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Chapter Text

“Maybe he has lips like cod roe…cod roe...cod roe…”  

“Or maybe he has…buckteeth?”

Buckteeth

Buckteeth

Buckteeth

Naruto’s voice echoed unpleasantly, that self-satisfied smirk burned behind Sasuke’s eyelids, almost as badly as the image of his teacher with two giant, fleshy red lips or oversized teeth like a beaver’s—

“He doesn’t have giant lips,” Sasuke told himself through gritted teeth. It was almost four o’clock in the morning, and as tired as he was, his mind wouldn’t stop racing. “He doesn’t have giant lips.”

“How do you know?” countered Naruto’s voice, Naruto’s very, very annoying voice which should not have been filling his head at any time, let alone this late at night. Should he go for a run? Commit to one hundred pushups and exhaust himself into not thinking about lips or buckteeth, by Kami.

“We would be able to see the outline of them behind the mask,” mumbled Sasuke to no one. “I can see the outline of his nose and mouth. He has a totally normal nose and mouth.”

“Kakashi-sensei is smart,” Sakura’s voice joined the fray, and Sasuke groaned, shoving his face into his pillow. “What if his mask uses some sort of disguise jutsu?”

His sleep had been completely fucked up since leaving the hospital. Since being woken up from the torture-induced coma, Sasuke felt tired all of the time, but it was like his body wouldn’t allow it. When he did sleep, it was nightmare after nightmare of the bloody deaths in his clan’s compound, swords slicing through flesh and dark red

stains

against

the walls.

This was only marginally better.

“Why would anyone waste chakra on a disguise jutsu underneath a mask?” Sasuke asked aloud.

“Kakashi-sensei is always running out of chakra—”

Sasuke pressed his hands against his ears, which felt like a step too far. Naruto and Sakura weren’t actually in his house; they’d all split after their embarrassing failure, the failure that Sasuke couldn’t seem to shake off, no matter how many times he tried.

“What? You wanted to see what’s behind this mask?”

Humiliating, even. He was an Uchiha. He was supposed to be the best of the best.

“Behind this mask…there happens to be another mask!”  

Sasuke’s face burned. Kakashi’s laugh, echoed in his ears, along with his own crushing disappointment, the stupid hope he’d allowed himself to build—never in his life had he felt like such a child, such an embarrassment, not even—

“Foolish little brother,” a familiar voice sneered. “To not even be able to see what’s underneath your teacher’s mask. I would be able to see what was under that mask.”

Sasuke scowled at the ceiling. Itachi probably would be able to see under Kakashi’s mask, especially since he’d managed to knock the man out into his own coma. Itachi had put Kakashi under the same type of genjutsu, and what, Sasuke was supposed to learn from him? That was supposed to be good enough training?

He’d tried giving Kakashi the benefit of the doubt, but it was obvious that the man didn’t want to be their teacher. It was obvious he felt saddled with three genin he didn’t want or like, and sure, the month Sasuke had spent learning Chidori almost convinced him otherwise, but Mr. Teamwork had totally abandoned Naruto during the same month, and he’d beat Neji.

Naruto beat Neji. Sasuke hadn’t even gotten to see the match, and his Chidori had proved nearly useless against Gaara’s sand, another enemy that Naruto had managed to defeat.

Naruto couldn’t see behind Kakashi’s mask, either, thought Sasuke, which was such a depressing counterargument that he buried his face even deeper into the pillow. He shouldn’t be comparing himself to someone like Naruto. He was supposed to be better, faster, stronger, sharper—

“To abduct Naruto is the number one priority of the Akatsuki.”

His stomach and head churned. He wanted to sleep. But every time he closed his eyes, images of his parent’s bodies and blood splattered against the floor now had Kakashi’s stupid face in them, fish lips bulging out and giant teeth chattering.

“Behind this mask…there happens to be another mask!”

Sasuke gripped the palms of his hands hard enough to break skin. He’d gotten his hopes up. Like a fool, he’d gotten his hopes up. That maybe, if they showed their stupid teamwork-sensei how willing they were to use said teamwork, Kakashi might show them. Or even better, that they really had improved enough to catch a glimpse on their own.

Instead of fat lips or buckteeth, Sasuke pictured another Sharingan bulging out from underneath the mask, hidden where no one might think to look. Two, three more Sharingan for Sharingan no Kakashi, a face filled with Sharingan like some fucked up skin disease.

“Foolish little brother,” said Itachi’s cold voice. “So weak that you cannot see what lies underneath your teacher’s mask. I myself have seen what lies underneath his mask—”

Sasuke’s eyes snapped open.

“No,” he said aloud. “There’s no way.”

What if, what if. Sasuke thought the voices couldn’t get any louder, the embarrassment and anger swirling through him, too weak to see under his stupid mask, and Itachi is targeting Naruto, and suddenly he could see Itachi walking towards his unconscious teacher, cruelly pulling down the mask to abate his own sick curiosity—

“If that man has seen under the mask,” said Sasuke, eyes twitching. He hadn’t slept for longer than five minutes in about seventy-two hours. “I’m going to jump off Hokage Mountain.”

No one answered him. No one except “buckteeth, buckteeth, what if Kakashi-sensei has buckteeth, what if he’s got a bright pink beard or a tongue like a frog or no teeth at all, hey Sasuke, what if he doesn’t have any teeth or he just has one really, sharp tooth sticking out in the middle—”

It was so much harder to tune Naruto out when he was tired. And suddenly, Sasuke’s bare feet were on his cold, wooden floor.

“Gotta know,” he murmured, delirious, stumbling out from his room. “Gotta know. Gotta know. Gonna jump off the mountain.”

Objectively, Sasuke knew he shouldn’t jump off any mountain. But he couldn’t get the image of Itachi out of his head, worse than it had ever been, bloodied hands and also pulling down Kakashi’s mask.

“Yes, little brother. I have seen your precious sensei’s face. I, alone, know the secrets of his face, secrets you couldn’t begin to guess—”

Sasuke was staring at his front door. “Fuck,” he said, slipping his sandals on. “Fuck.”

Even in his half-asleep state, Sasuke remembered where Kakashi lived; it was where he’d found him unconscious, after all, with only a few, precious seconds before he’d learned who the perpetrator was. He didn’t pass anyone in the late—or at this point, early hour—taking care to stick to the tree line, hands sweating and shaking.

“Maybe he has lips like cod roe…cod roe...cod roe…”

He was going to kill Naruto, Kakashi, Itachi, and then jump off of Hokage Mountain, in that order, oh yes, wouldn’t they love that? The last Uchiha, finally succumbed to madness, and Sasuke brainstormed ways that he might also destroy his Sharingan on the way down so no one could steal them out of his head when he found himself outside of Kakashi’s apartment.

He probably has traps set up, thought Sasuke, before throwing the man’s windows open and jumping inside anyway.

A cloud of smoke rose up, stinging his eyes and burning his hands, but he took a stubborn step forward. “Gotta know,” he mumbled. “Gotta know.”

“Sasuke?!”

Sasuke looked up. There was a kunai pointed at his face, which really wasn’t too surprising. Even less surprising at this point—

“You sleep in it, too?” Sasuke blinked, tears rolling down his face. From the smoke. Just the smoke. “Of course you sleep in it.”

