, too light and too hard when it shattered a nearby branch, though it had yet to properly hit him. He couldn’t tell how much of his might Naruto was putting into the fight. Couldn’t tell what it meant.

“What do you want?” the boy asked back angrily. “I’m not going back!”

“That’s not why I came.”

“Why would you then?”

It was a little disheartening that Naruto couldn’t think of another reason. But maybe he didn’t want to. Shisui couldn’t blame him for trying to make his exile lighter to bear. Self-imposed or not, it couldn’t have been easy.

“I just wanted to see how you were.”

That gave the boy a pause. Short-lived though, before he tried and narrowly succeeded laying a seal on Shisui’s arm. Chakra consuming or paralyzing maybe. Shisui wasn’t well-versed enough in the art to tell the difference, and he wasn’t about to let Naruto yell it to find out.

“Why can’t you leave me alone?”

Shisui refrained from retorting that they had left him alone plenty for the two entire years they had heard pretty much nothing from him. But it was twice in as many weeks so maybe it made sense for him to feel harassed. Even though they mostly happened to be running in the same direction.

Shisui was just as bad as Sasuke. He just wanted to see the boy. To make sure that he was okay.

And to confirm maybe, even if he didn’t really doubt. He needed to be sure.

So the next time he chased after this hiraishin, he took the opportunity to snatch the mask away from Naruto’s face.

He didn’t get what he was expecting though. All he caught was a glimpse, and all he saw was fear.

Naruto’s eyes wide in shock and terror, for the split-second their gaze met, before he shut them tight and brought his arms in front of his face.

“Don’t look at me!”

And Shisui was slammed right back years earlier. He was bringing home a scared, scarred boy, who had just learnt that he was a monster in everyone’s eyes, that he would never be set free. Naruto wasn’t hiding from him out of disdain or coldness.

He was scared. Wasn’t he always? He had grown used to Sasuke’s Sharingan, but the circumstances were different, and Sasuke was a different case too. Shisui had hoped that Naruto would know, that he wouldn’t doubt. But maybe that was asking too much of him. After all, what was he supposed to think? Shisui was uniquely qualified to chase after the jinchuuriki, and Shisui was here.

But how could anyone believe he was here to this end, it was beyond him. As if. As if.

Naruto pushed him with all his might, eyes still tightly shut, the familiar bloody taste of the demon’s chakra rising around him. Shisui watched him hide his face, snarling like a trapped beast and he couldn’t let it go like this.

“Naruto. Would you look at me? Please?”

“Come on, hey. Open your eyes. See for yourself.”

“I’m not going back. I’m not done yet, I won’t…”

“Naruto. Look at me.”

Shisui stepped in, Naruto stepped back, a strange twisting of their earlier chase. Naruto couldn’t just hightail out of here without looking around so he shuffled awkwardly, panic rising. That wouldn’t do.

The boy tripped on a root, nearly falling flat on his back and still he kept his arms up, still he didn’t look. Shisui caught him by his shirt, put him back on his feet. Naruto stood very still, a prey now when he was so used to being the predator, chakra raging aimlessly.

He didn’t try to attack Shisui, didn’t try to hurt him.

Shisui grabbed the boy’s wrist, pried them gently away from his face. His eyes were still screwed shut, shin down and shoulders up as if he could hide within himself. Shisui cupped a palm around his jaw. Naruto was still smaller than him, it was an absurd source of relief.

“Didn’t I promise?”

“I won’t use it on you. You won’t ever see it. I promise, Naruto. You are safe here, with me.”

The red chakra was snuffed like a candle. A hush settled over the clearing.

Naruto opened his eyes.

The Sharingan enhanced everything – details, sharpness, brightness. And the colors, the colors were so different – richer and ever-changing, with nuances that weren’t there when the world was the dull tones of their regular eyes. Some of them became sort of addicted to it, but no matter how trained they were, the dojutsu couldn’t be maintained for that long. Besides, the more they used it the more their eyesight degraded, something they had learned the hard way.

The blue of Naruto’s eyes though, Shisui had ever only seen through his plain black eyes. But that was fine, they were vibrant enough anyway. And he had promised.

“You look well. I’m glad.”

“Why…”

“I trust you.”

“I trust you.”

The fear gave way to disbelief, and then sadness maybe, but resolve too.

“I won’t give up. And I won’t let anyone stop me.”

It was a warning, plain as day, but Shisui had no intention of getting in his way. He took the time to study Naruto’s face, to commit it to memory, and it was a shame not to be able to turn the Sharingan on to task really, but this would do fine. His eyes fell on the red tattoo at the base of Naruto’s throat, the freedom kanji plain visible now that he no longer wore his headband around his neck and above the torn collar of his ratty black shirt.

Ah. Right.

Shisui smiled, relieved. He was right to come and see for himself. He didn’t doubt but he was reassured still.

All would be well.

“Do you remember what I said? Whenever you want, you can always come back.”

“My door will always be open to you. This is your home too. You will always be welcome here.”

“Even if I…”

“Do what you have to do, Naruto,” Shisui said gently. Firm too, so that Naruto would know to listen. Shisui didn’t like to see doubts and pain on his face.

He would leave the anger and passion to Sasuke and Sakura, who could waste the hours and the energy. It was fair by them that Naruto would feel guilty, torn over his choices since they were the ones to suffer from it. He didn’t begrudge them their resentment.

So, to them the settling of the scores, the work of forgiveness, the redemption.

To him, the harbor. He couldn’t be mad at Naruto even if he tried. Shisui had no feelings to be hurt here – he was the adult, and it was in the natural order to get his heart broken by the children under his care.

“Fuinjutsu. Heartbreaker Seal.”

It hurt more than he expected, though the pain was already fading as Naruto blinked away. Shisui didn't follow, there was no point. He pictured the seal wrapped around his heart, a looming threat, and he wondered at its embrace.

.

The girl, Fū, obliterated the last remaining mask in a fury of condensed chakra that also melted the earth around them. Kakuzu was left torn to pieces on the ground, life slowly draining out of him.

Kakashi felt a strange sense of melancholia at the sight. The girl was profoundly exhausted but otherwise unharmed, and she had already put her opponent out of her mind.

Shikamaru came back from the forest in a similar state, unsteady on his feet but safe and sound. Ino threw herself at him, shaking with relief, and she drew Choji with her, trapping both in her embrace.

They were the only genin team of this lot to still be complete, to still have this. But none of the others were dead either – a feat, really. So it wasn’t all lost to them yet, not like it was for their teacher whose ranks were decimated so early. Kakashi was so grateful that Asuma had survived. That was what they were, Asuma, Kurenai and him – survivors, to their friends and teammates, to their whole age group. But the kids, maybe they would get to live, for real, live and grow old together without having to miss so many people.

Sakura came running into the clearing and the world came catching up to them. Fū took a few steps away, smile turning sharper. She wasn’t as light-headed as she made it look.

“They are trying to leave, we need to…”

This time it was a characteristic “pop” that drew their attention, one that Kakashi had heard so many times and that it felt so alien to hear again. The whisper of the hiraishin.

“Dammit Fū, I told you to stop throwing my kunai away!” Naruto screamed from the other end of the fighting ground, when he expected to appear right by her side. It was the point after all – give the sealed kunai to his friends and allies and he could go to them in a blink, as long as they weren’t too far. Kakashi wondered at Naruto’s range.

He wondered if he knew about his father. He needed to know, suddenly.

“You’ve taken to it well, Naruto. Your father would be proud,” he said, as if these were the words that needed to pass between his student and he, as if it would be welcome. And indeed, it wasn’t. Naruto snarled under his mask.

“I don’t have a father.”

He wasn’t exactly wrong.

“Well that was fun!” Fū said to them. “Let’s do it again sometimes.”

She ran to Naruto.

Sakura and the others tried to catch her, but she leapt in the air, fast on her wings. Naruto was running too. As soon as they touched, he drew the hiraishin – they vanished.

“Fuck!”

Sakura punched a tree. The pain made her curse again.

Chapter Text

The old Nekobaa kept repeating how nice it was to see them after so long, how she couldn’t believe how much Sasuke had grown, kept asking how he was, what he had been up to. She wasn’t trying to make him feel guilty, which was why it was working so well.

He couldn’t even remember the last time he had visited Sora-ku. Surely because he had not known then that it would be the last – it must have been just an ordinary visit, boring and tiresome. He must have wanted to go back to Konoha, to train with Naruto and Sakura, to hang out with his cousins or to pester Itachi, he must have grumbled and asked why he had to come.

The next time, he had managed to wriggle out of it for one reason or another. And the next, and the next. And now it was years later and the old woman was happy to see him, and he felt guilty.

A little betrayed too, because Itachi didn’t get the same treatment at all, for – and he was just discovering this now – he had kept visiting regularly, mission or not. He had stopped asking Sasuke and but kept coming on his own, helping the old woman around and spending time with the cats. Sasuke knew it was unfair of him to be upset, since he had been the one to shun the trips in the first place, but still. Itachi could have tried again. Could have guessed Sasuke would change his mind as he grew older.

There was one thing that made up for it all though. If Old Nekobaa was quite indulgent with Sasuke, the same couldn’t be said for their father.

“You think sending your sons for you is enough huh? Years you’ve ignored me, years! Are you not the head of the Uchiha clan? Don’t you have duties to uphold?”

Best thing was, his father looked properly chastised, taking the remonstrance without complaints. The old woman was exaggerating for sure, theatrical as old people knew to be, almost affectionate in her scolding, and his father seemed both repentant and weirdly pleased.

“I’m sorry, grandmother,” he said, bowing deeply. “I am at fault. Please forgive me.”

Sasuke figured he was missing something there.

His father had to review the weapon stocks and talk about security and other boring things surely. Sasuke was usually dutiful to follow this kind of thing, as Tsunade always grilled him to learn as much as he could, everywhere and at every opportunity.

But Sora-ku wasn’t Konoha. It was out of his life there, a parenthesis, untouched by most of the events of his life. Seeing his father here was unsettling enough, he didn’t want to demystify it further, for it to come down to just another thing to be taken care of, just another responsibility to shoulder.

Above all, Sora-ku had always been a playground.

So he wandered off, refamiliarizing himself with the maze of corridors and narrow streets, of stairs and abandoned rooms spiraling up above and down below the ground, much wider and intricate than it appeared at first glance. It was easy to get lost in it, but Sasuke had run up and down these paths hundreds of times – he could navigate it easily still. It was reassuring.

He stopped here and there to pet the cats and try to unearth spots he and Itachi and the few cousins that had accompanied them sometimes had tagged with red paint as a supreme act of rebellious fun. A time-honored tradition of all the Uchiha youth who came, years after years, on their parents’ orders. Silly drawings and quotes from songs and movies, more or less faded on the crumbling walls and rusting pipes.

He found “Asahi and Fugaku” carved in the wood of an old door.

Asahi was his father’s young brother, killed during the Third War before Sasuke was born. Even Itachi had no memory of him, and their father never talked about him. As he didn’t talk about most things, didn’t talk at all.

In another corridor he found the neat script of Kamui claiming he was bored and couldn't wait to go home. The little cat head scratched underneath, it had to be Kara’s doing.

Sasuke wondered if years from now other children of the Uchiha clan would walk Sora-ku too, if they would ponder at those inscriptions. If they would find Sasuke and Itachi’s scribbles and attach them to the stern adults in their lives.

If they too would lament at dead brothers.

He went back to Nekobaa’s quarters after that, anxious suddenly to see Itachi, to escape the ghosts. He knew they were the ones to write on the walls, but he couldn’t even remember it for good. Childhood seemed far away already.

Not far enough though, when he saw what the adults were doing.

“Tamaki!” he exclaimed, mortified. “Why did you have to pull that out? Take it back!”

The girl giggled, blushing lightly, and of course made no move to retrieve the small book that Nekobaa was reviewing with his father. He recognized it immediately. Itachi was sharpening kunai in a corner, as he knew the content of the book already.

“It’s nothing to be embarrassed about, Sasuke,” his father said, a little puzzled, which made it all the more embarrassing. He turned another page, adorned with another paw print.

The book probably contained the prints of all the cats older than five living in Sora-ku.

Sasuke didn’t remember what Itachi could have said to him, to convince him that collecting those was of the utmost importance. It didn’t matter much to him as a child anyway – he was eager to do anything Itachi asked of him, eager to please him and make him proud in whatever way. It might have counted even more than their father’s approval. Sasuke could bear without his father’s attention as long as he had Itachi’s, but not the other way around.

He was quite proud of the book at the time but he understood how silly it was now, just something Itachi came up with to placate Sasuke as he complained and whined that he didn’t want to be there. Granted, it had worked – for a while he had even looked forward to visiting Sora-ku, just to further his collection.

“I didn’t know you kept it,” he grumbled, joining the old woman with the vague hope to snatch the book when she wasn’t looking. Tamaki smiled at him.

“We weren’t going to just throw it away!”

His father was absorbed in the book for reasons Sasuke couldn’t figure out. It wasn’t the kind of thing the man ever had an interest in, neither Sasuke nor Itachi had ever told him about it. They hadn’t told anyone – it was their thing, that stayed in Sora-ku, a harmless secret that still felt weird to be exposed like this to their father’s scrutinizing eyes.

Sasuke focused on Jiji climbing on his shoulder to distract himself from the stupid book, though it soon appeared that it was also what interested the cat at the moment.

“Don’t tell me you want in,” Sasuke sighed. The judgemental look he got back was answer enough. Nekobaa was only too happy to go fetch some ink. Jiji jumped on her laps, pleased with himself and despite Sasuke’s weak protests.

Tamaki felt his discomfort maybe, because she suggested they made a round-check of the traps laid around the city to help defend it and its resources. Sasuke was happy to follow her out.

Tamaki was a year older than him, but they had never become proper friends. Sasuke was rather particular as a child, especially before the Academy. He seldom interacted with people outside the clan and had no friend that weren’t Uchiha. Naruto, and then Sakura, were the exceptions for a long time. Tamaki was friendly and welcoming, but he never really gave her a chance.

They checked the traps – even if it was an excuse, it still had to be done properly. He wondered if Tamaki ever got bored or lonely, out here alone but for her grandmother, their many cats, and the occasional travelers. He didn’t know how to ask, didn’t exactly cared to. He was always bad at this. Maybe he had kept his distance for fear he wouldn’t manage to befriend her anyway.

“Next time we’ll meet in Konoha,” she said after a few minutes of Sasuke turning various questions and conversation topics over in his head.

“Yeah?”

“I should visit soon, if the old woman agrees. Maybe you can show me around?”

“I’m pretty busy,” he admitted. When he wasn’t working at the hospital or training, he mostly lazed around the flat, tired out of his mind and fed up with company.

She faltered, a little disappointed. He had said the wrong thing.

“But don’t worry, I can ask some friends. You won’t be alone.”

She nodded but didn’t seem all that reassured. He had an idea maybe of why she was distraught. He remembered how girls would fight for a chance to sit next to him in class or walk home with him after school. He doubted she would be like that and he didn’t want to presume but it was a thing, right? It happened more and more around him. Not to him but. Others.

He tried to picture it, walking her around the village, taking her out to eat and drink at the outdoor stalls and popular café. He would have to hold her hand, right? Smile, talk. Look at her.

She was rather pretty, he supposed. They would probably get along well. Yet he couldn’t see it. Couldn’t see, couldn’t feel. He didn’t see the appeal. It felt more a hassle than anything else. He preferred to hang around people that were fine with him not participating in the conversation, not always being quite there with them and not demanding him to be. Often when they had friends over at the apartment he would stay quiet in his corner of the couch, soaking in their presence as they chattered and laughed, and it was enough for him.

They kept up a good rhythm at their task at least. She didn’t seem that sad so he figured he had not been too harsh, this time.

Nekobaa was busy making diner when they went back. His father announced they would spend the night and leave early the next morning. If there were no pressing matters, if they felt like it, they would stop again in Sora-ku on their way back.

Sasuke took the opportunity to sleep surrounded by cats, to Jiji’s ostensible displeasure.

.

“I didn’t know about that book,” Sasuke’s father said, out of the blue, about three hours after they had left Sora-ku for the capital.

Sasuke had been anticipating it all morning – both Itachi and their father had this air about them when they were preparing to say something but didn’t dare to yet. Their mother said Sasuke did the same, she said it was funny how they were alike in that regard.

It made for tense, awkward and heavy silence that could stretch for hours before they finally got on with it. Itachi was undoubtedly the worst at this and the only one who could, after several hours or even days, end up not saying anything at all.

“It was just to pass the time,” Sasuke answered vaguely.

“What else would you do?”

“What?”

“To pass the time.”

Sasuke didn’t even know what to say to that, uncomfortable with his father’s sudden interest in their life. The best strategy was not to say anything at all and wait until he got the hint, but for some reason Itachi had decided to play along today.

“We trained, mostly. We challenged each other to reach increasingly difficult targets with kunai or shuriken. We made a contest out of tailing members of the clan around the village without getting caught.”

It was a popular game among the children, though Sasuke was sure he had never played it with Itachi. It made sense he had the same games with the other Uchiha his age. They didn’t play with children outside the clan then, and they didn’t take the risk of following adults who weren’t of their own either. Another one of those things that weren’t explicit rules yet they all followed anyway.

Their father hummed, as if approving. Sasuke had no idea where this conversation was supposed to go.

“When I was your age, the game was to paint the symbol of the Uchiha clan in the most impressive places possible.”

In his surprise, Sasuke forgot to be reluctant.

“Really?”

“Hm. High on walls and roofs, or in places we weren’t allowed to go. We got into a lot of trouble for it too.”

Sasuke honestly couldn’t picture it. Trying to imagine his father any younger than he was now was already a struggle. There were a few pictures, when Itachi was young, on their parents’ wedding day, when Fugaku was a chunin – but the man in those pictures never looked like Sasuke’s father. It was someone else surely, someone who was young and could smile, could be cheerful and funny. Same went with his mother’s stories of their youth and mischiefs. It was unfathomable.

And yet he was dying to know more.

“There is an Uchiha fan on top of the lamppost in front of the Academy. Was that you?”

His father smiled the faint, painful smile that meant whatever the memory and no matter how happy it had been once, it was then tarnished by darker circumstances – probably death.

“My brother,” – ah, that explained it. “I’m curious how you even spotted that one.”

“We tried to cross the whole village once without touching the ground, with…”

Sasuke stumbled upon the name – he bit his tongue, irritated. He didn’t want to ruin whatever strange dispositions his father was in, but if the man decided to get angry, how was it Sasuke’s fault?

“With Naruto.”

He glared at his father, daring him to make a comment, to voice his opinion on the matter. The long pause that followed was unnatural in the flow of the conversation, heavy with recrimination. But then…

“And who won?”

The next pause was even longer. Sasuke fumbled with the answer, caught off guard, and he thought his father looked a little smug about it.

“I did. He tripped on a clothing line and got chased around by an old lady so he had to come down and hide for a while.”

His father smiled, however faint, and for once the memory wasn’t as bitter, as wistful. It had been a good day, full of mischief and laughter. Even that women had only yelled about “misbehaving children with no education nor manners”, unaware or uncaring of Naruto’s identity, unlike most adults they dealt with at the time. They had ended up sprawled out in the field near the Uchiha district, breathless and exhausted, content to soak up on the shining sun while the wind dried the sweat on their bodies.

He wondered if this was the first time he ever shared such a memory with his father. Wondered what Naruto would think of it, as he was no fan of the man. Wondered how he would tell this story – would he insist, as he had then, that Sasuke’s victory was null, that they ought to do it again. They never did, in the end, for one reason or another. They expected to, at some point, unable to consider that they didn’t have all the time in the world to do so.

Later, later.

The same went with Sasuke and his father. They would talk, eventually. Later. Later they would be open and honest to each other, later Sasuke would ask his questions, later his father would answer.

Sasuke was anxious, suddenly, for later to be now.

But the capital came into view just then, and the conversation was closed.

.

They didn’t go straight to the palace of the government, as Sasuke thought. Instead, they went to an inn at the outskirt of the central district, where they were to meet a shinobi working as a military adviser for the Daimyo.

Sasuke didn’t know the man but he recognized him immediately as a member of the Uchiha clan. He sat in front of his father at a secluded table of the inn. Neither gave any indication that Itachi and Sasuke weren’t to listen in on the conversation, so they stayed where they were, sitting at the next table to act as a buffer to the other patrons and leaning in none too subtly to hear what was being said.

The man, Junji, was mostly here to fill Fugaku in on the current affairs of the palace, the dynamics, the ongoing cases, the opinions and dissents. Most of what they talked about flew over Sasuke’s head. Not Itachi’s though – he seemed far more knowledgeable than Sasuke, focused intently on the hushed back and forth between the two men. Sasuke wished he could ask for precisions and explanations, but he feared it would prompt their father to send them away. So he stored the information away and tried to retain the names and places and dates, so that he could ask later.

“When can I meet with the Daimyo?” his father asked at the end of the report.

They only spoke with contempt of the leader of the country, said to be indecisive and weak-willed. Sasuke knew nothing of the matter, yet he was uncomfortable with the way they spoke of the man and his advisers. It was, in fact, a tone he had heard often in his father’s mouth – the one conveying that he and his interlocutors considered themselves above and better than the ones they were talking about.

He hated that tone.

“The Sannin Jiraiya arrived a few days ago. He said he would wait for you before bringing up the matter of the Akatsuki. It can be as soon as tomorrow.”

Sasuke ticked at that – there came names he knew at last. But what of the Akatsuki? It wasn’t a threat the central government could deal with, Tsunade had made it clear enough that Konoha had to handle it.

“Very well.” Their father turned back to them at last. “I will go to the palace tomorrow. You’re free to explore, but don’t draw attention on yourself.”

“Can’t we come with you?” Sasuke asked, trying his best not to sound petulant or demanding but struggling to hide his disappointment. Wasn’t it the point of this whole trip?

“No.”

No explanation would come, nor any room for negotiation. The man was turning away from them already, as his companions ordered sake and food for them both. Infuriated, Sasuke took the food up to their room, knowing the mood would only deteriorate if he stayed. He didn’t want to have a fight with his father out there in the open, surrounded by strangers. Though that man, Junji, wasn’t a stranger, not completely. He was an Uchiha, he still answered to their clan leader’s command. What was his purpose here in the capital? Did he report to the Hokage or to Fugaku only, did he have orders, plans to carry out, missions to complete? Sasuke had never given much thought to the general politics of the country. Konoha alone was complicated enough. But the Daimyo still had a great hold on them and their power. And it seemed that they had their eyes on him in turn.

He was there in his angry musing, stabbing his sushi with his chopsticks when Itachi joined him.

“Don’t be too mad. He wasn’t going to take us with him.”

“What’s the point of us being here then?”

He knew he was being childish – it was good enough to be here already, to even be introduced to all this when it was clearly not their place. But it also was a such because his father made it that way. He was the one who refused to explain anything of the inner, and outer goings of the clan and village, who treated Sasuke’s curiosity and questions with condescension and impatience, as if Sasuke was stupid for even asking.

Itachi sat beside him on the floor and grabbed the extra chopsticks Sasuke had brought up, just in case. Itachi never disappointed Sasuke – not anymore at least. Sasuke didn’t ask, yet Itachi always knew, and he always complied. It was reassuring.

“Come one, ask away. I’ll walk you through it.”

They talked politics and strategy until their father came to sleep.

.

The capital was very different from Konoha. The roads were paved, the shops were large and spacious, with a lot of choices for everything, most of them superfluous in Sasuke’s opinion and yet numerous and expensive. Lots of clothes and shoes, foods from other countries and regions, paintings and trinkets, accessories and exotics plants and books by the dozen.

They found no decent weapon shop but they stayed in one of the bookshops for a long time. Sasuke didn’t have that much money to spend but he still bought a few his friends might like, one for his mother too, and a couple for himself. Fortunately, he was quite proficient at storing seals, and he put away all their purchase in a scroll once they were done – Itachi’s too, who had bought even more with no qualm about getting rid of a few clothes to make room in his bag. Sasuke put the scroll away in his weapon pouch, stupidly pleased to do that for his brother. They would sort it back at home.

The people were different too. The majority of Konoha’s population were shinobi, and even the civilians carried the village’s military discipline and organization in the way they dressed and acted.

None of that here. People in colorful, fancy clothes strolled around, seemingly without purpose, the streets bustling with activities and sounds. They had jobs Sasuke didn’t know – traveling agencies, all sorts of repairs people back home just did themselves or asked from a neighbor, salons to groom hair, skin, nails, pets.

They passed by a school just letting out for lunch break. Kids burst out of the door with heavy backpacks full of books and brushes, dressed in pretty, impractical clothes, not a bruise on their bodies.

He couldn’t decide who was in the right, who had it better. The kids inspired him both disdain and envy in equal measures. They all knew, intellectually speaking, that children outside of the hidden villages received a very different education, that their status in Konoha was special, but he had never given it much thought.

He had never given it much thought, but hadn’t he wished, once, that they had fewer classes about throwing deadly weapons and fighting each other bloody, and more about history and literature and the world beyond their high walls? But these kids couldn’t defend themselves, or anyone. They were weak and helpless. Because they could afford it? Because someone else was supposed to fight for them?

The shinobi of Konoha, did they serve these people?

He couldn’t wait to leave this place.

They ate in a pricey restaurant with average stir-fry and decided to check the city’s hospital, one of the few places that would be familiar in this strange place. They had fewer medic-nin than in Konoha, but more civilian doctors and surgeons. Then again, they treated very different patients – they dealt with chronic disease and disabilities, aging people and psychological issues.

Things that prompted the people affected to simply leave hidden villages. They probably ended up here. He felt the same discrepancy, the same misalignment with the hospital staff as with the children at the school gates. Their lives were so different, and he wasn’t sure he understood why.

Besides them being born in different places.

They went back to the inn and resolved to wait for their father at a table outside, sipping iced tea in the shades and watching silently the people milling around, indifferent. They got a few discreet looks of interest – it was hard to tell which went to who. Sasuke avoided crossing gaze with the girls passing by, unwilling to prompt them into taking a chance.

A group of boys in work pants and dirty shirts, probably from a construction site, passed the inn in a ruckus. One of them, shirtless and tanned by the sun, aimed at Sasuke a bright, charming smile that left him entirely flustered – he was pretty sure the boy’s friends laughed at him, and his brother might have too.

Yet it wasn’t that unpleasant. Their mood had lifted a little when they ordered some dango to share, but that was the moment their father chose to reappear, and it was immediately obvious that he was in a rage.

The Sannin was there too, not in much higher spirits. They followed them inside, to the same corner. The two men ordered sake as soon as they were down on the wooden seats.

Uchiha Fugaku didn’t get into fits when he was angry. He didn’t scream, didn’t shake or pace, he didn’t get violent or loud. His voice would just carry more, get heavier like a thick fog, unescapable. His face hardened, his eyes got cold. His anger was focused and overwhelming, it towered over all other feelings, his and other’s. There was no room for anything else.

They could only wait it out. Sasuke had gotten better at going against his father’s anger, at knocking on the walls even if it wasn’t the smartest thing to do. But his first reaction was still to stay still and silent, to look elsewhere and think of something else because maybe it would recede on its own. It didn’t work, yet still he tried.

He gave it a few minutes of silent drinking and fuming, hoping that his father would talk on his own, that he would remember his sons were in the room and could be interested in what happened at the palace with the Daimyo.

As he expected though, when the men started to talk, it was as if Sasuke wasn’t there at all.

“I will find out about the missions that were handed over,” Jiraiya said. “And how they were completed.”

“That won’t stop it from happening again.”

“If we know what kind of missions, we will know to accept them, even if we lower the prices.”

“Do you think money is the issue? It’s not that we were asking too much. It was the Godaime who rejected those missions outright.”

Sasuke didn’t like how his father said “Godaime”.

“What happened? What did you talk about?” he asked, taking advantage of a lull in the conversation.

“Tsunade has her reasons,” Jiraiya said, a careful hint of steel in his otherwise bored voice.

“Look where it got us!”

Sasuke didn’t like being ignored either.

“What happened?” he asked again, doing his best to keep his temper in check, to remain polite and leveled. Itachi cast him a worried look, maybe tried to convey that Sasuke ought to stay quiet for now, ask later.

That wouldn’t do.

“There have always been missions the village wouldn’t take on,” Jiraiya said pointedly.

“Where there?”

Sasuke wondered who that particular reproach was aimed at. Where there? Sasuke had seen Tsunade reject certain requests, indeed. Certain assassinations, certain demands for orders in agitated populations, protection for private fortunes and trips, certain forms of entertainment.

And some that weren’t paid enough.

Was it new, was it only following his master’s wishes? Was it better, that money couldn’t buy some of their services, but that they didn’t provide any for free either? He wondered at the whole point, at the role of the village, at their power and duties.

He thought about Tazuna and the bridge of Wave Country. Kaiza, its name was, after Inari’s stepfather. Their Team Seven might have helped them in the end, but it wasn’t why they were sent there, wasn’t even what they were supposed to do. All in all, they had gone against orders, they had been in the wrong to get involved.

What was the point then.

“What happened?” he asked for the third time, even if he was starting to piece things out on his own. They were talking about the Akatsuki, had to. Tsunade had been livid at the services the village had asked of the organization before her time, and Sakura said Jiraiya had tried to warn the other villages too, to tell them their intentions were far from innocent, that funding them would ultimately work against everyone’s interest.

She had said he wasn’t very successful.

Was the Daimyo contracting with the Akatsuki directly, now that Konoha refused some of their demands? That the central government had this solution meant they didn’t react too strongly to those refusals, but what a solution it was.

They were all simply feeding into the Akatsuki’s growth of power, with still very little insight into what their end goal was exactly. Besides a worrying interest in the jinchuuriki. Some of which they might have captured and subdued already.

Though Sasuke doubted it.

Naruto wouldn’t let them.

“If the Daimyo can’t be reasoned on this…”

“Father!”

At last, at last, his father seemed to be remiss of Sasuke’s presence on the next chair. The realization didn’t please him.

“Not now, Sasuke.”

“Tell us what happened.”

“It doesn’t concern you.”

“What are we doing here then? You asked me to come! Why can’t you just tell me?”

That look on his father’s face, Sasuke knew it well – it was the disappointed spike of “why can’t you understand this on your own?”, the one that said the question was superfluous and silly. It used to send him rolling in shame, but now it only filled him with rage.

Because he hated, hated how his father said “the Godaime” and “the Daimyo”, he hated to think it might have been how he used to say “the Sandaime”, might have been how he managed to follow that by whatever plans the clan formulated back then. The contempt, the accusations. Always the same undertone. “Someone else would do it better. Someone else, and I know who.”

His mother kept saying that Sasuke didn’t know all, couldn’t understand. Was he at fault? His father wouldn’t tell him.

Jiraiya was the one to answer, to break off the confrontation by inserting himself as if nothing was amiss, as if Sasuke wasn’t about to leap above the table at any moment.

“I’ve been trying to warn the hidden villages and the capitals against the Akatsuki. So far, few have listened. They do their job well, they take on any mission for a low price. And they haven’t caused much trouble outside of it.”

The man shrugged at Sasuke’s scalding look.

“Their attack in Konoha didn’t succeed. And the one in Suna is recent. They at least will heed the warning now, but as for the others, as long as they don’t suffer any loss…”

After all, who cared that Uchiha Shisui had almost died. Who cared that it drove Uzumaki Naruto away from his village, that the head monk of the Fire Temple was killed for his ransom and Sarutobi Asuma might never recover. Who cared for the fate of the jinchuuriki as long as they weren’t turned against them. Who in their world cared for others, those stranger to themselves.

Someone else would do it better. Someone else...

“We will go to the palace again tomorrow, and then we will go back to Konoha,” his father said, tone final, seemingly of the mind that it would be pointless anyway. He still didn’t address Sasuke directly.

.

They left the capital after lunch the next day. The Sannin still had work to do in the city and bid them farewell near the Red District – Sasuke had doubts about the kind of work the man could conduct there, but it was better not to think about it. Sakura’s tales about her two years under his tutelage had eroded the prestige of the old shinobi in Sasuke’s eyes, and he didn’t have much to begin with, given how their first encounter had gone, years ago.

They had received words of a group of rogue shinobi causing troubles near the border. It was a small detour from their route to Konoha, so their father decided they would take a look, assess the situation. Deal with it if they could, but only then. Sasuke’s father wasn’t impulsive nor brash, and he wasn’t after glory for himself. He couldn’t be saddled with all faults.

Sasuke was still reeling and Itachi was utterly incapable of managing any sort of conflict, so they traveled in silence for the rest of the day.

Only when they had set up camp, when they sat in tense silence around a small fire, when dinner was gone but one of them had to actually say something to send off two to bed and one on guard, only then did Sasuke had to talk, and not in order to take first watch.

“The Godaime is right. She aims to set us on another path. There is no wrong in deciding that we could do better.”

He was determined not to get angry, not to lose his temper. Even if his father looked at him like this, even if he was tense with frustration and impatience. They were stuck here together. He wouldn’t let his father escape this time. Jiji, who was curled up on his laps up until then, promptly jumped up and disappeared in the trees, maybe sensing the situation was about to get rather unpleasant.

“There are consequences to this kind of strategy.”

“Do you think we didn’t think this through?”

“We?”

Sasuke bit his tongue, breathed through his nose. It was presumptuous of him of course. He was but Tsunade’s student and helper, he had had no say in those decisions, his opinions didn’t matter.

He supported her all the same. He understood what she was doing. Why she encouraged Shisui and Tokuma to make the changes they wanted at the Academy, why she focused so much resource and time into the hospital, why she tried to encourage their trade and production.

Maybe even why she had not gone that hard after Konoha’s missing jinchuuriki.

He knew it didn’t please a lot of the older commanders and clan leaders, he feared their discontentment. He feared it even more knowing that this discontentment could very well take a turn for the worse.

As it almost did, once.

“Things can change,” Sasuke said, voice tight, teeth grounding painfully the many things he wanted to say but knew he shouldn’t. It was so easy to talk about these things with his friends, when they were light-headed with too much food and drink and planned all the things they would do when they were older, all the work to be done and the way they would remake the world.

He was tongue-tied in front of his father, always feeling foolish and inadequate, clumsy with his words and wild with his emotions. He always lost argument even when he was sure of himself, when he was convinced he was right.

“You’re young, Sasuke. You’ll come to realize it’s not that easy.”

“Stop saying that, stop it! I didn’t say it would be easy, I said it could be done! Am I so dimwitted in your eyes that you think I don’t know that? Do you think so little of me?”

The man was taken aback by the sudden outburst. Sasuke regretted it immediately, but he was on a roll and he needed his father to understand, to get it.

Or if he couldn’t have that, to lose it too for once.

“Besides, didn’t you think you could change it all once?”

The atmosphere shifted entirely as Itachi uttered a warning, “Sasuke”, his voice careful and wary. Sasuke ignored him.

“Be careful of how you talk to me, Sasuke,” his father warned. It was ineffective – Sasuke was no longer a child.

“Or what? Isn’t that your solution? If you’re so displeased with how the Godaime is handling things, why don’t you do something about it?”

He was out of line and the words were bitter to his own tongue but at least, at least his father was looking at him, was listening and answering and he wasn’t going anywhere. Sasuke didn’t care about his anger.

“Do you think that’s what it was about? You don’t know anything about what happened then!”

“And whose fault is that? Whose fault is that? I asked, and asked, I begged you to tell me, just to explain, even if I’ll disagree, even if I don’t understand. I just want to know and you won’t tell me, and for what? Because I’m too fragile or too stupid to take it? Because you know you were wrong?”

“Oh, do you want me to tell you then?”

“Father.”

The anguish in Itachi’s voice gave them both a pause. This expression, Sasuke had seen it sometimes but usually when his brother thought no one could see. A boundless terror with no outward cause and seemingly no cure.

Sasuke backtracked immediately.

“Leave him out of this,” he said weakly, afraid suddenly of what his father would dare to say in his anger, in his need to take over the argument, to put Sasuke in his place. Itachi breathed out a choked-up sigh.

“It’s not him, Sasuke, it’s not just…”

“Stop!”

They didn’t need to say any more for the three of them to understand.

Sasuke cursed at himself because he didn’t want them to know. He didn’t want them to think that he knew. He didn’t, but then again, he did. He had pieced it out over the years, by Itachi’s despair and the eyes their mother laid on him sometimes, by Shisui’s silence, by Izumi’s quiet rage. He didn’t need to know for sure, he didn’t want to hear it. Whatever it was, it wasn’t what he needed to know. He knew it would make things worse, that Itachi couldn’t bear it. He didn’t need anything from his brother. He didn’t want to cause him pain.

But now Itachi was staring and he had to think… It wasn’t that Sasuke knew. He knew not to ask, not about this. All the rest but not this.

“I just want you to talk to me,” he said helplessly to his father, distressed at how he could convey in any clearer way such a simple truth. “We don’t think alike and we don’t agree but that doesn’t mean… I want you to try and consider that… that I might have a point. That I’m not always wrong, that it matters. And that I could convince you, or you could convince me, if you just give me a chance, if you just…”

His father surely wouldn’t believe that Sasuke wasn’t judging him, that he didn’t disdain his point of view. But Sasuke could hide it, for the sake of argument, he could listen and try to understand, he wanted to. If his father could just see value in his own opinions, if he could manage, just for a second, to contemplate the validity of Sasuke’s stance…

“This… was years in the making, Sasuke. It’s not a simple matter.”

“Father, please… Please can you see me as more than an ignorant child.”

It wasn’t the first time Sasuke had said it before, or even today, and yet his father had the gall to look surprised every time, as if he didn’t realize, as if he didn’t mean to. Which would be worse, that he did, or that he didn’t?

“Do you want to know why I made that decision at the time? Or do you just want to know if I regret it now?”

Sasuke hoped the answer didn’t show on his face. It was true that he doubted anything his father would say would be justification enough. He still wanted to hear it. If only because…

“If you don’t, then try to convince me.”

“It’s easy to say now. Because you know how it turned out. But we didn’t at the time. We didn’t have the benefice of hindsight.”

“Who did you do that for? The clan? Our family? What if you had managed? What if you had overthrown the Sandaime, sat in his place? Where would we be now?”

What would the other clans have said, how would they have reacted? How much bloodshed, how much conflict? And what would his father have done after? Where did he see the village going? Or was it only the clan that mattered, to hell with the rest?

“What about you, Sasuke? What will you do if you take on the hat one day?”

He was a little thrown by the question. It was almost accusatory, as if his father expected Sasuke to have never thought of it before. Or to have an answer he would disdain.

“I want us to be at peace.”

“Do you think it wasn’t peace then?”

“Not a peace between wars! Not one that is still, not one that we wait around until it stops. I will be at work every day. I will protect it all.”

“And of those who will be discontented? Who will disagree? You can’t force people into being peaceful.”

“I’ll convince them.”

“All of them?”

“I’ll convince enough! Not all of us want to wage war and yet here we are, aren’t we? Here we have always been! Did you all want to fight, is that why it worked? Did it? Did it work? Did you win?”

For the first time, besides anger and contempt and annoyance, Sasuke thought he could discern something else in the hard lines of his father’s eyes, in the dark on his eyes.

Something akin to hurt.

“We will try,” Sasuke said firmly. He wouldn’t be alone. They would try, as hard as they could for as long as it took.

His father got up then. He dusted his clothes, tidied up some of his things, before moving toward the tent. He turned back only once.

“Try then, Sasuke.”

Maybe there was taunting in his voice, but that wasn’t it, not entirely. Maybe it was the closest approval Sasuke would get from his father. It didn’t matter now. He would show him, in time. He would prove to his father that they could do it. He would convince him.

He crossed Itachi’s gaze, still a little haunted, a little out of here. They stared for a long time.

“Do you think he was wrong?” Sasuke whispered, as much not to be heard as not to spook his brother. Itachi didn’t hesitate.

“Yes. But it wasn’t just him. It was…”

“I don’t need to know. If you don’t want me to, then I don’t.”

“Are you sure?”

“Hm.”

Itachi kept staring, unblinking, searching for the truth maybe, for a hint of Sasuke’s thought, and Sasuke couldn’t bear it anymore.

He crawled around the fire pit to fall into his brother, to wrap his arms around him and lay his head on his chest, to squeeze out the ghosts. Itachi held him close, stroking his hair, both of them comforting and being comforted, both needing a moment to come back.

Both their parents seemed very far away.

.

“The Akatsuki isn’t enough of a threat for now,” Jiraiya had said. Fugaku had agreed. Despite their attacks on Konoha and Suna, despite their movements across the different countries, despite the worrying level of their power, they had not caused any major disturbance, they had not been threatening to the point of arming against them.

To the point of being careful not to cross their path without proper backup and strategy.

The encounter didn’t seem random, but that wasn’t reassuring in the least.

The coat made them unmistakable, but even without it, Fugaku had seen them both before. Hoshigaki Kisame, and the rogue Sharingan user with his swirling orange mask.

“Hello, Uchiha Fugaku! We thought we might meet you here.”

Fugaku stepped in front of his two sons.

Chapter Text

“Since you know who I am, I would appreciate having the same privilege.”

The man with the orange mask let out a short, high-pitched laugh, perfectly amused as if this really was a fine joke. Fugaku stored it away – the relaxed stance, the apparent carefree disposition, as if they were just acquaintances meeting by chance on the road.

By his sides, Hoshigaki Kisame was grinning manically, his massive sword resting casually on his shoulders whistling an ominous sound as would a hungry predator.

“I’m Tobi! But that’s not important right now.”

“I rather think it is, if we’re going to fight.”

“Why should we fight?”

The casual tone was grating on Fugaku’s nerves, and he could feel his sons shifting restlessly in his back. They had never faced this kind of situation together, but he was reassured to see they were following his cues and wouldn’t do anything rash. Itachi was experienced enough and despite his stubbornness, Sasuke wasn’t impulsive nor reckless.

“Isn’t that why you’re here?”

The man shrugged.

“Not really. I am here to kill you. We don’t have to fight though, do we?”

“Am I supposed to just let you do as you please?”

“Why not? That would be nice!”

That man wasn’t to be trifled with.

Everything in his attitude, his voice and playful words, his relaxed posture, everything was carefully cultivated and perfectly non-genuine, Fugaku was sure of it. There was something chilling in this carelessness when he was so clearly a threat, so certainly here as a mortal enemy. Fugaku’s sons tensed up even more at his sides, set on edge too by the affected nonchalance of their opponent. Kisame seemed to be enjoying the display, though he showed signs of impatience too.

“I’ll take the kids,” he announced, grinning widely. His eyes were fixated on Itachi.

Fugaku battled the urge to get between them. No member of the Akatsuki was to be taken lightly, and they could have more back up on the way, maybe those walking corpses the Godaime was so puzzled about, despite her extensive studies of their captive specimen. Fugaku couldn’t afford to be emotional now. They would all have to fight.

“Sasuke. Jiji,” Fugaku ordered under his breath. He didn’t turn to check if he was heard and understood, trusting that his youngest would know what to do. His cat was hidden in his lose haori. In the confusion of battle, it would be easy for the trained animal to slip away and fetch them help. But how long until they arrived? The village was at least four hours away, give or take the speed of the thing. Fugaku had a rough estimate of the level of Hoshigaki Kisame – high, dangerous. The other one was a complete mystery.

“Don’t go too far, don’t get separated. Spare your strength but don’t hesitate to go for a kill, if you have an opening. You have trained together enough. Be aware of each other, this fight is for the both of you to win.”

He had berated them enough for neglecting their combat training, focused that they were on medical ninjutsu. He felt no sense of victory now, to have been right. Only a deep sense of foreboding, a restless tremor at the inevitable confrontation to come, at too many unknown variables and too little assurance of things going their way.

He had never felt such a strong urge to simply turn away, to escape. Fugaku was no stranger to fighting, nor fearing for his life and others’. Yet he felt unmoored, agitated.

Sasuke. Itachi.

“What about you?” Sasuke asked, always the one to protest, always the one to talk back. Fugaku’s exasperation didn’t get a chance to rise though, before he recognized the emotion in Sasuke’s demanding tone.

“Don’t worry about me,” he answered. It was absurd that they would be. They were but children, and he was their father and clan leader. Yet the attention, as silly as it was, left him strangely touched. He didn’t doubt Sasuke’s attachment to him but…

Ah. Maybe he did.

There was no time to ponder about any of it. Kisame was done waiting – he charged them with impressive speed, sword dragging behind him.

“I’ll leave it to you,” Fugaku said reluctantly, jumping out of the way. As foretold, Kisame paid him no mind, engaging the two teens immediately.

Fugaku trusted they would hold their own at least for a while. They had to. He had his own problem to deal with.

“Are you going to fight me then?”

“Oh, sage no! I wouldn’t want to go against the famed Uchiha Fugaku myself. Imagine if I get hurt? Uh uh.”

Somehow Fugaku doubted the man had that much to worry about. And the way he said his name… Fugaku was fairly known in the shinobi world, as were the few most powerful members of his clan, and being recognized or even targeted was nothing new.

But this man… Maybe Fugaku was biased by the burning light of his Sharingan, but he was convinced his opponent not only knew of him but knew him, up close. That they might even have met before though he didn’t recognize his voice. For some reason this felt personal.

Fugaku had no shortage of enemies either.

“Have you brought another friend then?” he asked, fed up with this game when he could hear the clash of weapons in his back, Kisame’s pleased laugh.

“Not a friend of mine, actually. A friend of yours!”

Out of nowhere he came. One second it was only the two of them, the next, a distortion in the air, shimmering with dark sparks, and the next a tall, slender man was standing in front of Fugaku. His ashen complexion and dead eyes left little doubt about his nature, but that wasn’t what froze Fugaku on the spot. It wasn’t even the fact that this corpse, too, bore the Sharingan, albeit of a strange look with eyes blackened by death temporarily put at bay.

It wasn’t that this was a reanimated Uchiha. But that it was this one, among them all…

That man, Tobi, who was he really?

For after more than fifteen years, Uchiha Fugaku stood once more in front of his brother.

.

Sasuke had been there before.

The first time, in Wave Country, trapped in Haku’s ice palace, no way out, no way out. The second time, during the chunin exam, facing the Sannin Orochimaru and the cold press of his murder intents weighing down on him until he couldn’t move.

He wasn’t there against Sasori. There were things he could do then, he felt powerful and in control, he could win. There was no telling he would have, without Lee’s help, but the boy had arrived before he could get there.

There, where he was now.

There, afraid.

It wasn’t a conscious calculation, that their opponent was too strong, that the difference of level was too great. These things happened all the time, they were difficult to evaluate. Few fights were lost before they began, simply because they didn’t know each other enough to be sure of the outcome.

Yet there he was. Hoshigaki Kisame kept pressing them on, kept pushing, pushing, and Sasuke just didn’t know what to do.

He wasn’t sure the man was properly trying to kill them. This seemed like a game to him, making sure that Itachi and Sasuke couldn’t regroup with their father, who was not fighting against the other Akatsuki member but against a corpse, and one that had been an Uchiha nonetheless, dull Sharingan circled with black yet unmistakable. Their father was one of the strongest fighters in the village yet he stayed on the defensive, hesitating like Sasuke didn’t think he would ever see him be. And he couldn’t go and help and ask what the hell was going on because that fucking shark was having a blast getting in his way.

Every time they came a little too close, he would still some chakra. Just a bit, little by little, sword barely grazing and not doing any real damage. The fatigue was real though, Sasuke didn’t have all that much chakra to spare to feed that damn sword.

Of course to make matters worse, Kisame of the Mist was a master of water jutsu, and Sasuke didn’t have the firepower to go against him. Itachi was faring better by the brute strength and deadly precision of his Katon, but it wouldn’t be enough.

If only they could cross his gaze.

Kisame was avoiding their eyes with an expertise that spoke of experience. It wasn’t so surprising after all, seeing that his companion, whoever he was, bore the Sharingan too. They must have trained together, must have worked with that specific scenario in mind. Itachi excelled in all forms of ninja arts but genjutsu remained his greatest strength, by far the best out of the whole clan, even better than their father’s.

It was no use if eyes didn’t meet.

Another problem arose soon enough when Sasuke, preparing to block another swing of the sword, was abruptly pulled back by Itachi’s wire wrapping around his waist, jerking him out of the way while his brother went head-to-head with their opponent.

“What was that?” Sasuke hissed when they were pushed back once more. “I don’t need you to protect me.”

Itachi didn’t answer, he didn’t look at him either. He seemed tensed and anxious, jaw set and posture rigid. It was unusual for him to be so put off by a fight. They usually worked well together but their dynamic was off now.

“You were going to get hurt,” Itachi stated, as if that wasn’t as pointless a comment as possible.

“I can take a few hits!”

“I can’t.”

Sasuke was confused for a moment. Itachi wasn’t one to shy away from pain and injury – he tended to have the opposite problem, their mother had expressed worries over it often enough. It took him a moment to read the despair, the quiet panic in his brother’s shining eyes and shaking limbs.

Itachi finally looked at him. The enhanced world of the Sharingan meant every little twitch of a muscle was in plain view, every shift of their expression, every raging emotion in their bottomless eyes.

Sasuke could get hurt, but Itachi couldn’t let it happen.

He had inferred that he might be getting in Itachi’s way, and he was right, but not in the way he thought at all. It wasn’t as if Itachi had never been protective of him before, but Sasuke didn’t think it would show up so blatantly in such a high stake fight. They all had to compose with that fear, they all had to stifle the urges to shield others from harm when harm was inevitable in their lives and getting in the way could make things even worse. They didn’t have the luxury of that kind of sentiment.

It felt like Itachi was as startled by this turn of events as Sasuke was. He wasn’t going to get past it right now, not fast enough to help in their current predicament. Sasuke wanted to shake some sense into him because there was no time, but at the same time he was filled to the brim with the weight and warmth of this feeling, of Itachi’s inability to be as detached and pragmatic as he was supposed to be. As they were raised to be, as they had believed him to be right up until this very moment. Not that it was entirely surprising, because Itachi was just different from the rest, in every possible way.

Still, that he would be unable, and maybe unwilling, to fight this instinct, that he would express it so bluntly, this felt almost like a transgression in itself.

They couldn’t dwell on it for too long though.

“Leave this one to me, go help Father. Or escape, if you can.”

Sasuke recoiled at the idea, almost protested, but of course it would be the smart thing to do. Jiji was on his way to call for help, hopefully, but Sasuke would be more efficient, and it was just common sense, to disengage if the chance presented itself. Even if he doubted the two men would let him.

“Okay. Okay.”

Itachi stood straight to his full height and turned back to face their opponent with renewed determination, Sasuke put out of his mind for now, which was for the best.

“Oh? Are we getting serious?” Kisame said, sharp grin widening around sharper teeth.

When the next attack came, it focused solely on Itachi, and Sasuke slipped past, ignored.

He followed the sound of fighting back to the clearing they had stopped in, Kisame’s wide range attacks having pushed them some distance away without them noticing.

He hesitated at the edge of the clearing, just out of sight. Could he truly be of help to his father? He trusted the man wouldn’t be impaired by his presence as Itachi was, but that didn’t mean he could use Sasuke in a fight.

If he could find an opening…

“You’re not trying to flee, are you?”

The Sharingan didn’t grant better reflex, just a better vision, a faster transit of the information. Their reflexes were honed accordingly, and Sasuke’s body had moved before he fully understood that the man in the orange mask had popped up right in his face, that he was dangerously close and that Sasuke needed to put some distance between them that very second.

It wasn’t a shunshin, Sasuke was certain of it. He didn’t seem to come from somewhere. The man laughed at Sasuke’s surprise and defiance – a grating, unnerving sound that he longed to snatch out of the man’s mouth.

“I doubt I would succeed.”

“Hmm, true. I don’t want to kill more than one today, but it wouldn’t take too much to change my mind.”

Sasuke wished such casualness could be a symptom of foolish arrogance and overconfidence, but he had a deep conviction that it wasn’t. Whoever that man was and whatever his skills, he acted this way because he was certain he could afford it, and Sasuke believed it too.

He tried to bypass him, just to see what he would do, tried to get closer to his father and his opponent still clashing in the clearing. Once again the man just… appeared, solid instead of air, menacing despite his lack of face, or maybe because of it.

“Sorry, little Sasuke. I can’t let you ruin the show.”

He hated his name in the man’s mouth, hated the familiarity, the disrespect.

Sasuke had no illusion about his strengths and skills. He was still among the best of his peers, but he wasn’t exceptional in combat, the way his father and brother were. Maybe he could have been, but he had made the choice of letting go of that road to take another, to his father’s great displeasure. He wondered if the man would take some satisfaction out of it now.

He could pull his own weight in a fight, but he was no match for the stranger. The most important thing he had to do right now, was not to let himself be used against his own family. He couldn’t let that man get him and hurt him. He had better follow his lead for now.

“My father wouldn’t want me to anyway.”

That made the man laugh again for some reason.

“You have no idea how true that is. Come then, come closer! Let’s enjoy it, shall we?”

Unbalanced but unwilling to show him, Sasuke complied, taking a few measured steps forward as the man took a few steps back, until they were out of the cover of the trees, with a clear view on the fight raging. Tsunade had briefed all of them on the reanimated corpses, but they still remained mostly a mystery. She was at least certain that they weren’t, in fact, corpses brought back to life. Not the corpses of the people they saw anyway. Rather, it was a form of incarnation technique. A dead soul called into a dead body, manifesting in this vacated envelope with full strength and skills – a proper nightmare. According to her, it only took a sample of the original body to do the trick, and they knew no way of breaking the link for now.

The work of the Sannin, Orochimaru. Naruto had left his side at some point, but they didn’t know after how long. What did he see there, what did he endure?

How did it change him?

The Uchiha burned their dead. But there was always a piece they kept. It was repulsive and distressing, to think that the Sannin could have had any access to it, but how else explain the corpse fighting his father then?

Because Sasuke knew him. Or rather, he knew of him. He recognized his face, from photographs in albums his mother took out sometimes but his father never looked at, and of course, from the family shrine.

It was Uchiha Asahi. His father’s only brother, more than fifteen years dead and cremated. In the flesh, or close to it, with the same angular face and serious expression as his father, yet much younger, still somewhat childlike, hair cropped haphazardly at ear length, eyes bigger, cheeks fuller.

Sasuke had never realized how young he was when he had died.

His father didn’t show anything, but it was obvious he was affected by the sight. His attacks were as deadly as ever, as purposeful and powerful, but still Sasuke could track the minute hesitation, the confusion and anger that made him a little unstable, a little predictable too. They didn’t exchange a word, yet it was painful to watch all the same.

His father had the upper hand and would have won easily enough had his opponent been human. But he wasn’t. He kept getting back up, his limbs kept reattaching, his wound closing, his bone resetting. Sometimes they went still, caught in the maze of the Sharingan, but the Sharingan’s main weakness was itself. They never fared well against one another.

His father caught sight of him, standing at the edge of the clearing. He didn’t react to it either, except for the smallest twitch of displeasure on his face. Sasuke almost apologized, but his father couldn’t get distracted now. Sasuke didn’t try to intervene. The orange mask was watching him closely, he was sure. Whatever he wanted, Sasuke was a part of it, but as a spectator only, at least for now.

“Uchiha Fugaku, I meant to ask you, since we’re all here,” the man started, ever so casual. “How fare your eyes, I wonder?”

Fugaku visibly flinched.

“I mean, you’ve been using it for how long now? Surely your sight would be in poor condition by now, unless you did what it took to prevent it.”

His words seemed to egg the corpse on, who was getting more and more vicious, brutal, while Sasuke’s father remained reluctant. Sasuke had no idea what the man was talking about, only that it was hitting the nail on the head and affecting his father.

What about his sight, what about his eyes? Sasuke tried to pay closer attention to his father’s face, though the two ninjas moved fast, too fast for normal eyes to follow.

He realized that there was something odd about his father’s Sharingan.

“Do you not know what that is?” the man teased. “Fugaku, does he not know what it is? How old is he, fourteen? And you haven’t told him yet? I would have thought you’d have force-triggered it already.”

