Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Sasuke Uchiha was going insane. Or rather, his teammates were. He couldn’t think of another explanation for their sudden – and incredibly jarring – shift in personality.

As if they hadn’t been bad enough when their team had been assigned: Naruto loud and annoying and at the very bottom of their class, Sakura shy but no less irritating with her childish crush on him. Both of them had just been destined to slow him down. They’d been useless at best, and holding him back from reaching his goals at the worst.

But now?

Sasuke glared at them, leaning against a tree near their usual meeting place. They’d been waiting for Kakashi for an hour now, and so far there’d been no whining about their lazy teacher, no bantering from either of them, and no attempt at a conversation from a blushing Sakura.

There’d been no attempt at a conversation at all. Nothing but oddly gloomy looks, both of his teammates avoiding eye contact with everyone.

“Hey, moron.”

Naruto looked up with a startled look on his face. “Eh?”

“Aren’t you gonna,” Sasuke made a vague hand gesture, “complain about Kakashi-sensei being late?”

“Oh. Yeah. Totally, what a douche.”

Sasuke frowned at the half-hearted attempt. What was wrong with that idiot? “I learned a new technique, you know. I’ll kick your butt easily next time we spar.”

“That’s nice, Sasuke.”

Naruto wasn’t even looking at him.

“Hey, Sakura," Sasuke tried. "Did you notice how p-pretty Ino’s hair looked today?” He nearly choked on the sentence. But there was no way she wouldn’t react to that.

“Oh yeah,” Sakura said, absentmindedly. “Really pretty.”

What. Sasuke scowled. What in the world was going on? Not that he missed Naruto’s weird drive to be better than him – their “rivalry”, whatever – or even worse, Sakura’s crush. But this couldn’t be normal.

He gave up, resigning himself to wait in silence with his sullen teammates. Had something happened to them? Why were they acting so weird, all of a sudden?

His only consolation was that Kakashi shared his confusion. The change in attitude was impossible to miss when at times both of them seemed like completely different people, especially with those weird looks they kept sending them. They nearly looked mournful.

One time after another of the chores jōnin teacher liked to call ‘missions’ to keep them from complaining, Kakashi cornered him to ask if he knew something.

“Did something happen? Between the three of you?”

Sasuke could only shrug. "They just started being weird."

Kakashi had looked into the distance thoughtfully and told Sasuke to come straight to him if he found out more.

It reached a whole new level of crazy when Sasuke had two insane conversations with each of them on the same day.

“Hey, Sasuke!” Naruto said, grinning and more cheerful than he had been in days. “You still spend most of your time brooding, right?”

"... Excuse me."

“Yeah, and like, planning out your revenge and stuff. Is that still a thing?”

Sasuke felt heat pulsing through his body. “It’s none of your business, moron! Don’t talk about things you don’t understand!”

Naruto’s smile fell for a second, quickly enough that Sasuke nearly missed it. “Right. Yeah. Sorry ‘bout that. Just wanted to make sure.”

Naruto wasn’t making any sense! Sasuke stared after him, more than a little perplexed.

Naruto turned around one last time. “Right, uhh… Say, does Sakura seem kind of different to you?”

Sasuke turned around and stalked away.

His next conversation with Sakura was strikingly similar, and no less insane.

“So um, Sasuke. You still think this team is a waste of time, don’t you?”

Sasuke was too busy staring at her to tell her exactly what he was thinking.

“Come on, just answer!”

“I’ve got better things to do than dragging deadweight with me,” slipped from Sasuke’s tongue automatically.

Sakura chuckled, a brittle, hollow sound. “Yeah, that’s what I thought.”

What was it with his team lately? They knew perfectly well how he felt about them.

Sakura had one more thing to add. “Is it just me, or is Naruto a lot less hyperactive lately?”

Sasuke didn't bother to answer her, either.

It was after their next training session that Sakura and Naruto broke their mutual avoidance and unspoken vow of silence with each other. Even though he’d complained about their behavior before, he wasn’t sure if this was any better.

“Hey, Naruto.” Sakura’s voice was odd. Strained and yet fond in a way she’d never before sounded when talking to Naruto. “I'm sorry for every time I called you annoying. You're not. Annoying, I mean.”

“Eh?” Naruto sounded as startled as Sasuke felt. “Thanks? I guess? Why though?”

“O-Oh! It's nothing.” Sakura sounded flustered. “I just thought. With us being a team now, I thought we should try to get along, you know?”

“Right. Because of the team, yeah.” Was that disappointment Sasuke heard? “Oh! And I'm sorry for asking you out even though you never wanted to.”

“Don't worry about it.”

They looked at each other awkwardly, and then left in opposite directions. Sasuke chose the sensible thing to do and refused to move while watching the whole thing incredulously.

A few days passed, and dare Sasuke say it, things started to normalize. Sort of. Naruto was still not interested in competing with him over anything, and Sakura had not regained her interest in dating him, but at least they were talking instead of shooting around wistful looks.

Sasuke still didn’t miss either the rivalry or the crush – if one good thing had come out of this whole mess it was this – but he still felt unbalanced. Like their dynamic had shifted, and he didn’t know why.

By the time they were about to receive their next D-rank, Sasuke had nearly tricked himself into thinking their team could work out.

The mission room was louder than usual, courtesy of a man arguing about needing well-trained escorts with a shinobi trying to tell him that his request was a C-rank at best. Their own mission, meanwhile, was another garden chore.

“Naruto?” Sakura said right when Sasuke was already on his way out of the room. The sooner they started, the sooner they’d be done. “Aren’t you gonna say something?”

Naruto stared at her, and Sakura went on with gritted teeth. “I thought you were sick of all the D-ranks?”

“O-Oh!” Naruto’s eyes widened. Sweat collected on his forehead. “I was, but. Um. Being on a team showed me just how important it is to learn to work as a team and not get ahead of myself. Y-Yeah.”

“B-But-!” Sakura’s eyes widened, then narrowed determinedly. “Well, I’m sick of them! Can’t we get a C-rank instead? In fact,” she said, moving closer to the previously arguing elderly man to link their arms under his disbelieving stare, “why don’t we take on this one?”

“No!” Naruto yelled, "Don’t give us a C-rank!”

“Yeah,” the man agreed. “Don’t bother with those–”

“Naruto!” The shouting had drawn in the attention of every single person in the room. “What about the mission? People– Our client! Our client needs our help, we can’t abandon them. Him!”

“Don’t worry, it’ll sort itself out! Soon. While we’re still here. In the village.” Naruto coughed awkwardly. “Maybe overnight.”

Sakura fumed. “What are you even talking about?”

“I don’t know, what are you talking about?”

Nobody paid attention to the vigorously protesting client.

“We’re not ready! What if something happens?”

Sakura murmured under her breath, and Sasuke nearly missed it. “Well better it happens to us, than–”

“Pardon?” Kakashi chimed in.

“Nothing! I just really think we’re ready. We can do it, right Sasuke?”

“Oh, that’s dirty,” Naruto whispered under his breath, but Sasuke ignored him. He couldn’t believe he was even thinking it, but Sakura was right. This was their chance to rise higher than the stupid D-ranks.

“Yeah. We’re ready.”

“Doesn’t my opinion count for anything?”

Their client went ignored as their D-rank mission was exchanged for a C-rank. Kakashi seemed to have simply accepted his fate of having two insane students under his wing.

Sasuke didn’t care. This next mission would bring him closer to becoming a real shinobi, to become stronger and to reach his ambition. He smirked, indulging in the feeling of coming one step closer to beating Itachi.

Not even his crazy teammates could ruin this for him.

Chapter Text

Only a few hours into their mission Sasuke started to regret his decision to press for a C-rank. More specifically, he regretted his decision to press for this particular C-rank. As if his weirdly acting teammates weren’t enough, now he also had to bear their irritatingly grumpy client, who didn’t let them forget for even a second that he had expected “real shinobi”, not “bratty little kids who’d never even left their village before”.

It was too bad that in the shinobi world, strangling a client tended to be frowned upon.

Sasuke didn’t know why the guy thought he needed ‘real shinobi’ in the first place. So far their trip had been uneventful, and it was beyond him what anyone would want to achieve by attacking some old bridge builder.

A bush next to the road rustled, and a white rabbit jumped out.

“I gotta pee!” Naruto yelled, closely followed by a “Me too!” from Sakura. Both of them dashed away, leaving Kakashi and Sasuke alone with their client. They shared a glance. He found comfort in Kakashi’s long-suffering expression, since it was proof that it was them who were crazy, not Sasuke.

“Some subordinates you got there.” Sasuke grit his teeth at their client’s mocking tone. “I knew from the start–”

“Quiet.”

“I mean, it’s not like they would have even made a dif–”

“Down!”

Sasuke acted on instinct. A handful of fabric, a painful thud and he and their client were lying on the ground. His breaths came fast and heavy. Kakashi’s command rang sharp in his ears.

A giant sword had sunken into the tree behind them.

“Sasuke?”

His heart jackhammered against his ribcage. His eyes were wide, struggling to take in the situation.

Kakashi stood between them and the sword (how had he moved so quickly?), shielding them from the man standing on its handle. The lower half of the man’s face was covered by bandages and his forehead protector spotted a scratch through its symbol. Missing nin, his sluggish mind offered. They’d learned about them at the academy.

“Sasuke!”

“F-Fine!” he said, answering belatedly. “I’m fine.”

“What an honor.” The voice sounded mocking. “The Copy Ninja in the flesh. Kakashi of the Sharingan.”

Sharingan? What?

“Zabuza Momochi, if I’m not mistaken?” Kakashi’s voice was pleasant, like he was making small talk rather than facing an opponent. “You’ve built quite the reputation yourself.”

Zabuza gave a gruff laugh. “Hand over the old man, and you won’t have to face me.”

“Ahh. I’m afraid that’s going to be a problem. Sasuke,” Kakashi said, raising his hand to his forehead protector. “Grab Tazuna-san and look for Sakura and Naruto. Stay put.”

Objection bubbled up in his throat, but then his eyes landed on their opponent. Something about Zabuza sent chills down Sasuke’s spine. Icy needles of sweat bloomed on his forehead.

Tazuna was gaping at Zabuza, finally robbed for words. Sasuke had to drag at his sleeve to get his attention.

“We can’t have that.” Zabuza stood in front of them in the blink of an eye.

Sasuke blocked the first hit on reflex. A kunai to his left, a kick from below. He jumped back and dragged Tazuna with him, but because of a slicing pain in his arm he realized he hadn’t managed to dodge completely.

“Sasuke! Go!” Two Kakashis were in front of him, and Sasuke’s thoughts were too scrambled and sluggish to make sense of it. One of them pushed him backwards, nearly making him fall. It was enough to get him moving again.

He grabbed Tazuna and ran into the trees without a glance back. The old man was silent.

He’d been useless back there. Sasuke clenched his fists, angry at himself. He should have attacked, or noticed the danger sooner, or– He should have done something! Instead he’d frozen and left his teacher behind to fight for his life.

There was yelling somewhere up front. He changed direction and ran towards it until he found a clearing. The sight greeting him made him freeze in his tracks.

Naruto dangled from a tree, bound in rope from head to toe. On the other side of the clearing, Sakura was bound to a tree with ninja wire and explosives placed all around her. Both of them were too busy yelling at each other to try to escape.

“–was trying to ambush them!”

“Well, so was I! How should I have known?”

“It’s too dangerous, Naruto! What if you’d gotten hurt?”

“What if I had gotten hurt? What if you’d gotten hurt!”

Sasuke didn’t trust his voice, so he burst out of the trees and wordlessly cut the rope binding Naruto. His teammate fell to the ground with a yelp, and Sasuke was halfway through freeing Sakura by the time he leaped back to his feet.

“Sasuke? What are you doing here?”

“You’re bleeding!” The alarm in Sakura’s voice made him look at his arm. It was a scratch, nothing more. He ignored it.

“We were attacked. Kakashi-sensei told us to protect Tazuna-san and stay put.”

“Right,” Naruto said. “Of course.”

They exchanged glances.

Five minutes later they stormed out of the forest ready to charge, and Sasuke was glad that this once they were all on the same page.

Until they realized that the fight was over. Trees all around were carved or unrooted, craters and furrows stamped into the ground around the battlefield. Zabuza was nowhere to be seen. There was only Kakashi, forehead protector in place and bloody scratches and tears in his uniform betraying the intensity of the battle.

Sasuke realized for the first time how strong Kakashi was. He felt stupid. The three of them would have only gotten in the way and made their teacher’s victory more complicated.

“I told you to stay put,” he said, scolding them with a look. He was still breathing heavily.

“Right, about that,” Naruto started, one hand behind his head and a sheepish grin in place.

“Nevertheless,” Kakashi cut him off, “Sasuke. You followed orders and got Tazuna-san out of harm’s way. Good job. You two on the other hand.” He frowned at Sakura and Naruto. “You ran off right before your team needed you. Both of you. What were you thinking?”

Sakura bit her lip, her eyes dropping to the ground. “I’m sorry, sensei.”

“Sorry,” Naruto echoed, and he sounded like he meant it.

By the time they arrived at Tazuna’s house Sasuke was exhausted, the adrenaline rush long faded. He didn’t pay attention to the introductions or to the conversation at the dinner table. He gladly sank into the blankets Tazuna and his family provided for them after their meal.

He was woken at night by a ruffling noise next to him, right where Naruto was sleeping. Or supposed to be sleeping. Sasuke kept his eyes shut, resolutely ignoring his teammate as he seemed to get up and no, he’d had enough for the day, he did not care and would not be dragged into whatever Naruto was up to this time.

He’d nearly managed to fall back to sleep when he heard it again. From the other room. Where he knew for sure Sakura was sleeping.

Nope. No way. He would not open his eyes. He refused to care.

Sasuke turned around, vowed to stay right there until sunrise at least and went back to sleep.

Morning came around and all that remained was the nagging feeling that something had slipped from his mind. It was quickly overshadowed by Kakashi’s announcement that they would go into the forest for some training.

“Learning to utilize chakra properly is essential for aspiring shinobi. In order for it to become second nature to you, we’re going to do a little exercise.”

“An exercise?” Sakura stifled a yawn, dark bags under half-lidded eyes. Naruto didn’t look any better.

“Yes,” Kakashi said cheerfully. “We’re going to climb trees.”

Sasuke wondered if he’d misheard. “How’s that going to help us in a fight?”

“It’s going to help you practice your chakra flow. Watch this.” He proceeded to walk up a tree to demonstrate how to use chakra to stick to its bark. It made sense to Sasuke: it wouldn’t work with too little or too much chakra, so it was the perfect exercise to learn balancing chakra flow.

“I have to talk to Tazuna-san some more. I’ll come back later. Have fun!” He waved and disappeared in a puff of smoke.

Fine, then. Sasuke looked up at the nearest tree – his next obstacle to becoming a stronger shinobi. He put his foot on the bark and let chakra flow into the sole of his foot until he felt it stick. He managed three wobbly steps before he slipped and fell to the ground with a thud.

He leaped up, scowling.

This was harder than it looked.

“Go a few steps back and try–” Sakura broke off with a deep yawn. “Try running from there.”

Sasuke whirled around. He was the only one following Kakashi’s orders. His teammates were sprawled out in the grass, leaning against tree trunks and clearly doing nothing to overcome the challenge their teacher had left them with. Naruto looked like he might have fallen asleep.

“Aren’t you gonna do what Kakashi-sensei told us to?”

“R-Riiiight,” Sakura said, another yawn drawing out the word. “Naruto. Naruto come on, you need to do the exercise.”

Naruto didn’t stir. Sasuke could hear him snoring.

“Naruto…” Sakura trailed off, falling back against her own trunk and eyes drooping.

Sasuke scowled. Fine. It wasn’t his fault if they didn’t take their training seriously. This only confirmed his conviction that their so-called ‘team’ was a complete waste of time.

Sasuke left his lazy teammates sleeping in the grass and kept practicing his treewalking.

Besides their training, the next few days passed uneventfully. To Sasuke’s utter shock, both Sakura and Naruto climbed their trees effortlessly when Kakashi asked them to – something he himself had not managed after hours of training. How had the two dead weights done it without putting in any effort whatsoever?

It made Sasuke furious and motivated him to train morning to night, non-stop until somebody forced him to call it a day. There was no way he was falling behind those two. No. Way.

Sasuke trained, his teammates lazed around and the bridge was built, and soon it was time for them to return to Konoha.

“That’s odd,” Kakashi said on their last day, uncharacteristically serious. “Someone seemed very determined to stop this bridge from being built.”

“Who knows, sensei. Maybe whoever was in charge had a… change of heart.” Sakura gave a sunny smile that made Sasuke shudder.

“Yeah,” Naruto said. “Or maybe his lackeys weren’t as loyal as he thought they were.” He grinned innocently, and Sasuke didn’t bother to ask what they meant by that.

Kakashi shot both of his students looks – the special kind, that mixture of puzzlement and wariness that only Sakura and Naruto earned, but let it go.

For Sasuke it was yet another addition to his growing lists of reasons why something had to be seriously wrong with his teammates.

Chapter Text

Sasuke’s eye twitched. He counted to ten and took a deep breath.

“Why don't we hang out with Ino and her team?”

“Eh, I don't know.”

His teammates were ridiculous.

“Come on, Naruto, it'll be fun. They'd like you, trust me!”

“I don't feel like it. Let’s do something else.”

Completely and utterly ridiculous.

“I could come over to your place and help out a bit. I could teach you how to cook.”

“I know how to cook! Why wouldn't I?”

“I mean real cooking, not just ramen.”

They’d been going in circles for ages, trying to come up with something to do after training. If they wanted to spend time together so badly, why didn't they just do it? What did it matter what they did? They kept talking past each other.

It was like watching a bunch of kittens, clumsy and stumbling around each other awkwardly.

“How about we go train some more?”

“But we just did that!”

“Yeah, but we can do more! I could help you. Don't you want to become a stronger shinobi?”

“Becoming stronger isn't everything, Naruto. Come on, we could make friends with Team 10. Shikamaru and Chōji are super nice, and Ino isn't as much of a prick as she wants you to think.”

“But–”

And on it went. Ridiculous and absolutely frustrating to listen to. “Just invite them to have dinner at your place," Sasuke snapped, utterly tired of it. “You can show him how to cook then."

“That’s… actually a good idea,” Sakura said, wide-eyed. “Thank you, Sasuke.”

“Hn.” He crossed his arms and turned to head home. He should have left ages ago, but listening to those two dancing around each other drew his attention the same way a collapsing building might have. “You were getting on my nerves.”

“Wait! Sasuke!” Naruto yelled after him. “Don't you want to come too?”

As if he wanted to spend more time with his crazy teammates. Sasuke ignored him and kept walking.

The biggest incident by far happened just a few days later, its aftermath witnessed by the entire village. And while Sasuke had no proof, he refused to believe that anything weird might be happening around the village without those two being involved in it.

It all began with a shady old guy with bandages around his head and covering one eye. Sasuke felt like he knew him from somewhere, but he wasn’t sure. He saw Naruto talking to him on the streets – which might have been forgettable if it was anyone but Naruto. Because Naruto didn’t interact with adults. None except Iruka and Kakashi, unless he was being scolded for some prank he pulled.

Even then, Sasuke still didn’t think much of it at first. But Naruto started to disappear for long periods of time. Always after training or missions, always when Kakashi and Sakura were elsewhere. He knew, because more than once Sakura asked him if he’d seen Naruto anywhere. She obviously didn’t know what he was up to, either.

Sasuke caught him once, looking around suspiciously as if to make sure nobody was following him. “Naruto?”

“A-Ah! Sasuke! Sorry, but I don’t have any time right now. Training, you know.”

Sasuke frowned. “But we already finished for today.”

“Oh yeah. Not with Kakashi.”

“Wait. You’re training with somebody else?”

There was that grin again. Like Naruto knew something that he didn’t. “Let’s just say that somebody is really interested in my… skills.”

How Sasuke hated that grin. And please, what skills could Naruto possibly be talking about? Maybe Naruto had been quick to pull off Kakashi’s chakra exercise (Sasuke was not still salty about being the last of their team to master it), but they were still genin. What special skill could Naruto have that would be of interest for somebody other than their genin instructor?

It was only a bit later, trying to shake off an oddly clingy Sakura, that he saw the shady old guy again. He was walking with the Third, leaving the Hokage’s office, and Sasuke remembered. He even forgot his efforts to ignore his teammate. “Isn’t that the council guy? Next to Hokage-sama?”

“Hmm?” Sakura looked over, surprised to hear him initiate a conversation.

“I saw him with Naruto once. Didn’t remember until now who–”

“With Danzō?” Sakura gaped at him, eyes wide with… was that panic? “Not on my watch!”

She dashed away, leaving Sasuke feeling like he’d made a horrible mistake.

The next day Konoha woke up to an uproar. Literally. Noises had dragged Sasuke out of his sleep deep at night, and only the ANBU dashing past his window stopped him from investigating himself. This looked serious.

His assumption was proven right in the morning, on his walk towards their usual meeting place. Konoha was a mess. He stared at the craters that had opened overnight, blocked by fences and ANBU. Even from his viewpoint he could see the tunnels underneath, and if the rumors flying around were true, those weren’t the only revelation by far.

"–punched straight through to the hideout. Whoever they were, they fought Danzō one on one!”

“–incredible. What strength–”

“–you hear? Danzō is supposed to have the Sharingan! Stole it back before the massacre happened–”

“–that freakish arm of his. How was he still allowed on the council?”

“–disappeared as soon as the ANBU came. That’s right, left Danzō behind just in time to be shipped off to interrogation.”

He let the snippets of gossip wash over him, paying more attention than he’d want to admit.

The details varied wildly from person to person, but everybody seemed to agree that Danzō had been arrested and nobody quite knew what to do with him.

Sasuke took great care not to think about the mysterious stranger too much, and kept going to their usual training ground. He arrived just in time to walk in on a conversation between his teammates.

Or rather an argument, from the sound of it.

“–didn’t know! I thought Danzō had gotten to you. How could I have known that you’re... well, you!”

“It’s called infiltration, duh! And you ruined it!”

“It worked out, didn’t it?”

There was a moment of silence. Sakura and Naruto looked at each other like they were seeing each other for the first time.

“I can’t believe it’s you! Why didn’t you say anything?”

“I thought you were acting differently because I was acting differently! Why didn’t you say anything?”

“... Same here. Does that mean–?” Naruto paused, and it sounded like he was afraid to form the next sentence. “What about Sasuke?”

Sakura looked at the ground. “No. I asked him before. Sort of.”

A sigh. “Yeah, me too. Guess we’re on our own then.”

And alright, that was about as much weirdness as Sasuke could handle. He turned around without faltering in his steps. He’d just tell them he’d been sick or something.

Sasuke knew it was getting ridiculous. He couldn’t keep avoiding them like this for much longer, and he knew he should talk to someone about their insane – and worrying – behavior. But not yet.

Sasuke left, leaving his teammates behind and doing his best to ignore the gigantic crater in the middle of Konoha.

Chapter Text

Naruto and Sakura became best friends overnight. Whatever had happened the day before (He was not going to think about it. He did not care.), it somehow caused yet another complete shift in personality for the two. The only difference was that it showed solely in the way they acted towards each other.

Gone were the awkward attempts at bonding, gone the insecurity in addressing each other. Now the two of them were hardly seen apart – they were always hanging out, always training or doing something together.

They still tried to drag Sasuke into their ‘team-bonding’ regularly, but Sasuke couldn’t help but feel like he was intruding.

It didn’t make any sense to him. Nobody got this close to somebody else so quickly, especially not if they hated them before.

The worst, by far, were the inexplicable references and inside jokes – and how they had inside jokes when they’d been friends for only a few days, he would never know. It seemed like they barely needed a word to communicate, and when they talked, most of what they were saying sounded like nonsense. His only consolation, once again, was that Kakashi was suffering with him.

Naruto commented on the next D-rank they were assigned, hunting down the demon cat for the third time in a row, with the words: “It’s moments like these that I wonder if I should have just let Pain do his thing.”

Sakura – her hair freshly cut short – snorted. Kakashi and he glanced at each other. With every look of suffering that they shared, Sasuke appreciated his teacher a bit more.

A fleeting glance at Naruto showed that he was wearing stud earrings close to the ones Sasuke had seen on Team 10 before.

One day Naruto acted like he had a stomach ache, rubbing over it with his hand and grimacing.

“Naruto, are you alright?” Kakashi asked, pausing mid-sentence while explaining a new training exercise.

“Hmm? Oh yeah.” Apparently the pain wasn’t bad enough to avoid his I-know-something-that-you-don’t look. “My roommate’s just a bit cranky today.”

What did that have to do with anything? Besides, Naruto was living alone. To his utter dismay, when Sasuke glanced up at Kakashi for his usual sanity check, his teacher wasn’t looking. He was staring at Naruto with what might have been alarm.

What Sasuke hated the most was being dragged into their jokes against his will. Most of the time he could at least pretend to ignore their childish giggling and knowing glances. But other times?

Naruto took a bathroom break from training, leaving with a smirk at Sakura and the words, “Don’t let him pull a Sasuke while I’m gone.”

Sasuke’s eye twitched. “What?”

“Don’t worry, Sasuke.” Sakura put a consoling hand on his shoulders. “I won’t let you do it this time.”

“Let me do what?”

Sasuke felt his patience fading with every day that he spent with his team and knew for sure that he was reaching his limit. It came as a surprise when Kakashi cracked first.

“Naruto. Sakura. Would you mind staying behind? We need to talk.”

Sasuke hesitated. This could be it. Was Kakashi finally putting an end to this madness? Was he finally going to discover his teammates’ secret? It was about time, but Sasuke didn’t want to be left out. He was part of the team, too, so why was he sent away?

Kakashi waited. Sasuke had no choice but to leave, fuming the entire way home.

He couldn’t wait to reach the training grounds the next day, impatient to maybe, possibly get behind the mystery that was Naruto and Sakura. However the conversation with Kakashi might have ended, they had to be planning to let him in on it as well. Right? If Kakashi was in on their secret now, they couldn’t be planning to leave him in the dark. Could they?

Impatient as he was, Sasuke had set off to their meeting place early and had expected to be the first. Instead he was left gaping when not only someone else was waiting, it was Kakashi. Their incredibly lazy teacher Kakashi, who could not be bothered to show up for training until at least two or three hours had passed.

“Sensei? What are you doing here?”

“Hmm? Training is starting soon, isn’t it?” Kakashi’s eye closed in a cheerful smile, acting as if nothing about his presence was out of the ordinary. Something felt off.

“But–” Sasuke cut himself off, not willing to argue about something as stupid as this. Instead he asked the question that had been burning on his tongue since Kakashi had pulled his teammates aside the other day. “Did you find out what’s wrong with Naruto and Sakura?”

Kakashi’s eye twitched. “Nothing’s wrong with them.”

Sasuke stared at his teacher. “I thought you confronted them! What about their weird behavior? Their instant friendship? The inside jokes?”

“Really now, Sasuke. You want me to do something about their friendship? That’s not nice.”

“I– That’s not the point!” Sasuke couldn’t believe what he was hearing. He’d thought he and Kakashi were allies! They’d had a bond.

“Unless you have something solid to be concerned about, I suggest you let it go, Sasuke. Just trust me on this.”

“Trust you on what?” called a voice from behind.

Sasuke whirled around to see his teammates crossing the bridge over the small river. From the corner of his eye he saw Kakashi tense, and looking back at him he could see how strained his expression had become. He stared at his students like he had never seen them before.

No, that wasn’t right. He was staring at them like he knew something about them that he hadn’t before. Something big. Sasuke clenched his fists, frowning at all three of them. Kakashi knew, and he was going to leave him in the dark.

“Sasuke? Are you alright?” Sakura’s smile looked wobbly, and it wasn’t long until Sasuke realized she was holding in laughter. He scowled deeper.

“Aww, don’t be like that, Sasuke,” Naruto said. “You won’t go rogue over this, will you?”

Sakura hit Naruto on the arm, making him cry out. “Don’t be mean.”

“I didn’t start it!”

“Please,” Kakashi said. “How about we just start our training?” Sasuke couldn’t believe his ears. Kakashi sounded nervous. Kakashi, a jōnin instructor with years of experience under his belt was talking to his genin students and sounded nervous.

Naruto and Sakura shared a glance. Naruto grinned.

“Naruto, don’t–”

“Sure thing. As you wish. Rokudaime.” He said the last word slowly as if savoring the moment and didn’t take his eyes off Kakashi once. Next to him, Sakura groaned.

What was that even supposed to mean? Kakashi was as far away from being Hokage material as one could get. Besides, there’d only been four Hokage so far, not five and certainly not six. Nothing about the comment made sense.

But one glance at Kakashi and Sasuke wasn’t so sure anymore. He had paled to a worrying degree, looking faint and horrified. He only stopped staring at Naruto to look at Sakura instead, eyes wide in disbelief.

Whatever he wanted her to do, he was disappointed. Sakura shrugged helplessly, grinning sheepishly as if that made it better. Kakashi turned around wordlessly and they had no choice but to follow.

Sasuke glared at his teammates. Less because they had broken their teacher and more because he still didn’t know how or why!

Naruto, that bastard, had the nerve to grin at him. “What is it, Sasuke? Snake got your tongue?”

Sakura pressed her hand on her mouth in an attempt to hold back her laughter.

Sasuke followed behind them, surrendering to his fate. Much of their remaining training session was spent contemplating the risks and merits of committing homicide upon one’s genin team.

Chapter Text

Sasuke had arrived late to their meeting place, and everybody else was already there. Everybody, in this case, meant his team plus two additional people he had never seen before in his life.

His eyes zoomed in on Naruto and Sakura, because it saved time to assume that they were behind everything odd going on. Naruto grinned at him cheerfully, while Sakura was sitting on the ground, her face buried in one hand and radiating exasperation. Maybe this time it was just Naruto’s fault.

Was his hair longer than usual? Sasuke could have sworn it had grown. It fell into Naruto’s eyes and forced him to tug it behind his ears constantly.

“Alright,” one of the strangers said, a guy with brown hair and weird eyes. “Now that your teammate’s here, would you please tell me what I’m doing here?”

“I’d like to know as well,” the other one agreed. He was younger, maybe a bit older than Sasuke, and incredibly pale. “I’m supposed to be in rehabilitation right now.”

Rehabi– What? Who were these people?

“So glad you asked!” Naruto grinned, pushed past Kakashi and put a hand on each of the strangers’ shoulders. Kakashi let it happen with a long-suffering glance. Sasuke’s eyes were drawn to Naruto’s hands. His nails were painted in a purple that looked horrible in combination with his orange clothes. One glance at Sakura’s hand – still hiding her face – showed the same shade of nail polish. The two of them were taking this whole ‘best friends forever’ thing a bit too far, in Sasuke’s opinion.

“This is Yamato! Or Tenzō, or whatever else he’s going with right now. He’s an ANBU.”

“How did you–”

“And this,” Naruto went on, ignoring ‘Yamato’s’ shocked exclamation, “is Sai. He’s also an ANBU, but he was part of a super secret underground organization that operated without the Hokage’s knowledge until somebody got his superior arrested.”

“It’s true,” ‘Sai’ said, an oddly fake looking smile on his face and entirely unfazed by Sasuke and Yamato’s alarmed expressions. “Except I hadn’t been assigned a name so far. I quite like ‘Sai’.”

“That’s great,” Yamato interrupted. “But that doesn’t answer my question. What are we doing here?”

“Weeell,” Naruto said, drawing out the word with a cheerful grin. Sasuke had a bad feeling about this. “We’re bringing Team 7 back together–”

“Naruto,” Sakura muttered without looking up.

“We're expanding Team 7,” Naruto corrected without missing a beat.

“And don't drag me into this! This one’s on you.”

“I'm expanding Team 7. C’mon, Sakura, I thought we were in this together.”

“Now, wait a second!” Yamato gaped at the two of them, sending a look to Kakashi that screamed ‘Help!’ All he got in reply was a look of pity, Kakashi – for some reason – not putting a stop to what his crazy teammates were planning now. Or Naruto, in this case.

Sai did not react at all. He was completely at ease, sporting that weird plastered smile of his and acting like nothing about this situation was odd.

“Why would you want to expand the team?” Sasuke was not amused. Naruto couldn’t just try to recruit two random people into their complete team.

“Come on, Sasuke. You’ll like Sai! He’s even more emotionally constipated than you.”

Sasuke’s eye twitched. It was beginning to be its regular state.

“Is that a compliment?” Sai asked, turning pages in a book. “It doesn’t say anything about being constipated…”

“Senpai. Kakashi-senpai. What’s happening.” Yamato looked close to desperate, alternating between wary looks towards the crazy genin who’d brought him here and help-seeking ones towards Kakashi. Who he apparently knew well enough to call him ‘senpai’.

Sasuke decided to jump ship before it got any weirder. He turned, stomping off the training grounds. Or attempted to. An arm slung around his shoulders, dragging him back with surprising strength.

“You can’t leave, we’re about to welcome our new team members!”

“No, you’re not,” Yamato yelled, exasperated. “This is crazy! Senpai, why are you playing along with this?”

Kakashi heaved a sigh. He looked like he’d rather be anywhere else but here. “I have to agree on this. Think about it, Naruto. You’re all still genin–” Naruto tried to interfere but Kakashi spoke over him. “Technically, you’re still genin. A newly appointed genin team has four members, no additional students and definitely not more than one jōnin teacher.”

“But Sensei,” Naruto yelled. Was he trying to use puppy eyes on Kakashi? “Our team won’t be complete!” His hair fell back into his eyes.

“For goodness sake,” Sakura muttered, reaching into her pocket and pulling out… hair clips? “I told you to bring some."

Naruto took them with a grin and clipped his hair back. “Thanks, Sakura!”

“Hey, Nutcase,” Sai said, addressing Naruto with a smile like he hadn’t just insulted him. “Why are you so determined about making us join? If you want to have a bigger team, you could have asked other people.”

“But I don’t want to make the team bigger. I want you to join. That’s different.” Naruto nodded as if that explained everything. “Also, why Nutcase?”

“You want… me?” Sai sounded genuinely confused, the first real sign of emotion.

Naruto continued in a tone Sasuke didn’t know he was capable of. “I know you won’t understand at this point, but we really want you to be our teammate. We’d be thrilled to have you. Besides, it would be the perfect alternative for rehabilitation! Think about it, what better way to learn social skills than to join a team?”

“Naruto,” Kakashi chimed in. “I’m sorry, but it’s not an option.” He paused and closed his eye like he couldn’t believe his next words himself. “Yamato isn’t assigned any long-term missions. He could take on Sai as an apprentice.”

“Excuse me?”

Kakashi ignored Yamato’s indignant yell. “It’ll have the same benefit on his reintegration, and if you insist we can have joined training from time to time.”

Sakura leaped to her feet. “I told you there were other ways.”

“But it’s not the same!” Naruto pouted, entering a staring contest with Sakura. He looked away first, crossing his arms. “Fine.”

“Don’t I get a say in this?” Yamato threw up his hands in exasperation. All he got in reply was a consoling hand on his shoulder from Kakashi.

“Just don’t fight it.”

In Sasuke’s opinion, Yamato should be glad. Since they were talking about his teammates here, all things considered he had still gotten away from it mildly. Sasuke frowned, noting that Sai was staring at Sakura.

Sakura had noticed, too. “What is it?”

Sai’s smile widened. Sasuke wanted to tell him to cut it out. It looked incredibly fake. “Nothing, Sakura.”

Sakura raised an eyebrow. “No nickname for me?”

“My book says it’s not advisable to use nicknames for your social superiors.”

“What?” Naruto yelled. “I’m a nutcase and Sakura is your ‘social superior’? How come?”

Sai’s expression froze, his eyes resting on Sakura in a blank stare. “There were witnesses.”

“Witnesses?” Naruto asked, frowning. “Witnesses for wha– Oh. OH!”

Sakura chuckled. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. You’ve never heard of me before. Isn’t that right, Sai?” Her grin showed too many teeth.

If possible, Sai got even paler. “Of course, Sakura-senpai.”

“Now it's ‘senpai’?” Naruto whined. “This isn’t fair. You’re cheating, Sakura. Hey, hey, Sai! What’s Sasuke then?”

Sai turned to look at him. Sasuke tried not to squirm under his critical glance.

“Boring,” Sai decided. “Nutcase, Boring and… Sakura.”

Naruto burst out laughing. Sakura grinned self-satisfied while Kakashi tried to ignore all of them and Yamato seemed to have an existential crisis in the background. All things considered, Sasuke wasn’t sure if he should be offended or pleased. On a team with two lunatics, ‘boring’ didn’t sound so bad.

Chapter Text

With the utter craziness that had been his life thanks to his teammates, more than once Sasuke found himself wondering how much better he’d be off without them. What would a normal life with a normal genin team look like? Even better, one without a team at all? No craziness, no weird behavior or annoying inside jokes. Nothing to hold him back, just himself and his ambition to become stronger than Him.

It was because of that that Sasuke had the urge to rub his eyes and check for a genjutsu when he and his teammates actually saw eye to eye for once.

“What?” Naruto yelled, glaring at their teacher. Naruto being loud and irritating was in and of itself nothing out of the ordinary. It was, however, that Sakura and Sasuke were glaring right alongside him.

“You heard me,” Kakashi said, unmoved. “I’m not recommending you. And without recommendation, you won’t be able to join the chūnin exams.”

“But sensei!” Alright, maybe Naruto was taking the whole thing a bit too seriously. Disbelief and betrayal was heavy in his voice. Sasuke was angry too, but Naruto was acting like Kakashi had stabbed him in the back.

“Kakashi-sensei,” Sakura said, frowning. “Don’t you remember what we talked about? We have to be there.”

“It’s because I remember that I won’t let you.”

“But–”

“I’d have thought you’d agree with me. Don’t you think it would be best to,” Kakashi cleared his throat, his gaze flashing to Sasuke, “keep away from snakes for the time being?”

Cold betrayal coursed through Sasuke’s body. He couldn’t believe Kakashi was doing it too! He was being kept out again, kept in the dark about something his entire team knew about. Kakashi was supposed to be his ally. Why was he siding with them now?

“Kakashi-sensei, please! You have to trust us on this. It’ll be really bad if we’re not there during the exams!”

“Naruto is right. We can take care of ourselves. Let’s just talk about this–”

“You three are staying put.” Kakashi looked at each of them, uncharacteristically strict. “And that’s final.”

He went as far as to put them under house arrest. A shinobi was assigned to watch them on the day that the exam took place, keeping them practically imprisoned in an empty room of the academy.

The worst part about it was that both other genin teams of their academy class had been recommended, giving them the opportunity for a promotion and leaving Team 7 behind in the dust.

Sasuke was so busy seething about the lost opportunity, he almost missed it when Naruto spoke up for the first time since they’d been confined to their glorified prison cell. He whispered to Sakura, “You think it’s time?”

Sakura checked the watch on the classroom wall. She too kept her voice low. “Just about, I’d say.”

Naruto nodded and flashed Sasuke a grin. “Sasuke, do what you want but don’t blame us for whatever happens. ‘kay?”

“What–” But Naruto had already leaped up, staggering to the front of the classroom where their no-name babysitter was.

Naruto gave a decently convincing miserable moan and leaned on the front desk for support. “Shinobi-san… I-I’m not feeling so good…” Sasuke watched in disbelief as his teammate proceeded to fake-faint.

“Uzumaki? Uzumaki, can you hear me?” The shinobi dropped to the ground next to Naruto to check his breathing. Sasuke couldn’t make out what happened next, but the shinobi fell silent, sitting on the ground bonelessly and eyes fixed on the wall.

Sasuke wasn’t sure what had happened or what he should do.

“Alright, alright, hurry!” A second Naruto leaped from the previously empty row behind them, making Sasuke nearly jump out of his skin. “I’m crap at genjutsu, that won’t hold for long! Go, go!”

Sakura dashed across the room to the window and picked its lock with what looked like a hairpin. Sasuke wasn’t stupid. He recognized what was going on. It was dumb and unnecessary, as the exam had already started and it wasn’t like they could just pretend to be participants. He wouldn’t gain anything from this.

Sasuke made his decision in a split second and jumped after Sakura, Naruto’s yell of “Shadow Clone Technique!” ringing in his ears. He didn’t even know what shadow clones were supposed to be.

“Heh, told you he wouldn’t be able to resist,” Naruto said as soon as he caught up with them.

Sakura sighed but didn’t look surprised. “This is a horrible idea.”

“You try telling him to stay put. See how that turns out.”

“We could have thought of something better–”

“Stop talking like I’m not here,” Sasuke snapped, glaring straight ahead. He was tired of being treated like air. Tired of being left out. This only proved what he’d always thought. Their so-called ‘team’ was nothing but a waste of time and, as it turned out, a gigantic joke at his expense.

There was silence, and Sasuke considered leaving his teammates to do whatever they planned on doing and going home. He didn’t belong with them.

“I’m sorry, Sasuke,” Sakura said, slowing down to be on level with him. “I didn’t realize we were going overboard.”

“Yeah,” Naruto agreed. “You’re part of our team, too. I’m sorry if we haven’t acted like it.”

“Hn.” Sasuke scowled. “I don’t care about our team.”

Naruto and Sakura shared a glance. “Yeah,” Sakura said, “and we haven’t really done anything to fix that.” Fix? There was nothing to fix, and they would never resemble a functional team. “But we will. Right after this is over.”

Questions burned on Sasuke’s tongue, but all of them were wiped away as he saw their destination. The Forest of Death looked as dark and as wild as its name suggested, blocked off by a large metal fence. Sasuke had heard stories about it when he was younger, meant to scare off children with gruesome examples.

Realization dawned and Sasuke’s eyes widened. “Are they doing the exam in there?”

“Yup,” Naruto said with a cheerful grin, “but that’s not why we’re here. Well. Not really. Kind of?”

Sakura ignored him, flashing hand signs and transforming into a plain looking kunoichi in a chūnin vest, swapping her short pink hair for a long, brown ponytail. “They’ll notice a bunch of kids immediately,” she said with a glance towards Sasuke, her voice deeper than before. “Chūnin proctors are less suspicious.”

“And if we do get caught, at least they won’t see our faces while we run away,” Naruto added, copying Sakura. Literally.

"Um." Sasuke tried not to stare at Naruto’s long hair and feminine features, wondering why he’d chosen a female disguise. His Sexy Technique was hardly anything new, but this was a serious situation. And Naruto was wearing clothes.

Naruto shrugged, oddly brusque considering it was Naruto. "Just felt like it."

Naruto and Sakura looked at Sasuke weirdly strained. He decided to play along quickly and was relieved when they immediately relaxed.

He heaved a sigh, formed the hand signs and didn’t even bother to ask how long they’d planned the whole thing. Why was he going along with it? He didn’t have a reason to be here.

Nevertheless, Sasuke followed his teammates over the fence and through the forest, leaping from tree to tree and listening for any disturbance. The other genin had to be in here somewhere. What would they do if they stumbled across one of them?

Sasuke almost crashed into Naruto when he froze on the spot. The idiot’s eyes were wide, his head cocked and brows furrowed as if he was listening – or sensing? – for something.

“Did you find him?” Sakura asked.

“Leaking killing intent everywhere,” Naruto said, his feminine voice somehow familiar and odd sounding at the same time. How he managed a sentence like that with such a beaming grin on his face was beyond Sasuke. “See you later!”

Naruto dashed off, leaving Sasuke and Sakura behind. Sasuke stared after him. “Where is he going?”

Sakura leaped off in the opposite direction and Sasuke had no choice but to follow. “Oh, just making a friend.” She smiled like that sentence answered everything.

“The one with killing intent?”

“Don’t worry. That’s not nearly enough to stop Naruto. If sh-” Sakura’s sentence cut off in a cough. “If he wants to make a friend, he’s getting a friend.”

It spoke volumes about Sasuke’s past experience with them that he didn’t feel in the least surprised. “And where are we going?”

“Oh.” Sakura flashed him a knowing smile. “Just looking for someone. You’ll see.”

“Hn.” Damn teammates. Damn secrecy.

Leaves rustled in the distance. Sakura stopped, Sasuke not far behind. “Sasuke,” Sakura whispered, “stay here. Wait for me.”

Protest was on the tip of his tongue, but Sakura was already gone. Who did she think she was? It was bad enough that they were on the same team, but now she acted like she was his superior? What gave her the right to give him orders?

Sasuke scowled and headed off by himself out of principle. He didn’t know what he was supposed to do in the forest, but he’d think of something. Anything would be better than to take orders from his deadweight teammate.

“Well, isn’t that a surprise.”

Sasuke jumped, barely keeping hold of his tree branch. A woman materialized out of thin air, all pale skin and long black hair and a smile that sent chills down Sasuke’s spine. He didn’t recognize the symbol on her forehead protector.

“But what a pleasant surprise it is. Uchiha Sasuke. What is it that they call you…” Her roaming eyes prickled uncomfortably on his skin. Sasuke felt like he was being dissected by her gaze alone. “The Last Uchiha. You can’t imagine how disappointed I was when I heard whispers that you would not compete.”

She stepped closer. Sasuke wanted to run, to flee, to get away from this woman who set off alarm bells in his head, but he was frozen. His legs wouldn’t move, and his eyes were stuck on the bark at her feet. The sheer thought of looking into her eyes made him feel nauseous. His Henge was gone. When had he dropped it?

“Wh-Who are you?” His voice was small and shaky. The voice of a child, not a shinobi. He forced away the tremor, and his question came a bit sharper. “What do you want?”

“I just want to talk.” Her voice was slick as oil, her lips stretched in a smile that showed too many teeth. “I’ve heard about you, Sasuke. And I am… interested.”

“Sasuke!” Sakura’s voice snapped him out of his stupor. He watched her leap through the tree branches. “Sorry I took so long. You should have waited!”

“Stay back!” Sasuke yelled, the only coherent thought he could muster being to keep Sakura away. “S-She’s too strong! I’ve never– N-Never–” The trembling was back.

Sasuke was reminded of the other time he’d been hopelessly outclassed against another shinobi. It was the same bloodlust and intent to kill that froze up his body and made him want to vomit. It was like facing his brother all over again. They couldn’t fight this person.

