Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

He knew with absolute certainty, due partly to his own pride, that if he had said the word, Sakura would have come. 

He could have gone back to the village, made his way to her apartment, or perhaps her office at the hospital. He wouldn’t have needed to talk much or explain his feelings or elaborate at all. 

“Come with me”, he could have said. And she would have, willingly. Enthusiastically too, at least in the first few years. Then, her overjoyed reaction would start to diminish with each year spent away. If he had come back five years later, she wouldn’t have blushed and stuttered like she used to when they were genin, she would have been confused. 

If he had come back seven years later, she would have been confused and angry at his boldness. 

If he had come back ten years later, she would have been just angry.  

With each year, the probability of hearing “yes” back grew lower. He thought she would have gotten over him by then. She would have found a nice, reliable man to marry and start a family. Sakura would have two children and a dog and a house with a nice front garden and a picket fence and the happiness she deserved. 

He believed that if he had come back ten years later, he would have been nothing but an attempted failure of a homewrecker.

He came back anyway. But not for her.

The gates of Konoha loomed ahead, unchanged. Fourteen years had passed since he last stood here, and the village had transformed in ways he had only glimpsed from a distance. The skyline was taller, shinobi patrols fewer, and the hum of technology thrived where chakra once reigned supreme.

The gates had stayed the same, and so had the bench he passed to his right. 

A strange sensation, to go through doors he once knew and encounter a different landscape. Uchiha Sasuke stepped forward, boots scuffing against the stone path as he passed through the gates. The guards stiffened, unsure whether to bow or draw their weapons. Recognition dawned in their eyes, tempered by hesitation. He was a ghost to this village, a legend that had outlived its welcome. An unwanted visitor, tolerated by his close relationship to two Hokages and a prestigious, cursed, surname. 

He adjusted the tattered cloak draped over his shoulders, the years of travel and war evident in the wear of the fabric. His lone hand curled at his side, hesitating over the sword resting at his hip. He had chosen a late hour, close to midnight. With the dark of the night to aid him, he was hoping to minimize the knowledge of his sighting from spreading. Materializing directly in Konoha wasn’t an option. He couldn’t afford to let the Otsutsuki follow his chakra trail back to the village.

He followed his gut and the faded memory of a description from a long forgotten letter he had never replied to. The Uzumaki’s house stood in front of him. Small but lively. Someone, probably the dobe’s wife, took good care of the front garden. He was inspecting the sunflowers from a distance, wondering why they would keep such a flower in Konoha’s humid climate when the door opened.

Hyuga Hinata stared at him and all her old rigorous training as heir-to-be to an ancient and proud clan couldn’t stop her mouth from hanging open and her eyes from enlarging, even more than usual. She pulled herself together quickly. She didn’t make a scene, or shout, or ask a stupid question. She quietly said, “He’s still in the office.” Sasuke could see why Naruto married her. He turned around and walked back to the street.

A rush of movement. A boy with bright blue eyes and an irrepressible grin poked his head through a corner.

“Whoa! You’re really here! I thought it was dad arriving home late as always but mum looked like she had seen a ghost.” Boruto Uzumaki skidded to a stop in front of him, eyes shining with an admiration Sasuke had seen before, on another blond idiot all those years ago. “Damn, you look way cooler than the old pictures. Uchiha Sasuke, yeah? You are a legend. I’ve been trying to get your card but it’s super rare.”

“Card?”

“Yeah, from the game. I was just playing with Mitsuki but he had to go home–”

Sasuke barely spared him a glance. “You should too”

“Should what?”

“Go home.”

Boruto blinked, taken aback. “Huh? But I–”

“I don’t have time for this.” The words came out sharper than he intended, but he didn’t correct them. “Go.”

Boruto frowned, his excitement dimming slightly. But he was stubborn, just like his father. “Come on, at least say hi properly! I’ve been dying to meet you. Dad says–”

Sasuke exhaled through his nose. “Boruto.”

Something in his tone made the boy stop. Neither anger nor irritation. It was colder, more distant. Sasuke’s patience had always been limited, and tonight, he had none to spare.

Boruto’s mouth pressed into a thin line. “Fine. Whatever.” He stuffed his hands into his pockets, shifting on his feet before stepping back. “Hokage’s office, right? He’s probably still up. He always is.”

Sasuke gave a slight nod, already moving past him. He didn’t look back.

The silence stretched between them until Boruto muttered under his breath, barely loud enough to reach him. “Didn’t think you’d be that much of a jerk.”

The streets were quiet as he walked, the glow of street lamps casting elongated shadows against the buildings. It was a good thing he knew the way by memory, because sight alone wouldn’t have been enough. Fourteen years was a very long time.

The Hokage’s office was dimly lit, the paperwork stacked in uneven piles on the desk the only sign of his current occupant. Naruto Uzumaki sat slumped in his chair, rubbing at his temples before his tired eyes lifted toward the doorway.

The tension that had settled in Sasuke’s chest didn’t ease when their gazes met. If anything, it deepened.

“Sasuke. You’re back” Naruto rubbed his eyes again, as if Sasuke were some kind of delirious late night hallucination. As if he had just gone to fetch something from the store instead of fucking off for more than a decade.

Sasuke stepped inside, closing the door behind him. “I have something you need to see.”

He reached into his cloak, retrieving a worn scroll. The fabric was ancient, the symbols along its surface faded with time. He set it on Naruto’s desk, watching as the Hokage straightened, his exhaustion briefly forgotten.

Naruto unrolled the manuscript, his brow furrowing. “This… what is this?”

“Otsutsuki records. It mentions Kaguya’s companion, one who came with her to Earth.” Sasuke’s voice remained measured, but the weight of his words settled heavily in the air. “There’s reason to believe he never left.”

Naruto swore under his breath, scanning the text. “You’re saying there’s another one here? Still?”

Sasuke nodded. “It needs to be deciphered fully, but if it’s true… we were never dealing with just remnants of Kaguya’s plans.”

Naruto exhaled, leaning back in his chair. For a moment, neither spoke.

“It’s been a long time, you know.” Naruto said, instilling a careful tone to his voice. “When I saw you again, I thought it would have been with better news.” Naruto raised his eyes back to him, smiling wildly, and suddenly Sasuke was looking at a twelve year old version of Naruto. “That you had met a girl and finally decided to end the sad bachelor life. A secret child. So many possibilities-”

Sasuke’s jaw tensed. “I was doing what needed to be done. You’re still here, in this office, buried in work. I passed your son in the street.” Sasuke let out a quiet scoff. “Tell me, Naruto, when was the last time you actually went home at a reasonable hour?”

Naruto flinched, barely, but didn’t answer. The silence spoke for him.

Sasuke shook his head. “You have a family. And you’re wasting it.”

Naruto’s fingers curled against the desk. “And you ran from yours.”

Sasuke wanted to tell him that his family was buried in unmarked graves outside the boundaries of the village. Silence stretched on.

“Look… we can do this later. You just got back. We need to focus on this first. Come back tomorrow afternoon.” He gestured to the manuscript, his tone softer, weary. “But… it’s good to see you, teme.”

Sasuke exhaled slowly. “You too.”

His feet directed his body automatically. Muscle memory was a powerful thing, not only in battle. Lost in thought until that moment, Sasuke lifted his head to look around. Chipped red paint on wood greeted him. Even though the bottom part was covered by a fallen tree, he knew what he would find if he moved it. 

He had half a mind to pick up the tree. He wanted to see the symbol of his clan, his family, displayed somewhere, even if he were the only witness. But he knew he wouldn’t be satisfied with just the tree. The half-collapsed roof, the brambles on the ground, the broken wooden steps. It would take the whole night just to make the small corner he stood in halfway decent. Restoring the Uchiha Compound would take a lifetime.

This had once been his home. He had been gone just as long.

He turned around and left. He would pay for a room tonight.

The sunlight altered the perception of the Hokage’s office. The papers seemed to have multiplied. The entire surface of the desk was covered with documents and, to Sasuke’s disgust, instant ramen containers. The papers extended beyond that. Sasuke hoped Naruto didn’t have any more visitors planned, because both guest chairs were topped with small mountains of books. Moving them would’ve been easy, if not for the precarious towers of documents piled at their feet.

Sasuke’s manuscript was the lone occupant of a small shelf above the overflowing file cabinet. It seemed to glow with a strange energy, as if demanding solitude, pushing all other things away. Sasuke wanted to activate his sharingan and check whether the object was emitting some kind of chakra, but he stopped himself. There would be time for that later.

Naruto had his nose buried in a book. It was a disturbing sight.

“I’ll tell you how I came across it.”

Despite being a trained ninja, and the literal Hokage, Naruto flinched, startled. To Sasuke’s credit, he didn’t shout (that loudly) or jump.

“By fucking Kami! You know you have to knock, right? And technically ask my secretary for an appointment. But we both know you won’t do that.”

He composed himself and gestured toward the chairs. Sasuke raised an eyebrow.

“Oh, damn. I should clean that up. It’s the daimyo’s proposal. He wants to create an entrance exam for the Academy. It’s. So. Much. Work.”

Naruto kept talking, but Sasuke had stopped listening after the third word, with a skill that surprised even him. He was used to tuning people out, but Naruto had always been a tough one; he stuck like a barnacle, burrowing into your skin, down to the bone. Time away had apparently helped.

He moved to the file cabinet and retrieved the manuscript. Chills crept up his arms at the touch. He cleared some space on the desk as Naruto dared the stack of papers to collapse by freeing up a chair. He was still talking. It might have been interesting for someone else to hear first-hand Hokage gossip. Sasuke didn’t care.

He wondered if Naruto babbled like that to everyone who came in (wouldn't that be a security risk?), or if it was just with him. For his own sake, he hoped it was the former. For Konoha’s, he hoped it was the latter.

“I was investigating another dimension,” Sasuke interrupted. “I followed a lead to an icy, desolate world, with a strangely human-like old castle. There were faded paintings on the walls and strange symbols accompanying them. Some kind of alphabet, I suspect, maybe hieroglyphic in nature. I couldn’t read them, but I memorized them and wrote them down later.”

He reached into his vest and pulled out a stack of papers, which joined the hundred or so already on the table.

“In the largest room – a throne room, if I had to guess – there was an entire wall depicting what I believe might be a genealogical tree. I wouldn’t necessarily have connected it to the Ōtsutsuki, if it weren’t for one of the symbols.”

He reached for one of the pages and opened it. A series of lines, connected by a circle with a number inside.

“What do you m—?” Naruto began.

Sasuke grabbed another page. This one contained several circles with intricate drawings inside, and a number next to each. Number six had something else written underneath: O. Kaguya . So did number eight: Sage of Six Paths .

“I didn’t know you could draw.” Naruto compared the two pages, whistling, impressed. “I see. Those are Kaguya’s horns, and these others are the Sage’s. The Sage is the last of his branch. But there are others, and several ancestors, if they’re still alive.”

Sasuke nodded, impatient.

“This one,” he said, pointing to the number connected horizontally to Kaguya – number five. “This is Kaguya’s partner.”

Naruto looked at the other paper to find the matching number. The corresponding drawing was simpler than the Rabbit Goddess: one single horn with a pointed end and a circle. Inside the circle, seven lines reached inward, ending in another smaller one. The emphasis could have been on the lines, or the triangles they formed. Sasuke hadn’t been sure.

“But Kaguya fell for a human,” Naruto said. “The father of the Sage, whoever he was. Brave dude, if you ask me.”

Sasuke resisted the urge to roll his eyes. Internally, he agreed.

“Yes. That’s why the Sage’s line connects directly to her, not to their union.”

“So aliens have children out of wedlock, too?”

“That’s assuming the concept of marriage even exists for them. We can’t be sure–” What was he doing? He couldn’t waste time on minute details, like conjugal bonds between aliens with horns. “Anyway, inside the castle there was a library. It wasn’t very big, and most of it was in poor condition. I only recognized our language. The section was titled: ‘Earth’ .  It was just one shelf. Everything else was unsalvageable, except for the manuscript.”

Sasuke reached for it and opened it.

Naruto looked at it for a long time, taking it all in. Most of it was written in some kind of code, which Sasuke had tried to decipher before returning to Konoha. He had failed. There was only a few sentences they could understand, right at the beginning:

Together we descended upon this world, and yet you betrayed me, my love. Forever the traitor, may your deepest desire hover before you like golden nectar. Close enough to ache, but never to taste. When your eyes see no more, I shall gaze upon what is rightfully mine. 

“Ominous.” 

Sasuke couldn’t resist himself. “You learned a new word?” 

Their old banter came when called, as natural as breathing. He wouldn’t exactly say he missed it – just that strangers found him much too intimidating to engage on that level, and too serious. 

But instead of an outrageous cry of anger, he got an equally deadpanned response back. 

“Lots, actually. Perk of having to do so much reading.” 

It startled him for a moment and then he remembered that fourteen years had passed and that somehow, somewhere in between being a war hero, a Hokage, a husband and a father, Naruto had found the time to mature. Maybe he had matured because of that.

Sasuke stood up to look out the window. “I came to inform you of this possible threat. And to have more heads looking into the manuscript. It appears to be Kaguya’s partner's letter to her, or a personal diary. We need to decipher it and see if he intends to finish what she started.”

A knock on the door interrupted his thoughts. Before Naruto could say anything, it opened brusquely.

“Naruto, let’s make this quick. I have-”

She stopped mid-step. Pink hair, white coat, stack of papers on her hand. Haruno Sakura visibly swallowed, holding onto the door frame before composing herself.

He iced his features a millisecond before she looked at him. He avoided her eyes.

“Sakura-chan! I didn’t expect you to-” Naruto said excitedly. Then, his smile diminished and he raised a hand to his temple, shaking his head. “Oh, shit, the hospital budget, yes? Can we reschedule, Sakura-chan?”

“No need” Sasuke’s voice was flat and it sounded particularly raspy to his ears. “We can’t do anything else today. I’ll come back tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow I have meetings all day.” Naruto noticed Sasuke moving, preparing to leave with the manuscript “Hey, teme!”

Sasuke didn’t respond. He had already turned on his heel, his movements fluid, effortless, just as they always had been. In a blink, he was gone, vanishing from the room like a shadow slipping through cracks in the light.

The Konoha rumour mill worked at full speed. Time hadn’t diminished in the slightest the ease of the gossip, the way it rolled from tongue to tongue, a sweet lollipop to lick, deforming to accommodate the particular method of the enjoyer, until there was nothing left but a single stick and a bag full of several other sweets to turn to.

Contrary to what most people thought, Sasuke was used to it. How could he not if he had been subjected to it his entire life? Just because he was accustomed to the telltale buzz of conversations stopping when he passed, the subversive glances from civilians who considered themselves more sly than a shinobi, didn’t mean he liked it. But he couldn’t do a damn thing to change it and he had learned the hard way to only engage in battles he could actually win.

He passed the week between the Hokage tower and the inn he had chosen to stay in. Hotel had corrected Naruto when he had mentioned where he was sleeping. We have grabbed the attention of a big chain that wants to promote tourism in the area. They are planning to open a second one near the lake.

He focused on deciphering the manuscript with the help of Shikamaru, who he remembered as a lazy bastard with a bright intellect and who had turned into a lazy bastard with a bright intellect that smoked a pack a day. The smell of cigarettes clung to him after leaving the office and he took to taking a shower in his room before going to the most secluded training grounds after dinner.

The man called Sai was there, too. He didn’t like him. He wasn’t sure if it was his crop top, that he called him traitor straight to his face or that he had been his replacement (he had apparently also married one his old fan girls) but his pale face grated on his nerves and he was amazed that there were people in the world more socially inept than Naruto and Kakashi had been. He tolerated him because he was useful and competent and Sasuke could value that.

Word had spread of his return. The old lady who had sold him food the first day with a smile no longer met his eyes. Two children looked at him in awe, too young to have been alive during the war. He noticed that fact more and more often. The clear cut. The line. A before and an after. Those old enough to remember, avoiding him, those who weren’t. Those who had only known peace and gazed at him like a hero form a legend, more myth than man, more man than monster.

The clerk at the inn (hotel) desk had had to call his supervisor, and said supervisor, his supervisor to check about their policy about accommodations for old terrorists and deserters. Five minutes later and orders trickling down a chain of command that made the poor fellow start to sweat, Sasuke had been given access to his room again . 

He had limited public appearances to the minimum. The rumor mill didn’t care. He heard stories about him feeding a stray cat (he had) and going to the ramen shop (he hadn’t), among several other claims, to which he paid no mind.

Naruto teased him about it once, “You are quite the talk these days, huh, teme. A legend come to flesh. Boruto’s been asking about you everyday.”

Despite all of this, he had successfully avoided any encounters with people he had known personally, except for that girl from Hyuga Neji’s team who, to his surprise, owned the best weapons shop in the village. He had needed materials to polish his sword. Tenten , he had learned her name, had gawked at him for a second and then had proceeded to act like a professional, treating him as any other customer.

So the whispers, each more ridiculous than the last, had arrived to stay and he didn’t have any difficulty in tuning them out. What was proven more challenging was the reason for his return, the deciphering of the manuscript. 

By the end of the week, and with very little progress to show for it, Shikamaru suggested that maybe the code wasn’t merely an intellectual one.

“The paper emits a weird buzz when you touch it, right? Like a small current. I think chakra, or whatever it is Outsutsuki’s call it, may be involved in this. There are also this strange marks, with lingering rests of some kind of substance.”

The following week they worked on that theory, which proved true shortly after its suggestion. More complicated was to find a solution. Having spent the past three hours nose deep in an ancient text from the Hokage’s private restricted library, Codifying through seals, compendium number two, a truly riveting read about five hundred and twenty seven ways to hide a message using sealing techniques, Sasuke arrived at an interesting passage.

While most codes involve the combination of different seals, in a specific order, the most complex of all incurred one more step: the ingredients used to draw each specific rune-like character. Adding an extra layer of security, it can also provide fatal, as accounted by the unfortunate accident of the 34th daimyo, who died after trying in vain to open a letter from his mistress, using ink from a squid instead of a cuttlefish, triggering the defense mechanism and dropping to the ground in his agonising last moments, muttering about forbidding cephalopods in the entire country. This incident may be behind the lack of traditional plates involving the poor animals, despite their prevalence in the neighbouring sea and high fishing rates.

“This is the biggest lead we’ve had so far. I think we should continue investigating it, without completely closing the other options,” Naruto answered when he had gone the next day to the office and showed him the passage, “None of us have the abilities to do this, though. I’ll need to call a poison specialist, just in case.”

He had agreed.

To his astonishment, Sakura was sitting in one of the office chairs, now devoid of papers, when he arrived the following day. Pink hair, white coat, same as the other day. He hadn’t stared long enough to notice anything else and he didn’t stare now, glancing directly at Naruto inquisitively. 

When the Hokage didn’t say anything, Sasuke speaked, “I’ll come back later if you are busy.”

Naruto buffed, amused in a very un-Hokage way, and motioned him to sit on the other chair. He remained standing. Sakura had turned back to Naruto and Sasuke could only see her shoulders and the back of her head, her hair barely grazing her shoulders. She had kept it short.

“No, Sasuke. This meeting is in regard to the Otsutsuki manuscript. As we agreed yesterday, we’ll research the sealing via deathly ingredients with an expert on the topic of dangerous substances.”

“Actually, it’s not necessarily deathly ingredients, but an internal mechanism that activates upon the wrong one being used,” Sakura added before she could help herself. The tips of her ears turned red.

Her voice was the same but more mature, having lost that childish, girlish shriek quality that had pierced his ears time and time again. 

“Yeah, well…” Naruto scratched the back of his neck, “As you can see, Sakura-chan here is the best of the best and we’re fortunate she has agreed to collaborate on top of her busy schedule at the hospital. You have at your disposal the entire library, including the restricted sections, and, of course, all of Sakura’s laboratories. If you need to order any special equipment, just put it in the special budget bracket, I’ll see that it gets approved. Now, I have a lot of work, so I haven’t had the time to explain everything in detail, or show her everything. Sasuke, I suspect you’ll be able to do it better than me on account of your first hand experience. I leave this in both your hands. If anyone can do this, it’s two-thirds of the legendary team Seven, dattebayo .”

The idea he had of his return was a nice, clean, in-and-out without any titillating consequences. No greetings to old friends, if he could call them that, no contact to anyone beyond necessary with the exceptions of Naruto and the people he worked with. Definitely no contact with Sakura. 

He hadn’t prepared for this. He hadn’t wanted to prepare for this. And yet here she was, as if summoned by the village's ever-thirsty gods of irony.

Sakura finally turned her head, just enough for her eyes to meet his. Not wide-eyed or trembling like the girl who had once cried at the village gates. Her gaze was measured, steady in a way that spelled professionalism. A hint of wariness. Indifference . 

“Let’s head to the lab,” she said, standing. “I’ll show you what I’ve prepared.”

Sasuke inclined his head slightly. “Lead the way.”

Naruto gave them a lazy wave, already half-buried in a stack of reports. “Don’t blow each other up,” he muttered around the rice cracker already in his mouth.

“I’ll show you what I’ve prepared and you can tell me everything in more detail,” she continued walking without sparing a second glance at him.

Sasuke stayed exactly where he was, scroll in hand, the buzz of the manuscript still humming in the air, and a hundred unsaid things settling between them like fine dust.

Chapter Text

Any day Sasuke had to step foot in a hospital was bound to be a bad one. However, he had had so many of those in his life, it had become pretty inconvenient to keep count. And in the grand bubble of loss that was his life, this affront could be tolerated, so when they stood in front of the doors to Konoha General Hospital, he stepped in without hesitation, if slightly resigned.

Even as a boy, he found the sterile smell suffocating and the quiet too full of ghosts. At thirty-two, nothing had changed. If anything, the years spent away from Konoha had only deepened his distaste, as he found out not just for hospitals in general but for this one in particular. The glare of fluorescent lights, the thin curtains meant to offer privacy, the subtle weight of pity in every medic’s glance, it all made his skin crawl. He had seen too much injury and death on his own terms, in the field, in the shadows, where pain was personal and silence was sacred, not disturbed by the beep of machines or the chatter of nurses. 

Hospitals, with their protocols and false calm, felt like places where the living were forced to pretend they weren’t falling apart. Returning to Konoha now, after so long, stepping into its medical ward again, felt like walking into a cage pretending not to be, lined with white walls and tragedies.

Sakura walked briskly in front of him, not once looking behind to make sure he followed. She hadn’t talked at all, except for a few pointers to give him directions. Several people had greeted her on the way, their smiles turning into confused scowls as soon as they spotted him behind her. Clearly, she was really well regarded in the village. He hadn’t expected anything less. He hoped it was enough to keep her away from the worst of the rumours that were bound to form.

Her small heels clicked on the floor with every step, the sound amplified now they had entered a more solitary part of the building. 

They walked downstairs into the basement and Sakura stopped before a set of doors with a sign that read: Caution. Restricted Area.

She took something out of her pocket. A card, he noticed, as she shoved it into a small machine next to the door. A beep was heard and the doors opened.

“This is the lab. We keep some potentially dangerous stuff down here, so only a few people are authorized to enter,” she offered as clarification. “If we need it during the investigation, I can get you authorized, too. I think they’d at least allow a temporary pass.”

“I will not lend my chakra to Konoha.”

“What?”

“Isn’t that how it works?,” he asked, motioning his head toward the card in her hand and the machine in the wall, “By infusing the card with your chakra?”

She chuckled. It took him by surprise. The sound was lovely and it broke the business-like tone she had employed with him so far. Except it sounded nothing like he remembered. It wasn’t a noisy belly laugh, or the ear-to-ear grin that made her eyes glow with happiness back when she was a careless genin, it was subdued, a cackle contained in a jar.

“No, it’s just a personal card with a barcode for the detector to scan. Nothing ninja-like,” she explained as they passed through the lab. Labs, technically. There wasn’t just one, but several doors, some of them opened and most closed. 

He was relieved to hear that answer but also concerned about the security provided by the method.

Sasuke didn’t understand the labelling and names of the doors but the different colored cards (green or red) and the pictures of human skulls were plenty clear to him. They walked straight to a red coded one. Yellow stickers lined the wall. One of them with a drawing that looked remarkably similar to his mangekyo sharingan, to his astonishment.

“It’s obligatory to wear gloves and a coat. Don’t touch anything and I’ll make an exception for you.”

“No, it’s okay. I’ll wear them.” If she was surprised, she didn’t show it. 

He took off his cloak, hanging it on a coat rack next to the door and taking the coat left on it, while Sakura busied clearing a space for them to work on the full desk on the opposite side of the room.

He tried it on. It got stuck in his arms and didn’t quite close around his shoulders. 

Sakura looked at him with a frown. “I think we have bigger ones in the closet. Give me a second.”

She left the room and Sasuke took the opportunity to inspect it. The lighting was brighter than he liked.  Metal tables lined the walls, many occupied by trays of surgical tools, sealed vials, or strange mechanical devices that buzzed faintly or blinked with red and green lights. The air was sharp with disinfectant, layered faintly with something metallic. 

There were jars of strange substances in a shelf that covered an entire wall. There were no windows, but what Sasuke suspected to be a ventilation system could be seen in the ceiling in one corner of the room, right above a sink.

The far wall held what looked like a refrigerated storage unit, covered in lock mechanisms and chakra suppression tags. On one desk sat a thick binder open to pages of anatomical sketches, and next to it, a glass container held what he could only assume was a preserved heart, suspended in clear fluid. He didn’t look too long.

He wasn’t a stranger to labs – he had spent too much time with Orochimaru for that – and he fancied himself knowledgeable enough on poisons and rare forbidden substances. They weren’t his preferred methods, and he only knew them more by forced proximity than actual interest, but he couldn’t deny their usefulness. He didn’t recognize a single thing on that shelf.

It was strange how all labs looked the same, regardless of intended purpose. He couldn’t imagine Sakura immersed in nefarious activities, even if that regard didn’t extend to Konoha itself, and yet there was a heart in a jar the same way there had been a foot and a hand and several other body parts at Orochimaru’s.

Sakura returned with a bigger coat. It fit snuggly but Sakura nodded to herself, apparently deeming it good enough. 

She changed herself from the coat she was wearing into one that looked the exact same that had been laying discarded on a chair.

“Well, let’s start. I think you should show me everything first so I can see how to proceed.”

He took the manuscript, along with the other papers out of his cloak pocket. The familiar small current of electricity ran through his fingers. 

“I suppose believing that all of you have used gloves to manipulate it before is very naive of me, ah?,” she sighed, “At the very least, wear them now.”

The thought had never once crossed any of their minds, not even Shikamaru’s. Sasuke only ever wore fingerless gloves, to prevent breaks in his skin from the constant handling of weapons.

He left everything on the table and put on the gloves Sakura held out for him. When he touched the manuscript again, the electricity was gone. Fuck. He wondered whether he should tell her and risk sounding like a careless idiot, though the way she was staring at the scroll now – eyes rounded in wonder, a small smile on her lips, hands clutching the back of the chair as if preventing her from reaching out and snatching it from his hold – made him decide to start at the beginning. 

He told him the same thing he had related to Naruto almost two weeks ago. Sakura listened intently, asking questions here and there with a surgical precision that Naruto lacked. She was interested in every detail, every small thing he could remember. Sasuke was sure that if he suggested watching his memory first hand through his sharingan, she would accept. The act itself was very intimate and the thought was immediately discarded.

She gasped, covering her hands with her mouth when she read the few understandable lines from the scroll.

“ When your eyes see no more, I shall gaze upon what is rightfully mine…” she murmured to herself, fingers tracing the letters. “It really does sound like he planned to follow Kaguya’s plans once she died. He ? She ? Do we even know? Do we have a name? Do aliens have gender and, or, sex?”

Kaguya definitely did have sex, Sasuke thought. Both definitions if the genealogy tree was correct. 

“No, we don’t. We don’t know anything about them.” It bothered him a lot. Knowing your enemy is the first key to success.

“That’s a pity. I guess we’ll have to call them Kaguya’s scorned ex.” Sakura sighted again. “I have several ideas about how to approach this. If they really used an ingredient based sealing code, it's possible remains of the substances linger within the paper. I’ll have to perform a series of tests to confirm it and be very careful about not damaging the scroll, or triggering anything.”

Sasuke nodded along. In her excited haste, she had neared him. The back of her head was now directly in front of him, looking at the table contents. Or below him, more precisely, because Sasuke noted that she barely reached his shoulders. Her hair smelled of something fruity – strawberry? grapefruit?  He couldn’t decide. It was milder from the overpowering vanilla of her twelve year old self.

She took a step back and bumped into him. He caught her arm to stabilize her. He couldn’t look at her face from behind but when she turned around with a neutral expression, an apology on her lips, there was a lingering redness on her cheeks.

The old Sakura would have taken advantage of the opportunity to get even closer to him, maybe even letting out a squeak or two. This one jumped back, as if he were as poisonous and dangerous as the liquids on the shelf.

It was the most amount of emotion he had seen her express the entire evening. When he arrived at his inn – hotel – room that night, he wondered whether that was true or if he had just lost the ability to read her like an open book.

When he arrived the next day in front of the lab door, Sakura was already waiting for him. She carried an impressive stack of books in her hands, wearing the same white coat from yesterday. Her pink hair was pulled up in a bun, a few strands framing her face.

“Ah, good morning, Sasuke.” There was no kun at the end, he noticed, not that he had expected it. He realized it was the first time she had actually said his name. “I see you’re still not a morning person.”