Sasuke repressed the very childish urge to correct the man on his age.

“Is that what this is about?” Fugaku asked grimly, expression turning darker, angrier. It was a sensitive topic, whatever it was.

“Hm. Maybe. But I’m not the one most interested in the answer, right?”

Before they could understand what he meant, a new voice rose up in the clearing. Low and gravely, heavy with misuse like after a long spying mission with little sleep and even less talking. It was a little ridiculous, how long it took Sasuke to identify its source, but then again…

He didn’t expect the dead man to talk.

And to talk in such a bitter, accusing tone.

“Did you do it?”

His father faltered enough for his opponent to land the next hit, a kunai to the shoulder that Fugaku only managed to deviate so that it didn’t inflict any life-threatening damage. Instead of taking it back, Asahi pressed in, vicious.

“Did you do it? Did you take them? Did you?”

Fugaku answered by breathing fire into his face, forcing him to retreat. Sasuke couldn’t tell if the corpse felt pain but he still winced at the melted skin and burnt flesh, though it grew back quickly enough.

“Fugaku. Did you?”

Asahi’s voice was quieter now, almost pleading. There was no similar softness in Fugaku’s answer.

“Yes. I did.”

It sounded defiant.

He took out the kunai with one brutal movement and maybe it was such a random moment to choose to move that the orange mask didn’t anticipate it, but he didn’t stop Sasuke from jumping to his father’s side.

Sasuke slammed a palm on his shoulder before he started bleeding out all over his haori, muttering about the proper way to deal with such a thing in the heat of battle. He could tell his father wanted to say something, protest maybe. Sasuke was careful to avoid his gaze, easily falling into gestures he knew by heart and could execute quickly and efficiently. He dared to hope his father would at least recognize that.

“Who is that?”

The wound was deep but not too damaging. There was no time for any refined treatment but at least it wouldn’t impair his father’s movements. So Sasuke focused back on the dead Uchiha, despite how uncomfortable it was just looking at him, so clearly devoid of life yet moving and talking and expressing more raw emotions with his voice and face than most Uchiha men ever did.

“This is my youngest son, Sasuke. Sasuke, greet your uncle, Asahi.”

It was surreal, but Sasuke was nothing if not well-mannered. He bowed lightly, though he stayed silent. He had no idea what to say.

Meeting the other man’s gaze, he realized he too bore a strange iteration of the Sharingan. Instead of the usual tomoe, both he and Sasuke’s father sported geometrical patterns in their eyes, a lot more black on the red than Sasuke was used to seeing.

“Of course you had a second child,” the man sighed.

That angered Fugaku a lot more than all the rest.

“It had nothing to do with it.”

“Really?”

“You didn’t either. Asahi, you must know…”

Asahi cut the sentence short by suddenly leaping toward his brother. Sasuke jumped back, but he clearly wasn’t a target here – the two men exchanged more violent blows without breaks, more and more frantic and aggressive as they went.

Sasuke was left stranded on the side and once again taken off guard by the orange mask invading his personal space in the blink of an eye.

“I wouldn’t want you to believe there is a choice to be had here,” he commented. And then, louder for both fighters to hear him, “Asahi will not stop until you are dead, clan leader.”

There was the smallest of shift, just a clip at the end of the last word, a slight intake of breath, something that told Sasuke the man had said something he didn’t intend to.

It was the way he’d said “clan leader”. There were only two options as to who this person could be – either he was a powerful foreign nin who had managed to best a member of the Uchiha clan and stole their eyes. Or he was one of them from the start.

The second option had seemed too wild until now, because there was no Uchiha deserter recorded in recent history. But the mere fact that they were here, and that the man had specifically brought Fugaku’s brother to fight him…

And the way he said “clan leader”.

It seemed impossible, yet it was the most likely explanation.

It also confirmed that even if he had his memories and feelings, even if he looked alive somehow, Asahi very much wasn’t, and he wasn’t acting on his own will. He was a puppet, moving upon orders. Tsunade had suspicions of a bond between the caster and the corpse, and ideas about how to severe it, but she had too little to work with, as the link had been broken and erased before the corpses they captured made it to Konoha, effectively protecting the secret of the technique.

“Snap out of it, Asahi. Aren’t you ashamed?” his father scolded, in a tone so reminiscent of Itachi sending Sasuke away when he annoyed him, it painted his father in a light Sasuke had never seen before, never even imagined.

His father was on these pictures too, but they never felt all that real to him.

“Do you think I have a choice? Do better, if you want to survive.”

It was hard to say if Asahi was feeling torn over it or not. It was no use hoping he would indeed break out of this control. Nothing indicated that it was possible – or that he would stop attacking if it was.

Sasuke crossed his father’s gaze. A subtle nod, two directions. Sasuke drew a shunshin and flickered away on the other side of the clearing, escaping the orange mask’s watch. His father sent Asahi flying in his direction.

“Chidori!”

Sasuke caught him right in the middle of his back. The strength of the corpse’s flight almost embedded him on the crackling chakra dancing at Sasuke’s hand, who felt his hand sink in the flesh. There was no blood, but nor were there any regeneration, as long as kept his hand there, kept the chakra going. The man trashed around – Sasuke curled on himself against his back to get out of reach of his flailing limbs, knowing his father would unsheathe his tanto, knowing that severing the head would at least give them some respite to deal with the orange mask.

He swept the man’s legs from under him, sending them both to the ground. He knelt on top of his back, his hands all the way through the body, Chidori fizzling out against the rocks under it. He looked up to spot his father.

A swinging leg caught him on the upper chest full force.

Air deserted his lungs as he was sent flying before a tree painfully stopped him mid-fall. His head slammed against the trees, he felt the skin tear on the bark.

“I told you to stay out of it,” the orange mask hissed, irritated now, towering above him. Sasuke’s father was trying his best to bring his blade down on his brother’s neck, but having a huge hole in his chest didn’t prevent the corpse from grabbing the tanto with both hands and battling it away. He was still in peak form – he managed to push Fugaku back.

Sasuke got back to his feet carefully, head throbbing.

“What do you want?” Sasuke asked the man – Tobi, right? Such a stupid name –, hating the hint of desperation in his voice. This was unnecessarily cruel and he had no idea what to do about it, how to get them out of this situation. He had an inkling that whatever the answer was, it wouldn’t be something Sasuke could give. Or would want to.

Despite not seeing his face, he was sure the man was smiling. He reached out and Sasuke had the reflex to block, but worse than attempting to hit him or stab him, that Tobi went to ruffle his hair, familiar and light and making Sasuke’s skin crawl. Sudden tears rose up in his eyes as he shivered, repulsed. He was as incapacitated as if he had been pinned to the ground by a blade, his whole body protesting against the touch.

“For now? I just need one less kaleidoscope in this world.”

Sasuke slapped the hand away and exhaled as big a Katon as he could on such short notice, just so that the man would get away from him, would stop touching. It worked, albeit in the same weird way it had until now – the man didn’t use a shunshin or jumped back. He wasn’t inhumanly fast. He literally vanished.

Sasuke didn’t let it surprise him this time. The how didn’t matter. He widened his field of vision, searching, searching… There, a surge of chakra just as the man reappeared as if the chakra itself was spitting him out. Sasuke threw a sling of shuriken in the space that would contain the man a second later.

They passed through him.

The Sharingan couldn’t be deceived. They passed through him as if he wasn’t there. But he was, there was weight to his body, he was there for sure.

“Hey! That’s a bit mean, you could have hurt me,” the man scolded as he patted the red cloud where a shuriken should have been embedded, spotless and undamaged. Sasuke couldn’t figure it out. It had to be some kind of ninjutsu, but how did it work, how to counter it?

His father was getting tired, Sasuke could tell. They could be as strong as can be, what use was it if their enemy was impossible to kill? Sasuke still had a seal left to incapacitate it, but the other one wouldn’t let them do as they pleased.

The clearing was getting bigger with the range of their Katon expanding, burning the trees and plants to the ground, leaving only charred trunks and blackened earth. If his father ran out of chakra…

He didn’t manage to block the next swing of a kunai. Sasuke saw the blade disappear in his side, heard the pained intake of breath as blood very much gushed out of this wound. Sasuke made to reach him, to apply pressure, stop the bleeding.

A hand closed around his neck.

“Not this time, brat.”

He struggled, fingers dug deeper.

“Healers are such a pain.”

“Sasuke!”

His father turned toward him, worried lines deep on his tired face, even if he couldn’t afford that, he shouldn’t have, he had to stay focused. Their eyes met, he opened his mouth, he tried to come closer maybe.

A blade came out through his throat.

A blade, short, single-edged, probably a tanto, probably Fugaku’s. It came out through his throat. It was covered in blood. Through the throat, just above the adam’s apple. The blade was horizontal. Single-edged.

The sharp side sped through the throat, getting free. No more blade through the throat.

You shouldn’t remove the blade. It meant bleeding out faster, you shouldn’t…

Sasuke’s eyes were drawn to his father’s hands, signing. They could say many things with hand signs. It was useful during missions. But Sasuke didn’t understand what he said. Or well, he did. But he didn’t understand why he was saying it. He never had before. Why now? There was no use. Sasuke didn’t want to hear it. Why…

“Finally,” the orange mask said near his ear. Various instincts were at war in Sasuke’s mind. He had to get on with the healing but…

He could hear his teacher’s voice. You have to know if you can help or not. On the field, you have to make this decision. You have to recognize when things are beyond your power.

Who was she? He couldn’t remember now. What would she say of a blade through the throat? His father fell to his knees, then face-first on the ground. Leaving only the corpse standing, bloody blade in hand, face devoid of expression.

The corpse, standing. His father, laying down, unmoving.

Unmoving. Unmoving.

How much blood was that?

Something happened then. The blade clattered on the ground. The grip on his throat let up and Sasuke fell too, though he was still moving, though his blood was still inside his body.

The world erupted in black flames.

“I told you to distract this one!”

The orange mask, angry.

“What have I been doing, huh? What took so long? You fucked around instead of getting shit done again, didn’t you?”

Hoshigaki Kisame, annoyed.

“Well, this is unpleasant.”

Sasuke heard a scream, he saw the flames, burning the trees and the ground and the very air. He wasn’t sure.

His eyes were burning.

Burning, burning, his eyes were on fire. He felt tears stream down his face, but his fingers came back red when he touched it. His eyes were shrinking and expanding, they were trying to escape his eyes socket and to drill back into his skulls, they were growing too big for his head, they were compressing down on themselves.

He heard a scream. Maybe it was his.

“What the hell, this one too?”

“Hm. I didn’t expect both of them to manifest.”

“Wasn’t that a bit of an oversight, Tobi?”

“They might prove useful later.”

Black flames grabbed at a cloak with red clouds. Abandoned on the spot. It was consumed in a moment.

“We need to leave immediately.”

Sasuke didn’t care about them. The fire was spreading, devouring everything on its path, and he had to get to his father.

He couldn’t see, or maybe he could, but the world was black and red and extremely bright and his eyes burnt all the way to his brain so he just crawled forward. His head hurt, hurt.

He didn’t see him as much as he became aware of him in the field of his perceptions, another light, the only one, there should have been two but…

“Itachi.”

Itachi. He was kneeling not far from their father, gripping his head, his hair, tearing it out, whining in pain. The flames were getting closer. They would hurt if they touch, Sasuke was sure of it. They would consume them both.

“Itachi.”

His eyes calmed a little, the spinning of the Sharingan slowed down until it settled into… Something. Something else. He reached his brother, his father, the blade.

“Itachi.”

The flames were his brother’s, somehow. Somehow Sasuke just knew. As he knew that nothing would put them out – no water, no earth, no jutsu, nothing. Nothing except Itachi himself.

A black flame jumped on their father’s leg, started to eat. There was no reaction, no scream, no move, even though it had to hurt badly, his father could handle pain but this had to be unbearable.

He couldn’t let his father get hurt.

“Itachi!”

Sasuke tried to shake him, tried to get him to look at him, but his brother resisted, whining like a wounded animal, blood flowing from between his fingers pressed to his eyes.

Sasuke focused on the flames. Through the haze of red of his vision, because the black fire was Itachi’s but in some way it was his too, he could get it to obey, he was sure, he could appease it. Nothing would put it out – no water, no earth, no jutsu, nothing. Nothing but Itachi’s will.

Or his own.

He put the fire out. With excruciating focus splitting his head in two, he willed the black flames down, so that they wouldn’t be hurt some more. He hadn’t realized what a roar it made – silence fell back on the destroyed clearing.

They were alone. Just the two of them. Alone.

Itachi stilled. He sat up straighter, he looked at Sasuke.

His eyes were changed too. They stared at each other. The world was different from what it had been just a few minutes ago. The colors and the sharpness and the depth. The world was different.

Their father was gone.

“Sasuke.”

Sasuke lost consciousness.

.

Itachi cleaned up his face.

He didn’t know why it felt important, but it did. He wiped away the blood with a cloth from his weapon pouch – he didn’t know where he had put his bag. He did the same with Sasuke’s face after the panic had receded, after confirming that he was just exhausted and nothing else.

Itachi was exhausted too, but Sasuke was out and their father was…

He had to stay awake.

He wiped both their face carefully, and then he unrolled a body scroll on his father. He couldn’t carry them both. He signed the seal – his father vanished inside the scroll. The kanji of his name inked their way up onto the white paper. To be returned home.

He had let go of the Sharingan, though it wasn’t easy – this new one was much more invasive, clinging to his eyes, refusing to leave. Even now his vision was still blurry, his eyes still throbbing.

He knew what it was. Had seen it in Shisui. His father had explained, but only shortly, as if he didn’t want him to know. Shisui had earned it after his first mission as a jounin. He had come back with his teammate on his back and blood running down his eyes.

Itachi gently settled Sasuke on his own back. No blood. That was important.

He didn’t exactly know where to go. The sun was setting. How many hours had they stopped here? They should have been far away by now, much closer to home. They didn’t have their bags anymore. Was that bad? Their mother wouldn’t be happy.

Their mother wouldn’t be happy.

He needed to head east, vaguely, so he left the sun in his back and started walking.

He didn’t expect a single step to take so much effort.

Sasuke was heavy on his back. He was on the brink of chakra exhaustion, having run the Sharingan for too long on top of the blooming of the Mangekyō. He had managed to trap that Kisame, in the end, but the man had a strong, steady mind, and maintaining the hold had proven challenging. He might have been able to do away with him, in the end, to break his mind inside his head if he hadn’t felt, in the middle of the genjutsu, the sharp flare of Sasuke’s panic, a second before he lost awareness of his father’s presence, and he had dropped it all to rush to them, only to see his father fell to the ground and

Things were a blur after that.

His whole body hurt, he had lost enough blood for it to be worrying and he knew he had done a patchy job at healing the cuts and bruises collected in his fight against the Kiri nin. Sasuke would have scolded him, but Sasuke was unconscious and Itachi was worried about the state of his body, and mind. He had to get them home.

It was his job. Yet Sasuke had to shake him because he was lost, had to put out the flame because Itachi couldn’t, burning what was left of his energy in the process. Itachi was the oldest yet Sasuke kept proving steadier, more reliable and more resilient.

Itachi had to get them home. It was on him now. Their mother was waiting, he had to bring Sasuke home, he had to keep him safe. It was his job, it was all he was supposed to do. Take another step, put one foot in front of the other. Head east, go home. Go home, go home, go home.

By the time he noticed people approaching him on the road, they were almost on him already. He was deaf and blind and he couldn’t feel his body at all. A strangled sob tore out of his throat – he couldn’t fight anymore. He didn’t want to. He was so frayed, on the brink of collapse, but he didn’t know if he would just crumble on the floor and not get up, or unleash that new power swirling in his eyes, let it go and be unable to call it back. Sasuke had stopped it. Sasuke was better than he was. Itachi had to protect him at all costs.

He stopped in the middle of the path, no strength left to just hide behind a tree or at least get out of the way. The light was fading rapidly but he could make them out running to him.

He called upon the Sharingan one more time, just in case he could recognize…

He just needed the flash of a headband to sag in relief, all his muscles unclenching at once. He barely avoided falling down. He had to hold Sasuke up.

He had never been so happy to see Konoha’s symbol on a cold metal plate.

There were a few of them. He spotted Izumi, he spotted Marco too. That was good. Izumi was his friend, and Marco was a good medic-nin. He would help Sasuke.

Strangely enough, he saw her last, despite her being the one leading the group. In fact, he only recognized her face when she was close enough to reach out to him.

That’s when he remembered why it was important that there were not so much bloody tears on his face. She would be worried enough as it was. And this way she could touch him, could lay a hand on his cheek and wipe out his clear, regular tears.

“Mom.”

“It’s okay. I’m here, it’s okay.”

She hugged him to her chest, and smoothly shifted to unhook Sasuke from his back. He resisted a little, still taken with the imperative to look after his brother before all else, but she soothed him with soft words as she took Sasuke’s weight from him. She lowered them both to the floor and tugged at Itachi to follow. He knelt at her side. He was so lost.

She let Marco take a look at Sasuke, although she kept him close to her, resting in her arms, her other hand back on Itachi’s face, stroking lightly. Itachi was waiting. He didn’t know what for until it happened – she turned to him, and she asked, although she was already sad, although she was already mourning.

“Itachi, darling. Where is your father?”

He felt like the hand on his cheek was the only thing saving him from shattering down into tiny shards of glass, from dissolving into his own mind. He pressed into it as he reached into his weapon pouch and took out the scroll. He was afraid she would take her hand back to grab it and he would fall down and never land, but she didn’t. She reached around Sasuke’s shoulder with her other hand. She didn’t look at the scroll, she didn’t take her eyes off him.

“Thank you. You did good, my son.”

She put the scroll in her own pouch. She didn’t look at it and for a second Itachi wanted her to, because she had to. As if she needed to look to be sure, as if she didn’t know. She took a seal instead. One used to put people to sleep.

They usually slammed them full force on their target’s forehead or neck, but she laid it on him as gently as if she was tucking him in.

“You can rest now.”

The darkness was a blessing.

.

Mikoto had played the morbid game in her head the entire way.

In the best-case scenario, the three of them were alive and well.

Worst case, the three of them were dead.

And in between? That was where the game was.

Which would be worse? One dead, which one? How would she rank the situations where it was two? All three badly injured, or two healthy, but one dead? Jiji could only relay that they were facing at least two members of the Akatsuki, that they didn’t look like they intended for a friendly chat. They were hours away. Mikoto had plenty of time to think.

She had not made up her mind, when she saw Itachi. Nor when she spotted Sasuke on his back, and had to contain herself and stay calm as she checked, discreetly, if he was still breathing.

He was.

Her husband was nowhere to be found and she could have told herself that he might have been too injured to be moved, or that he had been taken hostage. She knew though. Itachi wouldn’t have had this expression on his face, he wouldn’t have been standing there like this, alone and lost, if Fugaku was anything other than dead.

Mikoto hugged both her unconscious sons to her and she cried, for their loss, for their pain, for the pain to come.

And for the relief to have both of them breathing in her arms. For the shame, of feeling happy despite her grief, because they had been returned to her, her precious children. She supposed Fugaku wouldn’t be mad at her for it.

Not that she would ever know. She would know nothing of him, anymore. His thoughts and actions, what he would have done and said, his place in their future, they would forever remain a mystery now. He should have been wrapped around her, he should have been shouldering their sons’ weight with her.

He wouldn’t, anymore.

Mikoto cried in her sons’ hair.

Chapter Text

“Uchiha Fugaku was killed by the Akatsuki.”

Kankuro had taken the habit of springing such news on Temari unprompted, just bursting into her study and rambling bad news exclusively, almost making a contest out of it. He was trying to keep her on her toes, or maybe he just assumed it would be easier to swallow this way. He wasn’t wrong – she didn’t need coddling. A trait shared by most of her fellow shinobi, in truth. The Suna people had a reputation for being quite harsh and rude, but she only saw it as being efficient and straightforward, no wasted time in pointless pleasantries. Kankuro took it to the next level because he knew she would let him get away with it. She was all for less stilted formality, but she drew a hard line at disrespect.

A line many in the administration had no trouble crossing. Ah, they would learn eventually.

If she achieved her goal.

“The head of the clan, right? Sasuke’s father.”

“Yes. It seems like they were ambushed.”

Had she wanted to deal a blow to the leaf village, she too would have targeted the man, one of their strongest and most well-known fighters. It wasn’t so easy to strike him down though. She sighed at the item that had just appeared at the ever-shifting bottom of her to-do list.

“We’ll send some condolences. And maybe take the opportunity to get in contact with the Godaime again. We need to confer on the matter. It’s getting out of hand.”

He made no comment in the lines of, “it’s not a matter to you yet.”

She wasn’t yet the Kazekage of Suna.

She couldn’t think about failing though. She refused to let the seat go to anyone else. She would fight half the village for it if she had to, she didn’t care if their disapproved, if they were angry, if she was hated and scorned. There was work to be done, and she would do it. If they wanted someone else after she was done, she would step down gladly. For now, she would fight for it.

“How are the preparations going?” she asked, since her mood was already ruined.

“We’re looking at twenty contestants for now.”

Already five more than the previous day.

The process of choosing the next Kazekage was another thing she longed to dig her hands into, but she would have to go through it first, pointless and harmful traditions included. It could have been a smooth transition – as per their way, the most legitimate successor came out of the previous Kazekage’s family. If most agreed with their claim, then they were just appointed without much more formalities. But if they didn’t…

Anyone could challenge the claim and decide they were a better option. They fought it out, because battle strength was still the base of their power. But since the old geezers up for the seat weren’t always in such a great shape, or simply above such squabbles, they could appoint anyone as their representative in the fight. It was also a show of influence and political power, to be able to secure their best fighters as a champion.

There were many who didn’t want to see her take on her father’s title.

They had their reasons, many of them. She was too young, she was too brash, she was a woman. She was her father’s daughter, in a bad way. She was Gaara’s sister. They didn’t like her, found her too much or not enough, lacking in many areas, unbecoming, unworthy.

They had some good points. She didn’t care about any of them.

She would just have to fight them all down. Twenty or forty or a hundred, she didn’t care. She could have chosen champions of her own – as the main claim, as many as she wanted. It could even save them the trouble of the whole affair – if she had enough support to fight all of the counter-claims and more, they could decide to withdraw, accept her victory.

As if. She would rather save herself the humiliation of finding out exactly how many would turn her down, how few would agree. Even Kankuro had not offered to stand for her. It was possible he didn’t approve of her, but at least she hoped he wouldn’t outward oppose her.

Should it come to it, she would fight him too.

She found this confrontational mindset incredibly freeing. She had always been the pacifier, trying not to rock the boat, to smooth things out between all the forces at play in their council, administration, and village. Never going against anyone.

Never going against her father.

She had decided upon a new strategy. Steamrolling. Her predecessor was an inspiration – her father had done what he wanted, in the end, not listening to anyone, and he had gotten what he wished for. For a while, at least.

She could keep it up for a few years. Enough to deal with the Akatsuki, to throw the bases of different relationships with the other villages, to turn some of their politics toward new horizons. To convince enough people, so that it wouldn’t crumble after her. She almost looked forward to the work to be done. To feel like she was finally doing something.

“Will we get more?”

“Maybe up to thirty. Still not much of an issue,” he said confidently. She was flattered by his faith in her capabilities, but it depended on which thirty. Suna did have warriors of note still.

But there was no choice anyway. She would win. She had to.

.

The election drew a lot of people, as it was wont to do. Some to see Temari fail, some to see her win. No way to know. The arena was crowded, though strangely calm, almost solemn. It was unnerving, but she was so far past the point of anxiety she had somewhat circled back to complete apathy.

“Temari of Suna is stating her claim as the Godaime Kazekage of Suna,” the assessor announced from his venture point at one end of the arena. “Those who contest this claim and those who support it, please come forward.”

Past thirty to fight. Most she knew, and most weren’t a surprise. At least she wouldn’t be up against people she thought of as friends, or at least as allies.

Up until Kankuro came down into the arena as well. Armed for battle, with his puppets and his makeup, ready for a fight. For a terrible moment she was sure he was walking to the opposite side, that he was officially opposing her, that he would try to take her down. She exhaled a shaky breath when he came to stand by her side.

“Told you it wouldn’t be that much more. We’ll make quick work of it.”

“What?”

She didn’t have the time to ask him what he was doing, or just to thank him, or maybe to cry on him a little. It was Baki next who came down, and who inexplicably joined her as well. Casual and confident, as if this was on par, as if she wasn’t having the strongest freak out right then.

“What are you doing?”

He threw her a puzzled look, like the question was pointless, the answer, obvious.

“What do you think?”

“I don’t,” she blurted out. She felt her face redden in embarrassment. She was overwhelmed.

They kept coming.

Some she knew, to some extent – young Matsuri, that Temari had pardoned and set free against the council’s decision, Amagi, one of Kankuro’s favorite students. Ameno, the medic-nin, the one who had tried her hardest to save her father’s life. Korobi, Isago…

Some she couldn’t even name. Guards from the palace, chunin fresh from the latest exams, older shinobi too.

She didn’t understand.

“I don’t understand.”

Kankuro raised an eyebrow at her, looking pretty confused as well. They stared dumbly at each other for a moment, before his expression changed entirely. He sputtered and cursed, indignant, furious even.

“Did you… Are you stupid? Did you think… Did you expect you’d be fighting it on your own?”

She had a feeling he wouldn’t like her saying that yes, that was absolutely what she thought would happen, and no alternative had crossed her mind, certainly not this one.

The one where her side outnumbered the other one.

She had refused to think about it too hard. There was no one she could think of who would come to her aid. She wasn’t cut for the hat, she had been told often enough. She didn’t know what she was doing, she was struggling already, she was just selfishly clinging to it because she couldn’t bear not to, because she had to try her hardest, try with all her might, for the village and her family, for their future.

She didn’t expect anyone to follow her. She didn’t want to hope for it and be let down, she didn’t want to ask. She didn’t see why they would. She wouldn’t even follow herself.

Yet here they all were.

Kankuro was about to blow up at her, given his reddening face and the tension building in his body. But before he could explode, and before she could crumble, Baki set a heavy hand one shoulder each, looking as stern and impassive as ever, yet somewhat indulgent too. Perhaps even a little fond, though that might just be wishful thinking.

“Kankuro, calm down. And Temari…”

He stared at her, making sure she was listening, that she wouldn’t shy away from his words. She couldn’t disobey him, and she couldn’t ignore any of his words. Whatever he said.

“Temari. Your father is dead.”

She scoffed. Didn’t she know that? Wasn’t it the reason why she had to stand there, why they all did?

Her father was dead. Her father and his iron fist on most of the village’s affairs, his hold on the council, on their forces.

On her.

Her father and his constant disappointment, his expectations she kept failing to meet.

Gone his influence, gone his judgment. Gone the fear of his wrath.

“It’s your turn now.”

Her father, who had many supporters, but who many disagreed with as well. Her father she barely had learned to confront. But she still had, hadn’t she? Loud enough, hard enough.

“The claims are set. Do the challengers wish to hold up to their counter-claim?”

They started to talk among themselves, gauging, assessing. It would need only one. They could all stay, but if it was only one…

“I withdraw.”

Joseki, from the council. No spine, no conviction. The first one to follow the movement and the first one to jump ship. For once, Temari was almost glad to hear his plaintive voice.

For others were soon to follow.

The more they withdrew, the more the position was untenable for the ones remaining. The fights would be recorded, their name, remembered. Those who had only meant to take advantage of a majority, who knew their claim too weak to be supported, they had no interest in staying.

They dropped it, one after the other.

In the end it was only those who truly wished to take the hat in her place, who could no more bear to see her have it as she could cede it to anyone else.

Six of them.

Kankuro stepped in front of her.

“You stay here and watch, don’t you dare try to fight. None of them has any worth to go against you.”

She slapped the back of his head with a scoff, unwilling to leave him to make his cool claims without earning some teasing in return. It was either that or hugging him with all her strength, and she would rather leave this to a more private moment.

For now, she took a step back and let others fight her claim for her.

It was an extraordinary feeling.

.

.

“This place is getting rather crowded,” Yugito commented. Her serious tone was alleviated by the slight smile on her face, as she watched their friends go about their way in the courtyard, so Naruto figured she didn’t mean anything bad by it.

She was right – they didn’t exactly have a room each anymore, some split between study, resting place and meditation chamber, some shared. Roshi had offered to build them a larger table, as his contribution. Naruto was very pleased – that meant he planned to stay, at least for now. He was skilled with his hands and the large axe and hammer he was wielding, indulging Fū curious fluttering around his labor.

“It will be hard to house everybody, when it’s all nine of us,” he replied.

“You are confident they will come.”

It was a statement, not a question, but there was still wonderment in her tone. She knew of his conviction. He knew of her doubts.

“Ah, maybe you’re right,” she added. “They might not have much of a choice.”

It would be their fault. They were upsetting the balance and thus making it harder for the remaining jinchuuriki. Roshi wasn’t affected because he had been wandering already, untied to his village. Naruto wasn’t sure how that worked.

But there could be another way.

All in all, their latest venture and brush with the Akatsuki could have gone much worse, and they were well-aware they had gotten away so lightly through no prowess of their own.

“The villages might come around.”

She leveled him with a scrutinizing look that he had a hard time holding. She could read too much in his casual words.

“Just because they helped us this time does not make them our allies,” she reminded him, worried, maybe, that he would forget. That he would start to grow misplaced hopes.

There was this saying. “Enemies of our enemies…” But between the Akatsuki and the jinchuuriki, there was no saying which the village would pick as friends against the others.

He couldn’t help hoping. She was less optimistic. She had no faith in Kumo, at any rate, and seemed to believe Killer Bee would be the last to want to join them, to want it at all.

It was unspoken but they still knew, the distinction between them. Gaara and Naruto were the same – deep down, they kept alive the hope that they could go home someday, they had people they wished to see again. Fū wasn’t so sure, but she too missed her home in some way.

Yugito didn’t. Neither did Roshi, seeing how long he had been away from his village. They didn’t see a future where they would be welcome there again, where they would even want to be. Was it because they were older?

They wouldn’t be able to live in this temple forever. It was a certitude both comforting and frightening – what would become of them, of their bond? When would they even be able to move on, to be free? They were safe here. This only was hard to dismiss.

Where else?

They were interrupted by Karin shooting up to her feet, from where she had been reading under a tree.

“Someone’s coming!”

The good mood evaporated as tension ranked up, fear tinged with fury at anyone daring to reach them here where no one was supposed to be able to. Karin turned to the woods beyond the temple’s ground, expanding her senses, searching for the intruder. She was interrupted before she could report anything by Roshi’s booming voice.

“It’s alright. It’s just Han.”

“Who?” Naruto asked, on edge.

“My friend Han. I told him to come.”

“How?”

“We have our ways.”

Naruto bit back a nasty retort. How, why, who? He couldn’t just invite people here. This place could not be discovered, they needed it, they had nowhere else to go.

They were still just as tense when a man appeared beyond the tree line.

He was of impressive built, taller and broader than most of the people Naruto had ever met. Half of his face was hidden by a mask, and his forehead, by a headband from Iwa. With his red armor and large kasa further hiding his face, he was pretty intimidating.

Yet Naruto understood immediately that they had nothing to fear from him.

Damn fish head.

It was the jinchuuriki of the Five-Tails.

“You didn’t warn them that I was coming, nor asked for permission. Your manners remain terrible, my friend.”

The man’s voice was deep and powerful, rumbling clearly through the courtyard. Roshi laughed, unaffected.

“I apologize for my sudden appearance,” the man added with a small bow. “I didn’t mean to startle you. I’m Han.”

Yugito was the first to recover.

“Hello. We didn’t expect it indeed, but it’s a good thing. You are welcome here.”

“He is?” Karin asked loudly, full of suspicion. Yugito nodded. The other girl sighed.

“Oh, another one, right? Great.”

Despite her foul mood, she was careful not to say more, just as Roshi had not introduced Han in such a way. Not “the Five-Tails” or “Iwa’s jinchuuriki”. “My friend Han”. That was a nice thought.

.

The temple was definitely too small now, but Naruto couldn’t bring himself to care, and he was sure the others didn’t either. Han didn’t say how long he would stay or why he had come. He simply came to stand at Roshi’s side – the height difference was rather comical – and made it obvious he would remain there.

It didn’t help that Suigetsu and Gaara came back soon after from their own trip. They were supposed to seek out the jinchuuriki of Kiri and to check on Jugo and Kimimaro in the Northern hideout.

Neither mission had yielded great results.

“Kiri’s jin was pretty insufferable,” Suigetsu said lightly. For him to have such an opinion though, the man ought to have been especially unpleasant. Gaara didn’t refute it either.

“He won’t come?”

“Said he didn’t see the point. He was even more of a killjoy than Karin.”

That earned him a knife flying straight toward his head, that he avoided with the ease of a long-lived habit. The knife embedded itself in the wood frame of the temple’s door, adding to a large collection of similar nicks and cuts. Karin cursed from the kitchen.

“He also complained that we were making his life harder, that surveillance was tighter on him after all these desertions. We gave him your seal,” Suigetsu told Naruto, “but I’m not sure he didn’t throw it away right after.”

Naruto held up a disappointed sigh.

“What about the other?”

“We couldn’t get any intel. As far as everyone is concerned, Kiri only has custody of the one cosmic monster.”

Naruto turned to Gaara.

“Sanbi isn’t there?”

“He is.”

Suigetsu rolled his eyes, mumbling something along the lines of “can’t get him to say one word and…” They ignored him.

“I couldn’t tell for sure. It was quite distant. I wasn’t sure we would be able to reach them.”

The Sanbi was the last of the Tailed-Beast they had yet to identify and meet. They had no idea who it was sealed into and where they might find it. It had supposedly been sealed in the last Mizukage, but no one knew what had become of it after the man’s death. It had been assumed the Biju might have disappeared with him, but if Gaara was able to feel it, it had most likely been transferred beforehand.

“The one you met, he didn’t know?” Yugito asked.

“Utakata. And no, he had no idea, and didn’t care much.”

It made Naruto anxious just to hear it. Couldn’t he feel the compulsion, to follow his fellow host, to come to them? Maybe Naruto was weaker to it than others.

“What about Kimimaro and Jugo?” Karin asked, joining them in the main room now that she was done with most of the preparation for lunch. She was on duty with Neji, who wasn’t all that helpful, if one didn’t count the endless entertainment she got out of teasing his “rich boy ways”.

Suigetsu got uncharacteristically somber.

“Bone head isn’t doing so well.”

Orochimaru had sent him away to the Northern hideout with Jugo, officially so that they would watch over it, but the underlying message was clear – by dismissing him from his side, he was also cutting off the bulk of his heavy treatment. Jugo would take care of him, but there was only so much he could do.

“They don’t want to come here?”

“It’s…”

Suigetsu showed a rare moment of hesitation. Gaara picked up the thread.

“Kimimaro would not be able to make it through, as he is now.”

Karin bit her lips, chewing off curses. She had wanted to go, despite never being able to do much for her friend by way of a cure. Her medical knowledge wasn’t advanced enough. It would take someone like Orochimaru.

Or Konoha’s Tsunade.

No one ignored who were the best at medical jutsu these days, but knowing meant nothing if they couldn’t hope to approach them. From what they had heard, Sasuke was one of Tsunade’s most promising students.

Was it a possibility in their future, that Naruto could simply ask him, that his friend would be willing, and able, to help? He wanted so badly to see it happen, yet it felt such an impossible feat. Not any time soon enough to help anyway.

A forlorn silence fell onto the group, frustrated by a problem which solutions were out of reach, useless.

Karin was the one to cut it short with her usual brand of cold pragmatism.

“Whatever. Let’s eat.”

Her apparent indifference didn’t fool anyone, but she was right – whatever. They needed to eat.

.

Roshi was training rather intensely with Fū and Gaara. It was rare to see Gaara caught up in such a way. Fū always tried to coax him into it, since his abilities were the hardest to deal with in close combat, but he rather shied away from fighting, when he could.

Maybe it was the novelty of it, or, more likely, it was the fact that sand didn’t go well against freaking lava. Gaara had a well-buried but lively competitive streak that wouldn’t be put to rest once unearthed, and this was a challenge he wasn’t about to back down from.

Fū was delighted. Roshi seemed to be having a good time too. They were having fun, and Naruto didn’t tire of watching.

Han watched them from the side, pulling smoke from a long pipe that exhaled a fragrant, floral smell. He occasionally threw light teasing jabs at his friend, who answered playful comebacks without breaking streak against his two opponents.

Naruto was very curious about them. They were older, and they had led very different lives from the rest of them. Their village had more or less let go of them, and they had managed on their own all those years. Naruto was eager to ask them how.

There was another thing he was even more eager to do, but he was met with an abrupt refusal that cut his excitement short and lodged an uncomfortable weight on his chest. “Absolutely not,” was what Roshi said. Not even to Naruto – Yugito was the one to invite him and Han to mediate together with the rest of the jinchuuriki. It was a way to reinforce all bonds, between themselves, between the Biju, and between humans and beasts. They were not all at the same level of closeness and trust with their respective inhabitant, but they all found solace and peace in the exercise.

Roshi refused to even hear a thing about it and stormed out of the temple before they could try to convince him.

The rejection stung with an unexpected sharpness.

“Please forgive him,” Han said gently as they stared after the man. “You won’t break the topic easily with him. Their relationship is rather fraught.”

Well, Naruto also had a “rather fraught” relationship with the mystical chakra being attached to his soul, but he still tried to do something about it.

“Leave him be,” Yugito warned even before Naruto could take one step in the direction of the exit, to chase the man down and change his mind. He reigned in his frustration, willing to prove to her that he could be more patient than he was. At least she seemed a little pleased.

“What about you, Han?” she asked, moving on without much more care. “Are you joining us?”

“I would be happy to, although I’m not sure what this entails.”

“We’ll show you. Come”

They used the main room of the temple, the largest. They would do it outside when the weather allowed it, but it was getting colder by the day and the sky was especially dark now, menacing. They didn’t need to touch for it to work, yet Naruto found it easier if he sat close to Gaara and leaned on his back. Fū often took one of their hands.

Naruto had always hated meditation, an opinion shared by the other girl. Maybe that was why it was harder for them to get there. Though this was different from just sitting around doing nothing like they forced them to do sometimes at the Academy.

They sat together, they closed their eyes. They reached down, down, past the barriers of their own mind, all the way down to the cell.

They crossed the bars.

Releasing the seals or even untightening them was out of the question, but they had learned to open the other side of the cages. The one that led not to their physical world, but to the place where the Biju were held, where they came from maybe. It extended endlessly beyond the cages. And it inevitably led them all to each other.

Naruto caught a glimpse of the Gobi joining the rest of the Tailed Beasts and gave them a wide berth. Talking to the Biju was mostly weird and unsettling, and it wasn’t like they had much to say to each other. They held various degrees of resentment and distaste to humans in general and the ones they were chained to in particular, but the core remained the same. Even if they no longer threaten to overtake their host at the first occasion, even if they allowed this strange breach of their prison, were it at all possible, they would be gone from this place, free from their restraints. Naruto wanted to ask how they even came to be here, what happened and how, where they had come from and how they had been enslaved. None of them was very loquacious though, and it felt a little mean, to ask so bluntly.

Naruto didn’t even know the Kyuubi’s name yet.

And you won’t.

Shukaku was liberal with it, and Chōmei was fond of her ward. For the rest, the names remained a mystery. It was frustrating, and Naruto suspected that more than a need to guard it, the Fox now sought exclusively to annoy Naruto with the knowledge. Such a little thing, but it made the boundary clear – they might work well enough as reluctant allies, but there was no trust here, nothing to build upon.

What, you don’t have enough friends?

Shut up.

Han’s relationship with the Five-Tails seemed rather pacified. What thirty-something years together would do, maybe. Though it had done nothing for Roshi and his own passenger. They could feel their presence at the edge of their consciousness, close but out of reach. Naruto felt for the Biju.

He felt for all of them, beasts and humans alike. Karin berated him often for it. “You can’t save everyone,” she kept saying. “They don’t all deserve it.”

He failed to agree.

They did this for a few hours, as a kind of treat for the lonely Biju, but also because it helped stabilize the foreign chakra into their system and use it more seamlessly.

So it’s for your benefit most of all.

Naruto tried to resist shutting down the Fox, out of sympathy, but he made it hard to keep it up.

(I’m not a thing, the Fox had said once. “What are you then?” Whatever. Naruto had decided for a “he”, if only because it would be awkward to have a female monster down his mind. The Fox’s mocking was loud and clear, but he didn’t protest the choice.)

Fū roped him into a spar once they were done. Two tails each, so as not to cause too much damage and draw attention. Yugito had put a veto on them bursting out more tails unless they were under a barrier, and Karin had to be in exceptional dispositions to go along with that. Two tails it was then – more than enough to have some fun.

They went at each other with a savagery that made the others cringe at times, but there was something liberating in letting go of the limitations they had learned from much less resistant teachers and peers. So what if they stabbed and cut through each other, stole massive amounts of chakra, broke bones and burnt skin. It would all be gone in a few hours, it didn’t cripple them as it would regular people. Fū, more than all of them, embraced this part of her with great delight. They were different from the rest. Always had been, and the world had never been shy reminding them of that fact, so why be shy in turn?

They were interrupted by Roshi’s booming laugh.

“You look like you’re having fun kids! Mind if I join?”

Fū agreed with great enthusiasm, eager for more lava dodging.

Naruto never turned from more training. Yet he found himself unwilling to go on.

“I’m beat. I’ll leave you to it.”

He made a hasty escape before Fū could point out that, from her experience, Naruto was never such a thing as “beat”.

No jinchuuriki was obligated to join their group, and certainly not to partake in their practice, if they didn’t want to. They were all free to do as they pleased, that was the whole point.

So he had no right to express this anger. If Roshi didn’t want to participate in this part of their training, it was his choice. He had his reasons. Naruto had no place to say anything.

He was angry anyway.

Wasn’t the point to be safer, to be stronger, to get better control, to be better at all? Using the influence and power of the Tailed Beasts was always a risk, they were always in danger of losing their grip, of getting overwhelmed, of letting their feelings rule over their senses and feeding the Biju with it until they could overtake their better judgment. Naruto still lived in fear of the few times he had felt his reign over his own body and mind slip away from his grasp, overcome with rage, terror, pain. They couldn’t afford to be careless.

He stalked through the woods, unwilling to go back to the temple and talk to anyone. Maybe Gaara… but he had been gone for several days and would be with Neji now. Naruto didn’t want to interrupt. They wouldn’t say anything but he would feel bad anyway.

Infuriated, he plopped down in the middle of a clearing and started picking flowers at random, with too much force to do anything with them afterward. He hated managing to rationalize his feelings away and staying chained by them anyway. He didn’t want to feel angry, he knew he shouldn’t even be, so why couldn’t he get rid of it?

He was unfamiliar with Han’s presence, and thus got a sense of it when it was already too late to get away. The tall man stepped into the clearing, albeit with slow, careful steps.

“Sorry to disturb you. Do you want me to leave?”

Naruto didn’t want to be rude. He didn’t answer, hoping his sullen face would be enough of a clue. Either it wasn’t, or Han didn’t care, because he settled down anyway. He moved rather fluidly for a man of such stature. He had shed most of his red armor, which made him look less intimidating. His face remained covered though.

“Don’t let it get to you. Roshi has nothing against you. But it will take him some time to open up to such a thing.”

Was Naruto so transparent that even this near-stranger could see right through him? And if he had, Roshi would have to. Would he be mad, vexed?

“He felt a little bad for blowing you off, but he wouldn’t say a thing himself. He can be rather stubborn.”

“It’s fine,” Naruto felt obligated to say. He didn’t want to burden anyone with his own hopes.

“How old are you?”

Naruto looked up from his flower pile, surprised.

“Huh. Fifteen.”

“You’re young.”

Naruto couldn’t determine if it was a reproach.

“Your friends too. It’s impressive that you made it here, that you managed this much.”

“How…”

Naruto moved the ground a bit, biting his tongue, wondering if further questioning would be ill-received. Han was the one to seek him out, right? To start asking. He couldn’t be mad at being asked back.

“How old were you? When you left?”

“Older. Both Roshi and I were over twenty.”

“How did you… I mean why…”

Han let out a short laugh, though it didn’t sound mocking.

“One day we just realized that if we were to leave, there would simply be nothing the village could do about it. And so we did. And we were right.”

“Didn’t they send people after you?”

“They did. But they didn’t have that much to spare, and we had made it clear we wouldn’t be too cooperative.”

Naruto pondered at the idea. Would he have been able to kill Konoha nin, if they had managed to find him? It might have depended on who came. Or did it?

He had killed before. Was there a difference?

“We struck some kind of deal. To not join forces with another village, to come back and protect Iwa if they were in dire need. To remain discreet. We didn’t do too bad at that – it mostly stayed a rumor only, that we had deserted. They left us alone.”

“And what did you do?”

Han smiled under his mask. Maybe.

“Not much. Compared to you.”

Get away just to live their lives, just like that. It seemed extraordinary and mundane at the same time. Any choice was monumental when it came to the fate of the jinchuuriki.

“Did you ever meet others?”

“Some. Only by chance though.”

“What about…”

“Never from Konoha, no.”

Naruto swallowed a hard lump of disappointment.

“Who was it? The one that came before you.”

“I’m not sure but… I believed the previous host was my mother.”

Karin and he had looked into the history of the Uzumaki clan. The library was one of the few things Orochimaru was good for, and the free reign they had over it. The history records mentioned the first host of the Kyuubi, from their own clan, chosen for their exceptional chakra reserved and skills with sealing. Very few of them had moved out of their home in Uzushio, and thus the clan was mostly extinguished by Kiri’s attack. It felt so distant, despite it happening less than thirty years ago. But things were quickly buried in if no one was there to remember them. Naruto wasn’t even sure ever hearing about Uzushio at school – though he wasn’t the most reliable source when it came to the Academy’s teaching.

They had mentioned going, one day. To see if they could salvage something of their heritage, a pilgrimage of sorts, despite them never even hearing about Uzushio from anywhere other than dusty old history records in a dark, shady library. They would go anyway. Eventually.

Uzumaki Kushina, he was pretty sure was his mother. And Orochimaru had mentioned the previous host of the Kyuubi being a young woman.

And there were his father’s words, though he tried not to think too much about that.

“Ah. A much unfortunate fate,” Han commented, sympathetic.

Hosts didn’t survive the extraction of the Tailed Beasts. Or was she already dying, and they had performed the transfer in a hurry, lest the Biju be let loose, and worse, lost for the village forces?

“They sealed it inside me the day I was born. I never got to meet her.”

“I never knew my mother either. Or my father. In Iwa, the hosts were picked among the village’s orphans. Less trouble with the families this way.”

His tone remained casual. A terrible thing he had long since made peace with, for lack of a better option. Some of his rage, Naruto wished he was able to let go of too. But it didn’t want to let go of him.

In Suna and Kumo, they were selected among the Kage’s family, to ensure loyalty, in both ways. In Konoha… Ah, they did the same, didn’t they? Though it didn’t work out so well for them, for him.

“Do you think we’re wrong?” Naruto asked in a rush. “To do what we’re doing? Do you think I’m…”

Am I in the wrong?

They would all still be home, was it not for him. Caged, alone, but home, safe. Safer than they were out here, hunted, cornered, having to take stupid risks just to get food and information. He felt like he had forced their hands. Even the ones that didn’t join them had a harder time because of his actions.

In a way it was reassuring, that others had had the same urge he did, to leave it behind, to fend for themselves. But Roshi and Han had been sort of smart about it. They were older. They knew what they were doing.

“I am in awe of your courage and strength. To be honest, it makes me feel a little guilty. Maybe we should have done this sooner. But I admit I never felt too strongly about the others sharing our plague. For a long time we didn’t even know there were more, or what we were exactly.”

“You don’t think it’s foolish?”

“It is foolish alright. But no more than staying put and waiting for things to change on their own.”

Still, they could have gone differently about this. Try to unseal the beasts, at all cost, or simply manage to pass them safely away to someone else. Wash their hands of the matter.

But who would Naruto be, the Fox gone? What feelings would he still be able to cling to? How could he bear plaguing someone else with his burden?

He wasn’t even sure what he was trying to achieve. He wasn’t sure who he was.

“If it’s not you, it will be someone else,” Han said. “I’ve been wondering lately, what will happen to the Gobi after me. If the village will try and retrieve it before I meet my end, who will be unfortunate enough to inherit it. Even this Akatsuki, I have to wonder what they would do with us. Roshi said there was no point joining forces, but I know the idea made its way in his head. There have been many before us. As it stands now, there will be many to come too.”

The cycle was endless, wasn’t it? Even if they died without passing down their seal, the Tailed Beasts wouldn’t stay gone for long. They would be sealed again, people would be sacrificed to their prison, again. Until someone did something about it, decided that no, no, they wouldn’t.

Naruto couldn’t turn away from that. No matter how hopeless, no matter the risks. No matter his burning desire to drop it all and go home, to see his friends again. This couldn’t go on. If he could do something to change it, then he would. He would do everything he could.

And if others wanted to follow…

He would protect everyone too.

“I am glad to be among you now,” Han added as a final point to the conversation, answering questions Naruto wouldn’t dare say aloud. “Don’t be so hard on yourself.”

Easier said than done.

.

They made their way back to the temple after a moment longer of peaceful rest in the forest. Han had picked some flowers too, but Naruto had only realized his purpose when the man had dumped a thin, delicate row of intertwined flowers on his head. He’d laugh heartily at Naruto's flustered reaction. Who knew such a large man could weave such fine work.

“You can’t help yourself, can you?” Roshi asked playfully upon their return, pointing at the flower crown. Han shrugged, unaffected.

“Are you jealous? You know I’m always happy to make you one.”

Roshi grumbled a “no thanks” before going back to the kitchen. His first day and he was roped into the rotation already – Yugito was nothing if not efficient. Han went to give them a hand.

“Naruto.”

Gaara grabbed his sleeve, shifted closer. He stared at Naruto, unblinking.

“Ah, yeah?”

Gaara slid his other hand into Naruto’s, squeezed pointedly. Neji was scowling in his back.

“You know he gets antsy when you’re not in his line of sight. Don’t go brooding on your own.”

Naruto flushed lightly, mortified, again, to be so known by the people around him. Mortified and shamefully pleased. He squeezed Gaara’s hand back.

“Sorry. I didn’t mean to trouble you.”

This accounted for why he had not approached his friend earlier too. Gaara leaned forward – Naruto followed suit, so that their forehead could rest against each other. He was immediately appeased.

“Don’t,” Gaara whispered, determined. Naruto nodded weakly. No need to say more. Gaara knew him best of all.

They got into setting up the table, the mood light and playful with the perspective of a shared meal and some peace at home.

“Did Gaara tell you?” Suigetsu said to the room as he juggled with the plates he was supposed to arrange. “We heard from Suna. They appointed their new Kazekage.”

Yugito smiled at the boy.

“Your sister?”

Gaara nodded, obviously pleased though little of it showed on his face. There was no telling how well it would bode for them, but at any rate he could be happy for her achievement. There was even hope that she would be more lenient than her predecessor. That was the impression Naruto had of her anyway.

“And one last thing, Naruto…”

“Suigetsu!”

The boy raised an unimpressed eyebrow at Karin’s threatening tone.

“What? He has a right to know.”

“No he doesn’t!”

Suigetsu grimaced, displeased.

“I don’t know if anyone has told you before, but you can be a real bitch sometimes.”

“Tell me what?” Naruto cut in before this devolved into a full-blown fight that would delay diner and the information he was yet to get.

“We heard something else on the way here. Tobi and Kisame, they ambushed some Konoha nin in the Land of Fire. They managed to ace off Uchiha Fugaku.”

Karin cursed. Him, or them, or the entire world maybe. Naruto didn’t hear her, or anything that was said after.

His mind was already far away.

Sasuke.

Chapter Text

A loud noise woke him up, something falling on the ground followed by the soft curse of whoever had let it slip from their fingers.

Sasuke was home. In his bed, in his room, the smell of the sheets and the spots on the ceiling familiar and comforting. It was always better than to wake up at the hospital.

The hospital?

Ah, yeah. His whole body ached, muscles knotted and stiff from overwork. The exhaustion despite the long hours of sleep, familiar too – chakra depletion. He was thirsty, his head hurt.

The classic aftermath of a rough mission.

He needed a moment longer though. His mind knew even if he couldn’t remember yet – no simmering panic, so he had not lost consciousness while worrying over the wellbeing of one teammate or another. But it wasn’t a team, wasn’t it? It was…

It came back all at once. Despite the memory crashing down on him with the force of an angry wave on a stormy day, he remained motionless and still, lying there on his bed, barely able to breathe, let alone move. The waves kept pouring in – the fight, the blade, the flames. His brother. His father.

His father.

He stayed still until the tide receded and he could inhale again without drowning. The ceiling wasn't that familiar anymore, nor the room, the sounds from outside, the smell, the light. It was absurd – none of it could speak of this new truth, none of it could tell, about his father. And yet.

The world was different.

Sasuke’s father had died.

He listened to the house, to the footsteps and hushed conversations, the hum of the washing machine, a cat walking on the roof's edge. There were more people than usual – there were many things to discuss after all. The noise that had woken him up had to be the laundry basket slipping from his aunt's hands, or a stack of books knocked over by someone unused to it standing in the way when Sasuke knew to avoid it in his sleep. Or maybe it was something of import that belonged to his father, and now had to be moved for inspection. Or safekeeping away from his mother’s eyes.

Sasuke didn’t want to get up at all.

He had to though. He did – carefully, because he hurt all over, but he didn’t have any extensive injuries. The cuts had been closed, the bruises soothed with ointment and rest. How long had he slept? Probably a hundred years, at least.

He opened his bedroom door as silently as possible. He couldn’t have given a reason as to why. He needed to be inconspicuous, he needed not to be heard nor seen. He wouldn’t know what to say if he ran into someone else. He was up, but he wasn’t sure why, or what he was supposed to do. He figured a trip to the kitchen would be a good start – his stomach was up too, and he was starving.

Somehow, he was completely baffled to find that there was someone there already.

He had heard the noises. He knew his family was home. Yet to stumble upon his mother at the table, with Tekka and old Teyaki, to catch a glimpse of Uchiha Tomoyo in the living room with Shisui and Itachi, left him shell-shocked and breathless.

The tears swelled up immediately, as implacable as the rising of the tide, and he couldn't, he couldn't spill them like this in front of all these people. He was going to dissolve and melt away, he was sure his eyes would leak out and take away his face with it, his body and his mind and that he would disappear into his tears, never to be anything else.

He spun around and ran back to his room.

He could only inhale again once the door was closed in his back, once he was safely hidden away. No one would come in here – no one would see him, and he would see no one. Already the haunted face of his mother was carving itself in his mind, her pale skin and scrambled expression, her swollen eyes and bitter mouth. He couldn’t let her see him cry, on top of it all. He couldn’t bear receiving her comfort when she was hurting so much already.

Sasuke cried in his room alone. He let the sea pour out of his eyes, so much and for so long that it would surely fill the whole room soon, but he couldn’t stop.

His father was dead, and it hurt.

It hurt because they weren't done. Sasuke had so much to say to him still, so much to ask, so much to prove. And it would never happen. His father wouldn't be here anymore, to any of it. Not to see Sasuke succeed at all he had set out to do, not to see him prove that he was right. The better place he had hoped their relationship would reach with time had become unattainable. It would forever remain as it was, stilted, shot still in time. No matter what happened now, no matter what he did, how hard he worked and how much he wished for it, his father would have no part in their future. In any of it, his place would remain empty, his role unfulfilled.

Just like that, his spot vacated, his presence gone.

There was a knock on the door. A soft, “Sasuke?”. His brother’s voice.

Sasuke panicked again, heart rate picking up. He couldn't handle it.

“Sasuke?”

“No!”

What was he answering to? He was scared Itachi would try to enter, although he had never, not without being invited in first. He was the only one scrupulous about it, their parents far less careful with Sasuke’s prickliness over his privacy and the invasion of his room.