“Sasuke?” Kakashi lowered the kunai but didn’t put it away. The red Sharingan swirled at him lazily. Did the Sharingans under his mask swirl, too? Did they all swirl together? “Did something happen?”

His teacher’s bedspread had a shuriken pattern on it. It was sort of cute, Sasuke thought tiredly, although the rest of the apartment was depressing as hell. His mask was attached to a tank top, because of course it was.

He heard Kakashi mutter “kai!” but Sasuke wasn’t a genjutsu. He didn’t think so, anyway. His stomach hurt too much. “We’re complete failures,” he declared monotonously. “We shouldn’t even have the right to call ourselves ninja.”

Was that fair to Naruto and Sakura? They’d sucked just as much as him at seeing under the mask. Maybe Naruto hadn’t really beaten Neji or Gaara, if he couldn’t even see under a stupid mask. “What’s the point of all of this training? What’s the point of any of it?”

“Failures? Sasuke, what are you talking about?”

Mortifyingly, his entire body was shaking. Everything he’d been obsessing over since running into Itachi and the coma finally coming together with every ounce of ire aimed at himself and the thin piece of fabric covering Kakashi’s face—actually, if he could just—

Sasuke took a flying leap at his teacher who yelped and rolled over, both of them crashing off the bed and onto the floor, as Sasuke struggled to find his grip. No height difference now, thought Sasuke deliriously, pulling wherever he could.

“I gotta see it,” he panted, as Kakashi pushed him back. “I gotta see it, I gotta see it—”

“Sasuke,” Kakashi was saying, Sharingan still swirling. “Did someone compel you to come over here? I’m not sensing any disruption in your chakra—ow!”

Sasuke stuck his elbow in Kakashi’s stomach. The next second, he was lifted into the air, held at arm’s length. “What,” said Kakashi. “Are you doing.”

Failure, thought Sasuke. I’m a complete failure of a ninja. And then, weirdly, he couldn’t breathe. He kept trying to inhale, obviously, but every inhale was accompanied by foolish little brother and his mom’s dead body and every exhale he could hear Naruto snicker, buckteeth, fish lips, fish lips, buckteeth.

“Hold on, can you hear my voice? Focus on my voice, Sasuke, alright? Can you breathe in with me?”

Buckteeth, fish lips, a tongue like Orochimaru’s, too long and dexterous, reaching for him in Sasuke’s nightmares along with everything else. A bright red beard, stained with blood.

“Come on, breathe with me, okay?”

Breathe in, and it was Itachi. Breathe out, and—

Sasuke gasped for air, fists clenched. Kakashi’s eyes were wide and way too close, and Sasuke could probably reach for the mask now, but it was so stupid. He was so stupid.

“What’s stupid?” asked Kakashi. Sasuke hadn’t realized he’s spoken out loud and wondered if jumping off of the Yondaime’s head still wasn’t an option.

“We really tried, you know,” wheezed Sasuke. “We tried working together, too, but it wasn’t enough, and if our teamwork’s no good, then what else are we supposed to do? I can’t even grab it on my own, not even by surprise—how the hell am I supposed to fight my brother?” He gasped for air again, eyes stinging. “How can I fight that man when I can’t even see under your fucking mask?!”

He hiccuped and slumped over. Kakashi’s arms had slackened. “My…mask?” Sasuke heard. “You’re this upset about my mask?”

Rage seared through him, sudden and hot, and Sasuke flung himself forward again letting out a yell. Hands diving directly at the piece of fabric, but Kakashi was blocking him easily. Too easily, too easily, too weak. “Let me go!” Sasuke screamed. “Let me see your face!”

“Why do you want to see my face?” asked Kakashi, far too calmly in Sasuke’s opinion. Not when he was imagining how he could push the man out of his own window. “It’s my face. You have your own face.”

Oh, this is it, thought Sasuke. This is the end. “You knew we were trying to see under your mask,” Sasuke gasped. “We worked together.”

“You didn’t use any ninjutsu,” he heard Kakashi say. “You’re not using any now—and that’s not an invitation, by the way. I happen to like my apartment. You could’ve poisoned me, instead of buying me ramen. You could’ve tried burning my clothes, instead of having Naruto spill tea on me.”

Kakashi’s dark eye met his own, somehow relaxed and stern at the same time. “If you really wanted to see what’s under my mask, you could.”

Sasuke bit his lip hard enough to draw blood, heart pounding furiously. “Then I’m not mentally strong enough,” he said, breaths ragged and uneven. “And that’s even worse.” He lunged forward again.

“Not trying to murder your poor sensei doesn’t mean that you’re weak, Sasuke.” Kakashi clicked his teeth together, buckteeth, buckteeth, while holding Sasuke back. “Maa, I thought we were having a bit of fun today.”

“Fun?” Sasuke repeated. “Fun?!” The room was spinning again, his chest clenching painfully, stomach and head aching like they had since he’d woken up at the goddam hospital. “He’s going to kill me, and he’s going to kill Naruto, too, and the Chidori didn’t work, and he kicked your ass, so how are you supposed to help me get stronger? I’m still so weak.”

Was he crying? It would be a thousand times more embarrassing if he was crying, but Sasuke couldn’t force his eyes open to tell. He felt Kakashi’s arms still.

“I think this is about more than my mask,” he said quietly, which was totally not true. If Sasuke could just see under Kakashi’s mask, this would be completely avoidable. “You had a run in with Itachi, too, and I should have talked to you about it.”

“I don’t want to talk about it. I want to see under your mask.”

“He’s a strong opponent, but he’s not invincible. You shouldn’t expect yourself to fight him, much less kill him right now. No one is asking that of you.”

He is, thought Sasuke, eyes still squeezed shut. He wants me to fight and kill him, but he knows I’m too weak.

Kakashi sighed. “And you’re right, he got to me, too. But you’re underestimating me if you think that means anything I could teach you is useless.”

“It is useless,” said Sasuke. “Unless it lets me see underneath your mask.”

“Did Naruto put you up to this somehow?” Kakashi asked, and then Sasuke let out a laugh, which seemed to startle Kakashi more than anything else had. “Neither of you know when to let something go. Maa, all three of you—”

“I want to see.”

“Sasuke, it’s obvious this is more—”

“Let me see it.”

“We can re-start your training tomorrow,” Kakashi was saying, but Sasuke’s ears were filled with white noise. With the bright line of focus he’d suddenly acquired, nothing else mattered. The nausea in his stomach would go away. He would be able to sleep, sleep, Sasuke was sure of it, and if he could sleep, maybe he wouldn’t fall over as much, which would probably be better for fighting Itachi.

“If you show me your face,” said Sasuke, head between his knees. “I’ll do whatever you want. I’ll stay here forever. I won’t look for help training or power anywhere else. I’ll take every dumbass mission where we clean a farm or walk someone’s fucking dog.” He let out a high-pitched wheeze, aware of how pathetic he sounded but unable to do anything about it.

Silence met his proclamation. Sasuke was a few seconds from taking another dive at the mask himself, or use a fireball, consequences be damned, when Kakashi responded.

“Look at me.”