“Hn,” he answered, because the coffee at the inn’s canteen (breakfast buffet, they had called it, and it had closed too early for his liking) was pale, lukewarm and drowning in milk. It tasted like someone had tried to sweet-talk the bitterness out of it and ended up strangling its soul instead. No edge, no weight, none of that deep, satisfying bite that came with a proper black cup. This was coffee for people who didn’t actually like coffee. He was not one of those people. 

The labs were just as deserted as yesterday and he started wondering if research was being conducted on them at all. 

“I’ll check in with Naruto about that pass, so I don’t have to wait for you in the mornings. It might take a while for the council to approve it, though.”

He had the feeling the elders wouldn’t approve a single damn thing regarding him. It was okay, the feeling was definitely mutual. 

She babbled on until he interrupted, his curiosity getting the better of him, “Does nobody else work here?”

Sakura startled and the tower of books precariously leaned to one side. She shook her head. 

“Not really. There were Lady Tsunade’s personal labs and now they are mine. I have some research assistants collaborating in different projects but not all of it has to be done in person. We have a schedule to see who’s coming here when,” she signed to a stack of papers in the entrance desk. “There are other facilities, too, but this one is private and very well equipped. We can work without disturbances and it’s also protected.”

Sasuke knew that Sakura had been the student of the fifth Hokage, becoming a remarkable medic-nin and a formidable opponent (he still remembered his disbelief at discovering she had defeated Sasori of the Red Sand). Where exactly her merits extended through the years, he hadn’t paid any attention to, though it was obvious the answer was very far .

Recollections of professional achievements were usually told interlaced with rumours of personal nature. Cutting bonds meant cutting ties, even in the form of mindless gossip.

“I see,” was his response.

The morning passed mostly in silence. Sasuke picked up the books Sakura told him to and took notes of whatever he thought would be remotely useful. Meanwhile, Sakura worked on the scroll. 

She had laid it on the table, supporting it on four sides so it wouldn't roll again and had been going back and forth between sweeping it with a bit of cotton and what looked like a painting brush. She moved constantly to one of the microscopes and carefully packed each swipe in a tiny recipient, labeling it with what Sasuke had guessed to be some kind of coordinates, indicating where in the manuscript the sample had been taken.

She looked thoroughly concentrated, occasionally biting her lip and nodding or shaking her head, talking faintly to herself. 

When lunch time came and went and Sakura hadn't even glanced at the clock, Sasuke decided his stomach had had enough and he should better suggest an impas if he didn't want to embarrass himself when it started growling. 

She didn't lift her head from where it was, eyes pressed close to the microscope. 

“Go yourself, I want to finish collecting the first round of samples,” she said.

As he was eating a bowl of ramen from a nearby store next to the Hospital, it dawned on him that this had been the first time she had rejected spending time with him. Ah, how the times changed. Why would she want to? She had her life and the hospital and now a mystery to unpack, and possibly (probably) a husband and maybe a couple of kids waiting for her at home. Saying no to grabbing lunch with her old childhood crush was not a momentous decision. Considering her dedication to the task, she hadn't even noticed.

Said dedication to the task is what made him ask the shopkeeper for another bowl to take-out. Even if she wasn’t – or didn't – want to eat with him, she still needed to eat something .

He put it on the table next to her, just to be admonished for bringing food into a sterile environment. She ate it anyway.

She profusely thanked him because she wouldn't be Sakura if she didn't, and there had to be something about her that was at least still familiar.

When the clock struck four, the most annoying sound Sasuke had ever heard in his entire life ( and it had been a long life, filled with sounds that included, but weren't limited to, humans choking, Naruto yelling, girls crying and Orochimaru hissing) invaded the room.

The voice, singing about apples, boots and jeans, brought Sakura back to the world of the living, where Sasuke was anxiously waiting for an explanation for the egregious disturbance.

“Oh, it’s so late already! I have a surgery appointed in twenty minutes and then a couple of staff meetings. We can continue tomorrow. You can leave your notes here, I can take them home tonight and read them to see if there’s something interesting. I’m sorry I have to leave but I have other work to do, I hope it doesn't bother you.”

It didn't. He had never planned to work for so long anyway, his afternoons were reserved for training. Naruto had invited him to spar today.

He didn't know how that fit in that tight Hokage schedule of his. He hadn't asked.

“Sakura,” he stopped her rambling. The sound of her name startled her way more than the obnoxious music had. She bit her lip and put a loose strand of hair behind her ear.

“You actually mind, don't you? I’m aware this is prioritary right now but the surgery has been planned for months and nobody else can cover for me-”

“The. Music. What is that?”

“Ah, that! Sorry, it’s my phone. I set my alarm because I often get lost in time. It’s rather loud, isn’t it?”

He raised an eyebrow at her.

She smiled. She still had dimples. “I put it that way on purpose or nothing will shake me. I’ll turn it off.”

She reached into her bag and pulled out one of those rectangular devices he had seen  everyone carry everywhere. A civilian invention, it hadn't yet reached the more isolated parts of the continent, which were the parts he usually roamed at.

She did something on it and the sound finally died. “There! Well, see you tomorrow, then? Same hour?”

He nodded.

“You can leave on your own, if you don't mind, I have to get changed for the surgery.”

With that, she disappeared somewhere down the hall. To the closet she mentioned yesterday, perhaps.

Naruto and him hadn't fought in nearly fifteen years, and hadn't casually spar since they were tiny, fresh off the academy, little genins, eager to prove their respective superiority.

They both hold back. 

He hadn't had this much fun in years.

Since they couldn't afford the village to be destroyed, they kept the match mostly to taijutsu. It had been a long time since Sasuke had encountered a shinobi at his level, if ever. He felt the exhilarating sensation of moving at lighting speed, the laser focus necessary to tune out all the irrelevant things his sharingan enhanced vision picked up, the accelerated motion of his thoughts that made it look as if he were acting on instinct alone, the hard pain when a hit actually struck.

Naruto put up a challenge but without the aid of chakra, Sasuke, and his past fourteen years of in field experience versus Naruto’s office job, took the win.

“Good match, teme. You haven’t lost it, I see. I was doubting whether you could actually face me, I mean, the vagabond life can't be well suited for shinobi performance and I on the other hand-”

Sasuke stopped playing attention when he spotted a blonde mob moving on the corner of his eye.

“And with that haircut of yours, you can't even see out of one eye, it must be very difficult to-”

He used his chakra strings to lasso the intruder. These were private training grounds. ANBU training grounds.

Uzumakis Boruto shrieked, restraining against the holds, moving his hands uselessly.

“No, let him go! We were just watching!”

A purple haired girl stepped into view from behind a tree, followed by a boy that reminded Sasuke so much of Orochimaru he did a double take and decided he would pay his old master a visit, just in case he had reverted back to his most unsavory practices.

“Bolt! What are you doing here?” Naruto screeched, promptly getting himself off the floor and sweeping away the dust in his clothes.

“Get me out!”

“Sasuke, let him go.”

After one last squeeze of the strings, he did.

Boruto panted, touching himself everywhere as if he still had the strings around him. “We just wanted to see you fight. You are a legend and we wanted to see in person if it was as spectacular as they say.”

“Well, thank you, Bolt. I know I don't always have the time for-”

“Not you, Dad. Him,” Boruto said, pointing toward him. 

“What? And who is they ? Nobody has seen this man in years! I’m the famous one!” Naruto shook his head.

“You really are that good. That was fucking-

“Language...”

“- Fantastic. Could you teach me something, please?”

Naruto let out a defeated sigh. “I have a traitor for a son, can you believe it?”

“Boruto, are you okay?” The girl had reached them and was inspecting mini-Naruto from head to toe.

“Those were chakra strings, right?” The snakeish boy spoke up. “They don't cause any harm unless the user wants them too. I'm sure he’s fine, Sumire.” 

The boy turned his yellow reptilian eyes to him. “You are Uchiha Sasuke. My parent talks about you. You were his student once.”

Fucking Orochimaru had a son? What insane person would let him get close enough to-? Was he even capable? He hadn't seemed interested in the slightest in the time he had lived with him, but then he hadn't really paid close attention to those kinds of things back then. 

An image of Orochimaru creating a baby by attaching the different body parts scattered in his lab formed in his mind involuntarily. Somehow, that sounded more plausible.

“I’m Mitsuki.”

“And I’m Boruto. We already met that night but I’m not sure I ever told you my name.”

“I know your name.”

“I’m Sumire,” the girl offered. 

“Sasuke, may I present to you the new Team Seven. They are preparing for their chunin exams, or at least they should be.” 

Sasuke looked at them unimpressed.

“Who is their sensei?”

“Big bro Konohamaru!” shouted Boruto excitedly. 

Sasuke fought the urge to roll his eyes. He lost. “That idiot kid that used to follow you around, loser?”

“Please, sir, don't insult our sensei. He’s a highly capable shinobi and really well suited for our needs.” Well, at least the girl knew how to pack a punch, even if it was in the form of polite admonishing.

“Yes, Sasuke, don't insult their sensei. He has sensitive feelings-”

“Hey!”

“Anyway, you bunch should get going. Boruto, your Mum is probably waiting for dinner.”

“What about you, Dad? Are you coming for dinner?” Boruto said the question in a sardonic way that told Sasuke what he suspected. Naruto was drowning in work and his kid had latched onto his old rival as a show of rebellion and not solely actual admiration.

Naruto looked apologetic. “I’m sorry, I have a very important meeting at eight.”

“Ah, you had time to come spar with Sasuke but not to have dinner with your family, got it, old man.”

“Boruto! We’ve talked about this before. Being the Hokage is a huge responsibility, you are more than old enough to understand that. I control the amount of work I have to do as much as I control the times important men with important thoughts want to meet.” He said the last part with a sneer. He clearly didn't have much respect for whoever these important men were.

The kids finally left: Boruto reeling, Mitsuki thoughtful and Sumire bashful.

“Aaah, kids these days. I wonder how the adults back then beared us.”

They hadn't. All adults had abandoned or failed them in some way or another. Sasuke didn't say that outloud because there was no point in it. It had happened and they had to deal with it the way the adults had never bothered to deal with them.

“Anyway, teme, this Friday is Kakashi-sensei’s retirement dinner. We obviously didn't know you would show your ass in Konoha, but now that you are here, you are, of course, invited.” Knowing him well enough to guess his intentions to decline, Naruto added, “He doesn't know you are here. Well, the dinner itself is actually a surprise. He was our teacher once and basically family, even if you deny it. He would truly appreciate it if you came. There will be quite the amount of people, which I know you don't enjoy but it’s all people you know. Or once knew.”

Let Naruto invite him to exactly the kind of thing he wanted to avoid. 

Chapter Text

Everyone was there. Half of Konoha had gathered in the bar where Guy, Naruto, and Sakura had decided to organize Kakashi’s surprise party. The place was spacious, but nowhere near large enough to contain the sheer number of people.

Sasuke scanned the room with a frown. Naruto had said he would know everyone. The idiot had lied. There was a significant number of unfamiliar faces in the crowd.

He had wrestled with himself over whether to accept the invitation at all.

It had never been his plan to be seen in Konoha, to talk with old classmates or academy teachers, or to endure the stares and whispers that would inevitably form in his wake.

He had thought of alternatives: inviting Kakashi out for a meal one day, just the two of them, or better yet, sparring in the training fields like in the old days, when he was still his teacher and Sasuke his student, teaching him his signature move.

While he brooded over these thoughts, Tuesday and Wednesday passed in the lab with Sakura, who remained completely absorbed in her work. A few years ago, Sasuke would have said she was ignoring him on purpose. Now, he wasn’t so sure. Sakura behaved with total professionalism, and their conversations never strayed from the task that had forced them to spend time together: deciphering the scroll.

Most of the time was spent in silence, while he read and she worked, which Sasuke didn’t mind.

However, on Thursday, Sakura broke from the established routine. While she slurped the ramen he had brought her from the stand near the hospital (she had once again forgotten to eat), she asked him outright if he would be attending Kakashi-sensei’s party the next day.

Her tone was deliberately casual, but her large green eyes betrayed her, sneaking glances at him from the corner of her eye. So did her hand, which fidgeted with the top button of one of her many white lab coats (Sasuke had lost count at six. How could the woman forget to eat yet somehow remember the different uses of each identical coat?). It was a familiar gesture, one she’d had since childhood. Back when they were on the same team and Sakura tried to approach him to flirt, she would always alternate between playing with her pink hair and with the button of her red qipao.

Sasuke hadn’t answered immediately. His first instinct had been to shake his head. Then, to avoid seeing the all-too-predictable look of disappointment on Sakura’s face, he considered telling her about his other plans to meet Kakashi.

Before he could answer, Sakura continued speaking.

“He would like you to be there.” Naruto had expressed the same feeling. “You were always his favorite student.”

Sasuke knew it. The favoritism that Kakashi showed him bordered on unprofessionalism. Kakashi had taken care of him personally, training him alone for the Chunin Exams and, before that, he also favored him during missions. Naruto was an idiot and Sakura a scared girl with a lot of potential, something Kakashi had completely ignored.

Seeing Sakura now, the expert medic-nin with monstrous strength, while Kakashi could barely heal a scratch on his own, maybe it had been for the best. Sakura had found a passion that their old sensei could never have introduced her to.

“I estimate that most of Konoha has been invited, but Kakashi-sensei likes crowds almost as little as you did, so we also reserved a VIP room so we can be more at ease. I’m telling you in case it convinces you to go. I’m sure Naruto forgot to mention it.”

Sasuke nodded his head, without making it clear to Sakura what exactly he was agreeing to. Going to the party? Being Kakashi’s favorite student? Naruto unsurprisingly forgetting something?

Sakura opened her mouth to say something else, but the shrill sound of one of her many laboratory devices interrupted her. She jolted in her chair and quickly stood up, forgetting her food and their conversation.

“The first sample’s spectroscopy is done. I can’t wait to see the results!” She busied herself with her work again.

They would not exchange any more words for the rest of the afternoon until the farewell, when Sakura informed him that the next morning she would be completely occupied with her duties at the hospital and would not be able to come to the laboratory.

“See you Saturday?” she had said without looking at him, hurrying to change her lab coat for a civilian jacket and running down the hallway.

He hadn’t had the time to answer that she had managed to convince him to go to Kakashi’s the following night.

Sasuke had arrived later than most, slipping through the crowd as quietly as possible. Considering his abilities, that meant damn near undetectable, except for a certain blond man who had the uncanny sixth sense of finding him wherever he went.

“Sasuke! You made it!” Naruto shouted, waving him over with both arms.

Sasuke gave a curt nod, keeping his expression neutral. Naruto hurried to his side and gave him a pat in the back. “I really didn’t expect you to come, dattebayo. Glad you did! Come, come. Let’s get you something to drink!”

He followed Naruto through the crowd until they reached a space where the music was quieter. This time each and every face was familiar.

He spotted Kakashi in one of the sofas, talking quietly to Shikamaru. Sai saw him first and greeted him with a nod. Sasuke nodded back.

His plan was simple. He would make his way to the grey haired man, say his congratulations or grievances or whatever the hell you told someone retiring from a job they were one of the best at and go home, duty done. Naruto's plan was different.

Naruto picked up one of the glasses and clicked it with a spoon, attracting everyone’s attention. The rumor of voices died down and every one turned towards them.

The rumors of his comeback to Konoha had already spread far and wide so the surprise on their faces had definitely more to do with his appearance at the party. An extremely unlikely place for him to be at, he had to give it to them.

“Listen up! Sensei!” Naruto yelled. “I got you the biggest surprise of the night. Everyone, here it is! Sasuke’s ass has been dragged to Konoha once again! Don’t make a fuss about it or he’ll scratch you like a cat. Enjoy his incredible company and even more charming conversational skills. For this night and this night only!” He made a dramatic pause. “Unless I somehow manage to drag him somewhere else, which is not likely. But so was this, so, who knows?” Naruto shrugged and passed an arm over his shoulders. “Welcome back – again – teme.”

Sasuke’s eyebrow twitched. 

A stunned silence followed his words, until Sai asked, “Dickless, are you drunk?”

“Uh… welcome back, Sasuke,” Yamato said, voice careful, hands slightly raised as if to shield himself from any sudden reaction.

“Good to see you again,” Tenten added, her tone as polite as it had been at her shop.

Shikamaru, barely lifting his head from his drink, muttered a dry, “Huh… didn’t think I’d ever see you here.”

Sasuke gave a small nod to each, expression unreadable, letting the words hang in the air without acknowledgment beyond the barest recognition. Nobody else seemed keen to talk to him.

Meanwhile, Sai looked at Naruto and repeated, as flatly as before, “Dickless, are you drunk?”

“The Hyugas are on babysitting duty, what do you think?” a voice he recognised as Kiba’s said from somewhere behind Sai.

Naruto grinned, entirely unbothered, “Well, it’s a party. We don’t get many of these. You bet I’m gonna enjoy it.”

He turned towards Sasuke again. “Teme, let me remind you of names. It’s been so long, you’ve probably forgotten all about us.”

Of course not. He had an excellent memory. 

He recognised Yamato from that one mission, Sai and Shikamaru from working with them at the Hokage office and TenTen from the weapons he had bought from her.

There was also Hinata, sitting shyly in a corner and smiling bashfully at Naruto. Shino next to her, wearing sun glasses and a coat even inside the club. 

The eyebrows of Lee were identifiable from halfway across the room and Might Guy’s wheelchair was abandoned because the man was doing handstands against a wall while Temari (what was she doing in Konoha?) looked on with thinly veiled disapproval.

Kiba was the one complaining about Choji eating all the food, a red head woman the one doing all the actual stealing and a man who could not be anyone but that overly enthusiastic Naruto clone, Konohamaru, the one trying to stop the stealing from happening.

Kurenai also sat, talking quietly with a girl that looked a lot like her. It was the only person, along with the red head, Sasuke didn’t recognise. He didn’t have to. That was definitely Mirai, her daughter. He had heard about it, but it was the first time he had seen her with his own eyes.

He counted a couple absences. Iruka, Anko, blond haired and old fangirl apparently married to a socially incapacitated man, Ino, and, of course, Sakura herself.

He let Naruto ramble on as they approached Kakashi, who got up from the sofa to greet him properly.

“Look at what the tide left on our shores. None other than the ghost of Konoha past.” The old man was still wearing that damn mask. However, both his dark eyes were visible. His hair had always been gray, but the unmistakable wrinkles across his eyes marked the passage of time.  Sasuke himself had seen his own on the corners of his eyes in the mirror forming in the past few years, so it was no surprise to see them on the older man. The sight still unsettled him.

Sasuke noted that he was taller than Kakashi now. He shook his head and answered, “Heard you’re getting too old to be of use.”

Kakashi laughed and arched an eyebrow. “Heard you haven’t outgrown the fighting aliens phase.”

Kakashi extended his hand and he took it, shaking it slightly. He had hated this man. He had admired him. He had been the closest thing to a father he had had after . He had tried to kill him. 

He didn’t know what to feel now, beyond a general, deep, sense of respect.

“It’s good to have you back, Sasuke.”

“It’s good to be back.”

Kakashi’s eyebrow arched higher. “Don’t lie to your elders. But really, Sasuke, thank you for coming. Appreciate the effort.”

“Sasukeee!” Kiba’s loud voice interrupted their conversation. Has the man always been like this or had he drunk enough to approach Sasuke in such a manner? “We need you over here. We have a bet.”

Kakashi wriggled his eyebrows for the last time and signaled to him to go.

Kiba gestured to the sofa he was now sitting at, next to a very red faced Naruto and an annoyed Shikamaru. Shino and Hinata sat unbothered. “Let’s see. We’ve had this debate opened for years and you’re the one with the answer. Shikamaru’s pride depends on it.”

“No, it doesn’t.”

Kiba scoffed in disbelief. “Sure.”

“It’s Naruto’s actually,” Shikamaru said. “I mean, look at him. He looks like a lobster.”

Naruto screeched, “Oi! Treat your Hokage with more respect.”

Sasuke crossed his arms, waiting impatiently for the point to be made. They hadn’t grown at all. They could have still been at the Academy except now there was alcohol involved.

“The retrieval mission, man. Swap Naruto for Shino. Would it have worked? I bet YES,” Kiba finally explained. That was it? Seriously? Sasuke sighed.

Naruto put down the glass on the table. “NO! Of course, not. What did Shino have in it anyway? He had no reason to care.” 

“That’s all missions, Naruto, we are shinobi,” Shikamaru added. Sasuke was really warming up to the man.

“And why me?” Naruto continued paying his principal advisor no mind. “We could swap YOU, Kiba.” Naruto looked at him and pointed at the doggish man. “Teme, tell them. I was necessary.”

“Why do you care?” Sasuke answered to all their expectant glances. The past was in the past. There was no point in dwelling on it. What did a stupid mission from twenty years ago matter?

A cacophony of voices spoke at the same time. A civilian wouldn’t have been able to understand all the words being blurted together, added to the sound of the music from the club and the other conversations happening around them. To Sasuke, it was no problem.

“What do you mean? Why do we care ? We could have brought you back!” That was Naruto. He understood his stance. Naruto had a say in it. He had been the closest to him back then even if he would have denied it at the time. He wasn’t asking about him.

“It was my first mission as a Chunin and I failed it.” That was Shikamaru. He noticed some resentment in his tone. Was he really blaming him for his own mistakes? It wasn’t Sasuke’s fault they hadn’t been good enough.

“Annoying Naruto is funny,” Kiba exclaimed. “And I have 600 ryo on this. And Shino’s bugs are so disgusting Orochimaru, the creepy master himself, would have backed out.” Debatable.

“I wish I could have gone. I never understood why they left me out.” That was Shino, who had remained quiet the entire time, despite being the main topic discussed. 

Sasuke reflected quietly for all of two seconds before finding an answer. Did he like to admit it? No. But it was the truth. “Yes. If Shino had been in the team, the chances would have been higher.”

Shino smiled (it was the first time Sasuke had seen the man smile in his entire life) and Kiba clapped excitedly. He bumped his chest, saying, “I knew it! You owe me money.”

“But not a Naruto swap,” Sasuke continued, “Akimichi.”

Kiba groaned as Naruto laughed maniacally.

Sasuke was counting down the minutes until he could leave without being berated for being rude. He didn’t mind being rude, he just wanted to avoid the subsequent conversation about it. He stood in a corner, a glass in his hand and another empty one on the closest table. 

Nobody else had talked to him. They weren’t in any rush to make him a part of their little group, and neither was he. That was when the bathroom door opened, and two very familiar voices spilled out into the bar’s dim lighting, one more than the other.

“--and I told him, if he wants me to babysit again, he better bring me more than just flowers. I own a flower shop! At least a free dinner, right?” Ino was saying, loud enough for half the club to hear.

Sakura was laughing so hard she had to cling to her friend’s arm. “You didn’t!”

“Oh, I did. And you should’ve seen Sai’s face.”

They emerged together, cheeks flushed from laughter and maybe a little sake, oblivious to the sudden shift of a few heads that turned at their entrance. Sasuke looked at the man mentioned. He didn’t look bothered, on the contrary, he looked bewitched by his blonde wife. 

Sasuke tried to keep looking disinterested. His eyes betrayed him before he could look away. The line of Sakura’s jaw when she tilted her head back to laugh, the way her hair had slipped out of its neat clip and framed her face. It was so different from her behavior at the lab, it felt like a completely different person had taken her place.

Sasuke clicked his tongue and forced his gaze away. Pathetic. He had spent years mastering control, honing his mind into cold precision. A little alcohol wasn’t enough to undo him.

She was a beautiful woman. If he hadn’t appreciated those kinds of things at the time he could appreciate them now. The world was plagued by beautiful women. He was just a man.

Before the pair noticed him, another man appeared in the hallway that led to their small area. Sasuke paid him no mind until Sakura made a beeline for him.

He wasn’t anyone Sasuke recognized – civilian, by the look of him, not shinobi. Dark jacket, clean-shaven, someone who belonged more at a polite dinner than a bar full of murderer veterans. 

“Sorry I took so long,” Sakura said, smiling as she reached the man. He leaned in, his hand resting lightly against the small of her back, as if it belonged there.

Sasuke’s fingers tightened around the glass in his hand. So, that was him. Sakura's husband. He had pictured her marrying a nice looking man, a low-rank shinobi who provided a stability higher ranks couldn’t. He had never once pictured a civilian.

The man’s hand slipped through her back just enough for him to notice the dress underneath, a fitted thing, deep green that clung to her frame in ways her white coats never had. The color set off her eyes, her skin, everything about her. He wondered how he hadn’t noticed it before.

It shouldn’t matter.

She could wear whatever she wanted. She could laugh however she wanted. She could let another man touch her back as though it was the most natural thing in the world.

None of it concerned him.

Ino gave a wicked grin, clearly catching on to something. “Well, aren’t you full of surprises tonight, Forehead? First, you actually let me drag you into a dress, and now you’ve brought company.”

Sakura flushed, swatting at her friend. “Don’t start.”

His jaw clenched as he looked away, pretending to study the rim of his empty glass.

He told himself it didn’t matter. He had no right to judge her or her choices. They were hers to make.

Still, what a pathetic excuse of a man.

When he saw said pathetic man lean in for a kiss, Sasuke left his glass on the nearest table and slipped away without a sound. Sakura never noticed him.

The hallway emptied into the main body of the club, and the difference hit him immediately.

The VIP section had been dim, the music little more than a background hum, conversation the main event, drinks served neatly on low tables where people leaned close and didn’t have to shout to be heard. More bar than club.

Out here, it was chaos.

The bass of the music thumped through the floorboards, vibrating in his chest. Neon lights flashed across the crowd in waves of blue and red, catching on sweat-slick faces and glasses raised too high. Bodies pressed together on the dance floor, all rhythm and no restraint, laughter and shouts crashing together until they were indistinguishable from the song blaring overhead.

He questioned what all these people were doing here in the first place. Did they even know Kakashi?

Sasuke let his eyes roam because watching strangers was easier than replaying the image of a stranger’s hand on Sakura’s back. The strangers were simpler. They were sweaty and smelled of alcohol. That was all he knew about them.

Here, you had to shout if you wanted to talk. He didn’t have to. He didn’t need to. He locked eyes with a woman in a tight, short, black dress standing alone at the counter, sipping a cocktail. She had been looking at him.

Words weren’t necessary. He recognised that gaze. 

He waited for a flash of recognition, any gesture indicating she knew who he was, and when it didn't come, he made his decision. He gestured to the woman to meet him outside. She moved immediately, leaving her drink at the bar.

Outside, the air was cooler, damp with the night breeze and carrying the faint scent of rain. The dull thrum of music bled through the walls, muffled now, like a heartbeat behind closed ribs. Streetlamps cast pale circles of light onto the pavement, and beyond them the village was pitch black.

The woman emerged moments later, heels clicking against the ground as she approached him. Up close, she smelled of expensive perfume.

Sasuke’s eyes flicked over her once: black dress, painted lips, expectation written plainly across her face. She was beautiful. Many women were. That wasn’t the point.

He let the woman trail her fingers along his arm, allowed himself to be led to her apartment and into her bed.

He was up and ready at the hour Sakura had told him to meet at the lab on Saturday. She arrived in a rush, greeting him with a warm smile and a distracted ‘hello’. 

As soon as they got in the room, they started working on the different tasks they had decided on the first day. Sasuke kept on reading the most boring books known to mankind in the hopes of finding a slimmer clue. Sakura, on the other hand, was focused on running several complicated tests with the objective of identifying the ingredients for the sealing marks. 

Twenty pages deep into the memoir of a botanist weirdly obsessed with detailed descriptions of the social hierarchy of bees, its influence on the choices of flowers for pollination (he had made a four page long ranking of plants) and the subsequent effect on seals employing honey, Sakura startled him with a small victory noise. “Got it! There are two unusual substances in this sample.”

“Two likely organics,” she continued, more to herself than to him. “One volatile, one not. I’ll try to identify the non-volatile first. It’ll be easier.”

She introduced the small petri dish in yet another different machine. Sasuke watched numbers cascade across the monitor like a foreign alphabet. Sakura didn’t blink.

“Mugwort,” she murmured, pleased. “ Artemisia princeps . That kind shows this ratio – cineole sits high, β-thujone concentration varies but seems about right.” She fished a second vial from her pocket. “And to be sure…”

She took the dish out and put it on the table. First, she scraped a residue with a cotton swab. Then, she rubbed the swab against a different, empty vial, finally discarding it in the trash and adding the contents of her pocket vial into the other one. 

She introduced the recipient into a machine, which, to Sasuke’s astonishment, started vibrating strongly. She turned to him with a satisfied smile, “We’ll have to wait thirty minutes.”

He could do nothing else other than nod. He went back to reading. (he really couldn’t wait to find out more about the differences between wildflower honey and multiflower honey). Some time passed and Sakura, who seemed to be in a talkative mood, spinned her chair around as she asked him, “By the way, Sasuke, Naruto told me you went to Kakashi’s retirement party last Friday. I’m sorry I didn’t get to see you. Did you leave early?”

“Hn.”  He wanted to talk about last night just as much as he wanted to learn about honey.

“Well, I guess we couldn’t expect anything less.” Sakura laughed and, this time, it didn’t sound contained at all. It still wasn’t as noisy and carefree as it used to be but it no longer had that trapped in glass quality he had decided he hated. “Anyway, I’m glad you went. Sensei won’t say it but he is, too. Thank you for making the effort.”

The shaking of the machine stopped and Sakura stood up to retrieve the vial, clearly not expecting a response from him. He wanted to say it was nothing. He didn’t like liars.

