Work Text:
I want to get there on time
even if it's already over
-Jercy Ficowski
This is supposed to be the beginning. A new dawn, a fresh slate.
Naruto’s two fingers are wrapped in the tight grip of his slick palm. Sasuke’s still lightheaded from the blood loss and the strange emotional outpouring they shared in that world between consciousness and unconsciousness, but he forces himself to focus on the moment, on the heat from Naruto’s hand that anchors him here. The Rat seal.
The Infinite Tsukuyomi will break, he will return to Konoha, Naruto will be Hokage.
Before all that, they have to deal with this. Something is lodged in his heart, rattling with every measured breath. He cannot go back from the dawning of the truth that was Naruto’s memories, shedding unforgiving light onto his own repressed emotions. Sasuke breathes in a lungful air, and the end of the old world smells like charred earth and sharp iron.
Nothing happens.
Naruto fidgets.
Kakashi clears his throat loudly behind the both of them.
“What’s happening…?” Sakura asks, her voice wavering slightly.
“Absolutely nothing,” Kakashi replies, too cheerfully. “This is a problem.”
“Sasuke, your grip’s too tight! It’s probably affecting the seal.” Naruto shouts, turning to him. Sasuke turns his head to meet whirlpool blue eyes, soft yet bright all at once, even in the state of sheer exhaustion they’re all in. The world can be reduced into this one, brilliant colour. The discomfort rises in his chest like a tide.
In response, Sasuke squeezes back even tighter.
Still, nothing happens.
The monstrous trunks that have broken through the earth stand as resolute as the thousands of cocoons hang motionlessly in the quiet sky. He will not be going back, yet. There is no Konoha for Naruto and his big ideas and bright dreams.
Sasuke exhales and the emotions within him crack through and scatter, like leaves in a gust of wind. Trepidation, fear, something that feels awfully like relief. He has more time to sort through the emotions that threaten to swallow him whole, without adding another layer of complications that come with returning home and Konoha.
Every ending is a beginning. This, too, is a beginning.
Unexpectedly, Sakura does not cry. She settles herself down on the boulder they’re all on, curling her knees into her body, arms wrapped around herself, and stares out at the abyss.
Expectedly, Kakashi sticks his hands into his pockets, his posture softening into something painfully familiar, all soft and languid like they’re waiting to set off for a D-rank mission. “So, what’s next?”
“That’s what we should be asking you! Old Man Hagoromo said doing this would end the Infinite Tsukuyomi.”
“Why should I know what to do?”
“You’re an adult,” Naruto whines. “You’re our sensei .”
“This is beyond my job scope,” Kakashi replies. “Teaching cute Genin how to walk up trees, yes. Undoing a colossal genjutsu to reverse the fact we’re the only four people left in the world, no.”
“Shit,” Naruto says, face turning a shade paler, “we’re the only four people left in the world.”
“An astute observation,” Sasuke replies as he brings his right palm up to his face. Something below skin, something more elementary than chakra, hums with promise, power, certainty. “Let’s try all the other signs,” he says, before Naruto can fling back an insult.
“I was just going to suggest that,” Naruto says. He lifts up his left palm and moves towards Sasuke. They’ve lost the moon and sun etched onto their hands, but still they are drawn together like gravity; it is about oscillations and magnets and the inevitable power of nature. Not because of the power of the seals; their blood is already tainted by destiny.
Naruto has always been warmer than normal, and the sheer heat when skin meets skin makes Sasuke jolt. He hides it with a cough that sends pain shooting down his mangled left arm and side body. They go through each of the signs, seals slow and precise, each movement sending sparks down his spine and through his body. Pain and promise in equal parts sing in his veins.
Naruto , he thinks, and Naruto looks up into his eyes. No Sharingan, no Rinnegan, yet the sun gazes right back at him, as though he can hear his thoughts. Perhaps Naruto also realises it too, that they can’t be just friends.
And then Naruto smiles, all weightless and unburdened and Sasuke almost scoffs aloud. No, he does not get it. Cause you are my friend.
Around them, nothing happens, except the sky starts to darken around them and the wind picks up and the dream goes on.
Finally, Sakura places her hands on both their backs, pulling them back to the present. “Let’s continue tomorrow. We need to find shelter for the night, and I need to patch you guys up before you lose more blood or it gets infected. Especially you, Sasuke-kun.”