As much as he didn’t want to, as embarrassing as this whole thing was, Sasuke did. He couldn’t read the strange expression on Kakashi’s face, although surely it would be easier with more skin to see. “Do you mean that?” Kakashi finally asked.

“You’re not even taking me seriously—”

“Dead serious, Sasuke,” said Kakashi lightly. There was something under the lightness that Sasuke was too exhausted to pick out. “You’ll do, what was that, anything I want if I show you my face? Such as staying in Konoha and not seeking out power anywhere else, or from anyone else?”

It’s a trick, Sasuke’s brain screamed, but he didn’t care. Nothing else mattered. “I promise,” said Sasuke. “On my honor as an Uchiha.”

It sounded stupid as soon as Sasuke said it out loud, but both of Kakashi’s mismatched eyes widened anyway. “And you weren’t drugged? You’re not on drugs right now?”

“Kakashi.”

“No one snuck anything into your food while you weren’t looking?”

“Kakashi-sensei.”

Kakashi looked up once at the ceiling, muttered something under his breath, and then stared at Sasuke’s stupid, watery eyes. “I’m holding you to that promise,” he said, before sliding the mask off.

He did it, he actually did it, I’m looking at his face, I’m looking at it, take that Naruto, take that Itachi, I’m really looking.

No buckteeth. No fish lips, although Sasuke’s Sharingan both whirled to life to sniff out any disguises just in case. A regular nose, a regular mouth, a regular chin, albeit with a small mole or freckle—

“What the hell?” asked Sasuke blankly. “There’s nothing wrong with your face.”

“Did you think there was something wrong with my face?”

No buckteeth, no fish lips, and no extra set of Sharingan lurking. A regular face. A boring, regular, face pinched with a mix of annoyance and concern, which Sasuke could see because he was looking at Kakashi’s face.

“I’m sorry if it doesn’t live up to expectations,” Kakashi started, but then a laugh peeled through Sasuke, and then another one, and then Sasuke was laughing so hard he could barely breathe. Again. “Um.”

“You have a totally normal face,” Sasuke gasped. “Totally normal.”

“Sasuke—”

But Sasuke was back on the floor, unsure how he’d gotten there. Face pressed against the floor, his own face, hiccupping and laughing, smiling splitting his face in half, his own face, and there was Kakashi’s face, he could still see it, staring at him, and Sasuke laughed even harder.

Take that, he thought, the past seventy-two hours without sleep crashing into him like a freight train. He couldn’t stop the sounds careening out of him, giggles and near-howls, in between gulps for air. Take that Naruto, take that Sakura, fuck you Itachi, I’m looking at his face right now, and you’re not.

Well, Sasuke wasn’t looking at his face anymore, because his vision was starting to blacken around the edges, blurring out the periphery as he wheezed. Blacking and blurring and oh, he was about to

pass

out—

Maybe that’s why sensei keeps his face covered, was Sasuke’s last, delirious thought. For our own protection.

And he didn’t even need the Sharingan.

**

Kakashi’s newly unconscious student had broken into his apartment, probably sustaining first degree burns from the exploding tags he hadn’t managed to dodge, and was now curled up comatose on the floor with singed pajamas and two-mismatched socks after laughing so hard at Kakashi’s uncovered face that he’d passed out.

Oh, his former classmates would certainly have something to say about how that had gone. No one had laughed at him like that in a long time. Kakashi would try not to take it personally.

“Minato-sensei,” said Kakashi, sighing and slipping his mask back on. The sun would be rising, soon. The Godaime was expecting him to report for a new mission, and his ankle was still throbbing from the last one.

“I’m not even sure you’d have an answer for this.”

Chapter Text

Buckteeth…fish lips…fish lips…buckteeth.

No, thought Sasuke, feeling a strange victory even in this half-awake state. Naruto was wrong. That was comforting, somehow, like a mistake had been corrected in the greater universe. Naruto was wrong. Because Naruto hadn’t seen underneath Kakashi’s mask, and Sasuke—

Sasuke’s eyes flung open. With a sharp inhale, he jolted forward, where am I, where am I, on an unfamiliar bed with an almost-familiar shuriken bedspread.

Oh, he thought, taking in the apartment walls. Oh no.

He needed to run before Kakashi returned. Light streamed in through the window blinds, so maybe the man had started his day doing whatever he did before showing up late? Maybe Sasuke would be lucky enough to escape unscathed, even as his ears burned remembering the state he’d been in the night before, exhausted and out-of-his-mind.

I’ll never be able to look him in the eye again.

One foot on the wooden floor, Sasuke was about to fling himself back out of the window, additional traps be damned, when familiar footfalls echoed around the corner. “Maa, I was wondering when you would wake up.”

I’m going to die, thought Sasuke, without any sense of irony. Kakashi was walking towards him, still in his tank top from the night before, the same tank top that attached to his mask.

Sasuke looked at the mask, then looked away.

Kakashi coughed.

“Breakfast,” he said, and Sasuke didn’t want breakfast; Sasuke wanted to turn the clock back twelve hours or give himself a lobotomy, but he was pretty hungry. The tray of food smelled good. For some reason, Sasuke assumed Kakashi exclusively ate ration bars or some weird, IV nutrition that didn’t involve using one’s mouth at all.

The mouth covered by his mask.

The mouth—

“Thanks,” mumbled Sasuke. He stared at the golden egg perched on top of his bowl of rice and remembered picturing a Sharingan where Kakashi’s mouth should be. A gleaming, shiny red Sharingan, just like the one now hidden by his headband. “You can cook?”

“It’s a raw egg,” said Kakashi. “Not much cooking involved.”

The silence was dreadful. But now that Sasuke was thinking about it, he couldn’t stop. He’d behaved like a child. A demented, ridiculous child. Part of him wanted to blame Naruto for putting the idea in his head, but then, Naruto wasn’t the one who’d broken into their teacher’s apartment.

Then again, Naruto wasn’t the one who’d seen Kakashi’s boring face under his mask.

Sasuke had.

It was a small consolation, but Sasuke started eating anyway. Maybe he could work on developing a genjutsu so strong that it would erase Kakashi’s memory of this entire thing happening. And also his memory of Sasuke’s entire, worthless existence.

“Do you want to talk about it?” asked Kakashi eventually.

“No.” Sasuke couldn’t remember the last time someone had made him breakfast. No, it was that he did remember; he remembered his mom cooking him breakfast and fixing his bento box before school the morning of—

You cannot have another breakdown, Sasuke instructed himself sternly, wondering where the fuck all of his self-preservation went. At least Kakashi looked lost, too. The supposed genius, Sharingan no Kakashi himself, brought down by a thirteen-year-old who kept hallucinating fish fucking lips and buckteeth.

“Okay,” said Kakashi. “I do feel obligated to remind you of the promise you made, though.”

Sasuke picked at his rice, trying to remember making a promise. He was remembering a lot of stuff he’d rather not, including some very inefficient taijutsu moves that would need to be ironed out in training. Plenty of ramblings had poured out of his mouth that Sasuke actually felt he was better off not thinking of, thank you, just in case there was any chance of walking away with some dignity.

Did I agree to walk his dogs? Did I—

Oh.