Sakura didn’t listen. She landed a few feet away from him, facing the woman with a grim look on her face. “Orochimaru.”

“Is she a friend of yours?” The woman – Orochimaru? Was she even female? – wouldn’t stop smiling. “And I had so hoped to get a moment with you alone. There’s so much to disc–”

Sakura leaped forwards and punched Orochimaru in the face.

Sasuke was left gaping. Had she just–? Had Sakura just–?

Cracks had formed in the bark of the tree Orochimaru had crashed into and her – no, his – head snapped to the side with Sakura’s punch. The skin on his face had ripped, revealing snake-like eyes widened in shock and even paler skin, bruises already forming. He raised one hand to his cheek like he wasn’t sure what had just happened.

His eyes narrowed, eying Sakura with a calculating gaze. “And who might you be?”

“Haruno Sakura,” she said with a sunny smile, contrasting her furrowed brows. “Genin of Konoha, at your service.”

“Genin? Don’t make me laugh.” Orochimaru’s mouth twisted back into a smile. “Tell me, girl. What is it that you want?”

“I got what I came for.” Sakura flexed her hand, the one she had punched Orochimaru with. “As for what happens next… I’m open for suggestions.” Her smile sent chills down Sasuke’s spine as she clenched her hands to fists, taking on a fighting stance.

“Interesting,” Orochimaru murmured, Sasuke all but forgotten. “Why don’t we have a little chat, Haruno Sakura?”

Sakura flung herself forward in response, punching the tree Orochimaru was occupying and forcing him to dodge. The tree split in half. Sasuke’s eyes almost bulged out of his skull.

“I don’t know, Orochimaru-sama.” Sakura’s voice was sickly sweet, the honorific mocking. “Won’t talking get boring rather quickly?” She took another leap, chasing after Orochimaru who retreated further back into the forest.

Sasuke barely paid attention. His thoughts kept circling back to Sakura – weak, ordinary Sakura who had cared more about her appearance than her skills until recently – punching a full-grown tree hard enough to shatter it.

He saw Orochimaru’s head snap to the side and followed his gaze to see Kakashi rushing towards them through the tree branches. “Sasuke! Sakura!”

“What a shame,” Orochimaru said, his mouth twisted in distaste, “but that’s my cue. I’ll see you again.” It sounded like a threat.

Sakura’s entire body tensed. For a moment Sasuke thought she’d chase after him. “Can’t wait,” she muttered instead, relaxing.

“Sasuke!” Kakashi was by his side in an instant and, for some inexplicable reason, tugged down the collar of his shirt, checking his neck.

“What are you–” He was about to slap his hand away but Kakashi already let go.

“Oh thank goodness.” He deflated visibly, leaning against the nearest tree trunk as if he couldn’t carry his own weight. “Sakura! What did I tell you?”

“My bad, Kakashi-sensei.” Sakura didn’t sound apologetic in the slightest. “But I told you before, I had a date. It would have been impolite not to show up.” Behind her the shattered remains of the tree trunk continued to fall apart.

Kakashi muttered something along the lines of, “too old for this,” before turning to Sakura again. “What about Naruto?”

“Still on his own date. Should be done–”

“Hey, Sakura!”

“–right about now.”

“Oh, hey, Kakashi-sensei! Hey Sasuke.” Just like Sakura, Naruto – still wearing his Henge – didn’t seem concerned at all that their teacher had caught them disobeying his orders in quite a spectacular fashion. In fact, besides the greeting he didn’t acknowledge Kakashi at all, simply asking Sakura, “You done?”

Sakura nodded towards the shattered remains of the tree. “I got what I came for. You?”

“You bet!” Naruto’s smile was wide and sunny, radiating warmth.

“Could we please talk about how all three of you are currently in the Forest of Death without permission?” To Sasuke’s surprise, Kakashi’s voice sounded long-suffering rather than angry. His eyes conveyed with astonishing clarity that he questioned how he’d gotten into this situation in the first place as well as what he had done to deserve such punishment. Sasuke could relate.

“Are you gonna tell on us?” Naruto didn’t seem particularly worried. He sounded curious, if anything.

Kakashi heaved a sigh. His shoulders slumped in defeat and he looked at his students with a blank stare. “Just come with me. I have an idea."

Chapter Text

Kakashi’s plan – if one could call it that – was to march them to the building at the center of the forest as if they had every right to be there. Sakura had to remind Naruto to drop his Henge (“Naruto.” “Hmm?” “You’re still a girl.”), but with that out of the way, Kakashi put on a facade that looked half cheerful, half careless – which was impressive, considering he had looked close to a mental breakdown only minutes ago.

When the guards questioned their presence in the forest he simply said, “Oh, I brought them here. They were so disappointed that they couldn’t participate. I thought I’d let my cute little students at least watch their friends.” He gave them a cheerful smile and Sakura and Naruto joined it, beaming so disgustingly innocent and childish, Sasuke wanted to gag.

At this point, Sasuke paid only half attention to what was going on, too busy internally freaking out. He had just faced someone of Itachi's caliber. He’d felt the bloodlust pouring off of him. He hadn’t needed to fight this Orochimaru; Sasuke had just known that he was out of his league. Insanely, ridiculously out of his league.

And Sakura had punched him. She’d punched him in the face, into a tree and mocked him like it was nothing.

The events kept replaying in his head while Sasuke tried to find some kind of explanation. He must have imagined it all. Orochimaru, whoever he was, had just been another genin trying to scare him. That was the only explanation for Sakura of all people getting the better of him.

But then, why had Kakashi sounded so worried? And where had the killing intent come from? Sasuke could still feel the terror residing deep within his bones, the fear in his gut, shaking him to his very core. He couldn’t have imagined that. But what other explanation was there?

All the other genin had arrived at the building by now, cheerfully welcomed by Naruto and Sakura. Neither of them seemed upset about being left out, in fact, neither of them seemed in the least interested in competing themselves. Sasuke wanted to shake them and demand to know what was wrong with them.

“Hey, Ino!” Sakura yelled, striding over to Team 10.

Ino was in the middle of stealing her teammate’s bag of chips, but did a double take as she recognized Sakura. “Eh? What are you doing here? I thought your team wasn’t recommended.”

“We weren’t. Our dear sensei brought us here so we could watch. Isn’t that sweet of him?” Behind them, leaning against a wall and buried in his book, Kakashi made a noise of great suffering.

Ino smirked, crossing her arms tauntingly. “We’re about to have one-on-one fights. Take a good look. Maybe you can learn something and make the cut next time. Of course, I might be a chūnin by then already.”

Sakura gave Ino a beaming smile. “Fingers crossed! I’ll cheer for you!”

Ino’s smirk faltered. Her eyes widened in surprise. “Um. Th-Thanks?”

“You too, Chōji. Shikamaru.” Sakura clasped Ino on the shoulder. Ino seemed too startled to do anything about it. “Good luck. You’ll do great!”

Sasuke soaked in Ino’s confusion, glad that for once someone else was on the receiving end of his teammates’ insanity.

“Hey, hey! Sasuke, Sakura! Come on, they’re about to start. Let’s hurry so we’ll get good seats!”

Sasuke didn’t remark that there were hardly enough people to fill up the arena, and instead let himself be dragged along without comment. He was starting to learn that the easiest way to handle his team was to simply go along with whatever they did.

He didn’t pay much attention to the fights. He wasn’t participating, so why would he care? Some of Konoha’s genin won, some of them lost.

He found mild interest in the Suna nin, their fighting styles significantly different from any he had seen before. Besides, he had heard rumors when they’d arrived, rumors that suggested that the youngest, the redhead, was a bit too enthusiastic with his sand.

The rumor proved true when he went up against a kunoichi from a village Sasuke had never heard of. He didn’t let her get in a single hit and immobilized her effortlessly. He raised his hand, about to clench it and – from the looks of it – crush her limbs in a gruesome and painful way that would certainly leave permanent injuries.

“Hey, Gaara!” Next to him Naruto grinned at the Suna nin – Gaara – and flashed a thumbs up. Was he encouraging him? What was wrong with him?

Down in the arena Gaara frowned and, making his siblings gape, let the referee end the match by simply keeping his opponent immobilized.

“Nice job,” Sakura said, leaning on the railing without taking her eyes off of the fighting area.

“Thanks,” Naruto said, grinning.

“His seal?”

“All good.”

“Nice.”

They went back to watch the remaining fights, and Sasuke didn’t bother to ask what in the world they were talking about.

A few days later it was announced that the Kazekage had disappeared without a trace and the Suna nin withdrew from the competition in order to return to their home village. Naruto shared a cheerful goodbye – or rather an ‘until we meet again’ – with Gaara.

His sister, Temari, hugged Sakura goodbye (the siblings had spent too much time in his presence for Sasuke to not have learned their names), and his brother, Kankurō, had a hard time getting away from a bunch of Konoha kids, who, despite Kankurō doing his best to act grumpy and mean, had gotten attached to the puppeteer.

Kakashi oversaw the spectacle with a grumbled “building inter-village relations that diplomats have failed at for years” and watched in exasperation as Sakura and Naruto waved after the Suna nin at the village borders.

Later that day Naruto and Sakura had invited themselves into his apartment – again – bringing enough things to make it clear that they planned to stay the night. This, too, was a habit that had started after the exams. When asked about it Sakura had simply said, “You wouldn’t accept invitations to our places. Of course we have to come to yours.”

It was annoying and frustrating and there was nothing Sasuke could do to stop them. Really. He’d tried. Instead of doing what normal people would do – leaving him alone when he obviously did not care for their company – they settled down close to wherever Sasuke was currently ignoring them to clean their weapons, paint each other’s nails or sometimes waste hours gossiping.

The only thing he could do to temporarily rid himself of them was to take bathroom breaks unnecessarily often, at least one freedom that they granted him.

It was on one such bathroom break that he walked past a window and saw movement outside. He hesitated, not sure if he had imagined it. Curiosity won out, and Sasuke opened the window, jumping on the windowsill and peeking outside.

“Hello, Sasuke.” Sitting on the tree next to his house was a teenager with gray hair. Sasuke recognized him vaguely as one of the genin who had participated in the chūnin exams.

“What do you want?” His foul mood showed, but Sasuke didn’t care.

The teenager raised an eyebrow at him, but smiled in what might have been a reassuring expression. Sasuke was too agitated to care. “My name is Kabuto, and I come with a proposal. My master has seen your potential. He sent me to offer you his help, and a place as his apprentice.”

That got Sasuke’s attention. Whoever Kabuto’s master was, he had seen his potential? More so, he wanted to teach him?

“We can help you, Sasuke. We’ll give you the chance to become stronger, and to fulfill your ambition! Orochimaru-sama can help you reach your full potential.”

Sasuke already knew that he wouldn’t rise half as quickly as he wanted to with his team. They were holding him back, so this could be his chance. Maybe an apprenticeship was the better–

“Wait. Did you say Orochimaru?” Sasuke’s mind flashed back to Sakura punching him in the face. “Yeah, no thanks.”

Sasuke slammed the window in Kabuto’s face with a resolute bang and rejoined Naruto and Sakura as they took apart his kitchen in an attempt to cook dinner. Somebody had to show them how it was done.

Chapter Text

Sakura and Naruto kept forcing Sasuke to spend time with them. He had been cornered into slumber parties, coerced into restaurant visits and dragged along whenever they’d decided to hang out with the other teams.

If his resistance got weaker over time, that was solely because Sasuke was getting tired of his protests being ignored. It definitely wasn’t because he was starting to enjoy their company.

The weirdest part by far was that the more time he spent with them, the less he was bothered by their odd know-it-all behavior. Alright, so maybe he wasn’t ‘less bothered’ so much as he learned to appreciate the moments that other people – not him – suffered from their antics.

Even the Hokage himself was not spared. They met him one day on their way through Konoha, accompanied by an old woman. “Hello, Naruto,” he said, pausing in his steps with a smile. “And what are you and your friends up to?”

Naruto stuck out the bundle of wildflowers in his hand. “Just visiting my parents.”

The woman gasped and the Hokage’s eyes widened comically. Sasuke didn’t know what the big deal was. Admittedly, he’d been surprised as well the first time Naruto had asked to visit the memorial stone, but that was mostly because he’d never seen him do it before.

The Hokage recovered enough to answer. “Your parents, you say?”

“Yeah.” Mischief twinkled in Naruto’s eyes. Sasuke knew to lean back and enjoy the show. “You know,” Naruto said, sending an exaggeratedly wistful glance to the Hokage monument. “I just have this feeling that he – I mean, they – are still watching over me.”

The woman gaped, her mouth wide open. The Hokage was more dignified, but had paled to a worrying degree.

“Hokage-sama,” Sakura said with a worried tone. It proved how much time Sasuke had spent with them that he could see the hidden amusement behind her mask. “Are you alright?” Then, to rub it in, she added, “Was it something Naruto said?”

The Hokage excused himself, and he’d just disappeared around a corner when Naruto and Sakura burst out laughing. Sasuke allowed himself a smirk. He had to admit, people’s reactions to his teammates were hilarious. As long as it was someone other than himself, of course.

Regarding training, his teammates at least weren’t completely useless. Additionally to all the ridiculous “team-bonding” they insisted on, they also met up regularly outside of their official training sessions. Sometimes it was just the three of them, sometimes they were with the other teams, and sometimes, just as promised, they met up with Kakashi, Yamato and Sai for their joint sessions. Despite Yamato’s long-suffering reluctance and Sai’s inability to act like a normal human being, he couldn’t even say he minded that much.

But even though things were starting to look up, Sasuke couldn’t shake the odd feeling that his teammates were humoring him every time they were training with just the three of them. But that was absurd. Yes, there had been the incident with the tree-climbing exercise, but Sasuke had decided that it must have been beginner’s luck for both of them. Orochimaru of course had been nothing but a fraud, and by now Sasuke was convinced that the image of Sakura shattering a tree had been grossly exaggerated by his adrenaline-flooded mind.

The more he told himself all of these things, the closer he came to actually believing them. That was until their most recent training session.

They were outside of Konoha’s borders, just out of sight of the village gates. It had proven ridiculously easy to sneak in and out of the village – for some reason, Naruto and Sakura always knew exactly where to find a blind spot in the guards’ rounds – and it wasn’t the first time they had decided to train here instead of risking curious eyes on one of the training grounds.

Sasuke was up against Naruto – though it had taken him ridiculously long to persuade both of them to spar. He didn’t know why they were so reluctant about it, since it was clearly the easiest way to train and to get stronger.

Naruto’s hair was longer again, and at this point Sasuke was sure that he was using a Henge to cheat. There was no way it could grow so quickly naturally.

Sasuke took it as proof that he was spending far too much time with his teammates that he not only noticed the eyeliner Naruto had put on, he was also able to identify the particular brand.

They’d just begun exchanging blows at the edge of the forest when Sasuke saw movement out of the corner of his eye. Against his better judgment, he turned his attention away from Naruto.

He paid for the moment of distraction by getting his legs swiped out from under him. Sasuke barely noticed landing on the ground, his stare fixed on the road.

“Hah! I win!” Naruto thrust one fist in the air victoriously. “What was that, Sasuke? Usually you’re not that easy to beat.”

Sasuke barely heard him over the ringing in his ears. His attention was focused solely on Itachi. His brother. The one he hadn’t seen in years, who looked right in his direction standing next to a stranger. Who had killed his parents and his entire clan.

Naruto was talking again. “Oh shit.”

“...Yup.” Sakura said.

“I totally forgot about that.”

“Yup.”

“D’you think talking would work?”

“Normally? No. But since it’s you… Maybe?”

Naruto heaved a deep sigh. “Alright, so–”

Sasuke snapped out of his stupor and rushed towards his brother with a battle cry. “Itachi!”

“And now it’s too late.”

“Oh well.”

Subconsciously, Sasuke was aware of his teammates running after him. He ignored them. Blood rushed in his ears and hate burned in his veins. This was his moment. This was what he’d been waiting for.

He took a kunai and aimed for Itachi’s eye socket. He sliced thin air as Itachi grabbed him from behind, blocking his kick and tossing him away with taunting ease. Sasuke landed on his feet and charged again.

The stranger to Itachi’s right, a tall man with blue skin and sharp teeth, laughed. “He has spirit. Is this your brother, then?”

Itachi kicked Sasuke in the stomach. “You’re still so weak, little brother.”

Sasuke wanted to scream. He leaped to his feet, but two blurs rushed in front of him and positioned themselves between him, Itachi and the stranger. An icy fist clenched around his heart, terror coursing through his veins. Itachi had already taken his family and his entire clan from him. At this rate, his team would be next.

“What are you doing?” Sasuke yelled, clenching his fists so hard that they trembled. “This isn’t about you!”

Naruto didn’t look at him. “You sure?”

Sasuke wanted to open his mouth to yell some more – what did that idiot even mean by that? – but Itachi wasn’t looking at him at all. Why wasn’t he looking at him? His brother’s eyes were fixed on–

Of course. Naruto. Even his homicidal brother was more interested in his teammates than him.

“Kisame,” Itachi said without taking his eyes off Naruto.

His partner, ‘Kisame’, hummed. “It’s him.”

Out of the corner of his eye, Sasuke saw Naruto flinch. How odd – he’d been so calm about everything up until this moment.

Sasuke would later blame the adrenaline clouding his mind. He forgot that he’d been about to ram a kunai into Itachi’s eye socket and that both he and his partner were S-ranked missing nin. All he could think about was that his brother was here because of Naruto and not him. “What do you want with him?" he yelled. "What’s so special about him?”

Naruto cringed. “Right, Sasuke. About that…”

“We’re not here for him,” Itachi said. “We’re here for what is sealed inside of him.”

Inside of him? Sasuke stared at his brother, but it was Naruto who spoke up.

“Look, don’t freak out, but…” Naruto took a deep breath and spat out his next sentence fast enough to make it difficult to understand. “I may or may not have the nine-tailed demon fox sealed inside me.”

There was a pause.

“What.”

“The nine-tailed demon fox. Kurama. Kind of a big deal, attacked the village twelve years ago. He’s sealed inside of me. I’m a jinchūriki.”

His brother was still right in front of him, otherwise Sasuke would have turned around and stormed off into the village. Or else curled up on the ground. He couldn’t handle much more of this.

“So,” Naruto said in a tone that was probably meant to be soothing and reassuring, “now that you know that, there’s no reason to freak out about… this.”

Sasuke didn’t have the energy to acknowledge that sentence. He stood in disbelieving horror as Naruto was enveloped by red chakra, foul and repulsive and pressing down on him with its bestial aura. Naruto’s gritted teeth showed long, curved canines, and his eyes turned crimson with slitted pupils. He crouched down, his hands distorting into claws.

Naruto’s voice, once he spoke, came as a growl. “Sakura?”

“Yeah!”

Before he knew what was happening his teammates leaped forward in a burst of chakra. Naruto threw himself at Kisame and Sakura… Sakura charged straight at Itachi.

Sasuke was paralysed, staring at the fight going on right in front of his eyes. Naruto and Sakura – the dead last and the booksmart civilian girl – were battling Uchiha Itachi and his partner – genin against S-ranked missing nin – and were still alive.

He could accept that they were more capable than he had originally thought. He could get over them being more talented than him in chakra control. It was no big deal that Sakura had beaten a no-name fraud like Orochimaru, and maybe, possibly, Sasuke could even learn to live with the fact that she had, in fact, the ability to shatter trees with a single punch.

But in no version of reality did his genin teammates have any right whatsoever to be able to hold their own against his big brother.

“Sasuke!” Kakashi’s voice called out to him from somewhere behind him. He couldn’t tear his eyes away to look at him.

“Sasuke, come on!” Arms wrapped around him, scooping him up like he was a little child. Sasuke didn’t understand how Kakashi didn’t react to the fight going on right there!

“But– Itachi, he’s– Why aren’t–” Sasuke realized that Kakashi was carrying him away. “No!” He struggled to be let go, but ended up being held up by the neck like an unruly kitten. In any other situation, Sasuke would have died from the mortification. “Let go! I have to go back, my brother is there!”

“I know. Which is why we’re not going back.”

Sasuke gaped. How could he stay so calm? “Are you just going to let Naruto and Sakura fight? Itachi killed my entire clan!”

“I know.” Kakashi looked at him with pained eyes. “You have to trust me. They’ll be fine, but you’re in danger.”

If looks could kill, Kakashi would have dropped dead minutes ago. “Let me go. Right now.”

“I’m sorry, Sasuke.”

“You don’t have to be sorry if you just–” Sasuke realized too late that Kakashi wasn’t apologizing for keeping him back. The blunt side of a kunai rammed into his skull and everything went black.

“That went well!”

“Well?” Kakashi’s voice sounded on the edge of a breakdown. “I wouldn’t be surprised if you permanently traumatized him! What were you thinking?”

“What do you think we should have done? Present myself to them willingly?” There was a pause. “Actually…”

Sakura chimed in with a thoughtful voice. “You could have gone undercover–”

“–in the Akatsuki! Aww, that would have been awesome.”

“I thought they wanted to kill you?” Kakashi said.

“Oh, right.”

Sasuke chose that moment to open his eyes and found his teammates and his teacher sitting around him. Naruto was sprawled out next to him on the bed. Sasuke nearly threw him off when he shot straight upwards.

“What did you do?”

“Sasuke,” Kakashi said, “Calm down. You have to understand–”

“I swore revenge! I have to defeat Itachi!”

From all the things Naruto could have said to that, he chose the exact wrong one. “You could ask Sakura to lend a hand with that next time.”

The image of Sakura exchanging blows with his brother shot into his mind. “Get out.”

“Aww, come on, Sasuke. We didn’t mean–”

“GET OUT!”

For once in their lives, Naruto and Sakura recognized a losing battle when they saw it. They left.

The next day Naruto and Sakura tried to approach him during a walk through Konoha.

Sasuke turned on his heel and stalked away from them before they could even open their mouths.

A few days later they waited for him in front of his apartment, carrying everything Sasuke by now recognized as their sleepover gear.

Sasuke stormed past them without sparing them a glance.

They invited him to dinner, sporting cheery grins that did a bad job of hiding their anxiousness.

Sasuke slammed his door in their faces.

Sasuke needed time to process that his teammates were too far beyond him to catch up to them any time soon. Rage burned in his chest at being the weakest in their team. Denial made him punch the walls in his apartment, disbelief at Naruto and Sakura being far, ridiculously far, out of reach. Hopelessness made it hard to get out of bed for days. How could he ever hope to defeat Itachi like this?

Two weeks after the incident Sasuke woke up feeling less miserable than he had since meeting Itachi again. He felt a calm inside of him, acceptance burying the negative emotions that had plagued him ever since.

His teammates outclassed him. That was fine. He could live with that.

Sasuke took a guess where they would spend their time without him and before he could second guess his actions, he found himself in front of Naruto’s apartment door. They answered after his second knock, Naruto yanking open the door and Sakura peering over his shoulder.

“Sasuke?” Naruto looked at him stunned. He was back to his short hair and had discarded his earrings. If Sasuke didn’t have more important things on his mind, he would have wondered why Naruto seemed to have trouble settling on a look.

Sasuke eyed both of them, the teammates he would have gladly ditched only weeks prior. He swallowed down his pride and a soothing warmth spread through his chest.

“Train me!” he said and met the stunned eyes of his teammates with a look of determination.

Chapter Text

“You can use chakra to enhance your muscles?”

“Essentially, yes.” Sakura tossed the kunai into the air, letting Sasuke catch it. “It’s not as easy as it sounds. You need some really advanced chakra control for it.”

Sasuke whirled the kunai around his finger before throwing it back. “I can practice.” The kunai passed between them a few more times, almost lazily flying through the air.

“How about a sword?”

Sasuke paused, the kunai in his hand. “A sword?”

“Yeah,” Sakura said, nudging him until he threw the kunai back in the air. “I know you’re betting on your Sharingan, but it’s good to have another skill to fall back on.”

Sasuke frowned. He knew Sakura hadn’t done it on purpose, but he felt irritation at the reminder that he still hadn’t developed his Sharingan. Itachi'd had his for years at this age. Why was it taking him so long?

Still, a sword didn’t sound like that bad of an idea.

Sakura straightened up from her lying position and snatched the kunai out of the air in one fluid motion. “What's keeping him? He said it’d only take a few minutes.”

“Hn.”

They’d spent the majority of their time waiting in Naruto's apartment laid out on Naruto's crappy pull-out couch, Sasuke’s head at Sakura’s feet and tossing one of Sakura’s kunai between them to pass the time. At least Sakura was finally doing some explaining, and they both brainstormed about Sasuke’s training regime.

But Sakura was right: Naruto had already taken far too long on his run for take out.

As if summoned by their thoughts, Naruto chose that moment to swing in through the window like the door wasn’t a few feet to his left.

“Guys, guys,” he said, dropping down on the couch and forcing Sasuke to sit up to make space. “You won’t believe this!”

“What, the reason you didn’t bring any food?” Sakura raised an eyebrow and Naruto’s face fell.

“Oh. I forgot.”

“That's the reason you went out in the first place!”

Sasuke crossed his arms. “Idiot.”

“Guys,” Naruto whined, throwing up his hands in exasperation. “Just hear me out!”

“Spit it out. And then you’re going back.”

“Yeah, yeah, fine. I just overheard Kakashi and Kurenai, who heard it from Asuma, who heard it from gramps–”

“Overheard or listened in?” Sakura asked.

Naruto paused. “What’s the difference?”

“Did you use any kind of disguise or camouflage?”

Naruto gave a shameless shrug. “I listened in on Kakashi and Kurenai, and you won’t believe what the old man did!”

“Oh?” Sakura said, finally showing interest. “Do tell.”

“Sasuke, you remember that guy in the forest, right? Orochimaru?”

“That weakling?” At least Sasuke knew now how Sakura had managed to put such strength behind her punches.

For some reason, his answer made Naruto snort and Sakura hide a grin behind her hand. “Yeah,” Naruto said, “that guy. Anyway, after what happened during the exam, apparently gramps decided that he’s been too lenient with his old students.”

“So what did he do?” Sakura’s grin widened in anticipation. Sasuke was stuck on the “old students” part – Orochimaru had been one of the Third’s students?

“He sent a message to Tsunade. Told her that either she returns to the village, or he has no choice but to declare her a missing nin.”

“Missing nin?” Sakura’s words trailed off into giggles. “Tsunade… an enemy of Konoha…”

“Tsunade, as in Senju Tsunade? The medic?” Sasuke had heard of her before. So she had been a student of the Hokage, too?

Naruto hummed in confirmation. “She left the village a few years ago and decided that she would never come back.”

“How long has it been since he sent the message?” Sakura asked. “Do they have an answer yet?”

“They do.”

“What did it say?”

Naruto’s grin was gleeful and entirely unsympathetic. “She dared him to try to drag her back and to screw himself. Though she didn't say it like that. The messenger was too flustered to repeat it.”

Sakura was shaking with laughter, but Sasuke felt like he was missing the point. He waited until their laughter had run out. “What’s so funny?”

“Well… I guess it’s not,” Sakura said. “Not really. It’s just,” she shared a look with Naruto, “the Sandaime wanted to strengthen Konoha’s power by bringing one of his strongest shinobi back under his command. By threatening her, mind you.”

“Instead,” Naruto went on, “he achieved the exact opposite. He has no choice but to go through with it and make her a missing nin now.”

“Accidentally.” Sakura couldn’t suppress a few more giggles. “He accidentally declared Tsunade a missing nin.”

That set Naruto off again. In the time it took both of them to calm down, Sasuke changed position so that all three of them sat cross-legged, facing each other. It was quiet after their laughter died down. Without Sasuke noticing they had passed the point where silence between the three of them was uncomfortable.

Sakura was the next to speak up. “I kinda miss her.”

Sasuke arched an eyebrow. “You miss her?”

“I mean, too bad I missed the opportunity to get to know her,” she corrected without missing a beat. “Before she’s declared a missing nin.”

“Yeah,” Naruto said, dragging out the word. “That would be great. Get out of the village for a bit. Visit Tsunade.”

There was a moment of silence.

Naruto straightened up with a wide-eyed, uncharacteristically serious stare. “Well why not?” He looked at Sakura, holding her gaze, then did the same with Sasuke. Sasuke had the feeling that this wasn’t just about Tsunade anymore. “We're not part of the Chūnin Exam anymore, and it’s not like we really need a promotion in the first place. We can train by ourselves just fine. We have no reason to stay in the village.”

Sasuke turned his head to look at Sakura. He wasn’t quite sure what he hoped to find. An incredulous stare? Hysterical laughter? He wasn’t surprised when what he saw instead was a look of contemplation.

“People won’t be happy.” It sounded more thoughtful than like an actual protest.

“So? It’s not like we won’t come back. Who’s gonna stop us?” Naruto’s eyes sparkled and Sakura’s expression brightened up slowly as the possibilities of that new revelation began to sink in.

Sasuke felt excitement burning in his chest, slight apprehension and the thrill of doing something forbidden. They were practically talking about abandoning the village. Although, what had the village ever done for him? For any of them?

He couldn’t help but to revel in the sensation of being included in their plans. For once they had not even hesitated, hadn’t even thought of keeping this a secret from him as well. It felt far better than it had any right to.

Sasuke stole a glance at both of his teammates, and found that he didn’t mind their decision. The realization left him dizzy, and even more so the certainty that he didn’t care about the consequences. He would follow Naruto and Sakura, and he would choose them over Konoha any day.

Chapter Text

“I forgot something,” Naruto announced and interrupted their planning session. Not even Sakura and Naruto were reckless enough to run away on a whim, so they’d spent most of the day preparing for their minor act of treason. “We have to stay until after the last task of the Chūnin Exam.”

Sasuke cocked an eyebrow at him. “Why?”

Naruto hesitated and Sasuke narrowed his eyes in warning. While his teammates had started to involve him more and more, sometimes they still slipped up and stumbled upon topics they – for some reason – weren't eager to share with Sasuke.

Eventually, Naruto caved. “There’s this boy one year above us. Hyūga Neji. There’s something I have to take care of before we leave.”

“Why the exam?” Sakura asked. “You’re not participating.”

“... Shit. You’re right.”

“What would participating have changed?” Sasuke asked.

“I would’ve beaten him up.”

“It’s how he makes friends,” Sakura said with a teasing smile.

Sasuke arched an unimpressed eyebrow. "By beating them up.”

“Remember Gaara? From the sand siblings?” Naruto asked.

“Yeah?”

Naruto gave him a self-satisfied smile and nodded in a way that said ‘There you have it.’ Sasuke leaned back, deciding to let it go. Naruto made friends by beating them up. Sure, why not.

“So?” Sakura asked, stretching her arms. “What are you gonna do?”

Naruto shrugged. “I’ll improvise.”

Improvising, as it turned out, meant breaking into the Hyūga compound in broad daylight and interrupting Neji during his training. The older boy was engrossed beating up a training dummy, a look of utter concentration on his face.

However, it wasn’t a big enough distraction for them to surprise him. “How did you get in, and what do you want?” he asked without even sparing them a glance. Sasuke’s lips thinned. He seemed incredibly arrogant.

While Naruto stepped forward, Sasuke felt Sakura’s hand on his arm, holding him back. “Leave it to Naruto,” she whispered. “He knows what he’s doing.”

“You’re preparing for the Chūnin Exams, right?” Naruto stepped closer to Neji with a sunny smile. “Care for a sparring partner?”

Neji eyed Naruto dismissively. “Your team wasn’t even recommended for the Chūnin Exams. Don’t be absurd.”

Sasuke felt heat rising up in his body and took a step forward. He wasn’t even sure who exactly he planned to defend: himself, Naruto or his team in general. Sakura laid a calming hand on his shoulder. “Just let Naruto do his thing.”

Sasuke squirmed, but obeyed. He didn’t like the feeling of leaving everything to his teammates.

It didn’t take Naruto long until he had persuaded Neji to spar – although it was obvious that Neji didn’t expect a challenge. “Byakugan,” he called out, and Sasuke watched with interest as veins thickened around his eyes.

He had heard about the Hyūga’s technique before: a Bloodline Limit rumored to even surpass the Sharingan in its prowess. Sasuke very much doubted that, but for there to be rumors in the first place, the Byakugan had to be somewhat useful.

Neji lunged forwards, his hands glowing and eyes narrowed in concentration. Considering that he didn’t take Naruto seriously, he was probably planning to finish the fight with a single blow.

Sasuke lost sight of Naruto, and he reappeared behind Neji, getting in a few jabs before Neji managed to block. Sasuke frowned and leaned closer to Sakura. “Those punches were nothing.”

“Didn’t look like he used any chakra,” Sakura said cheerfully.

Neji frowned. He started a new attack, aiming for Naruto’s chest only to change direction and target his limbs instead. Again, Naruto dodged his attacks, using the small window of opportunity by hitting Neji harmlessly.

Sasuke was starting to see what he was doing. Naruto wasn’t trying to hurt Neji or even to win the fight. He was dodging and getting in hits to prove to Neji that he could.

Neji noticed the same, and his mouth twisted into a snarl. His movement grew sharper, his attacks more ruthless and soon his hands were glowing streaks, moving too quickly to follow. Even so, Naruto continued to dodge and continued to fight back. Not fighting Neji seriously just made the confrontation more insulting.

Only a few minutes into the spar, Neji cried out in frustration. He was gasping for breath while Naruto looked as calm as when they had started. Neji hadn’t managed to get in a single hit. “Why are you here?” he snarled.

“To prove something,” Naruto said, following Neji’s example and relaxing out of his fighting stance. “I’m not going to pretend like I have no unfair advantages as a shinobi.” He snorted. “I’d probably never have graduated if it wasn’t for my mom’s huge chakra reserves. But what I used right now was just taijutsu. Just what your teammate, Lee, uses.”

Neji grit his teeth, still panting from their spar.

Naruto wasn’t finished. “That means I beat you only with what I learned through hard work.”

“What do you want?” Neji snapped. “What do you hope to achieve by coming here?”

“I wanted to show you that you shouldn’t look down on others because of their background or their privilege. And yeah,” Naruto continued before Neji could interrupt him, “I know that’s rich, telling that to a member of the Hyūga‘s side branch.”

That made Neji pause. “You know of our clan system.”

Naruto’s lips curled. “I do. And it’s wrong. But looking down on others the way you do right now… That’s not going to change anything.” He smiled, letting optimism light up his expression. “But it will. Change, I mean.”

Neji scoffed. “You have no idea what you’re talking about.”

Naruto’s smile dampened, but he clung to it. “Maybe not. Still, you’ll soon find that we’re not exactly fond of Konoha the way it is now. We’ll make sure that things change, even if it may take us a while.”

Neji scowled at them. “You’re insane. You’re talking about dismantling a system as old as the shinobi world.”

“Sounds like a challenge,” Sakura chimed in. She must have recognized that Naruto was finished. They left a bitterly scowling Neji behind.

Sasuke didn’t see how they had changed anything. “What exactly were you trying to do?”

“I got him thinking.” Naruto flashed him a smile. “That’s enough for now.”

It was only later that Sasuke realized that he hadn’t protested Naruto’s little speech. He supposed that meant he was fighting to dismantle the current shinobi hierarchy now.

He also supposed that he ought to be more bothered about that than he was.

They ended up bickering over whether or not to inform Kakashi about their little field trip.

Naruto was adamantly against leaving without telling him first. “We can’t just not tell him. He’ll be worried sick!”

Sasuke shrugged. “He’ll get over it.”

“He doesn’t deserve that!”

“You’re right.” Sakura paused. “But he’ll try to stop us if we tell him,” she pointed out.

Naruto considered this. “I have an idea.”

“You what.”

“Sorry, Sensei. But we made our decision.”

“But– You can’t– You’re genin!” Kakashi stared at them with growing horror, his visible eye pleading with one of them to get to their senses. He was disappointed.

“Genin who held off two S-ranked missing nin,” Sakura pointed out. Sasuke’s eye twitched at the reminder.

“But–” Kakashi was struggling to find the right words. “What are you going to tell the Hokage?”

“Right… About that.” Naruto let his voice trail off in a sheepish grin. All that followed was horrified silence.

“You’re not going to tell him,” Kakashi said.

Nobody answered.

“You want me to tell him. To cover for you.”

Silence. Kakashi rubbed his eyes, muttering what sounded like “How did I deserve this.” Sasuke couldn’t help but to feel a tiny spark of satisfaction about seeing him so agitated. It was petty, but he had refused to tell Sasuke the truth about his teammates once he’d found out. He struggled to find it within himself to feel bad for Kakashi.

Naruto on the other hand winced. “I’m sorry, Kakashi-sensei. Really. But there's so much beyond Konoha.”

“We’ll come back,” Sakura promised. “We just have to take care of some things.”

Kakashi looked at them pained. “What if I stop you? I could tell the Hokage right now. Even if you make it out, you’ll have ANBU on your tails.”

Sasuke and his teammates shared a glance. They looked back at Kakashi.

He closed his eye as if in deep pain. “What did you do?”

Naruto and Sakura took a leap and threw themselves at Kakashi in a hug. Sasuke felt a hand at his collar, and before he realized what was happening he was dragged into it, too.

“Thank you for everything,” Naruto said. “Take care, we’ll see you soon!”

Kakashi didn’t return the hug, but he didn’t shy away from it, either. It may have been out of shock, resignation or plain defeat. “What did you do?”

Three clones disintegrated, and halfway across the country, Naruto, Sakura and Sasuke paused as their clones’ memories merged with their own. They shared a glance before they kept on going.

Sasuke breathed in the cold air, wind ruffling through his hair as they leaped through the trees, one of his teammates at each of his sides. A smile tugged at his lips, hidden from their sight. The air smelled like freedom.

Chapter Text

For Sasuke, who had never left his home village for anything other than their mission to the Land of Waves, the first few hours of their journey were filled with a mixture of anxiousness and euphoria.

Even through the excitement Sasuke could tell that Naruto was being uncharacteristically silent.

“S-So, Sasuke,” he started, the most recent of his attempts to start a conversation. Like all the times before it, the words wilted on his tongue before Naruto managed to form a sentence, and he ended with a lame, “We should go for dango in the next village, how about it?”

Sasuke raised an eyebrow at the half hearted change in topic. He hadn’t seen Naruto this nervous since the time he’d confessed about being a jinchūriki – except back then, Itachi had provided a superb distraction that had somewhat softened the blow.

Sasuke had firmly expected Sakura to lose her patience by now and “encourage” Naruto to go on. Because naturally, she knew what this was about. Instead, she kept alternating between worried and supportive glances, and went so far as to grab Naruto’s wrist to squeeze it reassuringly.

This had to be serious.

Sasuke had to fight to keep the impatience out of his voice. “What’s wrong?”

Naruto bit his lip and looked away. It had to be really serious. Sasuke actually started to get worried.

“There’s… something I need to tell you,” Naruto said. “And I don’t want this to change anything between us, or mess up our friendship, or… I don’t want this to make things weird.”

Sakura looked like she wanted to say something, but Naruto barreled on. “I would have told you sooner, but with the village, and Kakashi and everybody else…” Naruto trailed off. “Sakura knows, and I honestly wasn’t even subtle about it, so I’d kinda hoped you’d bring it up yourself. Spare me,” he laughed nervously, making a general hand gesture, “this.”

Sasuke swallowed, preparing himself for… whatever it was Naruto fought with himself to speak out loud. “Just tell me.”

After all of that, the conversation ended rather anticlimactically. In the grand scheme of things, Naruto being a girl from time to time was far less strange than… literally everything else about him. Or sometimes, Sasuke supposed, her. Overall, it was no time at all until Sasuke had accepted the revelation and moved on with his life.

It helped that Sasuke had actually seen Naruto as a girl before. Lots of people had. Sasuke simply wouldn’t have thought his enthusiasm for his Transformation technique might have hinted at something more.

Naruto, meanwhile, seemed to have prepared for a worse reaction and gave him a wide, beaming smile. He looked relieved – or she did? Sasuke had no idea how he was supposed to tell, considering Naruto hadn’t used a blatant Transformation for several weeks.

He tried to come up with a way to phrase the question. “So what do I call you?”

... Probably not like that.

“Er. Naruto?” Naruto tilted his head, missing Sasuke’s intent.

“No, I mean…” He trailed off, frustrated.

“Pronouns, Naruto,” Sakura saved him. Sasuke could have hugged her.

He wouldn’t. They forced enough physical contact on him as it was.

“Oh! I’m a boy now. It switches, depending on how I feel.” Naruto shrugged. “You’ll see. And if not, I’ll correct you.” And that was that.

They hadn’t traveled for long when Naruto spoke up again. “You know what? Let’s make a detour.” He didn’t wait for an answer before he changed directions, forcing Sakura and Sasuke to follow.

“I thought we were going to look for Tsunade,” Sakura protested. “The reports clearly said that she was last seen in Kusa.”

“I know, and we will! Right after we meet up with someone.”

“Who?”

Naruto flashed them a grin. “You’ll see.”

Sakura grumbled but gave up trying to fight Naruto. She turned to Sasuke, and he hurried to look away like he hadn’t followed the exchange gleefully.

He wasn’t fast enough.

“Oh, you’re loving this, aren’t you?”

Sasuke let the slight curve of his mouth speak for itself. Sakura let out a huff, but Sasuke could hear humor in the sound.

The “little detour” ended up taking almost a week – and half of that time was spent hiking through the desert. Sakura had quickly realized where their journey was taking them, and had luckily decided to share the information with Sasuke.

It did little for his bad mood. Sasuke was used to trees and shade, not this blazing hellscape. The thought that people were actually living here was mind-blowing. How were Sakura and Naruto taking it so well? He didn’t even want to think about having to go all the way back.

All things considered, Sasuke’s first week outside of Konoha had been far less exciting and a lot more sweaty than he had imagined. He let out a breath of relief when they finally stood in front of Suna’s gates.

Its closed gates.

“Heeeello!” Sasuke winced as Naruto – standing right next to him – yelled up at the guards. “We’re here to see Gaara!”

“Suna does not receive visitors at the moment,” one of the guards replied.

Naruto gaped up in disbelief. “What do you mean you don’t receive visitors?”

Sakura laid a hand on Naruto’s arm. “You’re going at it the wrong way.” She raised her voice, addressing the guards herself. “We are representatives of Konoha and wish to see the Kazekage!”

There was a moment of silence. “Suna does not receive visitors at the moment. Go home.”

Sakura’s victorious expression faltered. “Well. This is annoying.”

“And what are we supposed to do now?” Sasuke asked. The heat was getting on his nerves, and it showed.

“I mean.” Naruto let his gaze wander over Suna’s defenses. “We can always sneak in.”

“Let’s keep that in mind, and let’s also consider our options that don’t involve causing a political incident with one of the Big Five Nations,” Sakura said.

Naruto shrugged. “I’m just saying.”

“You’re here for Gaara, right?” Sasuke asked next. “Can’t you contact him somehow?” Anything that would get them out of this heat. Sasuke could feel sweat running down his back. Gross.

Naruto stared at him and Sakura groaned.

“Huh.”

“Duh. It’s so easy.”

Sasuke raised an eyebrow, prompting Naruto to explain.

“Gaara is a jinchūriki, too. I can just contact him through our shared mindscape!” He grinned. “I hadn’t done it before, so it slipped my mind.”

“But if you hadn’t done it before, how–”

“G-Guests!” A shaky voice called down to them. “Y-You may now e-enter!”

The gate opened, and Sakura and Sasuke gave Naruto a look. He raised his hands. “It wasn’t me!”

Gaara welcomed them at the other side of the gate, guards stationed around him with just a bit too much distance between them. None of them looked happy to be there.

“I could feel you coming. Welcome.”

“Gaara!” Naruto broke out in a grin and dashed forward to bury Gaara in a hug. Gaara’s arms were slack at his sides like he didn’t know what to do with them, and sand twitched around him restlessly, but didn’t interfere. His guards looked ready to faint, staring at the display with badly hidden terror.

Naruto either didn’t notice, or didn’t care. “How have you been? How’s Suna?”

The two of them started walking, and Sasuke and Sakura followed.

“Recovering. Losing the Kazekage – Father – has left us vulnerable. You have to excuse our guards. They are under strict order to turn away visitors unless told otherwise.”

Anxious glances followed them as they walked, the villagers freezing at the sight of them or hurrying away. Going by Naruto’s expression, he noticed, too. “And how are you?”

Gaara took on a troubled expression. “I am… learning.”

“Sakura!”

Sasuke turned to see the older sand siblings approaching. Temari beamed and walked right up to Sakura, intentionally or unintentionally acting like Naruto and Sasuke didn’t exist. Naruto was still talking to Gaara, which left Sasuke with Kankurō.

“Uchiha.”

Sasuke let out a huff. “Kankurō.”

They settled into an awkward silence as their siblings and/or teammates socialized.

“How have you been?” Sakura asked.

Temari groaned. “Sitting through one council meeting after the other. If I have to spend one more hour with wrinkly old men who respect the table cloth more than they respect me, I will cut someone.”

Sakura smirked. “Want to lose some tension in a spar?”

“Please.”

To Sasuke’s horror, not only were Sakura and Temari heading off to what was presumably a soon-to-be-former training ground, but Gaara and Naruto were walking away, as well. He didn’t want to be left alone with Kankurō! He wasn’t social like them.

“Naruto!” he barked out, sending his teammate a glare that said ‘don’t you dare leave me alone here’.

“Huh? Oh,” Naruto looked at Kankurō. “You guys have weapon shops here, right?”

“Of course we do.” Kankurō stared at him in a mixture of disbelief and indignation.

“Cool! Can you take Sasuke and get someone to help him pick out a sword? He’d like to learn.”

“I could find an instructor to teach him the basics,” Gaara offered.

“Hold on,” Sasuke interrupted. How was this all decided without him? “Aren’t you gonna teach me?”

“Eh?” Naruto stared at him. “I can’t sword fight. Neither can Sakura.”

That left Sasuke speechless. He didn’t even know why, but he had just assumed… He had probably gotten too used to the idea that his teammates were able to do anything.

“Kankurō?” Naruto asked, dragging a long suffering sigh out of the sand nin.

“Fine. Let’s go.”

Sasuke sent one last dirty glance at Naruto and got a cheerful thumbs up in return. Sakura had already disappeared, off to obliterate foreign property, and Kankurō had resigned himself to serve as Sasuke’s tour guide for the day.