A few hours ago, he would have let his eyes slide over her gaze but now, now he has to try harder. He wants to. Sasuke nods, albeit curtly, and this simple action makes pale pink petals bloom across her cheeks. Cherry blossoms unfurling in Sakura. At the corner of his eye, he can see Naruto’s shoulder relax, as though the weight of the world isn’t on his shoulders anymore, and those lips curl itself into an easy smile.
This is the power he wields over the two people who would forgive him, over and over again; this is his power over two of the last people in the world.
“Over here,” a voice calls out, and they all turn to see Kakashi at a faraway edge, framed by the darkness of a cave mouth.
“Let’s go,” Naruto says easily, as though they’re only on the way to Ichiraku.
“Coming!” Sakura yells back. Her voice is steady and strong.
Sasuke is the first one who starts walking.
Together, they make their way down the boulder and into the unknown; four arms, three people, one team.
The cave is damp but it’s good enough for now.
The green chakra that Sakura pushes into whatever is left of his left arm is prickly, like tiny pinpricks of red hot needles. At very least, the bleeding has stopped but he notices that Sakura has her brows furrowed. In rapt concentration, worry at the fact they lack proper bandages and proper supplies, discomfort because it’s him and their proximity?
“Shouldn’t you be looking at Naruto too?”
Naruto is out with Kakashi, hunting for dinner. Sakura had tried to stop him, but he just waved goodbye to her with his stump.
“The Kyuubi chakra in him allows him to heal fast. I’m not worried about him—” Sasuke begins to nod. He’s the one they all have to worry about. “—physically,” she continues. A pause, and she stares at only one side of his face as though to calculate whether she should continue. Now, it’s her gaze who slides over his Rinnegan. Sasuke nods, again, and hopes it’s encouraging enough. Sakura sighs.
“Physically, he always pulls through. I know how to heal broken bones and mangled limbs. I can’t fix emotional wounds.”
“What’s wrong with him?”
She gives him a wry smile. “Panic attacks, enduring public ridicule, nightmares. You. No one suffered as much for it as Naruto.”
“I never asked him to,” he says automatically, defenses raised unconsciously, instantly. Something cold trickle drips down his spine, and it feels like a mixture of annoyance and regret.
“You know I love you. I’ll always love you, Sasuke-kun. It doesn’t mean I’m blind to your faults - if you hurt Naruto any more, I wouldn’t forgive you.” The green glow brightens as the light sears his eyes and tender skin for one brief blast.
The warning stuns him.
Noises drift in from the entrance. It’s Naruto announcing that there will be a feast tonight, but he’s not cooking the rabbits.
Sasuke stares at Sakura from behind his walled defences and takes in her incandescent eyes, her powerful hands, the weary curve of her shoulders. This is not the same girl he left behind at Konoha; she understands pain and loss and suffering now. Her gaze is harder, her words are sharper. Naruto isn’t the only one who has emotional wounds that have taken root and blossomed with rot within.
“It’s always easiest to hurt the ones who love us the most,” she adds quietly as her palms dim.
He has broken them down, again and again. Maybe building them back up and finally telling Naruto what he feels is just as important as saving the rest of the world.
Sasuke inhales quietly, rubbing what’s left of his left arm. “I know. Thank you.”
Sakura smiles at him, the warmth genuine and heartfelt. This is who he remembers from Konoha and he’s struck, selfishly, by the relief that there are still parts left in her that he recognises. The feeling doesn’t last.
“Sasuke-kun will cook,” she calls out, eyes sparkling, and Naruto, that bastard who has never changed, whoops.
At night, the sound that lulls him to relax is the steady drip dripping of water from the cave ceiling. Subterranean environments are familiar, almost comforting: the cool air, dripping water, flickering shadows. It’s what he’s known for longer than being in the presence of Naruto and Sakura and Kakashi with their deep exhalations and shifting bodies.
The three of them are huddled together nearer the opening of the cave where the moonlight pours in, while Sasuke’s spot is deeper inside, shrouded in thicker shadows.
Kakashi is turned to his left, eyes hidden by his hair, and Sasuke can see the pale glint of a kunai in his grip, while Sakura is on the right side, arm thrown over her head. Naruto is in the middle, on his back, mouth slightly open.
He’s making soft, disjointed sounds.
Sasuke pieces the noises together until he hears what Naruto is mumbling.