“Alright. Alright. I brought you some food. I’ll leave it at the door.”

Sasuke almost told him not to go, to come in. He wanted to look at his brother, to make sure he was okay, and he didn’t want to hurt him more or to worry him, which he was by sending him away like this. He was paralyzed with indecision, ruled over by contradicting needs. He wanted to see his brother, but being seen by him, or anyone, was unbearable right now.

Sasuke snuck a hand outside to grab the food – he was starving, even if eating didn't appeal to him at all – and fell back asleep as soon as he was done.

.

He figured he would be safe wandering out of his room in the middle of the night. The house was quiet, surely the others were asleep and the rest had left. He needed a good wash, he felt gross, sweaty and snotty and with the disturbing sensation of blood clinging to his skin still, even if there was none to be seen. He had woken up crying again, his face was dry and puffy. A bath would make him feel better. Maybe.

He ran into his mother in the middle of the corridor.

He didn’t hear her before they collided, both making use of their training in order not to make any sound as they moved around the sleeping house. The panic came back full force – he wasn’t ready to face her. He turned away, trying to hide his face, ready to run back to his room but…

“Sasuke, wait.”

She didn't need more to keep him right where he was. There was a note of pleading in her voice, but mostly he was just used to obeying her every word. He still kept his back to her.

“Should I be ashamed for crying?” she asked.

Sasuke spun around in a second, too offended to remember why he didn’t want to.

“No!”

He realized too late she had played him, as usual.

“Then why are you?”

He felt his face redden, embarrassed, and tried his best to wipe the remaining traces of tears from his face. She was smiling softly, indulgent, but her face was pale and messy too. It hurt to see her like this.

"I don't want to make you sadder," he said weakly, knowing it was a poor sentiment. He couldn't imagine it mattered all that much, in the depth of her grief, but he still wanted to try. He had to do something.

“I feel better with you in my sight,” she said.

He could have guessed that too. It was also part of the problem. He didn’t know if he could hold this role – didn’t know if he could be of any comfort.

“I just need to see you,” she added, probably knowing exactly what he was thinking. “It’s not on you to comfort me, Sasuke.”

“Who’s going to then?”

She was surprised by the question and didn't have an answer. After a moment, it made her laugh a little. Sasuke felt unreasonably pleased by it.

“I’m sorry. I love you, Sasuke.”

It wasn't fair. It wasn't fair that she would do that, it wasn't fair that she would say it now when she had said it before, when it had never been an issue. Not with her. His mother was generous with her affection and praise, even if she would still seem cold, he imagined, by regular standards. They didn't often hug or touch, it just wasn't their way, but she would smile and brush his hair out of his face and congratulate him on a job well done and it was never hard for her.

She had said it before. Not that often, but often enough. He recognized the shape. He knew what it looked like.

His father was already silent when Sasuke had crawled to his body, but Sasuke didn't need to hear his last words to have understood them and…

He wished he had heard. It was the last time he would say it. And the first too.

Sasuke started to cry again.

In silence, with no sobs and barely any movement, he cried as he saw his father’s lips move and imagined how his voice would have sounded like, and he cried because it was his father’s last words, it was the thing he had wanted to say last, in the split second he had realized that he wasn’t going to get another chance to say it, or anything else. It was too much to bear, too much to deal with. His father would never follow up on this. Sasuke would never know if he would have been able to say it otherwise, if it was coming in their future.

That particular future, it was gone. Out of all the ones remaining, this road was close for sure. It was impossible now, out of reach.

His mother rested a hand in his hair, stroke gently as he sobbed. Sasuke couldn’t tell her, but she might have known. She knew her husband well, and her sons too. She was the one to know best, out of all of them.

.

Kara played the tsuzumi at the funerals. Sasuke had not asked her, and he only realized when he saw her dressed in her ceremonials, by the altar in front of the temple, that he wanted her to. He was grateful she had taken the initiative. There were other musicians, mostly older men, closer to his father. But Shisui was among the choir, as were a few of Mikoto’s closest friends. The funerals were for the deceased and their loved ones alike.

Itachi and Sasuke lit the pyre, a soft continuous Katon on either side of their father’s still corpse, after their mother had laid a white cloth on his empty eyes. Sasuke could only think about the very first time his father had trained him in the fire jutsu, on the pier by the lake. He was a terrible teacher, taciturn and impatient. Sasuke had largely learned and trained on his own, in the hope of gaining approval and respect from the hard-to-please man. He wanted to believe he had managed some, in the end, but it hurt terribly that he would never know for sure, that he would never get another chance, would never get to just ask.

His father’s body burnt, and they bid him farewell. The whole clan was present – not all could fit in the temple’s courtyard, despite its size. They spilled in the street – it wasn’t like it would block any traffic, as the whole district was in mourning, and would be for a few more days.

And then life would resume, he supposed. It had to. It felt impossible now, but fathers had died before, right? And their sons had mourned and cried, and then they had moved on.

Tsunade was there too. Strangely enough, it felt that she was here as his mentor, more than the Hokage of the village. That she was sending Fugaku away as Sasuke's father, more than the head of the Uchiha clan. Maybe it was absurd to think this way, but she had made no demand nor suggestion to speak, to say a few words, to pay her respect in any way different from all the others. It would have been ill-received and she might have known. Or she was just honest.

Other clan leaders came, sometimes with their families. It was hard to know which came as friends, as allies, as figureheads or just as a sense of obligations. Hinata bowed deeply to Sasuke and his family, and she held his gaze for a long time, unblinking and full to the brim with the same sadness that still clung to her and refused to leave her be. Her own father was nowhere to be seen, still in seclusion. Sasuke felt deeply connected to her – both through the people they were missing, through the weight of their family’s heritage, and through their inability to ever reach out and seek comfort over their pain, always so formal, so stilted. Starved for affection and fearful of it all the same. But the Uchiha were faring better around their complicated history, these days, than the Hyuuga were. There were still voices rising against her, loud enough to be bothersome. He wished he could comfort her. He was as unable to give it as she would be to receive it, so they simply stared, and they understood each other only a little.

Their other friends stayed away, as he had asked them to. He needed to stay steady during the long night of the funerals, and he wouldn’t be able to if they showed him comfort, if they were here for him. Later, away from prying eyes, they could do it a different way – in the warmth of their home, with food and drinks, with forced laughs and over-the-top antics, to try and banish the sorrow, to push the light in. As they had when one of Choji's cousins was killed on a spying mission, as they had while Shino's mother fought for her life after a deadly brush with a new foreign poison.

Although it might be harder this time. Sasuke would be needed at home.

After all, the clan had just lost their leader.

They wouldn’t waste time talking succession, he knew. It would have been Itachi, had things been different, but it wouldn’t now, and he wouldn’t accept it anyway. Not Sasuke either – he was too young, too out of synch with the clan’s thinking, and he had no will to. The next leader didn't have to be a son of the former, but it had just been this way in the past. It couldn't anymore, so the question remained open.

Sasuke pondered as he stared at the fire, his skin dried up by the heat and his eyes watering, yet unblinking as he went through the names and faces, as he tried to imagine this new future that had no existence in his mind just a few days ago. There was no doubt that it had been in discussion before – his father could have died at any time. But there was no reason to truly bother with it. They were never foreseeing enough, despite their best efforts. They had simply believed the time would come to wonder, as if any of their leaders had ever died a peaceful, predictable death.

It would be put to the vote if discussions couldn't bring about an agreement, but building a strong majority wasn't going to be easy. Everyone could vote, from the age of fifteen or if they were already a genin. Sasuke had no idea what he would do.

He felt pretty awful to have his thoughts taken up with such base, soulless things, but what was he supposed to focus on? His father’s last, bloodied words on silent lips? His mother sleepless wake for the past four days? Itachi’s haunted look as he wandered aimlessly from room to room, surprised every time not to find what, or who, he was looking for?

He was better off listing all the potential candidates and their support, doing complicated calculations to try and predict the outcome of their leader's death. It was easier to think about it this way. The clan head and his father were two different people. Sasuke had dealt more with the former, yet he would miss the latter more. Strange, how that was.

.

Itachi thought they would come sooner. He thought, as soon as Sasuke was awake, as soon as they could move, they would be called at the Hokage tower, but most importantly, they would be brought to the Uchiha temple.

Yet they waited for Sasuke to be ready to step out of his room, and they even waited for after the funerals and the fast. Every day Itachi had to remind himself that not everyone was the same, that things had changed. Danzo was almost ten years in disgrace and four years dead, and still he hovered, still he kept his hold on Itachi’s mind.

Somehow Itachi was still there, in these dark quarters underground, being fed the most terrible thoughts by the most soothing voice, being stirred gently, softly, to unredeemable extremes. At times it felt he would always be trapped down there, on the edge of some unspeakable tragedies that his mind couldn’t quite conjure up but feared all the same.

His mother kept saying that it didn’t matter. That he had done nothing in the end, and so he could forget, could forgive himself. But she didn’t know. It was through no will of his own that they had avoided that fate. She didn’t know of his resolve, she didn’t know his mind.

His father knew better. He wasn’t so forgiving. They had tried, as best they could, but the deed was done and his father could never get past it. Not that he should have. But all the others had, and now his father was dead and Itachi felt like he was getting away too easy. Who would watch him now? Who would remember what he was capable of, that he couldn’t be trusted?

“Are you okay?” Shisui asked, stopping in his tracks. “We can do this another time. They’ll understand.”

He stared at Itachi, gaze heavy, piercing. He could read him so easily, Itachi felt embarrassed sometimes just standing next to him. Felt so transparent, so hollow. They didn’t talk much about things that truly mattered, but that didn’t mean Shisui wouldn’t have things to say about them. He had to get fed up sometimes, of Itachi’s gloom, of his constant doubts.

“No. It’s fine.”

Sasuke would be there already anyway, and he would testify alone if he had to. Itachi wanted him to be able to rely on his older brother. He wanted to stand steady enough.

“I’m here if you need anything. Izumi too. You know that, right? We’re here for you.”

They knew, both of them. Itachi didn’t know to what extent, in what sordid details, but they knew some, knew enough. They weren’t as soft-hearted as Sasuke or their mother. Izumi especially, she wouldn’t tolerate any straying, any misstep.

Would she be strong enough to stop him now though?

The Hokage’s office was crowded, with clan leaders, senior jounin, most high-ranks of the Uchiha clan. Sasuke stood by the Godaime’s side, as he often did.  He did his best to look stoic and mature, surrounded by adults who wouldn’t think too much of him. A familiar heat of fondness and affection warmed up Itachi’s core as he watched his young brother fighting for his place, for his voice to be heard. There was nothing the boy couldn’t achieve.

Itachi went to his mother. Sasuke would be the one they wanted to talk to. The one who had engaged with the mysterious orange mask.

The one who had seen Uchiha Fugaku die.

He recalled it all with a steady voice, trying to give details over techniques and strategies. Itachi knew he left some things out though. Some things the man had said, some words exchanged.

"Do you think they were targeting Fugaku specifically?" Nara Shukaku asked, one of the main voices of the interrogation, rather void of emotion.

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“They brought his… brother, just to fight him. And they said they wouldn’t let him get out of it alive.”

“I mean, why do you think they wanted him dead?”

Sasuke paused. He hesitated on what to say, how much to reveal. His eyes flickered, just a second, to their mother. Seeking approval, council.

"The man implied he wanted to take a powerful force out of the board. But it seemed… It seemed personal. I don't know for sure, it's in the way he talked, some things he said… I believe he knew my father. Not just knew of him but knew him. And he was full of hatred. Strategically speaking, it wasn’t smart to get so offensive when the Akatsuki has not been directly confrontational so far, outside of their quest for the Tailed Beast and their move against Suna. So I think this was personal, more than strategic.”

How cold he sounded, Itachi’s little brother. Even when he said “my father,” he was as emotionless and factual as any good shinobi should be. It could have been frightening if Itachi didn't know his brother so well. Others might think him unfeeling, but there was nothing further from the truth.

“Whatever the reason, the Akatsuki has now moved directly against us,” the Godaime went on, subtly shielding Sasuke from more scrutiny. “This is no more a matter we can ignore, and adding to what happened in Suna, it should be enough to prompt the other villages into acting against them, or at least recognize them as a threat. There is a chance the organization will get more offensive. We will hold off most low-stake missions outside the village for now, and see if there have been similar incidents involving other nations.”

They nodded in agreement, and she dismissed them. The rest would come later, except…

“Uchiha.”

They stood to attention, all of them with their black hair and pale skin, unmistakable.

“We are sorry for your loss. We will await the nomination of the new head of your clan.”

There was something of a challenge in their voice. The Uchiha present only nodded before following the rest out. Sasuke wanted to stay behind, but Shisui told him to come. Tekka was waiting for them outside the Tower. Their mother lingered too, a slight frown on her face, even if she pretended not to listen.

“There are more things we need to discuss. Itachi, Sasuke. Shisui asked to be the one to induce you, and it has been granted. You have to go with him now – this can’t be delayed.”

“Is this about…” Sasuke started, but he didn’t know how to finish. He rubbed at the underside of his eyes, as he had been doing incessantly for the past few days.

“Hm. Shisui will show you. Got to the temple. Mikoto, you can’t go with them.”

“I know. I have my own affairs to tend to.”

The exchange was fraught with tension that had Itachi’s skin crawl. He couldn’t imagine the transition going peacefully. Surely some would be displeased, there would be in-fighting, backstabbing, it couldn’t end well. His mother was on edge already, they all were. Itachi couldn’t stand it.

“Let’s go,” Shisui said firmly, stirring them back toward the district. He meant to keep Itachi away from all this, with reasons. Had it been possible, Itachi would have been outside the village by now, far from it all.

Instead, they had to go to the temple. To the secret passage under the altar, to the vaults of the clan where they kept their history and secrets. Words inked in paper and carved in stones that only the Sharingan could decipher, or even better…

“Both of your Sharingan evolved into another form. We keep a record of its users, it’s not so common. You’ll get new abilities unique to your eyes, we’ll have to train these together. And I’ll give you a rundown of its usual capabilities and… limitations.”

Sasuke’s frown was deepening by the minute, while Itachi couldn’t bring himself to act surprised. It was only the three of them here, in the dark rooms where the clan convened in secret, where they hid their darkest deeds.

The Mangekyō Sharingan was to be kept a secret, but Shisui had never hidden anything from Itachi. Especially not this, when he had come back from a mission disoriented and exhausted, short one teammate killed brutally by shinobi from the Mist during a routine reconnaissance mission. He had told him about the record, about the conditions and warnings.

Itachi had hoped he would be spared the evolution, but alas. Here they were now – Sasuke too.

“It happened before? To others?” Sasuke asked, hands on his face still, probing, as if he could feel the heat of this new power under his skin. Itachi understood the urge – it was an itch he longed to scratch. Maybe it would go away if he gauged his eyes out.

“Yes. It happened to me. That’s why I was allowed to bring you here.”

Shisui blinked. Black brightened into blood red, into an unfamiliar pinwheel shape. It twirled for a second before he willed it away, mindful of its heavy chakra consumption.

And other unwelcome side effects.

“Why did it manifest now? How does it appear?”

Shisui grimaced. He must have hoped Sasuke wouldn’t ask.

“Mainly like the regular Sharingan does, under high emotions. It has to be strong though. Usually it’s witnessing the death of someone close to you.”

Itachi kept his eyes straight ahead, so as not to cross Shisui’s gaze, so as not to give anything away. Shisui had brought him here before. They had read the scrolls, dug up the history.

Many of them had sought to forcibly awaken the Mangekyō before. They had manufactured the tragedy themselves. Itachi never dared question his father about it. He was too afraid of the answer.

“It’s called the Mangekyō Sharingan. But we give names to each of its abilities. You've… experienced some, haven't you?"

He was addressing Sasuke, mainly, for Itachi had already laid it all to his friend. The black flames, inextinguishable and able to burn through everything, endlessly. Itachi would have laid waste to the entire forest, had Sasuke not been there to stop him.

Their eyes were linked in some way. It was one ability they shared.

“It… seems hard to control. And it’s exhausting.”

“Hm. You have to use it carefully. Besides, it… it deteriorates your eyesight very quickly. You could go blind in just a few years if you're not careful. So don't go and use it without thinking, alright?"

Shisui’s tone was light but he got no lightness in turn. Sasuke’s face had hardened, soured in distaste at what he had just heard.

“Really? And there is no way to fight that?”

“No.”

Itachi flinched. Shisui had marked a pause, barely there, but enough for him to catch on to. And for Sasuke too.

Shisui noticed, but he didn’t correct the lie, and Sasuke didn’t call him out on it. What did he know, how? He had never heard of the Mangekyō before, and yet.

They wrote down their name in the register, they pressed their bloody fingertips next to it. Shisui’s name was just a few lines above, and their father’s a few more. There had to be less than ten of them alive now. They would need to be put to use. It wasn’t a power they could afford to spare, if the conflict intensified with the Akatuski, if the Biju got involved too.

Shisui had been targeted for this very power. In a way, Fugaku had been too. And Itachi and Sasuke would be next, most likely. Depending on what power they manifested, they wouldn’t have much of a choice.

.

The first one, they called it Amaterasu. "Heaven's light" seemed darkly appropriate for the black fire that could burn to ashes anything it touched. They quickly found out that Itachi was far better at lighting it up, and Sasuke, at extinguishing it.

That wasn’t going to help the Itachi problem, Shisui thought.

He had been deeply shaken by their confrontation with the Akatsuki and the death of Fugaku. Anyone would of course, but Itachi was more fragile than most. The resulting tension among the clan only made it worse. He blamed himself for being unable to save their father, and for forcing Sasuke to be the one to reign in on both their grief, which Itachi had been unable to do at the time. It wasn’t unheard of for siblings to share similar abilities in their iteration of the kaleidoscope, but of course it had to be the detonator to Itachi, and the soothing to Sasuke. It might not even be a true disposition, more like the immediate consequences of their fight, but Itachi would see the signs if he wanted to.

Mikoto had asked Shisui to keep an eye on him. She couldn’t be everywhere, especially if she was planning what he thought she was. They would know soon enough.

Sasuke looked gloom as well, rendered restless and anxious by the ambient tension, lost as to what he was supposed to do next. He wanted to be involved, despite his age and lack of proper power. He didn’t want to be cast aside this time.

He kept asking questions about the Mangekyō Sharingan. Who had acquired it, when, how. Shisui had to give him a rundown of his own abilities, though he flat out refused to give a demonstration.

“You can compel anyone? To do anything?”

“Pretty much, yeah.”

“Is that why…”

He thought better about finishing that, yet it had to be Naruto on his mind. “Is that why they gave him to you?” Sasuke was no stranger to the power of the Sharingan on his friend and his demon, Kotoamatsukami or not. And yet he was right.

He asked about the damage it could do. Shisui had not lied about it, not exactly. There was no way to curb it, for him. After all, he was an only child.

“Let’s end it here for today,” Shisui said when it seemed like Sasuke was going to activate his Mangekyō yet again. “We’ll pick up again later.”

The boy didn’t protest, though he looked like he wanted to. He stifled his words after a quick glance at his brother. Sasuke didn't understand Itachi very well, but he was attuned enough to his moods and emotions. Itachi didn't appreciate that much.

Sasuke didn’t follow them back home, busy with one thing or another. He avoided the house. Mikoto had said to let him be for now.

When Shisui and Itachi got back, they crossed paths with a few of Mikoto's friends leaving a gathering for tea that had spilled well into the evening. The woman was washing up plates and cups when they made it to the kitchen. There were a few notes and reports scattered around that she gathered hastily to make room at the table. She didn’t look like she had been crying, or mourning. She was lively and determined, and Shisui was pretty sure he knew why.

If she wasn’t talking though, he wouldn’t either. They exchanged a long look over Itachi’s head.

“Where is Sasuke?”

“With his friends, I believe. He said not to count on him for dinner.”

“You stay then, Shisui. Fetch that Hyuuga of yours if you’d like. Let us eat all together. It’s getting cold.”

It was ironic, for he doubted Fugaku had ever brought much warmth to the house. But the loss was the same to her, whether he had been loving or not quite so. They would fare without him now.

“Alright. Thank you.”

She smiled faintly, a little sad. He never managed to be any less formal with her, despite her numerous attempts at a warmer, less stilted relationship between them. He would always remain a bit of an outsider, stranger to her warmth. The deeds of the parents weren’t so easily shaken off by their children.

“Itachi.”

Her commanding voice called him to attention. There was a quality to her tone that made it hard to disobey her, as knew the numerous kids she had trained up. Itachi and Sasuke were especially susceptible to it. Shisui too, if he was honest.

“Sasuke is going to need you. As I am. Do you understand?”

They stared at each other, unblinking. Itachi would have many protests to this – about how he was unreliable, how he wasn’t strong enough to shoulder any of it. But Mikoto’s orders suffered no contradiction. Maybe that was what he needed. He would do what she asked of him, one way or another.

“I understand, mother.”

They would fare without Fugaku, but they would fare together.

.

“How fare your eyes,” the man had asked. He had been taunting, for sure, but Asahi reacted strongly to it. “Did you do it?”. And his father’s answer. “Yes. I did.”

Shisui’s lie, that there was nothing to do about the corrosion of the Mangekyō. “You’ve been using it for how many years now?”

“Did you take them?”

“Of course you had a second child.”

No eyes ever wasted, in the Uchiha clan.

Sasuke needed to check, to go back to the vaults where the answers would be. It was chaos now, meetings after meetings where the clan couldn’t reach an agreement, and he had to take the chance while they were too preoccupied to watch him.

“Sasuke? Are you even listening to me?” Sakura asked, a touch annoyed. It bloomed to full annoyed when he answered honestly, “no”.

She was filling him in on their run with the men responsible for Asuma’s state. The mission was a resounding success, yet she was frustrated – Naruto had slipped between her grasp easily, busy with his own goals and allies. Sasuke didn’t know which they ought to find worse, Naruto treating them as enemies, or Naruto ignoring them entirely. He didn’t want to think about it for now.

“Do you want to talk about it?” she asked awkwardly. At least she sounded more willing than Shikamaru to go through with it.

But Sasuke was the most reluctant of the lot.

“Not yet,” he answered. He couldn’t tell her about the Mangekyō, about the Sharingan in the orange mask, about his clan yet again proving itself darker and bloodier than he believed it to be. She had been understanding until now, but she would start to distrust them for real if this went on. Just like he was.

He followed her out of the flat when she left to go back home, pretexting an errand to run despite the late hour. There was no way he would be able to sleep or think about anything else. He needed to know.

He went back to the Uchiha district, careful to remain discreet even if the streets were deserted already. He snuck into the temple, he lost some time and a few nails trying to unseal the covered passage to the vaults, until he found the chakra lock carved into one of the paving stones. His mother had taught him a Katon that could mimic a torch out of the palm of his hand, and he used it to light his way down the cave.

They had followed Shisui blindly the first time and he had decided on the spot that he would come back on his own, to better explore and snoop around. The first thing he noticed, that had escaped him the first time, were the eyes.

Neatly arranged on a shelf in one of the alcoves were a dozen of ornate boxes, the ones where they kept the eyes of the deceased, to be burned when the mourning was over. It sometimes took years, but they were supposed to stay in the family’s private shrine during that time, and then destroyed. He recognized a few of the names carved there. Including Kamui’s. He wondered if Kara knew.

He had an idea why they were kept here, but he had to make sure. Maybe it was something else entirely, maybe he was getting worked up for nothing.

He ignored the scrolls and books piling up on more shelves, though he made notes for later that some seemed to contain jutsu and seals he might not know. For now he was more interested in the tablet.

It stood at one end of the room, propped by wood support on a stone table. Its marble was carved with kanji that seemed easy to read at first, but their meaning escaped him as soon as he focused on them. Shisui had stood right in front of it when they came, not subtle at all. That meant it could be read, one way or another.

If it was meant for their eyes only…

Sasuke blinked awake his Sharingan.

The room was heavily sealed, he realized, the walls infused with chakra and wards that would keep intruders out. He focused back on the tablet. Some parts were readable now, the attributes and history of the Uchiha dojutsu. It only pertained to the common Sharingan though. For the Mangekyō…

He supposed it took one to know one.

He wasn’t used to it at all, and he wasn’t sure he liked it either. The strain was heavy and uncomfortable, like walking miles with a loaded bag strapped awkwardly to his back, that he couldn’t put down, that kept dragging him, weighing on his whole body. Using the Sharingan was instinctive and pleasant, he liked to keep it in his eyes even when he didn’t have to, had built his stamina for this express purpose. It wasn't rare to see red eyes in the Uchiha district, for no other reason than it was natural for them, despite its chakra consumption. At times it felt more taxing to keep it away, though outside of their confine, they were careful to do so.

This Mangekyō was another matter. It was demanding, unstable. Controlling it was a struggle, its power spilling out unorderly. Dangerous, including for himself.

Besides, it gave him terrible headaches.

But it served its purpose here, unlocking its own mysteries written on the stone. How to acquire it – through tragedies. How to make it enduring…

Ah. Right.

.

Mikoto couldn’t sleep. It wasn’t anything new – she could never get a proper night of rest, ever since the birth of her first son. She had grown used to long, sleepless hours then, when the clan was in a state of unrest that had her constantly on edge, fearing for her family’s safety. Her sleep never recovered.

Fugaku wasn’t much better. They would keep each other company, reading books and reports, writing letters. Talking, sometimes, though neither of them was ever much inclined. They would play shogi or, more rarely, break out a smoking pipe filled with soothing herbs they passed between them. Getting in any form of altered state was against their instincts as shinobi, so it didn’t happen often.

Mikoto was smoking alone tonight. Sleep evaded her entirely.

The hours passed even slower on her own.

In the end, they got along well enough, Fugaku and she. It was hard to say if it was ever proper love – it felt such a distant, foreign concept, when they had all known each other their entire lives and needed to choose, come a certain age, who to be paired with. Their parents were good friends, they didn’t question it too much. Why not get married, why not build their lives together?

At times she had been envious of Kushina, so enamored with her husband, gripped with a passion Mikoto found alien, both intriguing and vaguely threatening. The Uchiha weren’t big on such strong feelings. Kushina would press her about Fugaku and Mikoto couldn’t explain how it worked for them. Feared her friend’s judgment maybe, her pity. She wouldn’t have been able to convince Kushina that she was happy with the life she had built. Kushina dreamed of freedom. Not unlike her son.

She didn’t get their sense of loyalty and kinship to their clan. Mikoto never knew if it was due to the Uzumaki not relying as strongly on these bounds as the Uchiha did, or if it was just a Kushina thing. She had been somewhat abandoned by her clan, after all. Though she never spoke of it in these terms.

Kushina could never get close to Fugaku. He wouldn’t let her, and Mikoto could understand why. She heard him when he said being too close to her would reflect badly on the clan, mistrusted already. It wasn’t an argument Kushina could have understood, her sense of justice too sharp and unyielding. “We are not doing anything wrong”, she would say. Mikoto hated to have to tell her that it didn’t really matter.

The clan had to come first, eventually. The clan and her sons born to it. The order was a bit unclear. Fugaku had known. With time, he had come to lose sight of the distinction too, more so after what happened with Itachi and Danzo. The children needed care and protection, from the clan but somehow against it too.

Her husband had been far less intransigent in the last few years. Not that anyone would have noticed, especially those closest to them. Sasuke’s resentment ran deep, and they wouldn’t get a shot at mending that gap. He had no idea how much narrower it was than he believed. Fugaku was simply plain unable to express it. Her words would hold little weight now. “Your father was proud of you. He had hopes for your future. He believed you would do better than he did, than we all did.” It wouldn’t land, coming from her. Fugaku had missed all his chances. And now…

She was missing him already, in the simplest way – the space in his shape and form was empty when it shouldn’t have been. She wished she could ask him for counsel over what she was planning – but if he was here, she wouldn’t have to. She doubted he would even approve. The irony was not lost on her.

“You smoke?”

Sasuke was taking his shoes off in the entryway and she sat in the kitchen’s back door, facing the garden, in his direct line of sight. She would have made an effort to hide it from him once. She only smiled.

“Sometimes. Do you want to try?”

She chuckled at his wrinkled nose. He was still very much a child. Though the shadows in his eyes were misplaced on one his age.

“Where were you?”

“Around. I’m going to bed now.”

“Sasuke.”

She was pleased each time, that he still answered to her command, despite his age, despite his rebellious spirit. She wasn’t yet an opponent in his mind, but something told her it might change soon. In normal circumstances, he would have offered to keep her company.

“Speak your mind. You can ask, if you need to.”

“I don’t think I should.”

“Why not?”

“You won’t like my questions much.”

She smiled again, beckoned him closer with a wave of her hand. He was reluctant, but he complied. He wouldn’t meet her eyes though.

“Don’t worry about that. Tell me.”

He stayed focused on the garden, on the leaves swaying gently in the night breeze. The last of the summer warmth lingered despite October coming. They would have to bear through the commemoration of the Kyuubi attack yet again in a couple of weeks.

“You know about our eyes?” he asked bluntly, deliberately vague.

She only suspected, but this was confirmation enough.

“Yes.”

“You don’t…”

“No. But your father told me. We were just married when Asahi died in his arms in the outskirts of Ame. He came back with these strange new powers… He was quite lost.”

It was hard for Sasuke to picture his father young, let alone vulnerable. She couldn’t quite picture him anything else. In some way Fugaku resented her for that. That he could never get the strong clan head act to work on her like it did on everyone else, their sons included.

“He was with his brother? When he died?”

“Yes.”

She understood immediately the look on his face, the doubts in his voice. She was surprised by her own anger.

“Sasuke. Your father had his faults, but please don’t think so poorly of him.”

He had the good taste to look apologetic, but he didn’t back down.

“Why not? I saw the list. I’m sure some of them urged the process along.”

This wasn’t the conversation she expected to have with her son tonight. It should have come later, or ideally, never at all. She knew better than to indulge in this kind of thinking though. It had done them no good in the past.

Besides, he was right. Among the users of the Mangekyō, they all had their suspicions as to which one could have wanted to help the fates. Which ones had the will.

The doubts were there about Fugaku as well. It was laughable, but then again who, besides her, had seen him rage and despair after his brother's death, who had seen him rebel against the idea of taking his eyes, who had stopped him, in his lowest, darkest moments, to just go and follow his brother? The elders had not left the choice to him. He would take the eyes. He would secure the strength of his Mangekyō.

“Some did, probably. And your father didn’t. Don’t doubt my words.”

Sasuke was unsettled by her tone, as she seldom talked to him so bluntly. He nodded though, placated if not convinced. He wouldn’t ask her again. But that wasn’t it.

“Come on, don’t hold back now,” she urged, a tad too harshly maybe. She tried to reign in on her temper – he had warned her after all, that she wouldn’t like it, and she had pressed him on anyway.

“You had a brother too.”

She startled at the unexpected question.

“I did.”

He was almost ten years older. He died when she was a teenager. They weren’t close.

“And they did too. The ones on the list. A lot of us. Itachi and I.”

She frowned in confusion, lost in his reasoning until it dawned on her.

“No. No, Sasuke, you’re wrong.”

“Almost all my friends are an only child. Their parents would say one was enough, that more cost too much, and shinobi are not encouraged to spend too much time away from the field…"

“Sasuke.”

“Why did you have two kids?”

She closed her eyes tightly, unprepared for the blow, for the pain it brought. He seemed so resigned, so sure.

“Maybe this is true. Maybe the tradition can be traced back to this. You read about the Eternal Eye, didn't you? You think we worked toward this, all this time? You think this is why you were born?"

“Why then?”

"Just as we grew up with siblings, we wanted that for you too. So that you wouldn't be alone in this world."

Shinobi made so many orphans. This is why the clan mattered too. Had Kushina known that… Oh, it was unfair to blame it on her, as if she had any choice. But at least Mikoto knew that her sons would have each other.

“Do you think so badly of us, Sasuke? Of me?”

“I… I don’t know. I just…”

She pulled him to her, his teenage sensibilities be damned. He came willingly enough, proof that he was deeply shaken by all this.

“What did we care of the Mangekyō, of the will of the clan. We loved you so much, Sasuke, both of you. As we would have loved any other to come.”

Had the Kyuubi not attacked, had the clan not fallen even more into disgrace, she believed they would have had another child. It felt transgressive, it felt almost a revenge, a defiance, to grow her family far away from her duties to the village. Of course, they were expected to perpetuate the bloodline, but three was just excessive now, wasn’t it? The clans couldn’t grow too numerous – it was another thing held against the Uchiha. The civilians had more children. Children less valuable.

“You don’t have to do anything. You don’t have to use the Mangekyō, you don’t have to think about perfecting it. You don’t have to think of us.”

“Father wouldn’t like to hear you say that.”

She laughed, a pitiful, strangled sound half caught in her throat.

“Don’t let him know.”

“Is it that easy?”

“I’ll make it so. I’ll make it so that you can choose, Sasuke. Do whatever you want.”

His father wouldn’t have liked to hear that either.

.

“You’re not serious, are you?”

Sometimes Karin’s tone was so threatening, she sounded so pissed, that it was enough for her interlocutor to back down immediately. Suigetsu was especially susceptible to this. She would say, “you’re not serious, are you?” and he, wisely, would recognize his last chance to drop his latest questionable idea.

Fortunately for him (or not), Naruto’s survival instinct was far weaker than Suigestu’s.

“Sorry. I am. Sorry.”

Saying sorry wouldn’t help his case, but he did feel bad for causing her to worry, again.

“Are you kidding me? Didn’t we just agree to no more stupid ventures outside for no good reason? The Akatsuki is on our asses, the snake is too! And in case you forgot, they just laid the fucking head of the fucking Uchiha clan in one smooth swoop!"

“I’ll be careful, I promise. I won’t get caught, no one will know. I just… I need to go.”

Karin had been expecting this, and so she had followed Naruto out in the forest when all the others had believed him when he said he just needed to clear his head. He didn't want to tell them – they would try to stop him, just like Karin was now. They would be right.

She had brought Suigetsu along, and Naruto really hoped it wasn’t because she planned on stopping him by force.

“What will you even do if you go there? You can’t be seen, you can’t approach any of them. You can’t comfort your sad little Uchiha.”

She was trying to make him mad, and as usual doing a stellar job of it. He hated when she was right and he hated that it happened so often.

“I just need to check if he’s alright.”

“Then send the foxes.”

“Karin, please…”

She threw her arms in the air with a frustrated cry. Yugito would have backed her up, with more success perhaps, the older men too. Which was why Naruto had tried to sneak out unknown. Karin knew him too well though and couldn’t just let him do as he pleased, even if he took some comfort in the fact that she had not warned them all.

“Why do I even bother? Just go, you don’t need anyone’s permission, do you? Do whatever you want. Get locked up in Konoha’s jail, or strapped to a sacrificial altar in the Akatsuki’s lair for all I care.”

“I’m sorry.”

Going to Konoha was a stupid idea. The Akatsuki was on the move, less concerned by the repercussion of their actions than ever, and he couldn’t imagine what would happen to him if he was caught in the village. Karin was right on point for this too – they even had a cell waiting just for him.

Going was stupid. And he couldn’t bear not to.

He had to see Sasuke.

He had to see if he was alright, had to see for himself. The foxes could get in and out of Konoha easily enough, they could keep him up to date, but it didn’t help his need to see. And he wouldn’t be able to do anything, to talk to him, to give any comfort, yet he had to be there anyway. Sasuke was in pain – physical, emotional, he was hurting. It couldn’t be the first time – Naruto was three years gone, Sasuke had not waited around at home since then, but Naruto had not known. He could just ignore it when he didn’t know anything, when he just asked Akiko to keep an eye on his friends from time to time.

How was he supposed to ignore this? It was selfish of him, it wasn’t like he could do anything, and yet he didn’t think he would be able to just stay here and wait.

Ah, maybe it was just an excuse. Now that the idea was there in his head, now that he had realized that he could just go and see him, in the flesh… even from afar, it would be enough. Just for a moment. There was no point, he had no excuse. He was just consumed with the thought.

“Suigetsu will go with you,” Karin declared forcefully.

“I will?” the boy asked, though rather unsurprised. “Why?”

“No more freaking jinchuuriki roaming around in nice little pairs. And rich boy can’t be trusted not to be even worse than Naruto at this. You’re going, Suigetsu, and you’ll watch that idiot, or I’ll beat your ass.”

“Yeah, yeah, alright. No need to be nice. I’ll go,” Suigetsu drawled.

“Karin…” Naruto tried, unable to just let it be when she was so mad at him. So disappointed.

"Save it. I hope it goes to shit, and maybe you'll learn this time."

“It won’t. It’ll be fine, you’ll see. I’ll be back soon.”

“I don’t care.”

She turned back without another look at him.

“Let’s go,” Suigetsu said lightly. “Don’t worry. She’ll get over it.”

Naruto wasn’t too sure about that. The others would be mad too. This was a terrible thing to do.

And still, he went.

Chapter Text

“There is going to be a vote,” Sasuke announced as he stepped into the Yamanaka flower shop and fell onto the last chair available, at the little table in the corner where Sai took breaks when no one was around. He didn’t react to Sasuke’s entrance or announcement, except with pouring him a cup of tea. It was Ino who urged him on as she kept pruning a huge lemon tree a few feet away.

“Really? Is that going to work?”

“That’s the usual way.”

“What happened to fights to the death I wonder,” she mumbled under her breath.

“That would be the most advantageous method for you indeed,” Sai said helpfully. “You sure won’t get the position based on your popularity.”

He avoided deftly the lemon she threw at his face.

“They can’t reach an agreement, so a vote it is. Hoping everyone will accept the outcome.”

“You think there might be trouble?”

“I don’t know. I don’t know.”

Sasuke didn’t spend much time in the Uchiha district lately. Despite his duty to his mother, he simply couldn’t stand the atmosphere, the tension. Itachi was living at Shisui’s place for now, too affected and banned from the hospital until he could prove to Shizune he was getting any amount of sleep at night.

“What are you doing here anyway?” Ino asked, joining them at the table now that she was done with her work.

“I… needed to talk?”

“And what, Sai is first up on your list?”

The boy smiled, amiable. Sasuke would have felt bad about it, but Sai had proven enough time that he was perfectly aware of the jokes made at his expanse, or others’. He just played the fool. He could be even worse than Ino.

“Sakura’s busy with training.”

“For a change.”

“And I’m avoiding Shikamaru.”

“Really? Why?”

“He’s gotten pretty involved in Asuma’s physical therapy and he has… questions.”

Meaning he wouldn’t leave Sasuke alone. It was his way of coping – Asuma would walk again, eventually, but that was all they could promise for now. Kurenai was about to give birth too – another subject Shikamaru had gotten passionate about.

“He did the same when Choji had pneumonia as a kid. It’ll pass.”

“You’re welcome here in the meantime,” Sai added. “I appreciate your company.”

“That means you’re silent enough for him,” Ino said. “Huge compliment.”

“I never complain about your talking.”

“You’d better not.”

Sasuke left them to their bickering, regretting not going straight to the hospital when he bolted out of his apartment. But Shizune was no kinder to him than she was to his brother, and he was still on half shifts for the time being.

“Things will be fine, Sasuke,” Ino said after a moment, startling him out of his thoughts. “The old geezers will have a round and put the oldest and most boring one in charge, and you’ll go through all of this again in a couple of years.”

She caught back her words a moment later, sheepish.

“Well I mean… not all of it, I… Sorry. Sorry.”

She sucked at comfort.

And she was wrong. Depending on who was chosen, things would go very differently for the clan. They still had their pride, some were still vexed.

“Are you still sad?” Sai asked. “I thought you didn’t even like your father.”

Sasuke was knocked over by the calm harshness of that single question, spoken with Sai’s usual polite tone, no ill intention whatsoever yet devastating all the same. Ino grimaced.

"Sai, what did I tell you just yesterday?"

“No talking to people grieving?”

“Then shut the fuck up!”

Sasuke could tell he wanted to argue, but Ino’s glare was rather effective. Or maybe it was the slight panic in her eyes as she glanced at Sasuke briefly. Maybe she was afraid he would get upset, or, Sage forbid, start to cry. They were on the same page – it was the last thing he wanted.

“Alright, walk us through it then”, she said forcefully, swiping the comment away. “What are your options?”

He laid it down to them as clearly as possible. Three names for now, at least – Tekka, Yashiro, and Hanma, older than the others, older than Sasuke’s father, probably passed up for the role at the time Fugaku was chosen to take it on.

Among his father’s generation and the one just below, Tekka was one of those willing to continue working for better integration of the clan in the village, and Yashiro was the opposite. Both had a decent claim but might lack the support. The clan was still pretty evenly split over the issue, between those who mourned some former power and glory, those who feared still being too weakly established to fend for themselves, should the village leadership turn on them once more, those who believed in a more united, cohesive group, those who hoped for it. Sasuke wished the clan could be taken over by someone younger, but none had the weight and influence, none would be listened to.

If he had to choose, Tekka was the best option, but he was also the least likely to get elected. He was younger, with fewer allies, and he had been close to Fugaku. Some were looking for a turnover in the leadership. Some were still clinging to independence, Sasuke was sure.

“That’s it?” Ino asked. “You’re sure?”

He nodded, not quite getting her irritated tone. She didn’t elaborate.

“What are we talking about?”

They all turned to see Sakura barge into the flower shop, sending the chimes over the door in a frenzy.

“Uchiha politics,” Sai replied, producing another cup of tea out of nowhere. His collection was impressive.

Sakura made a face at the answer but still strode inside. Her arms were littered with small scraps and cut and her face was lightly bruised, the products of vigorous sparring with Hayate or Yugao. She looked satisfied enough with the results.

“How are you, Sasuke?” she asked when she reached him. She didn’t wait for an answer before wrapping an arm around his head to drop a kiss into his hair. She had been quite touchy since his return, and he couldn’t pretend to dislike it, not even for show, even if it made him uncomfortable. She was confident and natural about it, as if it was simply how things were. Maybe it ought to be. Physical affection was rare in his clan, especially such casual displays. She said that maybe their troubles also stemmed from there.

“I’m fine,” he mumbled, embarrassed still to be taken care of in such a way. Their friends didn’t bat an eye though, so they moved on.

He gave her the same run-down he just had. And she asked the same question. “That’s it?” With the same expectant tone Ino had. He didn’t know what they wanted him to say.

“How does it go then?” Sakura asked, curious. None of their friends had ever lived through a change of a clan leader, but they had heard of it at least. This was all foreign to her.

“In short we gather everyone, and we go stand behind the one we have chosen. People get a short while to change their mind, after seeing what majority seems to come on top.”

“Like choosing a team to play tag,” Ino supplied rather unhelpfully. It wasn’t very procedural, but it was how it went.

“Don’t the candidates make some sort of announcement?”

“No. They’re expected to have done the work beforehand.”

“It’s a rather quiet affair,” Ino added. “Always is with this lot.”

Sasuke shrugged, accepting the jab. She wasn’t wrong. The Uchiha weren’t much for passionate display. How embarrassing it would be to just harangue the crowd like a market seller. The candidates were known already, and they already all knew who they would support, though it remained rather secret up until the day of the vote.

“My father had pretty much the exact same conversation we’re having with Shikaku and Choza the other day,” Ino said. “That’s all the clans have been talking about.”

It was another point to worry over. The reaction of the other clans, of the commandment, of the Godaime. They couldn’t intervene nor have any say in the matter, but they could have all the opinions they wanted about the Uchiha’s new leadership. The relationship between the clan heads was as good as it could get and it would be all too easy to just sap it all in one go.

His mother was worried too. She convened often with Kara’s mother and other women from the clans, about their options and who to choose. His mother’s voice held weight, both as the clan leader’s wife and as a respected jounin inspector, who had seen most of the last generation of Uchiha genin through their first missions and the Chunin exam. She had also been more involved in the clan politics since the incident with Itachi in their youth.

Sasuke wanted to ask for her opinion and input, but he felt out of his depth, and perhaps more importantly, it would be too much of a betrayal. To ask who to choose next, how to replace the one they had just lost.

“I don’t want a new clan head,” he said to the bottom of his empty teacup. Sai laid a hand on his shoulder and offered a sympathetic smile.

“You don’t have a choice though, do you?”

Both Ino and Sakura hit him on the shoulder, though he looked like he didn’t get why.

.

Sasuke’s first thought, as ashamed as he was of it, was pure rejection.

His mother came forward, once all the other men interested had staked their claim. She put forward a claim of her own. And his immediate reaction was, “that’s not possible.”

It was though. As she said to those who started to protest, there were no rules against it. True, there had never been a woman at the head of the Uchiha clan, but that didn’t mean it couldn’t happen.

And yet he couldn’t help the feeling that it wasn’t supposed to. It struck him after a moment of reflection.

Father wouldn’t have liked that.

He would have been just as dismissive and unhappy as the men were being now. Be it for his wife or any woman of the clan. He would have found it laughable at best, offensive at worse.

Father wouldn’t want that.

But his father wasn’t here anymore.

Sasuke was ashamed that it had not even occurred to him. It did make sense though. His mother had her standing, she had her people. She was friends with most of the women of the clan, active and retired shinobi alike, because she had spent some time as both. She had shadowed her husband for years on the clan’s matters.

That was what she had been doing, he realized. She wasn’t seeking comfort, she wasn’t distraught. She was building her support, and what support!

She wouldn’t have started a fight she couldn’t win.

“Why would you do this, Mikoto?” Hanma berated quietly, though his tone was unbecoming of the circumstances. “Have you thought about the clan?”

“I think about nothing else. What about you, Hanma? The will of our people will be heard. What will you do then?”

“It won’t speak in your favor!”

“Then you have nothing to be so worked up about.”

The man took a step forward. The next moment, Itachi stood between him and their mother. His Sharingan wasn’t in sight, he had no weapon. Yet the message was clear.

Silence fell on the crowd, not even a breath to be heard. Sasuke was at a loss, and the look on Itachi’s face didn’t help settle his rising anxiety.

Their mother put a hand on Itachi’s arm, gentle but firm. She tugged only once. He lost his defensive stance and straightened up, but he didn’t stray from her side.

“Let us decide,” Old Uruchi announced, presiding the whole affair as the oldest member of the clan. After a brief moment of hesitation, they started to make their move.

But it was already decided.

Uchiha Mikoto had trained almost all the children that stood next to their mother in the courtyard. The children would follow their mothers and the mothers would follow her, because she had worked for this, had been planning it for days. Who knew, maybe longer. Hushed arguments flourished everywhere between husbands and wives, fathers and children, and most of them ended the same. The women taking their sons and daughters to Mikoto’s side. The men fuming, powerless.

Sasuke couldn’t believe he had not seen it coming. He was struggling with the very idea. His father was one thing – he had always been the clan head first, it was who he was, more than anything else. But his mother…

“Sasuke.”

He turned to her, standing strong and steady in front of a growing group of their fellow clan members. She looked different from what he was used to – closer, he imagined, to how most kids knew here. A teacher, a leader, commanding, fierce. He came closer. He didn’t want her to shout.

“Sasuke. I am not your mother here. Do you understand?”

He did. She might think he didn’t, that it was why he was hesitating, but he did all too well. Was she worried about his choices? As if his loyalty could lie anywhere else.

He could still feel bitter about it. It was absurd – this was a far better outcome than any he had imagined, for the clan, for the village. The majority was clear, indisputable.

She wasn’t his mother here.

And after?

He took his place at her side, facing the rest of the courtyard. The result was clear.

“The clan has spoken,” Uruchi said. “Does anyone wish to dispute this claim?”

No doubt they wanted to, but none would dare. In-fighting was the worst thing that could happen to them. The will of the group had to prevail.

“Then so it will be.”

.

Sasuke didn’t get to approach his mother again for the rest of the day.

There was a ceremony, a celebration, all rather dull and subdued, as a mark of respect both for their late leader and for those who had seen their claim rejected. That Mikoto was Fugaku’s wife only made it more solemn. Sasuke wondered what he would think of this. Had he been alive, he would have hated it for sure, but since he was dead… Maybe he would be pleased. The mantle was staying in their family. Since it wouldn’t be Itachi, nor Sasuke, this had to be the next best thing.

Many were displeased by this aspect as well, but it was too late to speak up now. The atmosphere was rather tense. Sasuke caught his mother’s eyes and he had a feeling maybe she wanted to talk to him, but she didn’t try, and he didn’t either. Now wasn’t the time. He escaped the temple as soon as he could.

He went to sit on the pier, with an onigiri and a glass of iced tea, the sounds of the celebration muffled enough that he could be tricked into thinking it was actually a joyous affair.

After a while, Izumi came to sit by his side.

“You'll have to get used to that sort of things, you know,” she said.

“What, parties?”

“Compromises. Disappointment.”

“I’m not disappointed.”

Or at least, not in the way she thought. He was happy for his mother, and he was a bit reassured about their future.

“You’ll never get everyone to agree peacefully on the same thing.”

“I can still hope for a more unified decision, can’t I?”

He was exhausted in advance on how much work it would take to convince those who weren’t, all the talking and pacifying his mother would face in the months, maybe years to come. With very little being done in the meantime.

“Did you know? My mother… Did she tell you before?”

“Ah. Yeah.”

“She didn’t tell me.”

It was a little childish to get hung up on that, but he just couldn’t make sense of why. Why she would keep it from him.

“What would you have said, if she did?”

“What? I don’t know. That’s not the point.”

“I think it is. Maybe she didn’t want to be swayed.”

“I wouldn’t have… been against it or something.”

“Are you sure?”

“I don’t know! What would it change anyway? She wouldn’t have listened to me.”

“Are you sure?”

Sasuke huffed in frustration. Izumi let out a soft laugh and ruffled his hair gently, apologetic.

“Sorry, sorry. I’m not trying to make you feel bad. But try to think about it from her side. Mikoto and Fugaku were not alike. She does listen to you.”

There were things Sasuke had hidden from his mother specifically because he knew that she would not approve. And if she didn’t approve, it would be harder for him to go through with it. She didn’t have to forbid it, it would be less effective even. But if she didn’t like it…

He wouldn’t have told her not to go through with it. He wouldn’t have dared, it wasn’t his place. But he wouldn’t have been pleased, and she’d have known. Was that enough? He couldn’t imagine having such an influence on his mother’s decisions.

“Do you want to go back?” Izumi asked after a long silence. He shook his head.

“I’ll go for a walk or something. I don’t… she has better things to do for now than to deal with me.”

He left without letting Izumi say what she thought of that statement. The last thing he wanted was to be a burden to his mother. She had more important things to worry about.

He knew how that went.

He walked to the end of the training field, the limits of the Uchiha district. The small woods hid the outer walls of the village, the trees high enough to hide it completely. To make it look like if he just walked without stopping, he could get elsewhere, he could escape it all. In truth, he would meet the red wall after just a few minutes. The nearest gate was further East, and guarded. Not against anyone leaving, but it would still raise questions, still be noted.

There were training posts and gears scattered on the field, mostly used by the children after school. He fell into position – lowered his stance, raised his fists. The post was well-worn by the dozens of young shinobi who had hit it repeatedly. The wood was stained with old blood on some spots.

He kicked at it first, as high as possible, though he wasn't warmed up enough and it pulled at his thigh muscles, promising some soreness the next day. He kicked again, up to his head. He was flexible for his age, he wanted to keep it that way.

Stay flexible, stay in shape, stay alert and strong. No weakness, no break.

He kicked the post, again, again, as he had done hundreds, thousands of times before, the movement well-known and well-practiced. He thought about Lee, who had done ten times more. He was doing better these days, going on missions, on top of his form during training, even if he was still medicated and followed closely at the hospital.

They had done a great job with his surgery. The Sharingan had been an invaluable help then. It was probably the first time it was put to this use.

His father had been less than impressed, but then again, was he ever impressed by anything. Maybe this would have done the trick. Would he be satisfied with this outcome? “Congratulations son. You saw me die and gained much from it, you and your brother. I was worried I would have to kill one of you myself to make it happen”.

Sasuke moved to using his fists, hitting the post one hand after the other, wondering if he could go to a hundred, five hundred, one thousand. If he would feel any better if he did. Keep training, keep training.

So that you may not die next time.

Should he have trained more? He wasn’t strong enough to save his father. But then again, he didn’t want to. He didn’t want to train and train, he didn’t want to fight. He had rebuilt Lee’s shattered bones from nothing. Wasn’t that enough?

Was it his fault?

That’s what he meant to ask his mother, but he didn’t have the courage. Or maybe he already knew the answer. Had he been stronger, had he trained more… It was all they were good for. Train, don’t die. Maybe it was his responsibility to be as strong as possible, regardless of what he wanted.

He hit the post. Again, again, again. Maybe with one more, it would be enough. With one more, he would defeat his enemy. With one more, his father would live.

Blood stained the wood. His vision was blurry. Just one more, one more, and he could stop. It would be enough.

One more. One more.

“Stop it, stop!”

He ignored it, whoever it was. He wasn’t sure he heard right and he couldn’t see a thing. Maybe they weren’t talking to him.

“Sasuke, stop!”

Someone grabbed his arm. He had the reflex to push them away, annoyed with their meddling, but they kept trying, tugged at his shoulders, his clothes.

“Stop!”

“Get off me!”

Getting into a fight seemed like a fantastic idea just about now.

Until Sasuke turned around to grab at some collar and came face to face with blue eyes, a headful of blonde curls and whiskers carved into tanned skin.

Face to face with Naruto.

.

In and out. No one would see him, he wouldn’t talk to anyone. He would just check, get a look, and get the hell out of the last place in the world he was supposed to be in. Suigetsu was waiting for him outside the walls. Akito got him in, sealed in a scroll, as they were used to do now. In and out. Not a word.

He found Sasuke training on the outskirt of the Uchiha district. A common sight, he was known to train at any time of the day and night. He said it helped him sleep.

He was close to the woods, Naruto could get a little closer. There was no one else around. A little closer.

He noticed the blood first. The tears, second.

When he realized that he was doing the stupidest thing possible, he had already grabbed Sasuke’s waist to hurl him away from the training post. His friend spun around, ready for a fight.

Stopped dead in his track.

Naruto was so freaking stupid and Karin was going to behead him, if Sasuke or someone else in Konoha didn’t get to it first.

“What… What the hell are you doing here?”

“I, huh, I came to check on you.”

“Are you kidding me?”

He and Karin would get along great. Or they might hate each other.

 “I know I shouldn’t, it’s just, I heard what happened, I was worried, I figured… I just wanted to see if you were, huh, alright. Yeah.”

“You were… you came here? You dare, you just… You think you can just show up here? You…”

Sasuke’s hands went to his face and he seemed surprised to find it covered in tears. He rubbed it hastily, embarrassed. Naruto had no idea what to do. This wasn't supposed to happen. Naruto couldn't face him, not yet, it was…

“Why?”

“What?”

“Why would you do that?”

“I told you, I was worried.”

“Oh yeah? Why?”

There was blood on his face now, from his opened knuckles when he had tried to wipe the tears away. He looked enraged, beside himself with fury. But he was also drained, exhausted. Hurting.

Naruto wasn’t making it any better.

“We’re, we’re friends, you know?”

“Do I?”

“Sasuke…”

“Save it, shit, I can’t… I can’t, what are you even… How could you come here, seriously? How can you just show up and tell me…”

To both their horror, the tears resumed their course down Sasuke’s face. He slammed his hand on his eyes, to hide or to stale the flow, or both. Naruto took a step forward, raised a hand, stopped. He was overcome with the urge to touch, to dry the tears, to ease the pain, and also convinced that nothing he could do or say would have the power to do that.

“I’m sorry. I’m sorry, I didn’t mean for you to see me.”

“Is that supposed to make it better? Have you just been coming all this time? Are you just mocking me?”

“No!”

“Then why have you come?”

Karin must have known it would go this way. She always seemed to know. She was always right, and he never listened.

“I wanted to see you.”

“And you just do what you want.”

There was so much bitterness in Sasuke’s voice, Naruto had a hard time handling the recrimination, the anger Sasuke bore for him specifically. It was stupid of him to be so surprised.