She looked at something and said, “It’s mugwort – yomogi – definitely. Common in the foothills and lower ridges around the mountains north of here. Someone ground the leaves for their oil and mixed a trace into the ink they used for the seal.”

Sasuke hadn’t known what mugwort meant but he recognised the other name. Yomogi. His mother used to boil the leaves and make kusa mochi and, more often, kusa dango – Itachi’s favourite. Sasuke had personally thought that the green color looked disgusting. 

“I don't keep samples of this one. We need it straight from the source for the flowers and it grows from around July to September. We’re lucky it’s in season.”

Sakura then said she would take a day off to find the plant, though she had to run it through Naruto to get approval. Something must have shown in his face because she clarified, “He’ll agree, of course, but it's common procedure. I can't just get up and leave.”

Naruto said no.

Well, not exactly. His exact words were “That area has been marked as highly dangerous. We suspect it's been turned into a smuggling route of sorts. You can't go alone, Sakura-chan. I know you are perfectly capable on your own but per Konoha policy, we never sent shinobi alone to danger grade 3 zones.”

Sasuke hadn't been at the Hokage's office. In fact, he only knew about it because Sakura had retold him the conversation word by word, cheeks flushed and fists closed. She was swinging her arms wildly. 

Sakura had had a tendency to throw the meanest of punches when she was mad, even as a little genin. Since Naruto wasn't here to take it, he hoped her next victim would be the white sterile wall and not him.

“I can't believe I have to take a security detail to go pick up flowers on a hill. What’s next? A bodyguard for frolicking in a field? Should I ask an ANBU escort to watch me swim in a river?”

She shook her head and a couple loose strands came free from her bun, framing her face. Sasuke had noticed that her hair was short enough that any strong or sudden movement caused her hair to free itself. As a result, she was constantly touching, twirling it and arranging it back, securing it with whatever was in her hand. She had even used the chopsticks (the clean ones) from the ramen bowls that made up most of her diet, as far as he could see.

She did the same now. She took her hair tie off, freeing her hair completely and then made another bun. Sasuke had no idea what, but something had been wrong with it, because she took it off again and re-did it multiple times.

“Did Naruto tell you who?” Sasuke asked. This – the scroll, the Otsutsuki – was part of a highly restricted mission. They couldn't afford other shinobi snooping around.

Sakura paused and flushed even deeper. She looked to the floor. She murmured, “I left before he told me.”

Sasuke rolled his eyes. He shouldn't have. Karma liked to roll her eyes back at him. 

Naruto approached him at the training grounds that evening and told him he was to spend his entire Sunday with Sakura, alone, in the woods. 

Assigned his lonely escort, it solved the possible information leakage and the smuggler problem when, as Naruto put it, ‘they’ll shit on their pants at the sight of both of you. Good luck’. 

He had winked. The asshole.

Chapter Text

The differences with their missions as genins were stark. For one, they left in time because Kakashi wasn't there to delay them with a flimsy excuse. Also, he deeply appreciated the quiet comfortable silence over Naruto’s propensity for loudness (which he still had) and Sakura’s old screeching habit (which she had grown out of).

The forest stretched endlessly before them, a canopy of green filtering the sunlight into shifting patches of gold and shadow. Their footsteps barely disturbed the moss-covered branches, only the faint rustle of leaves marking their passing.They traveled fast and efficiently, humping from tree to tree at a slower pace than Sasuke would go on his own, but faster than most shinobi were able to hold for that long. Despite not having active field duty, Sakura clearly kept in shape. 

Her landings were light and measured, though every now and then she would brush stray bangs from her face when the wind caught her hair loose from its tie. Eventually she gave it up and let her hair down completely.

They only slowed down once the flat forest gave away to a slight incline. The air smelled less damper here. Sakura stopped on top of a branch, scanning the slope with practiced eyes, and said,  “For here on, mugwort could be anywhere. If we separated, we could do this faster. Do you know how to identify it?”

He had looked the plant up in a herbology book in the library. It looked like any other one. He shook his head.

Sakura didn’t look surprised. “That’s okay, I didn’t expect you to. It was a long shot.” She slipped a scroll from her pouch, unrolled it with the same neat efficiency she used for medical seals, and with a soft puff of chakra smoke a picnic basket appeared. It looked exactly the same as the one she used to take back then. “Well, I suppose we’ll have to get going.” She dropped to the ground, leaves crunching beneath her weight. He followed. Out of habit, he softened his landing to remain soundless.

They walked for some time, the forest stretching endlessly, thick with hidden life. Sakura pointed here and there to different flowers and leaves, talking about their use in medicine, cooking and, at this point she looked at him and half-smile knowingly, fighting. 

He recognized some: plants he had burned, crushed, or boiled into remedies (and poisons)  in the past. A few more he remembered hearing about, in fragments of conversation. The majority, though, were strangers to him, their names slipping through his mind as quickly as they came.

Sakura possessed an almost encyclopedic knowledge of them, it seemed, and she kept at it until she abruptly shut up, halfway through listing the properties of rhododendron, a mountain plant whose broad evergreen leaves could ease coughs if brewed carefully, but whose blossoms, she warned, were laced with poison potent enough to kill.

She bent down next to the beginning of a chain of rocks that extended like the spine of some ancient beast, reaching up into the first peak of the mountain range. They were nearing the foothill pass.

“There you are! Look, Sasuke, Artemisia princeps. Yomogi. Mugwort.” She brushed her fingers gently over the leaves before pulling out a pair of gardening scissors from somewhere and clipping two of them. 

Sasuke let out a quiet sigh. So it had been this simple, and he didn’t have to spend more time listening to her constant blubbering.No more wandering slopes while she rattled on about this root or that berry, no more endless lists of properties that blurred together in his head. He wasn’t sure if it was relief or disappointment that bubbled in his chest. Had he been fond of her chatter when he was twelve? He couldn’t remember. He just knew that he had preferred her company over Naruto’s.

She put the one she had cut in the basket but left a few untouched. He gestured with his chin toward the others, “What about those ones?”

“Oh, I’ll leave them there so they can continue reproducing in this spot.” She spoke lightly, as though it were obvious.  “That way we don’t change the flora composition of the forest.”

He nodded. That had definitely never been a part of the Orochimaru curriculum. He turned around, heading back towards the plains when Sakura called him back.

“Where are you going? It’s this way.”

He stopped, glanced back.

“I thought we were done.”

She shook her head and clicked her tongue, as if she were reprimanding a small child. “No, we’ll need a lot more than this to make the oil. I don’t know the concentration that was mixed with the ink and I need to make lots of batches for different tries.”

Well, at least he’ll get to learn more about herbology. The thought was dry, half-amused. Then, unbidden, another crossed his mind: had Sakura’s husband listened to her talks and absorbed her knowledge just as he was doing now? Would conversations about plants with him feel like speaking to a pale imitation – less precise, less confident, gappy in his explanations – of Sakura herself? He remembered the man’s face clearly enough, unremarkable except for the quiet air of someone who had never known war. He had looked just the kind.

The thought soured as soon as it surfaced, and he discarded it sharply, refusing to let it linger

Sakura walked in front of him, sure-footed on the uneven slope. Her movements were steady, efficient, and yet light in a way that betrayed years of training. The pink strands of her hair caught in the sun, looking bright, light and soft against the darker greens of the forest. She carried herself with a calm authority, shoulders relaxed but spine straight, eyes scanning the floor relentlessly. Watching her from behind, he found himself aware (more than he wanted to be) of how she had changed and how she had not. She was no longer the girl who trailed after him, but the rhythm of her presence, the certainty with which she occupied the space before him, felt disconcertingly familiar. 

She found several other splatches of yomogi along the way. Every time, she crouched with ease, scissors flashing dully in the light as she cut the stalks close to the stem, always leaving a few behind to stir with the wind.

Eventually, they reached the beginning of the foothill pass, the slope leveling into a narrow trail carved into the side of the mountain. The path began at a high point, where the world seemed to open beneath their feet. 

From their vantage, the valley stretched wide and deep, patches of dense forest clustered in its folds. He had never navigated this part of the world, close to Konoha as it was. He found himself admiring its simple beauty.  Around the valley, the mountains rose in solemn layers, their peaks serrated and dark against the pale wash of the sky. Some were dusted with snow that refused to melt, even in summer. 

“What is it like traveling the world?”

Sakura stood beside him, also taking in the scenery. He glanced sideways at her. 

Her eyes widened slightly, bright with that quiet wonder she never seemed to lose. He noted her irises, usually the same shade of green as the trees, looked lighter here, almost translucent.

“I’ve only ever left on missions,” she continued, not taking her eyes off the valley. He had taken too long to answer. “I would love to see new places, meet new people…It must be so interesting.”

He pondered over his words for a second, but made sure to be quick enough that she didn’t think he had left her hanging again. “It’s…less exciting than it sounds. Once you've been to enough places, it's easier to find the similarities rather than differences. Humans are remarkably alike.”

He knew it wasn’t the answer most people expected to hear. It clearly wasn’t the one Sakura had wanted. She looked at him, opening and closing her mouth and furrowing her eyebrows. The look of wonder was gone. Finally, she recomposed herself and exclaimed, “ Oh . Don't tell me you found it boring!”

“No.” He paused. Reconsidered. “Only at times” He shrugged. “The thing is…I traveled to find myself . Not other people.”

“And did you? Find yourself?”

The words touched something sharp inside him. He thought of years spent wandering through ruins of old battlefields, sleeping under foreign skies, meeting faces he never stayed long enough to remember. He thought of the loneliness that shadowed every step, a silence even greater than the one he had sought.

But in that silence, he had also found something else. Time. More of it than he ever thought he deserved. Time to let the noise of vengeance drain out of him, to let the weight of old names and old wounds settle without dictating his next move. The distance from Konoha, from anyone who knew him, had given him space to breathe without the pressure of eyes watching, judging and expecting. In the stillness of nights by the fire, with only the sound of the wind in the trees or the crackle of flames for company, he had finally been forced to listen to his own thoughts. They had been sharp as the edge of Kusanagi at first, unbearable, but over the years they had dulled into something gentler, like stones smoothed by a river.

Peace, he realized, hadn’t struck him like lightning. It had come gradually, in the quiet accumulation of steps on foreign soil, in the patience of the world continuing around him whether he fought it or not.

The ruins, the endless horizons, the strangers’ faces, all had reminded him that life persisted, indifferent to his suffering. That indifference had once enraged him. Later, it became a kind of comfort. And yet…

 “I don't know.”

They made their way down the path. The horizon vanished behind them, swallowed once more by the thick canopy of branches that arched overhead. Sakura had stayed quiet since his admission, having nodded thoughtfully to herself. He had taken the initiative and started trekking down. 

She walked a few paces behind. Every so often he heard the faint crunch of gravel under her sandals, or the brush of fabric as her sleeve caught against a branch.

The trail was narrow and roots jutted from the soil like gnarled hands, forcing him to pick his footing carefully. Even Sasuke could tell there were no signs of yomogi here.

After fifteen minutes of silence, Sakura broke it with another question.

“So…ehmm…have you heard back from that pass for my lab?”

He lifted an eyebrow, not bothering to look back. “I thought you were to ask the council.”

“I did. They said they would contact you. Have they?”

“No.”

“Oh.”

Her reply fell flat, and the forest reclaimed the silence. Another ten minutes stretched thin between them. Out of the corner of his eye, he caught her fidgeting, fingers twisting together, brushing stray locks of hair behind her ears again and again as though to occupy her hands.

“Spit it out,” he uttered at last, convinced she would never summon the courage to voice whatever was circling in her head. There were many ways in which she was still so familiar.

“Ehh! Nothing…It’s just…,” she sighed, “The council is very busy pressuring Naruto about something. The Daimyo is involved, too. Maybe they haven’t had the time.”

“Bullshit.”

The word slipped out sharper than intended, but it earned a laugh from her nonetheless. 

“Have you heard what they are aiming for?” she asked.

He shook his head. How would he know? And why would he care?

“They want to implement an entrance exam to the Academy.”

The notion stirred no excitement, no concern, just a flat acknowledgment.

“Hn,” he murmured, letting the sound drift between them. It was a trivial piece of bureaucracy, a shuffle of papers and meetings, nothing that touched the reality of survival, of skill, of life beyond walls and rules. Whether children passed or failed seemed irrelevant in the face of the world he had wandered through. Perhaps it would even help make more capable people than the ones currently in charge.

Sakura frowned slightly, clearly expecting a different reaction, but he remained impassive, continuing his descent down the winding path. 

“Not even a little concerned?” she pressed, voice tentative.

He shook his head slowly. “It’s their problem, not mine.”

Sakura looked away, eyes tracing the shadows between the trees, lost in thought. “Sometimes I feel so disconnected from the realities of most shinobi like you,” she whispered, her voice barely carrying over the crunch of leaves beneath their feet.

That stopped Sasuke in his tracks. “What do you mean?” he asked, turning his head to catch her gaze.

“Just…nothing.”

“What do you mean?” he insisted.

Sakura exhaled sharply. “An exam, Sasuke. Just to enter? Controlled and proctored by the Elders? They’ll ask for things only children born in clans had access to. No civilian born will become a ninja ever again. People like me…I wouldn’t have stood a chance.”

The realization hit Sasuke at once. There was no love lost between him and the council. As a result, he couldn’t even begin to give a single damn about what they got up to. He trusted Naruto to control them. He hadn’t stopped to think that the same elders who had turned into monsters when it came to him and his family, could also be monsters when it came to other things.

He remembered Naruto saying something about it, back in the Hokage office one of his first days back. It had swept over him and he had forgotten it the next instant. 

Sasuke’s eyes softened imperceptibly, following hers as she looked toward the dark forest where sunlight pooled between the leaves. He noticed how small she seemed against the vastness of the world. Unlike him, she didn’t carry the weight of a surname like Uchiha. Her parents had been civilians, had (by what little he could remember) looked down upon her choice. She didn’t have special family jutsus or techniques, raw talent, or a powerful kekkei genkai. She still had become one the best kunoichi, a powerful shinobi in her own right. The Elders were fools not to see it. Perhaps they were as blind as he had been a couple moments ago.

“Have you spoken to Naruto about it?”

“Yeah. He mostly agrees with me but the council is relentless. If they vote to pass it, it will.”

“It won’t be a popular decision.”

“You are severely underestimating the prevalence of clan elitism amongst Konoha shinobi. You yourself didn’t think about it until I spelled it out for you.” 

She was right. He had grown up never questioning his own access to jutsus, scrolls, instructors, the legacy of a name. To him, it had been as natural as air. He had never once thought about what it meant for those who had nothing but their own hands.

Sakura picked up her pace, brushing past him, her sandals clicking softly against scattered stones on the ground as she stepped in front of him and continued down the narrow path. Her back straightened.

“But let’s change topics,” she said lightly, though he could hear the strain beneath it. “I suppose me whining is not an unfamiliar sight, but I doubt you want to hear about it.”

The canopy shifted above, dappling her hair in flickers of light. He watched her for a moment longer than he meant to, the thought crossing his mind that it wasn’t whining at all. It wasn’t stupid or useless to fight for equal access to what was, at the end of the day, a means of power and an education. She had every right to be upset.

“I have found some more books that could be of use. I can bring them to the lab or I can pass by and drop them at the Compound. You know how to do oils and mixes, right? I’m gonna have you working on that while I work on identifying the other substances. I’m afraid you won’t have time to read anymore. We may have one of the ingredients but we don’t know the sign–”

“The Compound?”

“The Uchiha Compound,” she added, distractedly, “Aren’t you living there? I thought you could read them in the evenings, if you don’t mind. I don’t have the time with the Chunin Exams next week, I have to work on the rest of the stuff at the hospital and–”

“I am not,” he cut her off again. “It’s unusable.”

She blinked, her train of thought forgotten. “Unusable?”

“The Compound,” he said flatly, as though the word itself were ash in his mouth. “Collapsed roofs, mold, no running water or electricity. I don’t live there. Nobody has in a long time.”

Silence hung for a moment, broken only by the sound of the leaves moving in the wind.

 “I… didn’t know.”

“I didn’t expect you to,” he replied. He’d already locked that entire subject away. “You can drop them off at The Lantern inn…ehhh…hotel, ” he corrected, the word still foreign in his mouth.

“Oh… okay. I will, then. Ehhh, sorry if I–”

She stopped herself, biting the rest of the sentence before it could form. Her apology dissolved into the air, unfinished.

Sasuke didn’t press her. He preferred it that way.

“Isn’t it expensive?” she changed topics.

Yes, it was. If he were not swimming in the Uchiha inheritance money (or, at least, the part they had let him claim) he wouldn’t have been able to afford it. The money had been sitting still for decades at this point. He barely had made use of it, and splurging a bit on temporary accommodation wasn’t a big deal at all.

“Hn,” he nodded affirmatively. The amount they charged him for the room was infinitely higher than he had expected, than he had paid in other places of the world. They had always been inns, not hotels, though. Could that word really be behind the difference? The breakfast was shittier, the decoration more impersonal and he had to use a stupid sign to make sure they wouldn’t enter his room. He supposed he did have a private bathroom and a rather nice bed. However, the carpets smelled faintly of some chemical floral scent that only reminded him of the hospital.

“You don’t like it,” she remarked lightly, glancing at him from the corner of her eye.

“I didn’t say that.”

“You didn’t have to.”

He let the corner of his mouth twitch, not quite a smile, more a silent concession. She was perceptive enough; there was no need to waste words.

“How long do you plan to stay?” she asked after a pause, her eyes fixed ahead on the narrowing trail, not on him.

“I don’t–” he began, the answer spilling out before he thought about it twice.

She turned towards him, brows lifting, her mouth slightly open in confusion.

“—plan to stay,” he clarified. He kept his tone as flat as the stones beneath their feet.  “I’m here for the manuscript.”

For a moment, she searched his face. She gave a short nod, her gaze dropping again. “Of course.”

He didn’t look at her, but he could sense the shift in her steps, the way her rhythm had faltered and then hurried.

It seemed her patience had run out and she wanted to be done with this as soon as possible.

Luck wasn’t on their side. Hours passed with only a few sightings of yomogi, the silence between them stretching as steadily as the trail. The forest grew denser, the air warmer under the tangle of branches, until finally they stopped around noon when the sun sat high overhead.

They found a small clearing where light fell freely, the ground softened by moss. Two broad stones, worn smooth by rain and time, served as seats. Sakura unpacked her bento with practiced care, producing neat bundles of rice, a few pieces of fruit, and, somewhat sheepishly, a chocolate-processed food bar wrapped in bright paper.

Sasuke set down his own provisions: onigiri, sunomono, and karaage that still carried a faint, savory scent of ginger and soy. He had bought it this morning from a shop at the market.

Her eyes flicked to his food, lingering on the golden pieces of fried chicken with unmistakable longing. She tried to mask it, chewing her rice in exaggerated calm, but her gaze betrayed her.

He caught her staring, and without a word, nudged one towards her. She blinked, startled she had been caught daydreaming, then grinned. He let her steal a piece.

“Thank you, Sasuke-k–”

She stopped herself abruptly, lips pressing together, but the word had already formed in the air between them, unfinished.

He completed it in his head nonetheless. Kun.

Sasuke-kun.

He hadn’t heard that word in fourteen years.

It echoed in him like a note struck on old strings, faint but resonant, pulling forward memories he had long since pushed into shadow: the way she used to say it with unshaken hope, the way it had once grated on him, the way later he’d almost wished to hear it again.

He lowered his gaze to his food, expression unchanged, though something tightened in his chest. Across from him, Sakura busied herself with her fruit, pretending nothing had slipped. Her shoulders gave the faintest twitch, betraying that she knew exactly what she had almost said.

It wasn’t a big deal, he told himself. She called him that for years, of course it was a habit difficult to beat. Hadn’t he noticed it too, the lack of it, when he had first seen her a week ago? 

When they were genin, Sasuke had been the one in charge of the food. Sakura had had parents at home and had never learned how to cook, since she hadn’t needed to. Naruto was… Naruto. And Kakashi, the bastard, great cook as he was, had left all the work to him.

He had only ever done simple things back then: rice, grilled fish or meat, miso soup if he felt generous. He hadn’t wanted to be labeled the cook, burdened with the task forever, so he had kept it plain. Functional. Enough to keep them alive and moving.

His mother’s food had been different. Delicate, balanced, alive with care. The best he had ever tasted. He still remembered the sound of her knife against the cutting board, the warmth of simmering broth seeping into every corner of their kitchen, the way she would hum faintly as she worked.

A few years after she was gone, the memory of those meals had grown bigger, almost cruel in its clarity. He realized the only way he could ever come close to tasting them again was if he made them himself. So he had dragged out the stained, handwritten recipe book she always kept tucked on a shelf in the kitchen, its pages smudged with unknown sauces, corners curled with use.

He had cooked those same dishes again and again and again, measuring, slicing, stirring, following her instructions with the same precision he learned to throw kunai. But no matter how many times he tried, no matter how close he came, they never tasted the same.

Something essential was always missing, something he couldn’t replicate with technique alone. The absence had gnawed at him, a hollow ache that even the most carefully prepared meal could not fill.

He had kept to simple, utilitarian meals afterwards.

The skills he had learned were still there, hidden in his hands, but he had never stayed in a place long enough to grant himself the luxury of renting a house with a kitchen he could put them to use at.

A sound to his left, just past Sakura, cut through his thoughts. Steps. A boot on the ground. Someone was getting closer.

His body reacted before his mind did, every muscle tensing, shoulders stiffening, hand drifting almost imperceptibly toward his side, ready to swap food for weapons. His sudden perk up alerted her as well; Sakura’s head turned quickly, her chopsticks hovering mid-air, her green eyes flickering from curiosity to tension in the space of a heartbeat.

The sound came again, closer this time.

Sasuke’s hand hovered near one of his shuriken, fingers flexing, ready. His eyes narrowed, scanning the trees around them, noting every shadow that shifted with the sunlight.

A rustle to their right, a branch snapping under some weight, signaled the first move. Without a word, Sasuke slid into motion, light as a shadow over the uneven ground, his chakra prickling along his skin. Sakura mirrored him, crouching low, eyes sharp, the sunlight catching the edge of her kunai.

From between the trunks, three figures burst into view, masked and armed, moving faster than ordinary civilians. Shinobi, then. 

Sasuke exhaled quietly, almost a sigh, as he assessed the distance, the angles, the gaps in their formation. Sakura’s eyes flicked to him, a question unspoken: Ready?

He only gave the faintest nod.

Sakura leapt to the side, spinning her kunai with precise force, while Sasuke’s shuriken cut through the air, aimed to disable before they could strike. 

Sakura mirrored him almost instinctively, sidestepping another lunging figure and knocking the wind from them with a clean strike to the ribs, the shinobi’s sword falling to the ground.

Sasuke didn’t bother with flashy jutsu. He didn’t even unleash Kusanagi. They weren’t worth it. The second assailant, the one who had lost his sword, overextended in a poorly aimed swing, and Sasuke used their momentum to sweep their legs out from under them.

The third stepped forward, attempting to flank them, but Sasuke anticipated the motion before it fully formed. He pivoted, stepping low and fast, tripping the shinobi with a single, efficient kick. Sakura was already there, intercepting the fall with a controlled jab to the side, enough to knock him unconscious without a struggle.

The first one took one look at his fallen comrades, another at them and turned around, running fast as a flash of recognition shined in his eyes. 

Sasuke remembered Naruto’s words. They’ll shit on their pants at the sight of both of you.

The battle had lasted three seconds. Sasuke’s gaze swept the clearing again, calm and measured, noting the absence of any further threats. Sakura’s breathing was steady, her expression composed and casual, as if this had been a training drill.

It was a disappointment, really. He craved a good fight.

Sasuke used strings to tie up the other two. He took a slow, measured look at them, cataloging every detail as he had been trained to do.

The first was broad-shouldered, slightly taller than average, with arms thick from overused strength but lacking fluidity in movement. His eyes were narrow, calculating, but betrayed inexperience. He flinched just slightly at Sasuke’s gaze. His uniform was loose, sleeves rolled up, revealing scarred forearms.

The second was leaner, wiry, with long legs and a spring in his stance. He moved with more speed than the first, but his footwork was sloppy, imprecise, almost careless. His face, partially masked, carried no expression, but the slight tremor in his fingers spoke of fear. He, contrary to his mate, had recognized him. He looked very young.

He straightened, stepping back slightly.

The tall one spoke first, voice rough and laced with arrogance.

“Shinobi of the Leaf, I suppose. Fucking nuisances. They use women in combat, now? What is that? A distraction method? Because I wouldn’t mind getting distracted by you, Pinky.”

Sasuke’s eyes narrowed. Tall one wasn’t very smart. 

“Oh, don’t piss me off,” Sakura snapped. Without another word, she shifted her stance and struck. Her punch connected with precision, snapping the man’s back against the ground and sending him sprawling, wind knocked from his lungs.

Sasuke’s gaze followed her movements critically, noting the efficiency of her attack: minimal effort, maximum effect.

The second shinobi stuttered in terror. “I’m sorry! I’m sorry! Please, let me go. I have nothing to do with them, they came to my village. I had no option, please. Please…”

“You will stay where you are. Do not move until we leave. Any attempt to interfere will not end well. You will listen to our questions. Your fate relies on your answers,” Sasuke said.

“What’s your name?” Sakura asked, lacing her voice with a sweet tone. 

“S-Seiji,” the man, boy, stammered, his voice trembling.

“Ok, Seiji. Are you using the serpent’s pass as a smuggling route?”

He nodded, his head bobbing up and down furiously, Sasuke thought he might yet be the first person to break his own neck that way.

“What is the load?,” Sakura continued.

 Seiji’s eyes darted nervously between Sasuke and the unconscious man.

“Some kind of drug. I…I don’t know exactly. They don’t let me touch it.”

Sasuke’s gaze sharpened. “Who is ‘they’? Do you know the names of your superiors?”

“No. They use make up names. He–” He gestured vaguely to the tall one sprawled ungracefully on the forest floor.  “--is Fifty-Seven. The one who escaped is Forty-Two. I don’t know what the numbers mean. They call me Twig.”

Sasuke’s lips pressed into a thin line. The names, or numbers, meant nothing to him yet, but the hierarchy was clear. Twig was expendable. He had been forced into obedience, shielded from the bigger picture, just as Sasuke expected from anyone recruited forcefully to work under these petty operations.

“You have very little information for us, Twig. Where is the drug stored? Where are you taking it?”

“I don’t know! I don’t, I swear. They don’t tell me anything. Someone brings it to us at the beginning of the passage on one side, and someone comes to retrieve it on the other. I only have to walk through it.”

Sasuke turned around and started walking back to where their food lay forgotten.

“Wait! Wait! They’ve mentioned a number Three a couple times. I think he’s the boss. I’ve never seen him.”

“Alright, Seiji,” Sakura said gently. “I believe you. Now, what do you want to do next? Back to smuggling, letting numbers whatever and whatever disrespect you? Or would you want to do something else with your life?”

“It’s not that easy! My…My sister. She’s sick. I need the money to buy medicine.”

Sakura looked at him. Sasuke realized at that moment that picking flowers was no longer the only thing they would do that afternoon.

“How far is your village?”

“On the other side of the passage, maybe four hours?”

“We are going to do something, Seiji. We are going to untie you and you’ll walk us to your village. I am a doctor. I will take a look at your sister. Then, you will both move far away from this place and start a new life that doesn’t involve getting tangled in criminal activity, ok? You are a good kid, Seiji. Don’t waste it.”

“Wait!” The kid looked at them, pupils blown wide. “You are…you are…Haruno Sakura and…Uchiha Sasuke. It’s an honor to meet you.”

Chapter Text

The Chunin Exams turned extremely prolific as far as identifying Otsutsuki’s went.

After Sunday’s eventful trip, the week had dragged on. It seemed all of Konoha was buzzing with energy, its streets alive with vendors setting up stalls and shinobi clans gossiping about the prospects of their prodigious offspring. Even civilian children could be seen with paper kunai in their hands. The exams, after all, had become less about the trials themselves and more about the spectacle: the absolute delight of watching snotty twelve-year-olds fighting mediocrely under the hot gaze of judgy villagers.

Sasuke had been in a bad mood. 

He hadn’t been able to spar with Naruto. The Dobe had been too busy doing his actual job, which involved little fighting and too much politicking for his tastes. His hands itched for combat, for the rush of a worthy clash. The three idiots from Sunday didn’t count.

Sakura had drowned herself in work, leaving him alone at the lab most of the time. She had even lent him her card for access, which was, in her words, an ‘extremely illegal and discouraged practice’. All he had for company were the stacks of meticulously detailed handwritten notes she left behind. Instructions on how to prepare oil from the yomogi they had gathered, ratios scribbled in the margins, even warnings in her neat, looping script: Don’t overheat, or it loses potency. The absence of her voice – her constant tapping, fidgeting, humming – in the sterile lab only amplified the gnawing quiet.

The only person who appeared to have any free time at all was Naruto’s brat, Boruto. He wasn’t supposed to, he was, after all, one of the participants in the forthcoming exams. He didn’t seem to care. Carefree. Reckless. A mini-dobe in the making. He had started shadowing Sasuke around the village, stubborn as a weed, blue eyes gleaming with impatience as he begged him for training. What Boruto thought Sasuke could possibly teach him in the three days leading up to the exams? Sasuke had no idea. And yet, the boy’s persistence was so grating it almost bordered on admirable.