If Sasuke got a proper sword out of it, then perhaps he could even forgive his teammates for ditching him.

Chapter Text

Sasuke spent his time in the desert village alternating between spending time with the sand siblings – forced on him by his teammates who wouldn’t accept him ducking out on the bonding – and learning the basics of sword fighting. It was those lessons that made the trip worth it despite everything else. The instructor Gaara had lent him was strict, but she made sure that Sasuke picked up the basics quickly.

While Sasuke trained, Suna’s elders learned to view Sakura and Temari with a mixture of terror and reverence, and the villagers were made to question their fear of Gaara once they had seen him zooming across the village on his sand cloud with the wildy giggling menace that was Naruto holding onto him.

All too soon their time in Suna had passed and his teammates decided to travel on.

“There is something I wanted to tell you,” Gaara said to Naruto on the evening that they were scheduled to leave. “I have been able to change because of you. You’ve inspired me. And–”

“And now you’re going to become Kazekage?” Naruto interrupted with a knowing smile. It quickly faltered with Gaara’s next words.

“Kazekage? Why would I want that?”

“Eh.” Naruto shared a clueless look with Sakura. “Because I inspired you? And because I want to become Hokage?”

Gaara blinked. “You do?”

Naruto stared at him in disbelief, but Sasuke thought about it. It was true: Once upon a time, Naruto hadn’t stopped declaring his ambition wherever he went and to whoever would – or wouldn’t – listen. But recently? Sasuke couldn’t remember the last time Naruto had even brought it up.

Naruto seemed to have come to the same conclusion. “Huh. Guess I forgot to mention it.”

Gaara was far too young to become Kazekage, anyway. Sasuke didn’t know any other kage, but if they were the same as the Sandaime, they had to be ancient.

“Well, what then?” Naruto asked.

“I want to prove to my village that I am more than the monster sealed inside of me. And I want to help other jinchūriki, the same way that you have helped me.” Gaara smiled, and it was the first time Sasuke had seen him do so as easily as now.

“Come with us then.” Naruto beamed at Gaara, his eyes sparkling in excitement. “We can find them. Together!”

Gaara’s smile grew fond. “Some other time, perhaps. I cannot leave my village while it is missing a leader.”

Naruto’s smile dimmed, but didn’t fade. He didn't look surprised. “We’ll meet again, then.”

“We will.”

“Take care,” Sakura said next to him and broke away from her hug with Temari. “And the next time the council gives you problems, just remember what I showed you.” She flexed her pinky of all things, and Sasuke decided then and there that he did not want to know any details.

Temari’s feral grin only cemented that decision. “You bet.”

Sasuke had already turned away and steeled himself for the long journey through the desert when Kankurō of all people made him pause.

“Oi, Uchiha.”

“Hn.”

Kankurō nodded towards the sword resting at Sasuke’s side. “Take care of it. It’s one of Suna’s best handiwork.”

Sasuke paused, shifting the unfamiliar weight. It felt awkward and heavy, and would continue to do so until Sasuke got used to it. He shared a nod with Kankurō and finally, they were off.

“Hey, Sasuke.” Naruto poked his elbow as soon as they were out of earshot. Sasuke suppressed the urge to slap his hand away. “Did you finally make a friend? Did you? Did you?”

“I knew you could do it,” Sakura added, exaggerated pride in her voice that – to his horror – made heat rise up in Sasuke’s cheeks.

“Shut up.”

“Aww, Sasuke. Don’t be like that,” Naruto said. “Making friends is a good thing. You should try it some more.”

“Unless, of course, we’re all that you need, and you want to spend all your time with us instead.” Sakura gave him a gentle shove, and Sasuke didn’t deign to answer her.

Otherwise he might have been forced to admit that Sakura was not completely wrong.

Two weeks later and back in acceptable climate conditions, Team 7 entered a village only to find two blurs flying past them, chased by a group of people.

“Catch them! Those filthy gamblers still owe me money!”

Yells of agreement followed that declaration. At the sound of them Naruto straightened up. “Shit! That’s them, let’s go, go, go!”

Sasuke followed Naruto’s order on instinct. The two figures had nearly run out of sight already, and he followed his teammates more than he followed them. The civilians were quickly left behind as even Sasuke struggled to keep up. He forced his legs to carry him faster, faster.

Naruto’s pigtails swayed with her movement, and even though Sasuke’d had several days to get used to the sight – Naruto having changed just after a week had passed since Suna – he still found himself caught off guard from time to time. He’d seen Naruto wearing the Transformation before, but never for more than a few minutes, and only ever as a joke.

“Wait!” Naruto yelled just as they entered the forest. The higher pitch of her voice was no less loud and obnoxious than it had been before. “We’re from Konoha, we don’t want to–”

The two figures disappeared in a blur.

Sakura groaned. “Nice job, Naruto.”

Naruto at least had the decency to sound sheepish. “I forgot.”

“You forgot that it’s Tsunade we’re running after? She hated Konoha even before she became a missing nin, of course she’d bail!”

“Moron,” Sasuke muttered more out of habit than anything. It wasn’t like he was invested in meeting Tsunade himself.

Naruto came to a halt at a clearing and looked around perplexed. “I could’ve sworn they went–” She yelped as a kunai missed her barely, drawing a shallow red line over her cheek.

“Alright, blondie.”

A woman stepped out of the trees. If Naruto and Sakura had not told him about her unusually youthful appearance, Sasuke would not have recognized her as one of the Sannin.

Her face was twisted in a deep scowl. “Who are you, and what do you…” She broke off and gaped. At her side, a woman who must have been Shizune joined her. “How old are you?”

Naruto gave them a sunny smile. “We’re genin.”

“Fresh out of the academy,” Sakura joined in. “It’s nice to meet you, Lady Tsunade.”

Just like that, the scowl was back on her face. “You’re not trying to tell me that Sarutobi sent little kids after me, are you?”

“Nah. We’re here on our own,” Naruto said.

Sakura feigned a thoughtful expression. “I suppose we kind of deserted the village.”

“Just a bit. Does that make us missing nin, too?”

“Bit too late to think about that now,” Sasuke added.

The scowl had fallen off of Tsunade’s face, leaving only blatant disbelief. Her companion wasn’t faring much better. “But,” Tsunade said, her gaze wandering from one of them to the other. “You’re like, nine.”

“Twelve,” Sakura corrected. “And it’s not like there’s an age requirement.”

“What do you want?”

“We just wanted to meet you,” Sakura said in shamelessly faked earnesty. They couldn’t fool Sasuke anymore. “You’re famous, Lady Tsunade.”

“Yeah! Everybody knows about the badass Konoha nin. You’re said to be the strongest kunoichi who ever lived.”

“And the most talented medic,” Sakura added, overdoing the flattery by miles. Considering it was them, that was probably the intention. “You’re easily the coolest of the Sannin.”

“Well,” Naruto started, and grunted as Sakura’s elbow hit her in the side. “Y-Yeah! Totally the coolest.”

Tsunade, unsurprisingly, was not buying it. Neither was her companion, although Shizune tried to let them down easily in a tone that sounded appropriate for children half their age.

“N-Now,” she said with a strained smile, “that is incredibly sweet of you, but I’m afraid Lady Tsunade and I are preoccupied wi–”

“Cut the bullshit, brats. What do you really want?”

“L-Lady Tsunade,” Shizune started, scandalized, but Naruto interrupted her before she could go on.

“Heh, busted.” Her smile was entirely unapologetic, but dimmed from its over the top cheerfulness. “I was hoping you could tell me some stories about my dad. My name is Uzumaki Naruto. My father was the Yondaime, Namikaze Minato.”

Wait. What?

Chapter Text

Sasuke was not above admitting that he was staring.

Not at Naruto; the impact of the most recent revelation was already beginning to fade. It was starting to become increasingly more difficult to bring himself to care about the “shocking” details Sasuke learned about her, seeing as there seemed to be a new one every other day.

Naruto had a nine-tailed demon fox sealed inside of her? Alright. She was able to hold off an S-ranked missing nin and have fun while doing it? Why not. She had gained Suna’s favor by beating up their leader’s son and befriending him as a result? Old news.

Finding out that her father was the Fourth Hokage was just another in a long row of revelations that Sasuke could not bring himself to feel surprised over anymore. This was his life now.

Tsunade on the other hand? Tsunade was awesome.

They found themselves sitting inside of the nearest pub, Tsunade having decided that she was not sober enough for this conversation – especially after one of the civilians chasing her had actually managed to catch up with them.

Shizune’s protests had not swayed Tsunade. “Oh, give it a rest. They decided to desert their home village at the ripe old age of twelve. There might be something wrong with them, but if they made it this far, they can handle a goddamn pub.”

So now Sasuke was staring. He was sitting next to his teammates and Tsunade, and couldn’t take his eyes off the woman who he no longer doubted to be one of the legendary Sannin.

He hadn’t even fully registered what he was about to do before he heard himself say, “Teach me.”

“What?” Sakura gaped at him with an expression that bordered on indignation. “No way, she’s teaching me!”

“Um, Sakura,” Naruto said. “She doesn’t really need to teach you. Remember?”

“But Tsunade’s my teacher!”

“I’m nobody’s teacher, brats!” Tsunade’s shout effectively broke up their scramble. “Where’d you get that moronic idea?”

“Why do you wanna learn healing techniques at all, Sasuke?” Naruto asked.

Sasuke stared at Naruto in disbelief. Wasn’t it obvious? “The civilian,” he said. Tsunade had listed all of the bones of his body she planned to break in alphabetical order and exactly how many of his motor functions he would be unable to regain. Not that it had gotten that far. The guy had fainted on the spot.

“Still,” Naruto said. “I didn’t think you’d be interested in becoming a medic.”

Sasuke turned, looking ahead thoughtfully. He didn’t exactly want to become a medic, specifically. He’d already picked up – from a few stray conversations here and there – that Sakura was adept at healing techniques herself. One of the reasons Sasuke was so eager to learn sword fighting was that he would have something for himself. Something his teammates weren’t already good at.

So no, he didn’t want to be an additional medic next to Sakura. However, it sounded very interesting to learn how to break people and put them back together.

While Tsunade seemed to be content drinking and ignoring them, Shizune watched them with thinly veiled suspicion.

“Why did you come find us? Really?”

Sakura and Naruto shared a glance, and Sakura dropped the playful, mildly teasing tone that the pair had perfected over the last few weeks. “You both deserted Konoha yourselves. You must have had reasons.” She paused. “Konoha… or I suppose any shinobi village can be suffocating to live in. The way shinobi grow up, are trained and expected to give their lives for a place that maybe doesn’t deserve to stay the way it is now.”

Tsunade snorted. “Do you even know how ridiculous that sounds, coming from a brat who’s stepped foot out of her home village for the first time in her life?” She took a swing from her glass and slammed it back on the counter. “Makes it all the more mind-boggling that you’re right.”

“Why do you think so?” Shizune asked instead. “Those are strong opinions.”

“I’m a jinchūriki,” Naruto said, “and Sasuke is the last surviving Uchiha beside his brother. Go figure.”

“That’s funny,” Tsunade said and actually looked like she was giving Naruto her full attention for once. “Because last time I checked, Konoha’s jinchūriki was a boy. Minato had a son.”

“That’s me,” Naruto said cheerfully. “Sometimes. Other times I’m his daughter.”

Shizune hummed in contemplation. “Does that mean you keep up a Henge the entire time?”

“Well, yeah,” Naruto said, tugging at one of her pigtails. “At least as a girl.”

Sasuke sent her a look. “Isn’t that tiring to keep up?”

Tsunade huffed a laugh. “She’s an Uzumaki. If there’s one thing she doesn’t need to worry about, it’s chakra.”

“Is she right then?” Shizune asked. “Did you know her father?”

There was a pause where Tsunade stared straight ahead, twirling the glass in her hand. She set it down again with a sigh. “Not closely. But yeah, I knew him,” she admitted. “Of course I did. He was Jiraiya’s student.”

Naruto nodded as if that wasn’t news to her. “You left Konoha when he was still a teenager. Didn’t you?”

Tsunade narrowed her eyes. “Look kid, I don't know what you want me to tell you. Apparently you already know the basics, and it’s not like I hung around him a lot.”

Naruto shrugged. “Can’t blame me for trying. It’s not like there’s anyone in the village willing to tell me about him. Them,” she corrected, “Mom, too.”

“I’d tell you to hunt down Jiraiya, but even I don’t know where he’s lurking around.” Tsunade paused, then added, drily, “Then again, you did somehow managed to track down us.”

“We’re just that great,” Sakura chirped while Naruto took on a thoughtful expression. She caught Sakura’s gaze, then Sasuke’s.

“We don’t really have any plans besides this, do we?”

“Don’t look at me,” Sasuke said. “I haven’t had a say in anything since we became a team.”

“You’re being dramatic,” Sakura said, shoving his arm playfully. Sasuke knew that it was playfully only because he was still standing instead of hugging the wall.

“We know Konoha, and we already visited Suna,” Naruto said. “Why not make the set whole?”

“And visit the rest of the Five Nations?” Sakura asked.

“And the villages in between,” Naruto finished, already breaking out in a grin. “Just imagine all the people we’ll be able to meet!”

Sakura turned to look at him. “What do you think, Sasuke?”

He thought about it. So far, their trip had been… surprisingly fun. Only weeks prior Sasuke would have never believed that he would enjoy being on a team in the slightest – especially not with these two. And yet, here he was.

Additionally, he was learning more than he ever had in the academy. It was like Sakura and Naruto knew his strengths and weaknesses better than he did – and with those knew exactly the best way to teach him. They were the reason he had started to learn sword fighting.

Besides, they were right. As they were now, Konoha had nothing to offer to them.

He shrugged. “Sure.”

Naruto thrust one hand in the air victoriously. Her grin was ridiculously wide, radiating happiness. “This is gonna be the best, you guys!”

“There’s a lot we haven’t seen so far,” Sakura agreed. “Should be exciting.” She grinned, and Sasuke felt a pang of sympathy for whoever Sakura was planning to “meet” on their travels.

“Go on then,” Tsunade said, waving at them dismissively. “Go see the world. Have fun. Don’t bother sending us a postcard.”

“But,” Shizune protested. “Shouldn’t we be trying to discourage this?”

“Why should we? If they fail they won’t be our problem anymore. And if they succeed, they’ll come out of it one hell of a powerful team.” Tsunade shrugged. “Either way, doesn’t matter as long as I don’t have to deal with them again.”

“Aww,” Sakura said, an unnerving smile on her face. “It’s adorable how you think you'll be rid of us just like that.”

Tsunade’s glass slammed on the counter with a bang. “What?”

“You’re stuck with us,” Naruto said, putting her arms behind her head with a gleeful smile. “We’ll come back and tell you all about our travels.”

Tsunade’s scowl could have turned milk sour. “Listen here, brats–”

“After all, we’re family.” Naruto was enjoying herself entirely too much. “Your grandma was an Uzumaki, wasn’t she? So, we’re related.”

“That’s not–” Tsunade’s eyes widened comically.

“Since, you know, my mom was an Uzumaki.”

Huh. That explained her last name, Sasuke supposed.

Naruto wasn’t done, gleefully ignoring the way Tsunade grew paler and paler. “Do I call you granny or auntie or cousin? Cause you know, I’m not really sure.”

Tsunade sputtered in disbelief. “You don’t get to call me any of those!”

Naruto shared a glance with Sakura. “Granny it is.”

Suicidal teammates or not, Sasuke found that he looked forward to their plans. A trip through the Elemental Nations was bound to be interesting.

That was, Sasuke thought as he watched Shizune physically restrain Tsunade to keep her from pounding a smug Naruto, if his teammates managed not to get dismembered by a furious Sannin before they could get on their way.

Chapter Text

They walked in silence as Kumo disappeared from sight behind them. The atmosphere between them was strained, Naruto and Sasuke pointently not looking at Sakura. She didn’t even have the decency to look guilty.

Naruto was the first to give in. “You just couldn’t help yourself, could you?”

“He challenged me,” said Sakura, crossing her arms.

“We are banned from Kumo for life,” Sasuke said.

“Do you know how much less of Kumo there is than there was before?” Naruto, his hair short and Henge dropped, frowned. “And you made Killer B cry, Sakura! You made him cry!”

“He challenged me!” Sakura repeated, as if that justified anything. “What did you expect me to do? Refuse?”

“Yes!” Naruto threw up his hands in exasperation. “That way we would still be allowed to come back. How am I supposed to visit him now? He’s my friend!”

“Everyone’s your friend,” Sasuke muttered.

He still hadn’t quite recovered from the… experience that Killer B had been. Whatever Sasuke had expected from a jinchūriki after meeting Naruto and Gaara, it had not been that. The atrocious rap and bad rhymes played on loop in his ears whenever he didn’t distract himself quickly enough.

“It’s not my fault he doesn’t know his limits,” Sakura said.

“You’re thirteen! And tiny! With pink hair! How could he have possibly known that it would end in a gigantic crater?”

Sakura let out a huff. “I warned him.”

“You provoked him,” Sasuke corrected.

“Same difference. Look, I don’t know what you want from me. It’s too late now, isn’t it?”

Naruto pouted. “We didn’t even get to stay the night. And Sasuke could have learned a lot from Killer B.”

An icy shudder traveled over Sasuke’s spine. The rap haunted him. “I’m good.” Besides, he could do without a fighting style that used a ridiculous amount of seven blades. Where did Naruto even find these people?

“Stop dwelling on the past,” Sakura said, throwing one arm each over their shoulders in what might have been a placating gesture. Naruto huffed and Sasuke rolled his eyes, but neither of them tried to shake her off. They knew better than that.

The downside to camping outside was that not one of them was a morning person. Sasuke suppressed a grumble as he dragged himself out of his sleeping bag, shivering at the chilly morning air. He peeked through half-lidded eyes at his just as grumpy looking teammates.

Somehow, Sakura had already managed to dress herself. “Naruto,” she said, breaking off into a huge yawn. “Want me to do your nails?”

Naruto groaned, flopping over and facing away from Sakura. “‘s okay.”

Sasuke noted the deeper voice and the relatively short hair. Naruto had worn nail polish before as a boy, so it was better to double check.

Sakura seemed to have the same thought, and asked, “Still a boy?”

There was no answer, just a distracted humming sound. Naruto had straightened up, but didn’t face either of them.

“Naruto?”

“Eh? Oh, yeah.” He didn’t look at them, staring off into the distance instead.

Sakura raised an eyebrow. “Are you alright?”

Naruto looked up and gave them a bright grin. “We gotta make another pitstop.”

Naruto’s connection to other jinchūriki, as Sasuke found out, only worked within a certain distance. He couldn’t communicate with all of them at all times, but he immediately realized when one of them came within range.

Which was how they found themselves discussing their approach – or rather, how Sasuke found himself listening to Sakura and Naruto bicker. Sakura was all for a frontal assault – as usual – while Naruto insisted that they could solve the issue diplomatically.

“You don’t know how they’ll react,” Sakura said. “For all we know, they might immediately attack. It would be far easier if we had the moment of surprise on our side.”

“We won’t know until we try,” Naruto insisted, sporting the kind of earnestness that Sasuke would instinctively distrust coming from anyone but Naruto. “And what if she doesn't want to leave? We gotta ask her, first.”

“I’m with Sakura,” Sasuke said. “Why would they listen to us?”

From what Naruto and Sakura had told him, jinchūriki were widely hated within their communities – and hadn’t that been an eye opener – but also considered a huge asset. The irony of that was not lost on Sasuke. The point was: Sasuke doubted that the jinchūriki’s escorts (Her team? Her companions?) would welcome them with open arms to take away their asset.

Naruto admitted defeat with a huff. “Fine. Let’s compromise.”

A compromise, as proven a few minutes later, meant using an approach no one was happy with.

“You owe me for this,” Sakura muttered, and Sasuke silently agreed.

“Pssht! We’re nearly within range.” Naruto gestured for them to follow him. “Come on, what we discussed!”

Sakura heaved a sigh, expressing their discontentment for the both of them. Sasuke’s hand hovered over the storage seal that held his sword. He was itching to try it out in a real fight.

Their forehead protectors were carefully hidden from sight, and Naruto’s whiskers covered under a Henge, “just in case”.

They brushed through the undergrowth far louder than they were used to. It didn’t take long for them to stumble over their targets: three shinobi, one of them a teenager with green hair and orange eyes who Sasuke suspected to be Fū.

Just according to their plan, Naruto blended into the background while Sakura took the lead.

“S-Shinobi-san!” she choked out, her voice pitched in a frightened, childish way. She sounded years younger than she actually was. “I’m so glad! I thought we… I-I thought…” She broke off in a muffled sob. Sasuke was impressed against his will.

Fū stepped forward with a kind, if slightly alarmed, smile. “It’s alright! We can help you. What’s wrong?” She tensed and whirled around to face Naruto, and Sakura hurriedly went on to capture her companions’ attention.

“Really? You can help us?” She directed puppy eyes to the stoic shinobi. “We’re apprentices to our local healer. He took us into the forest to collect herbs, but we heard noises. We’ve had problems with bandits lately, so he told us to hide, b-but… But…” Sakura sniffled pathetically. “W-We got lost. We don’t know how to get back to our village.”

Sakura decided to dial up the ‘scared little children’ front by taking Sasuke’s hand. His first instinct was to swat it away, but he let it happen at her warning squeeze. He tried to warp the scowl creeping onto his face into something resembling fright instead.

“We don’t have time for this,” one of the shinobi growled. “We’re late as it is. We can’t afford any more detours.”

“We can’t just leave them alone,” the other argued, although he sounded reluctant about it. “Look at them, they’ll starve out here.”

Yeah, right.

“It’s not part of our job to help random little kids. They’ll find their way back.”

“They’re civilians.” He said the word like it was an insult. “Besides, do you really think Fū–” He frowned, and Sasuke suppressed a curse. They’d used up their time.

The shinobi turned to Fū. “Don’t you have anything to say?”

Fū flinched, her eyes widened as if caught doing something forbidden. Naruto had moved and stood far too close to her.

“What are you doing?” the first shinobi snapped, and grabbed for a kunai.

Sasuke twitched with the urge to retrieve his weapon, but followed their plan. They had to wait for Fū’s decision.

“It’s your choice, Fū,” Naruto said, completely at ease and not bothering to keep up their front anymore.

“We’re going,” the second shinobi decided, and grabbed for Fū’s arm roughly. “Right now.”

“Alright!” Fū shook off the grip forcefully, and retreated a few steps. “Alright, I want to come with you!”

Finally. Sasuke unsealed his sword as Fū yelled, “But don’t hurt them!” He faltered, but obeyed.

Changing tactics, he rammed the blunt side of his sword into one of the shinobi’s gut, strengthening his blow with chakra the way Sakura had taught him. His opponent dropped with a grunt.

A glance showed that Sakura had taken care of the other one, and Fū hovered around them anxiously. “Oh! Oh, this was a bad idea… What am I going to do...”

“They’ll be fine,” Sakura assured her. “They’ll wake up soon.”

“I know, that’s not what I mean! I’ll be declared a missing nin, they’ll look for me. But oh, you’re a jinchūriki!” Fū turned to Naruto with a bright grin, and Sasuke blinked at the sudden mood swing. “That’s so amazing! I’ve never met another one before.”

“I have,” Naruto said, beaming just as widely. “Two, in fact. My name’s Naruto. Maybe Chōmei told you, but I’ve got Kurama, the Nine-Tails, sealed inside of me.”

“You know their names!” If Fū’s smile grew any brighter, Sasuke knew for sure it would start to blind him. “Chōmei is really excited. Why are you here? Don’t you have a village? Where are you going?”

Sasuke felt his eye twitch. Fū was far too energetic for his liking. He’d already gotten used to Naruto, but the two of them together? They sounded exhausting to be around.

“We’re from Konoha,” Sakura said. “But at the moment we’re traveling.”

“You can do that?” Fū’s eyes went wide. “You can just leave your village and come back? They let you do that?”

“I mean,” Naruto rubbed his neck with a sheepish smile. “They didn’t stop us?”

“Because we didn’t let them,” Sasuke muttered.

“That’s amazing,” Fū said, her smile dropping. “Taki would never let me. I don’t know if I could come back if I leave now.”

“But I thought you didn’t like it there?” Naruto asked. “Why would you want to come back?”

Fū fidgeted. “It’s not that bad.” She didn’t sound convincing. “But being on the run all of the time… Having no village to return to…” She frowned.

Sakura hummed thoughtfully, but Naruto lightened up. “Why don’t we just bring you back to Konoha?”

Sasuke raised an eyebrow. “Are you sure?”

Naruto, apparently, did not see the issue of bringing a foreign jinchūriki back into their home village. He waved a hand dismissively. “Sure I am. It’ll be fine.”

Sasuke could almost hear the ‘What could possibly go wrong?’ and decided to hold his tongue. Whatever was about to happen, he could say with a clear conscience that it was completely and utterly Naruto’s fault.

Chapter Text

Two days into their journey and Sasuke's eye had developed a permanent twitch. He barely reacted as something wet made contact with his head, prompting a cry of triumph from Fū.

“Hah!” Naruto yelled, nearly choking from laughter. “Nailed it!”

Sakura hid a smirk. Badly. “I-It suits you, Sasuke.”

Sasuke ruffled his hair, not sinking low enough to answer them. His hair and clothes would never be the same again.

“Where did you even get glitter?”

Five days in and they nearly lost half of their traveling party out of sheer stupidity.

“Do you think the bijū mindscape still works if one of us is unconscious?”

“... Huh. Interesting.”

“What do you– Put that down!”

Seven days in and Sasuke started to reevaluate his opinion of Itachi as a homicidal lunatic. He was starting to see the appeal.

“Sasuke. Why are you sharpening your sword and looking at Fū like that?”

When they finally, at last reached Konoha, Sasuke was just about ready to sob in relief. He would gladly face all of the consequences of their several weeks long field trip if only he could escape the terror that followed Naruto and Fū’s boredom.

Despite her bubbly and outgoing personality, Fū was older than them by several years and a more than capable shinobi. Because of this it proved no challenge whatsoever to sneak back into Konoha and all the way into Naruto’s apartment.

“It’s kinda small,” Naruto said as soon as they’d entered through the window, “but we’ll manage.”

From the sounds of it, Naruto had already decided that all of them would spend the night at his place. Sasuke couldn’t even pretend to be surprised, and he didn’t react beyond raising an irritated eyebrow. If he was honest with himself, going back to his own empty apartment didn’t sound particularly tempting anyway.

It was late, and they’d pulled an all-nighter in their attempt to reach the village by the end of the day. Even Naruto and Fū were running out of energy, so it didn’t take long for them to find themselves in a blanket pile on the ground – neither Naruto’s bed nor his couch had been big enough for all four of them.

Knowing that both Sakura and he were light sleepers, Sasuke trusted that he would wake immediately should they get visitors, and surrendered to sleep easily.

The next day, it was Kakashi who found them. A very upset, very frantic Kakashi. “It’s you…”

Naruto blinked at him sleepily, but Sakura beamed. “Kakashi-sensei! We’re back!”

“It’s you,” Kakashi repeated, not moving from his place on the windowsill. “You’re alright.”

Naruto winced, and even Sasuke felt a tad guilty. “Of course we are. You didn't honestly think we’d let something happen, did you?”

“Oh, I don't know,” Kakashi said, his voice tight and his shoulders tense. “You three all on your own, doing who knows what outside of the village? How could I think something might happen to you?” Sakura grimaced, but Kakashi wasn’t finished. “Do you know how close I was to coming after you?”

“You’re more than welcome to join us,” Sakura said.

“That’s not what I–” Kakashi’s eye widened. “Does that mean you’re planning to do it again?”

An awkward silence followed. Sakura, Naruto and Sasuke shared a glance.

“Um. K-Kinda?” Naruto said. “Look, Kakashi-sensei–”

“Do you have any idea how long it took to convince the Hokage not to send someone after you? Do you know what people have been saying? What they’re going to say, knowing you’ll come and go as you please? This isn’t a game, you three!”

“I know.” Naruto’s voice lost all carelessness. “We’re not doing this for fun.”

“Well, not only,” Sakura muttered, not loud enough to interrupt Naruto.

“You know how much there is outside of the village borders,” Naruto continued. “Our perspective is so limited if we spend all of our time in a single village. Getting to know other places, other people and forming bonds – don’t you think that’s worth following?”

“That’s what missions are for,” Kakashi said, but his voice sounded weak. He’d never looked this exasperated, nor this tired.

Sakura shrugged. “That’s not enough. I’m sorry, but we’re not willing to wait years for any form of independence from the village.”

Kakashi sighed, dragging his hand over his face. “Why did you come back?”

“Right!” Naruto’s face lit up. He grabbed behind himself without looking, dragging Fū into Kakashi’s field of vision. “Kakashi-sensei, this is Fū. She’s a jinchūriki and she’ll live here from now on.”

If Kakashi had been distressed before, it was no comparison to what he looked like now. His eye widened comically and his next words came as an incredulous stutter. “Jinchūriki– She– What?”

“Hello, Kakashi-san.” Fū bowed deeply, her smile as beaming as Naruto’s. “My name is Fū, and it’s a pleasure to meet you.”

“You’ll make sure the council doesn’t try to pull anything, right?” Sakura asked, and, not waiting for an answer, “Thanks, Kakashi-sensei!”

What followed was their first group hug in weeks, Kakashi returning their embrace after a few seconds of awkward tension. “You’re going to be the death of me,” he muttered, but tightened his hold around them regardless.

The next day, Naruto and Sasuke accompanied Sakura on her search for Ino. They found her in a spar with Tenten, one of her teammates – Neji – keeping busy with a light workout next to them. All of them interrupted what they were doing as soon as they saw the four of them approach.

“Sakura,” Ino shouted, dodging the tantō Tenten had jabbed in her distraction without looking. “You’re back! Everyone’s been in a frenzy while you were gone.”

“We’re not here for long,” Sakura said. “We kinda came back to drop off a friend of ours.” She nudged Fū’s shoulder, prompting a wave and a cheerful, “I’m Fū, nice to meet you.”

Ino raised an eyebrow, looking Fū up and down. “Am I sensing a story?”

“Maybe,” Sakura smirked. “I’ll tell you over lunch. My treat.”

“You better. Fū, Tenten, are you gonna–”

“Is that a chain sickle?” Fū dashed over to Tenten’s side, where a variety of weapons was laid out carefully.

“Yeah!” Tenten said, beaming at the enthusiasm. “It’s a new batch. Ino’s been helping me try them out. Do you wanna take a look?”

Fū squealed, and soon the two girls were engulfed in a discussion – and physical demonstration – of Tenten’s favorite pastime. Seeing as Sasuke thought of most human interaction as exhausting at best and as a waste of time at worst, it was beyond him how a person could make friends as quickly and effortlessly as Fū did.

Ino didn’t seem particularly bothered. “Guess it’s just us then.”

“What, you’re not inviting us?” Naruto asked, dialing up the offense to eleven.

“Not a chance,” Ino gave back. “Girls only.”

“About that–”

“Naruto,” Sakura growled.

Naruto made the healthy decision and threw up his hands in surrender. “Nevermind. Have fun. At least try to keep a low profile.”

That left the two of them with Neji. While Sasuke wasn’t particularly thrilled about it, he had to admit that Neji seemed different from before. He hadn’t drawn attention to himself up to this point, and instead of a glare, they were met with a look of wariness and contemplation. Sasuke was fairly sure that the old Neji wouldn’t have “wasted” his freetime with one of his teammates.

“Hey, Neji!” Naruto called, his voice cheerful like he hadn’t humiliated Neji the last time they’d seen each other. “How have you been?”

Predictably, Neji didn’t immediately answer. His posture was rigid, and quite frankly Sasuke was surprised that he hadn’t left as soon as they’d come close. Slowly, he relaxed. “I’ve made chūnin,” he said, reserved but not quite unfriendly.

“Woah, really?” Naruto said. “That’s amazing!”

“Congrats,” Sasuke muttered. He almost expected a spark of envy, but surprisingly, it didn’t come. Sasuke knew that he was making progress in leaps and bounds, and he didn’t need a promotion to prove it to himself.

“What do you plan on doing now?” Naruto asked.

Something flickered over Neji’s face, too quick for Sasuke to recognize. His jaw tensed and it took him another moment to answer. “I… don’t know.”

Naruto hummed noncommittally. “Well, you have loads of time to decide.”

“I suppose not everyone has their mind set on a dream by the time they’re teenagers.” What would have been a jab at Naruto’s ambition weeks prior, now sounded like a simple observation.

Naruto shrugged. Missing the old enthusiasm about the topic, he said, “It’s not a bad dream.”

“It’s difficult,” Neji said.

“Many dreams are.” Naruto hesitated, then added, “So is changing the system.”

Sasuke observed Neji carefully, but he didn’t react beyond the barest narrowing of his eyes.

“Still,” Naruto went on, “you don’t have to become Hokage to make a difference. Although,” Naruto paused, giving Neji a sunny smile. “I bet you’d make a great one.”

Neji blinked, genuinely surprised. He was saved from having to come up with an answer by Tenten.

“Hey, Sasuke. Fū said you picked up sword fighting while you were gone?”

Sasuke wordlessly nudged the sword at his side.

“Cool.” Tenten pulled out a sword of her own, a playful glint in her eyes. “Show me what you’ve got.”

Sasuke didn’t hesitate long before drawing his sword. “Fine.”

As ways to spend their vacation in Konoha went, this one was at least going to be interesting.

The next few days passed in an elaborate game of hide and seek. They took the time to catch up with the other rookies – even the ones that Sasuke had never exchanged a single word with before – as well as with Kakashi, who had quickly accepted his fate with only minor complaints and the occasional existential crisis. Fū made friends faster than Sasuke was able to keep up with, and he didn’t doubt that by the end of the week she’d have a small army of aspiring shinobi on her side, making it difficult for Konoha to kick her out like it was nothing.

And, every few days – or hours, if they were unlucky – they hid from the ANBU who were sent to fetch them for the Hokage. Their friends (‘friends’, in Naruto and Sakura’s eyes, included every single villager roughly their age and quite a lot of others, whether those people agreed or not) proved surprisingly useful at helping them stay under the radar. Incredibly, an entire week passed and the only adult they interacted with was Kakashi – and Gai, who didn’t count because he had joined their game of hide and seek with almost disturbing enthusiasm.

“What a creative and energetic way of training both wits and agility! Lee! We too shall join their training regime and go without being caught for ten days! If not, we will climb the Hokage’s monument a hundred times with one hand!”

“Yosh! Gai-sensei!”

Naruto and Sakura hadn’t had the heart to tell them that the lack of interest the ANBU had in them would make the ‘training’ quite pointless. Sasuke just hadn’t cared enough.

But finally, on the morning that would start their second week hiding out in Konoha, Shikamaru walked up to them carelessly, but with purpose.

“Just so you know, Ino wanted me to tell you that Hinata told her that Kiba saw the Hokage coming this way. Apparently he looked quite serious.”

The information didn’t come as a surprise, and since they had sealed and carried around their belongings for days, they needed no time whatsoever to be ready to go.

“Guess that’s our cue,” Naruto said, sharing a glance with Sasuke and Sakura.

“Give Ino a hug from me, will you?” Sakura asked. “And tell the others goodbye, too.”

Shikamaru shrugged, his hands buried in his pockets. “Sure, whatever.” He turned away, and only stopped once to mutter, “Don’t get killed out there, you hear?” Then he was gone, and the three of them were alone with Fū.

“Will you be fine?” Naruto asked, turning to his fellow jinchūriki. “It’s not too late to change your mind.”

But Fū beamed at him, not a shimmer of uncertainty on her face. “I love it here!” They accepted her decision without protest.

“Take care,” Sakura said, and Naruto hugged her goodbye. Sasuke simply nodded, and then the three of them were on their way.

They’d nearly made it out when a call of “Over there!” made them freeze in their tracks, tensing and falling into fighting stances. They were prepared to fight their way out, if they had to.

They soon realized that all the shinobi were heading in the wrong direction, herded by a gray-haired shinobi with a mask. Kakashi’s eye flickered in their direction once and his face tightened. They shared a nod of understanding, and he leaped away.

Outside of the village borders they found a goofy looking satchel with dog prints on it, containing provisions, expensive looking storage scrolls for equipment and three carefully tucked away copies of Team 7’s graduation picture.

Chapter Text

With three of the five big villages out of the way, their next destination was Iwa. By now Sasuke was used to the huge distances they left behind on a daily basis, and the longer they spent traveling, the more difficult it was to think back on a time when Konoha had been all he’d ever known.

With all the minor villages in between, each of the stops on their journey was a unique experience. The people they met, the villages they saw – Konoha was only a tiny part of the world, and with every passing day Sasuke felt more incredulous about ever having thought of it as the norm.

Naruto and Sakura were right: No matter what they had left behind, it was worth it.

Sasuke stepped back from his place at the window, letting one last glance wander over the place they’d chosen to spend the night. The village was a tiny, closed off thing, inhabited by people who spoke their own, local dialect and didn’t know what shinobi were. They hadn’t yet decided how long they wanted to stay, but it would most likely be their last stop before Iwa.

Naruto and Sakura had left for the local bathhouse for a girls night out, but since the bathhouse was right across the street – and because Sasuke knew his teammates – he wasn't surprised to be snatched out of his thoughts by a commotion. Loud voices sounded from outside the door, one of them deep and definitely male.

Sasuke snatched up his sword and ripped open the door to potentially jump to his teammates' aid.

"–get off me, you crazy brat!"

"Not a chance," Sakura said, scowling and dragging along an old and dorky looking man. He didn't seem to struggle much despite his loud protests, but was rubbing one side of his face. A light bruise already started blooming on it.

"Oh great," the old guy said, his eyes falling on Sasuke. “How many of you are there?"

"Who's he?" Sasuke asked, gesturing towards the man with his sword.

"Someone with no concept of the word privacy," Naruto said. She seemed far less agitated than Sakura. In fact, her expression looked more exasperated than angry. The hair of both girls was still damp, so they must have come straight out of the bathhouse.

"You have no idea what you're talking about," the man – rather the pervert, if Sasuke understood Naruto correctly – huffed, shaking off Sakura's hand. She let go – maybe because he no longer seemed like he planned to make a run for it. "You've interrupted a delicate stealth operation, you know? Of the utmost importance, in fact–”

"Save it," Naruto said. "You can pull that kind of stunt on civilians."

At once, the man's curiosity perked up. "Not civilians, huh?" His mouth pulled into what might have been meant as a charming grin, but looked more unnerving than anything. He looked straight at Naruto when he said, "So you've got even more going for you than just your looks, sweet-cheeks."

Sasuke had the sudden urge to punch the guy in the face. The only reason he didn't was that he felt like Naruto should have that honor herself.

Except Naruto wasn't moving. She stared at the man with a slack-jawed, horrified expression. "Ew! Ew ew ew, no way! Take that back, old man!"

The man let out an offended huff. "No need to act so insulted. I go for more mature women, anyway."

"Please stop talking," Naruto said. Her hands hovered at her sides like she had to suppress the urge to press them over her ears. "This is so much worse than before."

Sakura took a step towards the creep. "Do you want me to–”

"Wait," Naruto said, holding her back with one arm. "Let's just. Talk this out."

The man furrowed his brows as he leaned closer towards Naruto. "Are you from some kind of clan? Those markings, they're... They look familiar."

"They better!" Naruto frowned, touching her whisker marks.

The man’s frown grew deeper. "No, it can’t be. I've seen those before. The only person who should have them lives far away from here. Are you trying to trick me?"

"Good to know that you came to see me as a baby at least once," Naruto said flatly. She pulled up her shirt to reveal her belly, and a touch of chakra made her jinchūriki seal flare up.

The man paled.

"That seal..." He reached out to touch it, running his chakra through it when Naruto didn't protest. It swirled under his touch, ink strokes unraveling and reforming in patterns that went over Sasuke's head.

"But that means..." His head snapped upwards and he looked at Naruto with newfound incredulity. "What's your name? What village are you from?"

"Konoha," Sakura said simply, crossing her arms.

"And my name's Naruto. You should know it," Naruto added, her lip tugged upwards in a half-smile. "You're the one who came up with it."

Sasuke blinked. "He did?"

"He's my godfather," she said, her smile growing. "His name's Jiraiya. My parents picked the name from a book that he wrote."

"You shouldn't know about that," the old ma– Jiraiya whispered, his eyes wide and fixed on Naruto. "Yes, you look like him. The hair color, your eyes... You're definitely Minato's son. But why are you looking like that? Is this a disguise?"

"It's a Henge," Naruto said, "but it's still me. I'm his daughter, not his son. At least for now."

Jiraiya frowned, but didn't try to protest. "That means..." His eyes widened, and his face lost the last bit of color it'd had left. "At the bathhouse. I almost–”

He let out a noise that sounded suspiciously close to a whimper and buried his head in his hands. The only words Sasuke managed to make out from the frantic mumbling that followed were "forgive me".

"What's he doing?" he said, taking a step closer towards his teammates.

Naruto hummed, watching the miserable, slumped figure that was her godfather. "Probably praying to my parents so they won't haunt him from the afterlife."

"Nevermind that!" Jiraiya yelled, leaping upwards as if a switch had been flipped and pointing an accusing finger at them. "What are you doing out here? Where's your jōnin teacher? Are you even old enough to have graduated yet?"

"Of course we graduated," Sakura said.

"Here! See?" Naruto beamed, pushing Sakura aside and thrusting their graduation picture in Jiraiya's face.

Sasuke wanted to roll his eyes at her enthusiasm, but decided against it. It would have felt somewhat insincere seeing as he kept his own copy of the picture carefully tucked away at his side.

Jiraiya fumbled with the paper when Naruto let go, trying not to let it fall. "Kakashi," he said once he got a good look at it. His voice softened. "Kakashi is your teacher?"

"Maybe not quite voluntarily," Sakura admitted. "We're pretty sure the Third made him do it."

"Doesn't matter," Naruto said. "We're growing on him anyway."

"We're very lovable," Sakura deadpanned.

"I see," Jiraiya said. Sasuke related to his hesitant, somewhat alarmed expression on a personal level. "Where is he? I'd like to have a word with him, myself."

"Um.” Naruto tugged at a strand of her hair. “That could be an issue.”

"An issue how?" Jiraiya frowned. "Where is he?"

"In Konoha," Sasuke said, deciding that there was no gentle way to break the news.

"What do you mean in Konoha?" Jiraiya said, his voice – predictably – rising in volume. "He can't be in Konoha. You're almost all the way to Iwa, why isn't he with you?"

Naruto winced. "Well. You see, funny thing–”

"We ditched him," Sasuke interrupted. His lip twitched at the glare Naruto sent him, almost making him ruin his calm, emotionless expression.

"We didn't ditch him," she said, raising her hands to placate an incredulous Jiraiya. "We just– We kind of–”

"Sasuke's right," Sakura said. "We ditched him."

Naruto let out a deep, defeated sigh. "You two are the worst."

"B-But," Jiraiya spluttered. "What are you doing here? You should be in Konoha, training. Or on missions with your jōnin teacher. With Kakashi!"

"Yeah," Sakura said, drawing out the word. "We kind of decided we'd rather do other things."

"Don't get us wrong," Naruto added, "Kakashi's the best. But how else are we supposed to meet other jinchūriki?”

"Or make friends in other villages?"

"Or get to know the Tsunade?"

"Wait," Jiraiya said, interrupting Naruto and Sakura. "You met Tsunade?"

"You know her?" Sasuke asked.

"Know her?" Jiraiya snorted. "We were on the same genin team."

"No you weren't," Sasuke said, frowning. "Tsunade is one of the three legendary Sannin."

"That's right," Jiraiya said, puffing out his chest. "Tell me, have you ever heard of The Great Lord Jiraiya, sealmaster and Sage of Mount–”

"No," Sasuke interrupted.

Jiraiya's little speech spluttered to a halt. "No?"

"No," Sasuke repeated, ignoring the choked off noises his teammates made. "Should I?" Tsunade was a Sannin and she was Tsunade. This random old guy Sakura and Naruto had caught peeking in a bathhouse wanted to claim that he was one of them? No way.

"A-Anyway," Naruto said, shaking with what might have been suppressed laughter. "What are you doing here anyway, old man?"

"Besides being creepy in bathhouses," Sakura muttered.

"If you must know," Jiraiya said, raising his voice as if to overcompensate for the indignity he had suffered, "I've been following rumors of missing nin in the area.”

Sakura’s hum sounded just a bit too interested. “Do they have a connection to Konoha?”

“You wouldn’t have a reason to investigate if they didn’t pose a threat to Konoha," Naruto added. “Not this far away from the village.”

“Woah,” Jiraiya said, his browns pulling into a frown. “Hold your horses. If I knew whether they were a threat or not, I wouldn’t be following rumors, would I? And why are you so interested, anyway? If anything, you three are going to go straight back to the village.”

Sasuke, Sakura and Naruto shared a glance.

“Mhm.”

“Yeah, sure.”

“Obviously.”

Jiraiya narrowed his eyes. “Didn’t Tsunade say anything about you three coming here?”

Sakura snorted. “Please. She’s almost hoping something will happen to us, just so she won’t have to deal with us anymore.”

“Sucks to be her.” Naruto shrugged. “We’re too tough to go out without a bang.”

Jiraiya stared. “I can’t tell if you’re joking or not.”

“But Jiraiya-sensei,” Naruto said, puffing up her chest like she was offended. Simultaneously, Sakura said, “We would never.”

“That’s it,” Jiraiya decided, planting himself at the center of their room with the clear intention to stay. “We’re going back to Konoha tomorrow. Together. If I don’t make sure to drop you off safely, Kakashi will have my hide.”

Sasuke suppressed the urge to roll his eyes. If he’d learned one thing from the time he’d spent with his team so far, it was that neither of them took well to being treated like children. If he didn’t already dislike Jiraiya, he might have even felt bad for him.

“We’re so lucky,” Sakura deadpanned. “Whatever would we have done without you?”