He was so stupid. He should never have come. He was not welcome here and Sasuke didn’t want to see him. Why would he? Naruto was long gone.

“I don’t, I don’t. I heard… I’m sorry about your father. I wanted to make sure. If-if you need something, or…”

“I don’t. I don’t need anything. From you, or anyone. I can do it on my own.”

Sasuke’s eyes got lost somewhere in Naruto’s back, his anger broader now, less focused on the boy in front of him. That didn’t make it any better.

“I can do anything. I can win any fight, I can best them all. I can protect this place, I can become Hokage. There’s nothing I can’t do, I can do everything and I…”

He choked around a sob, his breath shortening with every word. He had given up on staving off the tears now freely crowding his scrunched-up face.

“I can’t talk to my father.”

Naruto was unfamiliar with this loss. Sasuke was too. They were new to this. Naruto didn't know what to do.

He never even had a father.

“I can’t talk to my father. I want to. But I can’t.”

“I’m sorry.”

“I can even talk to you. I can bring you back home. I can forgive you. But I can’t talk to my father.”

Naruto crossed the distance and took Sasuke in his arms.

It only occurred to him after the other boy clung to his shirt that they had never hugged before. But what was he supposed to do? Sasuke was crying. Naruto didn’t want him to. What was he supposed to do.

Sasuke cried, Naruto held on. He was warm and heavy in his arms, alive and raw, Naruto could barely contain it all.

He couldn’t stay here. He had to leave as soon as possible, this was too dangerous, but he couldn’t move at all. As long as Sasuke was here, as long as Sasuke didn’t push him away…

It happened soon enough though. Sasuke wasn’t one to forget himself for long.

He pushed, he stepped back. He looked even angrier now that some of his sorrow was spent. Naruto wanted to escape his judging eyes, but he found he couldn’t look away.

“You have no right to be here. You have to leave.”

Naruto could at least be grateful that he didn’t try to call anyone for now. Yet he was always greedy. Now that he was here, it was hard to just turn back, to leave it at that.

“Are you sure you’re okay?”

“Don’t ask me that.”

He had to leave. He was making things worse, he had to leave.

He pressed on.

“I know you’re mad, but…”

“Mad? You think I’m mad?”

He certainly wasn’t not that.

“You laid your seal on us! You just… Didn’t we leave you alone? Didn’t you do what you wanted, from the start? We would have let you go but you had to go and make your threats, you had to curse Sakura, and me. We’re friends? How?”

Since he was a complete fool, Naruto had hoped it wouldn’t come to be about that.

“I-I had to…”

“No you didn’t! You didn’t!”

He really didn’t. Or well, he didn’t have to go about it that way. Gaara had been critical enough, but Naruto needed them to stay away, he needed to be sure. He’d figured it would be fine, in the end. It wasn’t like he expected, or wanted, the seal to be of use.

Sasuke ran a hand on his face again, this time to get rid of his turmoil, to put his composure back together. He was calmer when his eyes fell on Naruto again.

“Take it off.”

“What?”

“Take it off. If you meant anything you say, take your seal off.”

Naruto couldn’t do that.

“Naruto, please, just… just take it off. It’s not needed. Please.”

Sasuke had not asked much of Naruto, throughout their life. Naruto struggled to remember if he had ever granted any of it.

“I can’t do that.”

Sasuke seemed genuinely shocked by that. Hurt, disappointed.

“Fine. Fine. Okay. Please go.”

“Wait, I-”

“No, no. I can’t… It’s just as well. I can’t deal with it. My father is dead, I have to… I have things to do. And you do too, apparently so just… leave me alone. I’ll do the same. There’s no point in dragging this out, you’ve made your choice. I need to… Stay focused. On what I can do. So leave it. Forget about it, forget about us. Do your things. Get lost.”

Naruto opened his mouth and closed it over a dozen replies. I’m sorry. I don’t know what to do. You said you could forgive me. You said you would wait.

The possibility was alive in Naruto’s mind, a future where all would be resolved, where he could come back here without fear nor regret, and Sasuke would be waiting, and all would be fine. But he had pushed his luck. Karin kept telling him he couldn’t have it all.

Sasuke left. He just vanished, the whisper of a shunshin the only thing left in his wake. It was Akiko who urged Naruto back into the scroll and on the other side of the wall. Suigetsu was still waiting at the same spot when Naruto came through, trying to look unbothered but clearly restless with nervous worry.

“All good?” he asked, falsely casual. Naruto had no idea what face he was making, what emotion Suigetsu could decipher there. He didn’t answer.

“We’re done here. Let’s go.”

It sounded very final.

.

When he woke up the next day, Sasuke wasn’t completely sure he hadn’t dreamed up the whole encounter.

He'd gone home and succumbed to the reprieve of sleep immediately, and by daylight the feelings battling their place in his heart were very different. He berated himself for his poor reaction – he should have reacted at all. Should have told someone, given the alert, done something. Instead he’d just cried and begged and laid his heart bare, only for Naruto to spear it open, again.

Or seal it.

Maybe this was just as well. His father kept saying he should focus on more important matters than his missing friend, that dwelling on a reunion that might never come was a waste of time and brainpower. Maybe that was one advice Sasuke should follow, one wish to grant his father. There weren’t many else he could live up to.

"Did something happen?" Sakura asked as soon as they met outside the Uchiha district.

“No.”

“Are you sure? You alright?”

“Yes.”

“Don’t lie to me so blatantly.”

“Stop fucking asking then!”

That cut their interaction short for the day.

Sasuke wandered the village, listless and angry. He had to do something, but he had no idea what. Had to talk to someone, but had no idea who.

It was insane what influence Naruto could still have on him. From so far away, with so few words and time, Sasuke was in shambles and he didn't know what to do with himself. There was no way he could tell Sakura, or Shikamaru, or his mother or brother or anyone at all. He didn’t want to give this to anyone.

He was already regretting some of the things he had said. He should have… He didn’t know.

He should have made it last longer.

When would they get another chance? Next time, next time it would go better, right? Just like his next conversation with his father would go better. Next time, next time.

He should have kept his mouth shut about the damn seal. Naruto had been here, here! Right in front of him, in the flesh, solid and real. Close enough that they could touch, and they had.

Sasuke should have held him back.

But he was so mad, and heartbroken and lost, and Naruto was so cruel, to appear like a charm in such a moment and to still have the gale to lie, to spew out words and feelings he couldn’t follow through with actions, to pretend to care and still vanish again.

Maybe it had all been an illusion really. The Mangekyō had a strange hold on his mind, he was having fretful dreams full of strange worlds and shapes. Maybe he was just going insane.

As usual when he didn’t know what to do, Sasuke’s feet led him to the hospital.

He knew all the nurses, all the medic-nin. They knew him as well, they offered quick condolences, but the work was never-ending and there wasn’t much time for sentimentality. It was a relief.

Sasuke got lost in the work. Never-ending, and also thankless – the chakra spent, the wounds bandaged, the medicine handed out, it was on to the next patient, more or less agreeable, more or less grateful. Sasuke liked the monotony of it, the mundane necessity. It changed the world of those who passed between their hands, but otherwise it was a trivial revolution. One after the other. One thing made better.

They were quickly gaining a reputation throughout the country, and their neighbors too. Wasn’t that a worthy accomplishment?

He debated seeking Sakura out and offer to buy her diner, as an apology for their earlier spat, but he had no more idea of what he should say to her than he did in the morning. It would be hypocritical to apologize to her if he was going to lie in the same breath when she asked what had gotten him so upset. He couldn’t imagine telling her about Naruto’s visit. What would be the point, except enrage her more? He was long gone already.

He didn’t want to go home to the Uchiha district. Their house would either be crowded or stark empty, and he had a feeling his mother was balancing between two extremes, of wanted him as far away from her maneuvers as possible, and right in the middle of it. Staying away took the choice out of both their hands – Sasuke didn’t know what he wanted either.

He had to avoid Shikamaru because he would know something was up. He would just take one look at Sasuke and he would know. It was infuriating that Shikamaru, for all his lack of people skill and sensitivity, was tuned into the Uchiha Sasuke broadcast twenty-four seven. He said Sasuke was just that easy to read, but that wasn’t true, Sasuke was a model Uchiha in that regard at least. Shikamaru was just annoying like that.

That left him with the hospital. Work, and more work. He had to be sneaky about it, lest Shizune caught him doing overtime and banned him from the building again. He had become quite good at hiding from her and at getting help from some of the nurses. The ones that weren’t too afraid of Shizune’s wrath. Or maybe the others just agreed with her.

He crashed after the longest shift he had managed to pull off to this day, exhausted in the way that made it hard to think, to feel at all. Exactly what he needed. The next few hours were spent drifting in and out of a fretful sleep in one of the break rooms.

It wasn’t the light or the noise or an irate nurse shaking him so that they could take the spot that pulled him out of it. It wasn't anything of note – she didn’t make a sound nor tried to touch him. Her presence was enough to stir him up, quiet and unassuming as it was.

Sasuke blinked the sleep out of his eyes to stare at Hinata’s blank face.

She handed him a coffee and a steaming bun stuffed with red bean paste. She was alone, for once, bundled in an old beige coat he had not seen her with in a while. She looked young like this. Cold too, in every sense of the word. The sunlight was bright, were they so far into the day already? Her pale eyes glowed in the harsh light.

She talked before he could.

“Did Naruto come to see you?”

He choked on a mouthful of coffee and barely avoided spitting it all on her. It drew the faintest smile on her face, a rare sight. Beautiful and sad, she had always been both, ever since they were kids. Kiba would always goof around and be annoying, but it was obvious watching them that he did it for her sake. Whether she found him genuinely funny or just wished to indulge him, it worked to brighten her face, if only briefly. So it was all worth it.

“That’s… why do you ask?”

“I spotted someone in one of the gardens last night. I only caught a glimpse, but he’s- I would recognize him.”

She seemed completely unconcerned by the event, yet she had sought him out here, just to talk about it. She couldn’t be that indifferent, and did she know him so well, remember him so well? They would meet in the woods, Sasuke remembered. Stay in the same vicinity in silence, without a look or even a nod of acknowledgment, yet Naruto would count it as them hanging out together.

“And what made you think he would have come to me?”

She raised an eyebrow, confused.

“Why else would he be here?”

She made it sound so simple. Such an obvious, easy truth, when it was everything but. Or was it?

Sasuke was lost.

“He… said he was worried. He wanted to check on me.”

“That’s nice.”

He didn’t understand her at all.

“Is it?”

“Would you rather he didn’t come? You got to see him.”

“I wouldn’t have wondered. I didn’t even consider it.”

“Really? I thought about it all the time.”

She looked away, a little thrown off by her own confession, a slip she didn’t mean to let past her lips.

He never indulged in that kind of thinking. Maybe he had fantasized at times, about opening his front door just to see Naruto standing on the other side but… His friend was gone for a reason. He didn't do things by halves.

“It’s not like it was going to happen,” he said, dismissive and a tad too condescending. She frowned.

“I know.”

He winced at her hard tone. Of course she knew. The details were a little unclear, but Neji had left on worse terms with Hinata than Naruto did with them. She had told Sasuke once, “in the end, you managed to let him go.” He could only guess she didn’t.

Not that it made a difference. Or it did, because Naruto had come, after all, he had come despite it all and Sasuke didn’t know why, couldn’t make sense of it. It was unfair, it was cheating. Why did they suffer so, if they didn’t have to? If Naruto could just walk back in and out of his life so easily?

But then he doubted it was any easier to bear for Hinata, knowing that there was no chance, that this bridge had been burnt. Yet if Naruto had gone through the trouble of checking on her…

Of course, of course Naruto and Neji and all these people with them, they lead their lives, outside these walls. They had their own struggles and thoughts, their own journey, they had to deal with these feelings too. Who knew what they talked about, why they did the things they did? Who knew if Neji had known about Naruto coming, if he had been waiting outside the walls, or if he was none the wiser? These questions could quickly eat away at them. Was that why Hinata wanted to talk it out with him?

So that the thoughts wouldn’t drive her mad, turning and turning in her head with no way out?

“Do you think we’re wrong?” he asked after an awkward pause that made him want to spill his most amorphous ideas for some reason. “That we should stop?”

“I think it is irrelevant.”

“Why?”

“Because I couldn’t anyway.”

She sounded perfectly resigned to it, but she leveled him with a curious gaze.

“Could you?”

He wasn’t sure if he caught a hint of disapproval. Or envy.

“I guess I’m thinking about trying.”

Again he couldn’t tell if she was betrayed or understanding, if she approved or resented it. It shouldn’t have mattered as much as it did – so what if he wanted to at least try to protect himself from further heartbreak, try to let go of something that had brought him nothing but pain for years now?

Maybe he wouldn’t even be able to. But he could try out of sheer spite, just to show that he could, that there was more to him than just waiting and longing, than just hoping for something that was getting further and further away from his reach. Naruto could do whatever he wanted. He would be the one to do the work, if he wanted Sasuke to give him another chance. That was only fair, right?

He didn’t dare ask her. Then again, they were the same, but they really weren’t. She carried more guilt, and more responsibilities too. And there was even less she could do about it.

Sasuke wracked his brain for something he could do for her, anything to ease the burden, to lend her some support, however small.

“Do you want to meet my mother?”

Her wide eyes clued him in how weird this was out of context. He fumbled with his words, embarrassed.

“I mean… you must know she has been chosen as our next leader. She would be happy to meet with you, I’m sure.”

He thought about what this could have been as she nodded shyly, little pleased smile making her look less solemn. Thought about bringing someone home one day to meet his mother – not his father, not anymore. He would need only her approval then. If it ever came to it, if he ever needed to introduce someone to her, though it seemed silly, unrealistic.

“I would appreciate it. Thank you.”

Ah. Hinata was gone again, the leader of the Hyuuga clan was back. It was an ongoing mission between all of the friends, to try and coax her out more often. But Hinata herself was resistant to the play.

Maybe the Hyuuga clan leader didn’t suffer as much.

"We can go now if you want."

“Alright.”

After all, Sasuke needed to go home, eventually.

Chapter Text

Shikamaru didn’t react at all when Sasuke made it back to the flat one evening after three days where he more or less vanished from everyone’s sight, except the comatose patients at the hospital, but he hummed in approval as Sasuke got started on dinner. It was the least he could do he supposed, to apologize for the disappearing act. Not that it was the first time, or the last. Sometimes it was just too much to be alive around others.

But he had heard Shikamaru had been summoned to the Hokage Tower in the middle of the days, and it spelled “major mission” loud and clear. Sasuke didn’t want to be caught off guard.

They didn’t talk until dinner was all set up at the coffee table.

“Suna appointed Temari as their new Kazekage,” Shikamaru said without preamble, eyes trained on his soup.

“That’s good. That’s good?”

He supposed it was. He knew Temari through Shikamaru mostly, but that was praise enough already. Any woman who could tolerate him had already proven her strength of character, and more than that, Shikamaru seemed rather taken with her, though there was no way to make him admit to it. She was very young, but what the older shinobi would perceive as a major flaw only made her more trustworthy in Sasuke’s eyes.

“Her first decision was to call back all search parties after Gaara and the rest of the missing jinchuuriki. The second was to request Konoha’s assistance in training their medical staff.”

“She wants to stop looking?” Sasuke asked, surprised.

“She must think they have more pressing matters to deal with.”

Or maybe she had decided to let it go. For now, at least. A sharp contrast to her father, who had spared no expense to find Suna’s jinchuuriki. Including trying to use the Akatsuki to his advantage. They had seen where that lead them.

“Cool. That’s cool.”

"Yeah, I guess. Tsunade is sending Marco and Itachi as the medical staff. And me. As… liaison."

Shikamaru might have requested the assignment. A first for him. Sasuke could only imagine the surprise on Tsunade’s face, that the boy would volunteer for anything work-related.

“How long?”

"I don't know. Some, I guess, if the medics need to be trained."

“Oh.”

Maybe it would be good for Itachi to get out of the village for a while. He got along well with Marco, he would be fine. And Shikamaru wanted to spend more time with the girl, Sasuke was sure. Still…

“I told the Assignment Desk to forward a part of my salary directly into the rent while I’m gone. But…”

“Yeah, I might… I might move back home. For a while.”

After all, Sasuke had moved out largely to get away from his father. His father was as far as could be now. With Itachi gone to Suna, his mother would be alone at home, and even if she was bond to get awfully busy, it didn’t mean she wouldn’t suffer the loneliness too.

And that he wouldn’t. He didn’t like the apartment when it was empty.

“If it comes to this, Ino has expressed interest in… borrowing my room,” Shikamaru added.

“Sakura will be interested in mine too, I guess.”

It had a certain appeal, to keep the flat and lend it to their friends, if they so needed. The money wasn’t an issue, though there was no doubt the girls would want to pitch in anyway. They all spent a lot of time here, in this living room, on these couch and chairs. A haven away from their demanding families and clan responsibilities, from the conflicts with their parents and elders. Sasuke wasn’t ready to let it go.

“When are you leaving?”

“Not sure. Soon, once all the prep is done.”

“Would you…”

Sasuke hesitated. It felt weird to ask, but no one needed to know.

“You’ll keep an eye on Itachi, right? He’s not… doing so well, I think, and…”

Getting out of the village would do him good, but that didn't mean Sasuke liked it. He wanted his brother to stay close, was already getting anxious about having him so far away from his sight, out of reach. He would be powerless, if something happened to him there in Suna.

“Of course. I’ll keep you posted, yeah? You know I’ll write to you.”

It had started as a joke. The first time Shikamaru had gone to an out of the village mission after they had moved in together, he had sent Sasuke three separate letters, despite being gone less than two weeks. “So that Sasuke wouldn’t miss me too much,” he had said.

A joke that had set up a habit. If they had to be gone more than a few days, they would write. Not to say anything in particular, nothing overly long and emotional. Just… to know that they were thinking of each other. That they were coming home soon. Ino found it silly, but she complained for days if they didn’t send her anything during their travels. She seldom wrote but she brought back food and trinkets to gift them upon her return. Choji was similarly sentimental – he and Shikamaru even wrote to each other when they were both in the village, just because.

Sakura had written a lot when she was gone too, though Sasuke couldn’t often return her words, as she was on the move and often in secrecy, but he had kept each of them preciously.

He also had a stack of unsent letters in his bedroom, gathering dust for lack of a destination to be sent to. They were almost a diary at this point, he figured they could serve as a tool for catching up one day. “Here are all the things I wished you had been here to witness. Here are all the things you didn’t live with me.”

He felt the strongest urge to get rid of them all now.

He probably wouldn’t.

“As for you, take care of Asuma for me.”

“I am his doctor you know.”

“Yeah, yeah, so you keep saying.”

Their light chuckle quieted down after a few seconds and they settled in silence to eat. Sasuke could tell there was more his friend wanted to say though.

“Did something happen?” Shikamaru asked, all casual, even if he had to know the answer already.

“That’s… Yeah. I guess.”

Sasuke didn’t like to lie.

“But you won’t tell, right?”

“I don’t want to.”

Shikamaru rolled his eyes and poked at Sasuke’s cheek with his chopstick. Sasuke batted his hands away, annoyed.

“How is your mother then?” his friend asked next, indulgent enough to change the subject without pressing. Shikamaru’s concern was hard-learned, it didn’t come naturally to him. He had to make an effort to show interest, so he never pressed too much, all too happy to drop it. Still, he made the effort. It was heartwarming.

“Overworked already. That’s how it will be, from now on.”

She had been pleased to meet with Hinata, as predicted, though the encounter was brief, both busy with their own affairs. Hinata wasn’t Sasuke’s friend then, and Mikoto wasn’t Sasuke’s mother. It was jarring to see them play that game at each other, the poised clan leader, pleasant but sharp, unyielding. He had felt immature and childish by comparison. He didn’t think he could do what Hinata did.

Ah, maybe he would have had no other choice but to manage, if there was no getting out of it.

“My mother… She apologized,” he added.

Shikamaru hummed, unsurprised.

“She didn’t have to,” Sasuke went on. “She did the right thing, this is just how it had to be. Still, she said sorry. I didn’t like it.”

He hated that she felt the need to, that she felt like she had wronged him somehow.

“I guess we should just expect less from other people,” Shikamaru deadpanned, resigned.

He said that, but he meant “from our parents”.

Sasuke's father was a good clan leader. Sasuke didn't agree with his stance, but he was. He listened to others, he made his decisions after careful consideration and consultation. He had the interest of the clan in mind first, at all times.

He was also a good shinobi, a good fighter. Maybe even a good man.

A good father though…

What even was that? He wasn’t bad to Itachi or Sasuke. Not outright, not on purpose. Maybe they did expect too much. Or maybe their parents were just bad at it. What did it change? They had tried, he was sure. They would keep trying.

.

Sakura had seen Sasuke patch up horrific wounds gushing blood out, she had collected him after unending surgeries that left him on the brink of collapse but resulted in saving someone’s limb, or organ, or life. She had also seen him in countless fights, level-headed and laser-focused, always two steps ahead, planning, strategizing, keeping an eye on everything and everyone around him.

The point was, Sasuke did well under pressure and she had witnessed it firsthand many times.

So it was incredibly funny how he morphed into an incoherent mess when Kurenai’s water broke on his shoes.

Sasuke was panicking, Shikamaru was panicking as well. Asuma was faring a bit better, but not by much. Kurenai was the only one who seemed aware that the world wasn’t ending right there in the hospital lobby, which was a feat considering the pain she had to be in and the bunch of losers she was surrounded by. Sakura wasn’t that deep into her comfort zone either, but at least she had enough of a mind to call a nurse and explain the situation, when it became clear that Sasuke was going to be of little help.

The staff took over quickly – of course they were used to this. Sakura had never spared much time to think about it but babies were born every day, right? Sasuke had most certainly dealt with this before too. She could only assume it was due to knowing Kurenai so well, and probably because of Shikamaru too – these two's moods would bounce off each other like a tennis ball when they got into it.

Kurenai and Asuma were shuffled away, and they could only wait.

It was weirdly therapeutic. Sakura had spent a lot of time waiting around in these halls, and her feelings had always been vastly different than what they were now. Terror and anxiety, dreadful anticipation.

Waiting to know if her friends and teammates would make it, when, how.

Nothing today but thrumming excitement, nervous energy that could go nowhere but echoing among her friends. There was nothing they could do and they didn’t have to be there but…

Kurenai was having a child. A new human, breathing and alive, that wasn't there before but would be from now on. It was so weird, a bit surreal. Sakura had been around babies before, but it was hitting different now.

Maybe because it was the first child of a shinobi she saw the birth of. Somehow, she had assumed this wasn’t something for them to have.

One of the nurses, a nice one who always pestered Sasuke about eating his meals on time, was kind enough to come to find them to tell them the baby was fine and Kurenai was fine too. It was a girl, but they weren’t sure about the name yet, and no, there would be no visit in the next few hours, there was no point lingering so if they would please fuck off of her service and free the space…

She allowed them one sneak-peek, just so that they could wave at a drowsy Kurenai from the doorframe and get a glimpse at the baby. They all reconvened to Shikamaru and Sasuke's place since it felt weird to just go their separate ways when…

Kurenai and Asuma had a baby. Healthy but so very small. Sakura had a hard time conceiving anyone ever being so small.

“They made that,” Ino whispered before taking another sip of her drink. They all nodded, a bit dazed.

Sakura could barely fathom it. An entirely new person, brought into the world just like that. She had never given much thought to having children, it didn't sound very appealing to her, especially the hard process of going through pregnancy or giving birth. It seemed such a strange, foreign idea, something for other people, something that didn't concern them at all. This wasn't their life.

Yet Kurenai was a shinobi too, a good one. Sakura liked and respected her, she was well-liked and well-respected in general, by everyone. She was a good fighter, a good teacher.

And now she would have to be a good parent, Sakura supposed. Asuma too. Kurenai maybe wouldn’t even stop being a shinobi, like so many women did. Asuma wouldn’t go back to active duty, he would never take on a mission again. She wondered if he could content himself with that. Either way, they had a child.

They ate together, discussing the baby, the family, the future. Most of them were quite confused over the prospect, some more than others. Some clearly against it, others not so sure. Being in love seemed hard enough already.

And that was without accounting for the fact that Sakura had only ever kissed girls and she didn’t really see that changing any time soon.

“What about you, Sasuke?” Ino asked loudly, for the boy was lost in thought and far out of the conversation for several minutes now. He blinked back into the present, a little confused.

“What about me?”

“You know. Love, marriage, kids. All that.”

If anything his confusion only increased. He shrugged.

“I don’t know. I never really thought about it.”

Sakura didn’t doubt that.

She had this theory. She had it for a while now, years really, but she had never broached the subject with him because… It seemed silly, before. And now, downright cruel.

Sasuke had never expressed interest in anyone, girl or boy, had never returned any advance, confessed to any crush. She had seen him blush a little at a cute boy or two, but it didn't seem to prompt anything in him. It could have been that it simply wasn't something he would ever be interested in. But Sakura had this theory.

There was one boy Sasuke would always look at. Always run to. When they were kids, she would be jealous of it at times. Not even because she wished for his attention. It just felt like Naruto would always come first, and Sasuke didn’t seem to be even aware of it.

She had never brought it up then, and there was no way she would now. There only laid heartbreak – not that Sasuke had not been heartbroken already. He didn’t like her being angry with Naruto, so she kept that to herself too. In the long list of Naruto’s fault, the pain Sasuke had gone and would still go through because of him was at the very top. At the end of the day, Sakura could go on, if they lost him. But Sasuke? She didn’t think he could ever let go. She resented Naruto for being unaware of his power. Surely he would have been more gentle with it, if he knew.

“Can you imagine us with kids?” Ino said, split between disgust and envy. Sakura couldn’t, not really. Her mother would say “it will come, you’ll see”.

She wasn’t in a hurry.

.

“I’ll be leaving for Kiri soon,” Tsunade said as soon as Sasuke and Sakura arrived at her office. “Terumi Mei has been extending invitations for a while now. She is open to some alliance. We can’t pass it up.”

She was summoning teams and active shinobi one after the others – Shikamaru to Suna, a part of the Yamanaka clan and Anko’s team gathering intelligence. Things were moving fast.

If she was telling them, she had already settled it with her commandment. It couldn't have been easy. With… Fugaku's death, they had rethought the priorities of their missions, to limit outside ventures that weren't essential or couldn't be staffed properly.

“Is that wise?” Sakura asked, voicing Sasuke’s doubts.

“Maybe not. But the situation is not dire enough that we have to retreat behind our walls just yet. If we are lending support and resources, I want to follow through in person.”

“Okay.”

They shifted on their feet, uncomfortable. These kinds of political considerations were still high above their heads, it wasn’t like their opinion would be heard on the matter.

“You’ve been shadowing me for a while, Sasuke. I want you to come this time too,” Tsunade said. Sasuke flushed lightly, pleased.

“That would be an honor. Thank you.”

“What about me?”

“I thought you would be up for it, Sakura. You’ve been asking for more outside missions. Besides, Jiraiya will join us in Kiri. And…”

Tsunade looked between the two of them, strangely hesitant.

“I don’t know. I figured you’d be happy to go together? So that you wouldn’t get lonely or something.”

They both gaped at her with matching confusion and embarrassment. Was she… trying to be nice? They weren’t kids though. They didn’t need to… what, bring a friend, like a family vacation? This was mortifying.

“Is there a problem?”

He couldn’t tell if she was genuinely unaware, or had caught onto the awkward vibes but refused to acknowledge it. She was good at shutting down comments just by implying there should be none to make. He hated when she did that.

“No problem,” Sakura said, a bit dumbfounded. “Thank you for this opportunity, Hokage-sama.”

“Yeah, yeah. We’ll leave in a few days. The Inuzuka are coming, and Anko’s team is there already. Anyway. Be ready. You’re dismissed.”

They bowed awkwardly and found themselves back in front of the Hokage Tower, slightly off-settled by the whole affair.

“That was…” Sakura tried.

“Yeah.”

“Is she bringing me as your travel companion?”

Sasuke winced. That sounded a lot like that.

“I’m sorry. She means well. I think.”

He feared she would take offense, get upset. But to his surprise, Sakura only laughed.

“Oh, it’s fine by me! I did want to get out of the village a bit. Being friends with you is finally paying off!”

“Don’t say that!”

“Come on, it’s true! You’re totally her favorite. I’m gonna start currying favors to you, be warned.”

“Stop it, stop!”

She laughed again, relishing in his embarrassment.

“It’s gonna be cool. You’ve never been to Kiri, right?”

“You have?”

“Hm, with Jiraiya. We passed there a few times, though we were never super welcome, so we didn’t linger. They have trees and plants growing everywhere, even worse than here! Some buildings are actually built around trees, or in them. I don’t know, I liked it there, despite the lack of hospitality.”

She was rambling, happy to be on the road again soon. It wasn’t even about Naruto, or not only. Traveling was a way of collecting information and trying to catch his trail, but she had acquired a genuine taste for it.

Whereas Sasuke…

“What is it?”

He jumped, realizing that she had stopped in front of the okonomiyaki restaurant, and stopped talking too. She looked at him pointedly, making it clear he wouldn’t get away without spilling. He didn’t even try to say it was nothing.

“Well… The last few times I traveled out, it… didn’t go too well.”

That was an understatement if he ever said one.

He didn’t particularly like it, even when it went well. He didn’t like having to bother with where to eat and sleep, with unfamiliar places and people. He liked his life in the village, his work, his friends, his dumb bed. He didn’t feel safe outside, remained restless and on edge because they couldn’t relax out there, they couldn’t just take a break from it all, like he so often needed to.

“You still have to go though. It… goes with the job, you know.”

She remained terrible at comforting him – she was pretty much telling him to suck it up because it wasn’t like he would be able to avoid it anyway. Now, but especially later. If he took Tsunade’s place.

It was her way of being thoughtful though. At any rate, she was right.

“Besides, it doesn’t have to go wrong, you know. I’m sure it’ll be fine.”

Somehow she didn’t sound very convinced.

.

“Is it a good idea to leave the village?” Jiraiya asked. It was the fifth time that day. Not that he asked, but that someone did – Shikaku, twice, Tsume, Shizune, thrice… ah, make it six then. Tsunade sighed but didn’t look away from the landscape she had been lost in for the last few minutes.

The Hokage monument was in the Tower’s back, so she couldn’t see it when she was in her office. It was for the best – especially now that her face was carved up there too, she would have gone crazy having to watch it every day.

Instead, she gazed at the village, laid at the Tower’s feet. They had built more and more buildings over the years and soon they would have to think about going beyond the walls, or up the cliffs.

That was, if they remained at peace. The population was growing now, but there was no guarantee it would last.

“One of us has to,” she said after a long enough silence that she guessed her friend was expecting a real answer.

One of the Kage needed to make the trip, if only for the gesture. It wasn't by staying barricaded behind their high walls that they would get anything done by way of rallying forces and getting something done about a bunch of assholes that were managing to wreak havoc across the countries unstopped and unchallenged. It was honestly mortifying – no matter how strong they were, the Akatsuki was, what, twenty people and a shady network? The horror.

But they were all happily burying their head in the sand and looking the other way, convincing themselves that someone else would deal with a problem that didn’t really concern them anyway.

It was Suna’s problem if they had their Kage aced off in the quest for their jinchuuriki, right?

And now it was Konoha’s problem if one of its clan leaders and strongest shinobi had been killed. Just like it would Kumo’s or Kiri's problem when they faced a large-scale attack in the quest for their jinchuuriki, and then…

This was ridiculous. They had more than enough resources, between all of them, to deal with this threat. But it was more pleasant talking to a wall than trying to deal with the other Kage – at least the wall wasn’t capable of condescension.

Terumi Mei was another matter. She was more reasonable, and most importantly, more vulnerable – both her village and her position in it. So she was more agreeable to an alliance, recognizing she didn’t have much of a choice, if she wanted to survive and protect her people.

Ah, and well, Mei was a woman. That put her leagues above their other counterparts. Suna’s new Kazekage was barely a woman, with how young she was, but there was hope there too.

"Be careful then," Jiraiya added, quite lame. At least he wasn't going to try and talk her out of it like the others had. She didn't want to fall into the trap of thinking herself above needing the opinions and advice of anyone, but they seemed to forget she wasn't actually a teenager playing at the big boss here. She was twice older than most of them, and not yet senile. She wasn't acting rashly.

“Why won’t you come with us?”

“I need to go to Ame first.”

She spun around to look at him this time, as this was news to her, and strange news at that.

“Why?”

“There have been strange rumors coming from Rain country, but it’s as if no one ever comes out of it, or goes in for that matter.”

“Hanzo won’t meet you so easily.”

“I won’t meet him. I won’t let him know I’m here. He is busy handling a civil war, from what I gathered. He’ll have more pressing matters to deal with than me."

It made sense not to bother with the politics of it if all he wanted was to gather information. They both knew it was more than that though.

They both remembered Hanzo clearly. It would always remain fresh and unaltered in their mind – the burning humiliation of defeat, the genuine fear for their lives as he so easily dominated them. They had changed since then, and the man was old. Still, Tsunade would rather never meet with him again.

She would rather never set foot to Ame again, period. Though she had an idea why Jiraiya would.

“Do you think they’re even alive? If they are, they could have left.”

He faked surprise at first, as if he could convince her he didn’t know who she was talking about. He dropped it quickly enough at her disabused expression.

“I’m sure I would have heard about them if they had. They would have made a name for themselves.”

Ame’s closed borders and mysterious activities were the only reasons he could cling to the hope that the three kids he had randomly decided to take under his wings and train, all those years ago, would have made it after he was gone. She had been so angry at him then, that he would still do what he wanted regardless of the consequences even in these circumstances, even in the aftermath of a devastating and frankly pointless war that had left them weakened and vulnerable. They were needed back at home, and here he was, claiming he would stay to babysit orphan kids that had next to no chance of making it to the next week.

She understood now that it was his way of coping. That if he could help them, he could make sense of his own involvement, he could forgive himself maybe. She had thrown herself into her medicine study and her relentless and ultimately pointless quest to improve Konoha’s hospital, and Orochimaru had disappeared into his research. All of them, they were trying to do something good, something meaningful. All of them, they were trying to get redeemed.

They had failed, obviously. Nothing could absolve them of their crimes. Maybe that was why it had turned so awfully for them. Maybe it was retribution.

“Be careful then,” she echoed. “And meet us back in Kiri. We will need you there.”

I will need you there, she meant, though she knew it would work against her, again. Jiraiya couldn’t help her, couldn’t support her. He was still trying to make amend, still chasing his mistakes. The future didn’t exist for him, it wasn’t something that needed tending to. If I fix this, if I fix that… and then before they knew it twelve years had passed and he hadn’t been home once. She was sure his link to Naruto was something on his list as well, that he would get to at some point.

He didn’t get that most people weren’t waiting around for him to fix what he had messed up or simply left unattended. People got by, they moved on. These kids, if they were alive, would they even want to see him?

Ah, she was too indulgent anyway. He would do whatever he wanted. As long he came back.

.

They received the news deep into the preparation for the trip to Kiri.

Sasuke was in the Hokage office, sorting through dull paperwork while Tsunade made origami animals out of some of the correspondence with Kumo and Iwa. He should have said something, but he understood the sentiment, and some of the exchanges clearly didn’t need to be archived for posterity.

Yamanaka Inoichi brought the message himself, which already spoke of its importance. Ino was trailing behind him and it was the look she threw at Sasuke that finished convincing him that he should pay attention, even if his stomach was churning.

Short as the missive was, Tsunade stayed focused on it for a long time, exchanging loaded gazes with Inoichi. Shikaku arrived at that moment, no doubt warned by his friend. A little out of breath.

Suddenly, Sasuke wasn’t sure he wanted to know.

“What is it?” Shikaku asked. “What happened?”

“We received an urgent message from Anko’s team,” Inoichi answered, gesturing at the paper crumpling more and more under Tsunade’s tense grip.

“There was an attack, in Kiri,” she said, words careful and dispassionate. “They suffered a few casualties, some buildings were destroyed. Uchiha Izumi was hurt.”

“The Akatsuki?”

Inoichi’s expression tightened some more. Tsunade glanced at Sasuke, only briefly, but enough to be caught, enough that he understood at once what she was going to say next.

“The jinchuuriki.”

.

The mist fell before they made it to Kirigakure. Thick, opaque, intimidating in that it seemed almost physical, like they were going to be rejected by it, like it could suffocate them if they marched on. They didn’t have much of a choice though, and one of Tsume’s dogs came back from reconnaissance assuring it was safe.

Shikamaru longed for the sun already, hated the cold press of the mist against his skin. It turned out it wasn't just due to shitty weather though, as they were intercepted just a few minutes into the fog by two ninjas from Kiri.

“Who are you, and what is your purpose here?” the older one demanded, though he wasn’t that old. A few years older than Shikamaru maybe, and trying hard to look stern. The girl by his side had a similar face – a sister probably, and probably a genin. She was half hiding behind his back.

“We are from Konoha,” Tsunade said, though her headband was a big enough clue. “We have come to help.”

The surprise on their face was both comical and slightly offending, as the boy eyed their party with a suspicious glare. They had rearranged the teams hastily – the one ready to leave for Suna was tasked to follow Tsunade to Kiri instead. Some of the original delegations were still coming – the Inuzuka family, some chunin, while the rest had to stay in Konoha. Namely, Sasuke and Sakura.

Tsunade had been inflexible. They would not come to Kiri with her. Sasuke was to finish the preparation they were supposed to do, and would join her later, upon the original schedule. It was the first time Shikamaru truly thought Sasuke could fight her on one of her decisions. But in the end, he was the one to talk Sakura down from arguing.

She had looked so betrayed, that he would pass up a chance to cross paths with their missing friend. But above all Sasuke wanted to avoid fighting him again. And meeting him? Maybe that too. Sasuke was tight-lipped over what was bothering him lately, besides the obvious, but there was a clear shift in his position regarding Naruto and his whereabouts.

The shift being that Sasuke had decided it no longer concerned him.

He was going to have a fun time explaining that one to Sakura.

Shikamaru didn’t regret missing that. He did regret having to go so soon after the birth of Kurenai and Asuma’s child, but what could he miss in a few weeks? Babies didn’t grow up that fast, did they?

“That’s… I need to… report this”, the Kiri nin said, fumbling. “Wait a moment please. Don’t move!”

They were lucky Tsunade was in a forgiving mood, as she didn’t take offense at their treatment of her. Chances were they didn’t even recognize her – it would come back to haunt them later.

Shikamaru waited for one of them to vanish back to their commandment to get the information and receive orders, but instead the girl signed something into the air. Ah, not the air – the mist, flowing and swirling around her finger. She closed her hand in a seal – the message dispersed.

It had to be how they had been detected so quickly too – this mist was nothing natural.

Just a moment later it contorted again in a complicated series of signs they couldn’t decipher – a secret code no doubt, to keep their communication under wrap.

“Do you have any medic-nin?” the boy asked, losing his nervousness by the minute. Tsunade nodded, pointing at Itachi and Marco behind her. “Then please follow my sister. We are in dire need. As for the others… The situation has settled down now, but Mizukage-sama said that any help was welcome. She also said that the blonde woman with huge…”

He abruptly cut himself off as he couldn’t help looking down, briefly, at the most obvious “huge” thing Tsunade had. She raised an eyebrow at him. The boy seemed close to fainting.

“She- she is expecting you. I’ll lead you to her.”

“Thank you.”

The two medics cut away from the group to follow the younger girl. They didn't look back, didn't ask for any further information. This was where they would be used best after all.

And Itachi must have been anxious to see Izumi. Shikamaru almost followed – he had promised he would keep an eye on him. But he had his own duty to fulfill, and the message assured Izumi was fine. She would be the one to comfort her friend, he was sure.

“How many attackers?” Tsume asked as they ran through the dense forest, that was opening up more and more as buildings started to appear around them, scattered among and up in the trees.

“Six.”

“Six?”

The Kiri nin glared at Kiba and his incredulous tone, but could he be blamed? Six, against a whole village?

Then again, it had only taken two, in Suna.

“They’re gone now,” the boy said through greeted teeth as they reached a more densely built area of the village.

The mist prevented them from seeing anything and set him on edge. It was as suffocating and neve-wreaking as being trapped in a space too small, with how little they could see, with how it filled all the air around them. It was its advantage too, he supposed. The enemy would have a harder time coordinating this way. But wouldn’t the Kiri nin struggle as well? Maybe they had contingencies for this type of situation, or it wouldn’t make for a very effective strategic tool.

There was a low crash followed by rising screams, the ground shaking under their feet. The ominous cracking and rumbling of a building collapse.

“Tsume!” Tsunade called. She didn’t need to say more. The woman gestured to Kiba and Hana, and they cut away from the group to lend assistance.

The rest of the party followed the Kiri nin to the imposing building at the center of the village Shikamaru assumed to be the administration and Kage’s headquarter.

They found the Mizukage up there on the tower. She was watching over the village – no, she couldn’t see a thing with that mist, could she?

She could. Because the mist was hers. The messages were hers too, though the jounin around her were receiving and sending them as well. Updates from all over the village, if Shikamaru had to guess. A quick and efficient way of communicating across Kiri.

“We didn’t find any traps or seals left behind,” a man announced by the woman’s side. "But the prison is still not secured. There is some… resistance."

She nodded but didn’t break concentration over the jutsu she was maintaining.

That mist had to be all-consuming.

“Mizukage-sama. I brought the people from Konoha to you.”

“You’ll have to forgive me, Tsunade, my dear. I’m rather busy and can’t welcome you properly to my village right now.”

She was grinning, feral, as sweat rolled on her forehead and down her neck, the strain of maintaining the mist taking its toll.

“Tangetsu, I hope you treated the Godaime Hokage of Konoha with the respect she deserved,” she said to the boy that had accompanied them. His face blanched, as white as his hair with horror as he understood what she was saying. At a loss on how to make up for his blunder, he chose to vanish in a shunshin, probably deciding that he was better off lifting concrete right then.

Served him right.

“Six of them, huh?”

“Six came. Eight left.”

“Who?”

“What do you think? The Rokubi and the Sanbi are gone.”

The Tailed-Beasts of Kiri. It was kind of a huge deal for the woman to admit so openly that they did, in fact, possess the two Biju, as Kiri had always denied having stolen the Sanbi from Uzushio.

Shikamaru had made his research. Sasuke was adamant. Sakura had grilled Jiraiya about it often enough too.

This confirmed so much already. Why the jinchuuriki had come. That Kiri had retained hold of two of them after all, not one. And that they had failed to stop them.

“How did they find them?”

“Do you think I’m going to tell you?”

Tsunade frowned, displeased. The other woman laughed.

“Relax, no need to make that face. I can’t tell you because I don’t know. That little shit of Utakata does what he wants, for all I know he’s the one who invited them here. As for the Sanbi, I never knew. Whoever had a hold on them must not like me very much. They never made a move to return them to me. And they are still causing trouble now.”

Shikamaru was impressed by her calm and detachment. It was partly faked no doubt, but that was still jarring. They could hear the screams from there, to lift some rubbish, to free the ones trapped under. They could hear their screams too.

A man with blue hair appeared by her side, gave a brief nod. With a sigh, she let her arms fall. The jutsu faded. The mist was less dense already.

“Sorry, it seems like you hurried here for nothing, and that today won’t be the day I impress you with my skills. The situation is under control. Make yourself useful tending to the wounded.”

“Is that an order, Mizukage-sama?” Tsunade asked.

Inexplicably, they seemed to be enjoying this.

“You wanted us to be allies, didn’t you?” the Mizukage shot back. But then as she read another message above Tsunade’s shoulders, code dancing in the mist before dissipating, her lips tightened and she was more serious than she had been since their arrival when she added, “please.”

“You’re going to owe me,” Tsunade said casually, as if this was no big deal.

Shikamaru thought she wouldn’t want them to get involved too much. It would be the smart thing to do – to observe for now, not to put too much in. But now that they were here, it was obvious she didn’t intend to hold back.

Shikamaru understood what Sasuke saw in her, why he had such a high opinion of her and her commandment.

He decided to go make himself useful at the hospital. With how much he hung out with Sasuke while he studied and worked, he had picked up a few things. Plus Sasuke insisted they all be as knowledgeable as possible, just in case.

Most of the wounded had not even been in a fight – rather, they had been injured by the collapse of one building or another, as the intruders made their escape. Among the shinobi, a few had died, though the Mizukage had been strangely hesitant to say how much. Not as in she didn’t want to, but as in she wasn't sure. Which was weird, as it shouldn't have been hard to account for the shinobi on duty and missing.

Unless some were not where they were supposed to be.

He was speculating, but the woman had admitted openly that she wasn’t aware of the location of the second jinchuuriki up until now. Shikamaru doubted it was a lie. Both were lost to the village now, she had better be straightforward.

Shikamaru wandered the hall of the main building, hastily turned into an emergency room. Despite himself, he looked for Itachi among the crowd.

His instinct was right. It was weird to know the man so well when he had interacted with him so little.

Sasuke worried about his brother a lot.

Shikamaru found him on his knees by a cot where Uchiha Izumi was sitting, looking a little worth for wear but healthy enough. She was holding Itachi’s head as he rested his forehead on her lap. He was breathing heavily, most likely coming down from a fit of panic.

“I’m fine,” she kept saying. “I’m fine.”

She was trying to calm him down, and Shikamaru wasn’t sure from what high. The man’s hands were tightly closed on the sheets, he was tensed as a bowstring, ready to snap. There was a wisp of urgency in the girl’s soothing voice.

She managed, eventually. He uncoiled just a bit, he let go of the tormented sheets. Marco appeared by his side, face half-hidden by his hair as usual, expression inscrutable.

“Itachi,” he said, toneless.

Itachi got whatever it meant though – he got up and followed the other medic-nin without another word, back to their duty, as they were sorely needed. Izumi watched them got with a troubled expression, and Shikamaru waited for her to compose herself a little before he approached her.

"All good?" he asked, a little lame. He never knew how to address women, especially ones who were older, higher-ranked and stronger than him. He knew Izumi both as Sasuke's protective almost-sister and the strict chunin instructor that kicked his ass during missions if he didn’t give it his all. Sometimes he was convinced she hated him, despite Sasuke assuring him it was all in his head.

“I’ve had worse. I’m just sore.”

He doubted being "just sore" would have warranted the large bandages compressing her torso and shoulder. He kept that observation to himself though.

“Can you tell me what happened?”

“Are you sending your report to Sasuke as soon as I’m done?”

She sounded playful but a little weary too. He elected not to lie.

“Yeah. He asked. It’s better than him being here.”

“Can’t imagine that going well.”

That bad, huh?

“What happened?”

"Not sure. It was pretty chaotic. Some alarms went off early this morning, signaling intruders. The whole village went on high alert but nothing happened at first. And then one of their building just blew up. Straight up blown from within, it's a pile of rubbish now. It was supposedly some boring archive storage, but Anko thinks it was actually a secret prison of some kind."

“Did you see Naruto?”

She grabbed at her injured shoulder, expression sour.

“I did.”

“He did this to you?”

“I don’t think he recognized me. Or anyone. He was… He was enraged. Oozing chakra everywhere, and his friends were no better. They wreaked havoc from there to the village’s edge, with not much resistance. They made quite the mess.”

There were a lot of civilians around them. The jinchuuriki might not have targeted people, but they had done a lot of damage in their escape. Was it on purpose? It would have been smarter and easier to leave in secret, as they had come, so why…

“They left with a child,” Izumi said, as if hearing the questions swirling in his head.

“What child?”

“I don’t know. The Kiri nin said they didn’t know either. I can take a guess though.”

“As for the Sanbi, I never knew.”

Was it the truth? Could it be that the Sanbi was kept right in the heart of the village, and the Mizukage never knew?

Unwittingly, Shikamaru thought of the cage. Sasuke had snuck down the administrative prison one day, determined to make sense of some of Naruto’s cryptic words. Naruto had disappeared for days back then. If the village had wanted it, wouldn’t they have been able to keep him hidden for good? The Hokage knew then, but what about Sai, and Shino’s cousin, and all the ones rescued from the Root after Danzo’s arrest?

“How old?”

She bit her lip, looked down. He thought she was hesitating or embarrassed, but it was anger that tensed her shoulders, tightened her fists.

“I’d say around eight years old.”

That would do it.

They could have left undetected. Even in plain sight, who could have stopped then? But maybe they didn’t want to go quietly. Or couldn’t.

“How many casualties here?”

“About thirty. Shinobi and civilians alike, crushed under some walls. Some fights also broke out between Kiri nin. The ones guarding the prison, the prisoners freed in the chaos… All in all, it was a mess.”

That was really bad. For these people and their families, for future diplomacy, for the status of the jinchuuriki, for everyone.

All Shikamaru could think about was how he was going to tell that to Sasuke.

.

They skipped the official report. There was no point fighting for the higher-ups to include at least one of them in the meeting, when they could rely on Shikamaru’s own retelling of the situation in Kiri. The message got to Ino first – she was the one to receive underhand communication when the need arose.

She insisted on reading it aloud. Sasuke fought hard against himself not to rip it out of her hands. He forced himself to settle at Sakura's feet as she sat on his couch. He rested his head against her legs, she laid a heavy hand in his hair. They couldn't prepare much more for the upcoming news.

Shikamaru was concise and factual. He wrote about the events as he understood them, the timing, the grey areas, the hearsay. It painted a clear enough picture.

The jinchuuriki had come, maybe seeking one of them out. They had left with two and with destruction in their wake. More than thirty deaths, a few buildings toppled.

The villages enraged.

Shikamaru’s letter concluded on news from Kumo, who had fended off an attempt from the Akatsuki to take away their last jinchuuriki at the same time. The Raikage was calling for a summit. “To deal with both threats once and for all”.

Sasuke closed his eyes, though it did nothing to help escape his friends’ commentary and speculations. What would the villages decide? Which one would they want to tackle first?

Was Naruto a wanted criminal now, in addition to a wanted receptacle?

They had kept quiet and discreet for two and half years. Even their rescue of Gaara, even their mingling in the fight against Hidan and Kakuzu were quick strikes, out of necessity. But this? This was the rage the villages should have feared from the start. The one Sasuke had hoped they wouldn't let loose, because it would bring retaliation now. It would bring war.

It wasn’t unexpected. Was maybe inevitable even. Naruto didn’t do things by halves. He had made his goal clear.

Did it have to go this way though?

Did he have to kill?

Sasuke couldn’t even tell if he was mad on behalf of those people, or simply because it was such a poor move on Naruto’s part, it made things so much harder. Was it terrible of him to think this way? He didn’t want Naruto to be a killer. Did he care about those killed though?

Naruto had asked more than once, why they cared so much about their own people’s lives when they were so dismissive of outsiders’. Wasn’t he the same though? For the sake of his own, he had gone that far.

Far enough that the villages would have no choice but to react instead of ignoring it all and keeping their head buried in the sand as they had until now. Too far, maybe, to come back from it.

Was that how it ended?

“A small party is to join the Godaime on the way to the Land of Iron and the summit. Sasuke, Sakura, you’ll go to her,” Ino concluded before rolling back the scroll.

So be it. So be it.

Chapter Text

Gaara woke up slowly from a few hours of peaceful sleep. It never failed to amaze him, even after all these years.

He still remembered the first time, when he had been back to the golden cage of his room in the Kazekage’s residence, after the Konoha chunin exam that had reset the course of his life. He had spent the trip back in complete silence – not that anyone had tried to ask him anything, though Temari had looked like she wanted to, at times. All his life, she had looked like this, on the verge of saying something but never daring to.

Back in his room, he had been restless and terrified, to go back to this life after knowing another, to waste away in this room when Naruto was out there, suffering his own misfortunes that Gaara couldn’t alleviate no matter how hard he wished to. That had been a new feeling as well, to care for another, to hope they would be happy and safe.

He remembered laying down for a few minutes of rest, as he had trained himself to do ever since he had understood that sleeping meant surrendering his body to the beast.

He remembered waking up to a different light in the room, to a different time of the day. The panic, the terror, and then the awestruck disbelief. Nothing had happened. He had slept at will, and nothing had happened.

He had slept an awful lot in the next few years. It helped pass the time, dull the pain, fight the loneliness. He had slept, waiting.

Now he slept closer to what would be considered a “normal amount”, although the others often joked about his sleeping habits, erratic at best. He had been trying to stick to a more reasonable schedule though, as Neji kept strict hours that weren’t to be disturbed.

And Gaara liked to sleep with him.

He liked to hear the steady breath of the other boy nearby, feel the warmth of his skin. They wouldn't touch, wouldn't even lay that close, but so little a space was a minor revolution already, for Gaara who had been destined to live this life bare of contact, warmth, love.

Here and now, he had plenty of all. It was still hard to believe sometimes.

The sky was barely greying above the forest surrounding the temple – dawn was still a few hours away, and thus Neji’s return to the living world would wait as well. As much as he enjoyed sleeping, Gaara had yet to understand the appeal of lounging around in bed once awake, as Karin or Naruto were prone to do. He got up swiftly and exited the bedroom without a sound.

He wasn't the only one to keep weird hours at the temple, and so he often crossed paths with one resident or another no matter the time. Some stayed up very late, some woke up very early. Some seldom slept at all, old habits hard to shake off despite being safe enough here, under the protection of the foxes and their strange fondness for Naruto’s allegiance, and their appetite for his chakra.

He found Yugito meditating on the porch outside and settled quietly by her side. This was the bulk of their relationship – sharing the silence of the earliest hours of the day. Neither of them cared much for talking, and the others did more than enough for them. The reprieve was welcome. Gaara was still unused to living with others. In the more domestic sense of the word, as he had never truly lived alone either but… ah. These were times better left unthought of.

He slipped easily into a meditative state, into the vast expanse of desert that inhabited his mind. It was rare to run into the Ichibi these days. She had let go of some of her anger regarding Naruto's tampering with their seal, but she still wouldn't talk to him often. The years he had spent locked up in Suna, he had been resentful in turn, as she had punished him by deserting his mind entirely, in a time when he was going mad with loneliness. She suffered it too though, he knew, and so when Naruto had found them again, when they had been able to rejoin within themselves and let the beasts to their own world, she had settled down, had come back to him. An unspoken relief – he had missed her in his life, despite everything. In all the torments she had inflicted him, she had been the one he knew best, the one he spoke to the most, the one he could rely on to be there, if only for his suffering.

He couldn’t say the same for anyone else in his life, before he had met Naruto.

So she roamed the desert. Or the forest or the swamp – this landscape was ever-changing, suited to each according to their preferences. To Gaara, of course, the endless plains of the desert, swept with wind and stifling with heat. He missed the heat dearly.

He caught Yugito’s presence at the edge of his consciousness. She was conversing with the Nibi – she got along well with the prickly cat. Their relationship was confusing, to say the least, but then again, she was older than he was, and she had not been raised the same. They each had their history.

The others were only a suggestion in his mind, mostly asleep as their host were. It was reassuring still to feel them close, to know they could be reached easily. This relief was Shukaku’s, not his, as much as she would deny it. They grew stronger and calmer too, the closer they were to each other. The Kyubi and Nanabi, and now the Hanbi and the Gobi too, and…

And there, another.

Shukaku was by his side in an instant. She was the sand of the desert, she was this whole place at once. She couldn’t touch him though, not anymore. The bars were there, though they couldn’t see them, changing and swirling like the sand in the wind. She could no longer invade his mind.

She didn’t have to, for him to hear her.

“Three.”

There at the edge of the desert, where the landscape blurred into a humid forest, there stood a child. Younger than ten, pale but smiling at nothing in particular – they didn’t seem to notice Gaara and Shukaku watching them as they talked to themselves, carefree. That was one second – the next, the child was replaced by a young man with violet eyes, face cut in half by a vertical scar. He stared at Gaara, eyes hard but pleading.

Then it was a girl with purple marks on her face, a messy bob cut and a distressed expression.

“Help us.”

The child kept on playing. The man and the girl kept on begging. Above the forest loomed the massive shadow of a three-tailed turtle.