Boruto had rambled on about his father yet again. About him being too busy and too forgetful and something about not even bothering showing up and using shadow clones for a birthday. 

He even tried to fight him once. The fool.

So, the week had been shitty, but he had survived it. From the shadowed curve of a pillar high above the arena, he settled like a hawk at rest. The spot gave him a perfect view of everything unfolding below, while ensuring no one could see him unless they looked too hard. It was a place for ghosts, and he had long since perfected the art of being one.

All of Team Seven had made it to the final. Naruto had leapt into the air like an overeager academy student, his voice cracking with uncontained joy. The sound had grated in Sasuke’s ears. Some things, apparently, never changed.

The weird snake boy’s presence reminded him to visit Orochimaru. Purple girl had passed the first two but, if Sasuke was correct, and he usually was, she was no fighter and would not make it past the first round of the final stage. She seemed the smart type, definitely the brains of the team. She would do well in her life regardless of this round’s outcome.

In the end, the count was down to three: Boruto, Shinki (he had been surprised to learn Gaara had apparently adopted a kid) and some guy who used an interesting puppet technique no one had been able to identify yet. He had read the name on one of the many panels: Araya from Sunagakure.

He had to give it to the sand village. They had sent a good pack of genin.

Araya and Shinki decided to team up for the final fight but Boruto’s purple electricity overpowered both at the last minute. Sasuke frowned, perplexed at the display. 

The crowd roared and yet the man of the hour – Hokage, hero, living legend – descended into the arena without the same sheepish grin he’d worn since childhood. Sasuke had seen that smile thousands of times. It never failed to irritate him.

What followed was a severe silence, the voices drowning to a murmur as Naruto walked up to Boruto, caught his arm and rolled up his sleeve. Sasuke shifted against the pillar, narrowing his eyes. There was a strange thing on Boruto’s forearm. 

Disqualified .

Sasuke couldn’t say that he hadn’t seen it coming. He still felt a bit bad for the Dobe as he took his own son’s headband off.

Boruto didn’t take it quietly. Of course he didn’t. The brat’s fists clenched, his voice carrying through the arena with all the graceless rage of youth. “If you had paid attention to me, I wouldn’t even be in this situation!”

Sasuke’s gaze lingered on the boy. Reckless. Naive. Foolish. 

He could almost see himself, years ago, standing opposite his own father with fire in his chest and acid in his throat, screaming into the void for someone to hear him. However, he had never raged out loud, never uttered as much as a pip. He hadn’t had the courage to face Fugaku’s hard eyes. 

But Boruto wasn’t Sasuke. And Naruto wasn’t Fugaku.

Then, they attacked. 

Naruto barely had time to react before something blurred forward, its heel cracking across the Hokage’s ribs and sending him skidding into the wall with the force of a cannonball. Sasuke’s jaw twitched, though his body remained stone still in the shadows. The thing had white skin and had horns. If it looked like a duck and quacked like a duck…

Boruto, of course, jumped in. He tore through hand seals, his machine thing spitting out techniques one after another, pointless flashes of power, all of it swallowed effortlessly into the Otsutsuki’s palm. The boy’s face drained of color, panic flashing as his weapons became toys.

Sasuke saw another one approaching. And a third fighting the snake boy. 

His hand drifted to the hilt of his sword.

The ghost had watched long enough. 

On the good side, they had three names: Momoshiki, Urashiki and Kinshiki. Pairing Otsutsuki’s in their respective places in the diagram/genealogical tree – or whatever the hell was what he found in that creepy castle –  was simple enough. The Otsutsuki’s prevalence for identifying themselves via horns came in handy at times.

Momoshiki had been number four in his graph with the reindeer-like horns symbol and a Rinnegan. Kinshiki had a singular one, just like Kaguya’s scorned ex. He stood at a circle far removed from the rest. Urashiki’s looked like a helmet around his head, as if somebody had cut the front of those weird wrap-around glasses Shino used and left the rest. His circle was beside Kinshiki’s.

On the bad side: the Chunin Exams were suspended, the arena destroyed and Momoshiki had left Boruto a strange mark on his palm. What was it? They had no idea. They would need to add it to the pile of Otsutsuki’s mysteries yet to be solved. 

At least, Sasuke had had his fight. And, damn it, he had enjoyed it.

He had come back with so much adrenaline in his veins that he hadn’t noticed the kink in his right shoulder until it began gnawing at him. Three consecutive days of stabbing pain during training – sharp and precise, like a senbon finding the same nerve again and again – finally forced him to acknowledge it.

On the fourth day, Sakura noticed. He had been showing her the progress he’d made in the lab: ten vials of yomogi oil, their pale-green hues catching the sterile light, lined in perfect order on the table like trophies.

He had made a careless gesture with his arm (what was left of it) and the sudden jab, arising from the point of union of the joint, extended towards his neck. He flinched. He couldn't help it. 

Of course, Sakura saw it.  

In true New Sakura fashion (he was still adjusting to this iteration of her, quick-tempered but strangely self-assured), she spent two minutes lecturing him about shinobi and their steadfast commitment to refusing medical attention. Her voice carried the clipped rhythm of a medic who’d repeated these words a thousand times to men too proud to listen. 

Then, softer, she asked to see the injury. He almost refused, but the strident, piercing chime of her phone interrupted. She grabbed it, her expression flickering between irritation and focus. By the time she hung up, her eyes were back on him, sharp and unwavering.

“Seven p.m.,” she ordered, her tone level and iron-clad. “My office.”

The look she gave him said more than the words did: If you don’t show, I’ll find you.

At five minutes to seven, he entered the hospital. The familiar sterile smell hit him first and his shoulders tensed instinctively. Instead of descending into the basement where the lab was located, he moved to the stairs.

Halfway up, a nurse stopped in her tracks, caught between steps on the staircase. Her eyes widened, round as coins, her mouth parting as if words had been stolen out of her.

“Haruno Sakura,” he offered for explanation. Despite the lack of intonation, he had posed it as a question. He had no idea where he was going. Had he mentioned he hated hospitals? 

The nurse, young enough to have been a toddler when he had left the village, stayed frozen in place.

Maybe she didn’t even recognize the name. That thought snagged in his mind. Haruno Sakura. She wouldn’t have kept it. Married women rarely did. The realization was strangely disorienting. He had been working with her for almost three weeks now, yet he didn’t know her current name. 

His thoughts flickered, unbidden, to that idiot from the party and the way she laughed.

“Eeeh…Yes, her office is on the fourth floor, first corridor to the right. Last door.”

Sasuke gave a curt nod, and the girl hurried past him, her heels tapping in quick succession against the linoleum floor, the only sound echoing in the silence around them.

The fourth floor was different from the rest of the hospital. There were no patients, no machines, no teary-eyed family members. An administrative area. He moved unhurriedly down the corridor, the soles of his sandals whispering against the floor, his eyes catching the neat order of identical doors. At the very end, one stood waiting.

The door greeted him with an immediate answer to his previous musings and a surprise.

Haruno Sakura , it read. Head of the Hospital .

She had kept her name. And she was running this entire place.

Now, Sasuke had been aware Sakura had a really high-level position. She was too good and too knowledgeable (and too busy) not to.

There were Tsunade’s labs and now they are mine. He should have seen it coming. Somehow, both his teammates had climbed to the highest ring of their chosen paths.

Naruto wasn't really a surprise. Ever since that overeager, undertrained twelve-year-old had declared it with a grin too wide for his face, Sasuke had known. He’d rolled his eyes, mocked him, but underneath the ridicule had been a steady, unshakable certainty: Naruto would become Hokage. One day, the loudmouthed idiot’s dream would be carved into reality and his face into a stone.

Sakura, though. She was different. When he had first left, she hadn’t yet found her fire. She had potential, yes, but it sat dormant, like a weapon waiting to be drawn. No drive, no ambition. At least, none he could see beyond her relentless efforts to date him. He hadn’t been there to witness the shift, the moment she discovered her passion, the master who honed her, the long years where she sharpened herself into something formidable.

And now here she was: Head of the Hospital, her name etched in clean letters on the plaque.

Something akin to pride stirred in his chest.

He lifted his hand and knocked on the door.

“Come in.” Sakura’s voice carried clearly through the door.

He pushed it open and stepped inside, his gaze sweeping across the room. Much like Naruto’s Hokage office, Sakura's was filled with papers, books and binders of all colors and sizes. But where Naruto’s chaos was a storm barely contained, hers had a rhythm to it. The disorder only appeared that way at first glance. Look longer, and it revealed itself as a system: neat columns of binders by subject, papers grouped in color-coded folders, labels guiding a trail only she could follow.

It was impenetrable to him, but undeniably hers.

“Thank you for coming, Sasuke,” she said, her tone softened now, though it carried the authority of someone used to being obeyed. Her medic-tone. Her professional voice. She stepped out from behind the desk, hands already lifting as if preparing for the work ahead. “Let’s take a look at that shoulder.”

Sasuke shrugged out of his cloak without a word. The motion alone sent a white-hot line of pain up his arm, but he kept his face impassive. He placed the garment neatly on the back of a chair, then moved to stand in the center of the room, waiting.

Sakura had already rolled the sleeves of her coat to her elbows. Professional, brisk, but with an ease in her movements that reminded him uncomfortably of their time as teammates: how she had once lingered behind to patch Naruto’s scraped knees or his own shallow cuts. Only now, the girl was gone, replaced by the head of a hospital.

“Sit,” she instructed, not looking up.

He obeyed, lowering himself onto the chair she indicated. The wood creaked softly. She stepped into his space without hesitation. That undefined fruity smell from her hair came back. He tried again to identify it and failed.

“Show me,” she said simply.

He lifted what was left of his right arm, the phantom heaviness still clinging to it after all these years, and rotated it just enough for another twinge to shoot up to his neck. He inhaled through his nose.

Her hands hovered for a breath before making contact. Fingers pressed along the seam, then probed higher, tracing the line of tension that made him stiffen despite himself.

“Your shoulder compensates every time you overextend. It’s putting strain on the joint,” she murmured, more to herself than to him. “You’ve been ignoring this for… how long?”

“Four days,” he said.

She raised an eyebrow. “And before that?”

He didn’t answer. The silence was enough.

Her sigh was quiet, but the way her thumb pressed briefly, pointedly, against his collarbone carried the reprimand just fine. He endured it.

For a moment, neither spoke. He could see another plaque on the polished surface of the desk behind her, her name etched cleanly in black. Haruno Sakura. Head of the Hospital.

“Does it hurt now?” she asked, pressing just below the joint.

His jaw tightened. “Yes.”

Her gaze flicked up to his face at the admission, searching, assessing. Her eyes hadn’t lost their sharpness. He had always thought their color was very unique. He looked away, focusing instead on the stack of neatly ordered folders at the corner of her desk.

She stepped back at last, her tone brisk again, though the faintest shadow of concern lingered. “If you keep using it like this, you’ll tear the muscles around the joint. Even you can’t fight without a shoulder.”

Sakura palmed her hands together and rolled her neck, a small, habitual motion he remembered from hours at the lab.

“Did you get the books I left at your hotel?”

“Yes,” he said simply.

“The receptionist looked so scared when I said they were for you. Does that happen to you often?”

He allowed the corner of his mouth to twitch, almost imperceptibly. “Depends.” Her eyes narrowed, teasing, the slightest spark of curiosity (or was it amusement?) glimmering there. She didn’t press further.

“Sasuke, we are going to Ichiraku Ramen this Saturday. Team Seven. Just Sensei, Naruto and me. I wanted to ask if you want to come. Maybe Naruto already told you?”

He shifted slightly in the chair, the movement sending another familiar pinch up his arm. He ignored it, focusing on the sound of her voice instead.

“I’ll come,” he said. She smiled, small, almost imperceptible, but it reached her eyes. “What time?”

She tilted her head, considering. “Evening.” Sakura leaned over to gather a few papers from her desk, then paused, glancing back at him. “We usually do dinners. If Naruto doesn't cancel us again.You are more than welcome to come.”

He didn’t respond immediately, letting the statement settle. He could almost hear the unspoken encouragement in the cadence of her words, the gentle insistence beneath the professionalism. Finally, he inclined his head once, a subtle affirmation that was, in his way, agreement. “Thank you.”

She looked up, puzzled for a second. Sasuke didn’t know why. If there was one thing he had said to her again and again, it was those two words. She recovered quickly, stepping towards him.

“We should also talk about the exams. The things that showed up…they were three Otsutsukis. And Momoshiki left that thing on Boruto…I’ve inspected it and I have no clue what it could be. It worries me. I’m sorry I’ve been so busy, now that the Chunin Exams are over, I can go back to working on our scroll.”

He inclined his head slightly. “Good. Were there many injured in the stadium?”

“Not really, luckily. We stopped the roof from collapsing on our heads. Some of the kages required immediate attention after you came back and came directly to me, instead of waiting for their own medics. Only minor things. Still, they went to see a doctor. Unlike someone I know.”

He lifted an eyebrow, the barest smirk tugging at the corner of his mouth. “I’ve dealt with much worse on my own.”

Her eyes narrowed, not in anger but in a blend of exasperation and concern that managed to get under his skin. “It’s not a bad thing to seek treatment when you can. And you can do it now. Ugh, you’re still so stubborn.”

Her words lingered in the air, a subtle reminder that just as he was discovering New Sakura , she was discovering New Sasuke . Perhaps she had been cataloguing him all this time, noting the nuances in his posture, his voice, the flickers of expression he didn’t realize he revealed – the same way he had observed her, studied her, intrigued by the layers she kept hidden beneath that calm, competent surface.

“Do you still dislike hospitals?” she asked quietly.

“I don’t–”

She gave a faint shrug, voice softening. “It’s okay. It’s a very common thing, actually. Listen, if you don't like it here, just tell me and I'll take a look at you whenever you need medical treatment, okay? Just don't ignore it. In the long run, it’ll be worse.”

Sasuke let out a slow breath, the tension in his chest loosening fractionally. He felt her eyes on his shoulder. Then, almost before he realized, her hands were at the seam of his shirt, urging him gently but firmly.

“Take it off,” she said, carrying an unspoken insistence.

What? His heart pumped faster, a flash of electricity shooting through him.

“I need to take a closer look.”

He hesitated only for a heartbeat before lifting the fabric over his head, muscles tight under the fluorescent light. The small ache in his shoulder flared as he moved, but he didn’t flinch.

Sakura stepped closer, her hands warm as they settled against the knot of tension along his deltoid, staring somewhere above his head. He froze for the briefest moment, aware of every movement and breath, pulse flicking at the proximity.

She let her chakra flow into the injured tissue, guiding it, mending the overworked fibers.

“You’re holding too much tension here,” she murmured. Her thumb pressed just enough to elicit a subtle hiss from him, but she ignored it, letting her chakra dig deeper.

“Better?” she asked, voice softer now, just above a whisper, though her hands didn’t leave him.

He drew in a slow breath, letting his shoulders settle under her touch. “Yes,” he said finally. 

She gave a faint nod, stepping back slightly, though her gaze lingered longer than necessary. “Good. Don’t ignore it again,” she warned.

The pain in his shoulder subsided substantially. Sasuke moved his arm experimentally, tracing several circles and then sideways, testing its range of motion. There was still a lingering ache, the phantom sensation of pain. It was something he could ignore until it went away on its own.

“Thank you,” he repeated, this time for the healing. He hurried to put his shirt back on.

Instead of freezing, Sakura put on her best professional voice to lecture him, again, about the dangers of not receiving proper medical attention. He let the words wash over him, her tone familiar in its mix of authority and concern.

His gaze drifted, distracted, around the office. At first, he had only noticed the practical clutter: papers stacked, folders neatly labeled, the tangible evidence of her work. Now, he could also see personal items scattered here and there. Sakura’s bag was dropped unceremoniously on the floor, straps half-spilled open, as if she’d barely had time to set it down. Her jacket hung on a perch next to the door, fresh plants lined on the windowsill and dead ones in a trash can. 

To his right loomed an enormous bookshelf, stuffed to maximum capacity. The spines of medical texts and research journals pressed against each other. Among them, photo frames broke the monotony, serving as decoration and dotting the rows with small bursts of color. From where he sat, he could make out moments captured in time: one with Naruto and Kakashi, at least two with Ino, the blonde’s arm slung casually around her, a handful with the other members of the Konoha Twelve. One with Tsunade.

The absence of more personal photos of her family – her husband and perhaps her children – surprised him, until he looked at the desk and realized there were two more frames on top of it, hidden from his view, facing the other way.

“Ok, I think that’s it. If you have any questions or it bothers you again, just tell me. Try not to force it for a couple of days. Is there anything else that causes you pain? Your…ehh…stump? Your eyes?”

He shook his head. 

Yes, he had aches in his elbow, right where the rest of his arm was missing.Yes, his eyes still betrayed him from time to time, a pressure building behind them until it erupted into thunderous migraines that left him blind with pain, bedridden for days. 

But none of that mattered. Nothing he couldn’t handle. Nothing other shinobi hadn’t endured in silence. That was their life. Pain was stitched into their bones from the start. It was fine.

He had long since learned that physical pain was the least hurtful kind.

Sakura looked at him with an expression that told him she wasn’t convinced. Her eyes lingered on him a moment longer, weighing his silence, but in the end she didn’t press. “I have a meeting at the Hokage tower. I can accompany you down, if you don’t mind.”

He gave a short nod, pulling his cloak from the back of the chair and settling it around his shoulders in one smooth motion. Sakura hurried around her office, gathering papers into neat stacks and then reached over to shut down her computer (it was extremely thin and completely unlike the ones he remembered). He waited by the door while she bustled around him. She picked up her bag from the floor, discarded one of her many white coats (there were two more on the chair she draped it over) and, finally, she slipped into her jacket, straightening the collar with a practiced tug.

Only then did she turn toward him, ready.

They descended the staircase in silence. Sakura walked a step ahead, papers tucked against her chest, her heels landing with crisp precision on the linoleum. Sasuke followed without hurry. 

By the time they reached the lobby, the evening crowd had thinned to a handful of shinobi and civilians. A nurse carried a clipboard across the floor. A boy clutched his bandaged wrist, waiting on a bench while his mother soothed him with hushed words.

“Doctor Haruno!”

A woman stumbled forward, her voice raw, frantic. Her hair was unkempt, her face hollow with exhaustion, but her eyes blazed with desperation. She clutched at Sakura’s sleeve before anyone could stop her, words spilling out like water breaking through a dam.

“My son – please – he’s not waking up. They said someone was coming but no one came, and he–he’s burning up, I can feel it, he’s so hot–”

Her grip trembled, her knuckles white around the fabric of Sakura’s coat. Nurses started toward them with alarm flashing across their faces, but Sakura lifted a hand, stilling them with a quiet authority that brooked no argument.

“Show me,” she said, calm, even.

The woman’s eyes brimmed with tears as she nodded, already tugging Sakura toward the corridor.

Sasuke caught the subtle shift in Sakura’s shoulders as she moved: the sudden steel in her posture, the focus in her gaze. If she had been professional before, now she was a soldier preparing for battle.

The mother noticed him then. Her gaze flicked to his face, recognition sparking and then faltering. Fear, maybe, or awe. Sometimes it was hard to tell. She hesitated for a heartbeat, as if uncertain whether she had interrupted something she shouldn’t have. But then her voice cracked again, small and broken.

“Please… he’s only eight.”

Sakura turned briefly toward him. Her eyes were steady and her expression steel. “I have to go,” she said.

She disappeared down the hallway, leaving him alone in the chaos of the lobby.

Sasuke remained where he stood, rooted in the middle of the lobby as the chaos bled back in around him. A nurse jogged past with a tray of equipment, another leaned urgently over the reception desk, whispering too quickly for him to catch. A third kept glancing between him and the hall Sakura had disappeared into, as though unsure whether she should approach or flee.

Another nurse nearly collided with him, then froze. She bowed hurriedly, muttered an apology, and scurried away.

He moved toward the wall, settling in the shadowed space beside a row of empty chairs, cloak pooling dark at his heels, waiting for the rush to calm down so he could leave without being in the way.

It was a battlefield of its own, this hospital. Different weapons, different stakes, but the same war: lives hanging on a thread.

The battalion of nurses finally disappeared, leaving behind only the three at the reception. Two were talking quietly but the third was looking at him. He turned to leave.

“Doctor Haruno really has a soft spot for children, eh?” The whispers of the first one reached his ears.

“Yeah, it’s a pity she doesn’t have any of her own.”

The words trailed after him like smoke, faint and curling, dissipating into the night air the moment the doors opened. The wind carried them away. Whatever was said after, he never heard. By then, he was already gone.

Chapter Text

The shuriken traced an arc in the air, shifting direction spontaneously, before embedding itself in the center of the target placed behind his head.

“Wow.” It wasn’t his best move, nor the flashiest. In fact, it didn’t even require him any effort. That didn’t seem to matter to Boruto, who watched him with wide, admiring eyes. “You need to teach me how to do that.”

Sasuke’s mouth tightened. Suddenly, Sasuke worried about the Ninja Academy’s curriculum.

Boruto’s arm was still bandaged. This was the first time Sasuke had seen him since the battle against Momoshiki. After an entire week of the brat pestering him to train him for the Chunin Exams, it had been a pleasant change.

What wasn’t pleasant were the reasons.

To say Sasuke felt responsible for having allowed him to go after Naruto and face an enemy far beyond Boruto’s abilities was completely true. So was the fact that he had agreed to a training session precisely because of that guilt.

Naruto hadn’t blamed him, not even after seeing the strange mark the alien had left on his son’s palm. He had only thanked him briefly for dragging him back once they landed on the roof of the Hokage Tower, after leaving the dimension where Momoshiki had taken him. 

Whatever Naruto thought or didn’t think didn’t matter. The only truth was that Sasuke had seen his own insecurities reflected in Boruto’s face – no matter how much the boy resembled the Dobe. Pride mingled with desperation, the hunger to prove himself, to be seen. He had let sentimentality get in the way of judgment. And in doing so, he had placed the boy in danger. 

The more days went by without news about the mark and its ramifications, the tighter the knot in his stomach became. 

Tight enough he had actually said ‘yes’ when Boruto had approached him earlier. He figured he had been on his way to training anyway, for the first time with his shoulder finally healed.

Boruto hurled a shuriken with far too much force. It wobbled midair, bounced pathetically off the edge of the log, and clattered to the ground. His shoulders stiffened. He bit down hard enough on his lip that Sasuke saw the strain in his jaw.

Another one. This time Boruto adjusted his grip, narrowing his eyes in concentration. The metal left his hand with an awkward snap, grazing the target’s rim before spinning off into the muddy floor.

“Tch–dammit!” Boruto stamped his foot, grabbed a handful of shuriken from the pouch at his hip, and threw them in rapid succession. None hit center. Two didn’t even hit the log. His movements grew choppier with each attempt, his bandaged hand trembling as if it resented being forced to obey.

Sasuke stayed silent.

He knew the pattern well enough. Push too hard, expect too much, lose control the moment things failed to bend to your will. It was a younger version of himself, staring back with blue eyes instead of black.

Boruto turned to him suddenly, breathless, his face flushed. “Why isn’t it working? You made it look so easy!”

He was too tense. Too focused on the end result – hitting dead center – that he was forgetting the rest. In the last three throws, his wrist movement had been so deplorable, he had thought about telling Naruto to forget about the exams, he should send him back to the Academy.

“I don’t want to learn this anymore,” Boruto burst out. “This isn’t my specialty! I don’t do shurikenjutsu. It’s an Uchiha thing.” He puffed his cheeks in a childish huff.

Sasuke rolled his eyes.

Without answering, he wove a single-handed sign. A second Sasuke popped next to him, followed by a third on his other side. Then, a fourth appeared in a cloud of smoke right behind Boruto, stealing his pouch and all his shuriken.

The brat, who had been staring at him confused, yelped. “Hey! That’s mine. What are you doing?”

The clone dangled the pouch just out of Boruto’s reach, as expressionless as its master. 

“You said you don’t do shurikenjutsu.” Sasuke’s voice was calm, almost bored, as if stating an unremarkable fact. He tilted his head towards the clone. “So take them back.”

Boruto's eyes became round as saucers. His whole body leaned forward, restless energy crackling off him like static. Sasuke had the feeling this training session had been a mistake.

“Is–Is this like the bell test?” Boruto was nearly bouncing on his toes. “Like Uncle Kakashi did to all of you? Does this mean if I catch them you’ll agree to be my master?”

The thought hadn't even crossed his head. Now that it was there, he couldn't shake it away. Was that what this was? Was he testing him? He had agreed out of guilt but even he knew that a single afternoon couldn't make up for throwing the boy straight into an Otsutsuki’s arms. 

And if he did, was guilt reason enough? Could he truly teach anything to this overeager, insecure child? What wisdom could he hope to impart? 

Abandon your comrades and your village. Become a terrorist and hope for your best friend to knock some sense into you. Abandon your village again. Cut all ties. Be alone.

Maybe he had it all wrong. Maybe Sasuke had to march into the Hokage Office, drag Naruto’s ass to his house so he could spend time with his family and Sasuke didn't have to suffer Boruto's second hand daddy issues.

Momoshiki’s words sounded in his head. Those blue eyes will take everything from you. 

Perhaps Sasuke wasn't the person for grand speeches and life lessons, but he could teach the boy to defend himself.

That was simple enough.The boy had talent and grit, even if both were tangled up in misplaced bravado. With the right push, Sasuke knew he could hone that rawness into something formidable one day. 

“No,” he finally answered all three of Boruto’s questions.

Boruto sagged instantly, his shoulders drooping, energy draining from him like air escaping a balloon. He looked so comically crestfallen Sasuke almost regretted not letting him keep the illusion a moment longer. Almost.

“You know what this technique is, right?” Sasuke asked instead.

Boruto’s eyes lit again, quick to rebound. “Are you kidding me? Of course. Kage Bunshin no Jutsu!” He jabbed a finger at one of the clones as if announcing the obvious to a clueless person.

“Then you must know that this is your father’s specialty”

“I do. How could I forget?” Boruto let out a frustrated sigh. His next words sounded bitter. “He even uses is to avoid going to his own da–”

Sasuke cut him off, his voice even and precise. He didn’t have time for pity parties. “Naruto can create up to 1000 clones at a time. On its own, it's not particularly formidable. But it easily allows you to confuse and overwhelm your opponent.”

Boruto waved a hand, impatient. “I know all that. Why-?”

“How many can you make?” Sasuke asked, eyes narrowing slightly.

Boruto faltered, the bravado slipping. “Eeeh… right now? Maybe two. Three, if I push it.”

Sasuke’s gaze lingered on him, measuring. “Why is that important?” Sasuke asked.

Boruto blinked, caught off guard. He opened his mouth, then shut it again. He glanced sideways at the clones by Sasuke’s side and then at the one still dangling his pouch in his hand.

“You don't want to learn shurikenjutsu because it's not your specialty,” Sasuke continued. “So I showed you something that should. Clearly I was wrong.”

Sasuke dismissed the clones, who disappeared in a puff of smoke. The pouch fell to the ground, shuriken spilled in a scattered mess, ringing faintly as they rolled across the ground. Without a word, Sasuke turned away, cloak stirring at his heels.

“No, wait!” Boruto’s voice cracked with urgency. “I can do it.”

Sasuke paused, though he didn’t face him.

“But you can’t ask me to have as much chakra as my father. That’s not fair!” Boruto’s fists clenched. “I bet not even you can do it!”

“True.” His voice was calm, cool as steel. Then, after a heartbeat, he added, “That’s why I trained to be able to do this.”

With the barest flick of his wrist (and without so much as glancing over his shoulder) Sasuke sent three shuriken slicing through the air.

The first whistled past Boruto’s cheek so close it stirred his hair, the metallic hiss loud enough to make him flinch. He stumbled back on instinct and slammed into the rough bark of the tree behind him.

By the time his back hit the wood, the second and third shuriken had already found their marks. One buried itself clean through the fabric of his jacket at the shoulder, the other embedded in his pants at the thigh, effectively pinning the boy to the tree.

“Wow.” Boruto froze, eyes wide, breath catching in his throat. “Forget it, you need to teach me how to do this.”

Sasuke didn’t roll his eyes because Boruto couldn’t see him. His single eye (he kept the Rinnegan covered with his hair, lest the entire population of Konoha entered crisis mode screaming about Pain) flicked sideways, dark and unreadable. “Tell me, Boruto. Why did you cheat on the exams?” 

Finally, Sasuke faced him. It was a pitiful sight. Boruto hadn’t even tried to move. He clung to the tree from the point in his jacket and the point in his pants, dangling uselessly off the floor.

The boy stiffened. “I–I don’t know.” His voice faltered, then steadied. He didn’t try to unpin his clothes. “I guess… I wasn’t sure I could actually do it without help. And I wanted to prove myself.”

“You only managed to embarrass yourself and your father.”

Boruto winced. “Gee, thanks.” He lowered his eyes. “I know that. And I’m sorry. It was stupid and I should have never done it. I think that ninja tech can be very useful but there is a time and place for it and an exam in which you are supposed to prove yourself wasn’t it. I already apologized to everyone I fought against and I’m determined to get stronger on my own. Please, help me. You are the best shinobi I know.”

A silence stretched, heavy as stone. Boruto looked at him with pleading eyes.

“You are wrong. The best shinobi you know is your father.” Sasuke’s voice was low and hard. “You don’t know me.”

“I know enough. And I’ve seen you fight. You are just as good as my old man,” Boruto shot back.  “And way cooler!” he added with all the earnestness of a boy who meant it. A boy who knew half a story, sweetened until unrecognizability.