Jiraiya huffed at her tone of voice, but clearly didn’t take her seriously. Perhaps if he’d paid more attention, he would have noticed her twitching mouth that betrayed the smirk she was trying to hide. Or he might have seen the odd twinkle in Naruto’s eyes that usually meant another villager was about to fall victim to one of her pranks.

Had Jiraiya wasted just a single moment to think of them as more than a trio of disobeying, particular lucky brats, he might have even noticed Sasuke’s expression shifting into one of subtle, but genuine glee.

Sasuke shivered, waiting for his teammates in a dark niche of the forest. He’d left the village far behind, and the night was foggy and moonless – perfect for a quick and subtle getaway.

They had split up and sneaked out of the room of their inn separately to lay a multitude of false trails before making a run for it. Their planning had happened almost nonverbally – seeing as Jiraiya had refused to leave them alone – and Sasuke couldn’t help but feel smug about the way their teamwork had developed.

Not even two years ago, he would have hated himself for even considering something as useless as the value of teamwork.

Naruto’s beacon of chakra tore him out of his thoughts. It stood out ridiculously and made Sasuke wonder why they’d made the effort to lay false trails in the first place.

“Alright guys,” Naruto said, Sakura materializing at her side almost instantly. “We gotta hurry. Jiraiya shouldn’t come after us for another hour or so, but we can’t be sure.”

“I know,” Sasuke said, somewhat annoyed. Obviously. After all, he was the one who had taken care of the old man.

Naruto halted in her tracks. “What do you mean, you know?”

Sasuke raised an eyebrow. “I put herbs in his tea. You told me to take care of him.” Well, Naruto had signed it. With hand signs that they hadn’t learned in the academy. Still, Sasuke was fairly sure he’d gotten the gist of it.

Naruto blinked, seemingly disagreeing. “No, I told you that I’d take care of him. I put a seal under his futon that would put him under.”

There was a pause.

“Um,” Sakura said. “I thought he fell asleep on his own and hit some of his chakra points to make sure he wouldn’t wake up.”

There was a pause.

“We didn’t just put Jiraiya in a coma, did we?” Naruto asked.

Sakura made a gesture as if to swat away her worries. “Of course not. He’s a Sannin. He’ll be fine.”

And here Sasuke had been so convinced that Jiraiya had made it all up to sound impressive.

“He’s been through worse. He’ll be fine.”

Sasuke shrugged. If Sakura said so.

They walked in silence for a while.

“Did anyone check if his airways were free before we left?”

As one, they froze in their tracks. They shared a glance.

“He’ll be fine.”

“Hmh.”

“Course he will.”

Chapter Text

Sasuke recognized one of the missing nin Jiraiya had mentioned. He’d already met him.

It was too late to try anything stealthy. The taller of the pair, the man with a massive sword and bandages wrapped around his head – Zabuza – had already seen them.

"Look out!" Sasuke hissed, proud of himself when his voice wavered only ever so slightly. His hand had found the handle of his sword without him realizing it. "He's the one Kakashi fought on the Wave mission."

It wasn’t an encounter Sasuke was likely to forget any time soon. The thought alone forced him to relive the paralyzing effect of blood lust crushing his body.

He'd like to think that time and experience had hardened him, and that if put into the situation a second time, he wouldn't be as useless as he had been then. But even so, the sensation was edged into his mind. It had been his first confrontation with a proper, merciless killer.

Sasuke would have told his teammates all of that. He would have let them know just who it was they were dealing with, what dire of a situation they were in.

They beat him to the punch and said, simultaneously, "I know."

Sasuke closed his eyes and willed himself to have patience. "How could you know that?" Both of them had been conveniently absent during the fight, and Zabuza had not made a second appearance. As far as he knew, neither of the two should have ever laid eyes on him.

Nevertheless, Sasuke found that surprise would not come.

"Konoha," Zabuza called as if it was their name. There was no animosity in his voice, and no trace of the killing intent that had rendered Sasuke useless the first time around. "What are you doing here?"

Sakura blinked. Sasuke did a double take at the genuine confusion on her face. "You recognize us?"

"Never seen you before in my life.” Zabuza’s voice was gravelly and rough. "Just your teammates."

"Right," Sakura said, looking at Sasuke. "I forgot. You were with Kakashi-sensei and Tazuna-san when he attacked." She turned to Naruto and raised an eyebrow. "What's your excuse?"

"I pulled a Naruto on them," Naruto said, dead-serious and with the audacity to use her own name as a verb.

The sentence seemed to make perfect sense to Sakura, because she let out a groan. "Of course you befriended them."

"Duh," Naruto gave back. "Why did you think we didn't have to fight them again?"

"I thought it was me taking out Gato and his goons."

Naruto blinked. "Oh. I completely forgot about him."

"Stop," Sasuke demanded. "Are you saying we didn't have to fight in Wave because of you?"

"Well. There was a bit of fighting involved," Naruto said. "Just not for you and Kakashi-sensei. Or the villagers."

"And you didn't know about Sakura?" Sasuke swayed incredulous eyes towards Sakura. "Or you about Naruto?"

Naruto cringed under his gaze. "We weren't exactly close then?"

Sasuke was almost glad when Zabuza spoke up and served as a wonderful distraction.

"You’re nuts,” Zabuza said bluntly. Sasuke couldn’t blame him. Or try to come up with any sort of defense in favor of his team. "We have better things to do. Come on, Haku."

And, for the first time, Sasuke paid closer attention to Zabuza's companion.

They – she? They had long hair and delicate, feminine features, although Sasuke wasn't as ready to make assumptions as he would have been a few months ago – blended into the background next to Zabuza's massive, intimidating presence. Sasuke was inclined to believe that it said more about their power level than a gigantic sword ever could.

"Hello, Naruto-kun," they said, their face lighting up in a bright smile. "I like your hair."

"Thanks, Haku!" Naruto beamed back just as brightly.

Zabuza grumbled under his breath. "What is it with ninja brats and long hair?"

Naruto shrugged. "It's pretty. But I'm also a girl right now."

"'Right now'?"

"I might not be tomorrow. We'll see."

Zabuza let out a huff, turning his back to pick up the pace. Behind his back, a smiling Haku gestured for them to follow. "Whatever, Konoha."

"What are you guys up to?" Naruto said, easily falling into step with the two S-ranked missing nin. Sasuke granted himself a moment to question his life choices before shrugging internally and following along. "Not terrorizing any more villagers, I hope."

Zabuza let out a huff. "Nah. There are better ways to earn money."

"We have been collecting bounties from bandits and other missing nin," Haku said, smiling far too sweetly for someone who'd been taking on high ranked criminals on a daily basis.

"So you've been cleaning up the villages around here?" Sakura said. "That's sweet of you."

"Don't say it like we're doing something nice," Zabuza scowled. "We're only doing it for the money."

"What about that corrupt village elder in the last town, Zabuza-san?" Haku said, an innocently sunny smile on their lips. “He didn’t have a bounty.”

Zabuza pretended not to hear them. As well as the muffled snickering from Naruto and Sakura that followed.

Sasuke had to seriously reevaluate his impression of Zabuza. Standing in between him and the person he wanted to kill was an entirely different experience than trailing after him as Zabuza's charge (or whoever else Haku was) and Sasuke's teammates continued to tease him.

"Right," Naruto said at one point, interrupting her chat with Haku. “Before I forget, you should be careful. We knew how to find you from Jiraiya, so other people might be onto you, too. The missing nin he mentioned, that’s gotta be you, right?”

Zabuza shrugged. "Could be. Not necessarily.”

“Are you saying there’s more?”

“We did meet that slimy guy not long ago. One of yours.”

Sakura and Naruto shared a glance. “You mean…?”

“Zabuza-san is talking about Orochimaru.” Haku tilted their – his, Sasuke had finally managed to glean some time during the conversation – head. “Do you know him?”

“You could say that,” Sakura said. Her mouth twisted into a grin. “Orochimaru is in the area, huh?”

“Him and that gray haired brat of his,” Zabuza said. “No idea what they’re up to. It doesn’t concern us.”

“Maybe not you,” Sakura said. “But we’ve got some business left open.”

“Do you mean that guy from the Chūnin exams?” Sasuke asked, his mind flashing back to that day. It felt like such a long time ago. “With the glasses?”

“His name’s Kabuto,” Naruto said with a nod. “He’s working for Orochimaru. Pretty loyal, and far more dangerous than he looks.”

Huh. How about that? “He tried to recruit me.”

Naruto’s and Sakura’s necks snapped towards him so quickly, Sasuke was surprised they didn’t tear anything.

“He did?”

“When?”

Sasuke blinked, unused to seeing such raw surprise from his teammates. One part of him wanted to savor the moment. Another, bigger part had already led him to open his mouth and explain.

“Some time after the second exam.” Sasuke frowned, thinking back. “We were at my place. You were messing up the Yakitori. I went to the bathroom, and when I came back he was sitting in front of my window.”

Naruto and Sakura shared an alarmed glance. “How didn’t we notice?” Sakura muttered, but Naruto shushed her with an impatient hand gesture. “And then?”

Sasuke shrugged. “He offered me a place to train and to study. Somewhere to ‘reach my full potential’.”

Naruto leaned closer, her shoulders as tense as if Sasuke was still about to make the decision. “And? Come on, Sasuke!”

“I’m here, aren’t I?” Sasuke frowned, crossing his arms. Something about his teammates’ reaction made him feel defensive. “He mentioned Orochimaru. I slammed the window in his face. I haven’t heard from either of them since.”

There was a moment of silence.

“You…? You slammed the window…?” Naruto stood gaping while Sakura’s face broke out into a grin. Then, the oddest thing happened. Naruto rushed forward and closed her arms around Sasuke, something that sounded like relieved laughter escaping her. “Never change, Sasuke.”

Sasuke, unprepared for the sudden emotional outburst, didn’t struggle. He patted Naruto’s shoulder awkwardly until she let him go. “I’m glad you’re here," she said, beaming. “Did I ever tell you that?”

“Me too.” Sakura smiled, just a few paces further away. “Our team wouldn’t be a team without you.”

“Okay,” Sasuke said, his frown deepening. Where was all this… sincerity, coming from?

Zabuza’s gravelly voice cut through the silence and destroyed the moment. If that was, indeed, something that they’d been having. “Feel free to have all the little heart to hearts that you’d like. But have them without us. We’ve wasted enough time already.”

“Oh!” Naruto said, jumping at the change of topic like she’d remembered something important. “Say, are you heading towards Kiri soon?”

“Why do you think we have these?” Zabuza asked, adjusting his hitai ate. It showed Kiri’s symbol of raindrops, cut through the middle by a sharp, narrow line. “I’ve left my village behind. Both of us have. Why should we go back?”

“I don’t know,” Naruto said, and somehow made it sound like a challenge. “Why would you go back?”

Zabuza held his gaze. Naruto stared back. Then, to Sasuke’s surprise, Zabuza looked away, first. “Some day, perhaps. We wouldn’t stand a chance, now.”

Sasuke threw Sakura a glance.

“Kiri is fighting a civil war,” Sakura explained, quietly. She didn’t get the chance to say more, as Naruto kept talking.

“We were traveling that direction anyway,” she said to Zabuza. “Why don’t we team up? We don’t have to do anything, we’ll just take a look. We can go in disguise.”

Zabuza hesitated.

“Wait,” Sakura said. “What about Orochimaru?”

“Oh, right!” Naruto frowned, tapping her fingers on her collarbone as if thinking it all through. “Okay, how about this. You guys go ahead towards Kiri, and we’ll go take care of Orochimaru real quick. We’ll join up with you once we’re done.”

“Once you’re done,” Zabuza deadpanned. “With a Sannin.”

“They will be fine,” Haku said. Sasuke wondered when exactly his team had gained his trust to such a degree.

Zabuza shrugged. “It’s your funeral.”

“We’ll find you afterwards,” Naruto promised, and shared one last smile with Haku. In the blink of an eye, both of them were gone.

“So,” Sakura said, seeking out Naruto’s, then Sasuke’s glance. “Orochimaru?”

“Orochimaru,” Naruto agreed, her smile drawing a determined line in her face.

Sasuke hesitated. He barely knew anything about the guy, besides that he was, apparently, the missing member of Jiraiya’s and Tsunade’s team. “Tell me what you know about him on the way,” he decided.

With three villages and two of the Sannin out of the way, why shouldn’t they complete the set?

Chapter Text

The fight was beyond anything Sasuke had ever experienced.

He’d learned a lot about their target during the time it’d taken them to find him – including why Naruto and Sakura wanted to hunt him down in the first place. They’d described Orochimaru as a mad scientist who’d been chased out of Konoha because they’d found out about his horrific human experimentation – and were proven right only minutes into the fight.

Orochimaru fought with corpses like they were tools. Glassy, lifeless eyes followed their every move, torn out of death by a madman who thought he had the right to use them to do his bidding. It made Sasuke’s stomach rebel with nausea.

“Fascinating, aren’t they?” Orochimaru said, a revolting smile on his face as he displayed his creations. “Konoha’s first two Hokage. You should be honored.”

Sasuke had never seen Naruto and Sakura this grim before. They didn’t move a muscle at Orochimaru’s taunts and met his sickening, inhuman eyes with twin glares. They were not planning to pull their punches today.

“It is a shame that I had to suppress their personalities,” Orochimaru went on, “but you left me no choice. I had to be thorough.”

“You’re afraid they’d break their binding if you let them think for themselves,” Naruto said, all play and jest gone from her voice. She’d tied back her hair in a tight braid in preparation for what was about to come. “You know that they’re stronger than you.”

“They would be lifeless dust without me.”

“Anything would be better than this.”

“Enough.” Sakura was missing the excited spark her eyes usually held before battle. “You’re going to regret ever crawling out of your cave.”

“Yeah,” Naruto said. “You’ve gone too far, this time.”

“Oh?” Orochimaru arched an eyebrow. “And what do a couple of genin care about the kind of techniques I develop? Moral superiority is such an annoying–”

“Who cares about that?” Naruto interrupted. “You tried to take Sasuke, you creep!”

Orochimaru blinked. So did Sasuke.

“A minor gamble,” Orochimaru said, recovering from the unexpected turn. “Nothing more. I would have taken him on as a student, had he wished. An opportunity few are granted,” his glance twitched to Sasuke and bored into his eyes like ice daggers, “and one that is not carelessly refused.”

Naruto growled like a feral animal. Sakura didn’t; she was too busy pulling her fist out of the crater that had cracked open where Orochimaru had stood only seconds before.

“You’re going to regret that,” Orochimaru promised. His threat somewhat lost its weight by his ruffled looks and the fact that he had dodged by leaping up the nearest tree.

"Kabuto," Orochimaru said, and Sasuke's eyes widened in recognition at the gray-haired figure that bled out of the shadows to stand by Orochimaru's side.

"Orochimaru-sama."

"Take care of Sasuke," Orochimaru said. Sasuke tried not to squirm under his gaze. "We no longer have use for him. Well," a smirk split his lips, too wide and contradicting his cold, emotionless eyes. "We have no use for most of him."

"Over my dead body," Naruto muttered, and, as if a dam had broken, the fight was on.

Sakura’s fists brimmed with chakra as she threw herself at the corpses while Sasuke charged at Kabuto. It didn’t take him more than a few blows to realize that the teenager was good. He moved too quickly to hit, and if it hadn’t been for Naruto alternating between fighting Orochimaru and preventing Sasuke from being sliced open by Kabuto, it would have been over only seconds into the battle.

Sasuke grit his teeth, realizing he was more of a hindrance than help. All of his improvement, it wasn’t enough. It wasn’t enough by far. The only reason they weren’t dead yet was that Orochimaru seemed more interested in watching the fight rather than actually joining.

“He hasn’t awakened his Sharingan,” Kabuto noted after another exchange of blows, surveying Sasuke with clinical interest.

Orochimaru paused. “He hasn’t?” His eyes found Sasuke’s for several tense, uncomfortable heartbeats. Then they slid away in disinterest. “What a disappointment.”

The words felt like a gush of ice water hitting Sasuke’s face.

“Look out!” Naruto swept in front of him to block a couple of senbon aimed at his throat. “Sasuke, concentrate!”

Sasuke ignored the ringing in his ears, gripped his sword tighter and charged. He hadn’t thought about his clan’s bloodline limit for such a long time – and he didn’t have the time to think about it now.

“Naruto,” Sakura shouted from somewhere to their left. “It’s no use! The kage won’t die.” Blood trickled down her cheek in a lazy flow. Her clothes were torn in several places, hiding more wounds.

Sasuke felt his limbs starting to grow heavy, and he wondered if Sakura felt the same.

Next to him, Naruto’s expression tightened in a frown. She looked at the kage, then at Orochimaru. He was still watching, looking almost eager to watch their next move.

They didn’t stand a chance as long as they didn’t have the manpower to spare against Orochimaru.

“Sakura,” Naruto yelled, “let’s switch!”

Sakura nodded. In the blink of an eye she was at Sasuke’s side, and Naruto rushed towards the kage in her stead.

“Hold your sword a bit lower,” Sakura said as they charged at Kabuto together. They dealt a few hits, then retreated.

Sasuke raised an eyebrow. “You know nothing about swords.”

Sakura let out a huff. “I know some things.”

“Like?”

“Like how to break them with a punch?”

“You’re not punching mine.”

Sakura snorted. “I wasn’t going to. Kankurō would kill me.”

Sasuke felt a smile play around his lips. “He would try.”

“D’you think Temari would avenge me?” Sakura’s face took on a dreamy quality. Suddenly all the time they’d spent in Suna made a lot more sense.

“She might,” Sasuke offered, but he wasn’t given the chance to say more before Kabuto’s attack forced them to pay attention again.

It was somewhat difficult to concentrate properly when he kept stealing glances at Naruto. Who was dancing around the kage, dodging attacks while wagging around an ink brush. "What is she doing?"

Sakura spared a glance as well, and smirked. "Do you remember what we learned about fuinjutsu at the academy?"

"Not much."

"You haven't seen any of what fuinjutsu can really do. Although," she paused, ducking under Kabuto's punch and barely missing his sternum in return, "this doesn't look like any of her flashy techniques."

"You talk a lot," Kabuto said, and, as if to prove his point, almost caved in Sasuke's skull with a chakra-infused blow.

Sakura shrugged as well as she could while throwing another punch. "As long as it's working."

"Working?" Kabuto raised an eyebrow. "For what?"

"Distracting you."

As if on cue, they heard an enraged "What are you doing?" from Orochimaru.

Sakura leaped between him and Naruto before he could stop her – from smearing ink on the corpses, from the looks of it. Which, going by Orochimaru’s reaction, seemed to equal a personal insult grave enough to warrant being taken apart by Orochimaru himself.

But before he could attempt to get past Sakura, several things happened in quick succession as Naruto finished her last ink stroke: The corpses dropped like marionettes whose strings had been cut, Orochimaru let out a furious snarl, and Kabuto rushed forward with the intent to finish off Sakura while she was still distracted.

He didn’t spare a glance at Sasuke. Ignoring the spark of irritation at being so blatantly dismissed as unimportant, Sasuke did the first thing that came to mind. He rushed forward to swing his sword at Kabuto’s turned back, slicing through clothing and skin and flesh before Kabuto hissed and swerved to the side to dodge. Straight into Sakura’s fist to be pummeled into the ground before he could do so much as blink.

“Yes! Nice one, Sasuke.” Sakura grinned, her eyes sparkling with thrilled adrenaline. It made something warm and unmistakably pleased settle in Sasuke’s chest.

“That was a mistake,” Orochimaru spat. If his eyes had seemed inhuman before, it was no comparison to now. They dripped viciousness and contempt, spewed bloodlust like poison and gleamed with thinly veiled mania. The changes didn’t stop there. His body warped, gaining in length, losing its form and his skin bristled and peeled until it looked more like scales.

Sasuke knew that it was time to be alarmed when even Sakura took a step back. “Naruto!” she yelled, her eyes fixed on the freakshow in front of them and her arm stuck out to push Sasuke with her as she edged backwards. “He’s doing something!”

“What in the–” Naruto’s voice – pitched an octave too high – cut off as she sprung into action.

Her movements were fast enough to blur, her ink brush even faster than it had been for the kage. Orochimaru’s body writhed and contorted and bulged, taking on an otherworldly form with a mixture of snarls and hissing, snapping for Naruto as she did whatever she was doing.

“You will regret ever having stood in my way,” Orochimaru spat with a voice that barely sounded human anymore. “You will wish that–”

There was an anticlimactic poof as Naruto dropped to the ground and Orochimaru disappeared. For a moment, Sasuke wasn’t sure what had happened.

Then his eyes fell on the scroll clutched tightly in Naruto’s hand.

At first, none of them spoke.

“You sealed him,” Sakura said, her voice high with disbelief.

“Yup.”

“You sealed a living being in a scroll.”

“Yup.”

There was silence. All three of them stared at the scroll.

Somewhat awkwardly, Sakura spoke up again. “Will he be alright?”

Sasuke had never heard of something alive being stored in a storage seal before. From the looks of it, neither had Naruto or Sakura.

“I have no idea,” Naruto admitted, shrugging helplessly.

“Do we bring him back to Konoha now?”

Naruto hesitated. “We kind of planned to go to Kiri, didn’t we?”

“Can’t we just leave him?” Sasuke said.

Their eyes went back to the scroll.

“I mean,” Naruto said, slowly. “If he was fine right after the sealing, he will be in a few weeks. Storage scrolls work like stasis seals.”

“And if he’s not–”

“Problem solved,” Sasuke said, finishing Sakura’s sentence. He shrugged when two equally startled glances swayed his way. It wasn’t like anyone was going to complain about them taking out a known criminal and fugitive.

Well, maybe someone was going to complain. Sasuke had almost forgotten about Kabuto until the formless heap on the ground stirred, evidently waking up from his minor involuntary slumber. The three of them arranged themselves in a circle around the teenager, crowding him in.

“So,” Naruto started, drawing out the word, “what are we going to do with him?”

In their midst, Kabuto stiffened but didn’t make a sound.

“It would solve a lot of problems if we took him out of the picture.”

Sasuke stole a glance at Sakura. Her willingness to start a fight was nothing new. The icy quality of her voice and utter lack of compassion as she talked about killing someone in cold blood, however, was.

“What? No way!” Naruto gave Sakura an almost scandalized look. “He’s an orphan, Sakura!”

Sasuke failed to see what that had to do with anything.

“So what?” Sakura frowned. “It doesn’t make up for everything he’s done under Orochimaru’s thumb. In fact, it doesn’t make up for anything.”

“I’m just saying, we could give him a chance. He can open an orphanage or something. Help him redeem himself.”

Sakura rolled her eyes. “If we’d go around offering forgiveness and a redemption to everybody who’s had a sad childhood, we wouldn’t be doing anything else.”

Naruto crossed her arms. “I don’t see a problem with that. Besides, you didn’t seem to have a problem with Zabuza and Haku.”

“That– But– That’s completely different!” Sakura bristled at the accusation. “Besides, I wasn’t even there for that. You’d already done your thing by the time I found out.”

“Then let me do my thing here! What could possibly go wrong?”

Sakura let out a groan. “You did not just say that.”

Sasuke felt Kabuto’s stare prickling on his skin. “Orochimaru-sama,” he said, soft enough to only be audible for Sasuke. “Where–?”

Sasuke gestured to the scroll in Naruto’s hands. Kabuto’s eyes widened in a mixture of horror and disbelief. Sasuke offered an unsympathetic shrug and turned back to his teammates.

“Why don’t you try bonding with him?” Naruto asked. “You’re both medics. There’s gotta be loads for you to talk about.”

Sakura’s glare was unforgiving. “That sounds like a splendid idea. We could talk about the audacity of calling that perversion of ethics ‘medical jutsu’.”

“Sakura,” Naruto whined. “Don’t be like that.”

“It’s not like he’d want to come, anyway.” Sakura’s head whisked around to Kabuto, making him startle at the sudden attention. “Right? You don’t want to come back to Konoha, do you?”

“You totally should!” Naruto chimed in before Kabuto could so much as take a breath. “We already– I mean, Danzō was gotten rid of.”

“Enthusiastically,” Sakura muttered.

“You can help run the orphanage or something. Or… Oh! You could hang out with Tsunade instead. She’s a medic, too.”

“What,” Sakura said.

“He’s already been with one Sannin. Why not give him to another one?”

“But–” Sakura spluttered. “You can’t just give people to people, Naruto!”

“Then what about Fū?”

“Oh please. That was completely different.”

“Different how?”

“First of all, we ‘gave’ her to Konoha. And that’s a place. And besides, she wanted to go there.”

“Wait a second,” Naruto paused, scrutinizing Sakura out of narrowed, suspicious eyes. “Are you jealous because Tsunade might end up liking Kabuto better?”

“What? No!” Sakura crossed her arms, looking just a tad defensive. “I just think it’s a really bad idea to involve Tsunade. She’s not gonna like this at all.”

Naruto snorted. “It’s not like that ever stopped us before.”

“Is this normal?” Kabuto said slowly, his voice once again lowered so that only Sasuke could hear him. He couldn’t blame him, seeing as the other two members of Sasuke’s team were busy discussing his future like Kabuto wasn’t even there.

“Sadly.” Sasuke threw Kabuto a look that bordered on pitying. “You should just give up.”

“I think I’ll take my chances,” Kabuto said, made a lunge for the scroll still held in Naruto’s hands and attempted to escape.

Needless to say, Kabuto did not succeed.

Had it gone Sakura’s way, he would have found himself on the wrong side of a storage seal alongside with his master, but sadly (or luckily, depending on the perspective), Naruto vetoed that idea vehemently. And since she was the only one capable of drawing the seal, her word was final, and Kabuto remained unsealed and (relatively) unharmed.

Considering the direction they were traveling, Sasuke wasn’t sure which option he’d have prefered personally.

A few villages over, they didn’t stick around to await Tsunade’s reaction to the bound and gagged present they’d left her.

Kabuto had no choice in the matter, and Sasuke found himself throwing one last, sympathetic glance behind them, before shrugging the whole thing off and following his teammates on their way to Kiri.

Chapter Text

Sasuke stared at the ceiling of their latest inn, trying to ignore the nagging words that had refused to leave him alone ever since Orochimaru had uttered them. He could be lucky that his teammates weren’t there. If they’d see the scowl painted on his face, they would refuse to leave him alone until he told them what was bothering him.

How was Sasuke supposed to continue on like nothing had happened? As Orochimaru had reminded him, the Sharingan was supposed to be his ultimate trump in battle. It was his birthright. So why hadn’t he activated it yet? There’d been no lack of life threatening, adrenaline inducing situations since they’d left Konoha – some of them even prior to that.

There was no way he simply didn’t have it, was there? Even though it was supposed to be rare among the Uchiha, Sasuke had to have it. Both of his parents had developed it. Itachi had developed his at the age of eight. So how was it that Sasuke, with thirteen years and plenty of fighting experience, still hadn’t gotten even a glimpse of it?

Sasuke deepened his scowl, rubbing at his eyes as if he could encourage them to change color just like that.

It wasn’t fair. Naruto was a jinchūriki and had an insane amount of chakra as a result. Sakura was a natural at chakra control and excelled at medical techniques.

Where did that leave Sasuke?

The door of the inn burst open and revealed a disheveled, out-of-breath Naruto.

“So,” Naruto started, ruffling his hair and leaning back against the closed door as he tried to get his breathing under control. “You know how this was supposed to be a scouting mission?”

Sasuke raised his eyebrow. They had, indeed, decided to keep a low profile during their stay in Kiri, if only to collect as much information as they could without getting into the middle of the violent civil war that raged.

“Yeah, that... didn’t exactly work out.”

Sasuke couldn’t say that he was surprised. At all. “And?”

“I may or may not have gotten us involved in a political coup.”

Sasuke blinked.

“We’re overthrowing the Mizukage,” Naruto said.

Sasuke blinked, again. Then he shrugged and grasped for the traveling bag that stood prepared next to his bed. “Okay.”

Naruto paused. “I kind of expected more questions. Or concerns. Anything, really.”

“It’s fine. When do we start?”

“So you’re cool with it? Just like that?”

Sasuke gave Naruto a flat look. “Didn’t you say that the current Mizukage is a bloodline exterminator?”

“I mean… Yeah? Yes. There was definitely some genocide involved, at one point or another.”

Sasuke sheathed his sword. “More than enough reason to teach him a lesson.”

Besides, Sasuke wasn’t in the mood to spend more time thinking about the Sharingan – or lack thereof – when he couldn’t change it, anyway. He could worry about it later. For now, a major political incident in one of their enemy villages sounded like exactly the right activity to lose some tension and forget all about his unawakened blood lime limit. At least for now.

Naruto looked like he wanted to say something else, but decided against it. “Come on, the others are waiting.”

Sasuke had thought that by saying 'the others', Naruto had meant Sakura, Zabuza and Haku. That assumption turned out to be rather false.

‘The others', instead, referred to a large chunk of Kiri’s population hiding in what looked like the slums of the Water Country.

"What is this place?" Sasuke asked, taking in the pale, dirtied faces they passed on their way through the hideout.

"It's the resistance," Naruto said. He kept his voice low in an oddly solemn way. "They're the ones the Mizukage is trying to wipe out. Many of them barely escaped with their lives."

Something heavy settled in Sasuke's chest. He didn't ask more questions, but tried to take in as much as he could on their way to the center of the hideout: the scrawny, ragged frames of children half their age rummaging through garbage. The whispered conversations, subdued voices speaking as if they’d prefer not to be heard. The stench of people and sweat and waste, of too many people sharing the same space for far too long.

Sasuke wasn't entirely sure why, but he felt like it was the least he owed to the people living here. He didn't want to turn a blind eye.

If he was being honest with himself, he’d known that they wouldn’t stay uninvolved the second they’d stepped foot over the border of the country. If he hadn’t, it would have only taken a glimpse of the people here to teach him better. They wouldn’t leave, not without helping. That wasn’t who his teammates were.

It wasn’t who Sasuke was, either.

Sakura sat together with a small group of people, talking to a tall woman with auburn hair. Both of them fell silent as soon as they noticed Sasuke and Naruto approaching.

"He's your third member?" the woman asked, looking Sasuke over. Her eyes paused on the Uchiha crest displayed on his shirt.

Despite several more pairs of eyes appraising him, nobody seemed to raise an eyebrow at their presence. Perhaps Naruto and Sakura had somehow convinced them that they weren’t to be underestimated, but it was still odd. Sasuke was used to being treated as children by the people they met.

Sasuke turned his head and saw a child half their age practicing a kunai technique they hadn't learned until their last year in the academy.

Then again, perhaps this was the difference between a momentarily peaceful country like Konoha and a war-torn one like Kiri. Age stopped mattering in the face of desperation and war.

"This is Sasuke." Naruto briefly touched Sasuke's shoulder. "Sasuke, this is Mei. She's the leader of the resistance."

"We have no leader," Mei said, a light frown on her face. "Not in the way you think. And he's not changing anything I told you. I'm not going to send any of my people on a suicide mission with you."

"No leader?" Naruto said. "Why’s everybody listening to you then?"

"They listen to me because they trust my judgment." Mei raised her chin proudly. "They listen because they trust me, not because of some title I've given myself."

Zabuza let out a grunt. "Not the worst person they could have chosen."

Seeing as it was Zabuza, he might as well have pledged his undying loyalty to her then and there.

"In any case," Sakura said, addressing the second part of what Mei had said, "we'll be fine. If you stick to what we agreed on, this will all be over soon."

It would seem that all of the planning had been done without Sasuke’s presence. For once, he was more than alright with that. Naruto wouldn’t have fetched him if he’d intended to keep him away from the conflict, and as long as he got to fight side by side with his team, Sasuke didn’t much care for strategy or politics.

Mei didn't look like she entirely believed what Sakura had said, but she nodded. "We will cause a distraction and stand ready in case that you succeed. Nothing less and nothing more."

"That's plenty." Sakura smirked, her eyes sparkling in that confident, cheerful way that showed she was itching for the fight to come, rather than dreading it.

"What about you?" Naruto asked, looking at Zabuza and Haku.

Sasuke hadn't realized before, but the two were locked in a staring match, communicating in a way that words could never achieve. Whatever they'd been discussing, the matter looked settled as they broke eye contact. Sasuke couldn't help but think that Haku looked unmistakably smug.

"We'll come with you," Zabuza said, and besides the occasional twitching below his eyes, there was no indication that betrayed that the idea had been anyone's but his.

"Are you sure?" Mei asked. She wasn't trying very hard to pretend like she didn't expect all of them to die a violent and gruesome death. "A shame. I would have welcomed you with open arms."

She'd said 'I' and not 'we' as in ‘the resistance’, which made Sasuke question whether her motivations were entirely of strategic nature.

"Sasuke," Naruto said. "Wait a moment."

Sasuke leveled a pointed glance towards their surroundings. Naruto couldn't have picked a worse time or place, considering they were seconds away from bursting into the Mizukage's chambers and completing their mission.

"We're not actually going to kill the Mizukage–”

Sasuke's brows dropped into a frown.

“–we just said that to get the resistance to help."

"What else are we going to do?"

"Change his mind."

"What?" Sasuke hissed, his frown darkening into a scowl. "Did you forget what he's done?"

Sasuke thought he'd gotten used to Naruto's habit of befriending anyone they came across. But even though that group included at least two missing nin already, he'd thought there was a line. Surely, a genocidal dictator did not deserve the benefit of the doubt – and definitely not Naruto's friendship, nor a second chance.

"He's a jinchūriki, Sasuke," Naruto said, and he had the gall to add nothing more, as if the single fact made up for everything else they had told him earlier. As if his mere status as a jinchūriki meant they were supposed to ignore everything else about him.

Sakura seemed to have similar thoughts. "That’s not why we’re sparing him. We have reason to believe that he's not acting out of his own choice."

"Yeah," Naruto said, somewhat lamely. "That, too. Mostly that, actually."

Sasuke paused. "Why wouldn't he be acting out of his own choice?" And, more importantly: "Why didn't you say anything before?"

"I swear, we didn't know before," Sakura said.

"Do you remember how our – that is, Fū and mine – mindscape works?" Naruto's expression took on a concerned quality. "I only got close enough to contact him today. But there was something weird about it... Like his thoughts were all dulled and slowed down. Like wading through glue. I could feel it, just through that tiny connection."

"You think he's being brainwashed." Why couldn't anything that involved their team ever be simple? "Let's just get this over with."

Sasuke was already getting tired of Kiri, and he sincerely hoped that they wouldn't have to step foot in the village again in the foreseeable future.

Considering that they were about to dethrone their current leader and possibly uncover a conspiracy – all the while gaining more friends and allies out of it than should be realistically possible – Sasuke wasn’t holding out much hope.

Sasuke made sure to be the first person to enter the Mizukage's chamber.

"You," he called, pointing his sword at the only person inhabiting the room. At first glance they looked more like a child than a ruler, although their regal posture and cruel eyes took care of that false assumption immediately. "Either you give up and turn over a new leaf, or he's gonna make you." With that, he jerked his head towards Naruto.

The Mizukage met his gaze with eyes that didn't look impressed in the slightest. Good. Sasuke had been itching for a fight the entire time they'd been stuck in this nightmare of a country. He'd unlock his Sharingan one way or another, and if it meant throwing himself into danger – graciously provided in the form of a genocidal, potentially brainwashed dictator of a Mizukage – headfirst and without second thoughts? So be it.

With the gleam of his blade in front of him and his teammates hot on his tails, Sasuke charged.

Chapter Text

To say that Sasuke was in a foul mood would be a frankly offensive understatement.

The last time he'd felt this way had been just after Itachi and his partner had infiltrated the village: those cursed, blasted days where he'd done his best to avoid his teammates and taken the time to process their frustratingly superior skill set.

They’d taken care of the Mizukage alright – although seeing as the fight had only lasted until Naruto snapped him out of whatever brainwashing he’d been put under, Sasuke could hardly count it as a fair win.

More importantly, with that issue out of the way it had become even more difficult to ignore his other, Sharingan-related problem.

Even a confrontation with a genocidal jinchūriki kage – brainwashed or not – hadn't been enough to push him over the edge and let him develop his bloodline limit. Sasuke was frantically trying to come up with something he hadn’t yet tried so he wouldn't have to accept the fact that he was an Uchiha – the last Uchiha – without his famed bloodline limit.

"Sasuke?" Sakura's voice snapped him out of his brooding – ahem, pondering – thoughts. "You alright?"

Sasuke was supposed to study his body’s chakra flow with Sakura. He didn't have to be a master in medical techniques to recognize how poorly he was doing.

Sasuke clenched his jaw and pushed himself to his feet. "I'm gonna ask Zabuza for a spar." He failed to make his voice sound anything other than moody and curt.

He itched to somehow let off steam. Preferably in a way that didn't make him let out his frustration at Sakura or Naruto.

To his surprise, Sakura didn't complain or question him. She rose to her feet next to him. "Good idea. I was getting tired of practicing, anyway."

Sasuke refrained from calling her out on that bold-faced lie.

As Sasuke's swordplay improved, Zabuza's reluctance to train him faltered. Sasuke learned more in those few weeks than he ever remembered having learned before, sparring against Zabuza, Haku, his teammates and different other Kiri shinobi – most memorably, Mei.

"It truly is a shame that you're Konoha nin," she sighed at the end of their most recent session.

Sasuke's clothing was smoking and he was covered in scorch marks. Mei's hair looked slightly less perfect than it had when they'd started.

"Are you quite certain you're not interested in defecting?"

She was saying it like they weren't already halfway to becoming missing nin. Still, for some inexplicable reason, Sasuke felt a surge of defensiveness at the thought of discarding their proudly displayed Konoha headbands.

"We're sure." Sasuke sheathed his sword and tried to figure out why the thought of leaving behind the village he didn't care for sent such a spark of reluctance through him.

"Sorry, Mei." Sakura gave an unapologetic grin. "But there's people we'd like to go back to."

Oh, right. It was probably that.

"Nevertheless," Yugara’s voice made them tense despite themselves, "you will always be welcome in Kiri."

Sasuke didn’t know if he’d been different before his brainwashing, but Yagura was not a talkative person. They often found him sitting in silence or wandering the village, assessing his sins with haunted, bloodshot eyes. Years of manipulation had taken their toll on him.

"He's right," Mei said. "No matter who becomes the new kage, we will make sure that they will keep a place for you whenever you wish it."

Sasuke felt a spark burning pleasantly in his chest. Naruto beamed. "Thank you, you two. The invitation goes both ways."

Sasuke decided not to point out that strictly speaking, Naruto did not have the power to make a promise like that. Seeing as they'd settled in one jinchūriki in Konoha already, the point he'd make would be rather weak.

"You're welcome, too," Naruto added, glancing at their sparring partners– their accomplices– fine, their friends. Despite their role in Kiri's liberation and having more than earned a place in their old home village, both of them looked restless and jittery like they were itching to pack their belongings and keep on traveling.

Sasuke doubted that they would stay for long after his own team had left. Their habits from years spent as missing nin wouldn’t disappear overnight.

"Just come visit whenever you want."

Zabuza raised an eyebrow. "How will we know if you’re there?"

"You won't." Sakura shrugged. "Just make yourself at home. If somebody asks, tell them we invited you."

"Maybe prepare to make a run for it, quickly." Naruto ruffled a hand through his hair. "Our friends are awesome, you'll get along great. But the rest of the village didn't exactly approve of our..."

"Vacation," Sakura suggested.

"Defection," Sasuke corrected.

"Excursion," Naruto said, settling the matter by sheer power of getting in the last word and sounding convincing while doing so.

"We'll think about it," Zabuza said. Seeing as he merely let out a huff at Haku's beaming expression, Sasuke felt it safe to say that it was as close to a 'See you again, soon' as Zabuza would get.

Just as it seemed like they were going to leave for real, Zabuza turned around one last time to look straight at Sasuke. "I can admit that you've improved a lot in the short time we've been here."

A warm feeling spread through Sasuke's chest. He'd been just about to mourn the missing nin's departure and wondered how long it would be until their paths crossed again.

Over his shoulder, Zabuza called, "Especially considering that you haven't been using your clan technique."

The feeling in his chest shriveled down so quickly that Sasuke couldn't be certain it had been there at all. On second thought, he was glad that they would stay out of each other's way for some time. He'd been getting tired of the duo, anyway.

Sasuke couldn't stop his teammates from catching on forever. He tried his best to ignore his bad mood and act normally, he genuinely did. Unfortunately for him, both Naruto and Sakura knew him far better than they had any right to do.

"Sasuke..." Sakura hesitated. She shared a look with Naruto that made Sasuke's scowl deepen. "It doesn't matter to us if you've got the Sharingan or not."

"Maybe it shouldn't matter to you, either." The concern practically oozed off of Naruto's expression. "I mean, just look at how far you've come. Keep going as you are now, and you'll be one of Konoha's best swordsmen before you even graduate to chūnin."

"Agreed. What does it matter if you're missing some dumb bloodline limit? Naruto and I don't have one, and we're still pretty strong."

"We're awesome," Naruto said.

"The point is," Sakura said, the corner of her mouth twitching, "you don't need it. Stop worrying. You'll be able to achieve amazing things without it."

What his teammates said made a lot of sense. But it didn't matter, not really. They didn’t understand.

Sasuke's urge to activate the Sharingan wasn't about being more powerful. Maybe some part of it was. Maybe it used to be, back when the only goal in Sasuke's mind had been to hunt down Itachi and get his revenge over his murdered family.

But that wasn't all of it, not anymore. Sasuke would never admit to anyone other than himself that Naruto and Sakura had helped him feel again. They’d shown him what it felt like to care for someone deeply enough to want to spend the rest of his life with them. They’d dug out all of the emotions he hadn’t been capable of feeling ever since Itachi had buried them under grief, anger and hate.

Perhaps all these years, Sasuke had been obsessed over the wrong aspect of the massacre. He should have focused less on his thirst for revenge and more on his grief. He should have focused on processing what it meant to lose everybody he’d ever cared for.

Beyond rows of empty, burnt houses and tarnished memories, there wasn’t anything left that connected Sasuke to his family. Nothing, except an ability that stubbornly refused to become part of his life.

"It's my legacy," he said, quietly. "It's my family's power. It's my parents' power."

It was his brother's power, too. Sasuke found that somehow, the fact mattered a lot less to him than it might have once had.

His eyes dropped to the ground and Sasuke's voice got even quieter. "It would be the only thing left of my clan."

Sasuke tried to ignore the squeamish feeling in his stomach. He felt vulnerable, like he had exposed a part of himself he never had before. Like he had offered trust that up until now he hadn't realized he was able to give.

Sasuke wasn't surprised when arms closed around him and a warm hand positioned itself on his shoulder. The comfort felt more for his teammates' sake than his own, but Sasuke let it happen regardless.

"Give it some more time," Naruto said, sharing a glance with Sakura. "It's not too late to activate it, yet."

Sasuke should have known that his teammates would manage to find the most absurd, insane way imaginable to try to help him. Admittedly, he wasn't exactly sure what a normal person would have done. Speak out their support? Offer a shoulder to cry on? Feel sorry for him? No thank you.

Luckily – or unluckily – for Sasuke, neither Sakura nor Naruto could count as normal in any perceivable way. Their way of helping him consisted of trying to jog his stress response by artificially creating a traumatic experience.

It might have actually worked, had Sakura taken the lead and kept Naruto far, far away.

“Sasuke!” Naruto's cry was ear-numbingly loud and panicked. Sasuke felt his heart rate spike and his muscles tense in response. “It’s horrible, come quick!”

Sasuke felt adrenaline pump in his veins as he caught sight of Sakura’s limp, lifeless body.

He hadn't so much as reached for a weapon when Naruto ruined it by bursting into tears. "Why her? Why Sakura?" He threw himself over Sakura's body with big, ugly sobs that rocked his entire body.

Sasuke stood frozen. He watched the scene unfold with growing disbelief.

"She had so much more to live for! Who could have done such a cruel thing? It should have been me!"

Sasuke couldn't squash the urge to look left and right in the misguided attempt to find someone else witnessing what was going on right in front of him. "Naruto–”

Naruto shot upwards as if electrocuted, going from devastated to furious in a single motion. "I will avenge you, Sakura! Whoever has done this will pay!"

There was a beat of silence. Naruto stole a glance at Sasuke.

"Right? Sasuke? Don't you want to avenge our teammate?"

Sasuke didn't answer. He picked up a pebble from the ground and tossed it at Sakura's head.

She shot upwards with a cry. "Ouch! Sasuke!" She scowled, rubbing her forehead where Sasuke's pebble had hit.

Sasuke glared at her. "Don't ever do that again." He turned without sparing either of his teammates another glance.

"I told you it wouldn't work," Naruto muttered as Sasuke walked.

"Maybe it would have if you hadn't been such an idiot about it! I'd almost forgotten what a terrible actor you are."

"Excuse me? You probably moved, that’s what gave it away.”

Their bickering faded as Sasuke retreated further into the forest. He couldn't even say that he was particularly angry. His exasperation was far too all-consuming.

Sakura's 'death experience' had made Sasuke suspicious. He now knew what his teammates were up to and he knew them far too well to hope that one single failed attempt would be enough to discourage them.

The point was: Sasuke knew for sure that they would try again. So when Naruto burst out of the forest chased by a generic looking missing nin Sasuke had never seen before, Sasuke decided to bide his time. He waited.

"No! Please!" Naruto cried, barely managing to block his opponent's merciless attacks. It almost made Sasuke spring into action despite his earlier decision – if it wasn't for the fact that Sasuke had seen Naruto take out far more skilled enemies before.

"I don’t know why you’re doing this," Naruto continued frantically. "Let's talk about this! Let's– No, please– No!"

Naruto's pleads cut off with a gurgle as a kunai pierced his throat. He swayed on the tree branch he was standing, one hand grasped around his wound in disbelief. Then he fell.

The missing nin locked straight at Sasuke before heading off into the forest. With the next blink of his eyes, they were gone from sight.

Sasuke walked up to where Naruto had landed on the forest ground and nudged him with his foot. And did it again.

Sasuke was just about to leave and go to find Sakura (assuming she was quite finished running through the forest with a borrowed face) when Naruto's head popped up. He squinted at Sasuke.

"Seriously? Nothing?” He pinned Sasuke with an outraged glare. “Do I mean that little to you?"