“Oh,” said Sasuke, refusing to look up from his food. “Right.”

“Were you considering seeking greater strength or power outside of the village?” asked Kakashi lightly, the same lilting tone he’d used right before tormenting him, Naruto, and Sakura with those stupid bells.

“No,” said Sasuke. “I don’t know.” Had he? It was like he’d been totally possessed. All of these thoughts he’d never dare voice aloud suddenly stumbled up through his lips.

He was so angry at Itachi. But he was always angry at Itachi, and he was even angrier at himself for still being so weak—too weak to see underneath the mask, for one, but also Naruto had beaten Gaara and Neji—and even more than that, Sasuke realized, the last grains of rice gone from his bowl, he was angry at Kakashi.

He was angry at Kakashi for ending up in the same torture-induced coma. He was angry at Kakashi for losing.

“I don’t know what I’m doing,” said Sasuke. “I don’t feel like I’m getting stronger. When that man was my age, he—”

Sasuke looked up. Kakashi was still in the tank top, still connected to the mask, but his brain finally pieced together the mark he’d noticed in passing the night before. There was a flame tattoo on Kakashi’s pale arm. “You were an ANBU Black Ops.”

“I—uh, yes.”

“When?”

“I left a few years ago,” said Kakashi, and Sasuke’s chest constricted.

“Did you know him?”

Kakashi looked like he wanted to say who very badly, but thankfully for both of them, refrained. “I did.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Would you have wanted me to?” asked Kakashi, sounding genuinely surprised. Surprised. “You don’t even speak his name out loud.”

Sasuke opened his mouth and closed it. Even after sleeping a few hours, he still felt exhausted, still worn down around the edges, angry at Kakashi for losing and for so obviously not wanting them as a team, but would he have wanted to hear anything about his brother from the man who read erotic fiction while fighting them?

No, probably not. But now Sasuke knew there was more to Kakashi than met the eye. He’d also seen it, himself. “Did he ever see underneath your mask?”

Kakashi blinked.

“What’s with the pause?” asked Sasuke, when far too much time had passed. “He hasn’t, has he? Why aren’t you saying no?!”

“I don’t…think so?”

Sasuke slammed his hands against the empty food tray, rattling the empty bowl and chopsticks, stomach aching furiously with this new information. Could Itachi have gone so far as to sneak a look when they’d been comrades? No, Kakashi would know in that case—so, an injury? Some sort of fight, where anyone might have seen underneath the fabric and the porcelain mask to administer aid?

“Mask aside,” said Kakashi, eyeing Sasuke’s fists. Like there was anything more important than Itachi maybe having seen his face before Sasuke could. “I understand how you feel, but you are getting stronger. Much stronger. Not everyone could have mastered Chidori in under a month.”

Right. Sasuke had almost forgotten about that. “I don’t know if it’s enough,” said Sasuke. “You were assigned as my teacher because of the Sharingan, right? But his Sharingan is stronger.”

Kakashi sighed and leaned his head back against the wall opposite Sasuke. “I’d like you to have some faith in me,” he said, sidestepping the first question. “And yourself, for that matter. Like anything, the Sharingan has its own set of strengths and weaknesses. On the other hand, not every weapon in your arsenal will or should rely on the Sharingan.”

“Then why aren’t you talking to me about it?” asked Sasuke. He’d forgotten that he was supposed to have left via defenestration like, immediately upon waking. But he also had just learned more about Kakashi in the past twenty minutes than the months of being a supposed team. “I don’t even know how you have a Sharingan.”

“Oh,” said Kakashi. Then, maddeningly—“Really?”

“What’s that supposed to—”

“Maa, nothing. I didn’t—I thought you knew. Or I would’ve said something sooner.” Kakashi’s visible eye frowned. “Did you think I’d acquired it by force?”

I wouldn’t fucking know, would I? thought Sasuke, but Kakashi looked so weirdly downcast by the idea, like foreign ninja weren’t trying to rip each other’s eyes out all the goddam time, that he just shrugged.

“It was a gift,” said Kakashi finally. Those four words were probably all that Sasuke was going to get.

There was another obvious problem, though, that Sasuke had been trying to ignore. No matter how strong Kakashi was, Sharingan or no, Itachi had a leg up on all of them. A leg called apparently, if you murder your best friend, the eye unlocks an additional level, and it wasn’t like Sasuke even had a best friend, okay?

No one’s blond hair and whiskered face drifted briefly into his consciousness, with an obnoxious smile and cheerful “dattebayo!”

Nope, not at all.

Anyway, even being ex-ANBU, Sasuke couldn’t fathom Kakashi ever cold-heartedly murdering someone he was close to. Maybe accidentally murdering Gai, considering how annoying he was, but if Kakashi couldn’t unlock the infamous Mangekyo Sharingan, then how was Sasuke supposed to figure it out?

How was he supposed to—

“I won’t deny that Itachi is strong opponent,” said Kakashi, bringing Sasuke back to reality. Reality, right, where Sasuke had broken into his apartment. “I underestimated him.”

A hard look settled into the corner of Kakashi’s visible face, the first he’d seen where Sasuke thought, shit, ex-ANBU, and saw what so many enemies seemed to see in his slouching, forever-tardy teacher.

“It won’t happen again,” said Kakashi. He stood up. “I was supposed to be in the Hokage’s office an hour ago,” he said, voice back to its bored normal. “We’ll start training both of our Sharingan. I also have a list of fire and lightening jutsu, then I think you could make some progress on earth.”

He was back in his blues, ANBU tattoo hidden once again, as Sasuke blinked and found himself wondering if he’d worn three masks during his time as a black ops member. Maybe if he had, then there was nothing to worry about from the Itachi end.

“Wait,” said Sasuke. Fire, lightening, and—“Earth jutsu?”

Kakashi was already halfway out his own window, hands in the pocket of his vest. “Get ready,” he said cheerfully. “Also, you should probably get those burns taken care of. You’ll want to be at your best.”

Sasuke was left alone.

Shit, Sasuke thought, looking down at his singed sleeves and shiny, red hands. Right, because he’d broken into his teacher’s apartment. To see his face. He’d seen Kakashi’s face.

“Still worth it,” he said aloud, to no one, standing up. A weird, giddy relief surged through Sasuke that he refused to examine or name.

--

Orochimaru, as it turned out, didn’t care much about half-baked promises.

Not Sasuke’s, anyway, as he stared up bleeding from the floor at the four shadows looming over him. One had two heads. The other had several sets of arms.

“Orochimaru-sama has given you some time to think it over,” said the one with two heads. “That time is up.”

“I’m not interested,” said Sasuke. Or he’d tried. Whatever they’d injected him with, whatever he’d inhaled, was sending his thoughts into the stratosphere and gallons of saliva into his mouth. He was going to choke on his own spit at this rate; a miserable end for a miserable failure who might have even said yes to the Sannin’s offer if he hadn’t accidentally staked his honor on a promise to see his teacher’s stupid face.

At least he would die with that knowledge. Naruto and Sakura would never be allowed to see it, not at this rate. Kakashi would consider it a death sentence.

A wheeze escaped his mouth, and then another one, as the man with several arms kicked his ribs. “Maybe we should rephrase ourselves,” he said. “You’re coming with us, whether you want to or not.”