Sasuke exhaled through his nose, the faintest twitch at the corner of his mouth threatening to betray him.

“Are you planning to spend all afternoon on that tree?” he asked at last.

Boruto blinked, then glanced down at the shuriken pinning him in place. His face flushed. “No! No.” He tugged at his jacket, wriggling against the bark. “You could’ve just said I could get out!”

“I didn’t tell you you couldn’t.”

Boruto groaned loudly. “Ugh. Whatever.” He tugged harder, muttering under his breath about ‘cool old men with bad attitudes’ as the metal clinked stubbornly against the wood.

Sasuke raised an eyebrow. “Want some help-”

“No. No. I can do it on my own, thank you very much.”

Boruto finally wrenched himself free, nearly tumbling onto his backside before catching himself. He brushed off his jacket, cheeks puffed, and stomped toward Sasuke.

“Fine. You win. Let’s just get this over with.”

Sasuke gave a faint, unimpressed snort. “If you’re done sulking, pick up your shuriken.”

Boruto bristled, but obeyed, jogging around the clearing to scoop up the scattered weapons. He returned with the pouch clinking against his hip again, glaring at the target log as though it had personally insulted him.

“Listen,” Sasuke said, stepping beside him. He crouched and picked up one of the discarded shuriken, holding it between two fingers. “You’re forcing it. Your wrist is stiff. Your stance is uneven. And you’re trying to hit the center before you even let go.”

Boruto scowled. “I am trying to hit the center.”

“That’s why you’re missing.”

Boruto froze, blinking at him like Sasuke had just spoken in another language.

Sasuke straightened. “Don’t look at the target. Look past it. Think about the path, not the result. The throw is a line: your hand, your wrist, your release. Everything else follows.”

Boruto chewed on that, suspicious but curious. “So… like… I shouldn’t care if I miss?”

“You should care about doing it right,” Sasuke corrected.

Boruto muttered something under his breath that sounded like ‘you sound just like my mom’, but he squared his shoulders anyway. He held the shuriken the way Sasuke had shown him, loosening his grip. Took a breath. Released.

The shuriken spun neatly and embedded itself a hair’s breadth from the target’s center.

Boruto’s eyes went wide. “Wha—no way.”

Sasuke only tilted his head. “Again.”

Boruto obeyed before he could think twice. This time, the throw landed slightly lower, but still on the target, solid and steady. His grin cracked wide. “Did you see that?! I actually hit it!”

Sasuke closed his eyes, hiding the twitch of his mouth again. “Twice isn’t enough. Keep throwing until you stop thinking about it.”

Boruto groaned, but grabbed another shuriken anyway, the excitement in his voice betraying him. “Tch, fine. But when I beat the old man at this, I’m telling him you taught me.”

“That won’t happen,” Sasuke said flatly, but he found himself smirking.

The sun slipped lower as the afternoon stretched on, painting the training field in long bands of gold. Boruto’s laughter and grunts of effort filled the silence between the sharp thunk-thunk-thunk of steel meeting wood.

Boruto threw shuriken after shuriken, eventually moving to more complicated targets. 

He darted back and forth to collect his misses, never complaining despite the growing weight in his arms and legs. Every so often, he shot Sasuke a look – half checking for approval, half daring him to admit he was impressed. As he had suspected, Boruto had the talent to start and the determination to see it through.

He saw a lot of Naruto in him and a calmer, more adjusted energy that he attributed to Hinata’s hand. 

By the time the sky had shifted to the burnt orange of early evening, Boruto’s bandages were frayed, his jacket clung damp to his back, and his chest rose and fell in heavy bursts. Still, he lifted another shuriken, eyes narrowing with stubborn fire.

Sasuke stopped him with a quiet, “That’s enough.”

Boruto turned, startled. “What? No way–I can still go!”

“You’ll lose precision if you push past exhaustion,” Sasuke replied. His gaze softened just a fraction as he added, “Training isn’t about emptying yourself in one day. It’s about building something that lasts.” He didn’t add that he had never adhered to that advice himself.

Boruto made a resigned noise but dropped his hand. He started walking around, collecting all the leftover shuriken on the floor. 

“How many clones can you make, anyway?” he asked, not looking up.

“Ten.”

Boruto straightened, blinking. “Only? But dad can–”

“I told you,” Sasuke interrupted. “He’s better than me at that. I’m better than him at this.” He tilted his chin to gesture towards the mess.

Boruto huffed, stuffing a handful of retrieved weapons back into his pouch. “He doesn’t just use clones for combat, you know.”

“I suppose they’re useful for paperwork.”

“Ha! I wish.” Boruto struggled to remove some of the weapons that had been very forcefully embedded into the targets. “He used a clone to come to Hima’s birthday while he worked. It’s the other way around!”

What the hell was Boruto talking about? He had been prepared for a personal complaint about his father’s lack of time for him, not about some rando’s birthday.

Sasuke had known, since that first night back, that Naruto had drowned himself in work and forgotten to prioritize the family he had wanted so much. However, being Hokage was the most important position in the village, a military and political one that involved everything: from arranging genin teams to tax meetings with the daimyo, not to mention dealing with the council. If there was one thing it demanded, it was time in spades. 

He didn’t want to add to Boruto’s simmering resentment of his father by pointing out the truth: Naruto was both wrong and right. So instead, he asked the question that had snagged his attention. “Who?”

Boruto frowned, still tugging with his hand a particularly stubborn shuriken. “What?”

“Who is… Hima?”

Boruto blinked at him, mouth parting in disbelief. “Who is Hima? Himawari…my sister?”

Sasuke froze. “…You have a sister?”

“Yes?” Boruto threw his hands up. “I’ve had a sister for eight years.” He stared at him, incredulous, then added, “Wait, you didn’t know? My father never told you?”

Sasuke said nothing.

Boruto’s expression shifted, something strange flashing through his eyes. “But you’re best friends. That’s what he always says.”

Boruto’s frustration was tangled with a child’s confusion and Sasuke found himself caught in it, unsure if the sting he felt was his own failure, or Naruto’s.

He didn't know about Himawari.. 

He supposed the announcement had been written in one of the many unanswered and unread letters he had received over the years.  

At the beginning, there had been scores of them. Letters arriving by hawk, folded neatly, ink smudged from haste or weather. Even Kakashi had sent a few, especially in those years when the Hokage hat still sat on his head.

And Sakura.

She had written the most at the start. At first, he hadn’t intended to read them; he told himself they were a distraction, that he had no need for her words when his path demanded silence. Yet one by one, curiosity had won. He read them all. He had never answered, with one notable exception: Naruto's wedding. Three words, scrawled with an economy that had felt safe at the time. Tell him congratulations.

A mistake. Her letters had become more frequent after that. He knew he had given her reason to hope. Just three words. Could he really have held that kind of power over her? It was a good thing he didn't anymore. It was better this way.

He had left each piece of paper come, staring at it intensely before tossing them into the fire, unopened. 

Her words had kept him warm at night.

There hadn’t been a single moment when the letters stopped. He couldn’t remember the end, the last word. Instead, they had thinned gradually, like a stream running a bit drier every spring. The thick bundles of three folded pages became two. Then one. Until, eventually, his hawk carried only two envelopes on its flights back from the village. Naruto the person and Naruto the Hokage became his only line of communication to the life he’d left behind. His only line to the past.

He told himself that was what he wanted. He had assumed – hoped – that Sakura had finally moved on, that she had stopped wasting her ink and her heart on someone who had nothing left to give her.

Out of the two kinds of letters he had received in the past few years, he only ever opened the business ones, which, because it was Naruto, usually contained information of a personal nature anyway. 

But a second child? Never mentioned. 

He shuddered at the thought of a second Dobe clone (third if you counted Konohamaru). 

It was a strange thing, to be considered someone’s closest person and yet know so little about their lives. But that had been his decision, the path he had chosen, and he had had his reasons. He stood by it.

Once the last shuriken was gathered and tucked away, Sasuke turned on his heel and set a straight course for the Hokage’s office. His mind was already shifting ahead, circling the matter he needed to raise with Naruto, something that couldn’t wait.

Boruto, meanwhile, bolted in the opposite direction with the same reckless energy he carried into everything. “Crap, I’m late for dinner!” he shouted over his shoulder, legs pumping, blond hair catching the light as he vanished down the path. “If Mom gets mad, I’m dead! You don’t know how scary she is!”

His voice carried until it was little more than an echo, swallowed by the evening air.

Despite his initial insistence, Boruto had stopped asking him in the last few hours they had spent together if he could be his master, and yet, this was exactly what had finally made Sasuke make a decision. But first, he had to consult with the boy's father. If Naruto said no, Sasuke would obey.

Shikamaru received him at the door of the office with a nod and told him that Naruto was inside, free, and that he could talk to him without waiting, which he had intended on doing anyway.

Inside, Naruto’s head snapped up from behind a fortress of papers, blue eyes blinking in surprise before brightening.

“Teme! Nice to see you.” He pushed a few documents aside, leaning forward on his elbows. “Anything wrong?”

“I need to talk to you.”

Naruto’s smile faltered into concern. “Oh. Okay… sounds serious.”

Sasuke settled in the only free chair, the other one having been taken up by yet another pile of books. “Boruto has asked me to be his master,” he said directly.

“I know. He’s been raving about you for weeks. I didn't think you would entertain the idea.” Naruto’s eyes went round before narrowing with a flicker of surprise that quickly melted into a grin.

“Neither did I,” Sasuke added. His eyes flicked towards the desk, to the tower of unsigned documents and the cold dregs of ramen hidden beneath the shadow of a scroll. “But I think I do. There are many things he has to learn and he won't learn them from you.”

Naruto straightened in his chair, his brows pulling together comically. He was the most expressive person Sasuke had ever met. He wondered how he managed to keep the village secrets under wraps. “Oih, no need to insult me. I am–”

“It’s not about your abilities.” He paused, letting the words settle. “It's about the fact that it's nine p.m. and you are still here instead of with your family. You’ve missed dinner.”

“You think I want to be?” He pushed back from his desk, the chair groaning under the sudden shift and threw a hand towards the avalanche of papers and scrolls stacked around him. “Freaking aliens just attacked our village. The kages are mad at Konoha for not ensuring the safety of their delegates and their genin, the council is pestering me about this other thing. Then, there is this proposal about a new hotel complex…I’m just one man!”

He wondered if this was what Naruto had pictured all those years ago, when he had shouted again and again about his dream of becoming Hokage. If he had imagined that the cost of holding everyone in the village as family would be the neglect of the small, real one waiting at home.

“It’s not me you need to convince.”

“I’ve tried explaining to Boruto…He's not like that all the time. He's just particularly angry at me for something that happened a couple weeks ago–”  Naruto leaned back in his chair, rubbing the back of his neck.

“Not going in person to your own daughter's birthday?” Sasuke’s feet clacked against the floor impatiently.

Naruto winced. His sheepish smile was an attempt at levity, but it didn’t quite reach his tired eyes. He looked more guilty than anything. “I didn’t mean to. I shouldn’t have done it.”

Sasuke studied him in silence, his own brow barely lifting. “I didn’t know you had another kid.”

The confession seemed to startle Naruto more than any accusation. He raised his eyebrows high, the grin returning with a vengeance. “Well, that's on you, bastard. You are always invited to come to the village. No need to wait for a world ending threat.” The smile died as quickly as it had come. “You never read my letters, did you?”

“They were illegible.”

“Fuck you, too.”

Naruto leaned forward, resting his elbows on the edge of the cluttered desk, fingers drumming nervously.  “So, what did you want to ask me?”

“Would you be okay if I said yes to being Boruto's master? A temporary thing – until I leave again.”

Naruto paused, eyes narrowing as he considered the words. A slow, genuine smile spread across his face. “Yes. Yes. That would make him really happy.” Sasuke inclined his head for an answer .“And when is it exactly that you are leaving, Sasuke?”

“Once the scroll is deciphered I’ll have to track Kaguya's ex down, if he's here on Earth. I don't know how long it'll take. Could be weeks, could be months.”

“Ah, yes. Kaguya’s babe. Do you think they call her the Rabbit Goddess because she fucks around so much?” Naruto chuckled to himself. “And you’re still staying at that hotel?” His tone carried a mixture of surprise and concern. 

Sasuke simply nodded.

“Wouldn't you prefer an apartment?” Naruto insisted. “I can arrange one for you. I’m not sure any landlord will give you a lease, especially of indeterminate time. We have places available for this kind of use.” 

While Naruto fumbled around his desk’s drawers (of course he kept empty apartment lease contracts for shinobi in his desk and not the extensive well organized archive next room), Sasuke weighed the pros and cons in his head. 

Leave the room? Leave the crappy morning coffee? Leave the distrustful stare of the receptionist behind the desk? Definitely an advantage.

On the other hand, an apartment sounded very… permanent. Too much. A long-term stay, which he didn't want. 

“Does it have a kitchen?”

“Yeah, sure.”

A pause stretched on, the silence only broken by Naruto’s shuffling of folders.

“Alright.”

“Great. I can pitch you several – if I can find them. By the way, Team Seven dinner this Saturday. That includes you. Ichiraku's. If you're not there, I'll hunt you down.”

That was the second invitation he had received. Would Kakashi show up next begging him to go eat some surprisingly good ramen on an uncomfortable stool? “Uzumaki family dinner today. That includes you. At home. If you're not there, I'll train Boruto to hunt you.”

Naruto threw back his head and laughed, the sound echoing off the cluttered walls of the office. “Got it. Yeah, I think I'm done for the day.” He leaned back, running a hand through his hair, a trace of relief softening the tension he’d carried all evening.

As Sasuke made his way towards the door, he heard Naruto bustling about, hurriedly gathering all the papers scattered across the table. The clatter of folders snapping shut, the scrape of empty ramen containers being tossed into the trash, accompanied him until the door clicked softly behind him.

He walked to his hotel at a brisk, almost impatient pace. At this hour, Konoha was alive with people returning home after a day out or perhaps strolling leisurely after dinner.

It was a pleasantly warm evening. Though passersbies still cast him curious glances, the extreme reactions of the first days had noticeably waned. The village had grown accustomed to his presence.

The gossip had moved on to the next fiery topic (whatever it might be) and his return had quietly receded into the background. Thankfully.

One of the strollers was Sakura’s husband, or boyfriend. Her lack of name change, the fact she didn’t have children, had made him realise he had perhaps assumed one to many things. In any case, her partner. 

He studied the man from behind. 

He looked entirely ordinary: tall, slightly hunched, wearing a plain jacket and well-worn shoes, hands stuffed in his pockets, hair deliberately tousled. He blended effortlessly with the crowd, a face the village wouldn’t notice, unremarkable. Forgettable.

At the hotel reception, the young woman behind the counter looked up and called his name. Sasuke approached slowly, his steps measured.

Two days ago, he had complained that one of the bathroom faucets wasn’t producing hot water. He supposed she would either inform him that it had been fixed or perhaps offer a room change to one where the water worked properly.

“Uchiha-sama. A letter arrived for you this afternoon.”

The woman rifled through the drawers, searching for the paper she was meant to hand him. It echoed the image of Naruto doing the same at the office a while ago.

“Here.”

Sasuke took the envelope without a word, eyes scanning its plain surface, and then turned towards the stairs to head straight up to his room.

Once inside, he examined the envelope. The Konoha seal was unmistakable. An unexpected detail. Normally, if a letter bore the village’s seal, it meant Naruto had written to him, which made little sense considering they had just spoken.

He opened it and began to read.

To Uchiha Sasuke,

The Council of Elders requests your presence on Tuesday, June 21st, at 10:00 a.m., for a discussion regarding the approval of a special access laboratory card.

Due to the extraordinary circumstances surrounding your presence in our village, Konoha, and the potential security risks involved, a personal interview is required.

Thank you for your cooperation.

So, here it was. They had taken their sweet time. He couldn’t wait to see what that band of half-dead, useless old fools would have to say to him.

Chapter Text

Sakura had shown up that morning in high spirits, stomping towards him where he waited by the lab doors. He’d lost his access again, now that he had returned her card.

By next week, he was supposed to have his own. Hopefully. Until then, his mornings would keep starting the same way: half-asleep, breakfast lodged in his throat, lingering by the entrance until Sakura came rushing down the stairs. Once he had his own card, he could at least collapse into a chair during those groggy stretches, instead of leaning against the wall with the bitter aftertaste of burnt toast clinging to his tongue. A noticeable improvement.

The coffee had finally kicked in, or maybe it was the jolt of adrenaline from a potential breakthrough in the investigation. Whatever the cause, by the time they’d slipped on their white coats and taken their places before the scroll, his mind had sharpened to the task.

Sakura, on the other hand, couldn’t seem to keep still. Her foot tapped a restless rhythm against the tile floor. Her fingers tangled and untangled in her hair. She tugged at the collar of her lab coat, twisted the bracelet on her wrist, her words spilling in a steady, rapid stream. The scroll glimmered faintly under the lab lights, while beside him Sakura vibrated with a nervous, almost volatile energy, as though she might combust if she didn’t pour every thought into the air at once.

“I think I’ve found another two ingredients, three actually. An idea struck me yesterday evening, so I came to the lab to test it – and I was right. Luckily, I have enough samples of them in the lab.”

Sasuke watched her in silence, her momentum washing over him. This was Sakura: restless, razor-sharp, and relentless when her mind caught hold of something. He wondered, not for the first time, how many nights she had sacrificed to moments like these, chasing knowledge until exhaustion dragged her under. 

Sakura held up two vials, her tone brisk and precise. “The first is potassium ferricyanide. It’s stable under normal conditions, but when combined with iron salts – of which I also found traces –  it undergoes a redox reaction, producing a vivid, deep blue pigment known as Prussian blue. It’s sensitive to moisture and light, so any excess handling or heat can cause minor oxidation, which is why we keep it in powdered form. Mixed with water or a diluted ink solution, it can be applied to paper to form symbols of an incredibly beautiful color.”

Sasuke looked at the vials in Sakura’s hands. One of them contained a strange orange powder. The other substance looked like pale, irregular nuggets, brittle and faintly translucent, almost like tiny fragments of hardened sugar or resin. Neither of them were even remotely blue.

“The second is gum arabic, a natural polymer derived from acacia sap. It acts as a binder, stabilizing the pigment on the paper. Alone, it’s inert, but when combined with the potassium ferricyanide solution, it allows fine, crisp lines. Together, these two ingredients form a medium that is both reactive – due to the ferricyanide’s redox potential – and controllable, thanks to the gum arabic’s viscosity and adhesive properties. Applied correctly, the symbols remain durable and legible. And very, very, pretty.”

Her rambling about her discoveries wasn’t much different from the way she had gone on about plants during their trip through the Serpent’s Pass. The same quirks, the same habit of voicing her questions outloud, as if she didn’t really have an interlocutor at all. He had so little to contribute to the conversation that she might as well not have one.

She kept biting her lip and frowning whenever the subject of the signs came up.

Sakura had done a splendid job so far in identifying the substances needed for the seal – less so in uncovering what the seal itself actually was.

It didn’t matter. That was where he came in. He hadn’t read those ridiculous books for nothing.

Every night, after returning from training, showering, and eating dinner at the inn (hotel), he would pick up one of the volumes Sakura had left for him at the front desk and skim through its pages.

At least these ones didn't go on endlessly about bees. Frankly, they could even be called interesting.

He had marked certain passages. Not exactly clues, just general ideas they might test. One in particular had caught his eye, especially after he spotted his family’s name in the following paragraph.

Seal codification has a long and studied history in the art of communication, particularly in times of war. Its primary purpose was to safeguard messages from enemy interception, readable only by those allies who possessed the proper knowledge. Yet some clans, intoxicated by pride, grew notorious for their arrogance, boldly using their own emblem as the key to their decoding. Such vanity often proved disastrous, revealing rival secrets that might otherwise have remained hidden. During the Battle of the Two Hundred in the Land of Snow, this very practice cost several casualties under the leader’s command…

The author had gone on to describe the dire consequences of excessive pride, culminating in the leader’s death via an angry mob of pissed off widows. And then shifted to the opposite case.

During the Warring States Period on the Land of Fire, both the Senju and Uchiha Clans relied on such methods to transmit information securely. Most notable was the discovery of the Uchiha’s code: instead of using their own crest, they employed the Senju’s, confident that no Senju would ever attempt to decode an enemy scroll using their own symbol. The secret only came to light after peace was secured and the Hidden Leaf Village was founded, marking the beginning of a (rather brief) open collaboration between the two former rivals.

His once proud, ancient clan, reduced to using their enemy’s emblem to seal their messages. Go figure. 

Even though he had studied history at the Academy, and even though his surname was still recognized in the most unlikely places, Sasuke continued to feel a jolt of surprise whenever he stumbled across mentions of the Uchiha. It was only natural: they had been a powerful clan, one of the oldest and most prestigious, once ruling over vast lands in the Land of Fire. Still, there was something uncanny about reading what his great-grandparents had been up to. The pang in his heart didn’t come on these occasions, the history so far removed from him in time that he felt absolutely nothing towards it. 

It may have been the reference to the Uchiha that first caught his attention, but it was the words themselves that lingered with him.

Could it really be that simple? If this scroll was just a private letter to Kaguya, could their unknown Otsutsuki have just sealed it with their clan symbol or something similar? But then, why complicate themselves with using different ingredients instead of normal ink? 

He brought these questions to Sakura, who couldn’t help but laugh at the idea of clans skipping codes altogether and just using widely recognized symbols before turning thoughtful once again.

“It’s not out of the realms of possibility. All the ingredients we’ve found so far are either a common oil or what was once a paint. A very expensive one, true, but just a paint after all. It’s possible Kaguya’s ex wasn’t even trying to make a complicated code. Sort of those personal diaries for kids with crappy padlocks. Something that says: don’t read this, it’s mine, but also it’s not that complicated to open.”

They then turned their attention to the Otsutsuki clan emblem but quickly realized they had no idea what it looked like. The most frequently mentioned design resembled a compass, a four-pointed star, another one behind it. They also came across the Kaguya clan symbol: two separate red dots, stark and simple.

Lost again, Sakura suggested a way forward. “I’m going to run an infrared examination on the scroll. I was hesitant at first, worried it might cause damage, but I think the risk is worth it now. Infrared light can penetrate the surface layers and reveal underdrawings or erased markings. We might be able to detect faint lines where the symbols were once painted. I doubt it’ll reveal much, but it can give us an idea of what we are looking for.”

The cramped stall hadn’t changed in decades: same weathered barstools, same chipped counter. Being back here together felt both nostalgic and awkward. 

Sakura and Kakashi were already waiting when he arrived. The flicker of surprise on his face must have been obvious, because Sakura had teased him immediately, her mouth curving with the ease of old familiarity, saying Kakashi only saved his legendary tardiness for things that mattered. 

He took the open stool beside her, the motion almost instinctive. By chance, or perhaps by the pull of muscle memory, they had fallen into their former arrangement without speaking a word. Sakura in the center, with Naruto and Sasuke bracketing her on either side, and Kakashi occupying the end like a watchful sentinel. Naruto’s stool was still empty.

The formation had developed naturally years ago. Sakura had always wanted to sit close to him; Naruto had always wanted to sit close to her. And Kakashi, Sasuke was fairly certain, had preferred to let Sakura anchor the middle, playing the quiet buffer between his own silence and Naruto’s ceaseless chatter, the mediator who could head off a fight before it began.

The curtain lifted and Naruto barreled in, loud as ever. He dragged out the stool beside Sakura, tugging at the collar of his cloak like it was strangling him. Some Hokage. Still managed to look like the same careless idiot from years ago.

“This week has been horrible, let me tell you,” he groaned, dropping heavily onto the stool at Sakura’s other side. “I can’t wait for that ramen. And sake. Please order a lot of it.”

Across from him, Kakashi was already lazily flipping the sake menu closed, his visible eyes crinkling with dry amusement. “Ah, the life of a Hokage. Don’t miss it.”

Sakura sat with her arms loosely folded, her lab coat traded for a soft sweater, hair tied back but still a little untidy, like she had rushed here straight from the hospital. She leaned towards Naruto. “How’s Boruto, Naruto? Anything about the mark?”

“Nothing. I don’t know, man, it could be nothing at all for all we know.” He gave a quick shake of his head.

“Shit.” Kakashi set the menu down flat on the counter with a dull clap.

Sakura’s eyes narrowed. The glare she shot him was sharp enough to make a younger version of him flinch.

The man in question shrugged. “You’re not kids anymore. I’m allowed to swear.” 

Surprisingly, Sasuke realized that he hadn’t heard Kakashi swear, not even once, when they had been on the same team. What a strange line to draw for a man who read porn in public.

“Hi, Ayame. Same as always, heh? Thank you.” Naruto greeted the woman who had appeared behind the counter. He turned towards Sakura and Kakashi.  “Did Teme tell you the news? Boruto has a new master!” 

Naruto jabbed a thumb toward Sasuke, his grin stretching from ear to ear. The counter between them filled with the rising steam of four freshly served bowls of ramen, their aroma wrapping around the air like an old memory. Sasuke hadn’t ordered, hadn’t even spoken a word since stepping inside, and yet the bowl set before him was the same one he had eaten here two decades ago, unchanged, as if time itself had paused for him.

“Really?!” Sakura’s chopsticks clattered back into the holder. Her eyes flicked to Sasuke, then away just as quickly and a faint flush bloomed across her cheeks. “Not that you wouldn’t be a good master, Sasuke-k–, Sasuke. I’m sure you’re great. It’s surprising, that’s all. That’s all,” she repeated. She tucked a strand of hair behind her ear, fingers brushing against her temple in a small, nervous motion. Sasuke’s eyes lingered a moment longer than they should have. 

Kakashi distracted him, snorting softly. “Congratulations. And good luck. You’re gonna need it.”

Naruto laughed, smacking the counter for emphasis. “See? Even Kakashi-sensei thinks you’re doomed!”

Sasuke, deadpan, reached for his sake and took a slow sip. “I’ve been through worse.”

The bowls emptied one by one, steam curling into the night air as laughter filled the tiny stall. Naruto spoke the loudest, his hands moving wildly as he reenacted scenes from the Chunin Exams, exaggerating every detail until Sakura had to press her sleeve to her mouth to keep from choking on her noodles. Kakashi, for his part, added the occasional remark that always landed at the perfect moment, sending Naruto into wheezing fits.

Sasuke didn’t add much. He sat back, letting the rhythm of their voices wash over him: the familiar rise and fall, the cadence of bonds that had survived years of distance and silence. Every so often, Sakura’s laugh cut through, bright and unrestrained, and it pulled at something deep in his chest. Naruto thumped the counter with his chopsticks, spilling broth, and even that felt…right.

Stories tumbled out. Old missions retold with embellishments, arguments about who had been the most reckless, memories of teachers and rivals now softened by time. Sasuke found himself watching their faces more than listening, mapping the lines that hadn’t been there before, the years etched into their expressions, yet softened now in the glow of Ichiraku’s lanterns.

When Ayame came by to clear the dishes, Naruto was still laughing, Sakura was still shaking her head, and Kakashi was still smirking behind his mask. Sasuke let the moment linger, telling himself he was only indulging them. But deep down, he knew it was indulgence for himself, too.

“Let’s hit the bar next,” Naruto suggested, pushing away his empty bowl with the same gusto he had devoured it. 

Ayame waved them off with a smile as they stepped into the cool night air, lanterns flickering above the streets. The village was quieter now, the hum of daytime replaced by the low murmur of people lingering at open storefronts and the distant laughter spilling from bars that hadn’t been there fourteen years ago.

They found one tucked into one of the side streets, dimly lit, the smell of wood and sake hanging thick in the air. The place wasn’t crowded, just a few groups scattered about. Perfect for slipping into a booth without drawing much attention.

Naruto slid in first, Kakashi following with his usual slouch, sitting next to him. 

Sakura sat next, leaving the space at the end for Sasuke. The wooden booth was narrow enough that he could feel the warmth radiating from her side, her thigh brushing against his. He shifted slightly, careful not to let it seem deliberate, yet aware of every small movement she made, the tilt of her shoulder, the way her hand rested near his.

The waitress brought the first round of sake. The glasses clinked lightly as they were set down. Naruto wasted no time in raising his and calling for a toast to ‘Team Seven finally together again,’ spilling half of it down his clothes in the process.

Sasuke didn’t raise his glass as high, but he drank. The sake burned its way down, loosening the knots in his chest. Another round came quickly, and then another.

Sakura got up to go to the bathroom once, Sasuke standing awkwardly until she returned. The second time, Sakura told him not to bother, she would take the outer seat. “Sorry, alcohol makes me pee myself.” 

When she returned, she sat a little closer than before. The first time, the gap between them had been still noticeable; the second, his elbow brushed hers. By the third time, when she slid back into the booth, their shoulders touched, and her presence felt warmer, more insistent. Sasuke shifted slightly again, trying not to react, though he was aware of how easily he could feel every subtle motion she made.

“How’s the investigation going? Got Kaguya’s babe address yet?” Kakashi asked, his eyes crinkling behind his mask. Retired and technically off-limits for classified intel, he leaned casually against the seat, clearly enjoying the gray area of his authority.

The grey-haired man had been sitting across from him for at least two hours. His glass kept emptying itself, though Sasuke hadn’t seen him drink. That stupid mask.

Sasuke lifted his own glass, letting the warmth slide down his throat, and for a fleeting second wondered if he was the one too drunk to notice.