"You didn't use any shadow clones," Sasuke said.

Naruto blinked.

"You always use shadow clones."

Naruto's mouth opened, then closed.

Sasuke considered laying a condescending hand on Naruto's shoulder to rub it in but decided against it.

Sasuke drew the line when he returned from checking the perimeters of their camping site and found himself standing opposite of his brother.

Sasuke froze, his feet rooted to the ground and his muscles so tense that his body felt like it was about to burst. He stared. Itachi stared back.

Or rather, 'Itachi' stared back.

"Give it a rest!" Sasuke snapped, tearing himself out of his stupor as fury, hate and – most confounding of all – sorrow flooded his chest in an overwhelming wave of emotions.

Somewhere beside him, Naruto fell out of a nearby tree.

"Wh-What?" He spit out a few leaves as he frantically rubbed away dirt from his face. "No, that's actually your brother!"

"Look," Sasuke forced out through clenched teeth, "I know you mean well. I don't care if this is one of your shadow clones, Sakura or another friend of yours, and I also don't care whose idea it was. Enough is enough."

He turned to face his 'brother' while ignoring Naruto's unintelligible sputtering. From a purely superficial standpoint, they'd done an astounding job. This was exactly what Itachi had looked like on that day in Konoha.

They'd almost nailed his expression. A single blink of surprise gave him away. Itachi would not have allowed himself even that small show of weakness.

'Itachi' quickly collected himself. "Foolish little brother. This proves how much distance–”

"Whatever." Sasuke didn't deign to give fake-Itachi even a single more glance. Once he managed to press down the turmoil raging on behind his rib cage, he might even come to appreciate the creativity Naruto and Sakura had mustered in order to help him achieve the next level of his training.

Behind him, Sasuke heard Naruto heaving a sigh. "You tried."

In the end, it wasn't his teammates who made the difference. Sasuke managed to achieve his goal all on his own, without either of the other two even present. All feeling of triumph he should have felt at unlocking his Sharingan evaporated through the sheer silliness of how it had happened.

As far as "life-threatening" situations went, tripping over a root and falling into a hole had to be the most pathetic Sasuke could have accidentally chosen.

He was almost prepared to go on with his life pretending like he had never unlocked it just to make sure that Naruto and Sakura would never, ever find out about it.

This (admittedly short-sighted) plan went out of the window when he walked in on his teammates discussing their next plan of action.

“– else can we try?" Naruto picked at random pebbles on the ground and tossed them at various convenient targets. "Even Itachi didn't work! He despises Itachi!"

"We should probably do something about that, soon," Sakura muttered.

"Do you know how long it took me to get him?" Naruto continued, ignoring her. "There's far better stuff I could have been doing with my time."

Mentally, Sasuke had to agree. There were plenty of other things Naruto could have done rather than practicing to impersonate his crazy brother. Like leaving Sasuke in peace. Or minding his own business.

"We could pretend like somebody brainwashed us like they did Yagura and attack him until he doesn't have a choice but to develop it," Sakura suggested.

"Or maybe I could convince Kurama to go on a rampage for a little while? There's no way he wouldn't react to that."

"How many S-ranks do we know in the area? Shouldn't be hard to dig up one he hasn't met so far.

Sasuke decided then and there that it was in his own best interest to stop their brainstorming before somebody – namely him – got genuinely hurt. "Don't bother," he said, stepping out from where he'd been listening to their conversation.

Naruto flinched. "Sasuke!" His eyes were widened in an almost comically guilty looking way. "Did you hear any of that?"

Sasuke let his unimpressed glare speak for itself.

"We were just kidding?" Naruto tried, sabotaging his own attempt of talking himself out of the situation by raising his sentence in a question.

Beside him, Sakura let out a groan.

"Don't bother," Sasuke repeated. He found that he suddenly couldn't look his teammates in the eyes. "You don't need to."

"You can't give up, Sasuke." Sakura frowned, half concerned and half stubborn. "This is important to you. We won't stop trying just because–”

"You don't need to bother anymore," Sasuke clarified, his eyes firmly glued to the bark of a nearby tree.

The meaning of his sentence took a few seconds to sink in. When it did, it was met with all the enthusiasm and excitement that Sasuke had been refusing to feel himself.

"Wha– You did it?" Naruto's face lit up in a beam. "You got your Sharingan?"

"That's amazing, Sasuke! Congrats!" Sakura gave him a friendly shoulder clasp that might possibly leave a bruise. "How'd you do it?"

"Yeah, what happened? Did you stumble over some bandits?"

"Or another missing-nin?"

"Itachi didn't come back, did he?"

"Oh! Did you go back to that shady inn from yesterday? I knew I recognized that one guy from his bounty poster."

Two equally curious sets of eyes locked onto him with an expectant gaze, waiting for some grand, nerve-wrecking adventure. Sasuke pressed his lips together and did the one thing he managed to think of doing. He turned around and walked away.

"Sasuke! Where are you going?"

"Tell us what happened!"

Sasuke resolutely ignored them. This was a secret he would take to his grave.

Sasuke caved and told them everything on the very same day. Naruto was so busy laughing that he didn't see the kunai coming until it grazed his cheek and took a strand of his hair with it.

On the bright side, Sasuke would have plenty of opportunity (and motivation) to experiment thoroughly with his bloodline limit the next time Naruto was reckless enough to agree to spar with him.

Chapter Text

Some time after their adventure in Kiri, Team 7's dynamic started to change. As Sasuke's fighting prowess grew, his team stopped sticking as closely together as they had done up until now. They no longer shied away from traveling on their own now and again, even for longer trips. Sasuke realized that the only reason they hadn't done so before was because Naruto and Sakura hadn't trusted him to take care of himself.

Sasuke was secretly glad that he'd had the time to outgrow that phase before figuring it out. He doubted his younger self would have dealt well, realizing that not only was he unable to compete with his teammates, but they also felt the need to act as his glorified babysitters.

"There's a B-ranked bounty sitting in the pub one village over," were Naruto's words of greeting after reuniting with them after a week-long solo trip. Her hair was braided in a tight, efficient knot and her clothes were caked with mud – among other things.

Not only were short periods spent by themselves doing wonders for stealth operations, they also kept up a far more pleasant team dynamic by not spending each and every minute of their life breathing the same air.

Sakura hummed in contemplation. "We could use the money. We almost used up the reward for clearing up that one trading route." She threw a glance at Sasuke. "What do you think?"

Sasuke shrugged, gathering up the few things he didn't already have sealed away. "Sure."

The occasional distance between them only served to make them grow closer as a team. It was the trust of allowing each other to go their separate path from time to time coupled with the conviction that the other two would be there as quickly as they could, should one of them find themselves in danger too big to handle on their own.

It felt like a safety net without being constricting. Sasuke no longer felt smothered by his teammate’s superior strength, nor by their condescending behavior towards him, seeing as they’d snapped out of it well before they’d left for their journey.

Things were going pretty well. They were going great.

Naruto's shout of "Look out!" snapped him out of his sentimental thoughts and made him duck purely out of reflex.

Sasuke narrowly avoided the fate of the tree behind him that fell apart, cut in slices. A jump onto the nearest tree branch and Sasuke caught his first glance of their opponent: a young woman with blonde hair and long, claw-like fingernails.

Had she just almost sliced Sasuke with those? Had he almost died by fingernails?

The woman straightened out of her fighting stance and slowly retracted her nails. "You're not my pursuers." She took a leap onto the tree opposite of Sasuke's, casually as if she hadn't tried taking his head off mere seconds ago.

Naruto jumped onto the same branch Sasuke was standing on. "No way," she muttered, her eyes wide and fixed on the mystery woman. "It can't be."

"Sorry about that," the mystery woman said, not sounding apologetic in the slightest. "I thought you were the hunter nin whose leader I took out yesterday. They were annoyingly persistent."

"Don't worry about it!" Naruto broke out into a beam and made a hand gesture as if to swat her worries away.

Sasuke found this rather curious, seeing as he had been the one to almost die, and not Naruto.

Sakura, too, seemed to have reservations. "Naruto," she said, a small frown on her face. "Is that–?"

"Nii Yugito," Naruto finished without taking her eyes off of the no longer mystery woman. "She's the second of Kumo's jinchūriki."

Yugito's brows dropped into a thoughtful frown. "You guys seem familiar."

"My name's Uzumaki Naruto and I've got Kurama, the Nine-Tails, sealed inside of me," Naruto rattled down without stopping to take a breath. "You've got crazy strong mental defenses, you know? I didn't feel you coming closer at all. Hey, do you want to come to Konoha with us? It's gonna be great! You won't be treated like a monster anymore!"

"No," Yugito deadpanned, not moving a muscle. "I'm fine. Aren't you the kids who blew up my village?"

"Technically that was Sakura." Naruto ignored Sakura's indignant sputtering. "More importantly, why don't you want to come? I promise it'll be amazing. Konoha is great about its jinchūriki. At least it’s starting to. It definitely will be, in about a year or so.”

"What are you talking about?" Yugito gave her a look as if she seriously doubted Naruto's sanity. "I'm doing fine in Kumo."

Naruto frowned in puzzlement. "Aren't people afraid of you? Or hate you for your power? Or believe you're an actual demon, rather than that you're keeping it safely sealed away?"

"Did you think that's how I'm treated?" Yugito pierced them with a disbelieving glare.

"Kinda?" Naruto tilted her head. "I mean, in Konoha it's taken me almost–”

Yugito cut her off with a huff. "Typical Konoha. You always think you have the moral high ground above all other villages."

"Doesn't your village kidnap children–?”

"We rescue them, excuse me." Yugito crossed her arms defensively. "It's not our fault other villages can't take proper care of their people."

Sasuke decided not to touch that statement with a ten-foot pole. So did, apparently, Sakura and Naruto.

"I guess it makes sense," Sakura said, slowly. "B is treated pretty well in Kumo. I kind of thought it was because of his relation to the kage."

"Konoha isn't that bad." Naruto seemed to rethink her sentence. "I mean okay, it's kind of bad. But it makes for some great character-building. Just look how well I turned out." Naruto nodded to herself, then looked towards Sakura and Sasuke in expectation.

The pause that followed was just a tad too long.

"Yeah! Duh, of course."

"Hmh."

Privately, Sasuke thought that there were healthier ways to shape someone into a good person than by forcing them to become outgoing and kind through a childhood of neglect.

"Well," Yugito said in a tone that sounded final. She was already turning away, seemingly having lost interest in the conversation. "Seeing as you were clearly mistaken, I'll be going now."

"Wait!" Naruto scrambled to block her path in time. "You don't have to come with us to Konoha. But don't you want to hang out for a bit?"

"Not really."

"But why?" Naruto sounded like she struggled with the mere concept. "You don't get to meet another jinchūriki every day."

"You keep saying it like that." Yugito frowned. "Like being both jinchūriki automatically means that we're connected. Why?"

"Because we are," Naruto insisted. "Even not counting our shared life experience – which, alright, isn't so shared after all," she backtracked with one pointed glance from Yugito. "But at the very least, the bijū consider themselves siblings. Doesn't that make us the same?"

Yugito huffed. "I don't think so."

"We even share a mindscape to communicate," Naruto continued. "Or we would. If you didn't block yourself off."

"Look, kid." Yugito let out a sigh. "I know you probably mean well. But there's worlds between us. We're from different villages. We were raised differently. I'm more than twice your age. Do you really think there's all that much we'd be able to relate to?"

Quietly, Sasuke had to agree. Meeting Yugito was different from meeting an excitable, cheerful Fū. He didn't think Naruto would get what she wanted out of this conversation. He wasn't sure why she insisted on continuing to try regardless.

"Just give it a chance," she said, taking a step towards Yugito when she tried to sidestep Naruto, yet again. "Just wait, it's gonna be fun. How about you come join us? We were just on our way to snatch up a B-ranked bounty, if you want you could–”

Yugito froze and Naruto almost fell off of their tree in surprise. "You weren't heading south, were you?"

Sakura blinked. "Yeah? There's this group of bandits one village over. Shouldn't be much of a challenge, but the reward–”

Yugito schooled her expression into one of neutral stoicism. Sasuke's mind raced with possibilities at the sudden shift in mood. Were the bandits more dangerous than the bounty poster suggested? Were they part of something bigger? Or was Yugito simply underestimating them, like so many others had before her?

Naruto seemed to have the same thoughts. Her expression had gotten more serious with the change in atmosphere. "Is there something we should–”

Yugito disappeared in a puff of smoke.

Sasuke blinked. Naruto's eyes widened. Sakura spluttered in indignation. "She's making a run for it!"

"I'm sure she has a good rea–”

"She's trying to steal our bounty!"

"I mean, it's not really ours, and I think she knew about it before hearing it from–”

"In her dreams," Sasuke muttered. As one, Sakura and he bolted after her. If Naruto wanted them to share the reward, she'd better be close behind them.

The combined forces of Team 7 and an adult jinchūriki blew through the sleepy town of Tōmae like a whirlwind, left its only pub in shambles, its inhabitants in turmoil and freed it of the group of bandits that had begun to establish their base.

Seeing as Yugito had been equally involved as they were, they reluctantly agreed to share the bounty. They also collectively left Tōmae when a trembling mayor thanked them for their help, took half of the bounty for damage repairs and also asked them to never set foot into the village again, thank you very much.

"I guess I can see that you only wanted to help," Yugito admitted far, far away from Tōmae and somewhat more willing to travel by their side, now that they'd taken on a band of criminals together. "It's kind of sweet. Also unnecessary."

"It's too bad you're not coming with us." Naruto sighed, walking with her arms crossed behind her head. She grunted as Sakura's elbow connected with her side. "O-Of course, it's far better to hear that you're happy in Kumo. Obviously."

Yugito huffed a laugh, shaking her head. They walked in surprisingly comfortable silence. "Who knows? Maybe I'll come visit.”

Naruto's head perked up. "Right now? You're coming along, after all?"

Sasuke rolled his eyes at the genuinely hopeful note in Naruto's voice. Sometimes he wondered how such an optimistic, cheerful person could also be one of the strongest Sasuke knew.

"No," Yugito disputed dryly. "Not right now."

"Then why are you still going the same direction we are?" Sakura raised an eyebrow. "I thought you wanted to separate at the first opportunity."

"I'm escorting you."

Sakura snorted. "Escorting? Seriously?"

"Did you already forget our fight back then?" Naruto's voice raised with disbelief. "We don't need protection."

"It's not for protection." Yugito cast them a glance from the side. "I'm making sure you're crossing the nearest border."

"The nearest border? But why–?"

"In the exact opposite direction of Kumo."

Sasuke and his team digested that information. Naruto let out a groan while Sakura muttered, "I'm never going to live this down."

Still, they didn't protest. Neither did Sasuke. It wasn't like they'd been planning to head back to Kumo, anyway, so if it made Yugito feel better to make sure they stayed far away from her home village? Sasuke could bear the additional travel companion for that long.

They'd been traveling for a while when another commotion made Yugito disappear into the tree canopy and out of sight without a word. Sasuke and his team followed closely. They'd stuck together for this long, they'd be able to do so for one more potential fight.

They waited in breathless silence for a first glimpse at the strangers.

"Hey," Naruto called out loudly, making all three of them wince at the volume. "It's you guys!" She jumped out of the trees and onto the forest ground where a familiar looking genin team and their jōnin teacher stood frozen in a defensive formation.

Seeing as Naruto had already given them away, Yugito slid out of her hiding place and threw an exasperated look at the Konoha headbands all four of them were wearing. "Great. Even more brats I have to make sure don't get anywhere near Kumo."

Sakura and Sasuke soon followed Naruto's lead and jumped down to land opposite of their fellow rookie team.

Team 8 had changed since the last time they'd seen them. All three of them had grown by a few inches, and Kiba's dog was by far not small enough to fit comfortably on Kiba's head. Somehow, the two of them made it work despite that.

"Hey! Long time no see," Kiba called, his voice cheerful and his lips pulled into a grin. His dog gave a bark that almost sounded like a greeting. Kiba sent all three of them a fleeting glance before his eyes landed on Naruto and gave her a once over. "Huh. I guess that jinchūriki girl wasn't talking bull, after all."

The last time they’d visited Konoha, Naruto hadn't changed into her feminine appearance. Her lips tightened for a split second, but beyond that she didn't openly show whether she was upset at Fū for spreading the truth about her. Most likely, Fū hadn't known that Naruto had not yet gotten around to it herself.

"H-Hello, Naruto-kun." Hinata gave Naruto a hesitant smile. "It's n-nice to see you again."

"You too, Hinata," Naruto said, her smile growing. "You look great."

Hinata's face turned a rather interesting shade of red, although she neither cowered nor tried to hide, as Sasuke had half expected her to do.

He was certain that Naruto hadn't gotten around to give her a pep talk before they'd left. Although certainly capable of it, she couldn't have been the reason for Hinata's (minor) boost in confidence. Sasuke supposed that maybe, there'd been no better way for Naruto to help Hinata than by giving her some distance and the opportunity to focus on herself, rather than anyone else.

Team 8's jōnin teacher – Kurenai – looked far less thrilled to have run into them by chance. Her face was set in a neutral, carefully emotionless mask. "I couldn't quite believe Kakashi when he told us that you three were doing fine on your own."

Considering the amount of concern and worry Kakashi had practically oozed upon their last visit in Konoha, Sasuke was somewhat impressed that he still managed to put up a carefree, confident act in front of everybody else.

"What can I say," Sakura said, tilting her head and closing her eyes in an endearing smile. "He trained us well."

"You look stronger," Shino chimed in, his voice muffled as he spoke into the hem of his jacket. "Why? Because you look more comfortable as a team."

"We are," Naruto admitted easily without letting her smile dim. "I guess we just needed a bit of time to grow used to each other."

That was putting it mildly. Sasuke could vividly remember the days he couldn't have cared less about his team.

Kiba seemed to have the same thought and proceeded to give Sasuke a – presumably – friendly punch on the arm. "Even you, Sasuke?"

Sasuke gave Kiba a glare and resolutely refused to rub the aching spot on his arm. "For the most part."

"Mind if we tag along?" Naruto said, taking on a hopeful expression. "We don't really have any other plans. Might as well help with whatever mission you're doing right now."

Kiba's lip pulled into a smirk. "Sounds like the perfect opportunity for some sparring."

"I'd l-love that," Hinata agreed.

Shino didn't say anything, but nodded. All three of them turned to look at their teacher expectantly, waiting for a decision.

Kurenai hesitated. "You realize that I will have to take you back with me, once we're done?"

Naruto paused to share a glance with Sasuke and Sakura, silently asking whether they felt up for another visit to Konoha. Sasuke shrugged. He didn't particularly mind either way.

"Sure," Naruto said, turning back to Kurenai. "We could use a few days off."

Kurenai's brows tightened. "That's not what I–”

"Get your bugs away from me," Yugito interrupted, drawing attention to herself by walking past Shino in a wide arch. "If they land on me, they die."

Shino didn't twitch a muscle. Kiba broke out into a frown on his behalf. "If you don't like insects, that's fine. No reason to be aggressive about it."

"No," Yugito said, "I was being literal. My chakra is poisonous."

Kurenai decided to not so subtly nudge her students away from her and pinned Yugito with a wary frown. "And who might you be?"

"Nii Yugito. I'm one of Kumo's jinchūriki." She nudged the headband currently bound around her upper arm.

Kurenai stiffened at the revelation. "And what is your connection to one of our genin teams?"

"We're friends," Naruto chimed in happily.

"I'm making sure they're not coming back to my village," Yugito deadpanned.

"B-Back?" Hinata's eyes widened in surprise.

"Woah, you were all the way to Kumo?" Kiba's expression was half awe, half jealousy. "We've barely even left Fire Country so far."

Kurenai's expression had taken on an alarmed quality. "What were you doing in Kumo?"

"Besides causing property damage?" Yugito muttered.

Naruto pretended like she hadn't heard her. "We just visited. Made some friends, had some training." She shrugged. "The usual."

"They also got themselves kicked out," Yugito added mercilessly. "Permanently."

"She's exaggerating." Sakura swatted her hand. "They'll have forgotten all about it before you know it.”

"I wouldn't bet on it," Yugito said. "My people do not forgive easily."

Kurenai made an odd sound at the back of her throat.

Yugito narrowed her eyes. "Was there something you’d like to say?"

"Nothing. I believe you." Kurenai pointedly looked ahead. "So, Yugito-san. Where is the rest of your team?"

Something about the way she said it made Sasuke stiffen. If this was supposed to be small-talk, it felt like the stiffest, most thinly veiled kind he had ever heard.

If Yugito noticed, she didn’t give a single sign of it. "Currently on a solo mission. Kumo nin aren't as attached at the hip as Konoha nin are. We can take care of ourselves."

Kurenai momentarily stiffened. She forced a smile onto her face. "I see. I suppose your focus lays somewhere other than teamwork. Not everybody is made to form life-long, family-like bonds like our shinobi are."

Yugito's eyes narrowed.

Naruto started to sweat. She looked back and forth between the two women frantically. "Are you guys hungry? I'm starving. We should go grab something in the next village we reach."

Seeing as Yugito and Kurenai did not break their heated, competitive glare for even a second, Sasuke felt justified doubting whether they would even reach the next village in one piece.

Chapter Text

The closer they came to Konoha, the bigger the chance to run into yet another person they knew – or several. Yugito, realizing the same, tried separating herself from their group once they'd almost reached the border of Fire Country. It was only Naruto's stubbornness that kept her reluctantly stuck in a conversation with them.

"Fū’s in Konoha, with us," she said, counting the two of them off with her fingers. "B's in Kumo with you, and Gaara – he's got Shukaku, the One-Tail – is well and in Suna."

"Also Yagura," Sakura added from the side. "We've met him in Kiri."

"Right." Naruto nodded without missing a beat. "That makes six. Do you know any of the other three?"

"It's not like I've been looking," Yugito said, her arms crossed defensively. Finally, she admitted, "I've met Utakata. Six-Tails. We clashed during a mission a few years ago."

"We should all meet up, you know," Naruto said. "Not right now, but some time later. All nine of us, just to hang out for a bit."

Sasuke approved of the idea only if he got to watch the reaction of whoever was given the honor of hosting all nine of the demon containers in their village. Looking at Kurenai, Sasuke might already have a rather good impression.

In stark contrast to his teacher, Kiba looked thrilled rather than horrified. "I can't believe this is your life."

"There are people ahead of us," Shino announced, his head tilted as if listening to something only he could hear.

"S-Strangers?" Hinata asked.

"Konoha," Shino corrected. "Why? Because my bugs are able to recognize their chakra."

"Great," Yugito said, crossing her arms and taking a step away from their group. "This is as far as I'm going."

"You sure?" Naruto asked, the attempt half-hearted at best. "It's not too late to change your mind."

"No." Yugito's voice was determined, but not unkind. She hesitated, then added, "Take care."

"You too." Naruto gave Yugito one last, radiant smile. "Let's meet again!"

"As long as it isn't anywhere near Kumo," Yugito muttered. She nodded towards Sakura and Sasuke, and she was gone in the blink of an eye.

Kiba whistled loudly. "You got some interesting friends there."

Sasuke supposed that was one way of putting it.

"Hey," Naruto chimed in, eyes directed forward and a smirk on her lips. It would appear that she had caught sight of the Konoha nin ahead of them – and had recognized them. "You guys wanna meet the unofficial other members of Team 7?"

Sasuke had warmed up to Yamato and Sai considerably since Naruto's and Kakashi's compromise about treating them like honorary members of their team. In his defense, he hadn't been ready to acknowledge even Naruto and Sakura as his teammates back then. How could anyone have expected him to accept two more people he'd never met before that point?

By now Sasuke was far more willing to accept their presence as yet another unquestionable constant in his life that wasn't worth struggling against.

So, when they burst out of the trees to find Yamato and Sai in the company of a horde of teenagers of varying age and gender, Sasuke was met with mild curiosity rather than outright rejection.

No one of Team 8 seemed surprised at the company Yamato and Sai kept, and Kurenai didn't hesitate as she recognized her chance to push the responsibility of them over to somebody else.

"We picked them up somewhere near the border," she explained curtly. "We haven't technically finished our mission yet. You're going to make sure they get to Konoha in one piece, right?"

Yamato's eyes widened in surprise at the sudden ambush. "The border– What– Wait just a minute!"

"See you back at the village," Kiba said, giving them a cheerful wave before going after his teacher.

"G-Goodbye, Naruto-kun."

"We will meet again, as soon as all of us arrive."

Hinata and Shino followed in their wake, and all too soon Yamato had been mercilessly left behind. His expression of gaping disbelief quickly morphed into one of resignation.

At his side, Sai sunk into a low bow. "Sakura-senpai."

At the sound of Sakura's name, hushed muttering broke out among the group of teenagers, and more than a dozen pairs of eyes found their way to fixate on her.

Sakura blinked at the sudden surge of attention. Next to her, Naruto muttered, "Oh boy."

Yamato threw a look around the group but seemed to decide that he didn’t actually want to know any details. "We didn't expect to see you again so soon," he commented, his forced neutrality betraying what he thought of their self-inflicted exile from the village.

"Team 8 asked us to stick around," Naruto said with a shrug. "Besides, it was time to come home for a bit. We've got tons of new stories to tell!"

The beam on her face was quickly replaced by puzzlement as Sai stepped into her personal space to scrutinize her with a blank stare.

"Hey, Sai. You alright there?"

"You look girly," Sai noted, his hand twitching as if only just stopping himself from reaching out to tug on her braid. "You must have messed up your Henge on a mission. You should practice more."

Yamato pulled out a small notebook with a sigh. "I guess you didn't technically insult him. Still, you were far too blunt, so no full points."

Sai blinked with a glance at Yamato. He turned back to Naruto with a wide, still somewhat fake looking smile. "Let's train together. I can help you work on your Henge."

"He offered his help," one of the other teenagers piped up at Yamato's side.

"'Being helpful to fellow shinobi', that's five points," another chimed in.

Yamato seemed to fight a losing battle warding off a headache.

"You're keeping points?" Sasuke asked, trying badly not to sound incredulous.

Yamato made an odd gesture, one that looked like he couldn't decide whether to wring his hands or cross his arms. "They've gotta learn somehow," he protested, an unmistakably defensive note to his voice.

Sasuke let his eyes stray over the unusual group before them. The oldest of the shinobi looked a few years older than Sai. The youngest was a child that couldn't have been older than six. A few wore emotionless masks while others reminded him of Sai in the way that the emotions they displayed looked sculpted and fake.

"Who are these people?"

"Remember what we told you about Sai?" Naruto asked rather than answering outright.

Sasuke strained his memory. It had been a long time since he'd first met their "extended team", not to mention that he'd been bombarded with a ridiculous influx of new, crazy information on a daily basis back then.

"You said that joining a team would have been the perfect therapy for him," he settled on, picking out one of the details he did remember.

There might have also been something about a secret shadow organization? He wasn't actually sure how much of it he remembered correctly, seeing as his younger self had been more likely to tune out his teammates' rambling, rather than listen to them.

"It was," Sai agreed. "My apprenticeship with Yamato has helped me greatly to see past the harmful, isolating and borderline tyrannical ideals passed onto me during my training with Danzō."

The last part sounded like Sai had recited it word for word.

"'Reflecting upon our past with a healthy and objective outlook'," a lanky girl with colorful ribbons tied into her braids perked up. "That's twenty points."

Yamato had already whipped out his notebook and scribbled into it with an approving nod. "Good one, Sai."

"Are all of you former Root, then?" Naruto peered through the approximately twenty faces with an expression close to awe.

"All of those willing to see past their initial teachings and turn over a new leaf," Yamato corrected. He attempted to hide a blush as Naruto beamed at him and muttered, "Somebody had to take them under their wing."

"Are you going to drop the Henge?" Sai asked, seemingly unwilling to let the matter go. "You're clearly not on a mission anymore."

"I know I'm not." Naruto somehow managed not to look annoyed. Sasuke suspected that it was less because of the comments, and more because Sai was the one uttering them. "It's not supposed to be for a mission."

"You're wearing it... on purpose?" Sai asked, an almost puzzled looking expression on his face. Seeing as he'd had trouble emitting anything other than fake-politeness before, Sasuke thought it was a rather big improvement.

"Yup." Naruto popped the 'p' sound. "I'm a girl right now. This is just what I look like, for the moment."

There was a pause as Sai digested this information. He turned, sharing a glance with a couple of former Root operatives. One of them gave him an encouraging, enthusiastic nod.

Sai turned back to Naruto with a smile. "The shape of your face doesn't look quite as ridiculous with long hair."

"That was a compliment," the same root member blurted out. "Ten points."

Yamato didn't make a move to reach for his notebook. "That's... No. No, I'm not giving any points for that."

"He gave a compliment," another one insisted. "That's ten points."

"That's not– I'm not counting that as a compliment. Look, we need to hold a discussion about what makes a compliment a compliment."

"I thought we were going to learn about boundaries and personal space, next."

Yamato was spared an answer as a little girl popped out of the trees ahead of them. "There's another shinobi approaching!"

"An enemy?" The girl with the colorful ribbons sounded just a little too enthusiastic at the prospect.

"A Konoha shinobi," the little girl corrected. "It's Jiraiya-sama, of the Sannin."

Several groans of disappointment filled the air that Yamato pointedly ignored.

"Crap," Naruto said, sharing a wide-eyed, alarmed glance with her teammates.

"Let's hide." Sakura's expression was grim as she made the suggestion. "At least until we know what he wants."

Sasuke didn't quite get the urgency in her voice. He was sure that if it came to a fight, the three of them would have an easy time escaping and making a run for it. Perhaps Sakura simply wanted to spare Naruto a fight with her godfather.

"You heard her," ribbon girl barked, and before Sasuke realized what was happening, several of the teenagers had ushered them into a hideout that had been dug in between tree roots, covered it with dirt and leaves and shuffled themselves and their equipment right in front of the small gap that was left open to allow them to look out.

None of the Root members looked the least bit guilty or like they'd seen anyone suspicious merely seconds prior. Sasuke was sure that by the time Jiraiya showed up less than a minute later, not so much as a trampled leaf was left to suggest their spontaneous visit.

"Yamato!" was Jiraiya's word of greeting as he burst into the clearing. "I'm so glad I finally found you."

"Oh?" Yamato kept his expression carefully neutral. "I'm glad to hear it, Jiraiya-sama. I will do my best to be helpful in any way that I can."

Sasuke was certain that nobody else had picked up on the stiff undertone that Yamato's words carried. He only hoped that it was caused by Yamato's resignation at having to lie to Jiraiya, and not a willingness to rat them out as soon as Jiraiya asked his questions.

Jiraiya for his part looked worse than during their first meeting. His clothes were ruffled, his hair looked even messier than usual and deep shadows and wrinkles painted exhaustion on his face. He looked like he hadn't gotten a night's sleep in a long time.

"It's about Kakashi's team," Jiraiya went on, his words all but jumbled in his hurry to get them out. "Team 7. Kakashi wouldn't tell me anything, but I've met them outside of the village – the three of them, all on their own!" His voice raised in near hysteria.

Yamato's eyes twitched towards them in a venomous, accusing glance. He jerked his head in a gesture that clearly said 'Come out here, or so help me.' Team 7 resolutely ignored him.

"They're so young!” Jiraiya went on, oblivious to their exchange. “The academy isn't training them for this sort of thing, not anymore. They'll get themselves killed out there!"

"I'm sure they're fine," Yamato pressed out through clenched teeth. "If they were here themselves," he sent them a more blatant, more furious glance, "they would be telling you not to worry so much."

"Not to worry?" Jiraiya started pacing back and forth restlessly. Sasuke was fairly sure that they could thank his sleep deprivation and general agitation that he hadn't realized their presence yet.

"My godson – goddaughter, whatever, I don't even know at this point – is out there gallivanting all over the place with her team and playing make pretend as missing nin! My contacts are telling the most ridiculous stories, and I haven't gotten any closer to finding them! They might already be dead for all I know, and Kakashi refuses to tell me anything!"

Next to him, Sasuke heard Naruto gulp. Barely audible, Sakura hissed, "Don't you dare, Uzumaki."

"Yamato, please." All the fight seemed to drain out of Jiraiya and left only pure exhaustion behind. "If you know anything, anything at all about where they might be, tell me. I let them slip away from me once, I don't know what I'd do if I found out that they–”

"Oh, for the love of–” Yamato whirled around and pinned them with a strict, mildly creepy glare. How did he even make his eyes do... that? "If you don't come out right now, so help me–”

"Fine, fine! Geez."

Sakura let out a deep, long-suffering groan while Naruto was already exiting their hiding place sporting a sheepishly guilty looking grin. Sasuke allowed himself to sigh internally, bidding a quick, uneventful trip to Konoha goodbye, and followed.

"It's you," Jiraiya said, wide eyes pinned on them in disbelief. Loudly, he added, "You're here!"

"Surprise?" Naruto tried, spreading out her arms as though this had all gone according to their plan. She grunted as Jiraiya wrapped her into a tight, almost desperate looking hug.

"Thank the Sage you're alright," he murmured, ending the hug by putting his hands on Naruto's shoulders and pushing her at arms-length. He gave her a once over, presumably checking for injuries. "I was so worried! Disappearing on me like that, what were you even thinking?"

Jiraiya turned away long enough to look over Sasuke and Sakura as well, although luckily he didn't try to hug them. Sasuke's boundaries were well defined, and he had no reservations about enforcing them through whatever means necessary.

Naruto pouted at Jiraiya's words. It made her look younger than she was – or perhaps it made her look her actual age, when usually she looked much older. "You were being patronizing. You just up and decided we were in over our heads without actually knowing us."

"Just let it go, Naruto," Sakura pressed out through clenched teeth.

Sasuke threw her a startled glance. Sakura of all people told them to let go and to not hold a grudge? Sakura?

He paused as he realized her intent. While Jiraiya was busy trying to coddle them, perhaps he wouldn't think back and remember their collective, if accidental assassination attempt.

"It's alright, old man," Naruto said, seemingly going along with Sakura's will and laying a comforting hand on Jiraiya's arm. "We already decided we'd be coming back to the village. You can... escort us, if you want."

If Jiraiya picked up on the forced quality of her last sentence, he didn't comment on it. Sasuke strongly suspected that by now he was willing to let most of their antics slide, if only he could manage to bring them back to Konoha in one piece.

Sasuke suppressed the urge to roll his eyes when Jiraiya all but deflated in relief. "I'm so glad I found you. There are so many other things I need to take care of, it's unbelievable what's been going on in the Five Nations recently. You back in Konoha is at least one thing I don't have to worry about anymore."

"Oh? What sort of things?"

Naruto's question sounded innocent enough. Evidently Jiraiya was too absorbed in his own thoughts to make an effort to censor himself.

"It's nothing you need to worry about. Kumo's been acting ridiculously hostile towards outsiders, even for them. Kiri's civil war seems to have come to an end. I'm not even sure what's going on in Ame right now, and Orochimaru... Who knows what he's up to. None of my contacts have heard anything about him."

Jiraiya had started muttering under his breath about halfway through, but Sasuke didn't doubt that both of his teammates had gotten every word of it. Sasuke very carefully did not turn to share a glance with them.

"Anyway," Jiraiya said, raising his voice as he turned his attention back to them, "It really doesn't matter. I'll take care of it once I've dropped you off."

Sasuke didn't think he imagined the sudden stiffness of his teammates. Sakura half-whispered, half-hissed, "Naruto. Just give it to him."

"Are you sure? I don't know if–”

"Just give it to him. Get it over with."

"Give what to me?" Jiraiya's frown looked puzzled more than it looked suspicious. It spoke volumes about just how little he knew them.

Naruto hesitated. Then she pulled out an innocent looking, familiar scroll. "It's a gift for you," she said, thrusting the scroll into Jiraiya's arms as though it was going to bite her. "Here you go. You're welcome, no need to thank us."

She grabbed one arm from Sakura and one from Sasuke to pull them along as though they wouldn’t be able to find their way to Konoha without her. "Old man, don't open that scroll until we're safely in Konoha. Let's go, I can't wait to get back."

They'd only managed to speed-walk a couple of steps before they heard the telltale sound of a storage scroll being activated.

Naruto gulped. Not a heartbeat later, Jiraiya cried out in surprise.

"We're gonna go on ahead!" Naruto yelled, and the three of them made a run for it without a glance at the jōnin instructor, former Root operatives or the two Sannin they left behind.

Chapter Text

A human body was not meant to be sealed inside of a scroll intended to store objects. Orochimaru’s unfortunate fate had made this exceedingly clear. Konoha’s reaction to this development ranged from clinical interest to brazen satisfaction, seeing just who’d had the misfortune of serving as a test subject in this discovery.

Orochimaru’s history of using people in his unethical experiments was lost to very few people. Needless to say, nobody was quite willing to offer false sympathies to him.

"What's going to happen to him now?" Sakura peered into the cell that contained the disgraced Sannin with morbid curiosity.

Orochimaru's gaze twitched around aimlessly, a haunted look clouding his eyes. Apart from the occasional shudder that rocked his body, he didn't move a muscle. Escape seemed to be the furthest thought on his mind.

"I dunno." Naruto frowned, the corner of her mouth tugging downwards. "I didn't think fuinjutsu would do this to a person. Not my kind."

"Orochimaru didn't exactly give you the choice to think it through." There was no trace of sympathy in Sakura's voice. "Look at the bright side: If he stays this way, he won't be able to hurt anyone."

"Can't we try to help him get better? No, hear me out," Naruto raised her hands defensively as Sakura bristled in outrage. "All those kids from Root are getting a second chance, right? Why not him?"

Sasuke was assaulted by the sudden image of Orochimaru mingling with the group of teenagers they had met.

"What do you say?"

"I... apologize."

"For?"

"For attempting to use your body as a mindless puppet in my scheme to gain power and immortality."

Sasuke had to snort at the mental image of Yamato raising his thumb and scribbling down ten points for a well made apology.

Sakura sent him a glance from the side, but didn't question him. To Naruto, she said, "He's getting nothing he doesn't deserve. Let's just forget about him and offer second chances for those who actually deserve them."

Naruto clearly didn't agree with her but seemed to let it go in favor of keeping the peace.

Sakura, similarly unwilling to go on about such an unpleasant subject, said, "What do you wanna do first?"

They'd begun falling into an easy routine every time they returned to Konoha in between their trips. They'd spend their time catching up with their friends, stocking up on supplies and staying well out of reach of the ANBU that were sent to bring them to the Hokage.

Curiously, the latter had gotten rarer and rarer the longer they went on living their lives pointedly ignoring the Hokage.

Naruto made a noise at the back of her throat, tugging at the front of her shirt. "Go ahead without me. I gotta go change, first. Might as well pay a visit to my apartment while I’m at it."

"Change-change, or–”

"Yeah." Naruto grimaced. "Let Kakashi-sensei know if you see him. I won't be long."

While Naruto "changing" could be as easy as her – well, as of now him – dropping his Henge, it wouldn't take care of his femininely cut clothes or the pins in his ears. He could, of course, simply put another Henge on top of them, but Naruto preferred to limit the technique to his body. Shopping trips with Sakura would become quite pointless, if he simply henged his clothes whenever he felt like it.

"Come on then," Sakura said once Naruto had set off. "Let's see who's here."

Sasuke took this to mean ‘let's see who of our fellow rookies we can find to hang out with and/or who of the adults are there to torment’. Sakura didn’t have to ask him twice.

Startled looks and heated whispers followed them on their way through the village, although nobody tried to stop and talk to them. Sasuke wondered what they were saying. Was their team known as a band of good-for-nothing wanderers? Did people think they were reckless and naive? Sasuke wouldn’t be surprised if at least some people felt jealous of their adventures.

He was also certain that there were those people who didn't care what they did, as long as it meant keeping the demon container away from the village.

They were able to hear the sparring far before they caught sight of the training ground. Sasuke knew neither of the two opponents well, although he knew that Chōji was friends with Shikamaru. Rock Lee, on the other hand, was far too loud and energetic to not know him at least in passing.

While the two of them sparred (urged on by Lee's enthusiastic cries of encouragement), Shikamaru sat close to them, leaning against a tree and attempting not to fall asleep.

Going by the layers of sweat and shallow injuries covering the fighters, the spar had been going on for a while.

"Oh hey! Team 7's back!"

Chōji’s shout made Lee halt in his tracks and Shikamaru peel open an eye. He let out a grunt that might have been meant as a greeting and went right back to dozing.

"Sakura-san! Sasuke-san! Welcome back." Lee beamed at them, dropping out of his fighting stance. "I've been hoping to see you again, soon. If you do not mind, I would like to test my abilities against yours!"

"It would be interesting to see the techniques you picked up on your travels," Chōji agreed. Both he and Lee seemed to have forgotten about their own spar entirely.

Sasuke was about to step forward and take the offer – he wouldn't let the opportunity to test his abilities on someone new pass – but Sakura seemed to have different plans.

"Maybe later," she said, her eyes wandering over the cuts and bruises on the two rookies with an inappropriate thrilled gleam. "This is perfect!"

Chōji made a noise of surprise as Sakura took his arm and dragged him down beside her. She patted the patch of grass in front of her and sent Sasuke an expectant glance.

"Come on. This is the perfect opportunity to practice your healing techniques." She turned to look at Lee. "You're next, Lee! Sasuke's going to take care of those injuries in no time."

Sasuke sent Sakura a glare. Nevertheless, he settled in a comfortable position and forced himself not to hesitate as he grabbed Chōji’s arm.

There was no reason for him to feel self-conscious about his skills. Sakura had taught him exactly how it was done, and the technique wasn't even that difficult. Sasuke's expression pulled into a scowl as he told himself that the nervous fluttering in his chest was as stupid as it was useless.

He allowed himself a deep breath to help focus his chakra, and he had to swallow down a sigh of relief when the skin around Chōji’s cuts actually started to knit back together.

Chōji ohhh'd in amazement. "That's awesome, Sasuke! How long have you been learning medical techniques?"

"Since meeting Tsunade." Sasuke kept his answer curt as he needed to focus on the healing. Basic as the technique was, it required concentration and impeccable chakra control.

No wonder Naruto was a hopeless case.

Sasuke's concentration was put to the test yet again when a familiar figure materialized on the training grounds close to them. "So sorry that I'm late. I found a lost kitten and had to return it to its–” Kakashi trailed off as he spotted their group. His eyes widened.

"Kakashi-sensei!" Sakura's mouth pulled into a grin. "I didn't think you'd find us this quickly. I guess word must have–”

"You're back," Kakashi interrupted, his prior carelessness vanishing into thin air. "Did Jiraiya find you?"

"I guess kind of," Sakura said. "If you didn't come to find us, why are you here?"

"Kakashi-sensei offered to oversee some of our sparring matches." Chōji gave them a sunny smile. "He's been lots of help."

"What, did you find someone to replace us with while we were gone?" Sakura punched Kakashi's arm playfully. She ignored his grumbling as he rubbed the spot on his arm and said to Chōji, "Don't go around stealing our teacher, you hear?"

"Sasuke," Kakashi said, his eyes wide and his voice startled. "Are you healing right now?"

Sasuke tore his hands away from Chōji’s arm as though it had burned him. The soft chakra glow around his hands vanished.

Chōji didn't seem to be bothered at having his healing session abruptly cut short. Sasuke had almost finished, anyway. "Thanks, Sasuke!" He traced the smooth patch of skin and pulled his sleeve back over it. "You're really good at this, you know?"

To his utter mortification, Sasuke felt heat rise up in his face under Kakashi's surprised stare.

Sakura sneaked up from behind and threw her arms around his upper body. "He's put in a lot of effort. It's really starting to pay off."

Sasuke's cheeks flushed darker.

Naruto earned the spot of Sasuke's favorite teammate by showing up at exactly the right time, drawing the attention to himself and sparing Sasuke the burden of having to come up with an answer.

"Hey, guys! Look who I ran into!"

Neji trailed behind him looking reserved but not like he was being dragged along against his will.

"Oh! Kakashi-sensei!" As soon as Naruto's eyes fell on their teacher, he propelled himself forward to bury Kakashi in a hug. "You won't believe who we've met, this time."

Kakashi hummed, patting Naruto's back half-heartedly. "Do I want to know?"

"I will listen, gladly!" Lee threw them an intense gaze that suggested he was close to whipping out a notebook to take notes. "I'm sure your adventures will be incredibly informative and an inspiration to work even harder on becoming stronger!"

"Do you guys wanna listen, too?" Naruto asked with a smile. "Chōji? Neji?"

"I'd love to," Chōji said, returning Naruto's cheerful expression.

Neji hesitated. He managed not to sound curt or even impolite when he said, "No, thank you. I was actually looking for Kakashi-sensei."

Naruto's brows shot up in surprise. He mouthed the word ‘Kakashi-sensei’ with an expression of puzzled disbelief. Shaking his head as though shaking off the confusion he said, “I thought you were going to ask someone for advice?”

Neji frowned at him as though he was being particularly dense. “Yes.”

It took Naruto another beat to understand his meaning. “You’re asking him for advice?”

Kakashi sent Naruto an exasperated glare. Heaving a sigh, he turned to Neji. “What’s the matter?”

Neji's eyes flickered over to their group as though considering whether he wanted to hold this conversation in their presence. He let out a sigh as he came to a decision.

He kept his voice quiet, but Sasuke could still understand him. "Do you remember what we talked about before?"

Kakashi paused, his expression gaining in intensity. "Yes. I do."

Neji bit his lip in an uncharacteristically hesitant way.

"Is it about what you decided on?" Kakashi asked. "Did you change your mind? Because there wouldn't be any shame in that." More quietly, he added, "It's a difficult goal to reach for a single person."

"No. I still want to do it." Neji averted his eyes so he no longer looked at Kakashi – or any of the others. "I just... I'm not sure whether it is possible. For someone in my... position."

Sasuke wondered if they were talking about the seal his clan had placed on him. He didn't ask; it wasn't his conversation to hold, and he wasn't entirely certain whether Naruto had been supposed to tell him about the hierarchy of the Hyūga clan in the first place.

“It will be more difficult for you than it might be for others,” Kakashi agreed. “But things like these – your past, your family, prejudice – it’s something people are able to overcome. Just take a look at m–”

Kakashi cut himself off with a cough and Sasuke had the feeling that they would never find out what he had been about to say. Because when he started to talk again, he was most definitely not picking up where he had left off.