His heart thumps, because hidden in sleepy murmurs and broken in parts is his name. A ke, a sa , a su .
The world has never been this quiet, and Sasuke knows that no matter what happens in two weeks, five months, seven years; whether they are doomed to this dystopian world or ushered into Naruto’s idealistic utopia, that once the moon rises, this is what he will hear and remember.
By the time the weak rays of dawn break through the horizon, the name that Naruto breathes is finally whole and complete, and Sasuke knows as an absolute fact that he is irreconcilably in love with this idiot.
It is both a gift and a burden.
He’s practicing the signs for his fireball jutsu with one hand when Naruto ambles out of the cave.
“What are you doing?”
Sasuke puts what he’s been practicing to test and turns to Naruto, concentrating the chakra in his chest and pushing it out in one smooth exhale. It’s less a killing jutsu and more a weak flash of flame; a circus trick.
Naruto just looks at him with those sleepy, confused eyes.
“Sleep well?” Sasuke asks instead, letting his right hand collapse to his side.
“Yeah, unlike you,” he says, scanning Sasuke from head to toe. “You look like a zombie. Or a White Zetsu.”
Sasuke slides a kunai into his hand and flicks his wrist at Naruto. It whizzes over his head, taking a few strands of blonde hair with it as it zooms into the barren forest.
“Hey!”
“What do you want?”
“It’s too early in the morning to kill each other,” Kakashi says from inside the cave.
Sasuke stares at the levelled trunks of the trees, canopies blown clean off by their fight. The world is beautiful despite its destruction, in all this silence. No complicated emotions, no troubling ideologies, nothing but pure peace. Naruto shifts into place beside him, quiet for once.
“What are we going to do?” Sasuke asks finally.
“Kakashi-sensei says we’ll head deeper inland to find proper shelter. A house, or something. Sakura doesn’t think the damp is very good for your arm.”
“ Our arms.”
“Mine’s all healed up,” Naruto says, swinging his limb around and almost hitting Sasuke in the nose. To his credit, Naruto does not flinch once while Sasuke still feels the ache with every breath he takes.
“I’m not talking about what we’re doing later. I mean about all -- this.” This is the Infinite Tsukuyomi, but it also means many other things, like us, those feelings, the future. Sasuke glances at Naruto from the side of his eyes, and waits to see which one lands.
“Oh,” Naruto says. “The Infinite Tsukuyomi. Right. I can’t talk to Old Man Hagoromo any more. Can you use your Rinnegan to find him so we can talk?”
Sasuke shakes his head. “I’ve tried. Doesn’t work.”
“Maybe the seal only works if we do it at a specific time…?” Naruto takes Sasuke’s hand in his, a clumsy gesture that seems to come so effortlessly to him. Again, Sasuke’s breath catches and he covers it hastily with a cough.
“Are you okay? Maybe the cave really is too cold for you.”
“Shut up,” Sasuke says, his veneer solid against the turbulence that churns up uncomfortable emotions inside. “Don’t waste my time. Make the seals.”
They try, again. Naruto talks to fill up the silence as they cycle through the twelve seals, and Sasuke relaxes into the lilt of Naruto’s voice.
He does ask him one question, interrupting Naruto’s verbal train of thought about Team 10 and a dinner at Ichiraku.
“Did you have a dream last night?”
“Huh?”
“A dream. Were you dreaming?”
A pause, and Sasuke wonders if Naruto will actually catch on and that he’ll be able to make things slightly easier for him. Their hands are still pressed together, fingers intertwined in a Snake seal. The heat builds.
Naruto smiles. “Yeah, it was a good dream.”
Sasuke sucks in one more breath with their hands together, before taking his hand back to punch Naruto in his left shoulder.
“Idiot,” he breathes under Naruto’s indignant shouting, and he’s not sure whether he’s talking about Naruto or himself.
They leave the cave before midday. There’s nothing to pack up, no tracks to conceal.
Kakashi leads the way, and they walk and walk until they find themselves in a part of the forest that isn’t destroyed. A single house emerges into view, surrounded by a simple garden patch of wilting vegetables. Up close, the house is two-storeys of sturdy wood.
They enter reverently, and air is still.
The place is neat, and obviously lived in. A threadbare couch, well-worn furniture, several picture frames of a young boy with his mother: in the garden, at a riverbank. Civilians. Kakashi shifts the frames face down on the counter, his touch as light as butterfly wings.