Another kick. Then Sasuke was being lifted off the floor, arms twisted behind his back so hard that he could feel his shoulders pop out, and he screamed. The girl shoved a bundle of cloth in his mouth.

“Shut the fuck up,” she hissed. “We didn’t come all this way so you could rebuke Orochimaru-sama, you little punk.”

The cloth was drenched with something wet. Sasuke could feel a terrible numbness spread throughout his body, cold from his throat to his fingers and toes. He wondered where Naruto and Sakura were. He almost wondered if they would miss him.

“Tayuya…can’t make him…pills…second stage…won’t work…”

“Bring him there…Orochimaru…deal with it…”

His final thought before blacking out was an apology, because he’d really meant to stick to his promise. He’d meant for his word as the last Uchiha to mean something, but Orochimaru’s servants wouldn’t even let him have that.

--

Blood splattered walls…red eyes, swirling with a pinwheel pattern…a red full moon.

“You are not even worth killing.”

A warm, summer afternoon…the sound of metal flying…a flick against his forehead.

“Someday, when you have the same eyes as mine, you will find me again.”

Sasuke’s toe itched.

He tried to reach for it, to give it a good scratch, but his hand didn’t seem to want to move. Sasuke tried kicking next, like maybe the itch would dissolve. Kick, kick. His foot barely moved.

Now two of his toes itched.

Two toes. His earlobe. His earlobe? Sasuke didn’t think he’d ever had an itchy earlobe before, but now it was burning, a low fuzz of aggrieved, awakened nerve cells chomping at the bit for his attention.

“What?” Sasuke murmured to his angry little cells. Or tried, anyway. It came out all funny and slurred. “What do you want?”

Shit, was that his head? Was his head the thing pounding so awfully, sending shocks of pain down his dango body? Just balls of rice flour, covered in a sticky syrup that kept Sasuke from being able to open his eyes.

Eyes?

“Someday, when you have the same eyes as mine, you will find me again.”

Sasuke opened his eyes.

The world was dark, but a few blinks confirmed that his eyesight still worked. Even without trying, he knew the Sharingan was a world away from what this dumpling, dango body was capable of. Sasuke pictured his brother sliding off pieces of him from a stick, with his teeth, chewing and chewing before the final swallow.

Why didn’t you just kill me? Why do you want me to find you again?

He couldn’t move his hands. He could almost move his feet, if he concentrated very hard, but concentrating sent horrible waves of pain down deep into his bones.

What happened? Was he in his bed? Sasuke couldn’t be in his bed, could he? There was too much movement.  

Movement?

His foot was pressed against something. A wall? A lid? Sasuke tried to move it, ignoring the waves of nausea and pain.

Clunk. Clunk.

It was like a five-thousand-pound iron was weighing him down. Every movement was agonizing, and Sasuke didn’t think he was making enough progress to be worth it, but what else could he do?

The walls around him stopped moving. And Sasuke was able to dislodge the wall above him.

“—uke…back…won’t…”

He could hear voices, but they blended together into a muddled soup his brain refused to make sense of.

Two voices.

No, three voices?

Sasuke was attempting to crawl out of the container he’d been put in, why, who, how, or maybe more importantly now, where, because he was not in his bedroom nor Konoha at all.

A field of grass.

Three blurry figures: orange, purple, and green.

He could feel them reaching towards him.

Not again, thought Sasuke grimly, using the last of his strength to pull himself to his feet and start to run. Well, stumble, since he still had no feeling in his arms, and his feet and legs screamed with the effort. But if Sasuke remembered correctly, the last thing he’d been worrying about had been dying and he still didn’t want to die, thank you, not in this weird field anyway, so he ignored the pain and forced himself forward.

Someone was shouting at him to wait. Sasuke knew, without a doubt, that if he stopped moving he was never getting up again, ever.

That was the only reason he made it as far as he did: out of the grass and into the trees, and trees meant Konoha. Konoha was a place he’d promised to stay, for some reason, even though walking its streets sometimes felt a little like swallowing glass. It felt like a hundred paper cuts, all at the same time.

He missed his mom and dad.

Why didn’t you just kill me? Why do you want me to find you again?

Sasuke’s useless, lead legs tripped over a tree root.

His ribs hurt.

His eyes closed.

Only for what felt like a second later, someone tackled him.

They both went flying, Sasuke and the orange blur, and Sasuke decided that this would be a stupid fucking way to die after all, so he kicked and kicked with all of his strength. The orange blur yelled back at him, but Sasuke’s ears kept ringing. Afraid and angry and tired, he was so tired of passing out, and he thought he was doing alright until the orange blur held down his legs and Sasuke remembered that he couldn’t lift his arms.

“—ke! Calm—!”

The voice scratched a familiar itch. Like the itch in Sasuke’s left toe, or the itch on his nose before he was about to sneeze.

His vision finally cleared. “Naruto?”

“Who else?!” Naruto, the orange blur, of course, was leaning over him, eyes suspiciously wet. “You know, you really freaked out Sakura-chan, she’s super upset ‘ttebayo!”

Sasuke looked around, still disoriented, but feeling less like he would float away with the slightest breeze. “Why are we in a tree?”

“You should tell me! You just took off like that, but you were running funny and in the wrong direction, and this guy with weird bones tried to stop me, but then Bushy Brow showed up so I was able to run after you, except I kinda thought you’d run faster so I ran past you the first time, and—”

“I saw under Kakashi-sensei’s mask,” said Sasuke.

Naruto blinked at him. Sasuke figured he could die now with a little less regret. “You—what?!” 

Sasuke tuned the rest of his words out, allowing them to wash over him, even as they grew more and more frantic. There was some shaking involved. But Sasuke’s shoulders were dislocated, which appeared to upset Naruto—Sasuke wouldn’t know. His arms were still numb.

“—sensei!”

Another blur, this one grey. They were moving again, no longer in the tree, and Sasuke blinked slowly, wondering when that had changed.

“—out of his mind, I don’t—he said something—your mask—crazy—”

“That would be crazy,” said the voice suddenly next to Sasuke’s ear, calm and measured and familiar.

I was going to tell him something, thought Sasuke, before falling unconscious yet again.

--

The next time Sasuke woke up, fortunately or unfortunately, his body was no longer numb. On one hand, it meant he could actually move his head to acknowledge the Godaime Hokage looming over him and at least pretend to nod along to her explanation of what happened.

On the other hand, everything hurt.

It still wasn’t as bad as waking up after Itachi, though.

“The drug is almost through your system,” said Tsunade. “Once it passes, it’ll be easier to treat your other wounds, but you’re not in bad shape, kid.”

Kid. Sasuke wanted to scoff. But all he could do was nod again and then pretend to be asleep when Sakura came by.

What was he supposed to say to her? He could count on one hand the number of actual conversations they’d had, and all of them had occurred when someone was literally dying. Sasuke knew she’d practically held vigil over his comatose body during those weeks, but he hated the idea of it, hated anyone sitting there when he couldn’t see them or fight them.

You promised you’d stay here, though, a voice reminded him, sounding like a particularly horrible combination of his brother and Kakashi. That means you’ll stay burdened with these weaklings on your team.