“Take, for example… Anko!”

“Anko,” Neji repeated, doubt clear in his voice.

“That’s right,” Kakashi said, as though he wasn’t clinging onto the very first deflection he had gotten his hands on. “Anko. Her past with Orochimaru means that many people despise her for the skills she has. And, erm. Well, she was given a seal against her will, too. She had to work harder than others to be acknowledged by even a fraction of Konoha’s shinobi.”

Kakashi looked rather pleased at himself for his last second improvisation.

While Sasuke was looking right through him, Neji’s gaze had gone distant in thoughtfulness.

"I see," he said eventually, nodding to himself as though he had come to a decision. "Thank you for the advice, Kakashi-sensei. I think I know what my next course of action should be."

He gave a curt bow and left as quickly as he had come.

"Kakashi-sensei," Sakura said after a moment of silence. "I was joking, you know. You didn't actually replace us, did you?" She didn't quite manage to keep her joking tone this time around.

Kakashi sent her a look that seemed to be gauging whether she was being serious or not. "I'm not replacing you, Sakura. Where did you get that idea?"

Sakura threw a significant glance towards Chōji and Lee – who seemed to have decided to give them some distance and retreated further into the training grounds. "You're training the other rookies. You're giving advice. You're... you're teaching them!"

"No offense, Kakashi-sensei," Naruto said, "you know we love you. But since when have you enjoyed being a teacher? Or being around children?"

Even though it was Naruto saying it, and even though he was using a joking undertone, Sasuke found the words oddly harsh. That didn’t take away from the truth in them. In retrospect, Sasuke could easily admit that Kakashi had most likely expected them to fail back during that first test.

He may have grown fond of them over time, but he had not wanted to be a teacher before becoming theirs.

Something unreadable flickered over Kakashi's face, and his expression tightened. He looked away in a move that almost succeeded in looking casual. "This is why," he said quietly.

“What?” Naruto's smile fell off his face. "I'm sorry if that came across wrong. I wasn't really being serious."

"No, you're right." Kakashi looked into the distance, his hands deeply buried in his pockets. "I didn't want to be a teacher when Hokage-sama asked me too. I didn't think I'd ever find a team that would meet my expectations. I guess I didn't exactly do a good job hiding that, back then."

Naruto's eyes had widened in alarm. "Kakashi-sensei, you don't need to–”

"The village clearly did wrong by you, you know?" Kakashi interrupted. "It must have really messed up to make all three of you want to leave so badly." More quietly, he added, "I know I did."

Sakura took a hesitant step towards Kakashi. She chewed on her bottom lip, and her brows were knit into a hesitant frown. "That's why you're helping them with everything," she said, realization in her voice. "You're making sure they're happy here. So that they feel at home in Konoha."

There was a pause. Kakashi didn't deny it.

"We do, too, you know?" Naruto matched the subdued tone of the other two. "This is still our home. Nothing about our travels changed that."

"Of all the reasons we left," Sakura continued, "you were never one of them."

Kakashi laughed. It was an ugly sound, filled with disbelief and self-deprecation. "Clearly, I didn't do enough."

Sasuke had been shifting on his feet uncomfortably for the entirety of the heart-to-heart the rest of his team was having. All the sincerity was making his stomach churn. Not to mention the guilt.

Sasuke had limits, and he decided that he had reached one of them several minutes ago.

With that in mind, Sasuke pulled out one of their storage seals and activated it to make a small bundle materialized in his hand.

He thrust it into Kakashi's arms with a scowl and muttered, "For you," crossing his arms immediately after.

"Oh, that's right!" The cheer in Naruto's voice sounded too stiff to be casual. "We brought gifts!"

Sakura rolled her eyes as Naruto frantically patted his pockets in search for another storage seal. "Let him open Sasuke's first, idiot."

"It's not from me!" Sasuke's scowl deepened as he felt color rush into his cheeks. "It's from us. I just happened to carry it."

"You guys..."

Kakashi's tone of voice immediately activated Sasuke's fight or flight reflex. He felt a hand dig into the back of his shirt to keep him from leaving behind what was threatening to become another sentimental moment of bonding and sappiness.

He didn't remember whose idea the photo album had been. He just knew that it had started with Sakura's half joking remark of sending postcards to the village in order to keep track of their progress through the Five Nations. Naruto, obviously, had taken her at her word, and soon they had (reluctantly, in Sasuke's case) begun taking pictures of themselves in the villages they visited and with the people they met.

Putting them together as a gift for Kakashi had just been the next logical step.

Kakashi's eyes went soft as he turned pages and took in their adventures. He gave a startled laugh at a particularly goofy, unflattering picture of Naruto (courtesy of Sasuke). He shook his head in a disbelieving, soft motion as he saw a group picture that, among others, included the Mizukage and the missing nin they had fought against on their Wave mission.

"We left loads of space at the back, so you can put more pictures in after our next trip," Sakura pointed out helpfully.

"You're unbelievable," Kakashi said, and Sasuke determinedly ignored the husky quality to his voice and the shine in his eye.

"Alright, open mine, next!" Naruto didn’t wait for Kakashi’s confirmation before depositing another scroll into their teacher’s arms and activating it.

Kakashi grunted, stumbling under the weight of the gigantic ornamental sword that materialized in his arms.

"We got it as a reward from this noble we helped out. D'you like it?”

"It's certainly... something," Kakashi said dryly. He heaved the sword into his arms so he could hold onto it properly. "Thank you, Naruto."

"We'll always come back, you know?" Sakura said, just when Sasuke had dared to hope that they had finished with the emotional vulnerability for the day.

"Yeah," Naruto agreed, his voice lowered from his over the top cheer to a soft, genuine tone. "If not for the village, we would always come back for you."

Sasuke didn't say anything, but crossed his arms and gave a curt nod.

Maybe Sasuke wasn't the type to declare his feelings for everybody to hear like his teammates were. But he also wasn't going to deny their words when they were so obviously right.

Chapter Text

Their days in Konoha passed quickly. Sasuke felt like they were hanging out with different people every single day, catching up on what had happened while they were gone and telling stories in return.

More of the rookies had made chūnin by now, and while none of them had yet been promoted to jōnin, it was clear that several were already eyeing the title.

Fū had somehow managed to be accepted as a proper Konoha nin and sported her own hitai-ate – while also wearing and refusing to exchange her old one, much to the grievance of the shinobi in charge.

People other than the rookies had begun to adapt to their whims. Team 10's teacher – Asuma – spotted them on their way to meet up with friends. He froze – perhaps contemplating whether to follow his duty as a shinobi and betray them to the Hokage – before lighting himself a cigarette and turning the other way.

All things considered, their visits had become more and more pleasant every time they returned. Sasuke had never had more contact with the other rookies than now. Nobody ever underestimated him – underestimated them – and there was never a shortage of enthusiastic sparring partners. Kakashi seemed to neglect his duties (whatever those currently were) and spent time with them more often than he ever had before.

Sasuke could almost imagine what it would be like to return to the village permanently and only leave for missions. Almost.

"Guys! You won't believe who showed up for a visit!"

Sasuke barely looked up from where he was sharpening his sword. Naruto had sported the same sort of enthusiasm when Team 8 had come back from their mission, and again when their old client and his brat of a grandson had come visiting them from Wave. His excitement slowly but surely started to lose its meaning.

"Oh?" Sakura decided to indulge their teammate, but didn't put down her novel. "Don't tell me Zabuza and Haku already took you up on the offer."

"Eh, they'll do soon enough." Naruto shrugged. "Nah, Itachi and Kisame came over for some tea! It's about time, too."

Sasuke stared at his teammate, his brows dropping into a frown. "What are you doing?"

"What do you mean?"

"I developed my Sharingan ages ago. Why are you trying to shock me?"

"I know you did." Naruto spoke in the sort of voice that suggested Sasuke was the one not making any sense, not Naruto. "I tried helping you develop it by bringing him over to our campsite, remember? I told him he could come over to Konoha whenever he felt like it."

Sasuke felt his brain short-circuiting. His teammates carried on as though nothing had happened.

"Is that a good idea?" Sakura asked, sporting a frown of her own.

"Why wouldn't it be?"

Sakura raised an eyebrow. "He helped to kill almost his entire clan the last time he was here."

"Well, yeah. But he had some very good reasons? Besides, the past is the past, and he–”

"If you say one more word," Sasuke whispered, pressing out the words through clenched teeth, "I will punch you."

Naruto blinked. "Sasuke, look–”

"No."

The single word was enough to make both Naruto and Sakura fall silent immediately. Only a deep seated trust in them prevented Sasuke from grabbing his sword and running off to search the village for his crazy brother.

Sasuke closed his eyes and took a deep breath. "What is he doing here?" His words came out stilted and tense. "How could you have possibly thought it would be a good idea to invite the murderer of my family into our home?"

There was a heavy, pregnant pause.

Naruto's expression fell. "I'm sorry, Sasuke. I... didn't think of that. At all." He was no longer able to look Sasuke in the eyes. "There's some things about the massacre you weren't told, back then."

He paused. Sasuke hated the tension between them, but wasn't willing to break the silence himself. He needed to hear this. He needed to understand.

"We thought it would be better if you got to talk to your brother, rather than learn it from us. At this point we kind of," he cringed, "forgot that hasn't happened yet."

"You don't have to, though," Sakura said, wearing a deeply earnest expression. "If you don't want to see him, that's fine. We'll tell you everything right here, right now. After that, you can still decide what you want to do."

Sasuke mulled those words over in his head. He'd barely thought about his brother at all these last few weeks, and he had been... happy. Content. He didn't know if he was willing to risk all of that in order to rip open this old wound.

More than that, he knew that he wouldn't be able to live with himself if he turned his back right now. He wasn't the type of person to live in blessed, carefree obliviousness. Not voluntarily.

Sasuke clenched his fists and looked his teammates in the eye. He slowly let go of his sword and settled back down.

The tension between them was almost unbearable. "Alright. Talk."

Sasuke had imagined a reunion with his brother many, many times. He had fantasized about carving out the eyes that had caused him so much pain. He had dreamed of cutting Itachi down with his blade the same way Itachi had cut down their parents and the rest of their clan. In all of his fantasies, he had been the one to end his brother's life, and rightfully so.

In reality – and one educational history lesson about their home village and a vermin called Danzō later – the reunion went nothing like he had imagined.

Sasuke's fingers itched to take up his sword or even just a kunai. Anything even remotely sharp or dangerous would do. But he kept to their agreement, even once he laid eyes on his brother.

"Itachi," he said, not quite managing to keep the growl out of his voice.

Itachi stood next to the same missing nin who had accompanied him trying to kidnap Naruto, the one who looked like a shark. Itachi looked uncomfortably stiff and he chose not to look Sasuke in the eye.

"Sasuke," he said, making Sasuke wonder if he'd decided not to call him ‘little brother’ on purpose. "You look well."

Sasuke suppressed the urge to let out a derisive snort. "You look like you've spent the last few years playing missing nin."

Itachi blinked. Sasuke couldn't quite believe he had taken the facial cue as proof that Naruto had impersonated his brother back then.

Itachi might not have worn his emotions on his sleeves like other people did, but he was far from the blank, emotionless slate Sasuke had imagined. Puzzlement was reflected in his eyes, faint disbelief and the almost painful awkwardness that came out of spending several years away from his home.

"I am glad to see you alive," Itachi said, the pause preceding the sentence hanging awkwardly in the air.

Behind Itachi, the shark-man shook his head in an oddly human looking gesture of exasperation. Sasuke could relate to the sentiment. He stared at his brother.

"It wasn't thanks to you," he said bluntly, shaking off the stupor at seeing his brother... like this.

"... Yes," Itachi said, "I suppose that, seeing what happened the last time we saw each other–”

"Do you mean the time you killed our entire clan, including our parents," on orders, apparently, but still, "or the time you tried kidnapping my teammate and taunting me into becoming stronger to kill you?"

"I had been referring to the former, but–”

"I'm listening," Sasuke interrupted, suddenly intent on snapping his brother out of whatever state he was in. Sasuke didn't want him to be polite. He didn't want him to sound hesitant and awkward. Sasuke wanted him to snap back. He wanted to let off steam in a shouting match.

He wanted to address the years of hatred and loathing between them, because how else was he supposed to deal with them?

"Tell me about back then. Like how you could have possibly thought slaughtering an entire clan was the only solution to..." To whatever had been happening back then. Sasuke still didn’t know more than the basics.

"Sasuke," Naruto chimed in, his voice wary and sounding as though he wanted to put a stop to the conversation then and there. "Don't be so hard on him. He was young, and–”

"He was our age," Sasuke corrected, throwing Naruto a glare. "Don't try to make excuses for him."

He didn't want his teammates to jump to Itachi's defense, either. He wanted Itachi to do that himself. He wanted to see anything other than blind acceptance, this odd willingness to take everything Sasuke was hurling at his head. Why wouldn't Itachi defend himself?

"Tell me," he repeated, directing his glare back to his brother. "Why did you do it?"

Itachi took a long time to answer. Sasuke barely managed to muster the patience to hold his silence and let Itachi collect his thoughts.

“I did not have a reason.”

“Yes, you did.” Sasuke’s anger rose up tenfold. “You must have. Nobody goes around deciding to kill people without a reason. Maybe it wasn't a good one. Maybe it wasn't a reasonable one. But you better have had a reason for murdering our family, because if my friends are wrong and you only did it for the fun of it–”

Sasuke's voice faltered and he did not care to hide it. His eyes were prickling, his throat closing up with frustration and half-forgotten hatred. "I want to hear you say it. Why did you do it? How could you?"

Sasuke wanted to tear out his hair when Itachi said nothing in return. His aimless eyes gave him a careless, aloof expression, although Sasuke was starting to realize that it was less out of disinterest and more out of sheer inability to hold a proper conversation with Sasuke.

Sasuke pressed down his anger by taking a deep breath. This was fine. His brother was acting nothing like he had expected, but it was fine. Their conversation most likely wouldn't end in a ruthless duel to the death, which was a bummer, but Sasuke was flexible. He would adapt to this development, just like he had adapted to everything else life (and his teammates) had thrown at him during the past year.

"This wasn't a good idea," Naruto muttered, watching the brothers with an expression that was half wary, half anxious.

"If you need more time," Sasuke said, addressing Itachi and ignoring Naruto entirely, "that's fine."

Itachi's eyes widened almost imperceptibly. "What?"

Sasuke tried to keep his mouth from pulling into a sneer, but only half succeeded. "Emotions are... hard." He wasn't going to keep watching his brother fumble his way through their semi-forced heart to heart. Sasuke had better things to do than that. "Maybe you should... talk to someone about this. Someone else," he clarified hurriedly when Itachi's eyes widened further. "It might help."

"Yes," Sakura said after a beat of silence, staring at Sasuke with wide eyes. "It might. Sasuke's right."

Sasuke wanted to bristle at the incredulous quality of her voice, but found that he couldn't. If anybody had told him he would be giving emotional advice to anyone, not to mention his brother, only the day prior, he would have proclaimed them crazier than his team.

Next to them, the shark man – Kisame, that’s what Naruto had called him – gave a shrug. "I've been trying to do some poking," he said, following the conversation with an amused gaze. "But you know how it is."

"Yeah," Naruto agreed, his eyes traveling to Sasuke. "It takes time."

"I can't believe I'm saying this to Itachi of all people," Sakura muttered, and, raising her voice, "but there's this program a couple of friends have put together."

"Oh!" Naruto's eyes lit up with enthusiasm. "That's right! We've got this great rehabilitation program going on right now. It might help you!"

Itachi looked like somebody had hit him over the head. "I am not certain that is either necessary or advisable–”

"Oh?" Kisame raised an eyebrow, and Sasuke couldn't quite tell whether it was meant to look mocking or not. "How interesting. Do tell us more."

Itachi watched blankly as Kisame threw him a grin and pointedly followed Naruto and Sakura. Sasuke pretended not to notice when Itachi stole a glance at him as well, and both brothers followed the odd procession with plenty of space left between them.

Stares followed them on their way through the village, freezing as though they'd been struck by lightning as they caught sight of Itachi. Not one of them was brave enough to actually confront the murderer of one of Konoha's formerly strongest clans.

They ran into Yamato only steps away from the village gates, his flock of semi-redeemed Root agents trailing behind him.

"Yamato," Sakura called before he had the chance to spot them and make a strategic retreat. "We were just looking for you."

"You were?" Yamato's voice dripped with wariness and he threw a glance over his shoulder as though checking whether all of his wards were still present. "Whatever it is, can't it wait? We were about to–”

"Leave for your next session? Perfect." Naruto made a grab for Itachi's arm but missed as Itachi took the barest step back. "We've brought a new member for you!"

Yamato's eyes – up until now narrowed in suspicion – threatened to bulge out of their sockets as they came to rest on Sasuke's brother. "I-Itachi?"

Itachi gave a stiff bow. "Yamato-senpai."

"Woah, wait," Naruto looked back and forth between the two. "You two know each other?"

"... For a time, Itachi and I were assigned the same ANBU squad. What is he– What are you doing here?" Yamato looked as though he was half expecting ANBU to swarm them and take Itachi for interrogation any second now.

Naruto took in the new information with a beam. "That's perfect! He's here for one of your therapy sessions."

"I am not actually–”

"He is," Sakura, Sasuke and Kisame said, Sasuke just a little too forcefully to seem rational. He narrowed his eyes at his brother and repeated, almost as a threat, "He is."

If this was what it took for Sasuke to hold an actual conversation with his brother – one where he could curse and rage and have Itachi react and defend himself, rather than take all the bottled up emotions Sasuke threw at him – if that’s what it took, Sasuke would drag Itachi to each and every therapy session Yamato was hosting, whether either of them wanted to or not.

Chapter Text

It had only been a few minutes since introducing Itachi and Kisame to Yamato and his group of Root children, and Sasuke feared that they were already off to a bad start.

One of the kids took one look at Kisame – specifically his blue-tinted skin, his gills and his sharp teeth – and asked, "Are you Itachi-san's support animal? Our guidebook states that an animal companion has great value in terms of emotional therapy and recovery."

Off to the side, Yamato buried his face in his hands and muttered, "Yasuo... No. Just no."

Rather than going on a bloody rampage for the insult as Kisame's entry in the bingo book might have suggested, Kisame threw a delighted grin at Itachi. "Look, they're even worse than you are."

Itachi looked up from the guidebook he'd been given – the very same the Root kid had mentioned and the one Yamato seemed to have mass printed after Sai had used it semi-successfully during his own rehabilitation.

Itachi carried it with him constantly from then on, and after only a few sessions, Itachi began to lose his reservations about spending time with the group.

Sasuke, unwilling and incapable of doing the same for the majority of his days, split his time between watching his brother from afar and lamenting about him to his friends.

"How am I supposed to hate him when he's this sad," Sasuke complained, scowling at nothing in particular while his teammates pretended to take him seriously.

"I know, Sasuke," Sakura said, patting Sasuke on the shoulder.

"Just looking at him is making me depressed."

"I know, Sasuke."

"He seems to like the art therapy, at least." Naruto squinted at the group lead by Sai. All of them were fiddling with paint and paper.

"As long as he doesn't start making gifts for Sakura like the rest of them," Sasuke muttered.

Persuading his teammates to tell him the reason for the Root kids' worship of Sakura – namely her getting rid of Danzō and indirectly freeing them from his clutches – only somewhat lessened his exasperation over the fact. Not a day passed in which not at least a couple of them sought Sakura out, be it for advice, a shy thank you or to make her a gift.

Sasuke felt like more than half of the work the kids made during art therapy went to Sakura. The walls of what used to be Naruto’s apartment and what was now essentially theirs to share were plastered with pictures. Sakura had more macaroni necklaces than she knew what to do with.

"I don't get it." Naruto gave Sakura a pout. "I fixed as many issues as you did. Where's my cult following?"

Sakura didn't try to hide her smugness. "I'm just being appreciated as I should."

"Who's the one who infiltrated Root first? Me, that's who. It’s only because you got impatient–”

"I thought you'd been kidnapped, moron! What did you want me to do, come to you first and ask 'Hey, Naruto! Did some creepy old council guy try to brainwash you recently? No? Well, I'm obviously gonna believe you and go on with my life, no biggie.'"

"Maybe then I would have gotten some of the credit once we–”

Sasuke tuned his teammates out as they continued their bickering.

While many of Konoha's adult shinobi seemed to be avoiding them – and Itachi in particular – like the plague (most likely so they wouldn't be the one who had to decide what to do with them), Kakashi tentatively sought them out after the first few days.

He joined Team 7 to observe the therapy session from a distance, and several minutes passed in comfortable silence.

"I knew Itachi when he was a child," Kakashi admitted quietly. "He, Yamato and I were all on the same ANBU unit. Itachi was the youngest to have ever joined."

Not too long ago, Sasuke might have used the confession to start an argument about the secrets that had been kept from him. Now, he realized that talking about that period of his life was as painful to Kakashi as talking about his brother had been to Sasuke.

"I was young too," Kakashi went on, his eyes focused on the group further away from them.

Yamato formed hand signs for some sort of technique, and he showed the kids something Sasuke and his team weren't close enough to make out.

Kakashi’s eyes dropped downwards. "I never really allowed myself to consider what that sort of life can do to a person."

There was a lull in the conversation that felt natural and thoughtful.

"I think these sessions are good for him," Sakura said quietly. "Not just for Itachi, but for everybody who's doing them."

"There's no expectations," Naruto murmured. "No orders. It must be a novelty for him – for them – having time to focus only on themselves."

"Yamato's doing great by them." Sakura's lips twitched into a smile. "Who'd have thought that spending some time with Sai would turn Yamato into a therapist?"

Sasuke didn't join the conversation but listened to everything that was being said. The thought that Itachi was anything other than pure, malicious evil had been foreign and odd the very second it had crossed his mind. Evidence of Itachi's suffering (Not his innocence. Never his innocence.) kept piling up, and Sasuke couldn't help but feel something in response to it.

It wasn't pity. It wasn't even sympathy. It was, as Sasuke realized with sudden clarity, the knowledge that Sasuke might have become a creature very similar to his brother. He was lucky that he’d had his friends to guide him out of the village that had turned Itachi into the person he had become and show him a better, happier path.

"What are they doing down there?" Naruto muttered, squinting down at the group ahead of them.

While he was still unmistakably male, he had grown his hair longer than he usually preferred as a boy. It made him greatly resemble the man Naruto had shown them on an old photograph he'd been given by Kakashi, the man who'd been introduced to them as Naruto's father.

"Whatever it is, they've been at it for a while," Sakura said.

Naruto squirmed in place. "Looks like Yamato's giving something to the kids. I just can't make out what..."

"Why don't you just go down and–”

Naruto leaped to his feet before Kakashi could finish his sentence.

"– ask." Kakashi looked to the sky as though already regretting his decision. He pushed himself to his feet and followed Naruto with Sasuke and Sakura close by.

"– do not see the value of keeping an inanimate object, Yamato-sensei," one of the kids said as they came close enough to make out the conversation. "It does not give an advantage in battle. It does not have a purpose."

"Just take it," Yamato sighed, almost pleadingly shoving what looked like a wooden figurine into her arms. It looked like a... dog? Perhaps?

All around them stood more Root children, some of them casting dubious glances at similar figurines they were holding. Sasuke took a closer look at the teenager directly next to him and recognized an elaborate wooden carving of a fox.

Yamato finally succeeded in making the next of his students accept their gift. He let out a huff. "Just take them. This is... special therapy. I'll explain it to you after everybody has gotten theirs."

‘Ohhs’ of understanding echoed over the field, and all of a sudden the kids seemed infinitely more enthusiastic about getting their figurines. Several of them went from staring at theirs dubiously to clutching them in their arms like their lives depended on it.

Going by Kisame's expression, Sasuke felt it safe to say that he, too, had joined the group late. "Those are toy–” He trailed off as Yamato sent him a furious, pointed glare. "To– Totally the coolest things I've ever seen. Is Itachi getting one?"

Itachi looked like he was about to protest. He cut himself off when Kisame not so subtly jabbed his elbow into his side.

Yamato hesitated but eventually formed hand signs Sasuke recognized as his signature Mokuton technique. Under the (now far more interested) eyes of the kids a small log of wood steadily warped into an indistinct shape, growing more and more detailed as the technique went on.

Not too long after Yamato had started, he held a small but unquestionably beautiful figurine of a crow in his hands.

Kisame took the figure with surprisingly gentle hands, almost as though he was afraid of breaking it. "Well that's neat."

He passed it over to Itachi, who held it in his hand loosely as though unsure what to do with it, now that it had been given to him.

"Are you gonna name it?" Naruto asked, his eyes sparkling as though he was seconds away from asking for a toy – a figurine – himself.

"Crow," one of the Root kids promptly suggested.

"Crow," Naruto repeated, his smile twitching. "Maybe... Maybe something a bit more..."

"It's a crow," another one said. "Its name is Crow."

"We'll work on it," Yamato sighed, somehow managing to still give his student an encouraging smile.

"I want a shark," Kisame said.

"You want... What? You're not actually part of..."

"He asked with his words," Sai chimed in. "That's five points."

Yamato took a deep, calming breath.

Another of the kids said, "He gave you a compliment, too. That's another five points."

Yamato looked like he was suppressing a sigh. "Fine. Whatever. I’ll make you a shark. Any other requests?" Before Naruto could open his mouth, Yamato added, "Don't answer that! Nevermind."

The session went on, and within a single day Kisame shot up to the top of the unofficial ranking list as a model student, much to the exasperation of Yamato and on the insistence of all of his other students.

"You should have brought me to your home village sooner, Itachi," he said, gleefully sorting the enormous collection of wooden shark figures he'd managed to accumulate during the past few days. He held up one of them that looked oddly gloomy for a shark. "Look. This one looks like you."

Sasuke wasn't quite sure when exactly it had started, but Yamato's therapy sessions no longer included merely the recovering former Root agents. ANBU came to keep an eye on the two missing nin and stayed for the therapy. Yamato's figurines soon became a mark of pride among Konoha shinobi – the more you owned, the more points you had managed to collect from Yamato's sessions.

"You two don't even need therapy," Yamato muttered under his breath as he furiously created wooden sharks for Kisame and wooden turtles for Gai. "You're literally more well adjusted than almost everybody else in the village."

Using his powers to make toys for the socially stunted Root children – and, once they started to gain popularity, everybody else who decided to join his meetings – started to become such a habit, Yamato couldn't seem to shake it even during entirely unrelated activities such as sparring with Kakashi.

"... Tenzo, did you just try to impale me on a turtle?"

If Sasuke had at one point managed to get his hands on a wooden toy cat, he wouldn't admit to anyone that he was intending to keep it.

Despite his complaints, Yamato didn't try to discourage either Kisame or Gai from joining the sessions. Kisame was not only a major advantage in attempting to get Itachi to open up, he also proved efficient at scaring off anybody who so much as looked in the direction of the Root kids the wrong way.

Gai, meanwhile, had burst in out of the blue, taken one look at the recovering children struggling with social interaction and promptly decided to keep coming back. His shouts of encouragement could be heard almost every day.

"It is a glorious and youthful day! As glorious and amazing as you! Hmm? Oh? Truly, what a wonderful compliment that was!"

"Um. Gai. I'm pretty sure that was an insult–”

"You're doing amazing! Thank you so much!"

Gai and Kisame soon turned into Gai-senpai and Kisame-senpai. Sakura-senpai graduated to Sakura-sama to make room, and Naruto came close to tearing out his hair at the unfairness of it all.

Even with everything else going on, Sasuke kept a close eye on Itachi.

He watched as his brother went along with every crazy or inane activity the group was encouraged to try, all the while wearing a blank expression Sasuke would have mistaken for indifference only weeks prior. He watched as the lines around Itachi's eyes softened when he was left to his own devices during art therapy, or even just when he stood beside the former Root members and listened to them interacting.

Sasuke watched as day after day, Itachi shed the discomfort of having returned to Konoha and found his place in the village he might not have ever planned to return to.

Sasuke dropped onto the grass next to Itachi one day, having come to a decision. He kept his eyes locked on the sparring session going on in front of them. Considering who was fighting – Kisame and Gai – Sasuke thought it better to keep his attention there, rather than be blindsided by a crazily powerful stray attack.

Out of the corner of his eye, Sasuke saw Itachi tense.

"I don't think I can forgive you for what you've done," he said, finally voicing what he’d been chewing on for several days. It still wasn't easy to put his thoughts into words – especially not when he was talking about his feelings to another person.

Itachi nodded in blank acceptance. He didn't try to say anything.

Sasuke hesitated. "But I don't think you're that person anymore, either."

Itachi stayed silent, neither reinforcing nor denying Sasuke's words. In a way, Sasuke found his lack of a reaction freeing. He wasn't trying to shape Sasuke's thoughts in any way.

Sasuke took a deep breath, psyching himself up for what he was about to say. "I'd like to try a new start. I won't forget what happened, but maybe things will work out if we get to know each other as we are now."

Itachi's throat moved as he swallowed. When he opened his mouth, his voice sounded hoarse. "I'd like that, Sasuke."

Everything wouldn't change overnight. Sasuke's feelings wouldn't disappear – or change – over the course of a few weeks. But if Itachi was willing to try, so was Sasuke.

Perhaps – just perhaps – Sasuke hadn't lost the last of his family just yet.

Chapter Text

Spending time with his brother wasn't easy. Bonding with his teammates in the early stages felt like a pleasant evening stroll in comparison.

Luckily both Sasuke and Itachi were stubborn in their own way. No matter the awkwardness of a faltering conversation or the leftover tension of their rocky history, Sasuke and Itachi both refused to fail and give up on the second chance they had decided to give each other. It took time, and time was something they had plenty of.

Even as their conversations became smoother and easier to carry, and even as Itachi started gathering more people willing to give him a tentative second chance, Sasuke noticed that both he and his partner grew restless. Staying in one place for a long time wasn't an option for a missing nin. Itachi and Kisame were used to travel, much more so and for a much longer time than Team 7 was.

On some level, Sasuke realized that he was the only reason Itachi and Kisame had stayed as long as they had.

"We're going to be leaving soon," Sasuke admitted one evening, sitting at the counter of Ichiraku's with a steaming bowl of noodles in front of him.

Most other people – civilians and shinobi alike – kept their distance from the restaurant as long as he and his brother were there. Teuchi didn't so much as bat an eyelash towards the situation and shut down their plan to stop coming altogether, insisting that they were welcome as long as they kept things civil. In exchange, the brothers made sure to never stay longer than they needed to.

"We've already been here much longer than we planned."

Itachi didn’t say anything in return. He rarely did, unless asked a specific question. Sasuke had begun to puzzle out his brother bit by bit, one failed conversation at a time.

"What are you going to do once we're gone?"

Itachi took his time to answer. He stirred around his leftover noodles and paused as Teuchi leaned over to refill his bowl. He looked down at his food as though he couldn't explain how it had gotten there.

"Thank you," Sasuke muttered in Itachi's place, and Itachi gave a belated nod of acknowledgement.

"I am uncertain," Itachi said, picking up his chopsticks hesitantly. "I do not think Kisame and I will stay for long."

Sasuke had thought as much. He pressed his lips together, trying not to imagine Itachi going right back to his old life as a missing nin. He didn't like the thought of his brother being a hunted criminal, never in one place for long and without anywhere to call his home.

Would it be easy to slip right back into old habits? Would he forget everything that had happened between them in these last few weeks?

"Are you going to come back?" Sasuke asked, rather than voicing any of those thoughts.

"Are you?"

Sasuke blinked. "Of course."

"Then yes."

Sasuke frowned. That answer wasn't what he'd been hoping for. “So you’re just going to come ho– to Konoha because of me? Only when you know that I’m here as well?”

What about Yamato? What about the Root kids and their sessions? What about Kakashi? Had none of it meant anything to Itachi? Hadn't he seen the value in all that he'd done?

"No," Itachi admitted quietly after a brief moment to collect his thoughts. "I believe it will be more often than that. Staying here has been… pleasant. And knowing that there is a chance to see each other again will be enough.”

"So you will keep seeing Yamato and the others?" Sasuke pressed.

Itachi hesitated. "Yes. I believe I will."

Relief flooded Sasuke's chest, coupled with satisfaction. It had taken time and effort for Itachi to reach this point. He didn't want his brother to throw it all away as soon as Sasuke was no longer there to hold him accountable.

Their relationship had been codependent for a long time. Sasuke in that his only goal for years had been his revenge on his brother, Itachi in that his entire motivation and the last shred of his humanity had been centered around keeping Sasuke safe (in his own, twisted definition of it). It was time for them to go their separate ways for a while. It was time for them to live their own lives.

Naruto and Sakura had been ready to leave only shortly after they had arrived, but they'd decided to give Sasuke space. Now that he had achieved what he'd wanted to – now that he and his brother had split on neutral terms and with the prospect of seeing each other again – it was time for them to continue their journey.

"I don't think I'll ever get used to this," Kakashi admitted, holding out their traveling bags with thinly veiled reluctance. In stark contrast to the first few of their visits, they had marched straight past the guards rather than shake them off in an elaborate chase.

"You could always just join us." Naruto had put up her hair in a braid in preparation for their departure. She'd changed in time for one last girls' night out and wore a loose, comfortable outfit Tenten had insisted for her to keep upon noticing that Naruto was beginning to outgrow her own clothes.

It almost suited her, and it was still orange, although a much lighter shade of it. After so many years spent next to the eyesore that had been Naruto's fashion choices, the lack of bright orange looked more than a little strange.

"She's right." Sakura had cut her hair by another few inches. "The invitation is open. You're always welcome to come with us."

Sasuke didn't sport a new outfit or hairdo – he'd been glad to find out that Sakura was decent with a pair of scissors and able to keep his hair somewhat consistent during their travels – but he carried a new batch of training scrolls from their various acquaintances from the village. He'd also kept the tanto he'd tentatively accepted from Itachi. He had no intention of replacing his sword with anything else, but it was always a good idea to have an alternative to fall back on.

"I haven't mastered that lightning technique of yours yet," Sasuke added to what his teammates had said. "You could keep teaching me."

Something in Kakashi's eyes softened. Sasuke wasn't the best at placing emotions but he could have sworn that something akin to longing entered his gaze.

"I can't. Not right now."

"But why?" Naruto's eyes took on a stubborn glint. "I know you started helping out the other rookies and stuff – and that's great! I'm super glad for you – but don't you think they'll be fine for a while? Just for a few weeks of traveling? We'd love to have you along."

Conflicting emotions flickered over Kakashi's face, and he averted his gaze as though fighting with himself. “It’s not this easy for me. I can’t just drop everything and leave when I’m not being ordered to.”

Another pause followed, this one briefer than the last.

"Go without me this time. Let me take care of some things. And the next time you come back," Kakashi's mask wrinkled in a smile. "If you still want me to join you then, I'll do so gladly."

Sakura's face broke out into a grin. Naruto pumped her fist and yelled, "Yes!" Sasuke crossed his arms and allowed his lips to curve in a small, pleased smile.

"You won't regret it, Kakashi-sensei!" Naruto bounced on her heels, sporting a bright beam. "I'm telling you, traveling with us will be awesome. We'll take you to meet Gaara and the others again! Or we'll try to find that one village we stumbled over, the one with the forest gardens. Or, oh! Kiri's probably still not thrilled about visitors, but you’ll be with us, so I bet it'll be fine."

"I'm looking forward to it," Kakashi said dryly, not quite looking as though he was regretting his decision yet.

"Fair warning while you're still here," Sakura chimed in, "we invited some more people over. Well. Mostly Naruto did."

"Oh, yeah! Be nice to them, will you?"

Kakashi's expression grew strained. "I see." He looked as though he almost didn't want to ask. "What kind of people?"

"Just friends of ours," Naruto unhelpfully offered. Seeing as Naruto considered everybody her friend who stood close to her long enough, she wasn't exactly narrowing down the list. "Don't worry, you'll be fine."

Kakashi seemed to barely hold in a sigh. "I'll take your word for it."

Team 7 set off into the forest and soon lost sight of Kakashi.

They debated their next destination. Even with the major five villages out of the way, there were plenty of villages left to explore. So many in fact – especially considering those that did not appear on any map – that Sasuke questioned whether it was even possible to visit them all.

"We could start at the beginning and visit Suna," Naruto suggested, casting half a glance at their map. "Or, you know. We could pick a direction and just keep going. We're bound to end up somewhere new eventually."

"Suna's fine." Sasuke touched the hilt of his sword, wondering how he'd fare in a match against either of the sand siblings now that he had truly begun to master his weapon. "We could use the trek through the desert for training."

Sasuke was determined to master the new lighting technique, whether Kakashi was there to instruct him or not. Naruto and Sakura not being able to help – seeing as Sasuke had shown an affinity for lightning techniques that they didn't – only strengthened his resolve.

Sakura hummed. "We could do that," she said slowly, "but I've been considering paying a visit to Ame, first."

"Ame?" The corner of Naruto's mouth tugged downwards. "You sure about that?"

"Jiraiya mentioned it back in Konoha," Sakura said in reply to Sasuke's questioning gaze. "I've heard rumors about it before that."

"Like back in Kiri?" Sasuke asked, thinking of the dictatorship and the resulting civil war they had helped to put a stop to.

"Something like that, yeah."

Naruto hesitated. "It might be risky. We have no idea what’s going on over there.”

Sasuke suppressed a scoff. When had risks ever stopped them before? "Let's do it," he decided. "We can train on our way and figure it out once we get there."

Halfway to Ame, Sasuke and his teammates stumbled over a sight that had the potential to bring their journey to a brief, impromptu halt.

"Should we be worried?" Sasuke asked, too late to do anything about the situation unfolding in front of them.

They watched as Orochimaru's (former?) disciple, Kabuto, threw himself off of his perch on a nearby tree, a drawn dagger aimed at Tsunade's turned back.

Naruto had time to utter a nondescript "Erm," before the blade pierced Tsunade's body and made her crumble to the ground. Kabuto landed beside her, panting.

Tsunade's body disappeared in a puff of smoke. The real Tsunade didn't so much as look up from where she was bent over some sort of scroll. "Nice try, brat. You're improving."

Kabuto didn't react in any way appropriate for a failed assassination attempt. His expression remained unchanged and tension dropped out of his muscles. He didn't look surprised at his failure. He didn't even look disappointed.

"If you keep it up, you might be able to give me a bruise a couple weeks from now." Surprisingly, Tsunade somehow made the words sound encouraging rather than an insult.

More surprisingly, Kabuto seemed to take them as such. "Thank you, Tsunade-sama."

Sasuke turned his head to see Naruto mouth, "Are they bonding?" at Sakura. Sakura gave a clueless shrug, pinning incredulous eyes on Tsunade.

"Are you done for today?" came Shizune's long-suffering question as she entered the clearing carrying firewood. Her eyes twitched over to Team 7. "In case you haven't realized, we've got guests."

Tsunade looked up to follow Shizune's gaze. "Oh. It's you."

Kabuto stiffened at the sight of them. Sasuke almost expected him to charge at them fueled by revenge fantasies – he doubted Kabuto had forgiven them for capturing his old master – but he merely watched them out of wary, calculating eyes.

"It's us!" Naruto unnecessarily confirmed, making up for Tsunade's lack of enthusiasm with ridiculous cheerfulness. "Did you miss us?"

"Horribly," Tsunade deadpanned. She put away the scroll she'd been reading and crossed her arms. "To what do we owe the pleasure? I'm not accepting any other ninja brats, if that's what you think."

"Oh, please. He can't be that bad." Naruto faltered. "Is he?"

Tsunade let out a huff. She didn't look at either of them when she said, "Well. I suppose after a while he does begin to grow on you."

"Didn't he try to assassinate you just now?"

Tsunade waved a dismissive hand. "You've got your way of passing the time, we've got ours. It's not like he's ever getting close to succeeding."

Kabuto's eyes narrowed in irritation.

Shizune shook her head and sighed, sporting an air of exasperation that belonged to somebody long since used to their antics.

"Get to the point, brats." Tsunade frowned at them. "Don't think we didn't hear about the stunts you pulled while you were away. What do you want this time?"

"Did you seriously build up a therapy program for shinobi?" Shizune asked.

"Indirectly, I guess?" Naruto carded a hand through her hair absentmindedly. "We didn't actually try to do that – although we definitely should have, now that you mention it – it just kind of worked out this way?"

Tsunade snorted a laugh. "Sounds about right. Nobody in their right mind would be able to cause your sort of lunacy on purpose. Did you know the other villages have as good as slowed to a standstill while they try to figure out what's going on in Konoha? Spies and couriers are running left and right trying to keep up with everything that's been happening."

That was fair enough, Sasuke supposed. There were jinchūriki, missing nin and foreigners walking in and out of Konoha because of them. At least two of the other four big villages had as good as proclaimed their alliance to Konoha as a result of their leaders having befriended his team.

Sasuke and his teammates had never really taken an interest in politics, but it seemed as though they had stirred up the playing field solely because of their refusal to accept Konoha's rules and limitations.

"Almost makes me tempted to pay a visit myself," Tsunade muttered. "I'd pay money to watch Sarutobi attempt to clean up after your messes."

Naruto perked up. "Really? You'd consider coming back?"

"Not a chance. He proclaimed me a missing nin because I refused to bow to his word, remember?"

"What about later? Once the old man is no longer Hokage?"

"We know you're not happy with Konoha," Sakura said, "but things are going to change. They already have."

"I'll believe that when I see it." Tsunade turned her gaze away from them. She hesitated and sighed. She sounded tired when she said, "What are you doing here? I'm sure you've got better things to do."

"We're in no rush." Naruto let herself drop close to Tsunade and seemed to barely have the self-preservation not to scoot closer. "How's Kabuto been doing?" She didn't wait for an answer before adding, "I told you you'd get along splendidly. Or I would have, had we stuck around. Did you know Sasuke has been learning medical techniques from Sakura?"

Tsunade closed her eyes in a long-suffering way and seemed to prepare herself for a drawn out session of catching up.

Sasuke realized that he could keep up with the others' medical talk, and spent his day in an odd mixture of disbelief and glee. Perhaps "keep up" was too generous of a term. The more complicated concepts and techniques went right over his head, but he was able to participate and learn from their discussions thanks to the weeks he had thus far spent under Sakura's tutorage.

If Naruto was bothered by being the only one who didn't practice medicine – and was as such unable to join in on their conversations – she didn't let it show. She sat beside them mindlessly scribbling and shot Sakura the occasional smug look.

Sakura, too absorbed in their increasingly heated discussion, didn't notice.

Their conversation eventually led to the body's ability to store chakra.

"It's arguably the biggest weakness of the standard human," Kabuto said, pushing up his glasses with one hand. "Lacking weapons, a shinobi can procure more if their surroundings allow for it, or else fall back onto ninjutsu. Lacking the practical skill for that, there's still taijutsu. But once they run out of chakra, their body will simply lack the energy to keep going."

"Unless you're unlucky enough to have a rampaging chakra demon sealed inside of you," came Tsunade's harsh retort. "You'd be more likely to run your body ragged than run out of chakra."

Sasuke threw a glance at Naruto. Her paintbrush hovered above the fuinjutsu scroll she was crouched over in a position that could not possibly be comfortable, emerged in her studies to the degree that she didn't notice Sasuke's gaze.

It was true: Despite Naruto throwing around chakra-intense techniques left and right wherever they went, Sasuke had yet to see his teammate suffer from even mild chakra exhaustion afterwards.

"It would make an interesting topic to study," Kabuto went on. "If we procured a test subject and exposed their chakra coils, we could test their reaction to different kinds of–”

"Hold on," Sakura interrupted. "When you say 'expose', do you mean–?”

"Carve open," Sasuke guessed. As morbid as the mental image was, considering who Kabuto's teacher had been for several years, he wasn't exactly surprised at his lacking sense of morals.

"We'd obviously put the body in a state of stasis so it wouldn’t shut down while conducting the experiment," Kabuto reassured, missing the actual issue by a mile. "We'd keep it from going into shock by–”

"No." Shizune’s voice carried an atypical harshness. "We'll do no such thing."

Kabuto blinked. "But if we do not take precautions, the subject will reach its physical limits long before–”

"I meant," Shizune interrupted, exasperation seeping into her tone, "that we will not experiment on a human being to discover more about chakra thresholds."

"We could... ask for their permission first?"

"Good job remembering consent," Shizune praised. "But still, no."

"But how else are we going to–” Kabuto cut himself off, faced with Shizune's blank stare. His lips pressed together in what could be either irritation or confusion. His voice was hesitant and unsure when he started another attempt. "We could... study on animals instead?"

"That’ll have to be good enough for now," Shizune sighed, clearly not satisfied but counting her blessings in the longtime effort of redeeming somebody who'd spent years under Orochimaru's teachings. She patted Kabuto's shoulder in a way that might have been meant to be reassuring but came across as consoling more than anything.

Kabuto stiffened under Shizune's touch, and she let go quickly.

"Look," she began, her tone considerably softer than before, "I know this isn't easy for you. Life with Orochimaru must have been quite different." She paused. "I appreciate the effort you're putting into this. I really do."

Kabuto squirmed under Shizune's gaze. "It is difficult to accept that everything I'd thought to be normal might not be. Everything is... different. It's hard to get used to."

"I do hope you're starting to see that casual slaughter and human experimentation aren't a fun pastime activity," Tsunade grumbled. "You might actually be beyond help, otherwise."

Shizune sent Tsunade a disapproving look while Kabuto stared at the fire in their midst. Sasuke didn't expect him to say anything more.

"Perhaps my life with Orochimaru-sama–” Kabuto faltered. "With... with Orochimaru had not been as ideal as I'd thought at the time."

There was a pause in the conversation, and Sasuke used the time to return to his train of thought before Kabuto had derailed the conversation. It was true that Naruto did not have the same limitations regarding chakra reserves that other people had – but neither did Sakura.

Hadn't she mentioned something about the topic before? Something about concentrating... or perhaps saving chakra?

Sasuke gave up trying to remember the details and decided to simply ask. "Are there other ways to increase your own chakra stores, other than training your chakra coils?"