There’s a living room, a small kitchen with a table for four, and one bathroom. They make their way upstairs, floor creaking. There are two quaint bedrooms, one with pink bedspreads while the other has beige covers with carefully patched-up holes. Both are single beds.
“This will be mine,” Kakashi points to the one on the left. “The other one is Sakura’s.”
A brief pause stretches between them. And then, at the same time:
“I’m not sleeping on the floor!”
“I am not sharing a sleeping space with Naruto.”
“Don’t be silly, Naruto,” Kakashi says. “There’s a couch in the living room, so you won’t always be sleeping on the floor.”
“I’ll look for a bigger house,” Sasuke says, turning to walk down the stairs.
“No,” Kakashi replies and Sasuke stops. “We shouldn’t stray too far from the epicentre.”
“I don’t have to listen to you.”
“You don’t,” Kakashi agrees easily. The ‘But’ is silent and the loudest thing in the room. Sasuke can feel Naruto and Sakura’s eyes on him, the tension building in the air like storm clouds. Naruto’s steady gaze from one side like rain, Sakura’s sharp one on the other, like lightning.
I can build them up as easily as I break them down.
He turns back around to face Naruto. “The couch is mine.”
Kakashi’s eye curls down into a half moon.
One month into the end of the world is not quite what Sasuke expects.
In the mornings, he takes walks around the perimeter. He traverses down to the epicentre, he visits the fallen statues at the Valley of the End. The large pieces of rubble are still stained with their blood, while some are so small they fit neatly in his palm. He shifts through the rubble, looking for answers that aren’t there to find.
By afternoon, he and Kakashi go in well-worn circles around his Rinnegan and whether they’re missing something instrumental that will help release the Infinite Tsukuyomi. After that, he has his only hand in Naruto’s grip, going over the seals again and again.
In the evenings before dinner, Sakura sits Sasuke down to check on his arm while Naruto sits across them at the dining room table, both of them practicing their single-handed seals. Today, he watches Naruto concentrate with a focus and intensity that surprises him.
“What?” Naruto asks and Sasuke turns away.
Kakashi is rereading Makeout Paradise on the couch.
Sasuke makes a sound at the back of this throat. “I didn’t know you had it in you to focus on a single thing for so long.”
“You bastard,” Naruto replies, aiming a kick at his shin from under the table. He misses. “I got you to come around, didn’t I?”
Sakura chuckles. Sasuke tries to glare at both Sakura and Naruto at the same time, with much difficulty.
After a dinner of fish, a small bowl of rice each, and random vegetables from the garden, eaten with the easy comfort of a proper family meal he hasn’t experienced since he was seven years old, Kakashi and Sakura retire upstairs to their enviable shrines of peace and quiet.
It’s Naruto’s turn on the couch today, which he has spread himself on, taking as much room as possible. Sasuke is sitting on the floor, on a thin futon they found in the closet of Sakura’s room, staring out the window. Every night he makes it a point to check that the moon is still unblemished.
“Do you have nightmares?”
Sasuke stills.
Naruto has his arms behind his head, and he stares at the ceiling.
“No,” Sasuke says measuredly. “Why?”
Naruto turns to look at him, eyes aglow in the darkened room. “You don’t sleep at night.”
Ah, so Naruto has noticed. Since his stint at Orochimaru’s hideout, he had trained himself to go by with as little sleep as possible. There were too many uncertainties around, and too many horror-laced dreams within. His formula is perfect now: three hours is enough to keep him going indefinitely. Sasuke can deny it, or he can open his mouth and let the truth and all his feelings spill out. He decides for the middle ground and shrugs instead.
Naruto continues to speak to the ceiling. “If you need someone awake while you sleep, just tell me.”
“I won’t take you from your beauty sleep, dobe.”
“It’s okay to ask for help.”
Sasuke’s eyes narrow. “I don’t need your help. I don’t need your help with anything except to break this genjutsu.”
“And then what?”
Sasuke shrugs. “Don’t think so much, you might hurt yourself. We have bigger things to fix here. We don’t even know if we can even break the Infinite Tsukuyomi.”
“It’s just a matter of time,” Naruto says resolutely.
Sasuke pointedly ignores the first part of his sentence. “How are you still so optimistic? It’s been weeks, and nothing we have tried has worked.”