Okay, that was more Itachi.

Sasuke laid still and fought the urge to groan. He’d put together that a mission had been undertaken to rescue him, but no one had explained who’d managed to defeat the ridiculously strong Sound ninja who’d showed up to kick his ass. Surely not Naruto, alone or with help. Kakashi? Other jonin?

“You?”

Shikamaru, wearing a chunin vest, blinked at him. After fake-sleeping through Sakura’s visit, he’d felt awkwardly obliged to be awake when Nara Shikamaru, of all people, walked in. Call him curious.

But then Shikamaru was talking about the mission, trying to give an update about Neji and Choji—Neji? Choji? “You made chunin?”

Shikamaru looked down at his vest, as if it were self-explanatory. It was certainly fucking not. “When? Why?”

“Recently,” said Shikamaru. “This was my first time leading a mission.” Then, more dryly. “You’ll have to ask Tsunade-sama about why.”

Shikamaru made chunin. Shikamaru had, apparently, been the only one to make chunin, even though Naruto had won his fight with Neji and Gaara, like, existed. Shikamaru had also apparently led himself, Choji, Neji, Kiba, and Naruto to not only rescue Sasuke from the Sound ninja but kill all of them.  

“Suna sent some backup,” said Shikamaru nonchalantly, like he wasn’t blowing up Sasuke’s entire grasp on reality. “But that’s what I’m trying to tell you. Neji and Choji didn’t have backup. But they both just came out of surgery.” He exhaled quietly. “They both survived. I thought you should know.”

Know, which part? That Akimichi Choji had managed to kill an enemy who’d stuffed him in a pot to hand-deliver to Orochimaru? He might’ve guessed that Neji outclassed him in some ways, but then, this was the same Neji who’d been defeated by Naruto.

It should’ve burned. And maybe it did, the shame and embarrassment at his own weakness. The lengths he still had to go.

On the other hand…

I’m lucky, thought Sasuke. It doesn’t sound like Orochimaru has much power to be handing out, does it?

Was that the best of the Sound Village? Taken out by genin and a fresh chunin? Despite himself, Sasuke grinned, which probably wasn’t the response Shikamaru expected or wanted.

“Are they still here in the hospital?”

“What?”

“Neji and Choji.”

“Yeah,” said Shikamaru. “They’ll continue to be monitored. Kiba got released this morning, though. And I’m surprised Naruto hasn’t barged his way in here, yet.”

Sasuke was slightly surprised, too. “Good,” said Sasuke. He felt a little like he’d avoided a disaster of epic proportions, something he wouldn’t have been able to walk away from. He felt a little like he’d avoided fate. He felt a little like kissing Choji on the mouth, which meant the drugs probably weren’t completely out of his system yet.

“I’d like to send them some flowers.”

Chapter Text

Sasuke was avoiding her.

Which was fine, Sakura reasoned, gripping the pastry she’d bought to deliver to his apartment so hard that it crumbled in half. Sasuke-kun didn’t like when people worried about him, which was very admirable most of the time, but sue Sakura for worrying when he’d gotten kidnapped by Orochimaru.

The pastry crumpled into crumbs underneath Sakura’s ferocious hand. But then, the fight left her body.

She hadn’t been able to do anything. Anything. She’d hoped, for a foolish second, that Shikamaru might request her to join the team haphazardly formed once Sasuke’s absence had been registered, but what could she offer? What skills could she bring?

And then to see the state that Choji and Neji had been brought back in…clinging to their lives, while the great Godaime-sama worked and whirled around them. Shizune-san, flying by with a massive medical textbook, all while Sakura had stood around stupidly with some flowers.

But she should still try, right? Didn’t it make her a good teammate to show that she cared?

She’d even bought a pastry for Naruto, too, whose obvious and enthusiastic surprise should have made her feel a touch guiltier, but, well, Sakura was trying. It wasn’t her fault that one of her teammates lapped up the barest amounts of affection while the other actively seemed to find the same affection offensive.

So, she waited.

As the sun set, and the sky darkened, Sakura found and categorized the familiar constellations before moving onto individual stars. After that, she took careful measure of each tree growing nearby, each individual plant and leaf, methodically filing away each one.

How pathetic was it that Sakura missed homework? Every assignment she’d received since graduating had either been walking dogs or ohmygodI’mgoingtodiegoingtodiegoingtoDIE which was quite unrelated to both what Sakura had spent her time preparing for and what Sakura was actually good at.

Maybe Ino was right. Maybe she’d never—

“Sakura?”

Sakura’s head whipped around. She plastered a smile on her face, holding up the bag. “I brought you a pastry, Sasuke-kun!”

The bag was filled with crumbs. Sasuke looked at it, then at her, and then closed his eyes. “You don’t have to do that,” he said, politely overlooking the destroyed dessert. “In fact, I would prefer if you didn’t do that.”

How rude! Inner-Sakura screeched, but Sakura kept the smile on her face.

“I just happened to be in the area—”

“Do you know why Shikamaru was made a chunin?”

Sakura blinked, thrown off by the non sequitur. “Not really,” she said. “He won his match—actually, he didn’t win. He forfeited right at the end. But he would have won, against the girl from Suna.”

Sasuke’s eye twitched. “He forfeited?”

“Yeah, but he would have won.” Sasuke was still staring. “It wasn’t a flashy match, or anything, not like Naruto and Neji’s at all. Ino says he’s way smarter than people give him credit for.”

“Smart, huh?”

Sakura wouldn’t have really believed it either, except she’d seen a new side to him after that match, hadn’t she? When he’d offered to sacrifice himself so that she and Naruto could catch up with Sasuke and Gaara. The weight in his eyes when he’d left the village wearing his new vest, with four of their friends and classmates serving directly under him.

“Did you know Kakashi was in the black ops?”

No, she fucking did not. “What?”

Sasuke let out a hn and sat next to her on the bench. Normally, Sakura would be thrilled, but she was trying to merge the idea of their admittedly strong but also lazy, porn-reading teacher with the masked agents trusted with Konoha’s most important and dangerous missions.

“We don’t know much about him, do we?” she said, finally. They didn’t even know what his face looked like. Not that Sasuke would be thinking about something as silly as that.

Sasuke tilted his head to the side a little. “We don’t,” he said agreeably, and Sakura’s heart soared. “You know, it’d be good for us to know more. He knows so much about us, after all.”

Sakura wondered if she was hearing this right. If it were anyone else, she’d consider the small talk to be just that—small talk. But from Sasuke-kun? This was tantamount to a passionate speech.

Then, Kami, he looked at her and said, “Do you think you could help me with that?”

She didn’t shriek. She didn’t gasp either, or cry, or burst into giddy laughter. But she did feel her heart speed up and hands warm. “Yes,” she breathed. For Sasuke to have this kind of trust in her? For Sasuke to put her in charge of some kind of project?

It went beyond her wildest dreams. Sakura excelled at projects.

“Great,” said Sasuke. Sakura was already planning. Information on Kakashi-sensei…well, he surely went to the Academy, right? He would’ve taken the Chunin Exam. He would’ve been on a genin team with a probably-also-weird sensei of his own.

There would be records of all of that. Nice, organized records.