Naruto snorted, pushing Kakashi with his shoulder. “Babe? Babe? I think you are confused, Kakashi. That scroll sounded very threatening. Calling-the-cops kind of threatening.” 

Sakura leaned back, one elbow resting on the booth’s edge, a mischievous grin tugging at her lips. “Oh, should we call the domestic violence hotline for Kaguya? Do we think she’s in trouble?”

Naruto choked on a laugh, nearly tipping his glass again. “Too late. She’s already dead. How’s the deciphering going?”

Naruto was practically a human fountain of sake-soaked chatter, Kakashi’s slouch deeper, one eye drooping as he half-listened, and Sakura’s laughter rang freely, unguarded. Despite the serious topic of conversation, the words were slurred, thoughts not entirely coherent. Sakura, however, was a testament to professionalism (and amazing resistance to alcohol).

“We’re making good progress,” Sakura said, her fingers tapping lightly against the table as she spoke, eyes flicking towards Sasuke. “We’ve identified the ingredients used in the seal: yomogi oil and Prussian blue paint mixed with arabic gum. It’s the actual signs we’re missing. We have a theory, though.” She looked at him expectantly, waiting for him to take over.

Sasuke sipped his sake, the burn sliding down his throat as he considered her words. “The seal might not be as complicated as we thought. We’ve yet to confirm it, but it could just be an Otsutsuki clan symbol.”

“Fucking really? How lame. Is the yomogi the thing you were trekking in the mountains for?”

Sakura nodded. “Have you contacted Seiji and his sister, Naruto?”

“Not personally, but yes. They have been relocated. They’re safe.”

Ah, Twig and his much smarter, albeit very sick, sister. The boy had babbled on and on on the way to his village, altering between thanking them profusely and asking obtrusive questions with an awe-struck look.

Sakura exhaled, a mix of relief and frustration etched across her features. “Great. It was terrible, Naruto. So much poverty and suffering, so close to Konoha, while we live as kings. Can we not help some more?”

He had seen this before. Villages tucked into mountains or along rivers, homes held together with scraps of wood and mud, children with hollow eyes and smiles that didn’t quite reach their eyes. He had walked through enough of them on his travels to recognize the pattern: sickness, scarcity, the faint stench of unwashed streets mixing with the smoke of cooking fires, adults bent with exhaustion, mouths whispering prayers for a change that wouldn’t come. 

Seiji’s village wasn’t special; it was just another of countless places like it, invisible to the wider world, overlooked in the rush of politics and shinobi affairs.

“Daimyo’s jurisdiction. And I’m afraid he doesn’t care for anything else other than his next hunting trip,” Kakashi said, slouching against the booth even harder.

“Pfff. And policing who becomes a ninja, apparently,” Sakura muttered, gesturing with her glass, which clinked against Naruto’s as she waved it in exasperation. Her elbow nudged against his side. 

Sasuke’s head jerked slightly at the contact, and for a fraction of a second, the world narrowed to the warmth of her arm brushing against him, the soft curve of her shoulder, the way her eyes flicked up to meet his as she turned with a small, embarrassed smile. 

She’s adorable. Sasuke’s mind felt suddenly loud, chaotic, betraying him. He blinked, and then blinked again, aware of the faint thrum in his chest that had nothing to do with the sake, the sudden thought altering him. He felt his cheeks burning, turning his face towards the wall with a practiced indifferent shrug.

“That was the Elders’ idea, actually,” Naruto added.

“Speaking about the council–”  Sasuke spoke, still staring at the wooden wall. “I got the notification from it. They want me to do an interview for the lab access card.” 

“Fuck them. It's a plastic card. Are they worried you'll kill someone with it?” 

“Yeah. They are worried he'll kill one of them with it.” 

Sasuke ignored both Naruto and Kakashi. “Who is in it? Homura Mikotado still there?” 

“Eeeh–no. He was a thousand years old. His son took his place. The creep,” Sakura said sharply, leaning back in the booth, her glass wobbling slightly against Sasuke’s arm. Sasuke’s head twitched at the contact, but he didn’t pull away.

“Creep? Has he done something I'm not aware of? Sakura-chan, you can tell me if–” Naruto started, eyebrows raised, glass halfway to his lips.

“Oh, come on, Naruto. Your Sensei was the Pervy Sage. The biggest creep of them all in the flesh. You have no ground to stand on,” Sakura snapped, her eyes flashing, but a faint smirk tugged at the corner of her mouth despite the bite in her voice.

Sasuke raised an eyebrow, letting a flicker of amusement cross his features.

“Don't raise your eyebrows, bastard. Cause I'll bring out the Orochimaru card and you'll lose,” Naruto shot back. Sakura laughed beside him. Her shoulders shook slightly with each burst, and the sound carried a hint of mischief and genuine amusement all at once.

Damn his old sensei. He had forgotten again about that visit.

“Anyway, the old haggard is still alive, somehow. Nosy old bitch.”

Kakashi nudged Naruto sharply with an elbow.

“Kidding! She's a nice, good grandma. Her head's not all up in there, though, Sasuke. Beware, she might call you her son and try to pull your cheeks.” Naruto leaned closer, grin wide and mischievous, the warmth of the bar and the sake loosening his (already pretty thin) usual filter. 

Kakashi perked up on his seat, turning a serious eye towards him. When he spoke, Sasuke realized before him stood a legendary shinobi of Konoha, a former Hokage and not just his buffoon of a teacher. “Sasuke, I don't like the council. They are a bunch of elitist snobs who think they are better than everyone. They have never seen an ounce of blood on the battlefield. But they are powerful. They have the money and the connections to fuck anyone. It's not a fair game but we have to play it anyway. Don't let their move get to your head. If you do, you’ve let them win.” 

It was solid advice, but unnecessary. At this point in his life, he was completely numb to it. He expected them to be assholes, so when they were, he couldn’t get angry at it. 

“Yeah. Get in, get your card and get out. They're not worth your time. It's my job to deal with them” 

Sakura whispered something along the lines of maybe you should do it better.

“Agreed. Here–a toast.” She lifted her glass with sudden decisiveness, the lamplight of the bar catching the faint flush across her cheeks. It had become a permanent feature on her face several drinks ago. “Fuck the council. And their stupid ideas about exams.”

The words tumbled out of her with the kind of honesty only alcohol could pry loose, her glass tilting dangerously as she spoke.

“Fuck the council!” Naruto echoed, loud enough that two men at a nearby table glanced over. He raised his cup so high he nearly spilled it on Kakashi, who prevented it with a rapid movement.

“Should you be saying that in public, Naru–” Kakashi drawled, cutting himself off as if already resigned. He slouched deeper against the booth, one gloved hand loosely covering his masked mouth, but his eyes curved in clear amusement.

Sasuke raised his glass at last, the motion unhurried. His voice was low and steadier than he felt. “Fuck the council. For everything.”

For a heartbeat, the table stilled, the words hanging heavy in the haze of sake. It became obvious that all of them knew what everything meant.Then the tension broke all at once, laughter spilling out, glasses clinking together with a messy chorus of affirmation.

“Here, here,” they echoed, three voices layered, uneven but united.

The sound carried through the dim bar, half a celebration, half a defiance and for the first time in longer than he cared to admit, Sasuke let himself join in without restraint.

Another hour blurred into the soft hum of voices and the clink of glasses. Their small booth grew warmer with each round. Naruto’s energy carried them until the end. But eventually, his coat began to buzz faintly against his side. He fished out his phone (apparently everyone had one), squinted and winced.

“Ah, crap. Hinata. She’s gonna kill me.” He staggered upright, nearly knocking over what was left of the sake bottle. “Don’t wait up, guys. Wish me luck surviving the night.” With a crooked grin and a sloppy salute, he hurried out, cloak trailing behind him, the door banging shut on his laughter.

Sasuke wondered what the Hyuuga woman was actually like, having exchanged less than ten words with her in his entire life. It was the second time someone had claimed to be scared of her.

The sudden absence left the booth quieter. Sakura lingered a little longer, chin propped on her hand, her other fingers idly circling the rim of her empty glass. She picked at her phone occasionally until she read something that made her perk up.

“I think I should get going, too.” She stood abruptly, gathering her bag with quick, fumbling movements. “Sorry, I really have to go home. Goodnight, Kakashi-sensei. Sasuke.” Her smile was bright but hurried, her departure a blur of pink hair and quick steps. 

The bar fell into an almost companionable silence. Only the faint clatter of glasses and a muted conversation at the far end remained. Kakashi leaned back, eyes half-lidded, watching the door swing shut after her.

“She’s in quite a hurry,” he said at last, voice dry.

Sasuke drained the last of his glass, setting it down with a soft clink. “It’s late. Her husband must be waiting for her.”

Kakashi tilted his head, one brow lifting to his hairline. “Her husband? She’s married? Damn, here I thought Team Seven was special. She didn’t invite me to the wedding.”

Sasuke wouldn’t admit to himself he had said the word husband on purpose. He had his answer now.

Not married, after all.

That wasn’t what he had expected when he had come back. He had imagined…he had hoped…

Sakura deserved more than anyone to be happy. He wanted that for her. He had left and, even if it hadn’t been his main reason, part of him had believed that distance would make it easier for her to move on. Easier for her to find someone steady, someone who could give her the quiet life he knew he could never offer. Someone who didn’t carry the weight of sins that still bled into his every step. Someone who didn’t have to pass personal interviews with the council for a stupid card.

But she hadn’t, not enough for a commitment like marriage, something he knew from when they were kids she had wanted at some point. 

And when she leaned too close, when her shoulder pressed against his in a crowded booth, his heart betrayed him, beating with a want he had long told himself he’d given up.

He wasn’t blind to it. He wanted her. He always had. Time away had only made the feeling fade, coming back just as strong as her presence became a constant in his life once again.

But want and deserve had never been the same thing.

And as the door of the bar swung shut behind her, leaving only the fading scent of her shampoo and the hollow warmth of the seat beside him, Sasuke felt the ache of a truth he couldn’t shake: he had left her so she could be free, and yet some selfish, hidden part of him still longed for her to have waited.

He tilted his glass, watching the last drop of sake cling stubbornly to the bottom, and thought that maybe, just maybe, he was still as much a fool as he had ever been.

Chapter Text

On the sixth anniversary of his family’s death, Sasuke had been stuck in the hospital.

The rage that usually carried him – that fed and nourished him since the day he had lost everything – was dulled, the grip in his heart taking another form altogether.

In the days leading up to it, he always pretended it wasn’t coming. He could fool himself all he wanted, but every July 10th he woke up choking on air, heart pounding as though it wanted to claw its way out of his chest, eyes burning with tears he refused to shed.

He couldn’t cry.

He couldn’t speak. He couldn’t eat. He couldn’t think. He spent the day staring at the blank wall of his room, ignoring the nurses whenever they came to bring him food and check on his vitals.

Late that evening, he tore himself free from the tangle of wires and the drip in his arm, and simply walked out. He hadn’t tried to be discreet, yet no one stopped him.

He had gotten lost and wandered around the hospital, unaware of the strange glances thrown to a young boy walking aimlessly, eyes empty, until he had found the exit.

Outside, he stood for long minutes before a clock displayed in the window of an antique shop. Each tick of the minute hand got him closer to midnight. To the hour he had found his mother and father in a pool of blood and his brother standing over them, his sword dripping on the wooden floor.

He would never forget the sound.

Tick. Tick. Tick.

The amber skies reminded him that as long as there was light, his clan was still alive.

But the clock struck nine and he realised the sun was setting, night would come and another year would pass without them.

He began walking again, wondering how long it would take until the hospital was alerted of his absence, wondering if they already knew and they had left him off the hook, just for today.

And then, he looked up to see the entrance to the Compound.

He didn’t step inside.

He only stared and stared at the weathered door, his clan crest faded and chipped, standing across from the threshold he had crossed that night six years ago.

His back had slid against the opposite wall, eventually settling on the floor with his head between his thighs and his arms circling his knees.

By the time footsteps approached, darkness had swallowed everything.

Even in a catatonic state, he knew it was her. He always knew her by the rhythm of her steps, and if not, the sudden flood of vanilla would have told him anyway.

“We were so worried,” she sniffed against him, voice breaking as she pressed close. “We’ve been looking for you for hours. I’m so glad you’re safe.”

He lacked the strength to push her away.

He sagged into her hold, a puppet without strings, listening to her reassurances the way one listens to static on the radio when the quiet became too loud.

He had been told he hadn’t spoken for months after. He didn’t know if it was true. He couldn’t  remember. 

He didn’t recall much from those days except the agonizing wait before realising he had forgotten one more thing. Her mother’s smell had been the first. Her voice and her smile had followed, until the only thing Sasuke could remember was how she had looked on that floor, a placid expression on her face despite the lack of light in her eyes.

The grief was so vast he hadn’t even touched the edges of it. He longed for his clan in the way one longs for a phantom companion – more the ache of absence than the people themselves. Their names, their faces, blurred. He mourned them, yes, but selfishly: for what their deaths had done to him.

He had had so many questions. He still did. If there was one thing he regretted, it was not having enough time to ask them. 

Sakura had stayed with him all night, holding him, whispering sweet nothings, soothing him  in ways he knew he didn’t deserve.

When he had awoken in the hospital the next day, fury had already replaced his emptiness, sharpening into a single, merciless thought.

Itachi.

Sasuke’s hand itched against the seam of his cloak as he stood before the long table. Behind it, the council sat in full parade: the old crone a breath away from death, the pug-faced son of Homura, the daimyo’s representative with his lacquered smile, another middle aged dumb looking man he didn't recognise. 

“Your record is… uneven.” Homura Junior’s voice cracked like paper folding. “You have operated outside the village for more than a decade. No reports filed. No accountability. And now you expect us to grant you access to sensitive research facilities? You’re not a shinobi of this village.”

His jaw flexed. He couldn’t wait to be done. That was what he had expected of today. He would come in, listen to the old band of bigots ramble on to their heart’s content for an hour and leave with his card in his hand.

He was ready, he could bear it. No matter how much he wanted to punch Koharu’s toothless sardonic smile off her face.  

The daimyo’s representative leaned forward. “This is not merely a matter of pride, Uchiha. The sealing manuscript you and Haruno are handling may contain weapons of immeasurable value. What assurance do we have that you will not take them for yourself?”

He scoffed. These idiots had no fucking idea what they were talking about. 

“How do we know you won’t turn against this village, our home, again? Your position is precarious. You have been granted access to it and, in our professional opinion, an undeserved pardon, through your connections. If it weren’t for your old team and their adamance in defending you, you wouldn’t be standing here today. I hope you thanked them.”

He knew Kakashi had risked his newly acquired Hokage position with his move to release him from prison. He also knew that if he had wanted to burn this village to the ground, he could have done it years ago.

What the old fools sitting in front of him had no idea was that he had spent the last ten years looking for clues of Kaguya’s remnants, protecting, in his own way, the same world who had burned him and he had tried to burn in return.

He hadn’t done it for Konoha, the shinobi village of the Hidden Leaf who had been responsible for his clan’s death. He had done it because it was the only way he knew of repaying the people he had hurt.

“You don’t.” He forced his voice to be flat and detached.

The representative flinched. Koharu’s eyes narrowed. This is nothing but a theater, Sasuke thought.

“Naruto vouches for me,” he said at last, his tone bordering on contempt. “If that’s not enough, then stop pretending I’m here as anything other than his request.”

The silence that followed was heavy. The older men shifted in their seats, unwilling to meet his eyes. Homura finally found his tongue. “We could employ just Haruno. She hardly requires your… oversight. Surely, her safety is of the utmost importance to this council. We can’t take the risk of–”

The rest of his words blurred in his ears. Sasuke’s blood boiled to a simmering point. 

How dare they imply he would hurt Sakura? That she wasn’t safe in his presence? 

He hated how easy they made it to loathe them. Hated even more how quickly he fell into it, like the years hadn’t passed, like three out of four faces hadn’t changed.

A sense of guilt followed. Because they were right. He had hurt her. 

He hated that more. Hated that even now, after all this time, his chest still tightened at the thought of her, the weight of his absence, the ways he had failed her. Yet he also hated that they presumed to lecture him about protecting her, as if her safety were some fragile trinket they could oversee from their polished thrones.

“You think I’m incapable of ensuring her safety?” His voice cut through the chamber, low and deliberate, each word measured to sting. “I could kill everybody in this room before you could even blink. Do not presume to lecture me on what I can or can not do.”

Koharu pursed her lips, clearly irritated by his insolence. “Your arrogance,” she hissed, leaning forward, “will be your undoing. You know perfectly well we weren’t talking about your abilities. These are delicate matters, not toys for your personal vendetta”

Sasuke’s fingers flexed against the seam of his cloak. Delicate matters. Personal vendetta. If only they knew the half of it. They had no idea the lengths he had gone to, the nights spent tracing Kaguya’s traces across continents, the lives saved quietly, the enemies eliminated before the village even knew they existed.

“Let me be clear, Uchiha. We don’t trust you. We don’t like you. Lord Seventh’s judgment is compromised when it comes to you, so are Lord Sixth’s and Haruno’s. Lord knows what you’ve done to deserve their loyalty. We agreed to the interview in reference to our esteemed Hokage,” each syllable of the word dripping with scorn “but do not mistake courtesy for weakness.” Koharu gestured to Homura to continue.

“Our decision is final. We deny your access card. And we encourage you to leave Konoha again. You gave us a very tranquil fourteen years without you lurking around. Give us another fourteen before we have to call you here again, will you? This is unpleasant for us as it is for you. I imagine you don’t want to be reminded of your failures.”

A slow, bitter laugh escaped him. “Failures? Do you speak of my failures, or of yours? Do you speak of the council that sat silent while innocent blood was spilled? The council that decides who lives and dies from the comfort of a court room?”

The unknown council member faltered. “You speak as if—”

“I have gone to that laboratory everyday for the past three weeks,” he interrupted. He dropped any pretense of compromise, if he ever had one in the first place. “I will continue to do so, with or without your card. Doctor–” he made sure to enunciate the word.“-- Haruno doesn't need your protection. She has already granted me access to her labs. I won't leave Konoha until the manuscript is deciphered. If that’s all, good bye. Have a pleasant rest of the day. Or don’t. I don’t care.”

He inclined his head, a parody of respect, and turned to leave. The linoleum groaned under his sandals, sterile and cold like the chamber itself. He had barely taken two steps when the daimyo’s representative cleared his throat, his voice slicing through the silence.

“Uchiha, please don’t leave yet. This wasn’t the only matter we needed to address.”

Sasuke stopped. His shoulders tightened, but he didn’t turn immediately. He closed his eyes, counting to three in the dark, forcing his breath to remain even. When he finally faced them again, his expression had been stripped of all visible irritation, as flat and unyielding as stone.

“We require your approval regarding the Uchiha’s estate,” the man continued, his lacquered smile returning, smooth and rehearsed. “Merely paperwork. Protocol, due to the new regulations being passed.”

Sasuke raised his eyebrows, his eyes widening in surprise. “I need to take a look at them before I put my name on anything,” he answered. “As you’ll understand, I don’t trust you.”

The management of what was left of his clan’s wealth was a bureaucratic nightmare. 

“Here. We expect a response in the next few days.” Homura had the decency to rise from his seat. He descended the atrium stairs step by step, each one echoing too loudly in the hollow chamber, and extended the folder with both hands.

Sasuke took it, though every instinct urged him to tear it apart and walk out. He had wanted to storm from the room, leaving them with nothing but the shadow of his contempt. Yet something, whether curiosity, suspicion or dread, anchored him in place.

He flipped open the cover.

The first sheet was enough.

…Transfer of property rights: Uchiha Compound. Sale to Tsukamoto Masa, CEO of Lantern Hotel Group. Transaction requires Uchiha Sasuke’s agreement…

The words bled together for a heartbeat, black ink searing into his vision. Counting to three wouldn’t cut it this time. His jaw clenched until his teeth ached, his pulse thundered in his ears. His hand tightened around the page, crumpling the corner under his fingers as if by crushing the paper he could erase the insult scrawled upon it.

The audacity. The disrespect. If they had slapped him in the face, he would have felt less shocked.

He lifted his gaze at last, fury cutting through the veil of composure. His eyes swept over the council, each pair of withered, calculating eyes, each smug wrinkle carved into faces too old and too cowardly to know what it meant to bear loss.

He didn’t trust himself to speak.

With a violent pivot, he turned and strode to the door. The chamber shuddered as he slammed it behind him, the sound echoing like a thunderclap through the corridors.

He barely remembered the walk; only the slam of his sandals against stone, the blur of startled faces as he cut through the streets like a storm. By the time he reached the Hokage Tower, his chest was heaving, fury simmering so close to the surface he could taste it like iron.

For the second time in less than a week, he threw open its doors.

This time, however, an unfamiliar figure stood before Naruto’s office. A young shinobi, stiff-backed, trying far too hard to look imposing.

“The Hokage is not available right now. You need to–”

Sasuke’s hand shot out, shoving him aside as though he were nothing but mist. The man stumbled into the wall, the protest dying on his lips as Sasuke was already pushing through the door.

Inside, the atmosphere shifted at once. Shikamaru straightened in his chair, his dark eyes narrowing, calculating. Naruto, behind his desk, looked up mid-conversation, his blue gaze colliding with Sasuke’s.

Both wore surprise, but only one looked guilty.

“Did you know?” Sasuke’s voice was purposefully low and measured. Dangerous.

Naruto didn’t speak. He didn’t have to. The flicker in his eyes was enough, the way his lips parted, the way his fingers twitched against the desk. He knew.

Sasuke’s pulse hammered. His fists trembled at his sides.

“Sasuke…” Naruto’s voice carried a warning and apology he couldn’t care less about.

His Sharingan flared, a flash of red against the office light. He took a step forward, every syllable dragged from his chest, cutting him open.

“Did. You. Know.”

He needed Naruto to admit it outloud.

“Is this about the council – what did they tell you? We warned you they weren't–” Naruto began, but Sasuke cut him off.

“Get out.” His gaze snapped to Shikamaru, voice still low,  still lethal.

Shikamaru’s brows knitted together. “Sasuke, don’t–”

“Shikamaru, go.” Naruto’s tone left no room for argument.

A long pause stretched the room taut, then Shikamaru exhaled through his nose and rose, every step deliberate as he left them alone. The door shut behind him with a soft click, but the silence that followed was thunderous.

Sasuke’s chest rose and fell once before he spoke, his words razor-edged.

“Are they or are they not going to build a hotel on top of my family’s graves?” He stepped closer, his Sharingan burning. “Answer me, Naruto.”

Naruto faltered. The Seventh Hokage, the boy who had faced gods without flinching, his supposed brother in arms, stumbled over his words like a guilty child.

“I–I…It’s not like that. It's in the early stages, barely a plan. They have eyed the terrains but  the legality is delicate – part of the Uchiha inheritance is still under your name, the rest tied up with the elders. I swear, I was going to tell you if they tried to move forward with it. You have my word.” 

“I trusted you to control them! What the fuck is this, Naruto?”

“It’s not going to happen, okay?” Naruto’s voice hardened, though it wavered under the strain. “They’re a bunch of corrupt politicians who eat, breathe and shit gold. You know that. I do my best to keep them in check, but I don’t have absolute power.”

Sasuke’s glare could have cut through stone. “Your best isn't enough. If this happens, I'll make sure they won't get to eat or breathe or shit again.”  

“Careful with the threats,” Naruto warned quietly. “I can’t protect you if–”

“I don’t need your protection.” Sasuke’s words cracked like thunder. He took another step forward, the shadow of his cloak brushing the desk between them. “I need you to convince me that this village is worth it. That it can be a good place. Not this.” 

For a long moment, the only sound was the rasp of their breathing, the quiet hum of chakra in the air as if the walls themselves braced for impact.

Naruto’s eyes softened, guilt dragging his features down. He lowered his gaze, then met Sasuke’s again, steady this time.

“I’m sorry, Sasuke.” He pronounced the words with the utmost sincerity that only Naruto could impart. “I’m sorry. Can I explain?” 

The rage still burned in Sasuke’s chest, but it dulled, tempered by the weight of Naruto’s tone. He exhaled slowly, unclenching his fist, forcing the heat in his blood to cool. After a pause, he gave a single nod and deactivated his Sharingan.

“There are many sides in this conflict,” Naruto began, rubbing at his temples. “The ground’s ownership is divided, part belonging to you and part to Konoha – controlled by the council. The hotel that opened a while ago, The Lantern, wants a bigger place to make a grand resort-like complex. They want the lake. They are willing to invest a fortune and the elders and the daimyo – especially the daimyo – love money. And they hate you. Which, for them, is just a bonus.”

Sasuke’s stomach turned. The Lantern. The same gleaming hotel whose rooms he had stayed at for more than a month, with its cowardly receptionist, its disinfectant smelling carpets, its shitty breakfast and shittier coffee.

“The elders have been contacting lawyers to clarify what belongs to whom. They want to divide the percentages into actual plots of land, then sell their share to the hotel chain. From what I’ve heard, legally speaking, they can’t finalize anything without your agreement.”

“The problem,” Sasuke muttered, his jaw tightening, “is that they’ve never cared about legality.”

“Yeah.” Naruto gave a weary nod. “My hands are tied but you can stop this, if you want to. Talk to a lawyer and the bank. Get your stuff in check. I've taken a peak at the Uchiha's assets and wealth. It's a mess.”

Sasuke didn’t reply, his mind circling the thought of signatures and deeds, of his clan reduced to paperwork filed away in drawers.

Naruto’s voice softened, though the edge of urgency remained. “But Sasuke, the Uchiha Compound has been empty for twenty-five years. It’s falling apart. People have vandalized it, there was even a commune living there for a while. It sits next to one of the most beautiful landmarks of Konoha. The village is growing quickly and what was once the outskirts is now firmly inside its walls. We can't afford a whole section standing in that state, rotting away.”

The words stung, no matter how carefully Naruto spoke them.

Naruto leaned forward, folding his hands together on the desk. “Even if you manage to stop the sale, you’re going to have to decide what you’re going to do with it.”

Sasuke’s eyes lingered on the desk for a moment. He didn’t want to deal with it. He wanted to wrap the whole place in a bubble and keep it away from him and from the world. Forever.

“Naruto. One more thing.”

Naruto looked up, wary but attentive.

“I want out of that hotel. Immediately. Give me an apartment, whatever you have – I don’t care. Just get me out of there.” He couldn’t bear the thought of spending another night beneath the same roof as the vultures eyeing his clan’s graves.

Naruto straightened, a flicker of resolve flashing across his face. “Of course. Don’t worry. I’ve got this.” He leaned forward, his voice firm but kind, the way it had always been when trying to reach Sasuke past the walls he built. “Trust me, Sasuke. We’ll solve this.”

The Uchiha Compound loomed ahead, jagged shadows stretching across the courtyard like broken fingers. Sasuke had crossed its threshold once before, the first night of his return, and fled before the weight of memory could crush him. Tonight, he didn’t run.

The gate sagged on rusted hinges, creaking like a dying animal as he pushed it open. A faint wind carried the scent of rot and dust, mingled with a faint trace of cedar, stubbornly lingering from a time when the estate had been alive. He stepped inside. Each footfall on the cracked stone echoed too loudly, announcing his intrusion to ghosts long gone.

The garden had been claimed by weeds. Cherry trees, once neatly pruned by careful hands, now twisted toward the sky like hands pleading for reprieve. The fountain at the center of the courtyard had collapsed; the water stagnated in the cracked basin. Sasuke paused, the faintest flicker of memory catching at the corner of his vision: laughter, blossoms drifting in sunlight, Itachi’s calm eyes watching him from the veranda.

He moved inside the main house. The doors hung crooked in their frames. Paper screens were shredded.

He touched the wall, fingers tracing a faint outline of the Uchiha crest, chipped and dulled. His thumb pressed against the scarred wood. The touch ignited a memory he had not wanted to recall: the dining room, bright and warm, then shattered in a heartbeat – blood staining the tatami.

The corridor stretched before him, a tunnel of shadows. He passed rooms with broken furniture, shelves emptied, family portraits slashed. Every step forced fragments of that night to rush forward unbidden. He closed his eyes for a fraction of a second and saw them all again.

A room door creaked open under his hand: his childhood bedroom. The floorboards groaned, but here, almost untouched, lay the remnants of a life he had been torn from: a blanket folded neatly on the futon, a small toy he had once treasured, a sketchbook left open. For a moment, he saw himself as a child, safe and unbroken, unaware of the horrors to come. And then the memory returned: Itachi’s silhouette, the final stillness of his parents, and the absolute silence that had followed.

He sank to the floor, back against the wall, breathing shallow and ragged. The compound was nothing but decay, yet every ruin pulsed with their absence. It was a mausoleum dressed in sunlight and shadows, and he had walked into it willingly.

He sat there for a very long time.

When Sasuke finally rose, fury swam tighter in his chest. The council had dared to sell this ground. His family’s graves, their lives, reduced to pieces of paper and profit. He would not allow it. Not now. Not ever.

He brushed his fingers along the faded crest one last time, as if sealing a promise to the ghosts who could no longer speak.

He stepped out of the door of the compound, the hinge groaning one last time, protesting his exit. The night air hit him with a quiet, cold embrace. He realised he had been inside the whole afternoon. For a moment, he simply stood, eyes fixed on the rooftops, its silhouette broken and battered under the pale moonlight.

Without thinking, he walked to the wall across from the threshold. He lowered himself to the ground, back against the rough stone, arms circling his knees. The familiar weight of emptiness settled over him. 