This time, Naruto curls onto this side so that he’s staring right into Sasuke’s eyes. His blonde hair is a soft, fluffy mess. “It could be worse,” he says brightly. “But I’m stuck here with you and Kakashi-sensei and Sakura-chan. Team 7 is back together - what else can I ask for?”
Naruto is so close that Sasuke can see the dark flecks in his blue eyes, eyelashes paler than he expected, and those strange, dark markings across his cheeks. It’s frustrating how beautiful he looks, even as the world hangs in stasis. All Sasuke needs is to lift up his right hand to touch Naruto’s face; all he needs is to open his mouth and for that one effortless question to emerge, again, What exactly do I mean to you?
The strange thing is that Naruto stares back just as wordlessly. He seems perfectly content waiting for Sasuke to make the first move, whenever that is, whatever he chooses to do.
Sasuke licks his lips and watches as Naruto’s eyes widen slightly. Heat pools and spreads within him, from his stomach to the tips of his fingers. “Okay,” he says finally.
“...Okay?”
“You can stay up and watch me until I sleep.”
He smirks as Naruto grabs the small pillow by his side to try to hit Sasuke with it. He blocks it easily with his forearm.
“Bastard,” Naruto says, chucking the pillow at his head. “I never go back on my word, so you better fall asleep fast!”
The heat lingers long after, and stays after he pretends to fall asleep, after Naruto’s breathing evens out after the darkest moments of the night, after Sasuke blinks his eyes open and watches the light of the moon paint streaks across Naruto’s face and shoulders.
Something with wings is going crazy inside his chest, pressing up against his heart. Damn this Naruto.
Two months into the end of the world, Naruto teaches him how to identify the different frogs they come across in the forest, when they are out hunting together.
As more weeks melt away, Sakura gives each of them a tiny section of soil in the small garden: Kakashi turns his into a composting section, which is just a fancier name for a dumping ground of food scraps, Sasuke tends to inedible plants because they don’t have tomato seeds, and Sakura grows the vegetables they harvest for the dinner table, vegetables that creep into Naruto’s own thriving plot.
After three and a half months of zero progress, Kakashi schools them on the finer techniques of taijutsu, like how to use the fist from palm; little tips he learnt under ANBU. It feels a lot like being Genin again.
Four months into making up for lost time, Sasuke tells them stories. They’re never about Orochimaru or Kabuto, but he tells them about Jugo and Suigetsu and Karin. It’s a tiny way of absolving his sins by practicing how to open up to the people who have gone to the ends of the world for him, but more importantly, it’s about getting used to how emotions can crystallise themselves into words that make Kakashi look away from his book and Sakura laugh and Naruto call him a big fat liar.
As he opens up, bit by bit, he can feel the air shift in the house, settling into something that feels like a home.
In between everything, Naruto never fails to take his hand at random intervals throughout the day, entwining their fingers to form different seals. Nothing changes for the world, but for Sasuke, everything is changing.
When Sasuke can’t sleep, he makes his way up the roof.
Tonight Kakashi is there first, crouched comfortably with his face turned to the moon.
He sits down slowly, quietly, and for a long time, no one speaks. Sasuke closes his eyes and feels the tender breeze against his skin. There’s a sweetness in the air; rain will come soon.
“Goodnight, Sasuke.”
Sasuke nods, eyes still closed. Footsteps shift against the rough surface of the roof, and Sasuke asks, before it’s too late: “What do you think we’re doing wrong?”
The footsteps don’t stall or still. “Honestly? I don’t know.”
Sasuke opens his eyes and turns to narrow them at Kakashi. “That’s very helpful.”
“I think you do, though. Just a funny feeling I have,” he adds.
Naruto is asleep on the couch, his hand dangling much too close to Sasuke’s face.
Sasuke holds him by the wrist, set on flinging his hand back up onto the couch, but at the very last moment, he inches his fingers between Naruto’s own. His skin burns up against his own lukewarm hand.
This is not a seal.
Naruto doesn’t stir.
His Sharingan activates easily and it is a safe, tiny red moon in the room - this is something he wants to keep forged in memory.
It becomes some sort of creepy nighttime habit.
The silver light of the moon, the radiance of his spinning eye, the weight of Naruto’s hand in his.
This time, Naruto stirs. “Sasuke?”