"Funny you'd ask," Tsunade said. "I've been meaning to bring it up myself."

She paused and sat up straight, for once actually invested in the conversation. "I developed a technique meant for exactly that purpose." She touched the small diamond shaped mark on her forehead. "The Strength of a Hundred Seal is a chakra storage built up over a long period of time. It's an emergency chakra supply to tap into when your own reserves are no longer enough."

Sasuke hummed in understanding. Sakura had explained it to him in a similar way. As far as he knew, she'd been doing exactly that – storing up chakra – for months.

He didn't mention it, and didn't bother to ask how Sakura had known of the technique. Tsunade was a Konoha nin. There were probably records of her somewhere in the library or the archives.

"I never planned to teach the technique to anybody else," Tsunade continued, "but I believe you have the talent for it. It would be a waste not to at least try."

She patted Kabuto's arm and Kabuto froze, peering down at the offending limb in a way that suggested he was debating escaping the hold that, knowing Tsunade, would be easily able to crush him.

There was a ripping sound from Sasuke's right, and he turned to see Sakura wide eyed and clutching the tattered remains of a storage scroll in her hands. He hoped that it hadn't held anything important.

"You're gonna teach the technique to who, exactly?" she asked tonelessly, pinning an emotionless stare on Kabuto.

Next to her, Naruto was starting to sweat. "Um. Sakura..."

"You were the one who saddled us with him," Tsunade pointed out. "I thought you wanted us to teach him."

"Teach him morality, definitely." Naruto's eyes kept twitching to Sakura anxiously. "Teach him your very powerful and personal techniques... Uh..."

"If you would excuse me," Sakura said, her voice as stilted as her movement as she climbed to her feet and retreated to who knew where.

Sasuke spent several heartbeats split between loyalty to his teammate and interest to find out more about the technique that had so upset her. Curiosity won out, and Sasuke issued a half-hearted mental apology before asking, "How does it work?"

Sasuke did his very best to try and feel bad about the following discussion that sprouted between him, Shizune, Tsunade and – once he'd warmed up a little – Kabuto. It wasn't working especially well and Sasuke opted to make it up to Sakura somehow at a later point.

They barely caught a glimpse of Sakura over the next couple days. When they did, she was sitting in a relaxed posture meant for mediation and signaling the sort of inner peace that was belied by the heated muttering under her breath.

The next time Sakura decided to grace them with her presence she wore an expression of pure satisfaction on her face – and a brand new diamond shaped seal on her forehead.

She didn't spare any of them a glance and marched straight towards Kabuto. "Beat it, replacement," she growled, turned on her heel and stalked off.

Sasuke sighed, somewhat registering Shizune's perplexed sputtering and Tsunade's widened eyes. It took Naruto a couple heartbeats until she jumped to her feet and ran after Sakura.

"Sakura! Wait!"

Sasuke congratulated himself on his foresight of having packed up his belongings several days prior. He walked over to Kabuto – not reacting to Sakura's spiteful gesture beyond a slow, confused blink – and fixed him with a long, appraising look. For somebody who'd tried to kill them only a couple weeks earlier, Kabuto wasn't bad company.

"Good luck," Sasuke settled on, shouldered his bag and went to hunt down his teammates.

Chapter Text

Even after all the villages they had gotten to know on their travels, Ame was something else altogether. Its buildings were large and gloomy, reaching for the sky with claws of gleaming metal spires. It was difficult to make out where one of them ended and the other began through the constant shower of rain. They were drenched to the bone within minutes of arriving, and Sasuke was left wondering how anybody could possibly stand living here.

"We're in no hurry," Sakura reminded them in a hushed tone as they made their way through the village. People hurried past them – the few that were on the streets in the first place – almost as though they could sense their foreignness. "We'll take our time with this one. Scout out the village. Find out who's in power."

"We'll pretend like we're on vacation," Naruto suggested, her arms crossed behind her head and her neck craned to the sky as though she was sunbathing rather than being showered with ice pins.

They separated to cover more ground, and Sasuke set out to make a brief, efficient round through the village to gain a broad image of it. Hushed voices and wary looks followed him wherever he went, and Sasuke did his best to ignore them.

His mission was put to an impromptu halt when Sasuke ran across the biggest greenhouse he’d ever seen. Sasuke paused, taking in the massive construction. Their climate generally allowed them to grow most kinds of plants, so they didn’t have many of them in Konoha. There were a lot more in Suna, but none that looked like this one.

Sasuke looked around for an entrance, curiosity sparked.

"You're not from here."

Sasuke halted in his tracks. He hadn't noticed the man coming closer. "No."

"What were you about to do?" The stranger's eyes were all but hidden by red strands of hair, the color beginning to fade into gray. The uncovered parts of his face were frail and bony. He looked as though a decent gust of wind could blow him over.

"I've never seen a greenhouse this big before," Sasuke admitted, going for the truth and leaving out the bigger picture.

The stranger paused. "The greenhouse," he repeated as though he had expected something else entirely. "That is what you're here for?"

"I'm just traveling through," Sasuke said. "Might as well explore the village before I move on."

The redhead looked at him – at least Sasuke thought he did, out of the narrow slits of his eyes that weren't covered by hair. "Apologies," he muttered, mustering a miniscule shake of his head. "I thought ... Nevermind."

The stranger turned away as abruptly as he had stepped to Sasuke's side. "Excuse me. There was a misunderstanding."

Sasuke blinked at the odd exchange and watched the stranger leave.

In the end, he shrugged the encounter off. In a place like this, Sasuke didn’t blame the people living here for being odd.

"Did you find anything?" Naruto asked once they'd regrouped and found a cheap inn for the night.

Neither Sakura nor Sasuke had anything to report.

"Oh well. It's still early." Naruto shrugged, draping herself over the lumpiest little armchair Sasuke had ever seen. "We'll just keep looking."

The next day was just as rainy and gloomy as the last. Sasuke finished his round through the village and found several more greenhouses, a couple of which were just as big as the first. Each of them seemed to hold different kinds of plants, and some held more than a dozen kinds at a time.

Curiosity urged him to investigate, and he craned his neck to take a closer look. The ceiling held some sort of light source in a blinding, pure white glow.

The stranger joined him almost as quickly as the first time. Perhaps he was making sure that Sasuke wasn’t up to anything forbidden.

"Are those tomatoes?" Sasuke spoke up before the stranger could, nodding towards the plants on the other side of the glass.

There was a pause.

"Yes," the stranger said. "Among other things."

"You’re growing them in greenhouses so they don’t drown," Sasuke said while the rain continued to hammer down on them. "I’ve never seen this many in one village.”

"It is the only way to grow crops in Ame. We'd be dependent on trade to support our village otherwise. Our greenhouses are our way of keeping ourselves as self-reliant as possible."

"Those lights," Sasuke continued, eager to take advantage of the stranger's talkative mood for as long as it lasted, "they’re to make up for the lack of sunlight, right? Are you using some sort of jutsu to power them?"

"Nothing like that. Just technology."

There was a pause as both Sasuke and the stranger eyed the plants growing behind the glass. The tomatoes inside were large but still tinted green. It wouldn't be much longer until they were ready to be harvested.

"Are you interested in gardening?" the stranger asked, his voice hesitant as though he was still attempting to figure out why he was talking to Sasuke.

Sasuke shrugged. It wasn't a hobby one could pursue while traveling. All of his house plants must have died from neglect long ago. He hadn't thought of asking someone to take care of them on that very first trip they took. "Are you?"

"Not precisely." The stranger tucked a strand of hair behind his ear, revealing oddly colored eyes. "I like coming here because our greenhouses are the only places that always have light."

He looked like he was in desperate need of every last ray of it. Looking at the sickly pale tint to his skin made Sasuke want to drag him out of the rain and thrust a hot drink into his (far too skinny) hands. He didn't look like he'd survive so much as a light flu.

The stranger excused himself after another few minutes of companionable silence, and Sasuke continued his mission of scouting the village as though the interruption had not happened.

"Anything?"

The answer was no on all three accounts. Naruto was starting to sound frustrated.

"I can't believe they're hiding themselves this well! You'd think somebody ruling an entire village would show their face from time to time." Naruto sighed, accepting the gentle pat on her shoulder Sakura offered. "Alright. Let's keep trying."

Sasuke began to keep an eye out for narrow shoulders and shaggy, red hair every time he passed one of Ame's greenhouses.

He didn't know why the stranger kept coming back – perhaps to keep an eye on him? He'd been suspicious of Sasuke from the start, so perhaps this was his way of making sure Sasuke wasn't up to anything.

"Why Ame?" the stranger asked after a couple of days spent in the village. "There are a lot more pleasant places you could have visited."

Sasuke shrugged. "A lot worse places, too."

They wouldn't be seeing much from the Elemental Nations if they only stuck around in the best parts of it. They weren't some sort of tourists, traveling from one attraction to the other and skipping everything in between.

Instead of answering, the stranger stilled. Sasuke tensed instinctively. They weren't alone anymore.

"Nagato," a woman said, stepping up to the stranger's – Nagato's? – side and pinning Sasuke with an appraising gaze. Her hair was a rich, ocean-deep color and she wore a flower that looked like it was folded from paper. Sasuke had no idea how it wasn’t soaked through from the downpour. "Who's this?"

Nagato gave a small shrug. "A friend."

The word gave Sasuke a pause. Was that what they were? He'd always associated friendship with the kind of bond Naruto and Sakura formed with others: shared experiences and laughter and blatant signs of affection.

Perhaps Sasuke's part of the equation was a more subtle kind.

"I see." The woman seemed wary in a perhaps not quite misguided way.

Her name was Konan, and she was at Nagato's side almost constantly from there on. Sasuke found that she wasn't bad company, either.

"I think we need to change our tactics," Naruto said without any preamble, frustration heavy in her voice. "Clearly, what we're doing right now isn't working."

"Maybe we could try asking around the village?" Sakura suggested. "There's gotta be some villagers we can trick into telling us something."

"Maybe..." Naruto furrowed her brows. "We'll have to be stealthy about it. Remember, they don't trust strangers."

Sakura set her lips in a grim line, and Sasuke nodded obediently.

“Who’s in charge of your village?"

Nagato gave him a blank look. Sasuke took it as a request to elaborate.

"Do you have some sort of dictator?” He made a vague hand gesture “An evil council? Anything?"

"Nothing quite like that, I'm afraid." Nagato hesitated. He shared a look with Konan, who twitched her shoulders.

"The people in charge," she continued in Nagato's stead, "are part of an organization. Their goal is to bring Ame peace. It has been the victim of other villages' crusades far too many times."

Sasuke hummed in understanding. "Makes sense." He paused. "Do you know how they're planning to achieve that?"

"Awesome Sasuke!" Naruto looked at him out of positively sparkling eyes. "How'd you figure all of that out?"

Sasuke carefully avoided her eyes. "I have my ways."

"This is perfect! So, did you figure out where Pain's hideout is?"

"Whose hideout?"

Sakura went very still. Naruto startled, her eyes widening. "Uh."

Sasuke furrowed his brows. "I never gave you any names. Why 'Pain'?"

Naruto blinked rapidly. "Because. That's totally what my name would be if I was the shadow leader of a terrorist organisation posing to strive for peace?"

Sasuke met her eyes with an unimpressed gaze. "I don't know anything about a hideout." Or anyone named 'Pain'. Also, where was Naruto getting the 'terrorist' aspect from? Clearly something about this village was fishy, but Sasuke wasn't immediately jumping to worst case scenarios.

"Bummer," Naruto said, far too quickly. "I guess we'll just have to keep looking. Oh well. See you guys soon!"

She was gone before either of her teammates had the chance to protest.

Sasuke pinned Sakura with a meaningful gaze. "We'll talk about this," he said, refusing to phrase it as a question. He was willing to overlook the fresh bout of secrecy for the remainder of their stay in Ame. He'd refuse to do so indefinitely.

"We will," Sakura agreed. Sasuke believed her – not the least because he'd refuse to let either of them slip their way out of an explanation, eventually.

In the end, they never found the person in charge of the organization Nagato and Konan had so vaguely referenced in front of Sasuke. Sasuke wasn't sure whether they’d simply looked in the wrong places or whether the leader was too good at his job.

Either way, they didn't find him. He found them.

"You're the teenagers who've been scouting the village." 'Tobi' he'd introduced himself as, and he gave the impression of piercing them with his gaze despite the mask covering the entirety of his face. "Is it me you've been looking for?"

The words were uttered with an air of teasing confidence, the kind that suggested Tobi was asking to flaunt his knowledge, rather than to actually learn the answer.

The impact he was probably going for was quite ruined by Naruto and Sakura's similar incredulous expressions.

"But," Naruto spluttered, staring at Tobi, "this is Ame! What are you– How are you– What are you doing here?"

This gave Tobi a pause. "You know who I am?"

"Well, obviously." Naruto's flabbergasted expression shifted into one of anger. "You killed my parents, bastard!"

Sasuke quickly reevaluated their opponent. He narrowed his eyes, mild confusion fading to be replaced with cold concentration. Tobi may not have been the reason they had come here – Naruto's surprise was too genuine – but if what Naruto had said was true, Sasuke would gladly lend a hand in whatever it was his teammate was planning.

Sasuke wasn’t shy of resorting to revenge-seeking violence, should that be in any way what Naruto was envisioning. He'd been able to let go of his hate of Itachi. Naruto didn’t necessarily have to do the same.

"I've killed many people," Tobi stated plainly. "You will have to be more specific."

Naruto's eyes glistened like ice daggers. "How many of those people were jinchūriki?”

Tobi went still, his demeanor shifting in the same way Sasuke's had. Sasuke wished he could see his expression – the mask was making it impossible to guess what Tobi was thinking.

"Change of plans," Tobi stated, raising his voice to address somebody out of their line of sight. "This girl... she's a jinchūriki. And she's just volunteered to become the first."

Sasuke edged closer to Naruto almost without realizing it. He didn't know what Tobi was talking about, and he wasn’t particularly keen on finding out. Perhaps it would have been for the best if Naruto hadn't made her identity quite this easy to guess.

Two figures bled out of the shadows, and Sasuke stiffened at the familiar sight of them.

Across from them, Nagato did a double take upon laying eyes on Sasuke. Sasuke contemplated giving a small wave. He decided against it due to the fact that they were seconds away from entering a potential duel to the death.

"I've spent years hiding in the shadows," Tobi said. "I've built up my strength and evaded Konoha's poisonous grip up to now. That village does not deserve to prosper when so much suffering has been caused at its hand."

Tobi raised his arms in emphasis of... something, Sasuke was sure. "With the united power of all captured jinchūriki I shall rectify the wrong that has been committed."

Nobody was moving. Sasuke stole a glance at his teammates. Was there a reason they hadn't yet started bashing each other's heads in?

"Do we attack?" he hissed, keeping his voice low so nobody else would hear over Tobi's still ongoing monologue. "He's distracted."

Naruto looked at him nothing short of scandalized. "It's his backstory, Sasuke! We can't just interrupt."

Sasuke leveled her with an incredulous glare. The exasperated look Sakura sent over Naruto's shoulder translated to 'Just let it go.'

Tobi seemed to have realized that he'd lost most of his audience's attention.

"Enough talking," he snapped as though he wasn't the sole reason they hadn't yet begun to hurl jutsu at each other. He didn't so much as look at Nagato and Konan when he said, "We only have need for the jinchūriki. Kill the other two."

Nagato narrowed his eyes and looked at Sasuke. Sasuke looked back, tensing his muscles and preparing for a fight.

Without breaking their intense staring match, Nagato muttered, "Do we have to?"

“Excuse me?" Tobi asked, his voice lowered in a way that screamed 'I better have misheard or I swear to the Sage somebody is going to lose their face.'

"I do not think it is necessary to kill them," Nagato said stiffly, still looking at Sasuke in that odd, piercing way of his.

Sasuke didn’t know whether to feel flattered or awkward at the fact that Nagato was clearly unwilling to attack him after the bonding they'd had, though Sasuke wouldn't have hesitated in the slightest doing the same.

Another pause followed, filled with tension and disbelief.

"Of all the people to betray me," Tobi began, his voice lowered in a menacing crawl, "I did not think you would be one of them."

Nagato didn’t answer. Sasuke idly wondered how he’d gotten involved with someone like Tobi. He may have known him for only a little over a week – and Konan even less than that – but neither of the pair seemed like the sort of person who killed teenagers for fun.

Perhaps they'd simply hung around the wrong people.

"I don't get it," Sakura murmured, a frown on her face. "When exactly did you have the time to befriend them?"

"I didn't." Naruto's eyes held the same perplexed quality as Sakura's. "This is the first time I'm meeting them, I swear."

All of a sudden, Sasuke felt incredibly, indescribably smug. "I know them."

Sakura and Naruto both whirled around.

"You met them?" Naruto asked.

"You made friends?"

"With Pain?"

Sasuke blinked. "Who's Pain?"

"Realize that I don't give second chances." If Tobi's eyes had been visible, they'd surely be glowering at Nagato and Konan. "If you choose to betray me, it will be the last choice you ever make."

"Don't threaten us." Konan – who'd thus far kept her silence at Nagato's side – furrowed her brows. "We don't take kindly to them."

"I take it that that is your decision?"

"We've never been loyal to you." Konan shifted closer to Nagato. "We're loyal to our village. And to each other. Nothing more."

The following silence emphasized the gravity of Konan's statement.

"Very well." Tobi didn't stir, and yet Sasuke clutched his weapon closer in anticipation. "What are two people more in the grand scheme of everything," Tobi muttered as though he was talking to himself. "Just wait for me, Rin."

"Alright," Naruto said, flexing her shoulders and stretching her limbs as though she was about to complete a light sparring exercise, rather than enter a fight that might potentially cost them their lives. "It's been a while since I converted someone extreme like him, but I'm sure I'll manage."

Sasuke frowned, something about what Tobi had said catching his attention. "Who's Rin?" Tobi didn't seem like the sort of person who had anyone waiting for him.

Everything stilled at Sasuke's question. Tobi turned towards him slowly like he couldn't quite believe that Sasuke had asked him a question.

"Uh, Sasuke," Naruto threw him an anxious look. "Maybe you shouldn't–”

"She's the one all of this is for," Tobi said, his voice a menacing whisper.

"I'd drop it if I were you," Sakura muttered.

Sasuke ignored her. "Did you even ask her if this is what she wants?"

Tobi didn't stir. "What?"

"It doesn't really sound like she'd want you to destroy the world for her." Unless she was as much of a nutcase as he was. In that case, Sasuke was fairly certain she'd be currently at Tobi's side, sporting a sinister cloak and world domination plans of her own.

"She's dead," Tobi spat. "I'll never know what she would or wouldn't have wanted. She's been taken from me."

"Why didn't you just resurrect her?"

Tobi stared. "What?"

"With that weird resurrection technique. Orochimaru used it when we fought him." Sasuke stole a glance at his teammates. "You could have used it to ask her what she wanted you to do."

Sasuke thought it likely that she was, indeed, a relatively sane person that would not be on board with Tobi's whole 'destroying the world in order to save it' shtick.

Tobi didn't seem to know what to say to that.

"Oh, damn," Naruto whispered, watching with badly hidden glee as Tobi sat down on a nearby tree trunk. "You even worked with Orochimaru for a while. You could have just asked him."

A strangled noise escaped Tobi, and he stared at his extended hand as though unsure who it belonged to. Had Sasuke just sent him straight into an existential crisis? If this was what it felt like, it was no wonder that back in Konoha, Naruto and Sakura had enjoyed torturing people with their odd behavior this much.

"Is this it?" Sakura muttered, looking somewhat ridiculous in her half-abandoned fighting stance. “Are we done?”

Sasuke thought he could detect a hint of disappointment in her voice, although he couldn't be sure.

"I think so. Just look at them." Naruto shrugged.

Tobi didn't look as though he was planning to move in the foreseeable future. Nagato and Konan watched without moving a muscle in order to help him. Not that anybody could blame them. Tobi had, after all, essentially threatened to kill them alongside everybody else.

"We should go elsewhere," Naruto said, stealing a glance upwards and wincing as several raindrops slipped through the tree canopy and splashed onto her shoulder. "We're not fighting anymore, so we might as well get comfortable."

While Sasuke really should have seen it coming, he was left feeling a certain amount of exasperation when Naruto's plans to "make themselves comfortable" included not only Nagato and Konan – which Sasuke wasn't opposed to in the slightest – but also Tobi.

He found himself in a small, cramped café (one of the few that existed in Ame), squeezed in between Nagato and Sakura, and watched as Naruto thrust a hot cup of cocoa into the hands of a still shell-shocked Tobi.

Sasuke wondered what they were going to do with him. There was a decent chance that they would pick up the fight where they'd left off once Tobi semi-recovered from the revelation that the last however many years of his life had been spent on a quite possibly meaningless quest to find peace for himself and his friend.

Perhaps Yamato would be able to work his magic on him. If nothing else, attempting to rehabilitate someone as mentally unstable as Tobi would be a challenge.

Sasuke wordlessly accepted a cup of green tea from Nagato and watched a young waitress drop a platter of food at the sight of Konan.

(After a couple of minutes filled with wide-eyed staring and muttering of angels, they were informed that all of their orders were for free. Sasuke didn't exactly know what was going on, but who was he to complain?)

Sasuke supposed that if nothing else came out of this trip, at the very least he'd made a couple new friends. Even if they failed to dissuade Tobi from his plans to bring about the end of the world (come to think of it, it had been a while since Sasuke'd had a decent workout), their visit to Ame wouldn't have been for nothing regardless.

Chapter Text

Team 7 made a deal with Nagato and Konan.

The Ame leaders only ever wanted to protect their home village, and while they'd clearly strayed from their path in allying themselves with somebody like Tobi (or Obito), the intent behind their actions was reasonable enough.

In Sasuke's opinion, it had been a rather bold move to strive for peace while working together with a man intent on destroying the entire world. But who was he to judge? He’d never tried to achieve world peace before. Perhaps this was the sort of logical conclusion someone with goals as high-staked as that naturally reached.

"We've got friends all over the Five Nations," Naruto told them. "Some of them are in pretty high places."

"There won't be another war if we can help it," Sakura added grimly. "And even if there is, we'll make sure Ame stays out of it."

Neither Nagato nor Konan made a comment about how ridiculous a promise like this sounded coming from a bunch of teenagers. It didn't matter much. They'd honor it, whether their new friends believed them capable of it or not.

Obito, meanwhile, hadn't yet fallen back into his world-dominating schemes. He hadn't attempted to do anything even remotely harmful. Whenever he didn't stare into blank space, deep into thought, they would listen to him mutter under his breath without acknowledging their presence.

The guy might not have been openly attempting to kill them any longer, but if somebody were to ask Sasuke, he was way too psychotic to no longer be considered a threat.

He also seemed to be determined to find a way to resurrect his old friend and inquire as to her opinion on all things world domination.

"Gotta ask Rin. Gotta ask her. Gotta know," he muttered, "gotta ask her and complete the plan... if she wants me to. Gotta ask–”

"Buddy," Naruto started half-heartedly, "not that I’m not thrilled we’re not fighting anymore, but I don't think resurrecting people is a good coping strategy."

Sakura watched Obito rock back and forth. "At least he's no longer trying to actively kill us?"

Sasuke shrugged. "Everybody needs a hobby." Even if that hobby happened to be necromancy.

In the end, they more or less decided to just let him do his thing. Naruto – clearly not happy with this plan – tried to come up with various reasons why they shouldn't leave him alone in the sort of mental state he was in. Unfortunately for her, neither Sakura nor Sasuke were willing to spend more time than necessary babysitting.

Naruto huffed out a breath of exasperation. "So we're just gonna leave him alone and hope this Rin is a reasonable human being? And not going to encourage his world domination plans?"

The answer she got was not the answer she'd wanted to hear, and soon they were saying their (partly reluctant) goodbyes.

They'd check up on Obito from time to time, see how his resurrection plans were going and whether or not they ought to be having a rematch with him in case this Rin person did, in fact, encourage him to keep going.

Naruto froze halfway out of the village, and Sasuke barely avoided bumping into her. "Guys. We're gonna have to tell Kakashi."

Sasuke furrowed his brows in confusion. Sakura's eyes widened in realization.

Obito, as Sasuke was thus informed, was an old friend of Kakashi's who was supposed to have died years ago. There was somewhat of a gap in the story – namely, how Obito had gone from surviving a mission gone wrong as a teenager to wanting to kill all living beings – but neither of them were enthusiastic about asking Obito for details.

Sasuke pursed his lips at the thought of having to break the news to Kakashi. He was glad that they'd have the rest of their trip to come up with a gentle way of telling him. One thing was certain: After the Itachi disaster, they'd learned that there would be no more secrets kept among the team.

The conversation wasn't a pleasant one, but Kakashi deserved to be one of the first to know, rather than stumble over Obito’s picture in the current bingo book.

He went silent by the end of it. He pulled his hand out of Naruto's – she'd taken it upon herself to deliver the news – but gave her a brief, reassuring pat on the shoulder when her expression fell.

"Thank you for telling me," he said, an odd note to his voice and a pinch in his expression Sasuke could have gone without seeing.

Sasuke shifted his weight, pulled way out of his comfort zone but knowing that this conversation needed to happen.

"I think I need a little time on my own."

Sasuke watched Kakashi walk away, noting the tension in his shoulders and the stiffness of his movements. He turned his head to meet Naruto and Sakura's eyes, and both of them all but radiated helplessness. They weren't used to not being able to fix everything themselves.

"We need to go after him," Naruto declared as soon as Kakashi was out of earshot.

Sakura frowned. "He said he wanted to be alone."

"Clearly that's not what he needs right now! He needs someone to support him. He needs us. He just doesn't know how to ask for it."

"I don't know." Sakura chewed on her lip. "We can't just force him to accept our help. What if he really doesn't want it?"

"We can't just do nothing!"

Naruto's voice rose in distress.

Sasuke thought that it would be best if they let Kakashi be. Sakura and Naruto might have had trouble understanding that somebody would want to lick their wounds in private, but Sasuke wasn't. He remembered those days after he'd realized how strong his teammates were – the time during which he’d avoided them completely until he’d managed to adjust to his worldview.

It wasn't the kind of coping Sakura and Naruto fell back on, and it showed.

"Here's the plan," Naruto said, her brows furrowed in determination. "We'll just have to stick close to him, right? Far enough that he won't realize we're there, but close enough that we're immediately there when he needs it."

"You want to stalk him.”

"What? It's not– I'm not suggesting we stalk him, Sasuke!"

Sasuke raised a single, pointed eyebrow.

"I mean– Okay, so I see why you'd come to that conclusion." Naruto let out a huff. "But that's not at all what this is about. The point is, okay, the point is..."

"Kakashi is terrible at asking for help when he needs it," Sakura offered.

"Yes! Yes, exactly. He doesn't know how to do it. He'd rather stew in all of his pent up emotion and that's really, really bad for him." Concern flickered through Naruto's eyes. "We just have to show him that we're there for him! We need to read between the lines. If he needs us, we gotta be there."

Sasuke knew that this was a terrible idea. Kakashi was an adult. They should trust him to know when to come to them for support, just as Kakashi should trust them to help if he asked for it.

There was a part of Sasuke that was starting to have doubts. Wasn't this exactly what Naruto and Sakura had done for Sasuke, back in the day? Back before their travels, back before their friendship was anything close to what it was now. Sasuke'd had trouble changing the image he had created of them in his mind. He'd thought them beneath him – the dead last and the civilian girl – and he hadn't been able to accept it when they had turned out to be anything but.

As if that revelation hadn't been enough of a shock on its own, it had also coincided with Itachi's initial return to the village. Needless to say, Sasuke hadn't taken it well. He hadn't taken it well at all.

Sakura and Naruto had kept coming around to him during the weeks that followed, despite Sasuke turning them away each and every time. They'd tried to spend time with him, had offered sleepovers and restaurant visits and everything else they'd been able to think of, and Sasuke had turned his back on them again and again, up until he'd managed to digest the shock of what he'd learned.

Would it have gone differently, had Naruto and Sakura accepted Sasuke's refusal to see them and left him alone? Would he have thought they'd lost interest? Would their reconciliation have happened the same way?

The thought of staying away from Kakashi and letting him suffer on his own was almost unbearable. Sasuke thought that for the first time, he genuinely understood his teammates' need for constant gestures of friendship and affection.

"Just don't overdo it," he muttered, hoping that he hadn't just sealed Kakashi's fate and done him more harm than good in the long run.

In stark contrast to his teammates' claim, there was no better word to describe what was happening over the next couple of days than the word 'stalking'. Considering that Team 7 was supposed to be a capable team of shinobi, it was somewhat worrisome just how bad Naruto and Sakura seemed to be at the job.

"I lost him!" Naruto's eyes were wide and panicked, his chest heaving from his rapid breathing. He looked as though he'd run the entire way, and he’d thrown on a Henge to make his clothes look less feminine instead of going to his apartment and change properly.

Evidently he’d felt like he hadn’t had the time for such trivialities.

Sakura's head snapped up from the medical book she'd borrowed from Ino. "What do you mean, you lost him?"

"He was on his way to the hospital – don't ask, it was Gai and Kisame's fault – and I swear I didn’t take my eyes off him, but he was just gone! I completely lost sight of him, I don't know where he went."

Good for Kakashi. Sasuke leaned back, determined to keep himself out of this new obsession Naruto and Sakura were rapidly falling into.

"What do we do?" Naruto had begun pacing frantically. "What if he needs a shoulder to cry on and we're not there?"

Sasuke fought the urge to roll his eyes.

"Let's comb the village," Sakura said grimly. "We'll find him."

Sasuke breathed out a deep, exasperated huff of air. He deliberately stayed behind, unwilling to get wrapped up in his team’s most recent bout of bad decision making.

He kept himself determinedly uninvolved for several days until he felt his resolve crumble. He still thought that Kakashi would be better off with the chance to process his feelings on his own – that definitely hadn't changed. But as Sasuke kept avoiding his teammates' efforts to make their teacher open up to them, he began to wonder.

Sasuke wasn't like them. He doubted Naruto and Sakura were actually helping Kakashi so much as they were annoying him. From their perspective, they'd want to be given support and encouragement by their team if they were in his position, so they kept offering it to Kakashi.

Perhaps that was what really mattered? Not the result, but the intent?

Sasuke didn't want Kakashi to think that Sasuke didn't care, just because he wasn't running after him like his teammates were. He did care – he cared a lot, as a matter of fact – he simply wasn't as open to show it. Kakashi knew that, didn't he? He knew that if he asked for it, Sasuke would be there for him. Right?

But what if he didn't? Sasuke bit his lip, mulling the thought over in his head. Did he trust Kakashi to interpret the situation correctly? Perhaps not. He and Sasuke were simply too alike in certain things. So, did that mean Sasuke was making the wrong decision, keeping himself out of his team's efforts to cheer Kakashi up?

If so, then there was no helping it. Sasuke set his face in a grim expression, steeling himself. He had no choice.

Sasuke would have to prove to Kakashi that he cared, one way or another.

"Ah. Sasuke." Kakashi scanned the general area with all the wariness of a man who'd been plagued by his well-meaning stalker students for the better part of a week. "Isn’t your team with you?"

Sasuke didn't answer. He took a step towards his teacher, discomfort tingling on his skin.

He'd endured plenty of hugs – even group hugs – at the hands of his team. He'd never before initiated one by himself.

"Sasuke? Are you alright?"

Sasuke took a deep breath to brace himself. He could do this. For Kakashi.

"Sasuke, you're starting to–"

Kakashi went rigid as Sasuke closed his arms around him. Sasuke held onto him tightly in case Kakashi would instinctively try to pull away – and so that he wouldn’t be tempted to try the same and escape the awkwardness of the situation. He’d come this far. He refused to back out, now.

After a couple long, uncomfortable heartbeats, Kakashi began patting Sasuke's head. Sasuke refused to look anywhere near Kakashi's face, resolutely glaring daggers into the ground.

"Sasuke..." Kakashi hesitated, clearly at a loss about what to say. He thankfully stopped patting Sasuke's head like he was some sort of puppy. "Are you alright?"

Sasuke suppressed the urge to push Kakashi away so he could glare at his teacher more effectively. "Of course I am. You're not."

A pause followed. "You're trying to make me feel better?"

Heat flushed into Sasuke's head and made him want to stage a swift retreat. Wasn't it obvious? If Kakashi asked a question like this, Sasuke had clearly failed in his efforts.

Sasuke had almost convinced himself to consider the whole operation a failure and leave while some of his dignity still remained when finally, at last, Kakashi relaxed into the hug.

"You know what?" Kakashi's voice had gone soft. This time when his hand came to rest on Sasuke's head, it felt less like an awkward pat and more like a sign of genuine affection. "I think this is exactly what I needed. Thank you."

Sasuke felt himself tense at the words. If he hadn't taken care to avoid Kakashi's gaze before, he was definitely doing so now.

He soon reached his limits in terms of physical contact and put a healthy distance between them.

"Sasuke." Kakashi waited until Sasuke forced himself to meet his gaze, and his eye crinkled in a smile. "I'll be fine. Tell Naruto and Sakura, would you?"

Sasuke gave a curt nod. He accepted the excuse Kakashi had offered him and retreated, allowing himself to feel pleased about a job well done. Naruto and Sakura had better appreciate it.

True to Kakashi's words, he started coming around to them after another couple of days. He mercifully didn't mention Sasuke's act of self-sacrifice, although Sasuke strongly suspected that Naruto and Sakura had a pretty good idea of what had happened anyway.

He tried to ignore their fond, appreciative glances and told himself that this was still better than the uncertainty of a depressed Kakashi looming over them.

"What else have you been up to?" Kakashi asked, somewhat missing the mark of normalcy in his attempt to smooth over the time since their arrival they'd spent apart. "You must have done something besides thwart an attempt at world domination."

Naruto jumped at the opportunity to tell Kakashi all about their run in with Tsunade – as well as everything that had happened before and after.

Listening to Naruto's retelling of their adventures made Sasuke take a moment to pause and marvel at the odd sort of routine they'd settled into. They'd long since reached their goal of visiting each of the five big villages – their initial reason to keep traveling after having met Tsunade.

Their travels had become something more than simply checking off destinations on some list long ago.

Sasuke wouldn't be able to tell how much time had passed since their very first trip. It felt as though they'd made friends all over the Elemental Nations since then, and they’d never run out of new places to explore.

Money wasn't a concern for them. They'd began taking up bounties when they needed to – or, when they didn't need to, just for the fun of it.

Considering just how little control Konoha had kept over them, it came as somewhat of a surprise that when an excited Kiba presented them with their first entry in the current bingo book, they were listed as Konoha nin, rather than as missing nin.

Perhaps they shouldn't have been surprised. They did, after all, always return. Eventually.

Chapter Text

Team 7 had yet to be confronted by the Hokage. It was somewhat ridiculous considering how much time had passed, but while in the beginning Sarutobi had kept sending out shinobi to fetch them, he'd eventually given up after one too many times of them bailing in response.

Their third week in Konoha was coming to an end and they still hadn't heard a word from him. To be entirely honest, Sasuke wouldn't have noticed had Naruto not brought it up.

"Don't you think it's time we should talk to him?" He shifted his weight restlessly rather than leaning back and making himself comfortable on his couch. "It's been ages since we've seen him. I kinda feel guilty..."

Sasuke could say with little doubt that he didn't share the sentiment.

Neither did Sakura. "You really shouldn't." She didn’t look up from the novel she'd been given by Hinata. "I know you cared a lot about him when you were small, but he's not actually that great of a person."

Naruto’s lips pulled into a pout. "Don't say that. The old man did a lot for me back then!"

Sakura didn't reply, and Sasuke tried not to squirm in his seat. Not for the first time, he wondered how someone with a childhood like Naruto's could have ended up this optimistic and forgiving of a person.

Sakura heaved a sigh and set the novel aside. "If you really want to, we can pay him a visit."

Naruto broke out into a smile. "Thanks, you guys."

"Sasuke, are you coming too?"

Sasuke shrugged. "Why not." It wasn't like he had anything better to do with his time.

However, Sasuke knew his teammates. He knew them far too well.

"You go ahead." Because in the very likely event that the conversation went haywire, Sasuke wanted to have all of his belongings with him to allow for an efficient, quick escape.

If Naruto and Sakura were smart, they'd be doing the same thing.

Raised voices greeted Sasuke as he slipped into the Hokage's office, waved through by an exasperated-looking chūnin guard.

Sasuke hoped he hadn't missed too much of the conversation. Their apartment was starting to become cluttered from all the souvenirs they kept bringing from their travels (they really ought to start organizing them into sealing scrolls), and it had taken him longer than he'd expected to gather up everything he planned to take along.

He saw Kakashi first upon entering the office. He stood behind Sakura and Naruto, nose buried in his book and pretending as though he wasn't aware of the argument rapidly unfolding in front of him.

"It slipped your mind?" Sarutobi’s gaping expression didn't make him look at all like the wise, all-knowing Hokage he was supposed to be. "With everything that's been going on. Orochimaru tried to invade, Tsunade is a missing nin–”

"To be fair," Naruto chimed in because he didn't know when to keep his mouth shut, "that was technically your fault."

"– all this odd behavior, you abandon the village–”

"Hey now, I wouldn't exactly call it ‘abandon’.”

"– making me worry about your wellbeing, all alone out there. And it slipped your mind to tell me?"

Naruto shifted uncomfortably on his feet. Sakura's eyes slipped to the ground, half sheepish, half guilty looking.

Sasuke was surprised that they were actually letting Sarutobi's words get to them. He didn't know what they were talking about – maybe Naruto had initially planned to tell Sarutobi about their adventures, and that was what had slipped his mind? – but no matter what it was, it shouldn't be severe enough to justify his teammates' reactions.

The Hokage wasn't done. "Do you even know how difficult it is to explain genin missing-nin?"

Sakura tried to turn her snort into a cough and only succeeded marginally.

"Hey now, that's just not true," Naruto protested. He pulled out the bingo book he'd gotten from Kiba and thrust their entry into Sarutobi's face. Sasuke still felt undeniably pleased whenever he laid eyes on it. "See? We're listed as Konoha nin. We're not missing nin."

Sarutobi sent Naruto an incredulous look. "And who do you think made sure about that?"

Naruto blinked. "Oh. Uh..."

Sarutobi had begun pacing the office, almost frantically puffing on his pipe. His composure seemed to depend on it. "Who else knows about this?"

Kakashi guiltily lowered his book.

"Erm," Naruto said. "Kakashi-sensei does."

Sarutobi's pipe snapped. He leveled Kakashi with an incredulous stare. "And all of you just forgot to mention it?"

A pregnant silence followed, broken only by the rustling sound of Kakashi tugging away his book.

"Hokage-sama," he said, "I will take full responsibility for the actions of my students. Please allow me to–”

"This isn't about responsibility anymore!" Sarutobi interrupted. "Do you have any idea... Do you know in the slightest what the village has been like... What we needed to adjust to..."

Naruto and Sakura shared a concerned look. Sarutobi no longer seemed able to form complete sentences.

"Old man... Are you, uh. Are you al–”

"I'm too old for this," Sarutobi interrupted yet again. "This is it. I quit."

Naruto looked back and forth between Sarutobi and Kakashi. "You can't just quit being Hokage, I don't think."

"I retire." The vehemence behind Sarutobi's voice left little room to question the sincerity of his statement. "Again."

"Whoa, hold on." Naruto's voice was quickly gaining an alarmed quality as he realized that Sarutobi was being serious. "Who's gonna take over then? You can't just– The village needs you!"

"The village needs someone," Sakura corrected. "I guess you could always take the hat early."

"Are you joking? I'd have to stay in the village all the time. We'd have to stop traveling!" He paused. "Besides, I'm not actually sure if I want to become Hokage anymore."

That gave Sakura a pause. "Really? I mean, I know you haven't been as vocal about it. But not at all?"

"I don't think so." Naruto's lips twitched into a smile. "What we're doing, it's been... nice. And besides, I'm still like, five."

"Fourteen."

"Exactly. The point is, I don't really need to become Hokage.”

"Somebody will have to take over." Kakashi’s frown suggested he couldn't quite understand why he was even part of the discussion. "Konoha can't stay without a kage. So if Sarutobi-san isn't willing to keep going–”

"Absolutely not," Sarutobi interrupted, shoving the Hokage hat further away from him as though to prove his point. "I've had enough stress for a lifetime."

"Who then?" Sakura asked. "Tsunade? Or Jiraiya?"

"I feel like that's kind of unlikely, considering... you know."

Sasuke did indeed think it unlikely for either an official missing nin or a certified pervert who spent his time creeping on women in bathhouses to take over the Hokage's hat.

"I mean," Sakura said, her voice taking on an odd undertone, "there's always..."

Naruto and Sakura both turned to look at Kakashi.

There was a pause. Kakashi took a large, defensive step back. "Wait. What?"

"It might be a little earlier than expected," Naruto tilted his head, "but desperate times..."

"No. No no no no. You were joking about that. You must have been joking." A desperate glint entered Kakashi's eyes. "Please tell me you're joking."

"You all act like wearing the hat is some kind of torture," Sarutobi grumbled, giving them all a disgruntled look.

"You're the one who's wanted to become Hokage since you were a child," Kakashi argued.

"So? I changed my mind. I'm not gonna sit in this dusty old office all day when I could be doing so many other things."

"I thought it was your dream!"

"It was,” Naruto said, “But I only wanted it because I thought becoming Hokage meant being accepted by other people for who I was."

It went unsaid that with the adventures they've had and the friends they've made, Naruto had long since met his goal even without becoming a village leader in the process.

"My life is pretty great right now," Naruto shrugged, "so I don't need it anymore. You, however–”

"It's out of the question," Kakashi interrupted. "I can't even take care of myself most of the time, how do you expect me to take care of a whole village?"

"I don't know about you, but I thought you were doing pretty well with the rookies while we were gone. What's a couple thousand more people?"

Sarutobi's patience ran out. "Would someone already take this blasted hat from me?"

Naruto and Kakashi shared a glance.

"Not it!"

Both of them legged it out of the window without a glance back.

Behind his desk, Sarutobi let out a noise of great suffering. He did not, however, look surprised in the slightest.

Kakashi made the mature decision. He waited until dawn and made a break for it.

"That bastard!" Naruto sported an expression of outrage. "Does he think fleeing the village will save him?"

"Isn't that essentially what you were planning to do, too?" Sakura pointed out dryly.

"That's totally beside the point."

"Besides," Sakura added, "weren't we planning to do our next trip with Kakashi-sensei, anyway?"

Naruto visibly faltered. "It would kind of suck if he was stuck in the village all the time," he admitted, a frown tugging at his lips at the thought. "But somebody's gotta take over. We can't just leave while Konoha's still without a Hokage."

"Why not?" Sasuke raised an eyebrow. "We're teenagers. Since when is this our problem to deal with?"

There was a heavy silence. The fact didn't seem to have occurred to either of them.

"That is a fair point," Sakura said, sounding impressed.

Naruto, in a similar fashion, looked as though he’d had some great revelation. "Huh."

Another pause followed, this one shorter than the last.

"So what?" Sakura asked. "We'll go after Kakashi, convince him that we're not there to drag him back and let Konoha figure it out on its own?"

"Danzō’s gone, so he can't take advantage. Orochimaru's almost comatose, and everybody else..." Naruto seemed to be mentally cataloging all of the villagers. "I guess it can't really go too badly."

Sakura looked into the distance with furrowed brows, evidently following Naruto's lead and checking their current village population for potential disastrous decisions. "Yeah. I don't think there's anybody left who'd use the position for their own gain. Not successfully, anyway."

"And Konoha's in a pretty good place right now," Naruto added. "We've got good relations with all the other countries–”

"For the most part, anyway."

"– we've got plenty of allies, there's no war in sight anytime soon..." Naruto trailed off and gave a small shrug. "It should be fine."

Even if it wasn't, they wouldn't have to deal with any of it as long as they were far away from Konoha, Sasuke thought, but didn't speak it out loud.

As long as the three of them – or the four of them, seeing as hopefully they'd have soon convinced Kakashi that they weren't planning on selling him out to the village – as long as they were together and free from Konoha’s obligations, Sasuke didn't much care about what the village got up to in the meantime.

If a village consisting of thousands of – allegedly – capable shinobi couldn’t hold it together without one jōnin teacher and three of his students, it rather deserved to get whatever was coming for it, anyway.

Chapter Text

On a completely ordinary and uneventful day, a drunk civilian watched a genin walk into a tree.

The boy climbed to his feet wobbly, as though walking on his own feet was a new experience, and eyed the village as though he was seeing it for the first time.

The civilian would never know that she had witnessed one of the most impressive fuinjutsu feats in all of shinobi history, as well as one of two drops in the river of time that would change its course irreparably.

She’d have forgotten all about it by morning, and nobody would be the wiser about history changing at the hands of two meddling teenagers.

The second drop fell in another corner of the village.

No bird and no curious ANBU had felt particularly drawn towards a genin’s bedroom window that day. Nobody saw the girl go stiff, sneeze and sit up abruptly as though somebody had poked her in the stomach.

The third – and last – member of the trio was practicing his marksmanship at one of the training grounds.

Nothing remarkable happened to him, and he remained oblivious that in different circumstances or another reality he, too, would have blinked out of existence as another, older consciousness took possession of his body.

Uchiha Sasuke kept throwing, none the wiser that anything of importance had happened to his teammates.

"You've got a son, right?"

Shikaku let the sentence hang in the air. "Yes, Kakashi. I have a son."

Kakashi nodded along as though relieved at the confirmation that Shikaku was, in fact, a father. "Did he ever have... mood swings?"

"Mood swings," Shikaku repeated.

"Any sort of odd behavior," Kakashi tried, sounding desperate. "Any big... changes?"

"No. Nothing like that."

"Not even during," Kakashi paused, closing his eyes as though he was regretting the word before it left his mouth, "puberty?"

Shikaku set aside his drink. Being ambushed and interrogated about the joys of fatherhood by Kakashi wasn't how he'd envisioned his evening. "What's this about?"

Kakashi's features twisted into a grimace. He shifted his weight and looked like he was considering a strategic retreat to avoid answering the question. "Perhaps I haven't quite gotten used to being a teacher."