“Help us.”

The next moment, they were gone.

.

“Did you recognize anything?” Yugito asked Gaara. She was the first to break the stunned silence that had followed his retelling of the night’s event, what he had seen during his meditation. Yugito, always the pragmatic one, was already thinking about what to make of it.

“I believe it was the forest of Kiri.”

“It would make sense,” Karin said. “If the Sanbi is hidden anywhere, it’s there.”

"But why didn't it manifest while we were there then?" Suigetsu asked, already anticipating that they would need to go back. The first time had been hard enough on him. Not because he didn't want to go back, but because he did, and couldn't. He had no way to know how he would be received. He longed for his homeplace despite how terribly it had treated him and his own.

Naruto could relate.

“Maybe they couldn’t. But I felt them there,” Gaara said, looking upset, regretful.

“Utakata didn’t know anything about it either, so they must have been hidden well,” Suigetsu added, clumsily trying to make Gaara feel better. Naruto could also feel his distress – Gaara had sensed their fellow jinchuuriki’s presence in Kiri, but he had failed to pinpoint them properly, and they had left unknowing.

Naruto moved to take his hand, squeezed twice. There was nothing to feel guilty for. They did what they could.

“The man you saw, did he look like this?”

Suigetsu held up a rather well-done drawing of a face with a scar and an asymmetrical haircut, sketched hastily on the back of a seal. Gaara nodded.

“That’s the previous host of the Sanbi. He’s been dead for years though.”

“Isn’t that the Fourth Mizukage?” Roshi asked, distaste obvious in his voice. Suigetsu shrugged, holding back a retort. He was prickly about anything concerning his village, defending it fiercely despite its shortcomings.

“So the girl and the child must be hosts as well,” Yugito cut in to close the subject. “Maybe they’re dead too. We don’t even know if the Sanbi is sealed in now.”

They had disappeared with the death of the previous Mizukage, but everyone assumed Kiri had kept the Sanbi in secret within its walls.

“It would be awfully risky to go to Kiri now,” Roshi pointed out, though his tone wasn’t exactly disapproving. How could it be? It wasn’t as if they had a choice.

“You can’t get caught,” Karin said gravely. They were used to her being the voice of doom, but she repeated, somber, “you can’t get caught.”

Had it been up to her, they wouldn’t have gone at all. The villages would be enraged enough if they brought yet another jinchuuriki into their ranks. They wouldn't stay idle much longer, and they wouldn't be kind to the ones they got their hands on.

On the horizon loomed the threat of an alliance between the hidden villages and the Akatsuki. Suna would never, after what happened to the Fourth Kazekage, but the others? Kumo, Kiri? What wouldn’t they do to stop the jinchuuriki and bring them back under their thumb?

“I will try to reach them again,” Gaara assured with sharp determination. He was agitated, restless.

They were always close. Three and One.

There was some measure of envy in the Kyuubi’s tone.

I am not envious.

“Shukaku said she might be able to find them.”

It was always strange to hear Gaara refer to his Biju by her name.

Who’s envious now?

They made plans. Yugito would go in Gaara’s stead, as it was too risky for him to go back to Kiri where he might have been spotted already. Naruto had to take them, Karin didn’t let him go out alone these days, Suigetsu’s help would be needed, and loathe that they were to bring out a third jinchuuriki, they decided they needed the extra hand. Han offered, surprisingly, and to his friend’s clear distaste. They would leave the next day.

Naruto followed Gaara out of the temple and down the river when the group broke apart and went back to their various occupations. Karin eyed him with clear warning as he stepped out – he would be needed in the kitchen for dinner duty soon. He gave her a nod to placate her suspicions before stepping out.

He sat down next to his friend on the riverbank. They stared at the running water in silence for a moment. The river always captivated Gaara’s attention, so different that it was from what he had known all his life. Though it reminded it of home too, he said, of intricate fountains and pools in indoor patios, of the complex irrigation system that kept Suna’s meager agriculture running.

They could find the home they missed everywhere, he supposed.

“The girl was in despair. And the child was very young,” Gaara said after a moment. He had mentioned it only briefly, but they had all taken careful note of the fact. Though it was strange that it affected them so – after all, they had all been young too, once. They didn’t even know if there was a host. One that was still alive.

“We’ll get them out.”

“We won’t be able to free them though.”

Naruto didn’t pretend that they would. And it wasn’t that they couldn’t – Karin and he had been looking into the seals, among other things. As they dived deep into their study of binding seals and souls attached to others, they had inevitably ventured into the most complex seals they knew of.

Breaking the seals wouldn’t be so hard. It didn’t even require any expertise or process. They could break it with their own will.

But you never will.

They had not talked about it outright. The future, what they would do after, if they were free, if they could be as they pleased. They had to have had the same idea though. That they didn’t want to die with their beast still trapped inside, it wasn’t the life they wanted for themselves, or for the Biju. And yet…

“Maybe we should just release them into the world, and let the world handle it,” Gaara said after a long pause. Naruto didn’t have to answer. He had thought about it before as well yet knew they wouldn’t go through with it.

You’re still not hateful enough.

They truly weren’t.

I can’t let you go.

Why not? I could contain myself. Like you do.

Naruto scoffed, bitter.

We are not the same.

Really? We’re envious the same though.

I thought you weren’t envious.

No one wants to be alone in this life.

This one hit a little too close to home. Gaara cast him an inquiring look and Naruto just shrugged, clueless.

“They would be caught again anyway.”

Maybe that was a hypocritical excuse. Few were the shinobi strong enough to seal the Biju again, fewer still those who could survive it. But they would find a way, wouldn't they? Even if the beasts behaved, even if they were no longer a threat, their power would just be too tempting. After all, if the warring states had truly wanted to get rid of the threat, they would have found a way.

Or just kept killing off jinchuuriki, to buy a few years of peace in between the Biju's incarnations.

And you would be all alone, wouldn’t you? the fox mocked.

That’s not true. I am not alone. I won’t be.

Will they stay, if you free them of their burden? Oh, do you think you will be able to go back home? Who are you without me, do you even know?

Naruto startled at Gaara’s cold hand setting heavily on the back of his neck. The boy looked concerned and Naruto felt bad for worrying him. He had come to bring him comfort and here he was, getting comforted instead.

“We will find a way. We will live in peace.”

“Peace” was the kanji Han had chosen to be etched into his skin by Gaara’s sand, on the back of his hand. It had become an informal tradition, as Yugito also got her own mark. She wouldn’t settle for peace, of freedom – she had asked for “Justice”, on the side of her neck, stark against her pale skin. Had she been less rational, Naruto figured she would have gotten “Revenge” instead.

Roshi had scoffed at the idea, but Han assured them he was thinking about it. It was a little, trivial thing, but then again it wasn't, for them, to be so blatant about their hopes and wishes, to dare want something for themselves, dare ask something out of this life and world.

Good for you then.

The bitterness oozed into Naruto’s mind like molasses. His mood was affected more and more by the fox’s lately, he wasn’t sure why. He couldn’t tell if he felt his host’s emotions or if this restlessness and despair were his own, by sheer empathy.

You know I want you to be free.

Do I now?

It was useless. The fox didn’t even trust him with this name, there was no point trying to convince him. Plus, he did it just to reel Naruto up. They shared the same body after all. It wasn’t like there was anything they could hide from each other.

.

They had no issue getting into Kiri. Suigetsu lead them in confidently, even remarking that surveillance and patrols used to be heavier. He spoke with careful reserve about the new Mizukage, as he had never met her. But it seemed hard to do worse than her predecessor.

Naruto was trying his best to hide his nerves and not add to the general tension of the group. He had the strongest foreboding that something was going to go very wrong this time, that they were ill-prepared for this mission. They were following Yugito’s tell, who could pick up the faintest presence of their fellow Biju.

Naruto was hoping they would find the Sanbi sealed in a teapot or a talking turtle while feeling that it wouldn’t be so. They ended up in front of a non-descriptive building with few windows and no guard. Suigetsu asked for confirmation several times – he said this was just some boring administrative offices. Yugito was adamant though, so she led Naruto and Suigetsu in while Karin waited outside, on the lookout for unwanted company. Han was surveying their escape route.

They didn’t find anything of value, at first. It was as Suigetsu said – desks, chairs, mountains of paperwork.

Then, a hidden passageway leading under the building. Their first run-in with a Kiri nin – Suigetsu made quick work on knocking him out. They had agreed to try and limit the kill number if they could, seeing that Kiri would be mad enough at the end of the night. Utakata was going to be enraged at them as well, for disturbing his peace, for making his life harder. Naruto had trouble calling up any sympathy for him at the moment though. He had been living next to one of them for what had to be years and never knew a thing. He was at fault here.

The basement wasn’t for storage. It wasn’t even a basement, it was huge, convoluted, going far beyond the limits of the building above. Some rooms were stacked with old scrolls, others with various weapons, some were empty or abandoned. The secret headquarters of one group or another. It was hard to tell if these were clandestine or not, if they were under their Kage’s order, or not. Private spying groups answering to Kage only were as common in the hidden villages as dissident factions working for their own goals.

The narrow corridors were lit with weak, flickering lightbulbs, but they only encountered one more guard, down a second flight of stairs.

She was guarding a cell. And in the cell, there was a child.

Purple eyes, grey hair, tied messily out of their face in a high bun. Naruto thought he was a boy, but when the child looked up at them, curious at the noise, he couldn't be so sure. From behind the bars, they were greeted with a toothy smile.

“Hello! Who are you?”

Naruto was completely frozen.

He recognized this place. The bars, the rocky walls, the seals plastered all over. The chains were unused but still visible at the back of the cell, near the bed. Because there was a bed, and a bookshelf and a trunk with some clothes, and a small desk with papers and crayons. Equipped. Lived-in.

His whole body was tense to the point of pain. He couldn’t move nor talk and he couldn’t meet the child’s gaze, wide and curious.

Suigetsu knelt in front of the bar. He smiled.

“We are friends. We have come to take you with us.”

The child frowned, not looking too taken with the idea. Naruto had to focus on something else – he started to check the bars and door for triggering seals, to think about how to open it.

“Why?”

“It’s-“ Suigetsu paused, searching. “Isobu called us.”

Name freely given. The Kyuubi scoffed.

“Ah! He always says he doesn’t like this place…”

“And you do?”

The kid shrugged.

“I don’t mind. It’s not safe for me outside, and I get plenty of food. And Manjiro is nice to me.”

Yugito made a hissing noise from where she was watching at the stairs. They didn’t have the luxury to linger.

“Do you want to come with us? Nothing will happen to you,” Suigetsu asked gently. Naruto had never seen him like this, soft and attentive. It was only an act, he was sure. It couldn’t have escaped him how they looked alike, with the child, and how thin and pale they were, how long they must have been locked down here. In his back, Naruto could feel Yugito boiling, just like the others outside, just like the Sanbi, trapped in the small body in front of them. Their rage echoed each other. They had to get out of here.

“Can I? Manjiro says I shouldn’t leave here. It’s dangerous.”

“What’s dangerous?”

“Me,” the child said as if it was obvious and Suigetsu was a little dumb for not knowing. “I’m dangerous.”

“We’re safe from you,” Suigetsu said. “We’re more dangerous than you, so we can take you with us easy.”

“Really?”

It didn’t take that much convincing after all. How long, how long? Maybe it was better not to know.

Naruto took down the seals, he opened the door. The child still looked suspicious, but it was too tempting in the end. They stepped through the threshold and paused as if testing if some ungodly catastrophe would befall them. Nothing happened. The child beamed.

“What is your name?”

That only got Suigetsu a blank look.

“I’m Suigetsu, and this is Naruto and Yugito. What about you?”

Still nothing.

“What do the people here call you? How was it, Manjiro? Manjiro, what does he say when he talks about you?”

That seemed to dot the trick as the child’s face brightened in understanding.

“Manjiro says Jin.”

“Jin? That’s your name?”

“He says it’s shorter!”

“Shorter?”

“Hm. The others say “jinchuuriki”, but Jin is shorter!”

Naruto heard the water drip steadily down his mind, drop after drop in front of his Biju's cage. He didn’t know which feeling belonged to whom anymore. He was vaguely aware of Suigetsu urging them on, but Yugito was similarly caught on in the rise of their anger, unchecked, unbridled. The child’s expression grew worried, as if sensing they had said something wrong.

Maybe sensing too the Biju stirring in their mind, their feelings shared and amplified. Han was starting to get affected as well. Naruto picked out a current he didn’t know, confused and angry. What are you doing? What is going on? It had to be Kiri’s other jinchuuriki.

“Jin. Do you want to come with us?” Suigetsu asked, more firmly this time, final.

They stared at each other for a long time, both still and unblinking. There was doubt on the kid’s face, but no fear. Were they bargaining with the Sanbi now? The Biju was fiercely protective of his host.

“Okay.”

It was said as casually as if they’d been offered a snack. Naruto breathed a sigh of relief.

“Can I pick you up?” Suigetsu asked.

Confusion again. He opened his arms and approached carefully. Jin went with it despite the wariness, until Suigetsu had the kid firmly secured in his arms. It seemed a very novel experience for them both. Jin was a little awestruck, doubt forgotten at they tightened their grip on Suigetsu’s clothes.

Naruto took a few deep breaths. He needed to get a grip.

A man of Kiri walked in that very moment.

They all froze, taken aback. Except for Jin, undisturbed, who waved at the newcomer with a bright smile.

“Manjiro, look! They came to take me out! They said it would be safe! Manjiro, do you want to come?”

Jin had no idea, no idea, but Naruto read the look on the man's face instantly. Whatever sympathy he may have shown the kid, that made them trust nothing bad would happen, didn’t hold a second in the face of the duty he was to carry out here.

Naruto recognized the blank determination, he caught the move, lighting fast, to a weapon pouch in the man’s back. But he miscalculated the man’s intentions – he didn’t think he would go straight for the pair at the end of the corridor, would run past Naruto and Yugito before they could react, would attack Suigetsu right away.

The man was cut short in his attack by a stone spike catching him right in the chest.

Sprung out of Jin’s back. The child stared, horrified, as the man still tried to reach his target, swinging uselessly the kunai in his hand while blood poured out of his pierced chest and ran down his mouth.

“M-Manjiro?”

He died before he could give an answer.

It was hard to keep track, after that.

Whose wrath exploded first and whose followed, who made the hole in the ceiling, who toppled the building. If Naruto let the beast rage or if it was all him, if it was his fury, his need for blood and retribution. If it was Jin’s, Yugito’s, the Sanbi, the Rokubi. All of them? Someone put their hands on his shoulders and he nearly bit their throat.

It was Karin.

The fear in her eyes brought him briefly back to himself, but he couldn’t fight this on his own. They had found out they were calmer around each other, more grounded, but they never got the occasion to test it the other way around. And there was Jin at the center of it all – mad and terrified, with no reign over the Sanbi whatsoever, and the Biju half-mad too with isolation and despair.

The Kiri nin that came at them didn’t stand a chance. They cut their way out of Kiri through overwhelmed forces who didn’t know what was happening, and the urge to tear them to shred and to burn this place to the ground was overwhelming in its intensity. Almost enough to stir them from the safer path far from here, almost enough to turn them fully toward destruction.

It was Han who caught them back. As soon as he reached them, he imposed the weight of their chakra onto theirs, heavy and cold like a tidal wave. Smothering out the fire ignited in their mind, bringing them back to the present. He took Jin from Suigetsu’s arms – the child’s manifestation of the Sanbi had cut deeply into the man’s arms and body, and Han had to pry Jin out like a thorn. Karin went to work immediately, to repair some of the damage and stop the bleeding. Suigetsu whined painfully, but he hadn't let go of the child, not once, and he even managed a wobbly smile.

Jin was sobbing quietly, all energy spent, leaving only grief. Naruto just then realized that Utakata had joined them. Similarly dazed, he must have been caught in their fury too. He had blood on his hands, as Yugito and Naruto did. He looked resigned.

“Guess I don’t have a choice then.”

They beat a hasty retreat to Naruto’s closest seal and teleported far away from Kiri, chased by the screams and general panic of a village woken up by an outside attack. Jin had a death grip on Han’s gi, face buried in its rough fabric. Naruto had to focus on that.

.

It was the early hours of the morning when they made it back to the temple, but everyone was awake, waiting for them. They had felt something was amiss – there was no small amount of raised eyebrows and incredulous look at Han’s tiny burden, carefully wrapped in his arms. As soon as Naruto had delivered them safely to their sanctuary, as soon as the tension went down a notch, Utakata was the first to explode.

“Why the hell did you do this?”

And Naruto couldn’t take his accusatory tone, couldn’t take his reproach as if none of this was of any concern to him, as if it hadn’t been his village, his oversight.

“What? The part where we had to free a kid from jail? Or the one where we had to try and not be killed?”

The man’s eyes flickered to Jin, still hiding in Han’s hold and unwilling to come out of it for now. The tall man didn’t seem to mind. He simply sat down on a log in the courtyard and secured Jin more firmly in his arms.

Utakata had the decency to soften some of his outrage, though not all.

“I didn’t know.”

“How could you not know? How could they reach us here, and not you? Did you not? Or did you just not listen?”

Gaara came to stand close to Naruto. He had no choice but to turn to him, as always when the other boy was near. Despite himself, some of his anger receded, leeched out by Gaara’s steadier mind.

“Do you think you did the right thing then?” Utakata asked. “Do you think you did the smart thing?”

No one here thought that.

This was a disaster. Going openly against one of the shinobi villages was the last thing they wanted. Kiri wouldn’t let that fly, this wasn’t like a squeamish outside of their borders, this wasn’t something they could just brush off. How many casualties? And so openly too. No mistake possible, they would all know what had happened. The other villages too.

And they would know it was eight out of nine now. They would know with certainty.

“What happened back then?” Karin asked. She was making an effort not to sound accusing or disapproving, but Naruto knew she was. She was mad at them, at him. It wasn’t supposed to go this way.

Yugito stood away from the group, face haunted, distant. She had the most control, out of them all, yet she had been the most affected. And her capacities for wreaking havoc were unmatched. Naruto had no idea how to comfort her, what to say, how to act.

He was lost.

"There's no point dwelling on it tonight," Neji said forcefully when it appeared likely that they would just stand there all night if no one did anything. "Wash up and go to sleep, we’ll talk tomorrow. And you… I’ll show you around.”

Utakata followed him, unhappy, but short of choices for now. No one asked anything about the kid. Han seemed to handle it and they were all too happy to leave it to him.

They didn't exactly have their own room per se. Some couldn't sleep alone, some couldn't sleep with others, for some it depended. They took turns and crashed in the beds available at the moment – it would be seriously crowded now. They would need to find extra mattresses and blankets. At least the nights were warm.

Naruto didn’t ask and Gaara didn’t say anything, but he followed Naruto to a secluded corner of one of the rooms. It was a tight fit for two – they lay facing each other, foreheads practically touching. Naruto couldn’t bear to look him in the eyes though, so he ducked to hide against his chest. Gaara wrapped a hand around his head.

They slept poorly.

.

They were woken up by laughter. Loud, high-pitched, bouncing on the walls of the temple. Unrestrained and joyful as only a child could be. For a brief moment, Naruto was sick with longing and heartache – he was back in his lonely flat, listening to the children playing outside, getting scolded by their parents and laughing with their friends, and he was afraid of going out, of the silence that followed him wherever he went.

But then he heard Karin howl “WHAT DO YOU THINK YOU’RE DOING” and the present forced itself back into his mind like a hammer to the face.

Naruto ran out of the temple to find an irate Karin scolding a mildly confused Han while Jin burrowed in his haori, probably scared of the mean-looking firehead currently screaming at their face.

“That child has been locked underground for Sage knows how long and you just take him out in the sun like that? Do you want all his skin to fall off his body? Huh? Do you?”

The child let out a curt sob and Naruto took it as his cue to step in and explain to Karin that this was not what one would call a child-friendly voice.

“You’ll scare her, come on.”

“Her?”

They all looked at each other, obviously not of the same opinion on the matter.

“I thought he was a boy,” Karin said. Naruto shrugged.

“I couldn’t say for sure.”

“Should we just ask?”

Jin looked from one to the other, confused but not that interested in the conversation anyway. They decided to push back this question to another time. They would need to make the presentation anyway, to talk to the Sanbi if they could.

Jin agreed to follow Karin inside on the condition that Han stayed with them the whole time and was allowed outside again only once Karin deemed the kid buttered in enough sunscreen, with strict instruction not to take off that wide straw hat hanging low on their head. It was large enough that it acted more like an umbrella than a regular hat, which was probably the point. Spring was getting warm, and Karin owned many hats.

Han was great with the child and Naruto wondered how that came to be. He couldn’t say if he would be good at it. He had barely interacted with children at all in his life. Parents tended to keep them away from him.

Suigetsu came to join but it got Jin anxious, eyes set on his naked arms, the faint scars of the earlier cuts still healing. Hurting the ones close to them by accident was among their worst fears, and it was far too easy, easier than they had thought. They had told the child they would be safe with them, and look how that had turned out.

But Suigetsu didn't say a thing. Whether he understood he shouldn't, or truly didn't even get what the issue was, he simply bypassed the child's worry to pick them up into a hug as a greeting. He apologized for waking up so late and missing half the fun.

Jin accepted it easily. Young enough that doubts and regrets wouldn't linger.

Naruto watched them as the child gave chase around the garden, Suigetsu matching his pace with theirs to keep the game up. Gaara came to sit by his side after a while, and then the others too, as they woke up one by one.

There was something about this scene. It felt special, almost sacred. Jin was smaller and thinner than a child her age should be, her skin unnaturally pale and her speech stilted as if lacking practice, but she was free now. If it was in their hands, if they had any power in it, her future would be much different.

She wouldn’t grow up as they did.

Naruto wished he could stay like this. Keep watch and smile, and be there when the child looked up toward them, reassured that someone was looking after her, that she wasn’t alone, never would be.

She grew curious about them at some point.

“Are you Isobu’s friend?” she asked Yugito, thinking back of the previous night, of what the beast might have whispered to her.

“We are. Do you want to see?”

The child nodded eagerly. Yugito cast a quick glance to her fellow jinchuuriki, so that they would follow her lead. Utakata was less than enthusiastic, but he had to be curious enough that he didn’t say anything and sat as they did on the cool grass. Jin settled on Han's lap, getting excited now.

There wasn't any process to it, they didn't have to hold hands or sign or anything. They just closed their eyes, and the ones who were more experienced could drag the others under. They picked the child up and deposited him in the forest among them. He eyed the roaming tailed beasts with awe as they welcomed the latest of their own to join the group, to be reunited with them.

It was now eight out of nine. The sensation was indescribable, their shared feelings, their collective longing, the power that flew between them. Jin was wild with it, untrained and unrestrained, but it wasn’t hard to contain him. He was curious and awestruck, kept asking about them and everything around them.

Gone was the cage from his mind already. It was for the best.

Gratitude was pouring out of the Sanbi, washing over them in gentle ways. They could only get a glimpse of the feelings hidden behind – the years chained, the forced sealing, feeling the agony of two of his hosts that had died holding on to him. He couldn’t tell them much about Jin, or the people who had made her a host. He couldn’t tell them her real name, her age or where she came from. He couldn’t even tell…

“It’s your turn to feed it today”

They kept clear of the memories after that.

It could be tricky to keep track of their physical form when they meditated in this way. Still, Naruto distinctly felt the weight of someone leaning against his back, and he could even tell who it was right away. He came back to himself to Karin sitting against him, side pressed to him and head resting on the back of his neck. He didn’t move until she did.

“Were we gone long?”

“It stretches the more you are.”

The sun was high now, the heat higher. The other stirred, blinked in the bright light, a little disoriented.

“I couldn’t come and get you. If you got lost.”

She didn't voice it often, but it was a fear that didn't leave her, ever since that time during their stay with Orochimaru when he had to be put down like a wild beast, when he wreaked havoc on the place and would have done worse, had it not been for Orochimaru’s proficiency with taming. The man had been pleased by this development – Karin, not so much.

It was the first and only time Naruto had manifested more than six tails.

The first and only time he had met his father.

They left Jin with Han. They had to talk about what happened, about what they would do next. Naruto didn’t want to. Karin dragged him inside.

Utakata looked marginally less sour and displeased than he had the day before, or even upon waking up. Maybe seeing the child properly had knocked some sense into his brain. He was still the one to talk first, even if not as harsh as he could have been.

“You didn’t have to do it this way.”

It was Yugito who answered right away, incensed, still filled with contained fury.

"Do you think we struck first?"

The look on his face was answer enough. She hissed.

“Do you think we had no better plan than to attack outright one of the villages? To kill their people and destroy their buildings, to put all of them on our tail?”

She took a deep breath, trying to keep her restraint.

“Do you think it couldn’t have been worse?” she said tightly.

Utakata looked away, unable to bear her accusing gaze. Of course it could have been much worse. Kiri had to know that. That was what would scare them further.

"Are we not allowed our anger and outrage, simply because it is too much to handle? If they wanted to protect themselves from our wrath, couldn't they have just treated us fairly? Are we to keep taking everything standing still, in fear of what we could unleash? Maybe if we had shown them before, then the child wouldn't have been where we found him."

How many times had they dreamed of it? To just lose it, to show them. Even before he knew what he was capable of, what he truly was, Naruto already wished to be strong enough that he could show the village what it cost to treat him the way they did. To demand respect and care by force, or else.

The villages had been lucky thus far that the jinchuuriki had been so docile.

No more, no more.

“Fine, so you are better off here. For how long? What now?”

Utakata said “you” as if he wasn’t part of it, one of them.

“You can go back where you came from if you don’t care about any of this.”

“As if I could!”

“Oh but you can, easy,” Roshi butted in, smiling and humorless. “Just go back and tell them where we are. They’ll welcome you nicely.”

Utakata grimaced, offended. Gaara stepped in, calmer, trying to defuse the tension.

“We are sorry it went down this way. It’s not what we wanted. I understand it wasn’t your wish to be here.”

“None of us likes being stuck here,” Roshi added ruefully.

He realized his misstep as Naruto’s face wrinkled, but it was Fu who answered, in a mumble, “I like it here.”

“I didn’t mean…”

“I’ll go play with the kid,” the girl declared before leaving the room. Yugito looked like she wanted to go after her but decided against it. Naruto refrained from going too. He didn’t want to talk about any of it, but he still felt guilty, still felt responsible for this mess. He was the one to drag them here with no plan and no idea of what would happen to them next. He was the one who couldn’t get them out.

“We’ll wait for news,” Yugito concluded with a long sigh, admitting that it was pointless discussing a situation they had no information on. No one would find them here, at least. They had some time.

Some time turned out to be just a few hours. Akito popped in just as they were finishing eating lunch in tense silence, filled only by Jin’s curious noises at everything they could get their hands on, oblivious to the surrounding tension.

“I have news!” the fox announced proudly. Jin’s attention was hooked immediately. She tried to grab at him and he escaped with a whelp before going to perch on Naruto’s head, to the child’s split delight and disappointment.

“What do they want for me?” the fox whispered, puzzled. Han laughed by Naruto’s side.

“Just to play.”

Akito decided to stay on his perch.

“I have news. Your kage are all going to meet in the Land of Iron.”

This time even Jin was sensitive to the sudden tension, judging by how she fell silent, looking around her worriedly from her place on Fu’s lap. The girl laid a soothing hand on her head but didn’t move her attention away from the little fox.

“All of them?” Neji asked.

“I’m not sure. At least five, he told me. The more powerful ones.”

“Who told you?”

Akito marked a pause.

“…I can’t say. But I’m sure. They are on their way right now. They need to “discuss current threats and what to do about them”.”

Akito could hardly have brought them worse news.

“Will they ally?” Fu asked, voicing the fear they all had. The villages seldom ever agreed on anything, especially not all at the same time. But this could just be the thing, right?

They could agree on coordinating their search and resources. They could make a deal for if a village caught a jinchuuriki that wasn’t their own. To trade, to bargain. They could decide to join forces, and what then?

“I think we should be there,” he said.

It was immediately clear who thought it was a good idea, and who didn’t.

“What?” Karin shrieked, jumping to her feet. She would probably have tried to strangle him if not for the fox on his head.

“If they are going to discuss our fate, I think we should go and have a say.”

“And what, are you just gonna walk into their little gathering?”

He didn't bother answering her. Of course they had to plan, but it wasn't such unreasonable an idea, as long as they could easily escape.

“I can help,” Akito piped up.

Naruto tried to look up but the fox was hiding beyond his messy hair. He was unusually forward today.

“I can get you in and out. I can.”

“Only me?”

Naruto was glad that the fox gave it careful consideration before answering. He had overestimated himself before, eager to prove his worth. But he was growing older and wiser.

“You for sure. Others, I don’t know.”

Naruto's mind was already made despite the various degrees of disapproval he could read on his companion's faces. He would try to convince them, but in the end they couldn't stop him from going. He wouldn't stay idle and do nothing while strangers decided on their fate between themselves. He would force them to compose with the will of the jinchuuriki, to recognize their power.

He would obtain their freedom, one way or another.

Chapter Text

The trip was tense and quiet to the Land of Iron. Tsunade had sent a formal mission order so that some of them would meet her at the summit – what was left of Team 7 and Team Gai. The Godaime was traveling from Kiri with the Mizukage and her party, and the Inuzuka. The others were back on track for their mission in Suna, Anko’s team on their way to Konoha. Messages came and went so that they all kept informed. Sakura had taken to reading them aloud because Sasuke couldn't be bothered.

He was lost in thought, unreachable. She didn’t try as hard as she should have either – she wasn’t sure what she would tell him.

Kiri wasn’t on the warpath yet simply because they didn’t have the means, while Kumo, despite being the last of the villages to still hold on to one of their jinchuuriki, were the most vindictive when it came to the rogue hosts. The Raikage most likely feared his brother would be snatched away too. And who would stop the jinchuuriki, if they wanted to take him? It was eight of them together now. They had broken in and out of the very heart of Kirigakure, leaving chaos and destruction in their wake.

The villages couldn’t stop them. But the Akatsuki could.

They had been quiet since the defeat of Kakuzu and Hidan, but there was no reason to believe they had abandoned their pursuit of the jinchuuriki. Their motivation was as mysterious as ever, yet if they had been enemies of the villages when they meant to take their weapon from them…

The situation was different when said weapons had developed a will of their own.

Naruto and his friends could be as strong as they wanted, what could they do against all the hidden villages and the Akatsuki combined? What was he thinking? How did they hope to achieve peace for themselves now?

Sakura didn’t have it in her to defend him. It wasn’t their fight anymore, maybe it never was. Naruto had made his choices, he walked his path. He clearly didn’t need them nor wanted them to be involved, and what could they do for him? He wasn’t a part of their life anymore, they weren’t a part of his. If their path crossed again, it would be coincidental, and it maybe wouldn’t even be a good omen.

She knew better than to talk like this to Sasuke though.

He had his doubts, but he would never let go. To be fair to him, it wasn’t entirely tied to Naruto – Sasuke was a peacekeeper by nature. Be it between his friends, the members of his family and his clan, the shinobi arguing in the Hokage office, foreign nations at each other’s throats, Sasuke would get in between. He would try to mediate, to appease. The scope of Naruto’s destructions, or anyone’s, was beside the point – he would still argue for reconciliation, for compromise. Even if it didn’t benefit him and his own in any way, even if it didn’t concern him at all. A healer at heart.

Sakura wasn’t so noble. Naruto could find his way out of this mess himself, as far as she was concerned. They had to take care of their own.

Gai and his team had been sent out with them. Even the loud man and his over-energetic student struggled to lift the mood though, as the specter of war loomed over their future, though Sakura always found pleasure in the boy’s company, in his cheerful demeanor and optimistic look on their situation. He was positive, not naïve. After all, he missed his friend too.

It was bad enough that the hunt for the jinchuuriki was back on the program, but what would the villages make of them, if they succeeded? Ah. Maybe that was why Naruto’s band had gone all out after all. It didn’t change anything in the long run, it wasn’t as if they were going to be left in peace forever. She truly hoped they would achieve it, but for now she didn’t see how.

Though there was no way to say for sure what the Kage would decide, when they met in the first summit in decades. From when she had met them or went through their city, she couldn’t say she had much confidence in what they would decide.

Maybe there was hope still. Maybe they could find a way out.

She was talking taijutsu and routine training with Lee when she was embarrassingly startled by something landing directly on her head in a bang, making her stumble and curse.

“Sakura-sister!”

She reached up to grab from her hair the blotted form of one extremely distressed toad.

“Gamakichi? What are you doing here?”

The rest of the party relaxed their hands on their weapons and seals, seeing that there was no threat after all. She dismissed Sasuke’s worries with a quick wave of her hand, focused on the usually cocky toad.

“Jiraiya’s in trouble! He’s in trouble in Ame!”

She had vaguely heard of her master fucking off to the Land of Rain for one reason or another. She hardly paid attention to his wanderings but…

“Did he send you?”

“He did!”

It had to be very bad.

“What’s happening?” Kakashi asked, approaching the pair. They had all stopped in their tracks, waiting. Sakura saw anxiety and doubts on her companions' faces – why did Jiraiya of all people have to need assistance now…

She looked back to Kakashi.

“I have to go.”

“I’m…”

She cut Sasuke before he could get one single word out, almost slapping him to shut his mouth with her hand.

“Don’t even think about it. I’ll handle it. You’re needed there.”

Always so noble, that idiot, with his grand ideas and ambitions that he would drop in an instant to lend a hand, be useful. He would need to learn that frustration soon enough. To do the politics while his friends fought the fight. This was the path they had set on.

“Are you sure?” Kakashi asked. She appreciated that he asked instead of ordering. Mission orders were not an issue, the Hokage surely wouldn’t take offense. Still, he could stop her from going, if he wanted to, if he deemed it best. She nodded firmly.

“Alright. Be careful then.”

She didn’t waste time making goodbyes, only squeezing Sasuke’s wrist briefly, hoping to bring him some comfort and strength.

“Take me there, Gamakichi.”

.

It was even worse with Sakura gone.

Even when they didn’t talk and even if they often disagreed, Sasuke always felt better just for her presence. They shared their emotions, they understood each other. She didn’t think like he did but she knew. She knew his heart, knew his feelings. They didn’t have to talk it out. Being near her was enough to bring him comfort.

She also wasn’t above slapping him on the back of his head when he was being too moody for her taste.

They stopped running and walked for a while, to recuperate. It made conversation easier, exactly what Sasuke wanted to avoid. He couldn’t just say no though when Tenten fell into step with him. She stayed silent a moment but he could sense she had something to say. She was staring at Lee’s back, skipping a few steps ahead.

“I think we have the right to be angry,” she said casually, almost to herself. They kept walking, the distance enough that the others wouldn’t hear.

“At what?” he asked, deciding to see this through. She shrugged.

“Everything. Anything. It’s too tiring to assign blame.”

“So better to blame the whole world?”

“Is there someone who’s not at fault?”

There wasn’t. It was what made it so hard and so frustrating. Everything would have been much easier if they could just point a finger and dish out punishment. Then they could move on and forget about it.

But who was to blame for their friends leaving, for their village waging war on them, for this entire mess? Who was not to blame? The million things they could have done differently, all the decisions they should have made, had they known better… What if, what if. She was right. It was exhausting.

“I’ll punch Neji in the face when I see him again.”

He let out a short laugh and she grinned, though it held a tinge of sadness too.

“That would be nice.”

That would be easy.

Sasuke isolated himself from the rest when they broke next for a rest. The tension was palpable and if some would want to talk it out, Sasuke just wanted to escape it for a while. He sat at the foot of an old tree and looked up at the dense tapestry of leaves that shielded them from the heat of the day.

It reminded him of a similar time, years ago, of watching Naruto turn his back and leave, of fighting against himself not to call him back, not to stop him. He still couldn’t say if he regretted it or not, if he had made the right choice. He had been so scared that Naruto would hate him if he tried to hold him back, but didn’t he hate them anyway now?

Sasuke understood Tenten’s sentiment, but then again, if he had the chance, he would rather hug his friend when he met him again at last.

His perusing was interrupted, once more, by the characteristic noise of a summon.

“Hello, hi!”

Sasuke blinked stupidly at the little fox.

“Akito?”

The fox beamed.

“I’m glad you remember my name!”

He was a little bigger than the last time Sasuke had seen him, his fur a little darker. He was wearing a blue kimono with a white flower print, and he had a scroll strapped to his back, almost as big as him.

“What are you doing here?”

Sasuke failed to keep the hostility entirely out of his voice, and the fox's smile dimmed a little.

“I’m looking for news. And you seemed sad! I thought I could keep you company.”

“How did you find me?”

The fox looked sheepish, maybe a little embarrassed.

“I keep an eye on you.”

“For Naruto?”

“Ah, no. He doesn’t know. He asked a few times, but I think it was painful for him. He stopped after a while.”

Sasuke didn’t know how to take that.

“Why then?”

“I just worried about you. You were nice to me, and to Naruto too. I like you.”

Somehow this was the explanation Sasuke would have deemed least likely. It was hard to doubt the little fox though, all earnest and shy.

“Okay. Thanks.”

They talked. Sasuke couldn’t deny it was weird, but not for the obvious reasons. It was just that Akito didn’t seem to understand most of his struggles. The conflicts they faced, the choices they had to make, the fox asked questions and seemed interested, but it was obvious he didn’t get it. He didn’t get why they didn’t live the way they wanted, he didn’t get why they weren’t together with the people they wanted to be close to. His confusion extended to Naruto as well – he observed, but he remained puzzled.

Sasuke envied him.

When it was time to go back with the others and leave, Akito climbed into his haori. Sasuke tightened the belt as a support as the fox got comfortable against his chest. He couldn’t deny that the warm weight was kind of comforting. He had gotten used to carrying Jiji around in a similar way, and he missed the haughty cat, left back home to run messages.

It was a good thing Sakura wasn’t there after all, as she was the only other one to know about Naruto's foxes. His companion didn't ask questions, accepted Sasuke's one-word explanation of "summon". They were all familiar enough with it.

For the next few days as they made their way to the Land of Iron, Akito kept popping in and out, to chat or just to travel comfortably in Sasuke's clothes. Jiji was going to get jealous at this point. The cat would know somehow, Sasuke was sure. It was sort of comforting to ponder over such a trivial matter.

.

The rain fell as heavy as Jiraiya as predicted, but it was only this, rain. The menacing aura in its drops was gone.

Sakura set to follow it. There was nothing more she could do here.

.

They made it to the Land of Iron at the end of the third day. The temperature had dropped and the weather had turned snowy and bleak, tanking their already low mood. Sasuke suffered the cold less than his companions thanks to Akito, still bundled in his clothes and as warming as a brazier.

He had received sporadic news from Sakura, who was, last he had heard, tailing some Akatsuki members away from Ame. She sent him little frogs and toads that eyed the fox warily, though he was forbidden to eat any. She had not mentioned Jiraiya at all. He didn’t know what it meant. The latest message came just as they crossed the border, with a minuscule frog jumping on Sasuke’s hand to spit a tightly rolled piece of paper in his waiting palm.

Still in pursuit. Heading your way.

They met the Hokage an inn just down the mountain, waiting for them with the Inuzuka. Sasuke shared the message. He wished they could have waited for her but they didn’t have time to linger – Tsunade ordered him and Kakashi to follow her, and the others to stay down there, on alert, ready to leave or to fight if need be, knowing to expect an attack. From whom was anyone’s guess. With some luck they would be done before enemies could reach them.

Akito asked if he could stay with Sasuke, and there was no reason to refuse him. His presence was rather comforting.

“Why won’t the others follow us?” he asked Kakashi as they sped up through the snow. The man smiled behind his mask.

“Each Kage was only allowed two guards each.”

It took a minute for Sasuke to understand what that meant.

“And she asked for you… and me?”

“Some weren’t pleased. But she made her choice.”

It wasn’t surprising. Sasuke couldn’t speak for the other Kage, but he supposed they had brought their strongest fighters just in case. Sasuke was by no means weak, but there were a lot of better Konoha shinobi.

“She said the spot was yours,” Kakashi added, with neutral enough a tone that Sasuke couldn’t guess what he thought of it. He would have been more upset at the disapproval of his elders if he hadn’t been focused on the much more relevant fact that Tsunade had wanted him to be there. She probably had to negotiate that with the other jounin, willing to bear their “nagging and whining”, as she said.

Their dismissal was nothing compared to that. Sasuke had to make good of it.

The Land of Iron, home of the samurai and removed from shinobi politics, was as small and inhospitable as rumored. Hosted on the flanks of an imposing mountain, split into three rocky growths and aptly named the Three Wolves mountain, it was mainly a bunch of hardy buildings clinging to the frozen cliffs, linked with staircases carved out of the mountain itself.

They climbed quite a few of them to reach the palace where the leadership of the country had accepted to host the summit. Given how quickly it had been arranged, it was hard to believe the Raikage had only started to plan this after the attack on Kiri.

He was already there when they arrived, with two guards. He was an imposing man, with dark skin and defined muscles largely shown by his bared chest under his open haori. His two guards were unremarkable in comparison.

Terumi Mei was there as well, as she had traveled with Tsunade from Kiri. Sasuke had seen in passing the one-eyed man accompanying her during the chunin exam. The other one was younger, closer to Sasuke's age, and looked uncomfortable at being here. That made two of them at least.

They needed to wait for the other delegations and the atmosphere was suffocating – Sasuke took to wandering the building with the thin excuse of checking their surroundings, just in case. Tsunade wasn’t fooled, but he applied to it once he was out of sight, as it wasn’t such a bad idea to be prepared. They were supposed to be in neutral territory, but the company surely wasn’t neutral.

He crossed paths with several samurai in their armor, carrying heavy weaponry with ease. They sure had strength, and power, albeit very different from what Sasuke was used to in his fellow shinobi. However, in a side corridor, he stumbled upon someone much more familiar.

He couldn’t place why. It was a tall man from Kumo – if his headband didn’t give it away, his striking resemblance with the Raikage did. They had a similar hairstyle and skin color, and their clothes were alike too. He was crouched on the floor, looking, for lack of a better word, sulky.

Sasuke should have ignored him, but there was this thing… Was it the man’s aura, his chakra? Sasuke was confident he had never met him before, not even in passing, but he was familiar all the same.

The choice was taken out of his hand anyway – the man jumped to his feet when he spotted him, with surprising grace given his bulky frame.

“Yo! Who’re you then?”

Sasuke couldn’t help looking around, unsure if the man was talking to him. They were alone in this corner of the building.

“Huh, I’m Uchiha Sasuke, from Konoha. I’m here with the Godaime Hokage, for the summit.”

He waited, until it was certain the man wasn’t going to make his own introduction in turn.

“And… you are?”

Out of the blue, the man struck an absurd pose, hands in clutches and perched on one leg, and exclaimed, way louder than necessary in this close space, “I’m the one, the only, Killer B-B-B!”

Sasuke was a bit distressed at the display. It would have been rude to just cut the conversation short though.

“Are you here with the Raikage?”

“Yo, my bro dragged me here, then said I couldn’t show. I have to stay away, they say!”

Oh well, Sasuke was probably needed back, right? That couldn’t be helped.

“Sorry, I need to…”

“B-sama!”

“Shit, gotta go!”

The man hightailed out of there fast, chased down by a couple of out-of-breath shinobi from his village.

“Wait!”

The man screeched to a halt. His companions crashed against his frame, sending them to the floor while he didn't move an inch. He turned back with an irritated scowl.

“What ya want?”

“Are you…”

He had said bro, right? Brother, the brother of the Raikage. Who else would the man insist to bring, despite the two-guards rule?

“Are you the jinchuuriki of the Eight-Tails?”

He thought the question would be met with offense or suspicion, but the man only reprimanded him with an "it's Hachibi-sama for you, brat”, before running away.

The other shinobi scrambled after him with no mind for Sasuke's presence. He was soon alone again.

He made his way back to the main hall, head spinning. It was the chakra of a Tailed Beast he had felt – he had never realized it was so distinct before. It wasn't as if he had met that many of them, but he was sure of it.

That was the second jinchuuriki of Kumo. The only one still in its village possession. And in no hurry to left it, it seemed.

Did they offer, did he refuse? After all, the jinchuuriki went to Kumo at least once. They convinced the other one. Did it take much? They would have needed less than a minute to recruit Naruto, back then, if it had gone this way.

But would the others have left, before he had come to them? Was it bound to happen, or was it all on Naruto?

Maybe he would look for this man again later.

The delegation from Suna arrived soon after. They acknowledged each other only briefly, even if Temari looked like she wanted to talk to Sasuke, and he would have appreciated it. But it didn’t feel right to talk casually right now. After all was said and done, maybe. Or maybe they would go back to sharpen their weapons.

The last one to arrive was the Tsuchikage of Iwa. A small, dry old man dwarfed by his guards, both the normal-sized one and the other, much taller one.

Sasuke stayed close to Tsunade. He didn’t need to be so worried when she was near, he simply had to follow her cues, fall into her step. He found purpose again in her presence – he had to support his master. The rest could wait.

There was no introduction and they all gave each other snide, distrustful looks as they were shown into the meeting room, or they superbly ignored each other. The Kage kept the floor. Their followers had to go up above them, on the platform surrounding the central space.

The leader of the Land of Iron, a middle-aged man with long grey hair called Mifune, was to mediate the encounter. Sasuke understood his country would not be involved in any way, which seemed an odd stance – if war raged on the land, were they expected to politely stop at their borders? Maybe they were. Sasuke had studied military history a lot with Ino, and wars and battles were never as chaotic and uncontrollable as they were meant to look.

It could all be terribly civilized.

“Well, let’s begin then,” Temari started, after a heavy silence where they assessed each other without saying a word. “We are here to talk about the threat of the Akatsuki.”

“We are here to talk about the threat of the jinchuuriki,” the Tsuchikage countered immediately. “Your father didn’t teach you politeness, Kazekage. You’re awfully presumptuous for a child.”

“I apologize. You’re right, my father had no wisdom to spare. That’s why I’m seating in his place now.”

There were displeased mumbling from all sides before Terumi Mei snapped at them to do away with the bickering.

“Which one do you propose we tackle first then, Mizukage?” the old man picked up. “After all, you’re the one who was wronged by the jinchuuriki.”

She cast him a disdainful glance.

“There is no question,” Temari interjected. “The Akatsuki is the threat right now. The jinchuuriki have only kept to their own,” Temari said. The Mizukage scoffed, angry.

“Is that what they did in Kiri?”

It didn’t deter the younger Kage.

“Isn’t it?”

“What do you mean?”

“We hear there was a child.”

The woman clicked her tongue.

“Is nothing kept a secret these days…”

“If we had kept less secret, we would have known much sooner that they were trying to band together,” Tsunade remarked with faux casualty.

“As if the villages would advertise the loss of their jinchuuriki!” the Tsuchikage exclaimed. “Of course we handled it quietly.”

“Afraid for your reputation?” Temari mocked. She was the only one who had ground to do so – around the table, they had all made the same choice.

“Do you know what happened to the last village that lost its hold on their jinchuuriki, child?”

The Mizukage slammed her fist on the desk in front of her, hard enough that the wood cracked loudly into the sudden silence.

“The jinchuuriki are a far more potent threat”, the Raikage went on as if nothing had happened. “The Akatsuki? We don’t even know if they are that dangerous. Yet eight of the nine Tailed Beasts have joined forces already.”

“You say that because you’re the only one who retains one. They will turn to you next,” Temari said, not without satisfaction.

“That’s a moot point,” Tsunade cut before they could get into another fight. “The Akatsuki is also after the jinchuuriki.”

“We don’t know that for certain.”

“Yes, we do. Jiraiya is sure, and…”

“And it’s not like they set up a whole plan that ended with the death of the Kazekage just to capture my brother.”

The rage in Temari’s voice when she spoke of her father made an uncomfortable twist in Sasuke’s heart. They had both lost their father with a lot unsaid between them, but his own had not failed him the way hers had. That anger was aimless and unresolved, and thus hard to shake off.

“If what you want is to keep score, the Akatsuki made a direct attack against Konoha and purposefully targeted one of our strongest fighters.”

“With success,” the Tsuchikage piped. Sasuke could feel Kakashi’s warning glare on him, so he did all he could not to look affected, not to let show his outrage and hurt. He had to stay collected and focused. Now wasn’t the time for sentiment.

“We don’t know why the Akatsuki has such an interest in the hosts,” Terumi Mei said, pensive.

“Isn’t it obvious?” Tsunade said. “Why else but to harvest their power?”

“They might seek to neutralize them. And would that be so bad?”

“What are you saying?”

“That we should have done away with the Biju a long time ago.”

“And that’s what you suggest now?”

“You would let the Akatskuki do your dirty work for you, huh?” the Raikage toned, his voice loud and rumbling, easily covering all others. “Yet again! But it is fitting after all. The Akatsuki is your doing. They have served you well already.”

To Sasuke’s astonishment, there was no one but Temari to take offense at that.

“What do you mean?”

“Ah! The little Kazekage doesn’t know? All these fools and cowards, afraid they couldn’t maintain their own power, they figured it would come in handy. Mercenaries that do nothing but train and fight, that can be sent on any mission, take any contract. Iwa, Konoha, Suna, Kiri… you all made good use of them during the war, so don’t come crying now that they have escaped your control.”

They do their job well, they take on any mission for a low price, Jiraiya had said. There have always been missions the village wouldn’t take on, he had said.

But he had not said, and it served us right until now. He had not said, and thus we were right to set them up.

And now they had killed his father.

Did it count for nothing? Oh, maybe it didn’t. Why would they care, the other villages? As long as it was no direct threat to them, they would not care about the victim, about the destruction, about the pain and loss.

Who knew if this wasn’t the doing of one of them, even? The Raikage was known to seek military power and dominance over the other villages, and Kiri too had never been shy about eliminating outside threats. Suna, sending their jinchuuriki to the chunin exam, Iwa who went against Konoha twice in two wars and who might have been fetching for another…

What was the point. What were they even doing here. They all hated each other, all sought each other’s destruction or subjugation. Even the very real danger threatening them all wasn’t enough to have them act any civilized.

“Our priority must be to reign in the rogue jinchuuriki,” the Tsuchikage declared, again dismissing what had been said before him.

“And what will you do with them?” the Mizukage asked sweetly, the hint of a threat.

“The Biju are the property of their respective villages.”

“Oh, really? Wouldn’t you try a little redistribution while you’re at it? And this one” – she pointed at the Raikage – “won’t pass up the chance either, I’m sure.”

“Kumo is the only village who managed to retain their jinchuuriki, so it seems that…”

“We do not all have family members to sacrifice to the Biju.”

“Even that didn’t help Suna.”

“Enough!”

Hands flew to various weapons at the forceful interruption, but Temari was still sitting and they stayed put, for now.

“I don’t care about the scores,” Temari said through gritted teeth, fed up already with this whole conversation. “Suna will not give chase to the jinchuuriki, nor will we aid any of you to do the same. And if you do harm to my brother and his people, you will make an enemy out of us.”

And with all of them short of their Tailed Beast, it was a very real threat.

“You’re ruled over by your emotions, child,” the Tsuchikage chided in disdain. “This is why women are no good for…”

“Tsu-chi-ka-ge.”

He turned a dark look at Terumi Mei, offended at the interruption. Her smile was sharp, full of teeth.

“We women do not have to agree on anything,” she said calmly, “but out of consideration for your old age that might have dulled your sense of observation, I will gently point out to you the tough reality here. It is three of us, and two of you. So please think about the comment you are about to make.”

Until recently, it would have been five men at the table. But things changed fast.

“Is any of you interested in moving this conversation along?” Tsunade asked, with what Sasuke believed to be an attempt at politeness, but certainly didn’t come out as such to the other Kage.

And it wasn’t any of them who answered.

“I am!”

In the middle of the room, springing straight out of the floor, appeared what looked like a white-skinned man, though half of his face and body were deformed beyond comprehension, flattened as if he had melted.

In an instant the guards had stepped in to protect their Kage, weapons out on the circular table, ready to face an enemy. The man didn’t seem concerned by the hostility and danger. He was smiling widely, almost as large as his whole face.

“That’s no way to welcome a pacifist representative of the Akatsuki.”

Sasuke’s body was hurting with tension and restraint, his mind into overdrive as he tried to analyze their situation, too many variables, too many dangers intersecting around them. And in the middle of it all a member of the Akatsuki springing in here so casually, so at ease. It made him sick. But he couldn’t act rashly.

“What could you possibly have come to say?” the Raikage asked, menacing. The man only shrugged.

“Well, you seemed to be torn over your next course of action. My name is Zetsu, I speak on behalf of the organization. We thought we would give you incentives to make the right choice.”

To Sasuke’s disgust, it was obvious everyone was actually interested in that.

“Talk then!”

“No need to be so aggressive… The Akatsuki wishes to offer their services, as always. We are more than willing to rid you of your little deserters problem.”

"Now why would you want to do that," Tsunade asked conversationally, though Sasuke could feel her tension even without seeing her. He was looking at the world with the sharp edges of the Sharingan, and he knew there was little point in attacking the thing talking to them. It didn't look like any clone he had ever encountered, but it wasn't a man either.

“As mentioned, the jinchuuriki are bad for our business. And yours, aren’t they? Such a headache, so volatile, and so difficult to control. It is in everyone’s interest to put an end to their wanderings.”

“No other reason, right. Is that why you tried to take away the host of the One-Tail? Taking out the competition? Killing him would have been more efficient, I believe.”

The envoy smiled even wider, cutting.

“Are you doubting my words, Hokage?”

The fake offense was grating.

“Enough of this nonsense!” the Raikage toned, launching himself at the Akatsuki puppet. He evaded him easily.

“What’s so unreasonable about it? You cannot take down the jinchuuriki on your own. And you cannot take us down either.”

Meaning they would need to ally with one to take care of the other.

Amidst the chaos, it took them all a moment to hear the most polite, quiet cough.

“Excuse me? Excuse me?”

It was Akito.

Perched on the platform where Sasuke and the rest of the guards stood just a moment ago – and Sasuke had not even noticed the fox had left his spot inside his clothes.

“I am sorry to interrupt you, but as all those involved have had a chance to talk, my friends wish for their voices to be heard as well."

Akito unhooked the scroll strapped to his back, laid it out carefully on the wood. It wasn’t hard to guess what it contained.

“Kai!”

In a puff of smoke, a crouched figure appeared, clad in bright, tacky colors. Their face was hidden by a mask, but not only could Sasuke recognize his chakra anywhere, he was familiar with the mask too. Always the same, the red waves, the “monster”, the number nine.

“Hello. I am here on behalf of the jinchuuriki.”

Sasuke didn’t need to see his face to know Naruto.

Zetsu’s smile was now so wide it looked like his face had been sliced in half, pried open to look at what was inside.

“You have the nerves to present yourself to us,” the Tsuchikage accused. Outrage was popping the veins on his forehead and he was very red. The effect was almost comical.

“We don’t fear you.”

There was no way to know who Naruto was looking at, the face he was making, the thoughts racing through his mind. Akito went to perch on his shoulder and he turned an apologetic face to Sasuke.

“Say your piece then,” the Mizukage said tightly. They were all playing casual but the tension was unmistakable – they just didn’t know who they ought to attack first. The place was supposed to be heavily warded, supposed to be safe.

Ah, that Zetsu thing was a mystery, but Naruto’s intrusion wasn’t. Sasuke had carried the fox right in. It was probably the plan from the start.

He didn’t even have it in himself to feel betrayed or hurt. It was just on par with the course at this point right? Maybe Naruto didn’t even recognize him.

Naruto and his people, the runaways, the other jinchuuriki, they were right to try and follow what was going on, but…

How dared they? How dared he? Send his fox, come to Sasuke? Did he simply expect to be granted, did he have no doubt at all? It was so unfair. Sasuke didn’t even have the right to his anger. Could he get mad at the young summon? What if he started to cry? Sasuke was tired.