Sasuke takes a deep breath as he supresses his Sharingan. It’s been half a year and the genjutsu could break at any time according to Naruto; might as well tackle things head on now before everyone is dragged back to consciousness and he’s thrown into prison or shackled to a chair in Konoha. This thought only scares him half as much as what will come from his mouth, dragged from the heart and spoken into existence. “What exactly does this mean to you?”
“W-What?” he says groggily.
“Friends. Friendship. What does it mean?” His voice is hoarser than he expects.
“You’re asking me again? I already told you back then, and I still don’t really understand it or how to explain it--”
“I think I know what you mean.”
Naruto’s gaze solidifies into a question. The sleep is burning away from his eyes, like morning mist under the rays of a rising sun.
Sasuke licks his dry lips, tongue thick in his mouth. Naruto’s eyes are transfixed on his. “I’m in love with you, you idiot—”
Naruto’s mouth falls open into a perfect, uncouth circle.
“—is what you meant to tell me after our fight.”
“Wait,” Naruto says. He takes his hand back, slides down onto Sasuke’s futon, and slaps his palm hard against his cheek. A sharp crack ricochets around them.
“Naruto, what the f-- ”
“Now I’m awake. You woke me up to tell me that I am in love with you?”
“Yes.”
“Sasuke,” he half-yells, “ what the fu-- ”
This is the part he’s been practicing for; the moment where everything leads to. “Because I’m in love with you.”
Naruto splutters as he swallows the rest of his words.
They both turn to the window at the same time, and the moon that hangs in the sky is still silver and beautiful and completely ordinary. Wordlessly, Naruto reaches for Sasuke. He slips his fingers through his, and he leads them methodically through the twelve seals.
“Nar—”
Naruto turns his head to look at him, face uncharacteristically expressionless in the bright moonlight. Time ticks onwards, steady and unrelenting, but in this moment, nothing matters, not when they are the only two people awake in the world. For a second, Sasuke’s stomach falls: maybe his perception is off this time. The Sharingan is extraordinary, but his eyes are not perfect. It’s not impossible for Naruto to really just think of him as a friend; that he’ll do all this for Shikamaru or Gaara too.
“When?”
“Since we almost killed each other. Since I let you live all those times we fought. Since Haku .”
Naruto exhales and it comes out almost like a whimper.
Sasuke can’t help himself, despite the way his heart is powdering in his chest. Naruto looks so lost and confused it’s almost pitiful. He smirks. “You don’t have to kill yourself trying to find a way to respond, Naruto.”
I’m just a friend. Destiny is constantly changing. I was the only one in love, after all.
“Shut up,” Naruto growls as he lunges at him. Their mouths meet gracelessly, nose bumping, teeth catching, heat razing through Sasuke’s entire body. More heat explodes at the pit of his stomach when he parts his lips to taste Naruto - the warmth and sheer pleasure is cleansing. Adrenaline floods his body; even defeating Kaguya wasn’t as satisfying.
The sheer simplicity of this makes Sasuke lightheaded. People kiss all the time. People who are not burdened with the fate of the world or have the strings of destiny wound up around their bones. The feeling must be mutual, because Naruto moans into his mouth as Sasuke deepens the kiss.
“You’re wrong,” Naruto breathes as he draws back, his expression equal parts bashful and miffed. “But not about what you said at the start, you bastard. I’ve always loved you. Before Haku, before Team 7. I-I didn’t know how to tell you in case you put a chidori through my chest or freak out and leave again.”
“I put the chidori through your chest, not the heart, because I loved you.”
Naruto pulls him in to keep him from saying any more and it works much better than Naruto’s usual threats. Sasuke comes undone in ragged breaths under Naruto’s lips, and it’s only fitting after everything he’s put Naruto through. As they kiss, Sasuke tightens his grip over Naruto’s fingers and just like that, everything changes. A deafening roar grows around them, rumbling closer as they break apart, panting.
Kakashi and Sakura rush down the stairs, staring at the both of them and their intertwined fingers. The Rat seal.
Outside, the ground continues quaking and Sasuke feels it all the way in his chest.
“It’s broken,” Sakura says, rushing over to the window, wonderment bleeding into her voice. “The trees are releasing the pods!”
“You guys finally figured it out, huh,” Kakashi says. Sasuke doesn’t like the smug undertone in his words.
“Wait,” Naruto says, still dazed. “I don’t get it. But this is great.”
“Usuratonkachi,” Sasuke whispers as the new world slips into place, Naruto’s hand in his and Naruto’s smile on him.