Understanding bloomed in Shikaku's chest, and he hummed, picking his glass back up.

Kakashi's history of failing his potential genin teams had made it surprising when he'd finally allowed one of them to pass. His old teacher's son being one of them might have played a role in that, but people still thought that Kakashi had plunged himself into something he wasn't ready for.

Hatake Kakashi was one of the best jōnin Konoha had to offer. But that didn't mean he had any clue whatsoever how to take care of a bunch of genin.

"Teenagers can be difficult," Shikaku said. "Every shinobi taking on a team for the first time is going through the same as you."

"I suppose," Kakashi muttered, sounding doubtful.

He looked into the distance, and Shikaku gestured for another beer from the barkeeper. Kakashi looked like he was in dire need of some alcohol.

"You'll grow into it," he assured, thinking of his own insecurities right after becoming a father.

Kakashi didn't look convinced, but he allowed himself to be distracted. He'd be fine, Shikaku was sure of it.

Konoha's interrogation rooms looked rather disappointing from the inside. They were bland and unimaginative, lacking even the most basic flavor of intimidation. If Danzō had been the one to design them... he'd likely have forgone them altogether. Why waste time and resources when interrogation was merely a useless sidestep in between capture and execution?

"Come on," his current interrogator whined, drawing out the words obnoxiously.

All his interrogators had rapidly cycled through different interrogation techniques: indifference. Intimidation. Bribery. Danzō wasn't sure what this newest one was supposed to be, only that it didn’t work.

"Do us both a favor here, buddy. Come on, who was it? Who fought you?"

And won, was the unspoken addition. Irritation rose up in Danzō’s chest, and he took care not to let it show on his face.

He pictured himself admitting who had brought his entire existence crumbling down in the span of a few well placed punches and the flutter of bright, ridiculously colored hair. The girl hadn't even had the courtesy to use a Henge and give herself a growth spurt.

Danzō already knew he was going down. He could at least go down clinging to the last remaining pieces of his dignity.

"I will never talk," he said, leaning back as far as the bindings around his body allowed.

They'd be the last words he spoke for a long, long time. This was one secret Danzō was determined to take to his grave.

Danzō kept to his promise and refused to talk. So did any of the Root shinobi they'd dragged into interrogation alongside him. One would have thought that being freed from his tyranny would be enough motivation to spill his secrets and take their revenge for all the years he’d spent using and manipulating them to do his bidding.

A few days after Danzō was beaten, a shrine was set up at the center of the crater where it had happened. Nobody saw who established it, nor who kept adding items to it afterwards – old, discarded blades, broken masks and, most oddly of all, candles in shades of fuchsia and peach in between scattered cherry blossoms.

Shikaku’s eyes swam from the mass of printed words – files and profiles of the Root shinobi they now needed to figure out what to do with.

Their living room window had the perfect view of one of the craters left of Danzō’s underground hideout. Shikaku tried not to look at it.

Shikamaru shuffled into the room and tossed a bright orange jacket onto their couch.

Shikaku would remember if he'd ever seen his son wearing a piece of clothing in that color. "Whose is that?"

"Naruto's," Shikamaru said, scratching his chin absent-mindedly. "He and his team spent the night."

Shikaku paused. "Since when are you friends with Team 7?"

"No idea. Naruto invited us over for dinner this one time and acted as though we'd been friends forever." Shikamaru stifled a yawn and shrugged. "It would have been too much of a bother to correct him."

The chūnin exams passed with almost boring uneventfulness. Some villagers wondered whether throwing their demon container into the fray would have mixed things up a bit, and more than one person lamented the unusually low rate of violent, "accidental" deaths.

Yamato sat bowed over his notebook and tried to ignore the gossiping villagers around him. Word of Tsunade's 'defection' and Sarutobi's blunder had reached the public, but Yamato had other things to worry about. That, on top of everything else, wasn't his problem.

This, however, was.

He scanned the pages of the handbook he'd 'borrowed' and let out a groan at yet another paragraph that would make Sai stand out awkwardly more than it would help him reinsert himself into society. He was sure that whoever had given him these guidelines had meant well, but seriously? He'd put his foot in his mouth more often than he'd actually manage to blend in.

Yamato couldn't believe Kakashi had let his students drag him into this. He should have told them ‘no’ from the beginning instead of allowing himself to be barrelled over. This wasn’t his job. It wasn’t anything he’d ever signed up for.

Yamato read the next paragraph, picked up his pen and furiously scribbled another note.

Kakashi left the village in a frenzy. Gai heard about it from a fellow shinobi and decided to wait before taking action, not willing to jump to conclusions over such a small piece of gossip. Gai knew his friend, and there were very few things he wasn't able to handle on his own.

Kakashi returned several days later, looking exhausted, disheveled and in desperate need of a decent meal.

"Are you well?" Gai asked, skipping over the theatrics.

Kakashi mustered a carefree grin that might have fooled someone other than Gai. "Why wouldn't I be?"

Gai pressed his lips together. He looked for signs of Kakashi's team – he hadn't seen even one of them during the time Kakashi was gone. He'd assumed they'd all left for a trip. "How is your team?"

"They're fine." A muscle beneath Kakashi's eye twitched. "They're... training."

Gai's frown deepened. "Kakashi–”

"They're alright." Kakashi's voice warped into something that sounded suspiciously close to begging. "Just... trust me."

Gai trusted Kakashi. He offered a slow nod and dropped the subject, determining to himself that he'd try again if he hadn’t seen his team by the next day.

"Not everybody will," he warned.

Kakashi's aimless gaze told him that his friend was well aware of it.

"They're out... picking flowers? Um. Okay then."

"They're visiting a sick relative? Those poor dears. Wait... what sick– Hey! Kakashi!"

"Meeting with a few friends? Oh, from their mission in Wave?"

"Kakashi," Kurenai said. "The market was last week."

"Hmm?"

"You said you'd sent your team to the market. It was open last week."

Kakashi gave himself away with a wince.

Kurenai’s eyes widened. "When's the last time you've seen them?"

"Look, there's no need to worry. They're fine."

"They're– what?"

"Don't worry. They can take care of themselves."

"They're genin! Kakashi, where are they?”

“You don’t know?”

“What are you going to tell the Hokage?”

"An elaborate training exercise?" Sarutobi gaped at his out-of-his-mind subordinate. "You sent your fresh genin team on a training exercise all by themselves?"

Kakashi's eye crinkled in a cheerful smile like he hadn't been dragged into the office by an enthusiastic chūnin. "They'd have gotten bored in the village. If they want to become stronger, they have to face real threats."

"Threats you’re supposed to be aiding them with.”

"I'm giving them a head start. They can handle it."

"Kakashi," Sarutobi said, closing his eyes. "Naruto is Konoha's jinchūriki. Sasuke is the last of his clan. They're in danger all on their own, and the village can't afford to lose them."

A muscle beneath Kakashi’s eye twitched. "They'll be fine," he repeated curtly. "All of them will."

He emphasized the word ‘all’ and left without another word. Sarutobi was left with the distinct feeling of having said the wrong thing.

"It's really careless of him, don't you think?"

"A teacher shouldn’t be acting like this."

"Remember who's on that blasted team of his. If something happens to 'em, problem solved, I say."

"They're so young. Shouldn't they have sent out a search party by now?"

"It's been two weeks. They'll have died in a ditch by now, or they'd have come crawling back already."

"That poor Hatake kid..."

"Serves him right. Probably scared them off himself."

"They came back?”

“They brought who?”

"I told you they were fine."

"So you did," Iruka muttered, debating the likelihood of painkillers being strong enough to cure his migraine. "And you obviously knew where they were the entire time."

"Of course I did. I'm their teacher."

"Which means you also clearly knew about their intent to help a foreign jinchūriki infiltrate Konoha."

Kakashi's palm flew to his chest. "What do you mean they helped a foreign jinchūriki infiltrate Konoha? I didn't see one."

His students and their friends – jinchūriki infiltrator included – passed by on the other end of the street. “Oh, hey, Kakashi-sensei!” Naruto called. Kakashi pointedly looked the other direction.

Iruka heaved a sigh. His pounding headache voted in favor of those painkillers. "Since when does Sasuke have a sword?"

Gai couldn't claim to comprehend Kakashi's dynamic with his team. He didn't know them well enough to understand the elaborate game they seemed to be playing – one he wasn't even certain Kakashi took part in voluntarily.

Not only had Gai rarely seen a fresh genin team look so comfortable in each other's company, he could also count on one hand the times Kakashi had allowed himself to get attached to someone over the span of their long, eventful friendship.

Gai watched Team 7 dodge an ANBU team that might end up damaging the beautiful bond they were forging, and he decided that it simply wouldn't do.

"Come, Lee," he said, his voice boisterous and his eyes tracking the nearest ANBU squad laying in hiding to ambush the genin. "Let us join Team 7's efforts to hone their abilities!"

Lee straightened up, immediately on board at the prospect of a new training exercise. "Of course, Gai-sensei!"

And if during their efforts, they just happened to distract an ANBU squad or two from bothering the team? That was just an unfortunate side effect Gai had no way of possibly foreseeing.

"Y-Yamanaka-san! Sir! At the gates!"

Inoichi perked up at the chūnin’s – Teijo’s – anxious tone. "Is it Team 7?" Those kids would be the death of them. Disappearing from the village all on their own, bringing along another jinchūriki upon their return only to promptly leave yet again – Inoichi didn't know how Kakashi wasn't frantic.

"It's not them," Teijo said, his face pale. "It's the Kazekage, here for a diplomatic visit."

Inoichi missed a beat. "But the Kazekage is–” He interrupted himself. If there was a newly inaugurated kage waiting outside the gates, it wouldn't bode well for them to strain their patience. "Nevermind. Show them in."

He'd have to notify the Hokage and Shikaku, extend their hospitality, prepare guest quarters for a yet unknown number of diplomats... It had been ages since a kage had visited other than during the chūnin exams. Inoichi didn't want to imagine the reason for the impromptu visit.

"She's asking for someone," Teijo added before Inoichi had the chance to turn away.

"Who?"

"Haruno Sakura." Teijo frowned. "Who is that?"

Inoichi blinked. For several heartbeats, no sound came out of his mouth. "Just... show her in. I'll take care of the rest."

Teijo gave a dubious nod, but did as he was told.

"Haruno Sakura," Inoichi muttered, tearing himself out of his thoughts and wondering how in the world Suna's new Kazekage could know the name of his daughter's best childhood friend.

The new Kazekage was 16 years of age and blunt as a discarded kunai. She'd brought her brothers along (as though two kids even younger than her were the obvious choices in terms of bodyguards), one of which turned out to be a jinchūriki – and as such, the second foreign one currently residing in Konoha.

Nobody quite had the nerve to try and keep the two demon containers apart once they'd found each other, and the mystery around Team 7 grew when the Suna nin mentioned their names in their efforts to mend the downward spiral of their villages' relations several decades in the making.

Kumo began to mysteriously refuse all attempts at communication. There was general agreement that if another war broke out, it would be in the village’s favor to have Suna standing at their side rather than against them.

Team 7 returned. A significant percentage of the village silently wondered whether dying in a ditch on that very first trip might have saved them a lot of trouble after all.

"So," Inoichi started, braving the silence of a room stuffed full with incredulous shinobi. "Orochimaru."

"Orochimaru," Shikaku sighed, nursing a large tea cup. He took a sip and grimaced. Only about a quarter of its contents was tea.

"They're a bunch of genin. How are they wrapped up in," Shimo – a middle-aged jōnin – flapped her hands helplessly, "all this?"

"It's no wonder," Tsume muttered, "considering who's on the team."

"Demon container or not, this is insane."

"They should have put someone else in charge of them. No wonder we've lost control of them."

"Is someone with Orochimaru?" Shikaku interrupted his shinobi before they could start (another) full blown discussion about their rogue genin team. Once they gained momentum, there was no stopping them.

"Jiraiya is keeping an eye on him," Chōza said.

Shikaku grimaced at the choice in jailer but nodded.

Orochimaru had been delivered to them almost comatose (Shikaku took another huge sip from his cup.) and was in no condition to even think about fleeing. Still, it was better to be safe than sorry.

Shikaku decided to move on and postpone any and all decision-making regarding the Sannin for later. The village needed to keep going. "We need to reassign Team 7 duty."

There was silence as Shikaku's words sank in.

"What?"

"What do you mean 'reassign'? I thought it was Hiina's turn."

The atmosphere around them turned somber.

"Hiina is no longer with us," Inoichi said gravely.

"Don't tell me..."

"We lost another one?"

They spared a moment of silence for the next colleague they'd lost to Yamato's program. The numbers were rising by the week.

The moment held only as long as it took the first shinobi to realize that with the assignment up in the air, they were in danger of suffering a worse fate than whatever was happening at Yamato's.

"I'm not doing it. I just finished a whole week's worth of jinchūriki watch."

"I shadowed them once." Teijo suppressed a shudder. "Once was enough."

"Are you trying to say a grown shinobi can’t handle a handful of genin?"

"Genin? Don't make me laugh."

"Maybe we shouldn't be so hard on them," Chōza said. "They haven't actually done any harm. And all things considered, Konoha's been doing extremely well since they first left."

"What are you saying?"

"They remind me of the Sannin when they were young." Chōza shrugged. "Maybe they're exactly what the village needs."

Incredulous silence greeted Chōza’s proposition. Shikaku decided against pointing out the glaring red flags in his comparison: namely that two of the Sannin had until recently refused to set foot into the village while the third of them sat in a prison cell near unresponsive.

A messenger burst into the room. "N-Nara-taichō!"

Shikaku no longer knew whether to wish for a nap or sweet, merciful retirement. "What now? Another jinchūriki? A missing nin?"

The shinobi in front of him whimpered. "It's a message from the former Mizukage."

Shikaku didn't stir.

"Who is also a jinchūriki."

The former Mizukage wrote in the name of his successor and extended a gesture of peace in the hopes of rebuilding the friendship between their villages.

"Wasn't Kiri fighting a civil war?"

Village relations continued to stabilize. Peace treaties were signed, delegates were welcomed and Konoha began to reconsider its view on their – oddly diplomatically inclined – rogue genin.

Itachi returned.

"What do we do?" Yuri – freshly promoted to chūnin and with the questionable honor of delivering the message – looked close to fainting.

Shikaku stared at the opposite wall, wishing he'd know an answer to the question. What did they do in response to Konoha's most famous mass murderer returning to the village?

"Has he attacked anybody?"

"N-No. But–”

"Where is he now?"

Yuri’s throat moved in a wordless whimper.

Shikaku narrowed his eyes. "Where is he?"

"It’s Team 7, sir," Yuri whispered. "They made him join Yamato’s group."

Days passed without a single bloody rampage. Yamato's image in the village grew tenfold – anyone who successfully therapied Itachi Uchiha was deserving of either respect or a special notice of caution in their ANBU file.

"Watcha doing?"

The little Hyūga flinched. He turned rather than whirling around undignified, meeting Anko’s eyes calmly as though he hadn't spent the last hour stalking her.

Anko grinned, letting go of her tree branch and leaping down next to him. "Are you going to talk to me, or are you just going to keep watching like a creep?"

The little Hyūga – Neji, that was his name – pursed his lips. He paused. "Kakashi advised me to ask for your advice."

Anko blinked. "He did what now?"

"You're a well respected shinobi," Neji said, "despite your... even though you used to associate with Orochimaru."

Anko crossed her arms. "What of it?"

"Your past, it didn't stop you from reaching what you wanted. Even though many people didn’t care to watch you succeed, it did not stop you."

"Get to the point," Anko said, her patience waning.

Neji pressed his lips together even tighter. "I don't want my position hanging over me any longer. Being part of the side branch of my clan, it's... I don't want it to dictate my future."

Anko hummed, twitching her shoulders. "I wouldn't know about that whole clan thing," she said, "but I got where I am because I stopped caring what other people think. Or what they wanted from me."

"That's it?"

Anko shrugged. If he wanted some proper inspirational advice on how to fix his life, the kid would have to ask... literally anyone other than her. Served him right, following Kakashi's advice and bothering her.

Neji didn't seem satisfied but paused. "Alright," he said, raising his chin. He kept looking at her like he expected her to do something.

Anko raised an eyebrow. "What are you waiting for? Go on, buzz off. I've got stuff to do."

"I know." Neji shifted his stance and proceeded to not leave. Standing right next to Anko. Looking at her, as though he was waiting for what she would do next.

Anko's second eyebrow joined the first. "I told you to buzz off. What are you doing?"

"Not caring what someone else wants me to do."

There was a beat of silence.

Anko snorted a laugh, taken aback. "You're serious?" She looked at Neji properly for the first time.

He didn't shy away from her gaze, and Anko's grin dimmed into something more thoughtful.

"Is it any good?"

Kakashi startled and almost dropped his book. "Huh?"

"The teaching thing," Anko clarified. "Having an apprentice – or several. Is it any good?"

Kakashi paused. "I'll let you know."

Shimo accepted her third beer of the evening and kept her eyes resolutely pinned on her bottle. Only the Sage knew what she would find upon looking out the window. She'd learned quickly over the course of the last few weeks that the best way to deal with all the inpouring insanity was to keep her head down and pretend to not notice anything out of the ordinary.

Yuri came storming into the bar not much later, proving that she wasn't as fast on the uptake as Shimo. She'd been a chūnin for only a week. She'd learn soon enough.

"What are you doing," Yuri hissed upon spotting Shimo. "We're on duty!"

"So we are," Shimo said, inclining her head and patting the seat next to her invitingly.

Yuri didn't take her cue. "Team 7 is making a break for it again!"

Shimo took a large drag from her bottle.

Yuri flapped her hands, clearly not happy with the reaction she'd gotten for her grand announcement. "Aren't we going to try and stop them?"

“We will.” Shimo slid over one of the shot glasses lined up in front of her and waved for another. She picked up her bottle and downed the rest of it in one go. "In a bit."

Shimo carried a very drunk, loudly snoring Yuri out of the bar a couple hours later. Team 7 had gone ahead and shaken off the shinobi trying to catch them with miles to spare – a chase Shimo and Yuri had tragically missed in its entirety. Pity.

The new bingo book was issued only a few days later. Seeing a picture of their resident rogue genin team displayed proudly on its pages – while mildly bizarre – surprised only those who'd somehow managed to avoid the insanity of the past months.

Their Hokage throwing in the towel might have been a bigger shock had not half the village seen it coming.

"I'm more surprised he held out as long as he did," Inoichi muttered.

"We all have limits," Chōza said, leaning back against the wall. "I would have reached mine far earlier."

"I'd call that self-preservation. If Sarutobi had more of it, he'd have retired ages ago."

"You are both being incredibly helpful,” Shikaku noted. Considering their Hokage had just rejected his position and rather dramatically left his village without a leader, the mood in HQ was rather placid.

"No offense, Shikaku, but who in their right mind would want to take over and be responsible for," Inoichi gestured vaguely around himself, "all of this?"

Chōza – although much more sympathetic – clearly agreed. So did the vast majority of the village. To this point, nobody had been a large help in Shikaku's rather thankless task of determining a new Hokage candidate before the other villages realized that they were currently without a leader.

"I don't get all the buzz, anyway," Anko called over, sprawled out halfway across the room.

Her new pet project, the Hyūga kid, sat next to her, looking rather stiff among the older shinobi around him.

"What buzz?" Inoichi raised an eyebrow. "You mean our lack of a village leader or literally everything else that's been happening?"

Anko shrugged. "The inter-village climate hasn’t been this peaceful in ages. Konoha is better off than ever – did you see the reputation those brats are getting us, pulling in all those bounties they do? What's a little chaos to make up for it?"

A short, strangled laughter burst through the room, and somebody weakly echoed the words ‘a little chaos’.

"If you pardon Tsunade," Chōza suggested, "perhaps she'd be willing to–”

"Play leader for the village she hasn't set foot into for years?" Anko snorted. "Good luck."

Inoichi frowned. "Well, Jiraiya's back. We could ask him."

"He already made it clear that there are other things he needs to focus on." Rather passionately so and merely minutes after Sarutobi had made his decision to retire permanent.

There weren't many potential candidates in the village. The position was difficult and easily taken advantage of – they were lucky that Danzō was not around to seize the opportunity.

It left Shikaku with an empty Hokage seat and the sobering knowledge that he couldn't think of a single person suicidal enough to volunteer for a job that involved dealing with Konoha's current... everything.

"Shikaku, why don't you do it?" Inoichi suggested innocently. "You'd be the perfect shinobi for the job."

Clamors of enthusiastic agreement and encouragement sparked through the room, ones that Shikaku met with a general scathing look.

Anko snorted. "You guys are acting like being Hokage would be hard."

Incredulous eyes swayed her way.

Anko took a few beats to notice. Once she did, she gave a matching, disbelieving laugh. "Seriously? Konoha's issues have been taking care of themselves lately. Or somebody has. What's so difficult, being in charge of a village that's allied with its neighbors, has trading relations with most of them and is on friendly terms with several demon containers and half the people listed in the bingo book?"

Shikaku straightened up in his seat. The discussion was already moving on, but Shikaku stopped listening.

Anko was right: as long as whoever was in charge wasn't misusing the title, it was (at least currently) rather difficult to run the village into the ground. Somebody needed to take over the hat – anybody, someone willing and resilient enough to not be phased by any of what was going on in the village.

Shikaku took a deep breath, steeling himself for the decision he was about to make. Desperate times called for desperate measures.

Far away from the village, a jōnin and his team reunited after a days-long chase and the following agreement that neither party was dragging the other back to the village for forceful Hokage-recruitment.

All four of them agreed that whatever was going on in the village, it was Konoha's turn to deal with it. Team 7 would be otherwise occupied.

Chapter Text

"You want to go where to do what?"

"It'll be fun!" Naruto beamed at their teacher. "We've been there before–”

"For like a day until Naruto decided she'd seen enough snow to last her a lifetime," Sakura muttered.

" – but this time we're here for a reason! A really important, really good reason that'll definitely make it worth it to stalk through a frozen wasteland for a couple of days."

"Are you sure the samurai won't mind us breaching their territory for ice skating?"

The samurai did mind them breaching their territory for ice skating. Sasuke made a note that the Land of Iron was one of the places with less than hospitable locals that they shouldn’t visit unless given a very good, not-ice-skating-related reason.

"I thought it was Naruto's turn?"

Sasuke gave Kakashi a look as he prepared the ingredients he was going to need to make dinner.

Further away, Naruto commandeered their cooking equipment even though all three of them ought to know better by now.

A grand total of ten minutes later Kakashi used his authority as a teacher to ban Naruto from even looking at another piece of cooking equipment. Sasuke found it somewhat unfair that after all he'd tried to get her to stop, a strict glance from Kakashi was all it took.

Kakashi had gotten around the Five Nations in his years as a jōnin. Pursuing mission objectives wasn’t the same as visiting its most gorgeous places just for the sake of it.

"It's beautiful," he admitted after they'd reached Sakura's favorite niche of the Land of Rivers: a small meadow at the center of a forest with a view on twin waterfalls.

Kakashi’s restlessness upon leaving the village hadn’t gone by unnoticed. Now – after a week without contact with Konoha – he finally started to relax.

"Kakashi-sensei? What's wrong?"

"You knocked him out."

"Yeah? He was our bounty?"

"It took you less than a minute."

"So? You already knew we were strong."

"That was an A-ranked level criminal."

"I know. Next time we’ll pick something actually worth our time."

"Remind me again why we agreed to this?" Sakura wheezed, kicking at a pebble and mustering a tired frown.

Sasuke took another step, cursing his overenthusiastic teammate and the sun shining directly into his eyes.

"Because it's fun!" Naruto turned without halting her steps, facing them and scaling the mountain backwards. "We've never been hiking before."

"I can't imagine why," Kakashi muttered. He raised his head and sighed. The mountain peak still looked miles away.

"You burned it, Sasuke!"

"You got in the way."

"In the– Did you have to practice that lightning thing out in the open?”

"It's called the Chido–”

"I know what it's called! You almost took off my head! Do you know how long it takes to grow out hair?"

"You're wearing a Henge, anyway."

"It's not the same! You owe me a haircut."

Kakashi gave him a nod of approval once Naruto's back was turned – acknowledgement of the technique he'd mastered, Sasuke was sure, not for what he'd done to Naruto's hair.

Of course they weren't still mad about the excruciating mountain hike she'd dragged them on. Seeing her leap out of the way with a shriek hadn't filled Sasuke with satisfaction at all.

"Hold still, Sasuke! You're making it all blurry."

"Get that thing out of the frame!" Sakura rolled her eyes. "You don't even know how to use it, why do you want to– Naruto!"

Kakashi had given up on the illusion of having any authority over them. "Please don't wave any pointy things around. This vest is new."

"Why are we even taking a picture?" Sasuke grumbled. "Kakashi-sensei's here now."

"So? He's gotta have new ones to put in his album when we come back. Now hold still, I'm gonna–”

Sasuke hadn't been sure about Kakashi joining them on their travels permanently. He cared about their teacher – and he could tell that Kakashi cared about them. A lot. But after months of traveling without adult supervision, he couldn't help but feel apprehensive about their dynamic being shaken to its very core.

He needn't have worried. During the first few weeks of their journey, Kakashi didn't try to take charge of them even once. They trained together, traveled together and he followed their lead – while Kakashi had more experience being a shinobi, he couldn't best Team 7 in terms of sheer travel experience.

"Have you ever been to Take before?"

Sakura paused. "I don't think so. Why?"

"I spent a few days there once. It was... nice." Kakashi hesitated. "I always thought it would have been great to stay for longer."

Without a mission objective hanging over him, forcing him to return as soon as he’d finished what was asked of him.

A smile spread on Naruto's face. It was the first time Kakashi had made a suggestion for their traveling destination. "Sure, we can take a look! It's only a few days from here."

With every passing day, Kakashi felt less like an addition and more like a member of their team. Sasuke started to forget what it had been like without him.

"So," Naruto started, breaking the comfortable silence around the campfire. "Do you guys think Konoha has a new Hokage yet?"

"They might." Sakura took a piece of wood from the pile they'd prepared earlier and tossed it into the fire. Sparks shot up into the evening sky and blended together with the stars. "I think they would’ve wanted to take care of it quickly."

"If they found someone willing," Sasuke muttered.

Kakashi was sprawled out in front of the fire, looking thoughtful but relaxed. He hadn't at the start; in stark contrast to Sasuke and his teammates, life as an almost missing nin hadn't come to him easily. Sasuke supposed that being only genin, they'd simply never gotten to know the responsibility Kakashi had as a jōnin. The responsibility he’d been able to shake off, now that he was with them.

"Do you want to check?" Kakashi asked, sounding neither thrilled nor apprehensive at the prospect.

"It should have been long enough for them to figure something out," Sakura said.

Naruto shrugged. "If not, we'll just make a run for it and wait some more."

They took their time on the journey back. They felt no rush to return to the village, and every minute they spent away from it was an additional minute Konoha could use to sort out the village leadership before it became Team 7's problem.

Naruto volunteered to sneak inside and scout out the situation while the rest of them waited at the front gates.

"He's taking a while," Sakura pointed out after three decently-sized rocks had fallen victim to her boredom and the guards stationed at the village gates offered them a tentative wave of greeting.

(Kakashi gave a small wave in return. Neither Sasuke's team nor the guards made attempts to approach one-another, and they spent the next few minutes coexisting in an odd blend of peacefulness and awkwardness.)

"Should we go after him?" Kakashi said in a tone that suggested he wasn't thrilled about having to bail his student out from confinement in his own home village.

Sakura hummed. "Not yet. If he needs help, he'll–”

"There he comes."

"Nevermind."

Naruto walked straight out of the village gates instead of sneaking out the way he'd sneaked in. Sasuke decided to take this as a good sign and assume that there was no danger of any of his team being captured for a forceful Hokage inauguration.

Naruto looked rather pale for someone no longer in danger of a compulsory leadership position.

"Um," he started once he was slightly closer than yelling distance. "So. Here's the thing."

“What.”

"Who is Hokage?"

Sakura gaped at Naruto in incredulity. Kakashi cast a wistful gaze to the skies as though contemplating his life and all the choices that had led him here.

"How could this have happened?"

"Oh Sage." Sakura's face paled in a look of horrified realization. "It makes sense."

"What? How does this make sense?"

"Think about it. Sarutobi was Konoha's third Hokage. Whose student was he?"

Naruto stared at her. "What does this have to do with–”

"Tobirama's," Kakashi interrupted. "The second Hokage."

"And who took over after Sarutobi?"

"... My dad."

"Exactly," Sakura said. "Tobirama taught Sarutobi and he became Hokage. Sarutobi taught Jiraiya, who taught your dad and he became Hokage. So, who's the last loyal Konoha nin who was taught by one of Sarutobi's students and is also currently in Konoha?"

There was a pregnant silence.

"But!" Naruto sputtered. "But it's Anko! Since when has she had any motivation to become Hokage?"

"And who's supposed to take over after her?" Sakura asked. "The teacher-student line ends with her."

"Right," Naruto said. "About that."

Neji wore a lavender tunic that complemented Anko's hair color and had developed a liking for poisonous kunai and senbon. He followed in Anko's footsteps as though memorizing her every movement, up to and including the confident stride in which she walked.

"Shouldn't she be wearing the Hokage robes?" Sasuke asked, noting her casual (and far more practical) clothing.

"She should be sitting in the Hokage's office, too," Sakura murmured.

Sasuke found it likely that nobody had had the courage to point out these details to Anko. Her way of running the village seemed a far more hands-on, direct method than pushing around paper work in a dusty office all day.

While a shinobi did his utmost best of informing Anko of the danger the former Root shinobi were to the rest of the village, Anko was thoroughly engulfed in sharpening her kunai.

"It has become quite clear that the Root shinobi are responsible for–”

Shrrrnk.

"For... For a wide variety of..."

Shrrrnk.

"They're making the villagers nervous with their–”

Anko examined her weapon and gave it a slow, appraising lick.

The shinobi swallowed. "... I-I..."

"I haven't received reports of villagers being harmed by former Root operatives," Anko said. "Has something changed?"

"I– No, but–”

Her head perked up cheerfully. "Great! You have my utmost gratitude for delivering the good news."

"But–”

"That is what you were here for. Right?" Anko's smile widened. "Otherwise your visit would have been quite pointless. You weren't wasting my time, were you?"

The shinobi paled. "N-No. Of course not."

Anko held her smile. "'Of course not'... what?"

He blinked at her, uncomprehending. Neji stepped forward with narrowed eyes, one hand resting on the handle of his blade.

The shinobi's eyes widened. "O-Of course– Of course not, Hokage-sama!"

"There we go." Anko leaned back carelessly, the anticipation bleeding out of her frame. "Now scram."

She didn’t need to ask twice.

Kakashi took the opportunity to step forward and draw attention to their presence. "Anko. I see you've been... enjoying yourself."

"Kakashi." Anko's gaze slid past Kakashi to settle on Sasuke and his teammates. She grinned. "I guess I've got you to thank for it."

Next to him, Naruto winced. Seeing as they'd played part in scaring off other potential Hokage candidates, Sasuke was willing to shoulder some of the blame – although he was definitely more innocent than his ridiculous team. Served them right.

"So. Hokage, huh?" Naruto’s eyes swayed over to Neji. "Neji. Congrats! I heard you were–”

"Anko-sensei's apprentice." Neji brushed a non-existent wrinkle out of his robes. A storage scroll dangled from his belt, rustling with untold contents.

"How does that work, anyway? I thought you were Gai's student?"

Anko shrugged. "We're sharing."

"Wait," Naruto said, "you can do that?"

"And your clan is alright with it?" Sakura asked.

"What are they gonna do?” Anko said. “Take it on with the village leader?"

Anko looked rather smug. It made Sasuke wonder how many poor, clueless Hyūga clan members had tried to put a stop to Neji's extended apprenticeship before giving up and bowing to Anko's whims.

“Hokage-sama.” A messenger materialized at a respectful distance. "You're scheduled to give a speech to the current graduation class." He glanced at Team 7. "However, I can see that you have company. If you prefer, I could send for a stand-in–”

"No need." Anko smiled sweetly. "I've been looking forward to blowing something up. It's been far too quiet lately."

The messenger closed his eyes, his hope snuffed out like a barely lit ember.

Team 7 watched her go in various shades of disbelief, resignation and sober acceptance.

"What have we done," Kakashi muttered, looking after Anko with thinly veiled horror.

Naruto winced guiltily. "Look on the bright side. We're safe – there's no way she's gonna give up the hat anytime soon."

They all turned back to the rapidly shrinking form of Konoha's fifth Hokage. Naruto didn't manage to suppress a shudder.

Chapter Text

Sasuke Uchiha was going insane. It was a slow, gradual process that might have gone over his head had it not been for the realization that his life looked nothing like he'd imagined it only a few short years ago.

If his younger self could see him now, he would likely despair at Sasuke's lack of desire to pursue any of the goals that had dictated his life as a vengeful, lonely 12-year-old.

"Thanks for your help, Sasuke!" Heiji – head nurse of Konoha's largest hospital – spotted him while passing the entrance hall. "Same time tomorrow?"

Sasuke gave her a curt nod, cleaning his hands with disinfectant and rubbing them dry.

He'd begun helping out at the hospital so he wouldn’t get rusty during the longer periods they spent in the village. Taking care of his teammates’ sparring injuries had stopped being exciting pretty quickly, and the hospital needed all the help it could get.

With Tsunade spending every other weekend or so in the village (about as much time as she could currently handle – she'd begun working her way up) Sasuke appreciated the additional practice.

His past self wouldn’t have understood. But what had he known?

Sasuke narrowly avoided bumping into Kabuto just as he reached the exit. He paused while Kabuto straightened up and adjusted his glasses.

"Anything new?" Kabuto asked, recovering quickly.

"A mission gone south," Sasuke said, "two injured. Several stab wounds, no major blood loss. A civilian kid fell off a tree and has a concussion. Tanaka-san is doing better. Took her first steps through the hallway."

Kabuto gave a slow nod.

He'd improved in leaps and bounds since returning to Konoha. While his medical skills had been brilliant from the start, his work at the hospital was meant to hone his people skills and his empathy.

"Thank you," Kabuto said, and he walked past Sasuke to the nearest disinfectant dispenser.

Sasuke picked up his pace and stepped through the glass doors.

Sai came towards him after only a few minutes of walking, stuffing his paintbrush into his pocket. The smile he gave Sasuke was just a note too bright and bordered on manic. It was a vast improvement to his former, brittle fake-smiles.

"We've just finished another block," Sai told him. He closed his eyes and his smile looked immensely more genuine.

Sasuke gave a nod of acknowledgement. He moved in the direction Sai had come from and paused only long enough to give Sai a questioning look. "Are you coming?"

"No thank you." Sai's expression never lost its cheerful spark. "Yamato-sensei has requested assistance in his efforts to rehabilitate Orochimaru-san."

Sasuke's mood sobered. "Be careful," he said, and he silently vowed to supervise a session or two. Just in case.

The Uchiha district looked nothing like it had merely a few weeks ago. Formerly bleak, run-down buildings now sported facades in bright, cheerful colors. Elaborate paintings, patterns and silly doodles decorated the streets, stemming from everybody who'd felt like contributing. After a subtle nudge from Yamato, many of the Root kids had enthusiastically participated. Sai had taken the lead.

It was only right, considering many of them now lived in the buildings they helped restore.

"Sasuke-san!" One of the kids – Yasuo – spotted Sasuke on his way through the streets. He lived a few houses next to Sasuke’s and had taken to their goal of polishing up the Uchiha district with unprecedented enthusiasm. "What do you think?"

Sasuke took a look at the brick wall Yasuo was painting. "It's very bright."

"Thank you." Yasuo nodded and dragged his paint brush over a yet blank piece of wall. He took care to paint around a messy doodle of some kind of animal.

Yasuo followed Sasuke’s gaze and frowned. "It's pretty." He held his paintbrush as though he intended to use it against Sasuke should he try to paint over the picture.

It was definitely Arisa’s. She was the youngest, and hadn't even completed her graduation before being freed from Danzō.

"It is," Sasuke agreed.

Yasuo – mollified – continued his work.

Sasuke hadn't lived in the Uchiha district for a long time. It hadn't felt like home since the massacre, and he hadn't stopped having nightmares about it until he'd moved out altogether.

Having neighbors again was weird. In a good way. Sasuke started to spend more time here, now that it was no longer a ghost town. With every drop of paint they added it looked less like the stage of his nightmares, and with every day that passed he made memories besides those from that day.

Sasuke had never imagined walking through these streets without a brick settling in his stomach. He felt the tingly flutter of butterflies instead, and he decided that it was the best sensation he'd felt in a long time.

Sasuke wondered what Itachi would say. He was looking forward to the next time his brother visited.

Sasuke made another detour on his way to meet his teammates, and he passed the village gates in time to spot Jiraiya, Kakashi and Yamato seeing off Nagato and Konan. They'd made their visits to the village a regular – though not extensive – habit.

Nagato gave Sasuke a nod of greeting. Sasuke returned it.

Kakashi's expression always became strained when Jiraiya's old students came to visit. "Hey, Sasuke."

Sasuke hummed in acknowledgement. "Anything new?"

Kakashi's expression faltered. He steeled himself a split second later, but Sasuke had already seen it. "No. He was last seen in Taki, but... well. At least he hasn't been hurting anyone."

They managed to keep an eye on Obito thanks to their extensive network of contacts beyond Konoha. So far he hadn't visited once: he hadn't taken the offer to return and get help in making himself a better person. He hadn't yet fallen back into nefarious, world-ending schemes either, so they still counted his development as a win.

Sasuke reached out and faltered briefly, but he muscled through and put a hand on Kakashi's shoulder.

Kakashi's eye creased in a smile. "I know. Thank you, Sasuke."

"He may just need time," Yamato added, looking after the two Ame nin. He bumped Kakashi's shoulder in a quiet gesture of support.

They watched after Nagato and Konan until they disappeared from sight.

Once they did, Yamato let out a sigh. “Sorry, but I need to go."

Kakashi laid a hand on his arm to halt him in his tracks. "Will you be alright?"

If Yamato was on his way to rehabilitate yet another (former) maniac, Sasuke understood Kakashi's reservations.

"I'll be fine. Don't worry, I thought this through."

"Are you sure?" Kakashi insisted. "This isn't just another apprentice."

Yamato hesitated. "I didn't plan on becoming a teacher at all," he said eventually, each word chosen carefully. "But... after I started... after Sai..." He paused. "It was the best decision I've made in my life."

Actually it had been Sasuke's teammates who'd made the decision for him. Yamato seemed like he was on a roll, so Sasuke didn't mention it.

"Now, after all this time… After Root..." He trailed off and paused. "I love teaching them far more than I’ve loved anything I ever did as an ANBU. I know what I'm doing."

"Even if it's Orochimaru?" Kakashi asked softly.

Yamato paused. "Even then. I'm ready to– I can let go of what happened. Not for him, but... for me." His eyes flickered to the ground. "This is right. This feels right. And... I wouldn't want to be doing anything else."

Kakashi’s features relaxed. "Take care."

He made no other attempts to change Yamato's mind. They saw him off on his way to redeem Konoha's most notorious mad scientist, and Sasuke wondered whether somebody had started a betting pool about how long it was going to take him this time.

Sasuke and Kakashi started walking through the village together, and Sasuke tried getting used to how different things had become. Villagers greeted them on the streets rather than trying to arrest them – fellow rookies and Kakashi's jōnin friends and people Sasuke had barely exchanged a word with before.

The village was prospering. It had been for a while.

They found Sakura frantically healing her various wounds and bruises.

Dents were hammered into the ground around her and broken trees framed the ruined training ground. Whoever had agreed to be her opponent for the day was already gone. Hopefully battered but in one piece, rather than on their way to the morgue.

"S-Sasuke! Kakashi-sensei!" Sakura's head snapped up. She pulled her lips into an inconspicuous smile that did little to cover up the bruises covering her body. "You're early. I didn't think you'd– Hey!"

Sasuke had already dropped down next to her, scowling.

"It's not as bad as it looks! I'm fine.”

Sasuke's scowl deepened. He swatted her hands away impatiently and wrapped his own into healing chakra. "Stay still."

"I'm fine, Sasuke."

Kakashi threw her a look. "You have a bruise the size of your fist on your temple."

"I do? Ouch! Careful."

Sasuke was not being careful. He put his hand on Sakura's temple a lot more harshly than necessary – just in case she needed the reminder that she only had herself to blame.

"Who were you fighting?" Kakashi eyed the uprooted trees and the deep furrows in the ground. "You could have gone into the forest."

"It wasn't my fault!" Sakura sniffed and turned her head away.

Sasuke grabbed her chin and snatched it back into place.

"Ow! Hey!"

"No concussion," Sasuke said, ignoring Sakura's protests. "You're lucky."

Sakura grumbled under her breath but held still. "Zabuza doesn't even punch that hard."

Kakashi heaved a sigh. "Let's not keep Naruto waiting."

Sakura rose with a huff and interrupted Sasuke's healing. Sasuke climbed to his feet next to her, trying not to be annoyed. If Sakura wanted to walk around with a gigantic bruise on the side of her head that was fine with him.

"Don’t think this means you'll have an easy time sparring,” Sakura said.

As if Sasuke had ever doubted it. Sakura couldn't have a friendly match of flip-the-kunai without turning it into a heated competition that ended friendships and left entire villages in shambles.

Naruto sat cross-legged on a stone wall close to the marketplace, chatting happily with two of her fellow jinchūriki. Fū’s wings were visible and fluttered excitedly as though she physically couldn't hold still. Gaara had made himself comfortable on a cloud of sand rather than the stone wall.

"– and it's not like I knew it was gonna do that. Seals are super unpredictable. I made it up on the fly, I couldn't exactly tell them to take a break while I tested it."

Fū snickered, unsympathetic about the fate of a bunch of bounty hunters who'd failed to take Naruto's rank in the bingo book seriously. "Did you turn them in afterwards?"

"Course I did." Naruto said. "They were gonna turn me in. I just returned the favor."

"They were foolish." Gaara's lips twitched. "Perhaps they will learn from their lesson."

Sasuke paused only a few steps away from them. Naruto looked well. She looked happy and at ease, chatting with friends who would have once been scorned by the very village now hosting them.

She looked like she was home.

Sasuke identified the warmth in his chest and decided that he felt like he was home, too.

"Woah. What happened to you?" Naruto slid off the wall and skipped to a halt in front of them. She whistled, leaning forward to examine Sakura's bruised temple. "Nice one."

"Should've seen the other guy," Sakura said, swatting at Naruto to shoo her out of her personal space.

"Are you here with your siblings, Gaara?" Kakashi asked.

"Not today." Gaara shifted his cloud to include Kakashi and Sasuke in their circle. "They're in Iwa for a diplomatic meeting. We hope to rebuild old trade relations."

"You didn't want to go with them?"

"Temari insisted."

They spent some time chatting and catching up. Konoha welcomed visitors able to inform them on what was happening in the other villages. The villagers had gotten used to their guests.

Sasuke let his teammates' and his friends' voices wash over him, content to simply live in the moment and relax.

Some of the other rookies passed by them while they talked. Akamaru had reached the size of a young bear and dragged a cursing Kiba through the village, chasing some sort of rodent. Team 10 exited the restaurant across the street, too engulfed in a heated discussion to pay them any mind.

It had taken Sasuke a long time to realize that other people – and later, people other than his team – mattered. He'd started going along with his teammates' whims, but he hadn't actually cared until much later. Now, he found himself genuinely invested in getting to know them better.

The Hyūga cousins strolled by not far from them, Hinata chatting happily at Neji's side. Neji didn't seem to be talking much, but he looked content. His eyes twitched upwards to meet Sasuke's gaze, and they shared a nod.

"Feels weird," Sakura said, following Sasuke's eyes, "knowing someone our age is gonna be the next Hokage. You know," she glanced at Naruto, "someone other than you."

"Anko only just took the hat," Naruto said. "She's not gonna give it up so soon."

"Still. She's clearly grooming him to take over."

Anko kept Neji occupied, but he still found the time to work on reforming his clan. He had Hinata's support, the rookies' and many others’, and while a large chunk of the Hyūga clan fought tooth and nail against the changes, there was only so much they could do with the Hokage herself in his corner.

More people filled the streets as the sun rose higher. The scent of spices and roasted garlic drifted over as street vendors and small food stalls prepared for lunchtime.

It wasn't only the people who had changed. The market had grown as more people added their stalls: skewers of roasted fish that were common in Water Country, fried cakes from Lightning Country, jewelry, intricate works of glass, foreign crafts and much more.

While Sasuke and his team had learned throughout their travels, picked up new things and changed, so had Konoha.

Gaara and Fū excused themselves eventually. Team 7 took it as their cue to be on their way as well.

"You promised you'd help me tidy up my apartment," Kakashi reminded them.

Naruto slipped off of the stonewall and stretched. "We weren't even gone that long. I can't believe how much stuff has piled up."

"You mean how much junk."

"Excuse you. They're souvenirs, Sasuke. Treasured and precious memories that we will look back on fondly in a few years."

"If we can even step foot in the apartment by then," Kakashi muttered.

Sasuke, Sakura and Naruto's places weren't faring much better. They no longer lived separately as much as they circled through each of their apartments as a unit. It was difficult to go back to living alone after such a long time traveling together – and if Sasuke was being honest with himself, he didn't particularly see the appeal in trying.

Naruto let out a sigh and put her arms behind her head, a smile playing around her lips. "I wish we'd known we could have had this the first time around." She looked around fondly, referring to nothing in particular. Her team, the village. Everything.

Sakura hummed in contentment. Kakashi's eye creased in a smile. Purely out of habit, Sasuke almost let the comment slide like all the other times before it.

This time, out of a whim, he didn't. "What do you mean, ‘the first time around’?"

Naruto froze. She and Sakura shared a glance. Something seemed to pass between them, and Kakashi gave her a nudge from the side, tilting his head in a nod.

"You know what? You’re right." Naruto said. "Sasuke. There's something we need to tell you."

Sasuke listened to a story of time travel, another world and different choices, and he came to a realization.

Sasuke's teammates were insane. And surprisingly, he was okay with that.