Sasuke pressed his forehead to his knees, breathing shallowly, letting the night settle around him. 

This.

This was what coming back to Konoha did to him.

Why had he thought it would ever get better?

Chapter Text

“I heard what happened.”

“I thought I would find you here.”

“I can’t believe – I didn’t know – I’m so sorry, Sasuke-kun.”

The sound of Sakura sliding down the wall reached his ears as if he were underwater, the same way her words barely registered in his mind.

He didn’t move. Didn’t respond. His forehead pressed against his knees, the rough stone biting into his back, anchoring him to the present.

“I…” Her voice wavered, almost breaking. “Naruto shouldn’t have hidden– I should’ve–”

He didn’t hear the rest. It had been years since he had let anyone see him like this. 

Yet here she was and the old instinct to recoil, to protect himself, fought with the memory of her presence so many years ago, when she had been the only tether to the world.

Her hand brushed against his arm, tentative, almost afraid to disturb the cocoon of grief he had wrapped around himself.

“I’m here,” she whispered. “If or when you need to talk.”

A single breath escaped him, shaky, barely audible. His fingers twitched against his knees.

“You don’t have to face this alone,” she continued softly.

He let her presence press against the void inside him, just enough to remind him that some things – some people – weren’t gone, no matter how deep the shadows stretched. That there were good things left in this forsaken village. 

Some time passed until his breathing became even enough to speak without choking in the words. Sakura accompanied his silence, settling next to him, her knee touching his.

“Sakura, thank you,” he finally said with his face still hidden in his hands. “I’m fine now.”

“I’m glad. Is this–,” she doubted her next words, insecurity creeping in her tone. “Does this happen to you often?”

“No.”

“Ok. That’s good. But if it does, there are ways to help–”

“No.”

“That’s fine. Panic attacks are a very common symptom of–,” she shook her head, letting the words die. “Can you look at me, Sasuke? Take a deep breath.”

Don’t use your doctor's voice on me.

I hate it.

He raised his head, staring at her for the first time. Her eyes were too close and too green.

The tightness in his chest loosened by a fraction. “I don’t need a diagnosis.”

“I know,” Sakura said quietly, though the set of her mouth betrayed the part of her that couldn’t stop seeing fractures she was trained to mend. “But I still worry.”

“You shouldn’t be here,” he muttered. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Sakura wince.

He always said the wrong thing.

Sakura tucked a strand of hair behind her ear, then hesitated. “Naruto wanted to tell you earlier… about the compound. About the council’s decision. But he thought maybe…” She trailed off, shaking her head. “Maybe you wouldn’t care anymore. He’s really sorry. And so am I.”

“You didn’t know.”

“It doesn’t matter.”

The silence between them stretched long and wide and heavy. Her knee was still brushing his, grounding him more than he wanted to admit.

Finally, Sakura drew in a deep breath. “If you fight them on this, you won’t be alone. I’ll stand with you.”

He turned to her fully then, eyes narrowing, searching. For pity. For anything that would let him pull away. But all he found was the same stubborn fire that he had once reached for at his lowest, the same fire that had kept her alive through everything.

“Besides, I have my own reasons for fucking over the council.”

The Academy entrance exam. He hadn’t forgotten. 

Sakura was the first to shift, palms pressing against the cold stone as she rose. Dust clung to the fabric of her white coat, and she brushed it away absently, as her gaze flicked back to him. Sasuke followed more slowly, unfolding himself from the wall as though the weight of it still clung to his shoulders. His movements were measured and stiff, every line of his body betraying the exhaustion he refused to voice.

“I should go…” Sasuke’s words faltered, dissolving into the night air. For a heartbeat he stood suspended between leaving and admitting he had nowhere to leave for. He was not going to step back in that hotel room tonight. Or ever. “Is there still that old inn in Konoha? The one run by the elderly couple with the cat that always escaped?”

Sakura’s lips curved into a faint, wistful smile, the kind reserved for memories of better times, when their only worry was completing the next D-rank mission and complaining about it.  “No. They closed years ago. Like you said, they were already old back then. One of them passed away.” 

A pity. They were very kind.

Sasuke’s jaw tensed, the lines of his face hardening as he looked away, out toward the darkened streets of Konoha that no longer felt like his. “Any other place,” he asked, his tone sharp with the effort of control, “that isn’t owned by the asshole trying to buy my family’s home?”

Sakura bit her lip, hesitation flickering across her face before she admitted, “No. They have a bit of a…monopoly…at the moment. All the former inns are owned by the Lantern Group.” Her gaze lingered on him for a beat longer than necessary, then softened. “But… you can crash at my place tonight, if you want. I have a spare bedroom.”

Sasuke shook his head almost immediately, dark hair shifting across his face as if the motion itself were a shield. “I don’t want to intrude.”

“It’s not intruding if I’m the one offering.” There was a quiet firmness in her tone, the same one she used when she didn’t intend to take no for an answer. Her lips curved slightly, a flicker of warmth cutting through the tension between them. “In fact, you can stay until Naruto finds that apartment for you. I’m sure you’ll make a decent roommate–” she added with a tiny smirk, “--so long as you remember to lower the toilet lid.”

The decision was very simple and not at all. Sakura extended her kindness unconditionally, arms completely open, to whoever needed it. She confused him. From her professional, almost distant, act to shoving open the doors to her house to the man who had left her, broken her heart and tried to kill her. 

He didn’t want to take advantage of that kindness ever again. It wasn’t her job to worry about him.

“Sasuke? What do you say?”

He had lost himself in his thoughts again. Sakura looked at him expectantly. Her fingers were playing with one of the buttons of her coat. 

He thought about camping out in the woods, like he had done so many times before. Most times, actually. He was so tired. 

The image of cold earth and restless nights beneath the trees pressed against his mind, familiar as breathing. It was what he deserved, wasn’t it? To endure, to be uncomfortable, to keep himself apart from the warmth he had long forfeited. And yet the thought of it tonight – after the council, after the compound – dragged at him like chains.

“I can make dinner, too.” She paused. “Or order it, at least. I’m sure you’re hungry.”

He hadn’t eaten all day.

Sakura’s gaze didn’t waver. She wasn’t pleading, but there was a steadiness there, a stubborn patience that unsettled him more than any words might have. Her hand stilled at the button, fingers curling loosely, waiting.

“I’ll stay,” he said at last, the words coming out quieter than he intended. His eyes dropped away from hers, fixed instead on the cracked stones at their feet. “Just for tonight.”

Sakura’s shoulders softened, the faintest breath of relief escaping her before she caught it. 

“Good,” she said. “Come on, then. Let’s get out of the cold.”

When she started walking, Sasuke followed. The soft click of her sandals against the ground led them out of the ruins.

Sakura’s apartment was perched on the top floor of a narrow building tucked between two newer constructions. The moment she pushed open the door, the scent of earth and greenery enveloped him. Every available surface seemed alive with plants – potted ferns trailing from shelves, succulents lining the windowsills, a hanging vine spilling lazily over the edge of a bookcase. 

“Ino’s fault,” Sakura muttered with a faint smile as she set her keys down when she noticed him looking. “I try to keep them alive as best as I can, but I’ve had to throw more in the trash than I care to admit.”

The space itself was small but warm, every corner touched by her presence. The walls were lined with books, their spines unevenly stacked and well-worn, medicine texts pressed against novels, scrolls, and the occasional photo frame – a mirror to her office bookshelf. A narrow kitchen opened into the living room, its counters neat but lived-in, a kettle resting on the stove as if it had just been used. The windows were wide, letting the glow of the village seep in, and beyond them an outside terrace stretched across the roof, dotted with more plants and a small wooden table.

It was a space that felt open yet protective, practical yet softened by care: green and warm and unpretentious. Very Sakura.

It flickered across his mind whether Sakura’s non-husband lived here too. His eyes scanned the room with a practiced sharpness, searching for signs: an extra pair of shoes by the door, a coat draped carelessly over the chair, a man’s presence stamped somewhere among the warmth of her things. But there was nothing. No trace of anyone but her. Thankfully.

He didn’t know what he would do if he had found the man waiting for them at the dinner table, waiting with polite smiles and hollow condolences and judging him for being a broken man intruding where he didn’t belong.

Sakura was already moving through the apartment, slipping out of her coat and draping it neatly over the back of a chair before heading to the kitchen. “Make yourself comfortable,” she said, as though that were something he knew how to do. She opened a cupboard, the faint clink of dishes punctuating the quiet. “Tea? Food? Or do you just want to go straight to sleep?”

Sasuke lingered near the doorway, hands buried in his pockets, his gaze wandering over the space again. Cozy. Green. Alive. 

Everything his own home would never be again.

After a long moment, he nodded and shrugged off his cloak and set it next to hers, pulling off his shoes and leaving them by the door.

“Do you want to have dinner on the terrace?” Sakura asked.

He nodded again and she gave a faint smile. “I have some rice and miso soup leftovers. Nothing fancy. But we can order something else if you want to.”

He shook his head, pushing down the last of his hesitation, and walked toward the door that led outside. The moment he stepped onto the terrace, a soft breeze curled around him, carrying the cool scent of night air mixed with the faint warmth of the apartment behind him.

From this height, Konoha stretched out like a quiet, slumbering sea of roofs. The soft glow of scattered lights traced the contours of streets and alleyways, flickering like fireflies over the tiled rooftops. Smoke curled lazily from a few chimneys, rising into the dark sky, while the distant hum of the village spoke of a city at rest. Somewhere below, the houses were dark, families sleeping, unaware of the world pressing in beyond their walls. Standing there, Sasuke felt the strange intimacy of distance: the village alive with life, everyone beneath him safe in their slumber, while he lingered at the edge of it, watching over the world he had tried to leave behind.

After a while, Sakura carried a tray out to the terrace. The soft glow of lanterns strung along turned her hair more gold than pink. She set the tray on the small wooden table, revealing two steaming bowls of simple warm food – rice with simmered vegetables, miso soup.

“Sit,” Sakura said softly, gesturing to the chair across from her. He lowered himself onto the chair. 

Sakura took her own seat, tucking her legs under the table, and for a long moment neither of them spoke. The faint rustle of leaves, the hum of distant village life, the gentle clink of chopsticks against bowls filled the silence, making it almost comforting.

“Do you want to talk about it?” She asked, not taking her eyes off her bowl. She was slurping in rapidly and he got the impression he wasn't the only one that hadn't eaten today.

“What would you do with it?”

He ate his own food slowly, savoring each bite. It was more familiar than good, more warm than great. 

She looked up, brows furrowed.

“I’m not going to turn it into a hotel. But it can't stand like that forever. What would you do with it?”

She pursed her lips, taking a long pause to think, turning her head to the side.

Sasuke took the moment to inspect her while she was distracted. Her white coat had been discarded and she was wearing simple, comfortable clothes. Her green sweater made her hair and eyes stand out even more than usual. 

His eyes roamed her face, noting a line of freckles adorning her nose, slightly red from the cool air. With a start, he noticed another number of them in her neck, right below her ears.

The white sterile light of the lab had washed them out. Here, in the golden glow of the lanterns, they stood against her skin like constellations in the night sky.

“I can't imagine what it's like. I don't know,” she finally said with a clear voice. She turned to face him. “I guess I would try to make something good out of something bad. Honor the place by using it to help others.”

That was the selfless thing to do. What a better person would choose. 

It was the most Sakura answer ever. 

He wasn't sure he had it in him to not be selfish about this.

“Here, this is your room. There are extra blankets in the closet. The bathroom is at the end of the hall.”

She opened the door to a small, sparsely decorated bedroom. It was clear she didn't spend much time here.

It had the essentials: a bed, two nightstands, a wardrobe and a dresser. Mismatching pieces in different woodtones, as if she had gone through a list of bedroom furniture ticking off items as fast as possible, sparing no thoughts to clashing colours. 

It was impersonal and functional. Perfect for him. 

“Thank you.”

“I have some pajamas if you want to change but I'm not sure they'll fit–”

“No need.” He didn't want to think about why she had man's clothes in her house. He was not going to wear her boyfriend's spares. 

“Well, that's all then. My room is next door. If you need anything.” He knew. There was only one other door in the hallway that wasn't his or the bathroom. “Goodnight, Sasuke.” She smiled brightly and his heart thumped loudly. 

“Goodnight, Sakura.”

The bed was warm and the pillow soft. Alone in the room, he caught a whiff of a smell he hadn't noticed before, overwhelmed by the plants and the food. 

Vanilla.

He wasn't used to sleeping well but he didn't sleep badly either. He had trained himself to feel rested even when all he did was close his eyes and pretend.

He didn't pretend tonight. The exhaustion of the day caught up to him and he fell asleep enveloped in the familiar aroma.

Morning came too quickly. Light entered unrelenting through the window when he opened his eyes. He rubbed them, confused at his surroundings for a millisecond before remembering the night before.

Right. So much for maintaining distance. He was so weak.

Sasuke got up from the bed, wearing the simple black pants he used as emergency pajamas, keeping them on a scroll with more extra clothing. One never knew when you needed it, especially when your job included camping in the woods and travelling alien dimensions.

He had to take a piss.

He did indeed remember to lower the lid afterwards.

He was walking to the kitchen, thinking Sakura had already gone to work when her bedroom door opened.

She startled, frozen on the doorway. Her green eyes became round and a soft blush adorned her cheeks. 

Sasuke noticed he was shirtless in the middle of her hallway, his hair a complete mess, and barefoot.

“Eehh–,” she coughed, “Good morning. I–mmm–I’ll make breakfast.”

He was making her uncomfortable.

Sakura fiddled with the sleeve of her robe, clearly flustered, before forcing herself to step aside and head for the kitchen.

He nodded, retreating back into his room to find a shirt. By the time he returned, the smell of cooking filled the apartment, and Sakura was at the stove, back turned, her voice steady again when she greeted him:

“Breakfast is the one meal I’m good at. Don't worry, I won't poison you.”

When he sat at the dinner table, two coffees lay on it. One was black. The other looked as sweet as the one they served at the hotel breakfast. 

Breakfast was a pair of toasts and eggs. And jam, just for her. She seemed apologetic. “I also have this.” She pulled out a cookie package from one of the kitchen drawers. 

Sasuke read the label.

Chocolate milk. Sweet energy for the day.

“I thought I had more. I need to go grocery shopping.” She sighed and took a seat, letting the package drop between them. Sasuke looked offended at the monstrosity people called food.

“I let myself sleep in today. I didn't want to tell you yesterday but I got the infrared results back.” She took a bite of her toast and chewed slowly.

Meanwhile, he took a sip of the black coffee, listening intently. He tried the omelette next. It was dry. But he was not going to complain, not when she had cooked for him. And the coffee was actually good.

She finished swallowing. “I can't make out the symbols exactly but there are faint traces of two circles with something in them.”

She got up to grab a folder he hadn't noticed the day before, laying on the side table next to the sofa.

“Here, take a look.” She handed him the folder as he left his chopsticks on the table to take it.

The image showed exactly what she described: faded lines of two circles clearly visible. And more lines inside them, these ones faint enough that it was impossible to make them out. The inside drawing could be anything. The only thing clear was that they were encased in a circle.

“It's very similar to what I found in that throne room in the castle. I bet it's two of those symbols.”

“Kaguya's and our mystery ex? Number five?”

“Maybe. Is it safe to try a seal without absolute certainty we’re right?”

Sakura tilted her head. “I’m not sure. Probably not, but we have to try.”

Once breakfast was finished, Sasuke washed the dishes as Sakura took a shower. She had wanted to do it herself but Sasuke refused, stating it was her house and he would contribute somehow. Sakura answered that he had one hand.

He hopped into the shower next, nearly hitting his head in the shower head, lowered for what he assumed was a comfortable height for Sakura.

Crouching awkwardly, he washed himself with lemon scent soap as he inspected the rest of the bottles. He found it. Hair shampoo. 

There it was. The unidentified fruit smell. Peach and coconut.

As they made their way to the lab, walking leisurely around Konoha, Sakura changed topics from their safe conversation about scrolls and aliens to a more personal one. 

Some people looked at them weirdly when they passed. Sakura didn't notice. Or maybe she was too polite to say anything.

“Will you stay tonight, too?” she asked, putting a strand of hair behind her ear. “Naruto said it would be a couple of days before he had an apartment ready for you. Or do you want to go somewhere else?”

He should say no. He really should.

He nodded.

“I’ll go see him this afternoon. And I’ll pass by the hotel to get my things.”

He had given them enough money. He almost regretted not checking out yesterday. He had already paid for last night.

“I could do that for you.”

Absolutely not. He was not going to turn her into a merchant woman for him. It was enough that she was letting him stay at her apartment. 

“It’s ok. I’ll do it.” His tone left her no argument.

He didn't want to but it was what he had to do. It would make him angry. It would sour his mood. But not anymore than the visit to the council already had.

“Alright. Just don't scare the receptionists to death. They’re just poor employees…” Her attempt at humor landed flat, her own laugh dying quickly. She smiled awkwardly. Somehow, that made it more charming. 

“I’ll try,” he conceded and her smile turned real.

Chapter Text

Naruto confirmed it that afternoon. 

He had a new apartment. But he couldn't move until Friday. Two days left. He had signed the contract, paperwork already done. He hadn't even seen the place. 

Naruto’s sparse explanations had been sufficient. It had a kitchen. It had a bathroom, a bedroom, a living room. It came fully furnished.

Enough. Sasuke didn't need anything more.

He couldn't care less if it was fancy or pretty or homey. As long as it had four walls, a roof, and appliances that worked, it was enough. He had spent half his life in places that were never meant for human comfort; anything above a cave or a tent felt excessive.

After the conversation with Naruto, Sasuke went to the Lantern Hotel to pick up his things.

The lobby was quiet when he stepped inside, the faint smell of polished wood and cleaning products clinging to the air. Sakura's worries were for naught. The receptionist didn't get scared. 

He wasn't there.

The desk stood empty, the neat stack of registration forms untouched and a bell sitting on the counter. Sasuke clicked his tongue in annoyance. That meant he’d have to come back later or wait until he showed up so he could finally check out. 

Meanwhile, he went upstairs to his room on the third floor. 

He gathered his things onto the bed in a neat pile. Weapons first. He laid them out and counted, checking with automatic precision before he sealed them into a scroll. Then the rest: his spare cloak, a handful of shirts, black pants folded with the same military economy. He opened the small satchel he always kept sealed away, an old companion from years of wandering, and packed the clothing inside. It took him less than ten minutes.

Sasuke was a simple man.

When he came back down to the reception, satchel hanging from his shoulder, the key to the room in his hand, the desk was no longer empty.

The boy from his first day stood there again. Sasuke remembered him well: the one who had sweated through his collar, voice cracking as he called for his supervisors, sneaking nervous glances as if he expected him to attack at any moment.

Sasuke preferred the woman who usually did this shift, the one who had given him the council letter. She treated him with a professionalism the boy lacked. 

This one, though. The boy looked up, and Sasuke watched the color drain from his face in real time, his features rearranging into a stiff, nervous smile that was closer to a grimace. Sasuke approached the desk without slowing down.

“I want to terminate my stay here.”

He set the key on the counter. The metal made a clicking sound against the wood.

“Sure, uh, sir. Eehh–has there been a problem? Anything to report?”

The boy’s voice trembled around the edges of the syllables.The fluorescent light above hummed, painting the receptionist’s cheeks the same pallid tone as the hotel walls. Sasuke raised his eyebrows, annoyed to hell. The woman wouldn't have asked him that.

Yes, there was a problem. The problem was they were going to buy his family compound with the family's money he was giving them. The fucking circle of economics. It was obscene in its neatness. A serpent devouring its own tail.

“No. Just check me out.”

The only thing Sasuke wanted right now was to go to the training grounds and punch the living fuck out of some dummies.

But fists alone wouldn’t cut it. What he really craved was the feel of Kusanagi in his hand – the weight of the blade balanced perfectly against his palm, the whisper of steel sliding free from its sheath, sharp enough to carve through stone like paper. He wanted to lose himself in the rhythm: the clean arc of a slash, the steady breath that followed each strike. 

He pictured wooden posts splintering under the edge. He replaced the posts with the members of the council. And then with the unknown, nebulous figure of Tsukamoto Masa, CEO of the Lantern Group.

The frustration of the day was getting to him. Sasuke had spent the entire morning in the lab trying to determine which two symbols would unlock the manuscript. 

But not just which symbols, but also in what order, and whether a wrong attempt would simply fizzle out or make the entire place blow up. Hours of silence, parchment spread across the table, ink stains smudging his fingertips, and still he had nothing solid to show for it.

Sakura’s calculations offered little comfort. By her own admission, she was only sixty percent sure the attempt wouldn’t kill them all if the combination proved to be incorrect.

Sasuke’s patience was fraying. He wanted to move forward, to test the pair that made the most sense: the symbols etched in the throne room, the ones tied to Kaguya and her murderous ex. Risky, yes. But clearer than running in circles while the manuscript mocked them with silence. They had no other leads, no other clues to follow.

The process itself was meticulous. One symbol had to be painted in yomogi oil and the other with the strange combination of ingredients Sakura had concocted. The Prussian blue paint whatever thing with gum. Sakura had assured him it would work, but she wouldn’t mix it until they decided to make an attempt. Currently, it was still an orange powder. He trusted whatever magic she performed would turn it blue.

Two strokes, two choices. 

But which was which? And in what order should they draw them? 

They were at an impasse in the investigation. They had no idea what to do or even what trail to follow. The frustration had been so high Sakura had even proposed to leave early, sleep it off, and come back tomorrow with new ideas. 

If Sakura was asking for a break, they were in a tough spot. 

The training grounds were empty when he arrived. He carried the satchel with his things with him because he really couldn't wait any longer. His patience had run out at the hotel. He tossed it aside carelessly, the dull thud of it hitting the ground punctuated by the softer fall of his cloak.

Then he reached for Kusanagi. He had sealed the sword because he really didn’t need any more stares while walking down Konoha streets. Sasuke rolled his shoulders once, grounding his stance. Training was a language his body understood better than any other one and he proceeded to make the visions he had had at the hotel a reality.

Not long after, Boruto showed up. He had almost forgotten that he had agreed to be his master. 

He really didn't have any desire to spend the rest of the afternoon teaching the brat. Nevertheless, he had given his word. And that was the only thing of him worth of value. 

Soon after, the sound of a thousand birds chirping filled the forest. He couldn't hear anything else other than the roaring electricity in his hand, not even Boruto’s gasps.

In one swift motion, he thrust downward.

The chidori split the waterfall cleanly, carving a path straight through its heart. Sheets of water lifted and hovered, suspended midair as though the world itself had stopped to watch. For a heartbeat there was nothing: no sound, no movement, just the blinding clarity of stillness.

Then gravity reclaimed its hold. The water crashed back down in a violent rush, sending spray scattering in every direction.

Boruto clapped, wide-eyed and grinning, his enthusiasm breaking through the thunder of the falls.

Sasuke let the chidori fade from his hand, the last threads of lightning crawling up his fingers before disappearing into the silence that followed.

“Chidori,” he explained as faint wisps of smoke curled from his fingertips., “it's an efficient, clean and fast killing technique. Once you have set the course it's not possible to deviate from it.” He turned his hand slightly, letting the lingering static snap against his skin. “That makes it dangerous.”

Boruto’s eyes lit up, his body leaning forward despite the mist still rising from the waterfall. “Will you teach me?”

Sasuke met his gaze, expression unreadable. For a long moment, he let the boy’s eagerness hang in the air before cutting it down. “It’s not possible to learn the Chidori without a Sharingan.”

Boruto’s shoulders slumped, his lips twisting into a pout as his earlier fire drained away.

“Then why the hell are you showing it to me?,” he demanded to know.

“Last time you asked me why you had to learn shurikenjutsu,” he reminded him. “I demonstrated that to be a good shinobi you have to know a little bit of everything. That I could do Naruto’s techniques too.”

Boruto’s fists clenched at his sides, torn between sulking and listening, the spray of the falls dampening his hair as silence stretched between them.

“Today you will learn that what I told you last time was bullshit.”

He accompanied his words by jumping back to the shore, where Boruto stood with a confused look on his face.

“Naruto can not do the Chidori. And I can not do a Rasengan.” Sasuke’s lips pressed into a thin line. He didn’t like admitting he couldn’t do something, even if it was true. He exhaled slowly. “But you can.”

Boruto’s eyebrows twitched. 

A smirk, almost imperceptible, tugged at the corner of his mouth. Sasuke stepped forward, fixing his eyes on the boy. “Show me.”

And Boruto did.

One after another, he demonstrated every Rasengan technique he knew, each attempt more flamboyant than the last.

First came the basic Rasengan, spinning steadily in his palm, held with careful focus, the chakra humming like a contained storm. Then came the variations: the tiny, precise Rasengan he could launch with a flick of his wrist. And the most impressive of them all, the one that had caught his attention at the battle against Momoshiki: the Vanishing Rasengan. 

Boruto’s fingers traced the air as he shaped the chakra, the sphere spinning so fast it seemed almost invisible. He launched it toward an empty space with a flick of his wrist, and the technique did exactly what its name promised: it disappeared mid-flight, leaving no visible trace, only the faintest distortion in the air, like heat rising over asphalt in summer. Then, in an instant, it reappeared at the target, slamming into a training dummy with a muted boom.

Sasuke’s single eye narrowed, analyzing the movement, the chakra’s flow, the timing of its disappearance and reappearance. He could see the innovation, the clever manipulation of chakra to bend perception itself: a technique born not from raw power, but from ingenuity and keen observation.

Boruto beamed at the result, chest heaving, clearly proud of what he had mastered. The Vanishing Rasengan was flashy, dangerous and brilliant.

When all the trees around them were decorated with swirls, they decided it was time to go home. 

“You’re staying with Aunt Sakura until you move into an apartment, right?” Boruto asked, skipping ahead slightly, his voice carrying easily in the quiet of the forest clearing.

Sasuke glanced at him from the corner of his eye, his expression unreadable. “Where did you learn that?”

“Dad had lunch with us today at home,” Boruto said, shrugging, a grin tugging at his lips. “For the first time in I don’t know how long.”

Sasuke almost smiled. 

“I am,” Sasuke confirmed shortly, keeping his tone flat, though he allowed a small nod in acknowledgment.

“That's great,” Boruto said, his eyes lighting up. “Aunt Sakura is the best! I keep forgetting you guys were teammates. And I see your teammate photo every single day. My father keeps it in the living room.”

Sasuke’s jaw shifted, a faint huff escaping him. “Hn.”

Sakura had lent him the keys that morning, and it was these that he used to open the door when he finally arrived at the complex. The metal turned smoothly in the lock, a faint click echoing through the quiet hallway. He climbed the stairs slowly, stopping to observe the details that he hadn't noticed the night before and this morning, accompanied as he was by Sakura. 

The building was old. Renovations had clearly been attempted here and there, but the contrast was jarring: some areas gleamed with fresh paint and polished floors, while others sagged under peeling wallpaper and cracked tiles.

Sakura's apartment was on the top floor and along the way Sasuke could see that she was the only one in the entire building who had the entire landing filled with plants. 

Pots of all sizes lined the corridor, trailing vines spilling over the edges, leaves brushing against the wall.. At first glance, it might have seemed decorative, but closer inspection revealed their true purpose: they weren’t merely ornamental. They were all common enough Sasuke had no problem identifying most of them.

Chamomile and mint grew in neat clay pots, their small leaves exuding faint, soothing aromas that mingled with the earthy scent of the soil. Lavender and rosemary stood taller, stalks stiff but vibrant, filling the air with a subtle, calming fragrance. Tiny potted flowers – calendula, marigold, and elderflower – peeked out from between the greenery, their petals almost glowing in the soft light, a quiet testimony to Sakura’s patience and care.

He opened the door and stepped into the apartment. His eyes immediately fell to the floor. Sakura’s sandals were gone. She was still working. 

He set his own shoes aside, along with his cloak, and, just as he had done on the stairs, he took advantage of her absence to examine the apartment in detail. He moved slowly, methodically, letting his gaze linger over every surface before stepping into the kitchen.

The first thing that caught his attention was the large bowl on the counter. It had been empty before, but now it brimmed with a heap of ripe, red tomatoes, their glossy skins catching the light from the window. He picked one and took a bite.

The rest of the countertop was similarly taken over by an array of groceries and ingredients. Curious, he opened the refrigerator. It was stocked to the brim: vegetables, fruits, jars and containers, everything organized in meticulous order. He could have sworn it hadn’t looked this full the night before.

Sakura had gone shopping. And she had included his favourite food on the list.

The living room adjacent to the kitchen was simple but inviting. A large sofa dominated the space, accompanied by a small coffee table, while a high-backed armchair and an entire wall’s worth of shelving had caught his attention the night before. Opposite the sofa sat a modest television, its screen dark and reflective in the afternoon light.

Sakura was chaotic and eclectic in her tastes, yet remarkably clean. Every surface displayed a collection of trinkets, decorations, small souvenirs and gifts. Postcards peeked out from between books, photographs rested in carefully chosen frames, and potted plants added splashes of green in every corner. And yet, not a speck of dust marred the surfaces. Not a single empty cup was left abandoned on the coffee table. Everything had a place, just like in her office, just like in the lab.

In that, she resembled him. But there was a difference. It was far easier to maintain order when you owned very little. What Sakura had accomplished, order amidst abundance, carried far more merit.

He picked up the satchel containing his few belongings, which he had left propped against the entrance, and carried it to his temporary bedroom. He didn’t bother opening it or arranging anything. There was no point. He would be leaving again in two days.