He shook his head, disdainful. What was he even thinking? This was not the point. He hated the pull Naruto had on his thoughts, how easily he made him forget everything else around them, how focused he couldn’t help but be on the other boy. This was ridiculous. He needed to get it together.

Naruto had the right to know the fate decided for him and his friends. Maybe they could prepare, or bargain, or hide. It wasn’t as if Sasuke could be the one to bring them the news.

“We will fight anyone trying to come after us. The Akatsuki is a threat to our peace, and so they are our enemies. And if the villages wish it so, they can become our enemies too.”

“Are you saying that we aren’t for now?” the Mizukage asked, not as scornful as Sasuke would have expected her to be. Her brash, impulsive attitude was at least partly for show, partly a ploy to make her look unreasonable. Dismissible as a worthy interlocutor, as a serious threat. She was much smarter and more calculating than she let on.

“We did what we had to do for our kind, no more. We will not declare war first. This is not what we want.”

“What do you want then?”

Naruto turned to Tsunade. They had been somewhat close, in a way – Sasuke wondered if she understood him better than he did.

“Freedom. Peace.”

Tattoos on unscarred skin. No injury ever left a mark.

“Is that all?”

“What else is there?”

“Vengeance.”

The silence was heavy with unsaid protest and rebuttal. Even more when Naruto answered with an even voice, “We are not like you.”

“Do you expect us to just take your words for it? That you won’t level your power against any of us, that you won’t be subdued and used like you always were?”

Sasuke didn’t need to see Naruto’s face to know his expression this time, as he focused on the old Tsuchikage. He had seen it often enough, the wrapped up fury, the raging fire, tightly contained yet obvious all the same.

"You are welcome to try and take us for yourself again if you want to. But be prepared for what will happen to your villages if you do."

“And that’s what we should trust?”

“We will not declare war first!”

So it would be on the villages if war did break out with the jinchuuriki. They wouldn't be above it, but they had to tread carefully these days. There were fewer shinobi, more civilians. There was prosperity in the land, progress and peace. The nations might not follow. The people either. Especially against a seemingly harmless group of less than ten. The jinchuuriki’s secret had been guarded well enough that it couldn’t be harvested as motivation for war. Even in Konoha, if they were to proclaim a hunt for the Nine-Tails, they would just be met with outraged horror. The beast was gone from their wall, out of sight. It was all the villagers had ever wanted, why go after it now? Especially to bring it back?

As long as they were concerned, Naruto no longer existed. And it was what he wanted, what he advocated for. The right to be ignored, forgotten, to be left alone. They couldn't justify going against that, except by admitting to their quest for more power and influence over the other nations.

Which they might do. But things were changing. Had changed already. The Kage couldn’t just do as they pleased.

There would be people to oppose them now.

“What about the last member of your little gang?” Zetsu asked, voice grating like the sawing of a tree. “You are still missing a Biju from Kumo, are you not?”

“We’ll welcome him if he wishes to join us.”

“Like hell!”

Naruto’s mask face didn’t prevent him to convey haughty disdain to the Raikage’s outburst.

“We’ll free him if he needs to be.”

“Is that a threat?”

Naruto deigned no answer. He didn't have the same goals as the people gathered here, he had no concern for their power struggles and precarious agreements. He had no concern for the consequences of his words and actions either. The Raikage’s brother was a jinchuuriki and thus had a place by their side. If he wanted to take it, they would make it so, and that was it. Just like they had in Kiri. The rest, they didn't care.

“What does the Akatsuki want?”

The envoy might have sensed he wouldn’t win this argument anyway. He was still smiling, but with his head tilted almost all the way, the curve was downward.

“The Akatsuki wants the jinchuuriki. And we will have them. Starting with this one.”

They tensed even more at the threat in his voice, but the man didn’t move an inch, didn’t even blink. Naruto was curled up around himself, ready to bolt, or strike. Zetsu was smiling, smiling.

“Did you think he would be safer here with you, Raikage? You should have left him behind your walls.”

There was a loud crash outside in the hall. In a blink, the man was gone.

Chaos erupted in the room. Naruto puffed out, back to his scroll or having teleported away, no way to know. Sasuke couldn’t focus on that. He had a mission, they had to get safely out of here.

Fights had broken out all over the building, samurai and shinobi from the various delegations against what Sasuke recognized immediately as reanimated corpses, just like the ones they had encountered in Suna. Just like his father’s brother.

“They have to be sealed!” someone shouted, prompting a scramble for body scrolls and restraining chains, though that left the matter of beating them down enough to trap them. Which proved easy enough – wherever they came from, they weren’t strong enough shinobi to rival against the Kage and their guards. Though the corpses kept getting up, kept piecing their bodies back together. There was no way to defeat them for good.

Further down the corridors, they stumbled upon a part of the building that was… simply gone. Blown to piece. In the middle of the rubble was the strange man from Kumo, the Raikage’s brother, the Hachibi. The one he shouldn’t have brought.

He was fighting against a member of the Akatsuki, a tall man with flaming hair, face pierced with metal and body donned with the clouded cloak of their organization. They were gone the next moment, out of the building, carving a destructive path down the mountain. The others followed suit, but before Sasuke could do the same, Gamakichi appeared in front of him, looking the same as he had last time – frantic, worried.

Sasuke’s heart lurched in his chest.

“Sakura-sister needs help right now!”

The place was in chaos, everyone busy fighting, he didn’t know where his teammates and master were. He decided it didn’t matter. Sakura was in trouble, he needed to get to her.

He followed Gamakichi’s guidance, away from the heart of the fights, up into the nearby hills. He figured someone would have seen them, probably. He would send words later.

They reached a large stone bridge, cut open in several places by the deep gashes of a sword. Specifically, a massive, dull sword, with the tip broken off, and whose users would sharpen it with her own chakra.

Sakura was standing in the middle of the bridge. In front of her stood an Akatsuki woman, blue-haired and blue-eyed, face half-hidden by her cloak, as was for all members of her group.

Apart from the sword-cut, the bridge was partly covered with paper. Cut in various forms, clinging to the stone and flying around in the air, innocuous but surely deadly, as they answered to the elegant moves of the woman’s fingers.

Sasuke didn't speak out, not wanting to distract his friend. They were both deeply focused on their fight anyway, running around the bridge. It was hard to say who had the upper hand – they both looked travel-weary and exhausted, which wasn’t surprising, if they had chased after one another all the way from the Land of Rain. They were both hurt as well, he couldn’t help but notice, cataloging the cuts and bruises, trying to evaluate the risks.

Sakura was near her limit, but she had an iron will and a mind for bold strategy. She never wavered, never lost focus, and she remained accurate and efficient to the very end. The Sharingan could see through her displacement illusion when her opponent couldn't, not in time at least. The woman stroke forward as Sakura moved to her back. A wide down-arc of her sword ripped open the woman’s back from shoulder to hip. She stumbled, dazed.

Sasuke sped up down the hill, alerting Sakura with his careless footsteps. She smiled in relief when she spotted him, took a step in his direction.

And then, a blossom.

The paper flower bloomed in her chest, spurting from within, spitting blood all around her. It was intricate work, delicate and beautiful.

Sharp and merciless.

She stared at it in surprise, the elegant curls of the petals, the white mostly covered in red. She raised a hand to touch it – she collapsed on the ground before she could.

Sasuke tripped over himself trying to reach her. He glanced anxiously at the Akatsuki woman, wanting to assess if she was still a threat, brain spilt in two between opposite instincts, of tending to Sakura immediately and dealing with the danger facing them still. The woman was trying to get back on her feet with no success, blood soaking through her clothes, her skin ashen and her body weakening.

Before he could make up his mind to finish her, one of her companions appeared in a whirlwind. He looked disturbingly similar to Killer Bee’s opponent back there, same hair and especially same eyes, purple and swirling, unlike anything Sasuke had ever encountered.

They stared at each other for only a second, enough still for some form of understanding to pass between them. The man picked up his injured friend and left. Sasuke forgot about them and fell to his knees by Sakura’s side.

It was as if someone else took over in these situations. The boy who was panicking over the injuries of his dear friend took a backseat to the medic observing clinically an injury he had to treat.

Life-threatening, absolute emergency. Open chest wound, severe blood loss. The heart wasn’t hit, unlike the lungs, where the flower had bloomed. She coughed, struggling to breathe, but she couldn’t tell him what she felt, as she had lost consciousness already. It was both better and not – hearing her and her pain would have made this harder, but her being able to speak would have been reassuring.

He got to work as he assessed the damage, scanning, probing, his chakra spreading through her body. The Sharingan helped here, as it helped in all things, as it buried in the torn tissues and bloodied flesh, bringing up charts and diagrams to the forefront of his mind, where nerves and veins were supposed to be, what was compromised, what was maimed.

The heart wasn’t hit, yet it was under duress. She was in shock, and she had lost too much blood already. Sasuke worked fast, fast, mending and fixing, mindless with urgency and fear. Time was always their enemy. They could repair everything given enough time, their chakra could heal any damage. But life had to remain within in the meantime, the heart had to keep pumping, the blood had to keep flowing.

And often it wouldn’t. Often the heart would give out and there was only so much life they could push in, only so much mechanism they could stimulate. Sasuke poured and poured, chakra flooding in, to heal the damage as fast as he could, to keep her organs going, to hold her life back down here with him. They weren’t at the hospital, there was no extra blood, extra hands, extra chakra to help them along. They were the only two people alive in this world.

He couldn’t see anything, had no idea what was happening around him. How had they ended up here? Why were they fine just a few hours, a few minutes ago, and were fighting against death now, why did it always come after them? Sasuke’s father and his lifeless eyes assaulted his thoughts and he pushed him away mercilessly, cursing, praying. The world had narrowed to his two hands covered in his friend’s blood, begging, begging for her to hold on, to pull through. She had to, no matter what, nothing else mattered, she had to, this couldn’t be happening, she couldn’t just fucking die.

Hold on, hold on, please, please, please.

Her heart stopped beating.

Chapter Text

Naruto had always wondered if he would feel it activate, if he would know.

The answer was yes.

.

Her heart stopped beating.

It felt like Sasuke’s did too. He was frozen in indecision. He needed to get it to beat again, but his hands were half buried in her torn open chest, he was pressing on wounds that would gush out gallons of blood if he let go, and she had lost so much already, and it would take too long to wait until he had patched her up enough, but she was going into cardiac arrest he couldn’t just ignore that, but then…

But then, a brief flash pulsed out of her chest, the tale-tell rush of a seal being activated.

Her heart started beating again.

Strong, perfectly steady. Sustained.

There was nothing natural about its beating and Sasuke had enough experience, enough perception to understand why. He checked, just to be sure, but he didn't need the Sharingan to know what he would find wrapped around her heart, working the muscle, pumping in its stead. He could even recognize the handwriting, the brushstroke, the style.

Ah, he already knew the seal was there anyway. Didn’t he?

.

Sakura woke up in a panic. She could barely open her eyes, she couldn’t move, she wasn’t even sure she was breathing. She had lost consciousness with her chest split open and her brain was still stuck on that, still on that bridge, trying to stop that woman and failing, sharply aware that one wrong move would mean defeat, that defeat would mean death.

But she wasn’t dead, was she? She managed to blink a few times and recognized a hospital room. She could even say which hospital, she was confident that the ugly flower pattern on the curtains was used in one place only.

She was desperate to believe she was home.

And she was blessed, for a second later her hopes were answered, when Sasuke entered the room and rushed to her side, springing into action to feed her some water, check her body and whatever injury she had sustained, and hold back pathetic sniffles. When he was reassured she was up and, she assumed, out of immediate danger, he pressed his forehead to hers and proceeded to cry his heart out.

She didn’t feel too awesome herself, so she let him stay there for a moment, and she maybe let slip a tear or two. She didn’t know what had happened but she could guess, could feel it in her aching body and exhausted mind, that it had been bad, very bad.

“I’m guessing we don’t have much time before I get swarmed with visitors,” she whispered, dreading her parents’ visit. “Tell me what happened?”

He nodded and stood back up, trying to regain a bit of composure. He helped her into a mildly sitting position with a high stack of pillows – it felt like she had no muscle left in her body, or a spine for that matter. Her chest ached deeply and she was scared of what could be hiding under the thick bandages wrapped around her torso. She was in no hurry to hear about her medical condition, but she needed to know how she got there.

Sasuke sat on the bed next to her and took one of her hands in his. He kept his focus on it, playing idly with her fingers as he gathered his thoughts. Even if she was worried about being interrupted by one of their friends or, Sage help her, her parents, there was no point in trying to rush him, with how shaken he was.

Plus, the contact was rather comforting.

“You nearly died.”

“Yeah, I figured.”

“No, no, it’s… I couldn’t have saved you. Out there in the middle of nowhere, it was too much, I couldn’t… Your heart couldn’t handle it. It didn’t. It gave out.”

She brought her other hand to her chest on instinct, hovering uncertainly above her wound. What would she find underneath? Was it even beating anymore? Was she dead after all?

“Then how…”

“It was the seal.”

She blinked at him, confused.

"The seal made your heart beat again. It kept it going, even after I could heal you enough that you wouldn't… It's gone now. I guess it was a one-time use."

Sasuke’s grip had tightened around her hand. He was in pain, he was angry.

She was speechless.

Naruto had laid his seal on them both. The one he used to stop the hearts of his enemies. He had threatened them with it, warned them not to go after them or else…

Naruto had saved Sakura’s life.

She was speechless. And then, she was enraged.

“That fucking little…”

She took a huge breath, beside herself with fury and outrage. How dare he… How dare he look after them. How dare he try to be protective now, and trick them, and…

How dare he care about them so fiercely still, and lie about it in such a hurtful way.

Sasuke had been devastated by the seal. She hadn’t fared that much better. They would have left Naruto alone if he had just asked, there was no point, it had been so unnecessary, so mean. And that was it? What, he had to hide that he cared? Why? They never had. They never doubted either, before that anyway. Why care and push them away?

And now she owed him her life. She had been saved by his love. She didn’t know what to do with herself.

“We brought you back here once you were good enough to be moved. We had to operate again once we arrived, but you’re safe now. You’ll be sore for a while though, training will have to wait. Running too, to be honest. You…”

He couldn’t further detail how fucked her body was because Ino burst into the room and jumped them both, which was probably for the best. Sakura had to bear the stream for quite a while, their friends and her family anxious to check on her, to welcome her back. It made her uncomfortable if she was honest.

Sasuke had left to tend to his duties at the hospital. He only came back when she managed to be alone again, after making a show of falling asleep so that her mother would leave. It was bad whether she bought her poor performance or didn’t and had left hurt and annoyed, but Sakura couldn’t bear her fussing a moment longer.

Sasuke was with Tsunade, so the fussing was hopefully over.

"How are you, Sakura?" the woman asked, hiding her impatience decently. Sakura wasn't going to drag this out. She was as eager to get to the point.

“I feel fine. I’m ready to give my report.”

Tsunade visibly relaxed at that.

It wouldn’t last.

“You were called in by Jiraiya to assist him. Did you manage to reach him?”

She knew it wasn’t a good idea, but she couldn’t just stay sitting like this, half-sprawled in her bed. Sasuke supported her when he saw her struggle to change position, though he didn’t like it. She thanked him with a smile, glad that he would play along. He disapproved as her doctor, but he understood as her friend. She moved carefully but with purpose until she was kneeling on the bed. Tsunade watched her without a word.

She had to know already. She ought to have guessed. Otherwise she would have said something.

Sakura kneeled, hands on her thighs, face down. She took a deep breath that had no right to be so painful and did nothing to calm her.

“I followed his cues to the Land of Rain. I have reasons to believe it is a stronghold of the Akatuski, and that they have a great hold on the whole country. I…”

The details would come later. She wished she had a body scroll to present to her, but there wasn’t a body.

She still had to say it.

“I was joined by one of my master’s toads. They were with him when he… entered Amegakure. They…”

Sakura bit her lips, fighting against the rise of her emotions. At her side, Sasuke was refraining from getting closer, from trying to offer touch and comfort. Even if this was a hospital room, she was reporting, and this was their commander. She had a duty to fulfill.

“He fought against several members of the Akatsuki. They eventually bested him, though he was able to leave a message with the toads before he…”

Breathing hurt, so she held it instead, until she could no longer delay.

“I return my master Jiraiya to his village,” she whispered in an exhale.

There was no body. She couldn’t risk venturing into Ame to find it, and Fukasaku had told her that it would be for naught. That the man was resting at the bottom of a pond now. Where he would remain.

Still, she was bringing him back. She was his student, and she bore the news of his death. She was bringing him back home with her, however little he cared for the concept, however few were the things keeping him attached here

She was bringing him back to his last and only friend.

“Sakura… Are you sure?”

It was rude of the woman to ask, close to insulting, as if Sakura could have said it casually. She didn’t mind, how could she? No one wanted to believe such a thing.

“I return my master Jiraiya to his village,” she said again, meeting the woman’s gaze straight on this time, hoping she wouldn’t make her repeat it.

She didn’t. Tsunade closed her eyes, took one deep breath, and when she looked again, it was all gone. Tightly locked away, to be unleashed later, willingly or not, once she was safe, away from prying eyes. For now, she was the Godaime Hokage once more.

“I need your full report now, please. If you are up for it.”

She added the last part as an afterthought, probably not meaning it in the slightest. Sakura had no intention to make her wait anyway.

So she started to recount what she could, mostly based on what Fukasaku had told her, as the old toad was with her master when he died. There was this man, Pain, and the vessels he could control, each a terrible foe. And there was the woman named Konan. Sakura had followed their trail out of Ame, but the woman had confronted her before she could reach the Land of Iron. All members of the Akatsuki, all powerful and deadly.

“Jiraiya also left a message.”

She had transcribed the series of numbers for fear that the toad's back would heal before they could come back to Konoha to pass it on. She didn’t know what it meant, could only trust the Intelligence Department would know what to do with it.

“And he said… he said he was sorry. He said he didn’t have the time to make you a list of what he was sorry for, so you would have to guess.”

She could picture him, mumbling to the old toad as life deserted him. He had no word for Sakura, of course. Might not have remembered her at all in the end. She had not made that much of an impact, had she? She couldn’t even cry over him.

“I see. Thank you. Put that all in writing and get well. We’ll talk about this again. I’ll…”

The woman drifted off then, lost on what she should do next. There were a million things probably, but now grief had come uninvited, messing up the schedule. Sakura felt sorrier for her than she did for herself.

Tsunade left without another word, Sakura forgotten already. She thought Sasuke would follow suit, but he lingered, looking concerned.

“Are you alright?”

She shrugged.

“I’m fine. We weren’t that close, right? He wasn’t even a good t-teacher.”

She was surprised at the hitch, at her throat tightening around a sob, painful suddenly. She wiped her face hastily. This was ridiculous. She didn’t even like the guy. He was an idiot and perverted to boot, always thinking about money, alcohol and women. Unreliable, crude, noisy. Unable to mind his own business, always listening to anyone’s random sob stories and accepting any stupid jobs coming their way.

“He didn’t even teach me half of the things he said he would.”

And so she cried after all. What else was she supposed to do? Her master had died. That old fucker had gone and gotten himself killed like a moron.

“Fuck.”

Sasuke hugged her to his chest and he didn’t say anything because he was nice like that, because he knew her to her core, better than anyone.

“I’m okay, I’m okay,” she kept mumbling, until finally it was true and she could get back a semblance of control over her all-over-the-place emotions. And because she was still embarrassed and raw, and because it was easier to worry about others than herself, she asked in turn, "and you? You okay?"

He couldn’t be, after everything. And he had to know she could tell. He lied still.

“I am. Don’t worry about me. Get better, okay? Listen to the nurses.”

“Why, you won’t be here to pester me?”

“I’m going out on a mission. Kumo requested our help.” The way he said the word requested, Sakura had a feeling it wasn’t too polite a demand.

“Really? For what?”

“The Akatsuki took the host of the Eight-Tails.”

.

Tsunade didn't get how she could possibly have so many things to do in one day, every single day. It wasn't for lack of delegating to any poor sod she could find to handle her work in her place, so why did she still have so much to do? She didn’t remember the old man working that hard.

Then again, she didn’t remember him ever leaving his office in the Hokage Tower after he became Sandaime, to the point that there was a rumor among the kids that he actually lived up there and couldn’t leave.

For Tsunade, a minute in the office was a minute too much. She had even taken to reading and signing paperwork while walking around, just so that Shizune would stop trying to lock her up inside. She visited the various departments as often as possible, to get reports or supervise their work or just breathe down their neck so that they didn’t get too complacent. She knew for a fact Yamanaka Inoichi had put his staff up to running interference so that she wouldn’t stick around, and it had also spurred a new kind of solidarity at the Konoha Police, between the Uchiha and the shinobi working with them. It was her very own way of boosting inter-clan relationships and sense of community. Or whatever.

Better to say that, than admit how she hated everything about this life.

And now Jiraiya was gone. He was gone.

She stopped in the middle of the conversation she was having with the head nurse. Maybe in the middle of a sentence. Powering through had seemed like the best option, when Sakura had delivered the news, because Tsunade didn’t know what to do.

She had no one to share her grief with. No one to turn to. Jiraiya was dead. She was alone.

She was the last one left.

“Hokage-sama?”

“Sorry, what were you saying?”

She moved down the list. Draft an answer to the Daimyo and his inane demands. Visit the construction site of the new gymnasium near the East Gate. Sign Inuzuka Tsume’s request for additional funds for the tending of the horses. She moved to the bottom of the list the review on a new means of transportation, with wheels and a powering engine on board, figuring she wouldn't have the mental capacity just then. Write back to the Mizukage. Read the latest reports from the Intelligence Network. Plan Jiraiya’s funeral.

Tsunade stared at the list.

“When did you add this?”

She hated the look on Shizune’s face, so kind, so indulgent.

“I figured you wouldn’t want someone else to take care of it.”

“Why? Because it’s a duty of the Hokage?”

Was that all it was, an item on the list? Was she supposed to treat it as such? Would she bury the Sanin Jiraiya because she was the Godaime Hokage of Konoha, and he was an esteemed fighter of her turf?

“I wasn’t sure you would get to it otherwise.”

It was offensive, how well Shizune knew her.

She wanted to get angry. She wanted to rage and rave, to throw things across the room, to spill ink all over the paper scattered on her desk. To punch a wall open, turn the place to dust. She did none of it. She didn’t have the energy, the strength. Jiraiya was dead, and she wasn’t. What else was there to say, to do?

“You do it.”

“Tsunade.”

“Leave.”

For the very first time, Shizune didn’t argue against that. Tsunade ought to lose a close friend more often.

Ah, but she didn’t have any left. Bugger.

Plan his funerals, on top of everything? She wasn't even sure she would attend. Was he dead, even? He wouldn't be above faking it to have some peace and coming back in three years smiling like the asshole he was with a half-assed explanation and no apology.

The look on Sakura’s face, when she had asked if she was sure.

As if she wouldn’t be. As if she would lie, or affirm without knowing for sure, or make that kind of horrible joke. As if life made gifts such as those, took death back after a fright.

As if Tsunade was ever so lucky.

She knew his death had nothing to do with her. It felt like it anyway. She couldn’t believe it. Decades they had spent apart, completely unaware and uncaring of each other. But he had to die now. Now that they were doing better, now that they were starting to move on, to forgive each other, to make amend. Now that she needed him, now, he died. Just like that. At the hand of those filthy brats from Ame, no less. The irony was too good.

Jiraiya was dead. Her closest friend. The only remaining person who knew her in this world.

Ah, except there was one other left.

She wondered how Orochimaru would deal with this news. Maybe he knew already, maybe he was in on it even. Was he satisfied, relieved? Was he sad? Did he care at all?

She wanted to see him.

How absurd, how terrible of her, yet that was all she wished for at that moment. Alone in the Hokage office, well on her way to see the bottom of that bottle of sake and determined to see the next one too, she wanted to see her friend. She wanted to grieve and reminisce with him, to laugh at their past antic, to cry at what would never come to pass now.

She wanted to not think about how Orochimaru was on the side of their teammate’s killers.

How many people could she lose, really? How many losses could she bear? Was it endless? Losing and losing more and more until the day you died? Couldn’t she have at least gained a few things in turn? No, no. That only meant even more to lose later on. She would know.

Surely she would reach a point where there was nothing more to be taken from her. Surely she would find some peace then.

The alcohol wasn’t doing it for her the way it used to. Maybe she had cut down too much, maybe she was too used to it. Or maybe there wasn’t a strong enough spirit in this world to match the pain drilling a hole in her chest.

She jumped out of the office and set course to the forest.

Maybe she could just leave.

She had before. She could leave it all behind, forget about that forsaken place and its needy people.

She realized where her drunken wandering had led her only when she stumbled upon the place. It had to be the thought of running away – she had come straight to their secret spot. The one where she had taught Naruto summons.

She envied him, sometimes. And then she remembered that he had not truly wanted to leave. He had been driven away. She could argue she had been too, but that would have been too hypocritical, even for her. Too dismissive of his pain. He would have stayed, had it been bearable for him to do so.

Jiraiya had been rather unbothered by the whole thing. Whether he thought it was just childish rebellion, or was justified enough that they shouldn’t interfere, she couldn’t say. He had not wanted to discuss at all the fate of his favorite disciple’s son, how he had been cast aside and abandoned, by everyone in the village but by Jiraiya first and foremost. Tsunade had never met Namikaze Minato, but it was hard to believe he was as bright as they all said he was, if he had trusted Jiraiya of all people with his child. Jiraiya, and the Sandaime. What a foolish man.

Tsunade was determined never to inspire this kind of trust from anyone under her command. Let them know they couldn’t follow her blindly, let them know they couldn’t trust her to handle anything on her own. Let them challenge her at every turn, until they realized a leader was little more than a mediator, a planner. They couldn’t rely on it to guide them, to make the right choice every time. Every person was more foolish than the next, and Kage were no exception.

Jiraiya, Jiraiya was no exception at all. Foolish, foolish.

Dead now.

She had never refrained from cursing the dead. It was the least they could bear, now that they were gone and she alone remained. It would have been rich of her friend to expect reverence and dignity from her now, when he had left her side so cruelly.

Tsunade lay on the damp grass, under the small tear through the canopy that allowed the night sky to peek through. As the village grew larger, more populated and animated, the light got brighter, denser, and the star faded in their glow. She was far from the heart of it, yet not that far. Even if she couldn’t hear nor see it, she knew it was there, close and inescapable.

Tsunade cried the death of her friend then, the way she had cried for every loved one lost, no wiser, no more dignified, no better prepared. She cried as she went down the list in her head. Hear the head engineer about the state of the water system. Review the latest mission orders and reports. Visit the Uchiha clan about the ongoing succession.

Plan Jiraiya’s funeral.

.

They searched and searched, but they couldn’t find any traces of him anywhere.

They had never not been aware of each other. From the very start, even if it was distant, a barely there feeling, even if they couldn’t reach out, they had a sense that the others were there, somewhere, on the edge of their consciousness.

But the Hachibi and his host were nowhere at all.

The Biju assured that he wasn’t dead, that they would know. How then? Where could they be?

Akito said that the man in the orange mask had not teleported away.

“He went elsewhere?”

“Elsewhere?”

“Like we do when we go to Mount Inari.”

“Can a jutsu do that?”

It was unheard of. Teleportation and displacing jutsu were a thing, albeit a rare one, but what, changing dimension? On their own, without the help of a summon?

The how didn’t matter anyway. Killer Bee was unreachable.

“We have to keep looking. They will surface again eventually.”

They agreed, even if they couldn’t even have faith in that for sure. But they were helpless for now. And even if they did…

“We can’t just run blindly into the Akatsuki’s clutches.”

They were going to need help this time.

.

The boss had demanded that the other villages help with the search for B. Karui was sure they would refuse, and honestly, they would have been justified. He said it would be a show of good faith, to “work for this alliance you want so much”. Never be it said that he was a good diplomat. But Konoha and Suna agreed anyway, to lend some forces at least, to assign some of their shinobi to the task.

Karui was grateful to the point of feeling ill-at-ease. She didn’t get why the two Kage would even go along with it. She couldn’t believe they were sincere in their expressed will to work for better relationships between their villages and nations, and to side with the jinchuuriki.

It was too good to be true.

Their team Samui thus gained a taciturn kid from Konoha, with dark hair and dark eyes, who seemed to be an assistant of the Godaime Hokage. One of them Uchiha, Samui said, though it meant little to Karui. He wasn’t very talkative, though he was polite at least. Whatever. She didn’t intend to make a friend out of him. She just wanted them to get B back.

They couldn’t lose him too.

Although she knew very well that Yugito had not been taken against her will. No matter how the boss tried to spin it. Yugito was strong, she was unyielding, and they had to face the truth – none of the hosts had been taken against their will. There was no struggle, no fight. They had come to her with an offer, and she had taken it, not looking back.

Karui knew it was unfair to resent her. She did anyway.

B had said no at least. But that was unfair too – they weren’t the same. Yugito never expressed any grievance, she never complained about anything, and she never talked about her childhood. Karui had heard stories though. B was a young teen when he became a jinchuuriki, and the boss doted on him like an old aunt. Yugito had been two. The training B had completed after years, she had already gone through it all before she was ten.

But there was no choice, right? The Tailed Beasts were a threat, they had to ensure they were under proper control. In Kumo they weren’t stupid enough to mistreat the jinchuuriki like they did in the other villages, they were revered and respected as they should be, for the sacrifice they had made, for the protection and strength they ensured.

Yugito didn’t have it so bad. She still left. She left them all behind.

They were so sure she wouldn’t. When news had reached Kumo about the deserting jinchuuriki from Konoha and Suna, the boss had gone to see Yugito, just to be clear on what was happening. Karui thought it was unnecessary because obviously, Yugito wouldn’t leave.

"You're not like them," she had said confidently to the older woman, once the Raikage was gone.

Yugito’s face had not changed. She never showed anything.

“I’m exactly like them,” she had answered, and then, low enough that Karui could pretend she didn’t hear, “I was sacrificed the same.”

“No you weren’t!” and then, since she was being stubborn, “we all make sacrifices!”

She had gotten angry after that, like Karui had never seen her. Though she had still looked calm, composed. It was in her tone, in her eyes. So furious, so cold.

“Why is that? What did it accomplish? Tell me, Karui. What did we get in exchange? What did I get? We still went to war. We kept on dying. All my sisters were lost. And for what?”

Yugito didn’t have any siblings. Karui had left. She had kept it to herself, had not told anyone. Because Yugito wouldn’t leave.

Karui felt pretty stupid now.

They were following some tenuous lead on members of the Akatsuki’s whereabouts, not too far from Konoha when the Uchiha decided that he wanted to talk after all.

“You seem to care a lot about this man.”

Samui was too private a person to answer, and Omoi couldn’t be trusted with not saying anything dumb. Karui begrudgingly opted to be the boy's interlocutor. Though leaving him hanging was tempting too, it would be unnecessarily rude, and Karui didn't want to give less than a stellar image of the shinobi of Kumo.

“Of course. B is a mentor and a friend, he is one of us.”

The boy pondered over the answer for a while, weirdly serious for what ought to be a rather casual conversation.

“What about the other one? The other jinchuuriki?”

And there went Karui’s sympathy. She should have ignored him from the start. But when she turned to him to rebuff him, he didn’t look malicious nor smug. He was deep in thought, grappling with his own reflections.

“What about her?” Karui asked tightly, willing herself to be patient, to give him the benefit of the doubt. She had to remind herself that he was helping. He had not even looked annoyed with it. She could make an effort.

“Was she treated the same?”

“Why do you ask?”

“I’m wondering. She left, didn’t she?”

That was it, he had to be reeling her up on purpose, right? She glared at him. He frowned, puzzled.

“Sorry. I didn’t mean to be rude.”

She didn’t get this kid.

“They had… different circumstances. But we didn’t shun her or anything.”

The “like you did” was pretty obvious in the tense silence that followed. That got the boy moody after all.

“She still left.”

She was going to punch him.

“What are you getting at?”

“I guess it’s reassuring, in a way.”

“What?”

“That she would still want to get free.”

“Do you think you’re off the hook for the Kyuubi escaping your village then? Do you think you’re not at fault?”

He was taken aback by the venom in her tone and she almost felt bad at the flash of hurt and guilt that passed on his face, but she was too pissed to back down. They were at fault, all of them, as much as that fucking Akatsuki. They wouldn’t be in this mess, with all the jinchuuriki scattered in the wind and vulnerable, with B in harm’s way, if they had taken better care of their own, if they had been able to hold them back. Konoha in particular had no lesson to give – wasn’t theirs the first? That Naruto, who even had the nerve to show up at the summit, wasn’t he the one who had collected them, one by one? What did Konoha do to him that he was so eager to rise against them?

“I let my friend go,” he said.

She meant to ask, wasn’t that treason, but Samui called out her name strictly, and Karui kept her mouth shut.

Did he think he had the moral high ground anyway? Good for him, but they weren't the same. B had been taken, and they would be the ones to find him and bring him home.

She avoided thinking about what would happen if the rogue jinchuuriki got to him first. She avoided thinking about Yugito.

During their rather tense lunch break, they were visited by a summon. A dressed-up fox, looking young but solemn, as it stood in front of the Uchiha. They stared for a moment before the summon dared to speak.

“I’m sorry.”

The teen shrugged, making a spectacularly terrible job at appearing unaffected. It was honestly embarrassing.

“I needed to get past the wards… It was my idea. He didn’t ask me to do it, like this. I did want to see you.”

It was rare to see summons grovel in such a way. They were usually prideful and insensitive, too far removed from earthly concern to care for the trials of the human world. Kumo didn’t deal much with summons. Too volatile.

“Do you need something, Akito?”

Karui focused back on her food. This was none of her business after all.

“I am relaying a proposition. They know where the missing man is held captive. Granted certain conditions, they will tell.”

It was totally her business after all. She jumped to her feet in tandem with her two teammates and stalked toward the fox.

“What did you say?”

The Uchiha wasn’t as mad as he had tried to appear with the summon, for he scooped it in his arms without question when it jumped on him out of fright.

“My friends want to negotiate,” the fox said, making a visible effort to talk through its wariness. What a useless summon. They didn’t have time for rambling!

“Tell me where he is!”

She made to advance, uncaring of what she would need to do to pull the information out of it, but she was stopped in her tracks by a new arrival.

A much bigger one.

This fox was almost as tall as her on its four paws, and it glared at her coldly.

“Know your place, human.”

“Akira!”

The newcomer turned to the other fox.

“What’s the point of taking it upon yourself if you can’t see it through, Akito?”

The young fox looked sheepish, but not discouraged.

“I do not want to fight.”

Karui and this Akira were in agreement over the derisive sigh it pulled out of them both.

“Our contract and his people wish to exchange with your leaders. Either arrange it, or do without their intel.”

Samui stepped in before Karui gave in to her urge to fight this one too.

“We’ll arrange it immediately”, she said as she summoned a messaging crow from a scroll. Out of the corner of her eye, Karui saw the Uchiha deliberately do the same. They were closer to Konoha. The Hokage would know first.

The fox growled but settled, pacified.

“I won’t let you go next time if this is how it goes, Akito.”

“Mother said I could, it’s not up to you!”

The fox chose to fade out instead of addressing that. The other one stayed in the Uchiha’s hold, stubborn still. Karui couldn’t believe they were indulging in these petty squabbles when they were so close to finding B at last.

“What is the message then?”

“We will lead you to the host of the Eight-Tails, if we can trust there won’t be an attempt against us.” The fox looked proud for reciting it.

“Is that all?” the Uchiha asked. The foxes had talked to him mostly, they seemed to be acquainted at least. That wasn’t very loyal to Karui’s eyes and it could be a useful thing to know later.

The messages went by fast, thanks the Sage. This was largely for show – there was no guarantee either Kage could give, no word they couldn’t easily betray, and the jinchuuriki had to know that. And still, they had reached out. They said it was because they didn’t want to engage the Akatsuki on their own, and that was smart on their part, but they couldn’t pretend to trust the villages. Were they just using them, intending to stay away and snatch B at the last moment? It was possible. They would need to be on guard.

Of course, there was also the possibility that this could be a trap. From the jinchuuriki, from the Akatsuki, from both, in tandem or not. Wouldn’t that be fucking fantastic.

They had to go anyway. They had to try.

They followed the summon through the woods of the Land of Fire. It was obvious he had come to the Uchiha, that the boy was the reason why they were even able to make the connection. Was it of no concern to his Kage, that he was so chummy with the jinchuuriki? Once they had B back, this would need to be addressed. If Konoha had been in contact with the rogue hosts all this time…

Karui had to put these thoughts out of her mind quickly, because they heard the fight long before the fox had made any indication that they were close by.

They stumbled upon utter chaos.

There were the Akatsuki in their stupid coat, the jinchuuriki in their stupid mask. A bunch of zombies, from what Karui could infer, the same nuisance they had to deal with at the summit, pretty weak but so damn relentless, unstoppable unless buried under binding seals.

And at the center of it all, there was a half-collapsed hideout, and B trapped in a barrier. One of this fuckers of the Akatsuki was sitting casually on top of the cage, relaxed as if they were chilling on a park bench. That their face was hidden under an ugly orange mask didn’t make it less punchable in Karui’s opinion. She was going to kick his ass.

If she could reach him. Reinforcement arrived, but it only added to the confusion. They were at a disadvantage because the zombies were shinobi too. They dressed the same, they even had their headband. What was up with that? Once again Konoha had known back then, they were the ones to instruct the rest on how to get rid of them. How did they even know? It was suspicious as hell.

Karui focused on reaching B. She couldn’t help her fellow shinobi for now, even if they struggled against their dead enemies, more powerful than last time. She couldn’t get distracted, couldn’t stray. They were here to rescue B, that was their sole purpose.

Yugito wasn’t there, she couldn’t help but notice. There were four people from their little gang, faces hidden by smooth white masks, wreaking havoc among the enemy’s ranks. Or their own? She came face to face with a short man with red hair, and she felt like he was eager to fight her. But he went back to the corpses, to clearing a path toward B and his cage. She took advantage of his power of destruction, wondering what would happen if the jinchuuriki decided to turn on the villages next.

They had the power to destroy them all. Had had it from the start, really, and it was pretty absurd that they had never realized it before, never seized it. It had seemed so unbelievable that Yugito would even leave, when thinking about it, what was incomprehensible was the opposite. That it took them so long. That they didn't try this sooner.

They would need to be stopped too, one way or another. Karui cared little for their strength – they were a threat, always would be.

Was that what the boss feared as well? That B would be lumped with the rest when the villages inevitably decided to do away with them? Did he believe they should be the exception?

The ones who wouldn’t make the sacrifice?

How ironic. She thought she understood Yugito a little more. B was her friend and Yugito was too, even if she didn’t believe it anymore. Karui wished them no harm. And yet.

It seemed an eternity when it wasn't even a few hours, but fighting always felt that way. Endless, hopeless. Well, when they were losing. And they weren't, not really, but they weren't winning either because their goal was still out of reach.

Until at last she managed to approach the barrier and the orange mask.

The swirling face turned to her for a moment, assessing, its owner still infuriating in their carelessness and cheer, as if all of this was just for show, a great amusement. Karui took a step forward, gearing up for a fight. The next moment, they were gone.

Disappeared into thin air. She couldn’t sense them anywhere, they had not teleported away, they were just fucking gone.

She screamed in murderous rage.

The other members of the Akatsuki followed. Karui looked around, mindless with fury, wondering which they ought to tail, what to do next. The answer was immediately clear.

The fight was over, and they needed to tend to the wounded.

She had not noticed how many had come to fight, how many enemies they had faced, and how much damage had been done. It was so enraging. They had done little to no harm to the Akatuski themselves. This was a complete waste, they had failed entirely, and only had losses to show for it. She wanted to strangle someone, all her pent-up energy wasted now that the enemy was gone. She wanted to fight still, but for now she had to help.

Karui tried to find the Uchiha, who was a medic and could be useful at least if he had had the good sense not to get hurt himself. Her comrades were hurt, they needed help. It was his job to help.

But he was nowhere to be seen. And neither were the jinchuuriki.

.

Sasuke understood it was hopeless the moment he saw the man called Tobi guarding Killer Bee.

He knew what the man could do. It was a bait, one they couldn’t hope to snatch, no matter their number and strength. The man could vanish away at a moment’s notice, and he would no doubt do so as soon as any shinobi got just a little too close for his taste.

The jinchuuriki would follow suit, and they would all be back on square one.

But not this time. Not this time.

Naruto wasn’t there, nor was Neji. There was one Sasuke recognized though, despite her mask – the girl with the red hair, the one that had come to Gaara’s rescue. The one that was good at barriers. And teleportation seals.

Sasuke kept his focus solely on her. He barely paid any mind to the corpses he had to fend off, he very deliberately put the man in the orange mask out of his mind. It was a bait, it was pointless. Sasuke couldn’t fight him, not now, it wasn’t what was important now. He had been thinking of one thing only, ever since Akito had appeared before him once more, and even before, from the very second he had understood what was happening in Sakura’s chest, where that light came from. He had had enough of waiting and wondering, of feeling adrift and untethered.

He bid his time, waiting for the fight to end, for them to retreat once again. And when Tobi vanished with Killer Bee, as he was wont to do from the start, Sasuke ignored the commotion in favor of closing the distance between him and the girl, who was already tuning tail, already gathering her companions to flee.

She flinched in recognition as their gaze met, ever so briefly, through the slants of her mask.

He needed no more.

.

Karin didn’t exactly panic when she recognized the Uchiha boy, when he recognized her. But she didn’t trust that he wouldn’t make her life much harder than it already was. Their rescue attempt had failed, as they knew it would. They still had to try, with all their might, going as far as reaching out to the villages and sharing what they knew, because they couldn't leave a jinchuuriki in the Akatsuki’s clutches.

Of course it was a trap. Of course it didn’t work out.

Karin had to drag Fū away, had to threaten Suigetsu to abandon him there, had to yell at Roshi even, so that they would join her back, so that she could lead them to safety. Naruto wasn’t there, he was in charge of the other group that was chasing the other lead, the other place where the jinchuuriki had pinpointed the presence of their last member, unable to tell for sure which was the right one because this was a trap. She had learned to operate his seal. She had to carry the group away from this place, before the shinobi, bereft of their initial target, turned to them next.

She made sure they weren’t followed. No one was tailing them. She thought she felt something… But they had to hurry, there was no time to waste. If they reached the first seal, they would be safe.

She touched the tip of her fingers to the paper seal, carefully hidden in the foliage of a tree, her friends holding tightly onto her arms. She jumped.

And jumped, and jumped, dragging them all from seal to seal, not as fast as Naruto could but plenty fast all the same. They scattered the seal in their wake as they moved through the countries, spaced carefully to the limit of the seal’s range. They could cross hundreds of miles in this way. Some seals disappeared, of course, got destroyed or altered, but as long as they were far enough, lost enough, it wasn’t too high a risk.

There was no hitch this time. She managed to pull them all the way to the temple, all five of them.

All four of them. All four. It was four of them. It was…

Karin blinked in the sudden light of the open ground of the temple, staring dumbly at their group. Each bore the jumps with more or less grace and they always needed a moment to steady themselves. They were bent on their knees, trying to catch their breath.

Four of them. Fuu, Roshi, Suigetsu, and…

She heard the others rush to meet them, enquiring about their state with worried voices that soon died down as they too contemplated the utter mess that they had just found themselves into. This time Karin couldn’t even rage on – this was on her. It was her fault.

Naruto came to stand by her side and she was tempted to send him away, just so that he wouldn’t know, wouldn’t see… It would be useless. He might have known before making his way to them. It was pathetic, really.

“What the hell? Karin!” Neji accused, and she bit back a scorching retort because he was well within his right to scold her. She had been tricked – a genjutsu, no doubt, she had been too rushed, not careful enough.

And she had brought Uchiha fucking Sasuke back with them.

Chapter Text

Try as they might, they couldn’t say for sure which way to go. Couldn’t say where Killer Bee was held. It had to be a trap, a trick, a bait, for the man couldn’t very well be in two places at the same time. Yet that was how it felt, and even the Biju couldn’t tell the two apart.

It was decided they would split, to check both locations. It was also decided that they would enroll the help of the villages. They owed them this, at least. Maybe they would bring enough manpower that they could wrestle Killer Bee from the Akatsuki’s clutches. The chances were slim, but they had to try.

Someone had to stay behind and look after Jin though. Yugito volunteered immediately.

She volunteered, so that the others wouldn’t have to go through the hassle of suggesting it themselves. Or worse, if they didn’t dare, or didn’t think to, and only realized their mistake when they stumbled upon the shinobi of Kumo, and she…

She didn’t know what she would do. She volunteered to stay behind because she didn’t know.

Naruto had told the Kage, had told A, that they would rescue Killer Bee if that was what he needed, that they would bring him back here if that was what he wanted. She disagreed with this on all accounts. She believed they should have forced him to come, whether he liked it or not. And she absolutely loathed that he would come at all.

They needed to be together, she understood this. She also understood that he was one of them. Yet she couldn’t bear it. More so now that she had gotten to know the other jinchuuriki, that they had shared their stories and past.

It wasn’t even that he had had it better than most. It was a good thing if some had suffered less, she had come to terms with that. They ought to be grateful for any reprieve, to any of them.

But Killer Bee didn’t care.

Even now, she was sure he wouldn’t. He didn’t care about the suffering of others. He didn’t care that it was unfair. He was content with how things were, and so he wouldn’t concern himself with any of it.

After all, he had never spared a thought toward her. When he could have spoken out, from his place by the Raikage’s side, he could have helped her. He didn’t. He didn’t care. He didn’t care about them being weapons, he didn’t care about what they had to do. He didn’t have to worry about losing it, the Raikage was his guardian, he could handle his Biju.

She wasn’t so lucky.

Besides, what good would it do to them? Kumo would never let him go. They could spare her, but Bee? No, never.

Jin expressed great distress at seeing them all go, and Suigetsu had to spend a significant amount of time comforting the child until they could leave without triggering a fresh wave of screaming and crying. The young man was her favorite and he gave back well, as surprising as it was.

Yugito, for her part, was ill-equipped to console a child, and they had interacted very little since her arrival at the temple. Children made her uncomfortable as a rule. She had, arguably, never been a child herself, nor had she interacted with any children at any age. Her only companions growing up were her instructors and the group of girls trained up alongside her, whom she would come to see as companions, and then as sisters, up until she discovered what their true purpose was. They had trained every day of their life for as long as their memory went. Up until they were gone.

From what they could infer, Jin had been burdened with the Sanbi three or four years ago, and had been imprisoned ever since. It was hard to determine the child’s age, so little and frail as she was, but they estimated between eight and ten.

She had no memory other than the cell.

Yugito cleared for the tenth time that morning the dirt that Jin was intent on shoving into her mouth and not for the first time, she had to wrestle down a rise of incandescent rage trying to take over her whole body. It drove her insane, that they had been made to live like this. That everyone had agreed, no one had said a thing. That so many people – all of them really – were fine with sacrificing a child for the supremacy of their insignificant corner of the world. The one thing where they were all in agreement with.

That it was worth it. Worth their life, their fate, worth all their pain.

Jin yelped in surprise when Yugito unthinkingly tightened her grip around her small hands. She let go with a start, appalled at her own lack of care. Jin looked up at her with big, wet eyes.

“Don’t be mad,” she pleaded.

That wasn’t so easily done.

“I’m sorry. I’m not mad at you.”

The child was gentle and sweet, easily pleased and undemanding. She was closer to a toddler on behavior alone, which wasn't so surprising, as she probably didn't receive much of an education of any sort while she was held in captivity. She couldn't read or write, and she had difficulties speaking too. Though she sang very well.

“Manjiro taught me,” she had said. She had not asked after her caretaker. It was hard to know if she truly understood what happened to him.

The morning passed slowly. Yugito was surprised at how lonely she felt. She had gotten so used to the bustling and buzzing of the temple, to the coming and going of one teenager or another. With the addition of Roshi and Han, she had discovered the simple pleasure of sharing a drink late in the night, sitting on the terrace, talking about all matters of life. There was joy in this life, peace and contentment. All foreign. All cherished.

She was also worried, though she thankfully could keep a measure of link with the others through the connection of the Biju. She wouldn’t risk trying to contact them, lest she distracted them in the middle of a fight, but just reaching through their bond at least told her that they were okay.

Killer Bee was there too. Muted, because they had never bonded in this way. They should have, no? But they were barely aware of each other. Or, he was barely aware of her. She was all too knowing.

The first group came back a little worse for were, a little bruised, after a brush with the Akatsuki and their corpses that ended up being for naught, and she was relieved.

The second group came back the same, and she was relieved too.

Up until she realized there was an intruder among them. She scooped Jin into her arms, ready to get the child out of there, but the newcomer didn't seem intent on attacking them. It was a teenager – as if there weren't enough of those running around. A black-haired boy from Konoha.

She couldn’t believe she was able to recognize him.

“Sasuke?” Naruto whispered, incredulous, at her side.

Well, damn.

.

Sasuke needed a moment to adjust because his body didn't comprehend what had just happened to them. They had jumped through some seals if he had to guess. It was rather jarring.

He needed a moment longer to catch up on the fact that his half-baked plan had worked. By that time, the people around him had recovered from the surprise as well – he found himself threatened with various weapons.

“I mean no harm”, he said on reflex, hands raised, trying to look inoffensive. He had not thought further than when he would make it here, among the jinchuuriki.

No further than when he would cross Naruto’s gaze. For some reason his imagination couldn’t get past that moment.

Real life sure could though.

“You bastard, you tricked me!”

The girl barely refrained from punching him, he could tell. Or maybe it wasn't self-restraint but the tall guy holding her by the waist as she trashed around. Huh. Who knew.

“What did you do?”

“I’m good at genjutsu.”

It might have come out a little too pedantic for the situation he was in. But it was the truth, he was good at genjutsu, and it wasn’t so hard to trick her mind into seeing empty air where he stood, into ignoring the fourth grip on her arm.

Someone snorted – a guy with white hair, sharp teeth. The girl forgot about Sasuke in favor of chasing him around, screaming murder.

They weren’t as tense as they should have been, given the situation at hand. He ought to be relieved that they didn’t consider him much of a threat, but it was unwise on their part. And maybe a bit vexing too.

“I suppose there’s no need to tie him up,” a blonde woman said, older than the rest and whose stern expression was somewhat diminished by the small child bundled in her arms. “We’ll deal with that later. What happened out there?”

They started a rather chaotic recounting of the events of the day and their failed rescue attempt and went on to argue about what to do next. Naruto was standing as far from Sasuke as possible, and he was careful never to look in his direction. Sasuke would know – he couldn’t tear his eyes away.

The only one to pay attention to him was a girl a little younger than him, with bright orange eyes and hair a violent blue-green. She had a wide smile on her face as she approached him as one would a new and weird-looking pet.

“I’m Fū, from Takigakure! It’s nice to meet you after all, Uchiha Sasuke!”

“Hi,” he said awkwardly, disarmed by her friendly tone. He had expected some measure of hostility, but it seemed the ones who were the weariest of him were the ones who knew him enough to be aware he was no threat to them. “How do you know my name?”

“From Naruto, of course! He talked about you often. Neji too, a bit, but not nearly as nicely."

Sasuke had no idea what to do with this information. He had assumed Naruto would be tight-lipped about his life before this, that he wouldn't let them in, even in this way. He couldn't say for sure it was a comfort. What was the point in being cherished in secret if he was scornful to their face?

“This place is guarded and you can’t go out if the foxes don’t want you to, so you’re stuck here for now. Do you want a tour?”

Was this a normal occurrence? Did they receive daily visits like this, that it would leave them so unfazed? Sasuke should have tried that sooner.

Naruto was still avoiding eye contact but Sasuke could say he was pissed. Good. He had no idea what was coming.

“Sure.”

.

The girl was funny and energetic, carefree despite the glare her enthusiastic tour guide show was gathering. Sasuke thought he would find it exhausting, but the levity was refreshing. He felt a little out of it, couldn’t quite believe that he was here, that this was real. It felt like a parallel world, an interlude. The rest of the world was gone. This was also a reprieve.

The others were still looking for their missing companion, mostly through their telepathic bond, if Sasuke had understood correctly. As such, Fū was saddled with babysitting duty, which she immediately dumped on Sasuke.

He found himself in the care of a small child. This wasn’t how he expected his day to go.

Jin seemed content to walk around the temple in his arms, enjoying the tour as if getting it for the first time. Sasuke couldn’t deny it was a beautiful place, warm and peaceful. The trees and plants were luxurious, colors and scents vivid like he rarely saw now that the forest around Konoha got thinner and more populated. There was a jumping stream down the temple, fresh and thin, not too far from its streaming point. He briefly tried to orient himself, to try and guess where they could be, before giving up.

Jin liked the water, content to splash around and they could just watch and wait, idles. Sasuke ought to be annoyed. He chose not to. He was very tired.

They were about to go back up when Naruto found them near the bank.

“Fū, go take my place. We’re still looking.”

It didn’t give the impression that she was obeying him. In fact, he wasn’t really asking – there was a pleading edge to his voice, a bargain for her compliance. She took Jin with her with a cheerful smile.

They remained alone by the singing water.

Sasuke couldn’t pretend this was unusual – it was always terribly hard for them to talk. For Naruto, it seemed like each word was forcefully pulled from his mouth against his will, breaking through skin and teeth, leaving him open and bleeding. For Sasuke they just tumbled out with no rhythm nor rhyme, thoughts confused and speech even more so. Too much to feel, too much to say, not enough words to say it. They had the hardest time understanding each other.

They kept trying and trying.

They had never talked as much as that last time in the valley, each painful confession wrestled out, desperate to be heard, to be received well. Clumsy words, fragile words. “Please handle them with care. Please don’t throw them back at me.” This too, they were rather bad at.

Eventually, Naruto spoke. “Why did you come here?”, he asked. He sounded angry.

Sasuke could have made a bet on what his first words would be, and win. Sasuke could have made a bet on what emotion would show up first, and win.

Naruto often was within his right to be cross with him, and Sasuke still wished he wasn’t. For once that he would be forgiving and indulgent, as Sasuke couldn’t help to be.

Even this time, he wasn’t sure if he would manage to get angry. Though he was, he was.

“Don’t you know?”

He had to. And he did, judging by the way he avoided Sasuke’s gaze, the way he kicked at a rock to send it tumbling into the water, the way his anger was more restlessness and worry than anything else.

Sasuke was weak to his distress. “Sakura is fine,” he said. “She made it because of what you did. You saved her.”

He didn’t know how he managed to sound accusatory when he felt so pathetically, so indescribably grateful. They all told themselves that death was part of their lives and that they knew it, that they were ready for it, yet it always took them by surprise when death came knocking after all. Sasuke had a very large family and a lot of friends, and nearly all of them were shinobi. He was no stranger to losses, and he would cope badly with most of it.

But Sakura? No. There was no way.

Sakura was a part of his future. She would be there when he became Hokage, when he started a family if he ever did, when he would cope with other losses. And he would be there when she settled down, when she would go through bliss and grief. It couldn't be another way.

Except it very well could. In just the blink of an eye, with just one fight. A future gone forever.

Unacceptable.

“I’m glad she’s okay,” Naruto said, so tame, so casual, for the beating of her heart he had sustained on his own, for the life he had kept in this world. Sasuke couldn’t make sense of it. He couldn’t let it go.

“Why did you do it?”

Accusing, again. Naruto seemed hurt.

“I just wanted you to be safe. What, was it so wrong of me? Should I have just let you go on your stupid missions when I couldn’t even keep an eye on you?”

Sasuke didn’t say, you could have just stayed, because it wasn’t in his nature to be cruel, even when angry, even when hurt. But he thought about it. Thought about answering that yes, he should have done just that if that was how things were going to be.

But then again, he kind of had. Since he had lied. Since he had pretended…

“That’s not what I’m saying. Why like this? Why lie?”

He understood why Naruto would want to make sure, want to do something for them. He knew how unbearable it was, to be so far away, to be helpless, knowing the dangers your friends faced every day. But he afforded himself that comfort without giving them a chance to have it too, and wasn’t that selfish? Wasn’t that wrong of him?