“See you later!” Sakura called out, speeding away. Sasuke called out something else, too, but Sakura’s brain was back at the library she missed so much and the storage offices she’d wheedled her way into, a young, intrepid Academy student—a civilian—who just wanted to complete a project Iruka-sensei would be proud of.

A smile went a long way. So did being generally unassuming.

…

Huh, did Kakashi-sensei think the same way?

***

Shikamaru didn’t particularly like Uchiha Sasuke.

In fact, he told him as much when he appeared, uninvited and unwelcome, before one of Team 10’s practices. “I don’t particularly like you.”

Uchiha Sasuke stared at him, with lofty, dark eyes, and said, “Good.”

“What?”

“Good,” repeated Sasuke. “That means you’ll be more honest with me.”

For the love of—“Okay,” said Shikamaru, waiting for Sasuke to explain what he was doing at the table next to Team 10’s table, obviously waiting for him. Well, he could’ve been waiting for Asuma-sensei, too, but Shikamaru doubted it. “Well?”

“Well, what?”

“Why are you here?”

Sasuke frowned. “Aren’t you supposed to be some kind of genius?” And really, the tone, halfway between mocking and genuine disappointment would’ve sent a weaker man right into a riled-up state, which was no good so early in the morning.

Shikamaru wasn’t going to let Uchiha Sasuke get under his skin, no sir. Not after he was already the cause of several mission-related ulcers. Shikamaru was not on duty. “Me?” asked Shikamaru wanly. “Nothing compares to the genius of the Uchiha, surely.”

Sasuke, somewhat admirably, did not rise to the bait. “What would you do,” he began slowly. “If someone wronged you and requested that you…wrong them in return?”

“Wronged me?”

“Hn.”

Shikamaru blinked. “If someone wronged me, and they wanted me to wrong them right back? To even the scales, so to speak?” He was out of his depth here. For all Shikamaru knew, this was some weird, Orochimaru-related double entendre—Orochimaru, of the Sannin, who’d tried to kidnap him—and normally Shikamaru would tell him to fuck off or at least ask his own team for advice, but, well.

Kakashi was a powerhouse, to be sure, but he wasn’t much of a mentor, like Asuma-sensei tried to be. Actually, the idea of asking Kakashi anything unrelated to a mission seemed unwise.

(“He’s a former ANBU Black Ops member,” Asuma had told him, when Shikamaru had once asked about the other sensei, following a twenty-minute monologue on how wonderful and talented Kurenai-sensei was. “He’s a few years younger. Graduated the Academy early, and all of that.”

A sideways glance, probably because Shikamaru was watching the man read a sleazy book and actively ignore his team. “Always be cautious of a ninja who deliberately tries to put you at ease like that.”

Shikamaru wasn’t sure what part of Kakashi-sensei was supposed to be putting anyone at ease.)

Then again, if Shikamaru were in charge of Team 7, comprised of essentially three Ino’s but with way more emotional baggage, Shikamaru would probably ignore them, too. He also probably wouldn’t ask them for advice, no matter how helpful Naruto had ended up being on this mission.

“Hypothetically,” said Shikamaru, wondering what Orochimaru might have wanted from him and what he’d give him in return. “If someone wronged me, I would be hesitant to do anything they wanted, even if it superficially suited me.”

“Superficially?”

Shikamaru shrugged. “It depends on what they did, I guess. But if a robber stole some money from me, then told me I could get the money back if I met him at a hiding place somewhere, I would be cautious about following his instruction. It sounds like a trap.”

He watched this filter over Sasuke’s face. Obvious, sure, but maybe that’s what Sasuke needed to hear. That if Orochimaru or anyone else wronged him and then gave him some way to take revenge, that it was probably a trap, and also probably something the Hokage needed to know about.

You are off-duty, Shikamaru scolded himself. Screw his dad for putting all of these ideas into his head about becoming a better team captain, one less likely to get his team killed even if his first mission had sort of been successful.

“So in this scenario,” said Sasuke. “If a…robber stole money from you, and then told you that he later wanted you to steal all the money back from him, what would you do?”

Tell the Hokage. “How can you trust the robber?” asked Shikamaru. “He already stole from you. This just sounds like the opportunity to steal more.”

“But he already could have stolen more,” said Sasuke, voice taking on an edge of frustration. “He doesn’t want me to steal from him until I have a shot at kill—succeeding against him.”

“Are you taking his words at face-value?” Despite himself, Shikamaru’s brain was jumping around, trying to figure out what was what in this strange metaphor. “Maybe he doesn’t want you to have a chance at succeeding. Maybe the robber is just waiting for you to have more money.”

Sasuke seemed to consider this. His expression didn’t change, but now Shikamaru felt invested, goddammit, which was annoying. Some strange carrot-and-stick situation, where the carrot being dangled over Sasuke’s head was, what, more power? Revenge?

“I think you could still get revenge against your robber,” mused Shikamaru out loud, noting with some satisfaction the widening of Sasuke’s dark eyes. “I think you could still get your money back. But you can’t play by the robber’s rules, see. If the robber wants you to play a certain way, well, screw that. He already took money from you. You can’t trust him.”

The ideas were rolling, now. “You could pretend you’re no longer interested in the money and then surprise him later. Or maybe, he’s got a bigger safe, and instead of just getting your own money back, you take what he really cares about.”

Sasuke muttered something that sounded like dishonorable, and Shikamaru rolled his eyes. “Do you care about the honor of getting your money back or do you actually want the money?” he asked, bluntly. “Because those are two totally different things.”

Maybe Naruto or Sakura knew who the robber really was, if wasn’t Orochimaru. And if it was, maybe they knew what the “stolen money” represented.

You are off-duty, Shikamaru reminded himself again, folding his arms over. Asuma-sensei was late.

“Think about it,” said Shikamaru. “The good thing is that you’re clearly under the robber’s skin as much as he is yours.”

“I doubt it.”

“You have to be, right? Otherwise, what’s the point? This is way too much work for the robber for them not be invested.” Shikamaru shrugged. “That’s where you hold the power. If you can’t force yourself to really not care, then pretend not to care. Pretend they aren’t worth the time of day. Then, once you’ve driven the robber crazy from refusing to do what they want…”

He let his voice trail off. Now Sasuke was interested. And honestly, Shikamaru had never considered himself the type built for revenge—digging two graves, and all of that—he had to admit there was a certain poetic appeal.

“Ransack the entire safe.”

Sasuke didn’t give him any verbal answer, but Shikamaru hadn’t expected one. They weren’t friends, after all. And he didn’t particularly like the guy.

“Oh, I was supposed to tell you,” said Sasuke, halfway out the door. “Asuma wanted to reschedule to this afternoon. I told him I would let you know.”

Shikamaru really didn’t like the guy.

***

Kakashi was having a strange week.

It could always be worse, he reminded himself, taking the long way from his apartment to his recently kidnapped student. Sasuke could actually be gone. Sasuke could be dead.

Prodigy that he was meant to be, Kakashi really hadn’t predicted that the harmless fun his genin were having trying to get a peek behind his mask would turn into—

“How can I fight that man when I can’t even see under your fucking mask?!”

