Chapter Text
Jiraiya is such a pervert, wrote Sakura to Ino. I'm convinced that he only suggested training me so he could get me to gather material for his stupid books.
Well it certainly wasn't for your looks, Forehead, Ino wrote back. It seems to be working, though. That last short story about the bathhouse was much more believable. Tenten and I only burst out laughing at half the lines.
Leering looks and awkward conversations aside, Sakura liked training under Jiraiya. Even if he only offered out of pity, she relished finally having a teacher who actually taught her, demonstrating jutsus that would take advantage of her chakra control, offering tips on fighting styles to compensate for her weaknesses, and telling her stories of the world outside Konoha for her mind to piece together the developing political situation.
She knew it was far, far better than being the afterthought on Team Seven, but sometimes she thinks she'd trade it all for those early days when they were all together.
--
Sasuke's still not sure what happened. He and Naruto had fought at the Valley of the End until he was fairly sure neither of them should have survived. He thinks he won, since he had a vague recollection of standing over Naruto's unbreathing body, but he also thinks he saw Naruto and Kabuto walking away together, and those ought to have been mutually exclusive.
His first clear memory was waking up in the hospital in Konoha a week after he had left it. Sasuke kind of wishes he hadn't woken up, because he spent the next couple of days stuck in bed, being chewed out by what had to have been half the village.
Recovering didn't help, since he ended up restricted from leaving the village and running errands for Tsunade. At first, he thought that she was punishing him or perhaps keeping an eye on him so he wouldn't bolt, but eventually he decided that she was just lazy and knew he had nothing better to do.
He hated Tsunade for making him her personal gopher, hated Sakura for leaving and growing stronger, hated Naruto for disappearing, and most of all, hated that whenever he asked about Naruto, he was told that it was above his clearance level.
Shizune, Tsunade's other lackey, told him to stop moping. He ignored her. But when he saw Tsunade perform miracle after miracle, he thought that maybe he was in the presence of real power, and if he swallowed his pride, no one would ever die in front of him again.
--
Naruto was sure he followed Orochimaru for the right reasons. It was Sasuke or him, and protecting his precious people was part of his ninja way. However, he was also pretty sure that he was staying for the wrong reasons. The snake had promised him his heart's desires, and when Naruto had scoffed, Orochimaru dropped the point.
Naruto was happy in Sound, and that was the problem. He liked being in a village that treated him like a human being, who didn't think of him as a demon spawn (and he thought that even if they knew his secret, they wouldn't care too much). Most of them didn't like him, but he liked almost all of them, and it was hard to think of them as enemy shinobi when he saw them struggling for acknowledgment or a place just as he had.
He avoided missions that took him to Fire Country because he didn't know what he'd have done if his old friends asked him to come back.