It was the exact same problem as him showing up out of the blue to check on Sasuke after his father's death. Like it was that easy, when Sasuke had been starved for news of any kind for so long. It wasn't fair.

“What did you want me to say! Sorry, I need you to leave me alone, but I want you to be safe?”

“That’s exactly what you should have said!”

“You wouldn’t have let it go!”

“Isn’t that what we did? Isn’t it? Did we chase after you? Did we not leave you alone? After all this time… And you’re blaming us for wanting to know? To have news, anything? You could have been dead for all we knew! And that was the first thing you wanted to do? Push us away again? Were those two minutes too much already? Didn’t I leave you enough alone?”

Sasuke wiped away frustrated tears, upset with himself for getting so worked up and upset with Naruto too, for always making him feel this way, for how helpless he made him. They never managed to be gentle with each other.

Sasuke had been haunted by the thought of their reunion and how badly he wanted to hug his friend, and now they were so tense it felt like they could start throwing punches at any moment.

“Maybe I couldn’t deal with that either.”

“What?”

Naruto refused to cross his gaze and Sasuke was fed up with this. He wanted peace for them both, even if just for a moment. They could go back to screaming at each other later. For now he took two steps forward, determined, because he didn’t want to see Naruto like this, distressed and frustrated, this wasn’t what he was here for, all he wanted was…

Before his hand could land on Naruto’s shoulder, a piercing scream tore through the peaceful air of the temple. Naruto’s eyes widened in shock, he hunched over himself as if he had been punched, hands clutching his shirt. Above his seal.

He took off in a frenzy, running back up to the temple, Sasuke on his heels. There was a commotion in the yard, confusion and disbelief. The scream was from the child, wailing at top volume in the arms of the Kumo kunoichi.

Karin kept asking “what the hell is going on? What is it?” but no one could answer her until she grabbed Naruto’s shoulders and shook him hard, twice, so that he would snap out of his daze and say something.

It was another one who eventually answered, an older man with red hair, face folded in a stormy scowl.

“The host of the Hachibi has died.”

.

Yugito had never realized before, how Killer Bee was on her mind.

It had taken a backseat because she was surrounded by the other jinchuuriki now, their presence much more potent, alive in her thoughts since they were right there, they meditated together, they visited each other's head. She had never shared such a thing with Killer Bee, had never shared much with him at all really. But she was very young when he had been saddled with his own Tailed-beast. She thought she could remember it, though the memories might not be hers entirely – a new shape, a new soul, so very close to hers. She had hoped for a while that she would get to meet him, that maybe they could be together, that they wouldn’t have to face it on their own.

But they were from two different worlds. She went through her merciless training alongside her sisters, beaten day after day into submission, into a master of her host that could be mastered in turn, so that she would forever do their bidding. She had ignored Killer Bee as he had ignored her.

She had not realized, how much he was still there. Until he wasn’t.

The Hachibi disappeared from their mind. They felt it fade away, forcefully taken out of their world, of this place within their heart where they all seemed to gather. The tailed beast disappeared. And Bee…

Jin started wailing, distressed. Killing any hope Yugito could have had that this was a fluke, that it was just her. It wasn’t – the others stumbled into the courtyard, all alarmed and confused, all looking for answers because surely it couldn’t be the most obvious one. It couldn’t be so easy. It couldn’t go this way.

It absolutely could, and it had.

Killer Bee was dead.

The temple descended into chaos, between the jinchuuriki, in shock and disbelief, in rage and despair, and the others, frustrated and confused, trying to understand what was going on. Karin shook Naruto hard. He was crying.

“The host of the Hachibi has died,” Roshi said. His flat tone was misgiving – Yugito could feel his rage.

Karin cursed. Her hands turned gentle on Naruto's shoulders, but already he was shrugging off her grip.

Already he was blaming himself.

He was so good at that, it was infuriating. Everything was his fault. All blame fell on him. Every single bad thing in this world was somehow imputable to him. She had tried to break him out of it, as gently as she could, but she wasn't very good at comfort and it was rooted deep. He could even blame himself for things that weren't bad. He felt guilty over their life here, over bringing him them in, as if it wasn't their choice, as if they followed him blindly. Getting mad over it was the only way to stop this spiral, when they accused him of robbing them of their power of determination. But then he felt guilty for that instead.

The Konoha boy, Sasuke, hovered a short distance away, clearly wanting to do something, to lay a hand on his friend’s shoulder or hold his hand, to offer comfort. He didn’t dare – maybe he didn’t feel like he had the right, maybe he was embarrassed. Maybe he knew it would be ill-received, which proved he knew the boy well enough. Still, she wished he would anyway. It didn’t matter that Naruto didn’t want it. It mattered that it was offered.

She wished he would, and he did. Sasuke grabbed Naruto’s wrist. Naruto pulled out with barely a look, but the boy just grabbed it again. He was unfazed by Naruto’s scorching look, he didn’t say a word but he didn’t let go either, and made clear that he wouldn’t. Naruto had to relent.

That one wasn’t so bad, she thought.

The Hachibi was gone. They weren’t dead of course, nothing could kill the Tailed Beasts – it could have been argued that they weren't alive in the first place, not in the sense them humans understood, not in the sense that they could die. But diving in, looking around, it seemed like they didn’t disperse like they usually did when their host died. They couldn’t find the Biju’s energy anywhere.

Just like that Tobi did, it had disappeared entirely from this world.

Naruto said, “we need to find them" at the exact same time Yugito said, "we need to lay low".

She knew he would go there. Knew he would want to do something, as always. Do something, go somewhere, move, act. He couldn’t stay still. He couldn’t let anything go.

“What do you mean?”

He sounded so offended.

“Kumo is going to go on the warpath over this. They will blame anyone and everyone, and we can’t be caught in the crossfire. They are our best chance at taking down at least part of the Akatsuki, but they won’t hesitate to target us too.”

“So we should just do nothing?”

“There is nothing to do! Nothing but protect ourselves. The Eight-Tails will be fine and Killer Bee is- he’s dead. Even you can’t go against that.”

If anything he looked even more offended now. She couldn’t tell for sure what the others were thinking, which one would lean more on her side or his, but this wasn’t a contest. Ultimately, they had no power to decide how the others lived their life. But they had always managed to come more or less to an agreement until now.

“Don’t you care about his death?”

The tension ranked up in seconds, both their energy growing and spilling out, taking over the ground.

“Do not put words in my mouth.”

She was passingly aware of the others guarding up in turn, of the confusion and grief rising, threatening to swallow them all. A roaring storm, with all the damage it could do.

Jin whimpered in Suigetsu’s arms.

It snapped Yugito back into the present, back in the soft, warm comfort of the temple that she had come to see as her home. Sanctuary for them all, and she would never put that in peril.

She made an effort to retreat, to calm down, pushing the beast back, muzzling her grief. She couldn’t let herself go like this.

Naruto lost some of his hardness. His face softened into confused guilt.

“I’m sorry.”

“I do not hunger for revenge,” she cited without thinking.

Only Gaara caught it, judging by how he turned to her with a curious gaze, though of course he didn’t say anything. Suna was by far the village where the Old Faith was the most prevalent, while in Kumo worshippers were rare, and faithful to younger gods. War was a popular one. Love too, a classic. Yugito herself would offer passing prayers to Life, but it was so minor it didn’t even have a shrine in Kumo. She didn’t get it. To her it was the only one worth worshipping.

One of her old instructors had been born in Suna. She would repeat those Paths like a mantra. Yugito could only ever recall this one, because after what happened to her sisters, the old woman had quoted it at her ad nauseam.

When Yugito wailed at her, asked why she wouldn’t punish her, why she wouldn’t make her pay for their death. I do not hunger for revenge. Eventually, Yugito started to tell it to herself too. So that she wouldn’t lose it and turn her rage against her village. Or against herself.

But no, never again. She had control, she would keep it tightly.

I do not hunger for revenge. I seek justice.

Not that she ever got it, for her or her family.

“Okay let’s- let’s all calm down.”

Karin was the one to step in at last, eyes wide, as wary as if she was approaching wild animals, wondering if they were going to jump at her throat. Yugito hated the worry in her eyes, but could she blame the girl? She had merits to have even stuck with them for so long.

“Walk away. Do something else. We are done here.”

They all scattered around in a matter of seconds. Gaara tailed Naruto up to the roof of the temple. Soon Yugito was left alone with the boy from Konoha. She didn’t expect him to address her at all.

“I’m sorry for your loss.”

She didn’t answer, but he didn’t seem to expect her to. He went on.

“I met some people from Kumo recently. There was a woman named Karui. She talked about you.”

She didn’t know how to answer that. There was no question anyway.

“I’m sorry. She was worried about you. She seemed convinced you would come back, if she could only talk to you.”

Karui was always set in her way. Things were as she saw them and had to go how she wanted them to. Yugito would lie if she said she didn’t miss the girl as well. She and Omoi had been two of the very few people to talk to her at all back in Kumo.

Karui would argue it made her luckier than most.

“She was wrong.”

“That’s what I told her… She didn’t like it. “

That pulled a startled laugh out of Yugito, to both their surprise. He was just so out of place here, yet so calm about it. It wasn't exactly resignation, he just took it in stride. Even his attitude toward Naruto was maddening, considering they had been apart for years and that their relationship was rather fraught. The kid seemed to be equipped with infinite patience and indulgence.

She didn’t exactly like that in someone. She was equally envious and wary. Maybe she also pitied him a little.

“I’m sorry, I know you don’t know me but I was wondering… would tell me about your people?”

She thought he was talking about Kumo at first but then understood that he was referring to this – to the jinchuuriki and their friends, making do in the busy temple.

It pleased her greatly.

She didn’t ask why he didn’t go to Naruto directly. Talking to a stranger was easier sometimes – some truth would hurt less than if it was coming from his friend’s mouth. He might not truly wish them to have suffered apart, but it wouldn’t be easy to hear he hadn’t at all. Though he didn’t need to worry about that – Naruto let nothing show, but he suffered plenty.

“Yeah, sure.”

They settled on the terrace overlooking the garden. Yugito introduced quietly the ones crossing their paths. They remained ignored for the most part, except by Fū who sat by them for a while, recounting a few wild anecdotes before going to ask Roshi for some training.

Yugito was surprised at her own softness, the fondness unmistakable in her tone even if she tried to remain factual. The boy didn’t comment much but he listened intently, split between relief and a form of longing he wouldn’t soon be rid of.

“I was hoping he would be well.”

She was unsure if his wish had been answered or not.

“Do you think you are like family?”

She was caught off guard by the question, and she took her time to think about it.

“People become friends because they are alike and appreciate each other, they become allies if they have similar goals. But family comes before knowledge, it resists our differences. We might not have become friends, we are very different. But we were bonded to each other long before we met, or even knew of each other.”

It was funny how they had all believed to be alone. Even she, and Roshi and Han, who had grown up alongside another one of them. Even if the number in their name made it obvious that there were others. But they didn’t think of it because it was pointless – they were trapped and chained, and they would remain so.

Until Naruto came along.

On his own he decided that no. No, it wouldn’t remain so. With his bare hands he would change his fate, their fate. And he had.

“We are very grateful for him,” she said after a moment of hesitation. She didn’t want to hurt him, but he had to understand. He sighed.

“I know, I imagine. I don’t… I’m happy for you. I will help, if I can.”

So selfless, so kind. She didn’t envy him.

Naruto and Gaara came back down from the roof. She didn’t imagine they had done much talking, it wasn’t their style. But they brought each other peace in a way no other could, it ran deeper even than their shared fate as jinchuuriki.

“Let’s get started on lunch,” Yugito said to distract them all, as it didn’t look like they would go anywhere for now with the things they needed to say to each other.

They shuffled in obediently, to her great amusement. In many ways they were still children, still wanting for the safety of a household that would be welcoming, still chasing family. It was complicated for her to take on the role of the elder, when she had never been the child herself. But it was healing too. They looked up to her and she even managed to feel worthy of their love. She wouldn’t let anything happen to them.

They worked efficiently around the large kitchen. The Uchiha boy turned out to be decent at it and he dropped in passing that he had been living with a friend instead of at his parents’ house for a few years now, hence the obligatory cooking skills. Naruto was comically obvious in his desire to ask more, to know more, but he remained silent. Stubborn to a fault, maybe shy too, after all this time. Yugito made the effort to question the boy in his stead, though she wasn’t great at it either. It was awkward, but not really tense. There was even something hopeful to be found here, she thought.

They all gathered around the large table. The affair was always chaotic and messy, regardless of whether or not they were all on speaking terms. It was inevitable with so many people eating at the same time, and they made a point to do it whenever possible. The boy from Konoha seemed uncomfortable and lost, but he weathered it as he seemed to do all things.

He excused himself as soon as they were done with a feeble excuse, surely just needing some calm. Naruto watched him go with such longing it was painful to witness. Karin kicked him under the table.

“What is he doing here, huh? How long will he stay?”

He was essentially missing in action. It could be argued that they had kidnapped him, which wouldn’t be good for their business.

Naruto shrugged. Karin kicked him again. “Tell him to leave.”

She had no pity to spare – she was stricter than any of the adults around them. Han pulled her by the shoulder so that she would leave the boy alone. She glared at them all.

“Someone has to say something,” she said, accusing, before storming off. They elected to leave her alone for now.

.

Sasuke felt terrible, being here. It wasn’t his place and he felt uncomfortable and unsafe, knowing he was seen as an intruder, maybe even an enemy.

Which he was.

The place was guarded of course, as they had said. Against all kinds of summons and seals. But Sasuke didn't need to do any summoning. He wandered into the woods, just out of sight, letting his mind wander as his steps carried him among the trees. Sure enough after some time, Jiji strutted in as well.

The cats came and went as they pleased. They rarely obeyed summoning. They would just show up. This place wasn't warded against creatures simply deciding to wander in.

"Were you worried about me?" Sasuke asked the cat, curious as to how he had shown up so quickly. He didn't get an answer of course. In fact, Jiji made a point of ignoring him completely.

“Tell them I’m fine, and not to come looking for me. I’ll be back soon. I’ll try to convince the jinchuuriki to come out of hiding. Don’t tell them where we are.”

He wasn't sure if he was imagining the disapproval in the cat's demeanor and gaze, or if he was just projecting his guilt and unease. Sakura would see straight through him – he couldn’t hope to fool her into believing he had his mission at heart, that he was here for any other reason than his own personal feelings.

No matter. Jiji wouldn’t betray him, and he would go back, soon. He would fight again, soon. But for now…

For now, he just needed to find some peace.

.

“We received words from Sasuke. He’s fine. Chasing after his boy, you know. Good for him, I guess.”

Ino barked loud enough that Sakura could hear her the moment she stepped into the lab, with little care for the other shinobi working encryption around them. Knowing she did it on purpose didn’t make it any less irritating, on the contrary. Sakura wondered how they could stand working in Ino’s space all day long.

But then again, they were all a bunch of weirdos, so it wasn’t excluded that some were even worse than her. This specific team worked on decoding the most complex messages, mostly snatched from enemies’ hands, and they didn’t much see the light of the sun. What they called their “lab” was a large, chaotic room of the Intelligence Department that no one would set foot into unless absolutely necessary. It was cluttered with desks and chairs piled high with papers, books, notes, pens, and various devices Sakura knew nothing of.

It was the first place she had thought of going, after leaving the hospital.

She crossed the room, ignoring its other occupants to focus on her friend, as intent as a weapon trying to find its target. One wrong move, one misstep would send her crashing down, shattering into a million pieces. But if she could reach Ino, surely she would be fine.

Because the girl looked up as soon as Sakura came near, abandoning her work to come to stand in front of her.

“Come on, let’s see,” she said without preamble, without any coddling or consideration, without any sympathy at all. Uncaring about their, admittedly uncaring in turn, audience, she unbuttoned Sakura’s shirt from top to navel and opened it wide. She gave a long, assessing look to her bare chest before declaring, with a pensive voice, “huh, yeah. Ugly.”

At last Sakura found her bearings, at last she could see through the fog and breathe a little easier. Ino pretended that she didn’t notice anything amiss, that she wasn’t holding tightly at Sakura’s arms to make sure she wasn’t going to crumble on the spot. But she wasn’t, not anymore.

Not like she had been so close to, earlier at the hospital, when the nurse had untied her bandages at last, when she could finally assess the damages.

"Ugly" was putting it mildly. Half of her breasts were gone. The scars would fade in time – didn’t she know that well? They wouldn’t remain so swollen and red. But there was nothing to do about the cave-in, about the canyon dug into her left breast, clipping it at half its original size, uneven and lumpy.

There was no going around it and Ino didn't try to. Didn't offer either comfort or dismissal, didn't say it was nothing, didn't say it was anything. It was ugly, was what it was, and that was all.

It wasn't so flagrant with her clothes on, because she never had that much going on there in the first place. But still. The deformity was there, hard to miss. Her body maimed again. Marked, again.

It was more than common of course, she knew it could have been worse. But after the look, it was the shape now, and she wondered what else of herself she would have to relent next, what pieces could be again chipped away.

Wondered if anyone but Ino could look at her and say “ugly” with such disinterest and yet such warmth. She didn't often spare much thought for her future, but she was still sensitive to its shifts and turns.

Ino was almost deaf in one ear, since a rocky spying mission in the Land of Tea. She had a patch of burnt skin at the back of her head and neck where hair wouldn’t grow anymore. All of them had been scarred in some way, their bodies reshaped and altered, often becoming painful and gripped like they were in their fifties already.

They were not yet twenty.

“We can go and get wasted if you want. I can’t look at this anymore anyway.”

She was working on the final message left behind by Jiraiya. It had to be of import, or he wouldn’t have been careful to encode it so well. They had hope it would help them defeat his killer. Most of the Intelligence Department was working on it - Ino’s father, deep into the consciousness of the corpse Jiraiya had sent back. The Analysis Team, led by Shizune, trying to understand the strange state of the body.

The whole village was in a kind of stasis, anxiously waiting for the next development, the next attack. They had all retreated back behind their own walls now that the Raikage’s brother had been killed, Kumo calling for an all-out stand already that the other villages were debating answering to. Sakura didn’t think they had much of a choice, but they did if they had no care for the losses in places not their own. And that was the case for a lot of people.

She just wanted them to put an end to it. Fight and win and be done with it, and go back to their lives, to the improvement they wanted to make, to the work yet to be done. They aimed to build and for now they were stuck trying to prevent more destruction. It was infuriating.

They exited the Intelligence Department firmly decided to go drink their weight in alcohol in one of the guesthouses of the night district, despite the sun still picking above the roofs of the villages. But they stumbled upon none other than clan leader Hinata on the way.

“Hey pretty! Were you coming to see me?” Ino asked, full charm on.

“Sorry, I should have warned you ahead.”

“No worries. We were just going to get some sushi for dinner. Come join us.”

Sakura didn’t call her out on the lie. Sushi were Hinata’s go-to for any occasion, while Ino wasn’t so fond of it. But it wasn’t so easy to get the young clan leader to do anything besides work. Catching her out like this was a rare opportunity, one Ino wasn’t going to let go to waste.

She didn’t even wait for an answer, instead hooking a casual arm under Hinata’s to stir her toward a somewhat adequate sushi restaurant that wouldn’t poke holes in their finances. Hinata would probably offer to pay anyway, but all the more reason not to aim at anything too fancy.

Hinata often took the trip to Intelligence, to Ino’s office. It seemed the one allowance she granted to herself – she went down there and asked for news, for words, for what was going on out there. Sakura wasn’t sure she still hoped to hear from her cousin, after all this time and knowing what they knew now. But it had become a habit, one that Ino indulged at great length, desperate that she was to cheer the girl up, however she could.

Apart from these brief encounters, Hinata was always at work. She was among the other clan leaders and the high-ranking jounin, or the council of her clan, she was working diplomacy and trade, she was helping with training and childcare and who knew, probably gardening as well. She never stopped, despite the people around her asking, and then begging her to. She never took time for herself.

She never laughed.

Or well, never as long as Ino wasn’t on a mission to make that statement a lie. After just a few minutes at the restaurant Sakura was bent in half and holding back tears, unable to resist Ino and her deadpan tone as she recollected with a straight face the wildest tales of the Intelligence Department. Hinata made no such grand expression – but she too was laughing, face relaxed for once instead of pinched in a sad frown. She even forgot after a while to hide behind her hand, to duck and cover her face. Ino looked incredibly smug.

They walked her back to the Hyuuga compound afterward. Sakura and Ino were well beyond tipsy, but they were accomplished in this task and did not embarrass themselves too much. Hinata seemed to find it amusing anyway.

They watched her disappear beyond the heavy doors of her clan’s home. The ones guarding the entrance made no comment, of course, but one of them gave them a small nod that almost felt like approval. How things had changed, and yet not changed at all.

“Are you going to do something about that?” Sakura asked once they were out of earshot. She knew Ino as well as herself.

“Not yet.”

“When then?”

She had an idea. There was a process to this kind of thing. It couldn't ever be simple.

“Come on, you know. She’s just like Sasuke. She’s stuck. It won’t go anywhere.”

Sakura frowned.

"Maybe they'll have to think about moving on someday."

It was a mean thing to say, but they had to say it at some point, right? Some people left and never came back. Some bridges were never mended. Was she supposed to forever look and be silent while Sasuke waited and waited? How was that more noble and brave than deciding to stop, deciding that they were done with this, that they too had the right to get on with their lives?

So what if Naruto did come back eventually. Was it so wrong of her to want to get things done in the meantime? It wasn't as if she had a choice.

It wasn't as if she could decide to leave it all behind.

“We still have time, Cherry Pie.”

They were not yet twenty.

“You’re the one telling me that?”

“No one has to follow their own advice. Last drink at the flat?”

Ino had invested Shikamaru’s room, and Sakura had not yet thought about where she would return to after the hospital. She didn’t want to go back to her parents, so she followed Ino to the boys’ place. It held a bit of all of them, they were over so often. They knocked back a few glasses before lying facing each other on Ino’s bed, eyes shining in the dim light of the street. Ino drew her closer when the tears came.

“You are beautiful and I love you.”

They held on through the night.

.

They didn’t know what to do with their grief, with the empty hole in the shape of the Hachibi and its host. They meditated for a while after dinner, but they still couldn’t find any trace of them. Eventually they all called it a night, but Naruto couldn’t just opt out. Not when Sasuke was hovering at the backdoor, with no idea what to do with himself.

He sat by Naruto’s side once they were alone. They looked at the garden and the woods in silence for a moment.

“I’m… I’m very sorry. About your friend.”

“He wasn’t my friend.”

Naruto grimaced at his own tone, at his lack of sympathy and patience, at Sasuke’s pinched lips and furrowed brows.

“I mean I never met him. But he was… He was one of us. He should have been with us.”

“You know he didn’t even want to.”

Naruto shrugged.

“I know, but we… I said I would bring us all together. He was one of us, he was ours to look after. Just like any member of the Uchiha clan would be yours, you know? Even if he didn’t want our help, even if… They are my responsibilities.”

He hoped the slip would fly over Sasuke’s head, but that was too much to ask.

“They’re not yours, not solely.

“Yes they are!”

He jumped back on his feet, suddenly restless, he started to pace back and forth under the soft light of the lanterns they had hung all around the roofs to illuminate the courtyard at night. It divided it into two neat worlds – one bright and warm, filled with noises and life, where his family dwelt. And the rest of the world, oppressive in its silence and darkness, yet comforting too in a way, easy to get lost into. He paced the line as if dangling on a rope, one step away from falling on either side.

“They’re here because of me. I brought them here. You don’t understand, I… I left. I left and I took them away with me and it has to be worth it, it has to. We can’t fail, I can’t fail, or what would that all have been for?”

They would be furious with him if they heard him talking this way. That was why he wouldn't. Sasuke didn't look convinced either, but Sasuke didn't often choose anger.

Instead he got up too. He got closer. With the light in his back Naruto had a hard time making out the lines of his face, but he thought he could see them clearly anyway. He had not changed all that much.

“It’s okay. Naruto, it’s okay. You did well.”

“Please don’t say that.”

“You did.”

"How can you say that to me? After everything… You know, this is why I couldn't face you. I couldn't have handled it either way. I know you ought to be angry with me, but I also knew that most likely… That it would go this way. That you would be kind to me, again, that you would still be missing me. It was too hard to care, if you had known, if I had told you about the seal… I could imagine the look on your face and I couldn't bear it. I didn't deserve that, you shouldn't have…"

Sasuke hugged him. He hugged him hard, without finesse. There was the anger, maybe – the embrace was bruising tight, suffocating. Naruto sank into it as if he could bring them closer still, as if they could imprint the sharp edges of their bodies into each other, to better fit, to hurt a little more.

“Why can’t you ever trust me?” Sasuke whispered low, so low it maybe wasn’t meant to be heard, and Naruto was too shaken to dare answer. Sasuke went on anyway. “I wanted to see you again, because I missed you. I want you back because I miss you. I want to be where you are. This is what mattered to me.”

Can’t you ask for more, Naruto wanted to say. Won’t you ask for more? Couldn't he be angry, couldn't he demand reparation and apologies, couldn't he blame him?

Sakura would have been easier to deal with. She would have known to punch him in the face and scream herself raw, and he could have screamed right back, get it all out. Sasuke had always been so contained. Compact and sealed, tightly reined in. Cold, some would say, unfeeling. As if, as if.

Naruto would forever be grateful to him for letting him go, for allowing him to leave. And yet he wished he hadn’t sometimes. Wished Sasuke had asked for something for himself just once, wished he could demand and be granted, wished he could have whatever he wanted. Even the things Naruto was the one keeping from him.

“I’ll need to go back soon,” Sasuke said when he stepped back, even if it seemed to be about the last thing he wanted to do. Naruto almost asked, why? Why not stay here? He was sure Sasuke would like that. He would fit well here.

There was no point in asking though. Sasuke did what he had to do. He didn’t just leave things behind. This little interlude, this escape, it was already huge for him. He had wanted that badly to come to scold Naruto in person.

And Naruto, since he was selfish and terrible, couldn’t help hoping it could last a little longer.

.

Sasuke had entertained many fantasies about something like this.

He dreamt he had followed Naruto out of Konoha. That they had made this life together. Or that he had convinced Naruto to stay and make the best of their situation with him, that he was the one he had moved in with after his fallout with his father. He dreamt of a life they could live side by side.

It was still tempting to this day.

Of course it wasn’t in the realm of possibilities, and he didn’t think of it as such. But he could daydream all he wanted, as he witnessed the life around the temple. Daydream about fitting in, about the everyday nonsense they would get up to. The how mattered little, in the end, like the who and the where

He had meant what he said more than he thought, he realized. At the end of the day all he wanted was to be where Naruto was.

But he was running out of time and excuses. He had slept terribly on one of the spare futons, plagued with guilt and worry. It had to be rather chaotic back at home, he was needed by his master's side, by his family and teammates. He had indulged enough.

That was what he told himself, wondering how to breach the subject of his departure while they finished with breakfast, until one of the people here that wasn't a host, Suigetsu, accosted him out of the blue.

“You’re a very good healer, aren’t you?”

Sasuke could only nod. He didn’t want to brag, and he assumed they had heard enough if he could make that statement. Suigetsu turned to the rest of the group.

“We could take him to the Northern Hideout.”

It meant nothing to Sasuke, but it was of great import to the people gathered – Naruto perked up, suddenly excited. Even Karin seemed to see merits in the words.

“We have a friend there,” the boy went on. “He’s been very sick for a long time. He has a rare disease. No one could help.”

They started to argue about logistics and safety measures while Sasuke looked around, helpless, for support, for backup. For someone to put a stop to the plan, to say it was a terrible idea, that he wasn't meant to be here and needed to leave as soon as possible.

No one did, of course. They had little concern for what Sasuke was supposed to be doing, but they were worried for their friends.

“It’s not too far from here. We can also investigate what Orochimaru has been up to, if he’s back to one of the hideouts or if he’s still out there with the Akatsuki. It’s a good idea.”

Sasuke wondered who Naruto was trying to convince the most. He didn’t need to try too hard anyway. Sasuke didn’t need all that much.

“Okay.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah, okay, let’s go. I’ll help if I can.”

Just a little longer.

Chapter Text

On the way to the Northern Hideout, Naruto was possessed with the strangest urge.

He was suddenly dying to take Sasuke’s hand.

It started once they had reached as far as they could go with the teleportation seals – they had not put them too close to Oto’s hideouts, because Orochimaru was aware of the hiraishin and they couldn’t risk him finding one by accident and figuring it out. So they walked the rest of the way. It helped that the Northern Hideout, like the rest of them, was hidden well out of the official routes and paths. They could travel relatively unbothered.

Neji and Gaara were walking upfront, opening the way. Then came Karin and Fū, deep into an animated conversation about one manga or another that they had managed to get their hands on recently. Usually, Naruto would have joined them.

But Naruto was busy walking two steps away from Sasuke, and wishing it was none at all.

The urge to touch was nothing new, toward Sasuke or anyone else. All of his friends were well aware of his tactile nature and indulged him more or less depending on their own struggles with the issue.

This was something else. It was at the forefront of his mind, so much so that he had trouble thinking about anything else but Sasuke’s hand swaying back and forth. It would be so easy to reach out.

He wondered what Sasuke would do. If he would agree, if he would say anything. If he would go with it or pull away. The possibilities were driving him a little wild, he didn’t know what to do with himself. He ought to be more focused on the matter at hand, yet he couldn't help feeling lighter than he had in some time. Finally they were going to do something good – he was sure Sasuke would be able to help Kimimaro. They might even be able to bring him and Jugo back to the temple at last. After losing Killer Bee, and with everything else so uncertain, it was something to look forward to.

And it was thanks to Sasuke. Sasuke, who had come to him, not for anything else it seemed other than to talk, than for them to get some time, just a little.

It wasn’t very fair, to either of them, to the rest of their friends, to the current situation. It was a bit selfish, a bit untoward. It was elating.

Despite all the time and distance that stood between them still, there was also this – walking side by side, and being content. It used to be that being by Sasuke’s side brought him peace. It used to be that they very much enjoyed each other’s company.

It was still so. The relief was dizzying.

“What happened here?” Naruto asked, pointing at Sasuke’s damn hand since he couldn’t think about anything else. He didn’t dare touch so Sasuke needed a moment to understand that he was talking about the jagged line of a scar running from between his index and middle finger all the way up to his wrist. It had the rosy tint of a scar not quite new but not very old either. A year or two. He didn’t have it in the Valley.

“Oh, that. I tried to catch a sword.”

“What?”

“Not on purpose. Well, I was just out of ideas. We were going against a group of missing-nin near the border that was racketeering the nearby farms. One of my first missions as a team leader, but I couldn’t stop a sword with anything other than my own hand. It was a bit of a mess.”

Some kind of an understatement for his hand split in half.

“I had reduced mobility for quite some time. I worked on it myself, mostly, trying to heal it faster. I still have a few spasms sometimes, but there's nothing to do about it."

There were probably other scars. Other stories. Naruto wondered if there were some he could have prevented, had he been there. Some he could have taken for himself. After all…

He saw Sasuke open his mouth and he saw the moment he stopped himself from asking back. Naruto had no scar to show for their time apart. His skin would remain forever unmarred, no matter the injuries he sustained. They had gotten very violent in training, with Fū especially, who had been on board with testing if they would lose a limb for good or not. Of course Karin had put a stop to it. Still, Naruto had bled plenty. But you couldn’t tell looking at him.

It was a strange form of regret, he supposed, seeing how the people around him had always been so weird about the scars. Both proud and regretful of them, fascinated and repulsed. The line on Sakura’s face was barely visible anymore but the history remained.

He had been thinking about getting Gaara to do him more tattoos. The boy even had some talent for drawing. It was cheating a little, but his body wouldn’t remember anything if not for that. And sometimes he wanted to be marked.

And then he would show it to Sasuke. “Look, things happened. Let me tell you about it – I hope you’ll want to hear.”

Because Naruto was starting to have hopes for this future. He was starting to see an end to this.

Surely the hidden villages would have no alternative now but to turn properly against the Akatsuki, to find a way to deal with them for good. And for that they would need the jinchuuriki’s help. They could bargain their fate, they could stand their ground. There would be enough people on their side now maybe, enough that this wouldn’t need to be a contest of threats and ultimatums, but a mutual arrangement, a truce.

And then, maybe, they could take their freedom. Truly, entirely, with a guarantee that it wouldn’t be threatened again. Naruto had no trust in the old leaders of the shinobi world, but they wouldn’t be around forever.

Sasuke stood by old Tsunade’s side. He and all their friends, they had been working hard, making their voices heard, climbing up.

Freedom and peace, and then…

And then, maybe, he would take Sasuke’s hand.

“I was wondering. Your staff. What is it?”

Naruto reached for it in his back. He usually got weird about anyone touching it - the others teased him enough about it. He was careful to avoid anyone's gaze as he handed it to Sasuke. He thought the other would need longer to catch on, but Sasuke was a medic after all.

“Is that bone?”

Naruto chuckled.

“You'll see when we meet Kimimaro.”

He was sure they would get along. They were both nerdy and quiet, and Kimimaro was passionate about medicine. When Sasuke gave the staff back, it seemed even warmer than usual. Naruto kept it in his hands for a moment longer.

He shyly asked for more stories, aware the mood could turn at any moment. Sasuke indulged him though, gave some news of their friends, of the changes in the village, as if Naruto had just been away on a trip or a long mission, as if they all missed him and were waiting for his return. As if he would be back anytime.

Who knew. Maybe he would. Maybe he would cross the gates one more with Sasuke’s hand in his, and they would welcome him back.

There was a commotion in the Northern Hideout.

They heard it even before they got into view of the rocky outpost. It wasn’t so unusual, as there were still some of Orochimaru’s people posted there to reign Jugo in when his seal was acting up. Although it had happened rarely this past year, ever since Kimimaro had been sent to retreat up there with him, deemed a lost cause to Orochimaru’s plans but at least useful in his influence over his friend. Kimimaro refused to turn his back on their master, and Jugo of course had followed suit. Naruto had stopped trying to convince them, afraid they would cut them all off for good if he insisted too much.

But it would work this time. If he could be healed, despite Orochimaru affirming it was impossible, then surely Kimimaro would want to change their fate. They could all walk out of there. He didn’t need to be cured right away, for anything to happen at all. If Sasuke could just declare it possible, then…

They stepped carefully into the vast entrance hall, alerted by the fight that seemed ongoing inside. Naruto just had the time to make sense of the scene.

Jugo, seal fully deployed, the extra appendices swinging wildly from his body, employed at destroying everything around him. They had not heard any screams because all present were dead already, smashed and torn to pieces. Jugo was barely recognizable, body deformed beyond anything they had ever seen by the juinjutsu. But his own two arms were still whole. He was cradling to his chest the still body of Kimimaro.

The wild limbs turned to them at their first step inside. Then, it only took a second. Though it felt much longer, and surely had to be, for so much going on, for such a horrible turn of fate.

Jugo’s seal attacked them. Fast and wild, out of control. They were unprepared, wholly taken off guard. One of the appendices caught Neji right in the middle. Bent him in half, ripped through. He went flying away. He didn’t get back up.

The next moment, sand flooded the hall.

They had often fought against Orochimaru’s juinjutsu. The ones that took well to it made for formidable opponents. It could lead to long and gruesome training sessions, but that was because they were sparring. They didn’t aim at killing each other.

A bearer of the juinjutsu could take the drop on an unaware jinchuuriki. And a jinchuuriki incensed enough could rip the seals to pieces.

The sand pinned all of Jugo’s limbs to the rocks around them, pins blooming to catch him in the large fingered wings, in the shoulders. In the chest.

Jugo looked surprised and nothing else at the sand needle embedded into his sternum.

Karin screamed. She rushed to him, heedless of the danger. Because she didn’t care or because it was gone – sand had taken over every moving thing in the hall. One wrong move would mean immediate death. Jugo’s limbs weren’t moving anymore, impaled through and through, a butterfly on a corkboard.

At the entrance, Gaara was very still. Fū had two hands around his face, she was talking to him nonstop, trying to bring him back, to keep him tethered. Sasuke was kneeling by Neji’s side, hands glowing already.

Naruto couldn’t move.

Karin knelt in front of Jugo. It seemed that he recognized her. Naruto couldn’t hear what they were saying. Kimimaro must have succumbed to his illness at last, and Jugo couldn’t bear it, and then…

The growths petrified as he died. Fū went to assist Sasuke when he yelled for help. Even Gaara managed to get going again, though the sand remained still in the air, taking up every corner of the hall, oppressive and threatening.

Naruto ought to help one or the other, he ought to join them, do something.

“He needs to hold on, dammit, I need time to…”

Instead he focused on the seals.

There was writing on the stone floor, on the carved-up walls, everywhere around them. The layout of a large seal, drawn by Orochimaru when he still thought he might have use of it with Kimimaro. Naruto recognized it at first glance.

“Come on, come on…”

It was as such – the healers went hard at work trying to repair the body, to preserve life. But sometimes they were too slow. Sometimes life just vanished. The body emptied, the soul, gone.

Naruto felt the triggering of his seal, the rush of Neji’s heart. But what if it wasn’t enough? People were so fragile. They could die so easily.

Neji had to stay in. He had to stay in this world.

Naruto reached for the seal.

.

“What do you think happens to us after we die?”

“We turn into sand.”

“Come on, that’s really what you believe in Suna?”

“It’s the truth. Our body decays and turns to dust. We end up in the desert. We have a lot of songs about walking on bones and inhaling ghosts.”

“And you wonder why no one likes you.”

Karin was wrong. It used to be true, but no more. Gaara was liked. He was loved, even.

Neji had scolded her. They had each talked about their beliefs and traditions, about what each would do if death stroke down. Gaara still believed he was right. In the end, it would all return to dust.

But not yet, not yet.

They had talked about their death too. They had talked about it often. Naruto had something of an obsession with it. A fear too, though not of his own of course. The jinchuuriki were resilient – that was part of the problem.

Neji seemed unconcerned about his death because he had always believed he would die early, either sacrificed for a mission or at the hand of his own clan for disobedience. To this day he didn’t believe it would be such a big deal. He abhorred the idea of people trying to avenge him, going mad or despaired over his death. Most overt expressions of feelings and turmoil unnerved him. In a way he was even less emotional than Gaara himself.

It was entirely conscious, what happened between them. A decision of the mind. To spend time together, to confide, to touch. It never seemed to come from a place of passion and drive, as it did for most people. But it was its own form of spirituality, was it not? They didn't have to sleep side by side every night, yet they did. They wanted to.

And they could do what they wanted.

Gaara gave love the definition he wanted to as well. He gave the name to the feelings stirring inside of him when Naruto touched him the first time, when he came to take him from Suna, when he brushed Neji’s hair for him, when they all gathered at the table to eat. He didn’t need anyone to explain it to him.

The same went with grief.

The disappearance of Killer Bee was still fresh in his mind. Shukaku was very affected – she was afraid, he could tell. Afraid of other losses, afraid for their future. None of them wanted to disappear. Not anymore.

But Gaara didn't really suffer the loss like she did, losing someone close to her. Like he did now, as Neji lay still on the cold floor.

I do not hunger for revenge, they said. But they did launch themselves at Jugo, tore him apart. He could say he wanted to protect the others. The ones left alive.

He would probably not be believed, but then again, would they even ask.

He couldn’t see past Fū in front of him, blocking his view and the scope of his wrath, cradling his face in her small hands. He couldn’t get past her, what if she got hurt? Fū couldn’t be hurt. His friends had to be safe.

“He needs your help,” she said.

Lashing out was always their first instinct. Striking blindly, hurting because they were hurt. It was one of the things he hated the most about the power of the Biju, though maybe it was unfair to blame it all on her. They were the same after all, intertwined and linked, they shared one body, one mind, one set of volatile emotions. Shukaku didn’t love Neji, did she? It was him. Or it was both of them. The result was the same.

Gaara had killed people before. He wondered if it triggered this kind of feelings every time. If every time someone else had felt this kind of despair, chest split in half, suffocating. They wouldn’t have destroyed the place and killed everyone around them at the first slip though. Did that make the jinchuuriki feel less intensely, or more?

Gaara only remembered Naruto when the seal came to life around them.

The scene was familiar in many ways. The hideout in shambles around them. The sand going wild, the seal rumbling beneath their feet. Neji, at the heart of it. Naruto, trying to take control.

“What are you doing?”

Naruto didn’t answer him. He knew that Gaara knew. He knew he was wrong to do it.

The seal started to coil around itself, rushing toward Neji, Naruto following the running ink to press its final point. Gaara failed to stop him. A moment of hesitation – because he was worried about hurting him? Because a part of him wanted the seal to be completed, just in case?

Naruto moved past him. He closed the seal on Neji’s forehead.

.

Neji had never realized he could feel the seal on his forehead until it was gone.

The first few times he had met with Naruto outside of the village – running errands for the clan to the nearby settlements and farms with a newfound eagerness no one had questioned because no one cared – it had been out of spite more than any real belief that the boy could achieve anything. He had toyed with the idea of reporting him a few times, thinking about the benefits he could bargain out of bringing back the renegade to the village. It would have meant explaining why they had been meeting up in the first place though, why he had not done it sooner.

But above that, perhaps a part of him had been a little hopeful after all.

He remembered distinctly the seal lifting off at last.

That was how it felt. A weight lifting. Being lighter all of the sudden, unburdened. The seal couldn’t be felt to the touch, there wasn’t an indentation, a give to the skin, yet he was sure he could perceive its absence. The hardest thing had been to go back home, to resume life among his fellow clan members and not be able to tell them that it was possible, that they could be free. It would be years before he could share it with them. He had resigned himself to it.

Neji woke up dizzy, unable to place where he was and what had happened. He vaguely recalled the Northern Hideout, that was where they were headed right?

Before he could stir his thoughts onward, before he could worry about his friends and their status, his mind came to a sudden halt as he recognized the sensation, both familiar and foreign, the weight pinning him down. There were others getting busy around him, he could guess he had been hurt, could parse out the pain in his body and the weakness in his limbs, but none of that mattered in the least. He brought a hand to his forehead, even if it hurt, even if he didn't need to because he remembered, he knew what it was like, he had been there before. He couldn't feel a thing under his fingertips – that didn't mean it wasn't there.

He had been branded with a seal.

He sat up in a rush despite nausea threatening to overwhelm him, despite all his muscles screaming in protest. Sasuke tried to lie him back down – that’s right, he was there too. He would be to thank for the medical care, surely, but the seal couldn’t be his doing. He had neither the means nor the lack of common sense.

Neji’s eyes fell on Naruto, even if, again, he didn't need to see to know. But he did, he did. He needed to study his face, to be sure that his friend would truly do this. That he would be reckless enough, stupid enough.

Cruel enough.

Naruto’s expression broke clean in half, shock to guilt to fear. He still had some senses after all.

"You were going to die", he said in a rush, barely audible because he didn't dare get closer. "I had to… you were going to die. I had to keep you here.”

Neji recognized the marks on the floor, he knew where they were. But there was no way. Naruto wouldn’t do that, right?

Oh, of course he would.

“You… you bound my soul?”

Naruto caught on the edge, the disbelief, he realized – if he hadn’t before, though he must have, giving his face he must have known – the scope of what he had done. Neji was insensitive to his distress. He was too damn angry.

“You were going to die.”

“And so what?”

Neji tried to surge forward.

“Enough!”

This time Sasuke forced him down. Neji was in no condition to fight him and one look at the boy showed that he was fully immersed in his role as a medic for now, and he wouldn't tolerate any hindering of his work. Gaara was sitting on Neji’s other side – it was a testament to his turmoil that he hadn’t noticed until now. The boy rested a cold hand on Neji’s shoulder, placating, imploring too. Neji settled back down.

He didn’t look at Naruto again.

.

They couldn’t bury everyone.

Jugo’s seal had crystalized around his body instead of fading away despite his death. The appendix sprawled all around him, embedded in the walls and floor, with his deformed body clutching at Kimimaro in the center. They couldn’t dislodge either.

Karin tried for almost an hour, until Naruto had to drag her out kicking and flailing, earning a few hits on the way. She refused to talk to him, or anyone.

Neji wouldn’t talk to him either. He wouldn’t even look at him. On his forehead stood the Soul-binding seal, ink black against his pale skin.

They decided to collapse the entire place. It would surely attract attention but… Ah. They were well past that.

They took the way back to the temple. Naruto kept a death grip on his staff - he wasn’t sure if he was imagining it, or if it was already turning colder in his hands.

It was Sasuke who explained what had happened to the other. He didn’t understand all of it, but he was also the least affected. Neji disappeared out of sight as soon as they were back, Gaara on his heels. Karin went down to the river, not before casting an enraged look to them both. Fū followed her, with a shaken Suigetsu. Naruto didn’t dare.

There was nothing more to be done, nothing else to say. They all gave Naruto a wild berth. He chose to believe it was to let him grieve in peace and not because they were all mad and disappointed in him. Soon enough, it was only Sasuke and him in the empty clearing.

“Body and soul are intertwined. We don't know what happens to one when the other fails."

“I know.”

He didn’t need to be told why what he had done was wrong. Neji could have died anyway. His body at least could have stopped working because that was what happened when people died. What of their soul? Did it die because the body did, was it the other way around? What came first, what left last?

Would it have lingered in Naruto’s trap, had Sasuke failed to keep him alive?

Neji was not going to forgive him for this.

Had he been wrong though? He had made sure his soul held on, that he wasn’t going anywhere. He couldn’t just do nothing. He couldn’t just do nothing.

Kimimaro was dead, and Jugo too. It couldn’t be a third one. Naruto had to do something.

Neji could hate him as long as he was alive.

“You might have saved him, but still…”

“I know!”

Did Sasuke need to lecture him on top of everything?

“It’s always like this, isn’t it? I’m not wrong, but I can’t do the right thing either.”

He would be able to remove the seal. Eventually. They were close, with Karin, and the one on Neji’s forehead wasn’t botched like Orochimaru’s. They would figure it out as soon as she talked to him again. She would have to at some point and he could relieve Neji’s head once more. He wouldn’t be as grateful this time around, but what did it matter? He would live. He would live, they would all live, and Naruto didn’t care beyond that.

Being hated was nothing new.

“That’s not what I said.”

“Isn’t it?”

Sasuke mused over his words for a moment.

“I don’t think you were wrong to leave.”

“But you don’t think I was right either.”

“Does it matter so much what I think?”

“Yes!”

Just once he wanted to be told that he had not completely fucked up. He would settle for a lie.

Sasuke didn’t lie though. He bit his lips and looked away. Naruto had never resented him more. Him and all who came before him. The whole damn villages, all of them really and their old heartless leaders, the Sandaime and the old Tsunade too. The other Sanin, Orochimaru and the Akatsuki, that old fuck Jiraiya. The council, the jounin.

His father, everyone. The whole world.

Tears flooded his face, spilling out of his eyes to run down his cheeks and chin and he was powerless to stop them, to calm down at all. How could he? Kimimaro and Jugo were both dead. They were dead, it was over, they weren't coming back to the temple with them. They had never even seen it when Naruto knew for sure they would have loved it. He had a vision in his mind – all nine of them and their friends hanging around the garden, sharing food, playing music, napping in a corner. Anything was supposed to be possible, they were supposed to achieve the things they truly set their minds to, but this future was gone for good. No matter what he did, how hard he fought, they wouldn't be back. One jinchuuriki was missing, Karin and Suigetsu’s friends were gone. Gaara had killed one of them and they wouldn’t forgive him so easily even if he had no choice, even if Jugo was already lost to them.

And Neji was alive, Neji was alive so Naruto couldn’t have any regret, he couldn’t apologize and mean it, he couldn’t repent. Neji was alive at least. It was the only thing he had managed to achieve.

His vision was so blurry he was surprised when Sasuke was suddenly right in front of him, wrapping him in his arms, squeezing hard. He pressed Naruto's face into his chest, as if he could hide him, as if he could shield him at all. Naruto pressed forward even if it was selfish, even if it was underserved because it was his fault, he was in the wrong, he was owed no comfort.

Sasuke didn't concern himself with that sort of thing. He offered comfort always simply because he didn't like seeing the ones around him in pain. He would have been happier if he was capable of vindication, and Naruto had often wished he would. That he would get angrier, more resentful, so that Naruto wouldn’t feel so bad about the anger piling high inside of him, threatening to topple over, swallow him all.

But he wasn’t sure he would have survived Sasuke being truly hateful of him.

Sasuke kept repeating the same thing. “It’s okay, I’m sorry.” Over and over again. And despite it all, it did work – his voice did soothe Naruto’s anguish, his warmth and touch did appease his turmoil. The tide receded as it was bound to do. Even grief needed to take a break.

“I’m sorry about your father,” he said, a little mindless. It seemed important somehow to acknowledge this grief as well. He had tried before, but it didn’t go very well. He couldn’t do anything right anyway.

“Did you know I met mine,” he almost added but didn’t. He just wanted to be comforted some more, but that would require explaining the whole thing, and Sasuke wouldn’t like that story. He wouldn’t like the bursting of a seventh tail, and the temptation to just rip off the seal and be done with it, and that man, that man…

Of course Sasuke wouldn’t know, how could he? It was sort of funny how little the question had come up when they were children. They had their fair share of orphans in the village, courtesy of one war or the other, but few like Naruto were completely unaccounted for. They had never questioned it much. He hadn't either, because it seemed obvious that the answer would be worse than not knowing. His friends must have thought so too. Either his parents' identity was truly unknown, and that meant they were that insignificant and that isolated. Or their identity was too dreadful to be disclosed. Surely not knowing had to be a blessing, or else why would it have been kept a secret?

Why indeed, why?

His father had been surprised too.

“Naruto…” Sasuke whispered in his ear, with such tenderness and grief, Naruto wanted to smack his hands on his mouth so he couldn’t say another word, and he wanted to press closer so that the sound would fall directly into his ear, from one mind to the other.

“A cat!”

Jin burst out of the wood tripping over himself and shouting in excitement. Naruto stepped away, wiped his face, tensed back up. The child was oblivious to the tension, to the aborted words.

“A cat! A cat!”

Struggling in her thin arms was an angry black cat. Jin was unfazed by the red claw marks on her skin and the animal’s loud protest – she dangled it in Naruto’s face, proud of the finding.

“A cat!”

“Jiji!”

Sasuke snatched the cat from Jin’s arms, realizing too late what that would provoke. A moment later, the relative calm of the clearing was broken by the child’s loud wailing.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, Jiji’s my friend," Sasuke kept saying, trying to comfort the distraught kid. Naruto should have stepped in, helped calm the situation, but he was so tired and this was at least a little funny. It was easy to believe that all was well, for just a second – Jin was crying for something silly and Sasuke was staying here, and all was well.

All wasn’t, of course. Yugito stumbled in and managed to soothe Jin’s sobs and Sasuke focused back on his familiar, enough that he missed the suspicious glare thrown his way, as he shouldn’t have been able to be so easily reached here. Naruto couldn’t bring himself to worry about it. Any news ought to be terrible at this point.

The cat opened its mouth wide, wide, until it could spit out in Sasuke's waiting palm what Naruto assumed was a hairball, but turned out to be a tangle of ink lines that quickly unfurled on the boy’s skin, scribbling a hasty message in a compact handwriting

Sai’s. Sai’s handwriting, Sai’s ink. Naruto didn’t think he would recognize it so easily. Then again, who else could it be, to communicate like this.

The message was short and to the point. “Village under attack. Akatsuki.”

Because of course it was.

Chapter Text

There had been a day like this before.

Shisui couldn't put his finger on it at first. It was a regular day, with clear weather and not too many classes, enough groceries in the fridge, and no threat in sight. Yet there was something. Shinobi had good instincts of course, they had to, but it was unnerving to be on edge like this for no reason. If Tokuma noticed, he didn't say anything, and Shisui went about his day unable to say what was wrong but sure that something was.

It came back to him in a flash when the first explosion was heard across the just-then peaceful village.

It reminded him of the day the Akatsuki had come for Naruto.

“Okay children, class is over. Everyone has to stay calm, alright? We need to go and check on the younger students, I’m going to have to count on you. Can I do that?”

They were all around ten, soon out of the Academy since Shisui and his colleagues still hadn’t won the prolonging of the academic years. They were trained enough, prepared enough. Though they looked worried, some frightened, they followed him out calmly.

The other classes were more chaotic, with kids beginning to panic or cry. They gathered everyone in the canteen, hoping news would come about what was going on outside. They could hear the explosions, rumors of a fight. It was hard to gauge the scale from here.

Shisui jumped on the messenger as soon as he crossed the door.

“Is it an attack?”

"Yes. It's the Akatsuki, but we don't know how many there are. The Godaime asked that you be warned. She said to leave the handling of the Academy in your hands.”

He sighed in relief. The woman was as pragmatic as can be, she didn't feel the need to get involved in everything. She trusted him. He did a rapid headcount, exchanged a quick word with his colleagues. Tokuma was watching him carefully, hovering close. Shisui resisted the urge to reach out.

“Alright, we need four teams, one chunin to three genin, the oldest ones if possible. They have to accompany the children to the bunkers, we have maps somewhere. Michi and Tokuma will stay here until they arrive. The others, we’re joining the defense lines.”

“I want to fight too!”

The children started to protest when they had been quiet before, taken now by another kind of fear – for their loved ones, for their homes.

"You can't," Tokuma said firmly. Silence reigned at once – they didn't dare a peep when he was talking. “You are not strong enough, you cannot help.”

Already they were gearing up to protest, but he went on, untreatable.

"Listen to me. Fighting is for adults. Your duty is to be safe, do you understand? If you want to help, you have to hide and be safe. This way we can tell your families that they do not have to worry about you, that they can focus on fighting and defending the village because you are not in any danger. Do you understand?"

They all had enough of a fighting streak to know why it mattered, that being distracted or emotional could be fatal when fighting for their lives. Most of them were children of shinobi, and the ones who weren’t would join their families at the bunkers.

Michi gathered them in a corner while the chunin left to carry the messages. Support would come soon.

“They need adults to accompany them but…” Shisui started, worrying at his lips. There would be no senior shinobi available, but chunin and genin were too young to take care of children properly. They would keep them safe, for sure, but they could get overwhelmed. They weren’t so long out of the Academy themselves.

"I'll send words to my branch," Tokuma said, still firm, still rigid. "The women don't have rank, but they have been trained to defend the clan. They will know what to do."

He didn’t say anything about Shisui making him stay behind. It was his way of being considerate of Shisui’s feelings.

“Go now. Be safe.”

Between both their upbringing, expressing any feeling was a constant struggle. Shisui didn't know what to add, so he just pressed their forehead together, spared a second to close his eyes and breathe. Then he was gone.

.

It was almost anticlimactic, when Ino finally deciphered the last variable, when she could at last translate Jiraiya's message in full. She had been slaving away on the code for days – most of her teams had been relocated to other projects because they couldn't all be stuck on the single one and because they were all going insane with it. The man had not been a master spy for nothing.

Ino couldn't let it go anyway. It haunted her in her sleep and in her waking hours too. She could recognize her obsession was at least partly stemming from personal feelings – she just couldn’t imagine one’s very last message going unread, unknown. Whatever he had wanted to say at the end and however mundane it might be – related to his mission, to his death, or to his life – it was still the last of his voice, reaching beyond the grave. It couldn't stay hidden, it was too sad.

It might have been a matter of ego as well. Ino would not be defeated by an old fucker who was already dead.

She decoded it between one thought and the next. She could barely feel any satisfaction, with the amount of frustration it had caused her, with how exhausted she was. But it was done, finally.

“The real one is not amongst them.”

Well that was useless.

Ah, it couldn’t be. Based on the tale of his death, on the abilities of his enemies, on the corpse in the next room over her father had such a hard time breaking into, maybe it would mean something. Maybe. She had a hard time caring. Her job was done and done well, and she could finally rest.

The first explosion shook the building on that very thought.