He decided he would take a shower (his second of the day) and afterwards open the refrigerator to figure out what to cook for dinner. For the first time in years, he would prepare a meal for someone other than himself, in a real kitchen, in a real home. It was the least he could do to repay Sakura for letting him stay under her roof.

He had just gotten halfway through chopping onions when the doorbell rang. At first, he assumed it was Sakura – that she had pressed the button merely to announce her arrival, ready to open the door a moment later.

But the bell rang again.

Sasuke set the knife down on the counter, wiped his hand absently on the towel hanging nearby, and made his way towards the entrance.

When he slid the door open, he found not Sakura but a man standing there. Sakura’s supposed boyfriend.

The expression on the stranger’s face told Sasuke everything he needed to know: the man was just as startled, just as confused and uncomfortable, as he was.

“Hi.” The man shifted on the threshold, forcing a polite smile that didn’t reach his eyes. “Eh… I don’t think we’ve met. I’m Kento. You must be Sasuke, Sakura’s old teammate, right?”

“Hn.”

Kento’s smile faltered, but he pressed on, scratching the back of his neck. “I’m, uh… Sakura’s–mmm–partner. Is she here? I thought she’d be home from work by now.”

“No. She’s not.”

“Ah.” His gaze flicked past Sasuke into the apartment, lingering a second too long on the shoes by the door, the faint smell of food drifting from the kitchen. “Well, in that case, I feel like I have to ask… what exactly are you doing here?”

“I’m making dinner.”

“Yeah,” Kento said quickly, his voice tightening as he crossed his arms. “I meant–why are you in my girlfriend’s apartment without my girlfriend?”

The word stung.

“She gave me the keys,” Sasuke replied flatly, his dark eyes narrowing slightly. “Didn’t she give them to you, too?” He let his lips curl in a mocking smile.

“I–” Kento’s composure cracked, his words tripping over themselves. “Look, man, I don’t know what’s going on here, but… I’ll just call her. Yeah. I’ll call her. It was… nice meeting you, Sasuke.”

Sasuke shut the door in his face.

On the other side, the man, who until that moment had carried himself with the stiff politeness of someone desperately trying to stay civil in the presence of a stranger, finally broke.The muffled sound reached Sasuke easily through the wood:

“Shit. Shit. Shit, shit, shit. Shit.”

Sasuke stood there for a moment, listening. A quiet, humorless chuckle slipped past his lips before he could stop it. It wasn’t often he found himself entertained these days, but there was something undeniably satisfying about watching the man’s mask of civility collapse so quickly. It shouldn’t have made him smile, but it did. 

The knot in his stomach, the one that had coiled tight the instant he’d seen the man standing there through the peephole, slowly unraveled. Dissolved, like a phantom wound he hadn’t realized he’d been carrying until it vanished.

When Sakura came home an hour later, dinner was already waiting on the table. On it sat a pot of stew, still bubbling faintly, thick with tender cuts of meat and vegetables chopped into neat, uniform pieces. Next to it, a simple plate of tomatoes, glossy and red, sliced and seasoned with nothing more than salt and a drizzle of oil, looked fresh enough to have been picked minutes ago. Those were for him. He remembered she didn’t particularly like tomatoes. 

A large bowl of perfectly steamed rice stood at the center and several other small dishes surrounded it. He had set the table for two.

“Sasuke, thank you. You really didn’t have to.” She flushed, her hand slipping behind her head in that old, nervous habit she’d never quite broken. Her eyes flicked to the table, lingering on the neat arrangement of dishes; so carefully prepared it almost felt out of place in her chaotic apartment.

“It’s no problem. You bought the food. It would’ve been a waste.”

“Because I’m a terrible cook,” she teased, lips quivering. She leaned lightly against the back of a chair, watching him with a glint of mischief. “I see you still remember how to give the best compliments.”

“I–no.” He shook his head sharply, gaze dropping to the floor as though the grain of the wood was suddenly fascinating. “I meant I had the time and you didn’t.”

Sakura laughed softly, brushing a loose strand of hair behind her ear. She picked up one of the bowls, turning it absently in her hands. “It’s fine, you can say it. I bought it for you anyway. I live on takeout most of the time.”

Despite the teasing words, she sat at the table without bothering to change out of her work clothes. Her lab coat hung loose over her shoulders, sleeves pushed up carelessly, the faint smell of antiseptic clinging to her like a second skin. She picked up her chopsticks with the kind of hunger that meant she had had a long shift and skipped meals.

The first bite seemed to catch her off guard. She chewed slowly, then faster, and a small sound of appreciation escaped her before she could swallow. Without saying much more, Sakura dug in: rice, stew, tempura… She even tried a tomato, her face grimacing slightly. 

It was okay. It meant there were more for him.

Sasuke would have liked to say that the rest of his stay in Sakura’s apartment went smoothly.

Unfortunately it didn’t. And it had nothing to do with him and a lot to do with Kento again.

The next day, Sasuke had been waiting on the sofa, completely unbothered, and waiting for the optimal time to start dinner, so when Sakura came home, she had a warm plate on the table for the second night in a row.

But she arrived earlier than expected, a whirlwind of pink hair and hurried footsteps, tossing her bag onto the floor and kicking off her shoes. She spared him only a single glance before moving on.

“I’ll dine out tonight with Kento,” she said briskly, sliding past him. Her voice carried the faint edge of an apology. “He–uh–told me you met yesterday. I hope you haven’t already made anything. If you have, I’ll eat the leftovers tomorrow.”

A pause. She glanced back at him, hand hesitating on the doorframe. “I mean–if you don’t mind. You don’t have to–”

And just like that, his last evening with Sakura, his last dinner, was gone. He hadn’t realized how much he had been holding onto it, how much he had been looking forward to this small fragment of normalcy. These two days had been a fragile illusion, a glimpse of what could have been, a life where he hadn’t left, where he hadn’t chosen to leave. 

The thought was sour. Because even as it sank in that it was ending, that he would soon be alone again, the in-between had been better than anything he had dared to imagine. 

But Sakura emerged from the shower dressed in a flowing summer dress, soft fabric catching the light as it swayed with her movements. The color – a pale, warm shade that complemented the pink of her hair – looked luminous against her skin. Her hair was still slightly damp at the ends, framing her face delicately, and a hint of makeup accentuated her features. She looked effortlessly radiant, as though she had stepped out of a quiet, sunlit day rather than the rush of a work-filled afternoon.

And reality had come back to him. He had chosen his own path long ago. And maybe she didn't have the life that he had envisioned. But she had one. 

One that didn't include him.

She was getting ready for a date. 

Sasuke felt a familiar twist in his chest, sharp and bittersweet, but beneath it there was also a quiet respect. She was living, fully and fiercely, without waiting for him.

Wasn’t that what he had wanted?

He tried to turn his thoughts elsewhere, to the empty, cold and silent apartment waiting for him tomorrow.

He knew what the churning in his stomach was. He had experienced it several times before, a familiar companion when his father had devoted his few praising words to Itachi, when Naruto succeeded by simply existing, when he had encountered people more powerful than him who hadn’t suffered, who hadn’t earned it.

He knew he was jealous. The knowledge was, however, absolutely pointless. He couldn’t do anything about it. He had let her go and had no rights to miss something he had never had. The date she was preparing for, the laughter and warmth she would share with someone else, the ordinary, domestic moments that once might have been theirs together.

He tried to sleep, but found it impossible. He turned over in the unfamiliar bed, facing the ceiling, tracing the cracks in the plaster as if they might offer distraction. He tossed and turned, the sheets twisting around him, and with every shift of his body, the hollow ache in his chest only deepened.

The hours passed slowly. Footsteps never returned to the apartment. He knew what that meant. She hadn’t come back. She isn't coming back tonight.

Whatever. It didn’t matter. If he said it enough times, he could convince himself. Maybe. He had to crush the feeling, repress it, bury it somewhere deep enough, digging became too much work.

He told himself he didn’t have the right to be upset. She was a grown woman. She owed him nothing.

Sasuke got up early the next day. He cleaned the entire space, picked up his sparse belongings and left, leaving a note on the counter.

I got the keys to the apartment. Thank you for letting me stay. 

Chapter Text

The move-in was very simple. Naruto was busy, so it was Shikamaru who handed him the keys with narrowed eyes. He hadn't forgotten Sasuke's outburst in the office earlier that week.

Sasuke respected the man and he could tell the man respected him back. Trust was harder to earn.

He went alone. The apartment was located at an intermediate point between the Hokage Tower and the hospital. It was more convenient for him than Sakura's place, which was located on the other side of the hospital, further away from where Naruto worked. It was a recent development, rebuilt on top of the rubbish left by Pain’s attack on the village.

As such, it had all the modernity and soul-sacking qualities that only white walls, clean lines and extreme lack of details could achieve. It looked more like a hotel than the actual one he had stayed at.

He walked through the apartment slowly, inspecting the space carefully.

The door opened directly to the living-dining-kitchen situation, with just a small closet to the side to leave his shoes and cloak. Not the most traditional setting. 

The kitchen was fairly small and tucked away on a corner. The dining table dominated the space, providing seating for at least six people. Why so big? Sasuke had no clue. This was a one bedroom apartment. Two people at most would live on it at the same time. Squared meter logic meant the money would have been better invested in a proper sofa.

The bedroom was just as tiny and simple as the rest. The bathroom was new and white and clean. It was the kind of place even the most creative person would have problems making their own, the most practical and impersonal of spaces.

It was the perfect opposite to Sakura's earthy and cozy apartment. 

He unpacked the satchel, putting a few clothes in the bedroom closet. Three shirts, three t-shirts, two vests, two trousers. His underwear went in a drawer. In another, he put his socks.

He was a testament to efficiency. If packing had taken him ten minutes, unpacking only took him five.

He went to the kitchen and opened a cupboard. A single glass, plate and pan stared at him. He closed it.

He tested the tap next. It worked.

The fridge, however, wasn't. He looked around, trying to find the reason. Eventually, he found it. The cable was unplugged. He connected back to the electricity and immediately a soft humming invaded the apartment.

He opened the fridge. Completely empty. 

Sasuke made a mental note of everything he needed to buy. And then one of everything he wanted to buy that wasn't related to his immediate survival. 

He thought about looking for his mum’s recipe book and trying again.

He put his sandals on and left for the store.

He didn't go to the lab that day. For the first time in weeks, they had nothing to investigate. They were still stuck and, until Sakura decided it was safe enough, they wouldn't give the unsealing its first try.

There were many security protocols in the village. Apparently, Sakura had to tell Naruto, who had to notify the Intelligence Department and the Interior Department. There had to be a special medical division on guard just in case they got blown to pieces. And they needed Shikamaru as an overviewer. Naruto even had to alert the old fucks from the council. 

Shikamaru was right. What a drag.

Where were all these safety measures twenty, thirty, fifty years ago? 

Of course, they didn't exist. This was the work of Naruto, Kakashi and everyone of their generation after experiencing war and saying: no thanks, not for me. 

The war left scars and the village built paperwork to hide them. A complicated spider web of different departments (most of them newly formed) with endless middle management, meetings about real stuff, meetings about meetings… It was, in Sasuke's opinion, a direct consequence of something much more simple than a wish for safety: shinobi needed jobs, even in times of peace.

So, when high-level assassination missions were scarce and top level ninja had to start doubling as bodyguards if they wanted a cup of rice on the table, the average, mediocre ones started asking you to sign a confidentiality agreement and to get medical insurance and to comply with security protocols and…

His doorbell rang.

He didn't even know where it was. He had not seen its location on the four (five?) times he had entered the apartment since he had first stepped on it two days ago.

He walked to the door and opened it.

“Sakura…”

He pronounced her name slowly, syllable by syllable, giving himself enough time to process the sight of her in front of him, wearing a simple dress and smiling awkwardly.

She brought her hands up, next to her face, showing him the two plastic bags on them. Shaking them slightly, she offered him an explanation. “I brought you a house warming gift.”

He didn't know that was a thing. Was that a thing? Or was it an excuse to see him? Shit, Sasuke. Of course not. It’s Sakura. Kindness made flesh.

“I hope-mmm-I didn't intrude. Naruto told me where you live and since I won't see you until next Wednesday, I thought…” 

She babbled in, like she always did, lowering the bags back down. Startled, Sasuke realized he had been blocking the door with his body, unmoving, unresponding. 

He moved aside to let her in.

Sakura walked past him and the now familiar scent of peaches and coconut flooded his nostrils. Thank Kami he had seen the shampoo bottle or he would have gone mad trying to find the source.

She spun around the apartment, which was the equivalent of doing a tour considering its modest size, and left the bags on the oversized table.

“I thought you hated hospitals.”

Sasuke raised his eyebrows. “I see I'm not the only one bad at compliments. Usually, it's polite to admire the house you’re visiting, not to insult it.”

Not that he disagreed. Now that she had spoken the words out loud, the thought wouldn’t leave him. The white walls, gray furniture, floors that leached the warmth from his feet…Add a bed with metal rails and a couple of monitors and the place could have been mistaken for one of those rooms in that godforsaken place. Worse. At least the hospital made an effort to feign humanity, dressing themselves up with flowery curtains, bright sofas and chairs that pretended to be comfortable. This apartment didn’t bother with the illusion.

She reddened at his tone and he regretted the edge immediately. It was always like this: a joke landed wrong and the air pinched. Better awkward blush than tears, he thought with unforgiving logic.

“Sooo…you met Kento the other day…” she tried to sound casual, but her voice pitched higher at the end, betraying the nerves she was trying to hide. Her fingers fidgeted with the handles of one of the grocery bags she set down, smoothing the crinkled paper again and again.

Sasuke’s inner thoughts were something along the lines of: ugh.

“He was looking for you.” Sasuke’s reply was flat, but his eyes lingered on her profile, studying her hesitation. He didn’t think he had done anything to make her uncomfortable over this topic. Not externally, at least.

“Yeah, ehmm, he’s my–ehhm–” She stumbled over the word, cheeks warming even more.

“Boyfriend,” he supplied. 

“Yes, that.” She forced a small smile, though it didn’t reach her eyes. A strand of hair slipped loose from behind her ear and she tucked it back too quickly. “I’m sorry if it was uncomfortable, he shouldn’t have–he’s a bit–”

“He didn't do anything.” 

Sasuke had been the asshole that day. Nothing new.

“But the next day, when we went out for dinner, he told me that he had asked you why you were staying with me and being abrasive about it. He says he's sorry.”

Of course he did. Of course, he had to be a good person. The better man. Fucking hell.

Sasuke’s jaw tightened, his hands curling loosely at his sides. He had no answer that wouldn’t betray too much. And when words failed him, he always fell back on the one sound that made up his favourite word.

“Hn.”

“I'm sorry, too. He's a little insecure about–well–you. Given my history and everything, finding you in my house, he didn't assume the worst but he definitely thought it and I’m sorry if he was rude to you.” Sakura continued as if she hadn’t heard him. Her hands kept playing with the plastic bags. The sound of the crinkling plastic was too loud in the apartment.

“Your history?” He maintained his tone flat as he caught her eyes.

“Yes, Sasuke, my history. Come on, the entire village knows I was in love with you for years.” She said plainly, a matter of fact, an objective observation. In the same tone she would say ‘the sky is blue and my hair is pink’.

So, Kento saw him as a threat. If the closest person to Sakura thought there was a possibility, could it be that there actually was one? 

“Ah. That history.”

“Yeah. That history.” She echoed him softly, but her gaze lingered on him a heartbeat too long before she turned away.

It was amazing how easy those words came to her. How freely and unburdened she mouthed them, how she could say I was in love with you without blinking. 

How the verb was in past tense.

“So, was he actually rude? He never is, even when he thinks he is, so I wondered if he had really bothered you–or if he’d just gotten it into his head,” she said, filling the sudden awkward silence that had formed.

Sasuke shook his head. “He did what anyone would have done. It's fine.”

“I'm glad. On the other hand, were you rude, Sasuke? Because he was quite worked up when he told me.”

The memory of his own pettiness that day resurfaced. An apology would hurt his jaw.

“According to most people, I always am.”

“What? That's not true at all! You are so kind, so thoughtful, so–” His heart gave a traitorous thump, so loudly he felt it in his ears. “Not being an extrovert doesn't make someone rude or impolite,” she went on, earnest as ever. “You just talk less, that's fine.”

Fundamentally, he agreed. But the truth lingered like an old bruise that refused to fade away: whenever he did open his mouth, it was rarely to say something kind.

He didn’t know how to respond. Instead, he remembered how to be a decent host. “Do you want tea?”

Sakura perked up, her hands finally leaving the bags. “Yes, thank you.”

He got up, went to the kitchen (three whole steps away) and opened a cupboard. It was a good thing he had bought a second of everything. He took the only two cups and opened a drawer to take the only two spoons.

“Oolong?” he asked her without looking.

“Sure.” Great. It was the only one he had.

He hadn’t expected visitors. When he’d debated whether to keep a spare set of basic cutlery – he usually washed everything immediately after eating, so it wasn’t about that – the deciding factor had been his aversion to hand-drying. Difficult with one hand. Doable, yes, but utterly pointless.

So he had walked straight into the small store beneath his building, selecting another glass, cup, knife, fork, spoon, chopsticks, plate and bowl, and placed them on the counter.

The clerk had stared at the eclectic assortment for a long beat, then looked up at him, only to duck his head again. He had bagged the items hurriedly, as if unsure whether he should speak, or simply hope his client would leave quickly.

He filled the kettle with water, the soft hiss of steam breaking the apartment’s stillness. The tea leaves fell into the pot and he poured the hot water over them, watching the color bloom. When he set the tray before her, the warmth of the cup seeped through his fingers, grounding him. Sakura reached for it, and for a moment their hands brushed.

A flicker of heat ran up his arm, sharp and sudden, leaving him oddly aware of the space between them. She pulled back, a faint flush coloring her cheeks, and he caught the hint of hesitation in her movement.

He gestured towards the chairs at the table. “Sit.”

She hesitated, then lowered herself onto the nearest one, the tray between them. Sasuke took the opposite seat, close enough that the edge of his knee almost touched hers. 

He forced himself to ask. He needed to know.

“How long have you been together?”

He felt the ridiculousness of noticing the precise exact way she folded her hands on the table.

“Officially? A couple of months. Not much. He's a civilian. We met at a book club,” she answered carefully, taking a sip of her cup. She grimaced. “Too hot.”

She set the cup back down. “He's nice. Yeah, he's nice.” She directed her eyes inquisitively at him. “What about you? Don't mind me if I'm too curious, but, is there…someone?”

Yes. 

The thought was too sudden and too loud.

No. 

There couldn't be. 

But oh, how he wanted it to.

“No. No one.”

“Ah. That's good.” She froze for a second. Her hands hovered over her lap, twisting the edge of her sleeve. “Uh, no–I'm not glad you don't have a–that's not what I meant, I just–I meant to say that you soun–ehmmm–happy about your life. Very secure. I wished I was that way.” Her words tumbled out in a rush, eyes darting up to gauge his reaction, then quickly away.

Sasuke remained still, watching her, noticing the careful way she held herself, the quiet steadiness beneath the flustered words, the confidence he had seen at her job, the playfulness at the Team Seven dinner and the tenderness of that night at the Uchiha Compound.. And he found himself wondering how satisfied he truly was with his own life. 

If happiness were a graph, he had spent most of his life digging deep into the negative, a solitary figure in a pit where shadows stretched long and unbroken. Years of struggle, loss, and running had carved the walls of that hole so deeply that he had come to mistake its depth for permanence. Through time, he had clawed his way out, slowly, painstakingly, and at last reached a place of stillness, a precarious equilibrium he had called peace.

But now, sitting here and watching her, he realized the truth with a jolt: this was not the summit. Not a peak crowned with joy or fulfillment. It was ground zero, the flat, quiet plane where one could finally breathe without the weight pressing down. Could the climb still begin, if he dared? Peace had been survival; contentment, perhaps, only the first tentative step towards the life he had yet to claim. 

It was futile. There was only one thing he wanted. And it wasn’t available. Because he had let it go.

I wished I was that way. The last of her words echoed in his head and he frowned. Could it be that she wasn’t as fulfilled as she seemed?

"Aren't you happy?" he asked, a bit hesitant.

"I am, I am. Very satisfied with my job and my life." She played with the rim of the cup, seemingly deep in thought, her finger tracing the ceramic edge in slow, deliberate circles. The steam from the tea had long since dissipated, leaving the liquid lukewarm and forgotten. "But there are certain things that I wished I had done sooner…I'm not too old yet. But time is kicking and I'm not getting any younger and I can't seem to be able to find the right person to–"

“To?”

She looked up at him, and for a moment her professional composure – the same steady confidence he'd seen her wield in the lab, the assured manner she carried in every medical crisis – seemed to crack just slightly. Her voice grew quieter, more vulnerable.

“You know that I've always wanted children. I thought I would have them by now but I guess life is not always how we planned. I've been too busy with my professional life and I've neglected the personal one for so long I don't know how to recompose it back together.”

She set the cup down with a soft clink that seemed too loud in the silence that followed. When she spoke again, her words came slowly, as if she were excavating thoughts she'd kept buried beneath the weight of her daily responsibilities.

"Do you know what it's like to save lives every day, to feel like you're making a real difference in the world, and then come home to no one? To realize that while you've been healing everyone else's families, you haven't built one of your own?" Her laugh was hollow, self-deprecating. "I look at my friends who started families in their early twenties, and now their children are running around, calling them 'mama' and 'papa,' and I think–where was I? In the lab. At the hospital. Always at the hospital."

Sasuke watched her carefully, noting how her hands had stilled completely now, no longer fidgeting with the cup or her sleeve. 

"I love what I do," she continued, her voice gaining strength. "I love that my research might cure a supposedly incurable disease, that my medical work saves lives that would otherwise be lost. But sometimes I wonder if I've been so focused on healing the world that I forgot to build a life worth living in it." She paused, meeting his eyes. "Does that make me selfish? To want both?"

He shook his head. Selfish was not a word he would ever associate to Sakura.

"I tell myself I have time. Thirty-three isn't old. But then I see women in the hospital–patients who waited, who prioritized careers, who thought there would always be more time. Some of them are there because their bodies won't cooperate anymore. Because time ran out." Her voice caught slightly. "And I realize that while I can heal almost everything else, I can't heal the passage of time."

"Sometimes I think about taking a step back, reducing my hours, focusing more on building relationships instead of just maintaining them. But then there's always another breakthrough just within reach, another life to save, another problem to solve. And I tell myself, just one more project. Just one more year. And then one more year becomes five, and five becomes..."

She gestured vaguely at herself, a motion that encompassed all her uncertainty. 

The apartment's clinical whiteness seemed to press in around them, emphasizing the sterility she was describing in her own life. Sasuke found himself thinking of the warmth of her own apartment, the plants and books and lived-in comfort that spoke of someone who had tried to create a home, even if she rarely had time to enjoy it.

"I don't want to wake up at forty-five and realize I've missed my chance entirely. But I also don't want to throw away everything I've worked for just because some biological clock is ticking." Her green eyes found his again, searching. "How do you balance it? How do you choose between the person you are and the person you might become? Why do I feel like I have to choose when other people keep both?"

The silence stretched between them, charged with the weight of her confession. Sasuke found himself studying the way afternoon light filtered through the apartment's sterile windows, casting geometric shadows across her face. She looked smaller somehow, vulnerable in a way that reminded him of the girl who used to watch him from across the training grounds. Except now the longing in her expression wasn't directed at him, but at a future she couldn't quite grasp.

"Kento is…a start," she said finally, her voice barely above a whisper. Her fingers had returned to worrying the edge of her sleeve, a nervous habit he'd noticed time and time again.

He watched her carefully, noting the subtle tension in her jaw, the way her shoulders held themselves just a fraction too high. There was something unfinished in her tone, something that made his pulse quicken despite himself. "Is he the end?"

"Mmm…what?" Her brow furrowed, a small crease of confusion appearing between her eyebrows. Maybe even apprehension. The cup in her hands trembled almost imperceptibly, and she set it down with deliberate care.

"Is he the end?" he repeated, his voice steadier now, though his heart hammered against his ribs with a violence that surprised him. 

She stopped, mid-breath, and her words faltered completely. She tilted her head slightly, as if searching for an answer inside herself, green eyes distant and unfocused. The gesture was so familiar – he'd seen her do it countless times when faced with a particularly complex problem at the lab, and before that, too. When Kakashi had spoken in riddles or overcomplicated a simple explanation, and Sakura was the one in charge of discerning what their Sensei had meant.

With each second of doubt, Sasuke felt something rise in his chest, a fragile hope threatening to take flight – and crash. The quiet apartment seemed to shrink around them, the oversized table suddenly feeling intimate despite its ridiculous proportions. The soft hum of the refrigerator seemed deafening in the stillness.

He could see her pulse fluttering at the base of her throat, quick and unsteady. Could smell that familiar scent of peaches and coconut that had haunted him for weeks. 

"I don't know," she finally admitted, the words barely audible. They fell between them like stones dropped into still water, creating ripples that seemed to expand outward, touching everything.

That something flew. It was dangerous, this feeling. Reckless and consuming and completely beyond his control. 

His eyes narrowed, searching her expression. “Then why are you staying with him?”

She straightened slightly, her professional composure reasserting itself like armor sliding back into place. But he could see the cracks now, the places where her certainty had begun to fray. “You rarely start seeing someone thinking you're going to marry them. These things take time and patience.” Her voice grew stronger as she spoke, as if she were trying to convince herself as much as him. “I need to be a hundred percent sure. No doubts. No what ifs.”

I would have. I would have never dated you without the intention of spending the rest of our lives together. That's why I couldn't do it. It's not fair for you.

He could taste the answer on the inside of his skull: No doubts. No what ifs. The irony was suffocating. He thought of what he could have offered, what he had refused to promise. What he had been too afraid to even attempt. I would have. The sentence wanted to leave his mouth and did not, trapped behind years of conditioning that told him silence was safer than vulnerability, beneath the notion that letting her into that knowledge now would only hurt her further. He had chosen not to do something because to do it half-heartedly would have been worse than nothing at all. That was the truth that had kept him away.

But sitting here now, watching her navigate the same treacherous waters of uncertainty, he wondered if his perfect logic had been nothing more than perfect cowardice dressed up in noble intentions.

Sakura's cup sat empty before her, the dregs of tea long since cooled to room temperature. She stared at it for a moment, as if surprised to find it there, then seemed to shake herself from whatever spell had held her. His gaze drifted to the plastic bags she'd set on the table when she first arrived as he watched her expression shift. Relief, perhaps, at finding something concrete to focus on.

"Oh," she said, her voice deliberately bright, a practiced pivot away from the dangerous territory they'd been navigating. "I almost forgot. Your housewarming gift."

The plastic crinkled loudly in the apartment's stillness, and Sasuke found himself oddly grateful for the sound. It broke the spell that had been weaving itself around them, pulling them back from the precipice they'd been teetering on.

"You didn't need to bring anything," he said, though his voice lacked its usual edge. He watched her hands move with their characteristic medical efficiency, now applied to the simple task of unpacking groceries.

"I know, but..." She pulled out a small potted plant first, setting it gently on the table between them. It was something green and leafy, with small white flowers already beginning to bloom. "I thought this place could use some life in it." She glanced around at the stark white walls, her professional assessment returning. "Something that doesn't require too much attention, but still... grows."

From the second bag came a selection of unusual ingredients: dried saffron threads, black garlic, smoked paprika, a small jar of yuzu kosho. “And these, well, I think you’ll make better use of them than I ever could.”

Here was Sakura in her element: taking care of people, solving problems, making sure everyone around her had what they needed to survive and perhaps even thrive. It was so fundamentally her that Sasuke felt something tight in his chest begin to loosen.

"Water it once a week. Maybe twice if it looks sad. Put it near the window so it gets some light." Her smile was easier now, more natural. "It's practically indestructible."

"Thank you," he said, and meant it. 

Sakura began folding the empty plastic bags with meticulous care, smoothing out each crease before tucking them inside each other. 

“My mother used to say that plants make a house feel alive,” he said quietly. "What's it called?"

"Peace lily," she said, then caught herself and laughed. "Sorry, that's probably too on the nose, isn't it? I didn't choose it for the name, I promise. It really is nearly impossible to kill."

Peace lily. He almost smiled at the irony – or perhaps the appropriateness. Peace had been what he'd found, or thought he'd found. And now here was Sakura, offering him something that would actually grow beyond mere survival, something on its way to blooming.

"I should go," she said, glancing at the window where the afternoon light had begun to fade towards evening. "I have an early shift tomorrow, and you probably have things to do."

He wanted to say no, wanted to ask her to stay longer, to keep talking about plants and practical things and anything that would keep her in his space a little while longer. But that was the dangerous territory again, the place where wanting led to complications neither of them was ready for.

"Of course." He stood as she did, carrying their empty cups to the small kitchen. 

At the door, she paused, her hand on the frame. "Sasuke?"

"Aa?"

"I'm glad you're back." The words were simple, honest, carrying none of the charged tension of their earlier exchange. Just a friend expressing genuine happiness at another friend's return. "And I'm glad you have this place. It'll be good for you, having your own space."

"Thank you. For everything." He gestured vaguely towards the plant, still sitting on the table, but they both knew he meant more than that.

She smiled. That real smile, the one that reached her eyes and reminded him why he'd fallen for her in the first place, and why letting her go had been the right choice even if it had been the hardest one. "Take care of yourself, Sasuke. And the plant."

"I will."