She wrote the message down on a few pieces of paper, for the Hokage, for her father, for the head jounin. Sealed carefully, to be sent by her clones, so that it wouldn’t get lost no matter what. The messages mattered more than anything, more than any of their lives, when they could weigh in on their chances of survival. Then she darted out of the lab to reach the surface, to join the fight.

She ran into her father at the entrance of the Intelligence Department.

"The man was already dead when he attacked Jiraiya," he said. "The rods in his body, these are chakra transmitters. He was controlled by someone else."

“Someone “not among them”,” she added, gears turning. They had to figure it out if they wanted a chance to defeat them.

The first reports came in then, carried by frightened genin and summons. Several sightings of members of the Akatsuki, all with orange hair, purple eyes, and numerous piercings. A picture was starting to emerge. How many enemies did they have exactly?

She added all this information to her messages and sent the clones on their way.

The next report stated the presence of a blue-haired woman, with a flower in her hair and her skin peeling into paper folds.

No doubt the one who had cut Sakura’s chest open. Ino needed to warn her, and maybe to track that woman down and…

No, no. This wasn’t how she could help. Ino and her father and their people, they were the messengers, in every sense of the word. They carried the information, they protected the legacies and knowledge. The words came first, always.

"Go to the Administration Center. Have Sai send words to every shinobi out on a mission, we need them back immediately.”

She was already doing a mental headcount. Kakashi was out, at least, Gai and his team as well. A few Anbu on a recognition mission. Shikamaru, away in Suna with Sasuke’s brother. Damn, Sasuke wasn’t back either.

“You have to assist with the transmission, we need to know what is happening everywhere in the village, at all times. Take over the coordination if you have to, and send the chunin there in the field. I’m counting on you.”

Far away from the battlefield, safe enough hidden. Because someone had to reliably recall what happened after the fact. Ino had the perfect memory of her clan, she didn’t need to take any notes to remember it all, every detail, to keep a precise recording, down to the last word.

One had to stay alive, whatever it took, one of them had to make it through.

“Yes, commander.”

He usually scolded her when she called him "father" at work, but this time he looked like he regretted she didn't.

.

One of the old fucks from the council had opposed Tsunade's candidacy for the title of Fifth Hokage because, according to him, she wasn't a fighter. The others had rebuked him by listing her prowesses during the war, her strength and techniques, and then had given up on arguing since it was a done deal anyway, since they had no other choices.

That man was deeply unpleasant, but he had been right.

Tsunade wasn't a fighter. Not in the sense that she couldn't fight, or didn't want to. She had done plenty of that, had beaten plenty of opponents, had killed plenty of enemies. She was stronger than most, she could win most fights, and there were few people in this world she wouldn't be able to take down.

But Tsunade wasn’t a fighter in the same way Sasuke wasn’t a fighter, and it was probably what had endeared the kid to her in the first place. They would fight if they had to, if thus were the orders, if there was no other choice. But if they could, they would choose to help first.

A choice easily made. She was the Hokage of Konoha, she had a responsibility to all its inhabitants. And so when the attack came, when all of a sudden fights broke out in all corners of the village, when it appeared clear that they were not going to come out of it unscathed, Tsunade went to the roof and set to work.

The fight could go to others. Plenty of shinobi in Konoha, plenty of people who knew little else. Maybe there were only a few with her fighting level. But with her capacity of healing, of preserving life where so many could be lost, there was none.

She sent Sasuke's cat out with a message, urging him back. He had the worst timing to become proactive in his chase after Naruto, but it could turn to their advantage if their bond was still alive and well, if Naruto had any care left for him, for them, for this place. She sent words to the other villages as well, to Terumi Mei and Temari of the Desert. She could only hope, but it didn’t change what she had to do.

Above all, they had to stay alive. It was the most important thing, the only one that mattered. Not defeating their enemies, not protecting any building, riches, or secrets. Nothing, other than staying alive, surviving, holding on. She would make sure they made it through and leave them to take care of the rest.

She called for Katsuyu. She sent her slugs to every single person breathing between their walls, to each of these idiots living their lives under her reign. She would look after them all.

.

Jin couldn’t say for sure if they were arguing or not.

It was different here than it had been back at home. There, it was never hard to tell – people yelled and cursed at each other, they hit and hurt each other, sometimes. It wasn’t hard to tell when they were mad at Jin either.

But it was different here. They yelled, sometimes, but they didn’t try to be mean and hurt each other. It seemed to pain them when they fought, yet they couldn’t help it. They hissed through their teeth and walked around with jerky motions, hands flying around. Or they stood very still, tense all over.

They weren’t mad at Jin, but Jin was sad all the same.

“We need to go,” Naruto said. Naruto often started these things, he said things that the others didn’t like, and they answered, and he answered back, and it went on for a long time until they all walked away.

“Why?” Yugito asked. Her face was white and she wasn’t smiling. Not that she usually was, but there was a difference between her normal face and her not-smiling face.

“Why not?”

That was mean. Jin could have said it but didn’t. Jin didn’t have a place in this.

“How about because it’s incredibly dangerous, and you have no reason to go?”

“I have reasons to go. It’s my village.”

That didn’t please anyone much, not even him.

"And it's our fault they're under attack," he added.

“Don’t you think they’ll be expecting you then?”

“I can handle myself.”

They looked very tired.

“This war is ours. We can help and put an end to this. I can’t stand being stuck in this place anymore.”

Jin whined softly, but luckily no one heard. Was that true? Was he sick of this place? Jin loved it though. Would they all need to leave?

“I agree. This is as good a chance as any,” Neji said.

Neji was very mad. Jin didn’t understand why, but he was mad, mad. He was mad at Naruto. He still agreed with him but they didn’t look at each other at all. Gaara stood close to him, he usually did. He would go as well.

They were fighting, but also they weren't. The stranger, the one Karin had brought earlier, looked between one and the other, lost. Maybe it was his fault and Jin ought to be mad at him. But he looked sad already.

“Then I’ll go back to Kiri.”

It was the new one, he had arrived only a few days ago. Jin was unsure about his name and kept calling him Tak Tak. He didn’t seem to like that very much, but he didn’t protest either.

“What are you talking about?”

“The other villages will go to war too. The Mizukage has gotten closer to Konoha in recent years. If they can be swayed, if they choose to become allies, then I will too.”

“After everything, you would go back there?”

“I didn’t ask you to come for me!”

“We didn’t! What about Jin?”

“Jin is not here.”

All heads turned and Jin tried to look confident, hoping they would understand.

“Jin is not here.”

Jin wanted no part in this.

“It’s not about the kid,” Tak Tak said again. "I won't stay back. I've done that before and I… You're right, it was my fault, I should have known. I'll seek punishment if that's what you want, for what happened to them, but that will have to wait until we're not at war."

“We’re not ready for war,” Yugito said.

“Would you rather we were?” Naruto said.

Jin had heard talking about war very often despite not knowing what it was exactly. They always said Jin had to be “ready” in case there was a war. “The thing must be trained, it’s no use to us like this. What if war breaks out?”. It was confusing because they said it with fear but with excitement too, and so it was never clear if they wanted to prevent it or wanted it to happen. Either way, Jin had to be ready.

“I’ll go with you,” Suigetsu said. Jin was getting more and more worried – who was going to take Jin with them? Suigetsu was the best, but this all looked very dangerous.

“I will look after Jin,” Karin said. Karin was a little scary.

“We’ll stay behind as well,” Roshi said, and this was better news. Han was staying too. Jin liked Han.

“Am I to go to Kumo then? Is that what you want, Naruto?”

“Do you think this is what I want? Any of this?”

It wasn’t so bad.

“You can do what you want. Don’t blame it on me. You kept telling me that I never made a choice for you, so here. Choose for yourself. I’m leaving. I have to do something.”

“I’m not going back to Taki,” Fū said next. She was smiling, more than all the others, yet Jin didn’t like how she said that. It sounded a little like a threat. “I’ll go with you, Yugito!”

“Where?”

“To Kumo. I know you want to.”

That wasn’t what Jin understood but Yugito didn’t argue.

“That’s settled then,” Roshi said when no one was talking. It was the end of the fight yet nobody moved. Jin didn’t know what to do and thus decided to go hide between Han’s legs, since he was staying while everybody left.

“That’s settled then.”

Jin hid in his clothes to avoid seeing them go.

.

Sakura was rehearsing her arguments as she walked down the street to the Administration Center. She still had a couple of days left of her mandatory post-injury rest, but it was common game to go and beg the assignment desk to push it up a bit. She was going crazy running errands for Ino’s team and practicing kenjutsu on her own.

The desk was manned by Kotetsu today so she had a better chance to get some mission assigned than if it was Genma, or worse, Shizune. She wasn't in any pain and she could move just fine, there was no reason to force her to stay put. Plus, they were stretched pretty thin right now. Surely she would be needed somewhere.

She was granted the very next moment, as a massive three-headed dog spawn out in the middle of the shopping district, crushing several buildings in its wake. On the middle head stood a woman wearing the red clouds of the Akatsuki.

Sakura pulled her sword out of its seal and leaped toward the summon.

“Get out! Go the shelters!” she yelled at the panicking passersby running around the debris. She hesitated to engage with the beast – it was so large any of its movements destroyed more buildings around it, but she couldn’t just let it roam free.

“Sakura!”

It was Kiba and his sister, with their dogs following close. In the streets, chunin and medics were herding the civilians away.

“What the hell is going on?”

“No idea, but it’s not just this one.”

That would have been too easy.

“Okay, well this one is the one we’ll take down first.”

“Right beside you.”

Out of the corner of her eyes, she spotted a familiar sign, broken in half in the rubble. There was only the "Ichi” of “Ichiraku", and it filled her with unfathomable fury. They dared to come here at the heart of their home, they dared to touch what was theirs. To stomp on memories of a sweeter past, hopes for a better future.

She was going to crush them all.

.

Before he received the message, Kakashi would have said he wasn’t that far from the village. He was inspecting an outpost barely half a day away, he would easily be home by nightfall.

After he got the note – “Village under attack, Akatsuki" – it felt like he was on the other side of the world.

He could push himself as much as he could, he still couldn't compress the time and distance unlimited. He still couldn't help, couldn't do anything. What would he find upon his arrival? It was better not to think about it.

He covered the way back in record time, but just as he was about to cross the barrier and finally reach the village territory, he was intercepted by an enemy force.

Intercepted was the right word – the man cut him mid-run, appearing out of thin air to kick him out of his trajectory. Kakashi narrowly avoided the hit and found himself facing the man with the orange mask. The one who had killed Uchiha Fugaku.

The one with the untraced Sharingan.

“I’m in a hurry,” Kakashi said lightly, trying to gauge the man’s strength and intention, how reasonable it was to fight him here and there. He was needed at home, he didn’t have time for this.

"Oh, you'll make the time I'm sure. It would be bothersome for you to go back to Konoha and crash the party."

It wasn’t quite recognition that cross Kakashi’s mind, but as Sasuke had said, there was a familiarity here. Something known. He was used to people knowing of him without them having ever met. This wasn’t it.

“Do you plan on stopping me?”

“Me? No. I won’t have to do a thing.”

Kakashi was used to the corpses by now. Or so he thought. It wasn't some former mentors or family friends this time though. Out of a summoning circle came not an old shinobi but a child. A teenage girl with short brown hair, with purple marks on her round cheeks. She used to be taller than him, but of course she barely reached his shoulder now, yet he felt small faced with her.

“Kakashi? Is that you?”

Even through the gravel of a dead voice coming to life again remained traces of a youthful tone. It wasn't recognition either. Kakashi realized he had forgotten her voice entirely, up until this very moment.

“Rin?”

“Oh, you’re much older now.”

And she was still a child. Still the same as when she had died. They never did recover her body.

The other corpses didn’t talk. They didn’t even seem to be conscious. But she was looking straight at him with a gentle expression on her face. Only her blackened eyes and ashen skin betrayed the reality of her condition.

And the fact that she wasn’t breathing. But then again, neither was he. He felt as if he was underwater, sounds distant and vision blurry. There was no way this could be happening, and yet. And yet.

“Kakashi, I… do you know what happened to me? I can’t remember but… you were with me, weren’t you? You were with me when I died.”

“Of course he was. He’s the one who killed you.”

Rin frowned and flinched away when the man came to stand next to her, glaring at him fiercely.

"No, he didn't."

"Yes, he did. I was there. I saw everything."

“Kakashi would never do that.”

The absolute confidence in her voice. How she managed to be defiant, even now, even like this, a corpse puppet to some unknown madman. She looked at him then, waiting for him to jump in and deny it.

There was a large rock lodged in his throat. Voice blocked inside. He had gone over this night so many times. Her kidnapping, the search, their escape. How she suddenly asked for him to kill her, as if he could ever do that. The foreign nins, the Chidori. The give of her chest. The hole wasn't there now. They were reanimated whole.

How he did kill her, in the end.

“Kakashi?”

He couldn't answer the plea in her voice. He couldn't talk at all. Who was this man, to have brought her here? How did he know so much about him, about them?

“Rin, Konoha is under attack. I need to go.”

“What? What is happening? Is everyone okay?”

There was no "everyone" that she would even recognize today. Who had made it, from their youth? Except for Kakashi himself?

“I don’t know. I don’t know. That’s why I need to go. I need to help.”

“You are not going anywhere.”

The man just had to snap his fingers, and Rin was gone. Back to a lifeless corpse, just like the others. She stood straight – still so small, compared to him.

She drew a kunai from her weapon pouch.

.

In case of an attack, the main mission for genin was to run messages. From one end of the village to the other, so that civilians could be led to safety and shinobi could receive updates and orders, and pass on information in turn.

Konohamaru was aware it was a vital part of their defense strategy. He didn’t have to like it.

Konohamaru wanted to fight. It would be a lie to say it was only today though, that it was brought by these intruders brewing chaos in the village, that it was anything new. Konohamaru wanted to fight all the time, anyone, anywhere. He was inhabited by a rage he didn’t know what to do with, and that he could only express one way. He couldn’t count the number of times he had been benched during training, for hurting his classmates when they were just supposed to practice.

It made him laugh. They had to learn how to fight, no? That's why they were at the academy in the first place. Out there they wouldn't be able to call a time out, whine about the pain and ask to take a break.

Out there they would just hide in a corner and watch the people they loved fight and die without being able to do a thing about it. If he fought enough, surely one day he would stop being afraid.

He was about to round a corner, on the lookout for jounin to hit up for updates and questions. He had the mind to take a stumbling step back before he could be seen by the people fighting in the middle of the next street.

How ironic. He had hidden from Ebisu-sensei a hundred times before, and here he still was now.

The man was not in a good position. Konohamaru used to think he was so strong, unbeatable – he could never take the drop on him, never shake him off his tail when he tried to escape his boring lessons. He also used to think his grandfather was the most powerful person in the world, and that he would never die.

It turned out no one was that strong. However strong you could be, then came someone stronger, and they were never on your side.

“What are you looking for?” Ebisu asked, trying to draw some information from his stoic opponents. He was wearing the black robes the others had described, marking him a member of the Akatsuki. He had the same bright orange hair, the same metal rods sticking out of his face and body.

“We are looking for the jinchuuriki.”

Konohamaru told himself he had to stay and collect words, and not because he couldn’t move, too scared to be heard and give his position away.

“Konoha doesn’t have a jinchuuriki anymore.”

He didn't know what they were talking about. Was it an artifact, a weapon?

“Don’t you? We will have to keep looking, to be sure.”

There was a threat in his voice, like this was only a pretense. What they wanted wasn't here, and they probably knew it. They had come anyway, hell-bent on destruction. They were not going to just leave.

“What do you want with him anyway?”

So it was a person?

“This doesn’t concern you.””

“I think it does.”

“What if we plan on getting rid of him and his kind?”

There was a long pause. Konohamaru was dying to look, to catch a glimpse, but it would be too risky, would endanger both him and his old master. The fight was still ongoing, so it was the question that was difficult.

“We cannot have you simply kill citizens of this village.”

Who was it, who was it?

He heard a pained gasp and almost stepped out, almost. But if the information he had heard made no sense to him, Ebisu seemed to be well aware of what was at stake. Which meant the other jounin would know too.

He had to report what he had heard. But when he peeked beyond the corner of the wall, he saw the man from the Akatsuki had a death grip around Ebisu's neck, who was trashing fruitlessly, feet kicking the air several inches above the ground. He couldn't do nothing, couldn't leave him like this. He couldn't fight either, he wasn't strong enough, and he had a duty to fulfill, he had to pass the words, it was crucial, yet Ebisu was his master and Konohamaru had never listened to a word he said but he didn't want him to die.

He was paralyzed with fear and indecision. It was the worst option, to just get stuck here and not move, yet he couldn’t make up his mind, couldn’t get his body to move. Useless, weak, again, unable to…

“Leave it to me. Go.”

He breezed by him so fast, Konohamaru only recognized him after he had kicked away their enemy, when he stood to his full height in the middle of the street. It was his master from the Academy, Uchiha Shisui. He had spoken with the same gentle voice he always did, as if giving out instructions for a written test, and he didn't check to look if Konohamaru had obeyed. He never checked – he trusted his students would do as told, because they recognized his authority and trusted his judgment.

Konohamaru ran.

.

"Why did we stop?" Neji asked, voice sharp and accusing, when they landed in the middle of the woods after jumping several seals. It wouldn't be noticeable to anyone who didn't know him well, but Gaara by his side was upset by his tone, by the ice-cold atmosphere between Naruto and Neji. This was unusual for them – whenever they fought, neither would back down, always escalating. But this time, Naruto had nothing to say, no ground to stand on. He wasn’t sorry, he couldn’t apologize, and Neji wouldn’t forgive him anyway.

He was tagging along because in the end, he wanted to go back. He wanted to help and protect the village, his family and his friends. Even in this, they had become misaligned, when their anger used to be their common ground. Neji had people to save, things to fix. He could still change his fate.

But Naruto? It would take no short of a war, one very few would be willing to fight for.

Sasuke was bent over a few feet away, trying to catch his breath and looking, for one, grateful for the reprieve. The seal jumping was quite nauseating when you weren't used to it. Or so his friends said – Naruto never had an issue with it, probably because it was his.

He tried not to think of it as a legacy. It had been hard enough to keep using it after learning of the parental link – both his and the hiraishin’s. At least he had taught himself the technique. His father had nothing to do with it.

“There is a seal missing”, he said absently. “It must have been damaged, or removed. We’ll be on foot until we find the next one.”

Sasuke had been impressed at how many of those seals Naruto planted in the first place. They covered most of the main roads between the villages and countries in a tight network, allowing them to travel quickly and undetected across the land.

But they couldn't be too spaced out, or he couldn't reach the next one, and some could be torn or go missing. They had not often traveled the way to Konoha – it wasn’t as well maintained as some of his other roads.

They set on running until they neared the area where the next seal was supposed to be. Neji clicked his tongue in annoyance. “You don’t know where it is?”

“I didn’t keep a map.”

“Well you…”

“Let’s split and look,” Gaara said in a firm voice, cutting through the argument. Neji promptly set off in the opposite direction. Gaara cast a long, concerned look toward Naruto, before following Neji away. He didn’t think it would be so hard to watch his retreating back. It wasn’t so clear if Gaara disapproved of either of them, if he was simply supportive of Neji’s turmoil, if he was mad at Naruto, taking sides. Naruto had made sure they didn't have a chance to talk about it.

They had to hurry. Sasuke was growing frantic with worry and dread, wondering what was happening back at home. Naruto had laid hundreds of those seals around, he couldn’t tell for sure if this one would be on a tree or a rock, high or low, so they just had to keep their eyes open. Sasuke looked around, aimless and inefficient, too distracted to be of any use.

"I wanted to thank you," he blurted out in the tense silence, making Naruto cringe.

“For what?”

"For coming to help. I know that… You didn't have to. I-." He hesitated, but he wasn't one to hold back. "I didn't think you would care."

So stupid of him to be vexed by this lack of trust, when Sasuke was perfectly right. He was tired of his own feelings sometimes.

“I don’t.”

“What?”

Sasuke wasn’t going to let that go. Naruto braced himself before turning around, abandoning the pretense of their search.

“I don’t care about Konoha.”

“But you said…”

“I do believe it is our responsibility. But just because I don’t want people to die because of me, doesn’t mean I care about any of them.”

He didn’t wish for anyone’s death. He just had priorities, and right now they aligned with saving these people, however little he wanted to go back there.

“We will never be safe as long as the Akatsuki is after us, we will never be free.”

Sasuke’s eyes dropped to the tattoo on his neck.

“I want more for us. If we help, we have a chance, right? That the villages will stop coming after us too.”

“You know Tsunade wouldn’t do that.”

He didn't know that. He hoped so, but he had often been disappointed.

“Sasuke. I’m not coming back. Please, I can’t… I’m not coming back. Don’t ask me to.”

“Why not? Why not? You can be safe in Konoha. All of you, I swear. Things are different, you can come back. You can.”

“I can’t”

“I’m telling you…”

“I don’t want to! I hate this place, Sasuke!”

Hurt flashed on Sasuke’s face, disappointment too, disapproval. He didn’t understand, he didn’t.

"I hate this place, I hate it, and it only grew since I've been gone. Why did it go this way? Why did I have to… I hate it. I hate them all.”

It was a heavy, caustic thing, living inside his body, eating him away. Ever since he had met his father in the seal, and then when they had found Jin in Kiri, and every day they spent on the run, hidden away, it kept growing, and he had no reign on this rage. He itched to do something about it, about this resentment and wrath. But Sasuke…

“Then why are you here? Why come at all?”

“Can’t you guess?”

Sasuke didn’t like his dismissive tone, but Naruto was so frustrated by his oblivious questions. Why didn’t he understand? Why did it have to be said?

“Just tell me!”

“It’s because of you!”

Naruto bit his lips violently, as if he could eat his words back. He couldn’t, and Sasuke certainly wouldn’t give them back to him.

“What- what is that supposed to mean?”

"I hate this place but you, you love it, and I…”

He trailed off. His hands were hurting with how much he had been twisting and turning them, and he wished he could hold on to something else, but as close as Sasuke was to him, within arm’s length, this distance was impossible to breach.

"You'd be hurt if something bad happened to the village. And if I could help but didn't, you would never forgive me. You could forgive anything else, but this? So what choice do I have? I don't want you to hate me."

Sasuke was staring at him with his huge, dark, unblinking eyes. It used to be easier to know what he was thinking, but he had become unreadable to Naruto’s unaccustomed eyes. He didn’t say a thing, and Naruto had no word left to offer.

The awful silence made even Neji’s sharp tone welcome.

“We found it.”

Naruto snatched the piece of paper from his hand, anxious to get them moving again.

“Great. Let’s go.”

Gaara tried to say something, catching on to the tension immediately, but talking to him was the last thing Naruto wanted. Besides, there was no time to waste.

He slapped the seal high on a tree, hidden in the nook of a branch and it reminded him of Wave country, of learning to climb higher and higher, and then laying exhausted on the grass with Sasuke and Sakura, proud after making it to the top, at last.

Then, he thought of Haku. They would be in Konoha soon. It was pointless, yet it still brought him comfort – he slid his mask on, before grabbing the hands of the other three to put them on his shoulders and blinking them out of the woods.

.

They couldn't manage to take the upper hand over that man. Shisui and Ebisu had been joined by the leader of the Akimichi clan and his oldest son, and the four of them couldn’t land a hit. The man could pull to him or repel both weapons and people at will, with a force so strong at times, Shisui was sure it could do much more.

He was proven right when, managing to close on him with the help of the others, they were not only pushed away, but so were the buildings in their immediate vicinity.

Shinra Tensei. In one attack, the district was flattened over, rubbles where buildings were standing a moment earlier. He could only hope they had been evacuated.

This fight had to be restricted. What more damage could this power do? Shisui had never seen such a technique, but then again, he had never seen these eyes either. He had no proof that there was a link, but he found out quickly that the Sharingan was powerless against it. It was even dangerous for him to look at it, he could see the abyss he could fall in, a pull he couldn’t fight.

They managed to immobilize him, the two Akimichi closing on him with their technique, but at the last moment, another one of those damn red clouds jumped in front of the man, blocking Shisui's attack. They were too close – the next Shinra Tensei sent them flying, knocking the air out of their lungs and blasting the rubbles around them. Shisui landed painfully against a piece of concrete, his head bouncing back with an ominous crack, and he felt the warmth of gushing blood running down his neck. There was no time to even breathe though, the respite barely a few seconds between the occurrences of this strange power. The Akimichi were down. Shisui had to do something.

He called forth the strength of the kaleidoscope, battling against its will, trying to subdue it. He didn’t know if it would even work. He only had the opportunity to train it a handful of times with Fugaku before he was killed. The man kept saying that Shisui had to master its power, yet was reluctant at the same time, as if he would rather Shisui never got to use it at all.

They didn’t always have a choice. In fact, they rarely did, right? It was so often forced upon them. If they wanted to win. If they wanted to survive.

Come forth. Come forth. I need your power.

.

The words young Konohamaru brought from the battlefield confirmed Tsunade’s fear – they were here to make a statement. There was nothing she could give them that would make them leave the village alone. They had to know Naruto wasn’t here, yet they had come to find him anyway. They would wreak destruction as a reprisal, tired at last of being denied their prey. If the jinchuuriki couldn't be found, they would move on to their next target.

Which meant if they wanted to save the village, they had to win.

Easier said than done. There weren't so many of them yet her people were overwhelmed. Where did all this power come from? According to the Analysis team, the red-haired members of the Akatsuki were all of the same mind. Controlled, somehow, somewhere. One of them was wreaking havoc downtown with some of the most powerful invocations she had ever seen, the others were holding their own against two, three, four of her jounin.

The number of injured kept rising. Sasuke wasn't even there to take care of things at the hospital, Shizune was busy trying to find information about their attackers, something that could help them win. Or just stop them from dying.

Sasuke had to be on his way back now. Was he with Naruto? Would he come? Did she wish he would? If he appeared, they might leave Konoha alone. The burden would befall him. Condemned to protect the village even now, even when she was sure he didn’t want to. But if he came, then he would be willing, would he not? Or would he just be following Sasuke’s will?

There was a reason why she had never tried to dissuade her young disciple, never stopped him from chasing his friend around, from nursing this bond. This too she would use, as everything else. Their love just as exploitable as the rest.

As long as they lived, as long as they survived. No regrets could beat the miss that could have saved a life, nothing was too much to pay, nothing was off-limits. If Naruto wanted to save his friends, he would have to fight.

Her jutsu was pumping all of her energy, yet she was still aware enough that she felt it immediately – the shift, the power. The Anbu around her tensed up, turning to face the enemy that had just appeared before them.

Orange hair, violet, spiraling eyes. And the rods embedded in the face and ears, typical of this group. The leader of them, even, though maybe not the mastermind. They weren’t sure. They knew too little.

And he knew too much, was too familiar when he called her name. "It's been a long time, Tsunade." She didn't recognize his voice, or his face, yet it was obvious. After all, Jiraiya had been killed in Ame.

“Yahiko.”

It was impossible, and yet…

“I have come to bring war to you all.”

“I can see that. You shouldn’t have bothered.”

“You can still joke around, I see. It won’t last. You’ve grown too complacent. None of you can be trusted to honestly keep the peace. You haven’t suffered enough.”

The desolation of Ame. The piles of civilian corpses, men, women, and children of all ages caught in the crossfire or slaughtered for supplies, entertainment, vengeance.

But there was no excuse, none. She had gone to war, war had come to her home as well. How dare he level his suffering against hers and the rest of them. How dare he grant himself power over their future.

"You would hurt us all even more? Is it revenge? Maybe we deserve it, who knows. I still won't let you get away with it.”

"Do you think you can stop us? But be reassured, this is not revenge. It is just a demonstration. Can you pretend war isn't at your door once more? Are you able to guarantee your peace?"

“You brought war to us!”

“Did we?”

They had been reinforcing their wards, producing more weapons. Without the threat of the Biju, what would stop the other villages from making their move? They surely had the same idea.

“Are you trying to tell me you will bring peace with destruction?”

“I am not trying to tell you anything. I will show you.”

He jumped then, high, higher. Around them the sound of fighting died down as if suspended. What could he do, just one man? What was he planning?

He looked down at the village laying below. So much arrogance, so much hatred. How easily the kids turned into monsters.

“Hokage-sama!”

“Shisui? What are you doing here?”

The boy rushed toward her, breathless and bloody. Out of a rough fight. He looked around, before spotting Pain high up above them. He cursed.

“We have to stop him.”

“What do you know?”

It was rare to see him in such a frenzy, as he usually remained calm and unflappable. It had to be dire indeed.

“He can… I think he could destroy the whole village. We were fighting, but we couldn’t beat him. The others…”

There would be many to grieve.

“What can we do?”

“There is something… I can stop him. Maybe, I might, I don’t know, it’s…”

“Shisui!”

He focused back on her, looking young and lost, and he was barely an adult, was he? But they didn’t have the luxury of doubt.

“Do your best. And I will too, I will help."

Pain called it from the very depth of his soul. It resonated across their sky, their land, all-encompassing and deadly.

“Shinra Tensei. Heavenly punishment.”

She felt it before it hit – felt its power, its intent. The inordinate amount of chakra spreading through the air and she threw her own into her jutsu because if this hit them then… Then…

“Susano.”

Chapter Text

It came in a rush. Crackling all around them, the expansion of Shisui’s chakra, a vast green haze that slowly morphed into the humanoid shape of an old warrior, clad in full armor, weapon in hand. It was bigger than the Hokage tower, big enough that she couldn't make it out properly. As she stood inside, and Shisui too.

The earth shook around them when the strange emanation clashed with Pain’s jutsu, seizing it bodily as if wrestling with a large animal, despite the illusion that there was nothing there. Tsunade knew there were, knew that the pressure of Pain’s power was bearing down on Shisui and his avatar. The boy was sweating and shaking. His eyes were gushing out torrents of blood.

She pressed both her hands on either side of his head, sending her chakra through his body so that it could help sustain him, heal his wounds and strains, help him hold on a little more. He couldn’t keep it up much longer.

Fortunately, neither could Pain, it seemed. She felt the attack recede as much as she witnessed it – she caught Shisui as he stumbled on his feet, exhaustion overpowering him once he retracted his jutsu. He was blinking rapidly, trying to clear his vision, but it wasn't happening. Both because of the blood and because even from a cursory exam, she could tell whatever he had been doing had taken its toll. His eyes were glossy and veiled, bloodshot.

She laid a gentle palm on his face, soothing him as he jumped. He couldn’t make out her face, her shape.

"It's alright. You did well."

“I can’t do it again. I’m out of chakra. I can’t do it again.”

“What about your clan?”

“No one else can do it, and I can’t…”

“Shisui!”

Sasuke jumped on the roof, breathless and disheveled. Shisui’s display had brought him straight here. He didn’t get to utter another world though, as Shisui grabbed his shoulders fiercely.

“Sasuke, you have to help.”

“Huh? What?”

"You have to help me. No one else in the clan has awakened their Mangekyo. Itachi is not here. It’s only us.”

"But I- You know I can't do it. I never managed to…"

“You have to now!”

He shook the boy hard enough to make him wince. Sasuke was staring at his cousin wide-eyed and terrified, casting furtive glances at her in the hope she could help.

“Shisui, calm down.”

“He’s going to do it again. I’m out of chakra, I can’t counter it on my own. Sasuke!”

The boy jumped. When Shisui got closer, he took a step back.

“I can’t…”

“What have you been doing then?”

She had to step in before he said something he would regret. Sasuke was torn between shame and anger, and he would lash out if Shisui kept pressing him.

Someone else beat her to it.

A bit worrying, how discreet he had been that she did not notice him before. Then again, the situation was a tad stressful, and she was used to tuning into her disciple.

Still, Naruto had never been one to go unnoticed.

He pressed himself against Shisui's back and wrapped his arms around his torso to push his hands against his heart. He had once held it almost literally in those hands, splattered in Shisui’s blood. She remembered his haunted face, his unfocused look. He surely did too.

"You can use mine," he mumbled, muffled into the fabric of Shisui's shirt. The man was as still as if caught in a jutsu, as if he was scared moving would dislodge his young charge, would shake off the illusion.

Naruto held on tighter.

“My-my eyes, I’m…”

“It’s okay.”

Sasuke laid a gentle hand on Shisui's face, the soft glow of his healing technic disappearing into Shisui's bleeding eyes. All stood still, suspended, as the tension eased from Shisui's body. The next time Pain's jutsu came barreling toward them, the wave was even stronger, steadier too, fed by Naruto's bottomless reserve, by Sasuke's relentless fighting of any disease, any injury, any pain, by Shisui’s determination to hold on, steady and sure, immovable.

All for protection. All for love.

The warrior shielded them once more, and the village was unharmed when he retreated. Shisui stumbled forward into Sasuke’s careful arms. He had lost consciousness, but if Sasuke wasn’t in a frenzy, it meant the boy would be fine.

Naruto took a step back. “I’ll take him,” he said, pointing at the man still floating above them.

“Thank you, Naruto.”

“Please don’t. I’m not here for you. I don’t want to hear it.”

It hurt, unsurprising as it was. She knew of his anger. But she had hoped, selfishly, that he retained some affection for her at least.

He wouldn’t look at her. His eyes were fixated on the cliff behind them, on the faces carved in the stone, stoic and cold. Her own face stared at them with a severe expression, but it wasn’t the one Naruto was focused on.

It wasn't that she could tell for sure, following his gaze. It was his expression – she imagined that she sported the same when her eyes lingered on her grandfather's statue.

He knew.

“How did you find out?” she asked, trusting he would catch her meaning, waiting to see if he would deny it, would lie. But he had no use doing so. Made a point not to even. He wouldn’t be the one to hide from the truth.

“I met him. In my seal.”

.

Sasuke was looking back and forth between them in confusion. Naruto didn’t want to talk about it, he didn’t want to explain. It was bad enough to get confirmation that Tsunade had known all along, and had never bothered to just tell him.

“What are you talking about?” his friend asked eventually, unable to hold back. He couldn’t stand not being in the loop, always wanting Naruto to tell him everything, to share his every thought and feeling. And it was always hard to deny him.

“My father.”

“He’s alive?”

“No.”

Naruto laid a hand on his stomach as he often did, a gesture of comfort even though he couldn't feel it, and it couldn't be said to have brought him any comfort at all. But there was a warmth – real, or imaginary – coming from the tether, from his irrevocable link with the Nine-Tailed fox. The beast would nestle against his hand at times and would let himself be soothed, just for a moment. Maybe they could have been friends, allies, they could have trusted each other and gone through this together. Naruto wouldn't have been alone then. But how to ask it of a prisoner? Naruto was as trapped as the fox was, but at least he could still be a part of this world.

“I met him in the seal. Since he was the one who laid it on me. He was the one to defeat the beast and seal it into the nearest vessel available after the previous one had failed. Did you know that removing a tailed beast is almost certain to kill its host? We didn’t try, we didn’t dare put it to the test. It has proven true until now.”

“I don’t understand. The one who defeated the Kyuubi was…”

It was such a simple, straightforward conclusion. Naruto had felt very stupid not to have ever considered it before. The resemblance was striking, and the story was well-known. The face well-loved, up there on the mountain. Then again, upon learning of his past, Naruto had not leaped to the conclusion that the one sacrificing him to the fox had been his own father.

“The Yondaime Hokage was a great master of fuuinjutsu,” he recited quietly.

Naruto had hated the man on the mountain as soon as he had discovered he carried the Nine-tails within him. The man was said to have vanquished the fox, but what kind of victory was this? It had to be punishment more likely. How terrible Naruto’s heritage must have been, that he had been burdened with such a fate as retribution.

It turned out this was his heritage exactly. This was the family heirloom. A cage, like his mother before him. And what, like his children after him? He wondered.

He wondered how she could ever have a child. How she could ever feel love. If she agreed to this, if this was why he was born even. His father had not been helpful with these interrogations. But Naruto had let him talk very little.

“He left a part of him in the seal. Just in case it came close to breaking one day. I toyed with the line a lot, while I was training under the Sanin. I was curious what would happen.”

At his darkest moments, he figured it would be whatever, if the Biju did break free.

Shock finally left Sasuke’s face, to leave room for disapproval of course. He would never have stood for this, had he been there. But back then there was no one to stop Naruto, on the contrary.

Not until he broke out a sixth tail and nearly toppled the Southern Hideout. They were more careful after that, but he had no desire to go back there. He had no wish to meet that man again.

He couldn’t even hit him. The Fourth was dead already. It was pointless.

“He had the gall to tell me he was proud. What an honor it was to be the guardian of the Biju, to keep its destructive forces at bay and be a protector of the village. Can you believe it? He was so sure I must have become some sort of a hero. So stupidly surprised to find out I wasn’t. Surprised that I would be angry with him.”

He felt his blood boil just thinking about it again. The man's tranquil smile, his laidback demeanor, so proud of his handy work, so completely certain things would surely have turned out just as he had planned they would. He had the nerve, the nerve to be skeptical of Naruto’s recollection of the years since he had been gone. There was no way things were that bad now, was there?

Naruto had almost ripped the seal in half purely out of spite. If Karin had not walked into the seal at that moment, as she had been learning to do since the last close call, he might have.

Sasuke was speechless, which was for the best. Naruto didn’t want to hear what he had to say on the matter. Or rather, he knew what he did want to hear, and was too afraid it wouldn’t be it. This time, this time he was in the right, no? This time he wasn’t wrong to be angry, to be disappointed, to feel sad and betrayed. Or was he?

He could never tell. The Sandaime had kept repeating it didn't matter who his parents were and it didn't matter why he had to live as he did. That Naruto shouldn't care.

Was it also the will of his father that he wouldn’t carry his name? That he would take up his mother’s, unknown in the village, the last one of their line? Naruto had not thought to ask. Uzumaki Kushina was absent from the records, but they had found the crest and the name all over the ruins of Uzushio, when taking the trip with Karin in an impulsive fit of wanderlust and morbid curiosity. A disappointing visit – nothing remained of their legacy. No past, no future. They didn’t exist in this world, and wasn’t it what, above all else, made him the best candidate to be a jinchuuriki?

An honor, the man had said. An honor.

“Why fight us then?”

The man from the Akatsuki was back down there with them, done with his little stunts, it seemed. Naruto moved in front of Shisui, though he refrained from looking at him, checking on him. He had better stay focused on his enemy.

“You started it.”

“We can come to an understanding.”

Naruto scoffed.

“I don’t bargain with people who are after my life.”

“We have no interest in killing you.”

“Yet killing is what you did to the only one you managed to get your hands on.”

“Some of you might survive it.”

“Yeah, that’s not good enough of a deal, sorry.”

“So you’ll protect them instead?”

Naruto fell into position. He had no justification to give to Bee's murderer.

“I will.”

.

The armory descended into chaos as soon as the alarms began to ring all around the village. There was an order to it though – they all knew what they had to do. The senior shinobi would stay and guard the weapon stock, making sure it was well organized and well protected from any foreign envy.

As for Tenten and the rest of the chunin, they would have to run.

They loaded themselves with weapon scrolls by the dozen, quickly packing up hundreds of shuriken, kunai and tags into the seals, to be carried to the ones fighting on the ground. They would collect the stray weapons in turn, to be stored again or redistributed, so that their fellow shinobi wouldn’t run out in the thick of battle, or see their own blades thrown back at them.

It was all hands on deck, so the supervisor had no choice but to send Tenten out with the rest of them, even if she bet he would have loved to stick her with a boring cataloging task again. She had been working at the armory for almost half a year now, and she still wasn’t allowed to approach the cleaning oils, or, Sage forbid, a blade sharpener.

He couldn’t refuse her candidacy because she was the one with the deepest storing seals by far, no one came close to her capacity, and that wasn’t something they could afford to pass up on. But he didn’t have to give her any proper work if he didn’t want to. And he didn’t want to. Or rather, she always came last, and so there was nothing left for her. The armory was chock full of clan kids of lesser talents that were expected to get noticed here and hopefully move up ranks. There were a few weapon enthusiasts among the seniors, but they paid no attention to her. All in all, it was pretty lonely.

But well, the same people couldn’t stay in place forever. She was biding her time, as were most of her friends.

For now, she had to bring them all supplies. She ran through the village, struggling not to join the fights or lend a hand. She had her role to play. She picked up a few messages as she went, updates on the combat zones, victories and injuries. Casualties.

She ran into Sakura as she was finishing obliterating a walking corpse with that fancy swirling jutsu of hers. They had gathered that the corpses could only be stopped with sealing, or if their bodies were sufficiently destroyed in one single blow. Sakura had opted for the second option. She gratefully took the scroll Tenten offered, asking for updates on what was going on. Tenten couldn’t linger, but there was one piece of news she could give her friend.

“Naruto is here.”

Sakura’s eyes widened, but she didn’t ask for more details. Just nodded, face tight, and turned back to her fight. She had to put it aside for now, just like Tenten did, even if there was a high probability that Naruto had not come alone.

Kiba and his family were still fighting one of the giant summons that had wreaked havoc in the central districts, but they were finally pulling through. Not without loss, Tenten realized. Inuzuka Tsume was missing one of her dogs. Tenten tossed them some strengthening pills before moving on.

She stopped by to distribute some more weapons to the civilians and young chunin guarding the children at the shelters. They all wanted news that she couldn't give them, so she didn't linger. She spotted with relief the kids from the orphanage. She was fairly certain Lee had been there teaching taijutsu when the attack broke out, which meant there was someone to take care of them when they would have been the first to be forgotten.

Speaking of Lee, where was he?

She kept an eye out as she continued touring the village, giving out and picking up weapons in equal measure. Some she had to pull out, with a quick prayer, from the still form of one of their people. Not many, thanks the Sage, but that didn’t make it any easier. As the fighting seemed to die down within the village, a strong commotion was growing outside. One brutal attack shook the ground, strong enough that she thought the buildings would topple around her. Information was limited. Everyone was worried.

She found Lee entertaining three of those corpses, close to the Southern Gate. There was no evidence yet that they could tire out, whatever jutsu powering them seemingly sustaining enough that any normal person would run out of steam first. But of course, Lee wasn’t normal, and he was still as fast as usual jumping between his opponents, who were visibly struggling to keep up.

“Do you want help wrapping this up?” she said, then repeated much louder to be heard above the commotion.

“Oh, Tenten! Please do!”

He smiled at her brightly and she had to look away, embarrassed. She was inexplicably flustered lately when he turned on her the full force of his blinding enthusiasm. Which made no sense. It was just Lee.

She took out a couple of binding seals from her weapon pouch. The corpses couldn't break out of those since the Armory had developed stronger ones with this specific goal in mind. She had even contributed to it, as words of her talent at fuuinjutsu had made their way across the department, enough that the supervisor couldn’t justify excluding her. After Lee’s next blow laid his opponents flat on the ground, she slapped them with the seals. It would put them out of commission for now. Teams were tasked with rounding them up and binding them properly. After a while the jutsu would fade and they would turn back into the people who had been sacrificed to embody the dead.

That had been a fun strategic brief at the Hokage Tower.

"What are you doing alone out there?" she asked, taking advantage of the short reprieve to catch her breath. Lee was stretching out his long limbs, badly hiding a wince of pain. The ghost of his injuries during the chunin exam still lingered, and probably would for the rest of his life. He had bounced back, of course he had, even if the Hokage herself had told him he was unlikely to ever fight again. But it would never truly be gone.

“I came to assist Hinata-chan. But I didn’t have to.”

He pointed in Tenten's back, through the Southern Gate. In the heat of battle, she had not noticed the fight happening there. Or maybe it was already over when she arrived.

Hinata stood at the gate, at the center of the neat circle of her clan’s Trigrams jutsu. Beyond that, corpses were piling up high. None had made it through the gate.

She jumped when Tenten laid a careful hand on her shoulder. Deeply lost in thought, if she didn’t hear her friends approach her.

“Are you alright?” Tenten asked gently. Hinata nodded with a smile, but her eyes remained distant.

Things were always weird between Hinata and them. They had barely said two words to each other, before. Before Neji left, before they shared this grief. It was not the ideal foundation to build a relationship. Not aided by the fact that she had a breakdown in front of them both, a year after his departure, where she told them it was all her fault and begged them for forgiveness. It was the first time Tenten had seen her like this, so emotional and fragile, and the last too. On their next meeting, she was calm and distant again.

Waiting, waiting. Still stuck there, on that fateful night. As if she could have stopped him, as if there was anything she could have done, to keep him here, to hold him back. But there was no reasoning with her. It was her family’s, her clan’s doing. And she was the head of both.

Her face turned serious again as she spun around to face the forest.

“Someone’s coming.”

Someone did. Tenten needed a moment to place him. Another reminiscence of the chunin exam – the man, Kabuto, had turned out to be a traitor and had vanished from the village during the attack. He was running toward them, chased away.

Chased away by Neji.

Kabuto took advantage of their bewilderment and attempted to cross the gate. But Lee didn't need his brain for his reflexes to kick in in a timely fashion, and he caught him with a kick that bent the man in half and sent him flying back where he came from. Straight into Neji's deft hands.

When Kabuto attempted to get back on his feet, he found himself engulfed in sand. That terrible sand that Tenten remembered all too well. The next moment, Gaara of the desert stood by Neji’s side.

“Neji!” Lee called out, unable to stop himself, unwilling too.

Neji was angled toward the other boy, away from them. He deliberately slid on the mask that hung in his back. They stood close. Tenten wasn’t sure, but she thought the hands hidden by their bodies were holding on firmly to one another.

There was another deafening blow, further into the forest.

“It’s Naruto,” Gaara whispered, low but uncaring of being heard it seemed.

The Suna nin settled his blank face on their trio standing by the gate. Tenten only realized she was holding Hinata’s arm when the girl tried to take a step forward. Tenten held her back. It was barely a conscious move, but she couldn’t let her go. It wouldn’t end well.

“Naruto will be back when he’s done,” the boy said. “We will guard this gate.”

And not set foot beyond it, was the unspoken follow-up. It was a short distance, but it was impossible to cross. Tenten wanted to call out to her friend, she wanted to run to him and force their eyes to meet. She was paralyzed. The limits of the village stood between them, a simple line on the ground as sturdy as a kekkai. Taking one step would make them disappear into thin air.

“I need to report back,” Tenten blurted out, though it was the last thing she wanted to do, to say. But the fight was still ongoing and they had their duty to uphold.

“Hinata, let’s go.”

“I want to stay.”

She couldn’t look away from Neji’s form at the edge of the forest. She couldn’t even blink.

“It’s no use. Hinata, come on, please. You… You’ll get to talk later, I’m sure. But we shouldn’t stay here.”

“No. No.”

She was this girl again, the one crying in Lee’s arm, wailing, pulling her hair, mad with regrets and longing. Blaming herself, hating herself. She had become quite good at hiding it. It didn’t mean she was doing any better.

“Lee, take her back.”

Lee followed Tenten’s cues in this kind of situation. He had a softer heart.

He grabbed Hinata’s by the waist, hoisted her up in his arms to carry her away. She trashed in his arms, flailing around.

“No, no! I want to stay, let me… Neji!”

She could have easily overpowered Lee, but she was in no state to think coherently. Besides, she would never truly hurt him. Still, she hit her balled-up fists on his back and arms hard enough that he would bruise, but he didn’t stop, didn’t even slow down.

“Neji, Neji!”

She kept crying out his name after he was out of sight.

.

Naruto took the fight outside of the walls. Just as well – on the next attack, they flattened the earth and forest that lay beyond the Eastern gate. Sasuke wanted nothing more than to join the fight, to have his friend’s back.

But he would only be a hindrance. And he was needed elsewhere.

He ran to the hospital, fiercely defended and thus unbreached yet. The other red-haired members of the Akatsuki were nowhere to be seen, so the fight had died down within the village. Sasuke’s job was only getting started though.

Tsunade had warned him about her jutsu, but it was one thing to hear her describe it, and another to see shinobi and civilians being wheeled in with massive slugs attached to various parts of their bodies, healing and mending, keeping the blood in, the infections out. An endless stream of cuts and bruises, broken skin and bones, crushed limbs and struggling heartbeats. He got lost in it, the outside world fading to background noise, to be dealt with later.

Until Tsunade put a hand on his shoulder, and then yanked him away when he didn’t react. He went to chew her off before he recognized her, and even then it was a close thing. He had work to do. He couldn’t stop.

“You need to go.”

“What?”

He was too confused to resist when she dragged him through the hospital, past the entrance, and into the streets, to the Eastern gate.

“What is happening?”

“Naruto needs you.”

“Why? Is he okay?”

“You need to keep him here.”

Sasuke saw red, already preparing to rebuff her, shocked that she could bring that up now. But as they neared the fight, he figured that it was something else.

The forest was devastated, partly because there were two gigantic summons tearing at each other in the open land – a crimson rhino whose spiraling eyes betrayed its allegiance to Pain, and a fox.

A giant white fox, with red markings on its face and tails. Sasuke couldn’t help but count, but there were only six. Still he wondered for a moment, if he was looking at Naruto. Until he spotted him on top of the fox’s head, hands joined in a seal.

He was engulfed in red chakra, shaped exactly like the fox beneath his feet. Six red tails swinging around him. Through the haze Sasuke could barely make out his face, twisted in rage, eyes blazing.

“Bring him back, keep him tethered. You know what could happen, right? If he loses control.”

Naruto’s haunted eyes as he confessed, years ago on the training ground. “It’s my fault it came out. It’s my fault Haku died.” How terrified he was for the beast to get free, for his will to be overpowered.

They had worked hard on this, but could Sasuke even reach him in this state? Would Naruto want him to? Maybe he wasn’t so scared of the Kyuubi anymore. Maybe he was fine with letting it go on a rampage.

So it wasn't Naruto who Sasuke had to save.

Tsunade looked apologetic, but she didn’t utter a word. It was for the best. There was no point in lying and he didn’t need her to say things she didn’t mean for his sake. She never bothered to before, it was a thing he appreciated about her. Few adults in their lives had a mind to be honest with the youth.

“Why didn’t you ask Shisui?”, he asked. It was cowardly of him, especially with how much power Shisui had spent on his guardian, something Sasuke couldn’t help with even a little. Sasuke had wrestled him into a hospital bed long enough to confirm that his chakra system was overwhelmed and his eyes heavily damaged. It didn’t prevent him from getting back out there to help with the rescue effort. And it didn’t prevent Sasuke from wishing he was by his side again.

“I did. He said he wouldn’t be of any use.”

Meaning he wouldn’t want to help. Shisui wouldn’t turn his Sharingan on Naruto, even now. Sasuke envied him his faith, his lack of doubt.

Tsunade filled him on what they had learned of Pain and his power – the rods, the bodies, the true one who had to be out there.

She also told him this man had been Jiraiya’s disciple once. Orphaned by the war that devastated Ame. There was regret in her voice but he couldn’t feel much compassion. They always sounded so hollow and despaired when they talked about the wars, but they could never commit to there not being another one.

“Stay alive,” was all she said when she sent him on his way.

He did his best to get closer and get to Naruto. Easier said than done – he was far from the ground on his monstrous fox, and it was all Sasuke could do not to get crushed under a paw or a falling tree. The chakra around Naruto was becoming denser, making it more difficult to see him through the haze. Loud, bone-chilling howls tore through the air, sounding hardly human. Yet they were coming from his mouth.

The next time he brought his staff down on his opponent, the weapon shattered into pieces. Sasuke had seen it bend a tree in half, but it was utterly destroyed now. Naruto roared in fury.

He manifested a seventh tail. He was incandescent, hard to look at, especially under the magnified light of the Sharingan. Sasuke jumped on the fox. He was risking getting thrown away or enraging the summon, but he was running out of options. Nothing happened though – either the white fox didn't notice him or didn't care, engaged as it was with the other beasts. A bird now, in addition to the rhino. Still, the fox could wrestle both easily enough, especially with the flow of chakra running from Naruto to it, feeding it. The amount was inconceivable – any regular person would have been emptied out of their chakra reserve in minutes. But Naruto poured and poured, and still glowed with strength. It was blinding.

Sasuke had to meet his gaze. He had to get through to him.

Pain and Naruto jumped up when the beasts collided, clawing and biting, trying to tear into each other. They met high up in the air in a clash of metal and fists, chakra flaring all around them. Sasuke nearly toppled over and had to use his own chakra to stay anchored. It drew the attention of the fox. He wasn’t sure how he knew – the summon didn’t look at him or spoke, but Sasuke felt it under his feet, inside his head.

Akito’s friend, he heard. A fact, not a question.

It made sense that they would know each other, that Naruto’s foxes were of the same pack, same family maybe. Still, Akito wasn’t there, and was so very young, Sasuke wouldn’t have bet on him having any influence in his clan.

He couldn’t answer and wasn’t sure he was expected to. He was allowed to stay up there and that was all that mattered to him. Above him Naruto and Pain kept exchanging blows, Naruto countering Pain’s jutsu with his lightning-fast shunshin. Push and pull, Shisui had said, as irresistible as gravity. After Naruto had escaped him once too many, Pain changed strategy and started using the jutsu not to keep Naruto away or bring him close, but to focus the pull on him. They were surrounded by the waste of their battleground – rocks and fallen trees, hurtling through the air toward Naruto. His chakra armor protected him from damage, but not from the overwhelming weight and barrage of it all – he had to blink away rapidly to get away from the jutsu's influence, at least for a quick respite.

He touched back down on the fox. Sasuke couldn’t make out his shape at all. When he called him, Naruto turned toward him a face engulfed in chakra as if ablaze, eyes and mouth a white, impenetrable void.

Sasuke went in anyway.

The place was different from the last time he was there. It was bright and clean, but mainly it was much bigger. Gone was the cell, its cramped walls and jaded ceiling. In fact, there was no bound to the space at all, save for one.

The bars.

They disappeared into the light above and below them, on their right and left. The still water on the ground reflected it perfectly, giving it a vertiginous impression of infinity.

On one side stood Naruto, unmoving in front of the lock.

He had a hand on the paper seal, one corner pinched between his fingers. On the other side, the red fox, immense yet still small in the unrestrained space they stood in, stared at it with all his might, as if he could set it aflame just by looking at it.

They both turned in one motion toward Sasuke’s stumbling presence. The fight kept raging outside, but Sasuke was only distantly aware of his own body. It was dangerous, but that thought too was hard to keep a grip on.

Naruto stared at him. His face was covered in tears.

“What are you doing here?”

“I promised, didn’t I? You asked me to come get you.”

Superimposed to this version of Naruto, still and calm, was the one raging against Pain, drowning in red chakra. A glimpse through the swirl showed that his skin wasn’t red, as Sasuke has thought. It was gone, and the red was his exposed flesh. His body was corroded by the chakra, but it healed just as fast, only to melt away again. Sasuke couldn’t imagine the pain he was in. Yet in here he looked serene, almost bored. The rocks started to aggregate around him again, more and more until Sasuke couldn’t see him, until no force would be able to save him from being crushed to death.

“Naruto!” Sasuke called in a panic, both in the real world and down here in the cell, or the plain, or whatever this place was. It wasn’t as uniform as he had first thought. He could distinguish the rest of the cell again if he concentrated, as well as the infinite landscape stretching beyond the bars, in the fox’s territory. The bars seemed to expand and shrink at once, giving the illusion they were traveling through space, though Sasuke was rooted in place, unable to move.

“You won’t have to do that anymore,” Naruto said. He turned his back on Sasuke, resolute.

“What do you mean?”

“I want to be free.”

Sasuke had no time for another word, for stopping him. Naruto ripped off the seal.

.

The first few tails came out easy, it was second nature by now. The issues began at the fifth, more painful, harder to shake off after.

By the seventh, Namikaze Minato showed his face.

“What are you doing?” he asked, uncertain. He wasn’t as assured as during their first meeting. How did that even work? Was he talking from the afterlife? Was this just a chakra clone, some remnants of the man? Who could still form memory somehow, who retain the wariness born from their last encounter?

Naruto didn’t care. He didn’t plan on lingering here. It was eight tails now. The man got agitated.

“What are you doing?”