At first, when Sasuke had tripped the traps, Kakashi thought someone had died. He’d thought it couldn’t be anything else, not with the frantic look on his student’s face bordering mania. Then, when it was only about his mask, Kakashi felt relief, sure, but also a distinct foreboding.

This wasn’t normal. The screaming, grabbing for his mask, sobbing-turned-hysterical laughter was not normal.

He should probably take Sasuke in for a psych evaluation, except then they would try to re-do Kakashi’s psych evaluation, and Kakashi hadn’t spent hours hiding in his own village for nothing. Ostensibly, one needed to pass before becoming a jonin instructor—something about the importance of protecting the minds of their children, ha ha ha—and ostensibly, Kakashi was a jonin instructor, so he didn’t really see what the problem was.

The Sandaime was so dead-set on him training the last Uchiha. Kakashi understood in theory, but most of the time he barely felt like he had a grasp on his own Sharingan, let alone the ability to help someone with theirs.

Actually, of all of the potential jonin instructors, Kakashi thought Gai might have the most success with someone like Sasuke. The ability to fight someone with Sharingan, for one thing, and Gai would have worked Sasuke like a horse.

Gai cared about his students’ training. Gai tried.

Kakashi sighed, brain going down a direction it had fruitlessly redoubled over. What would he have done differently? His entire life, if he could, but genin weren’t supposed to be trained like ANBU, either.

You barely trained them at all, thought Kakashi. Might as well have done like Asuma and just eat at restaurants and play shogi all the time.

Would any of that have stopped Orochimaru? Would any of his shaky, half-baked plans stop Orochimaru in the future?

And where oh where did sweet Uchiha Itachi fit into all of that.

Kakashi sighed again. He was stalling. He didn’t particularly want to talk to Sasuke about what happened—couldn’t they just let it go? But it was his duty, or something like that, to make sure his traumatized student wasn’t even more traumatized after getting plucked out of the village.

(To think that Konoha’s security had gotten so lax…it was unnerving, maybe more unnerving than any other part of this, although the Godaime had risen hell about the entire thing, calling for a full restructuring of the barrier seals and patrols. Two of their most dangerous enemies were former Leaf shinobi.

Still, still.)

“How can I fight that man when I can’t even see under your fucking mask?!”

A better sensei would have taken him for a psych evaluation right away. As it was, Kakashi had only wheedled out a promise in exchange for giving the kid what he wanted. No better than a bribe, really, unless the bribe worked.

And by all accounts, it had. By all accounts, Orochimaru’s bodyguards had first been sent to escort the young Uchiha heir to glory by their master’s side. By all accounts, Sasuke refused, leading to his subsequent kidnapping and the drugged state Kakashi had later found him in, with a terrified Naruto leaning over him and slapping him in the face.

Kakashi didn’t know what he would do if Sasuke had gone willingly. He was already so disappointed in himself. Sasuke was immeasurably disappointed in him.

“He’s going to kill me, and he’s going to kill Naruto, too, and the Chidori didn’t work, and he kicked your ass, so how are you supposed to help me get stronger? I’m still so weak.”

Kakashi hadn’t taken his own training seriously since leaving the black ops. Or maybe it was that Kakashi didn’t know how to train without sending himself to the hospital every other week, and that wouldn’t do when one had a genin team. He fluctuated too much between extremes. Kakashi was, what did they call it, unbalanced.

Ha, ha, ha.

Asuma and Kurenai warned him that he was apt to terrifying his students. Gai thought reading books in front of their faces while fighting them was “disrespectful” and “very unyouthful.”

In the end, it hadn’t been his strength keeping Sasuke in the Leaf Village. It hadn’t been his ability to terrify, either.

“You’ll do, what was that, anything I want if I show you my face? Such as staying in Konoha and not seeking out power anywhere else, or from anyone else?”

 “I promise. On my honor as an Uchiha.”

Oh, if those Uchiha Clan Elders could see him now. Obito would laugh. Shisui might laugh, too. The whole thing was funny, in a madly depressing way.

Sasuke was sitting on the edge of his hospital bed.

Allowed in, Kakashi approached obvious and slow. He hated the way hospitals smelled. He hated the overbearing nurses, nice as they were, and he was sure that Sasuke hated them too, but a follow-up blood test for the effects of the strange drug was surely better than a psych eval.

Not that Kakashi would know. He put in a great amount of effort to avoid them.

From the door, he was the same as before: careful profile, lofty eyes. Up close—well, at least no one was laughing themselves into a coma.

“Good to see you.”

“Is it?” asked Sasuke dryly. “I should’ve known you’d be here for this.”

Some of the other teachers—Asuma—met their students frequently in restaurants, their homes, other horribly public spaces that Kakashi couldn’t picture himself entering willingly, especially considering the Sasuke broke into my apartment of it all. They needed to return to normal.

Kakashi’s normal was hovering awkwardly in the doorframe of a hospital room.

Why had he come, again?

“The Hokage cleared me,” said Sasuke, thankfully filling the silence. “Is there anything else I have to stay for?”

“Maa, you know. If you wanted to talk about anything.”

Sasuke’s face immediately flushed a hideous magenta-red, and okay, good, they wouldn’t be talking about it. It also meant that Sasuke really hadn’t left on his own accord, which was the other thing Kakashi was supposed to sniff out, right, right.

“No,” said Sasuke. “No, why would—”  

The door opened.

“Sasuke-kun! I found some of what you were looking for!”

Kakashi noted the way Sasuke’s eyes widened, the grim understanding that something was about to happen building in his own stomach, instincts that he’d kept S-rank mission after S-rank mission, when Sakura cheerfully ran in with a stack of three-ring binders.

“You won’t believe what I—” She gasped, eyes widening at the sight of Kakashi standing on the other side of the door, and actually pulled the binders closer to her, binders that suddenly Kakashi was much more interested in.

Sasuke looked caught between interest and frozen bewilderment.

Oh, ho, ho, were his students conspiring? Planning? Kakashi was reading through the binder on top before Sakura even knew it was out of her hands, page after page of meticulously taken notes on—genin teams? Academy graduation dates?

His genin team? His Academy graduation date?

Oh, ho, ho.

“Did you learn anything interesting?” asked Kakashi lightly. It wasn’t very smart to reward this, but Kakashi couldn’t quite bring himself to scold her, either. Obviously, she’d taken on this subterfuge of a mission on Sasuke’s behalf. Obviously, judging by Sasuke’s reaction, he hadn’t actually expected her to succeed.

Sakura looked like she wanted to vanish into the floor. “I, uh—”

“What was that?”

“Your teacher,” she squeaked. Kakashi didn’t try to stop her; it wasn’t uncommon knowledge, after all. “The Yondaime.”

He felt, rather than saw, Sasuke’s surprise.

“I’m glad you’re taking such an initiative,” said Kakashi, steering her into the middle of the room. He would also prefer to steer them away from the Yondaime Hokage. “In fact, I think you should tell me about everything you found, and maybe I’ll share some tips on how not to get caught next time.”

This was much better than whatever he was supposed to be talking about. Psych evaluation, not leaving the village, effects of kidnapping, blah, blah, blah.

Something unfurled in Kakashi’s jaded chest. He refused to name it, but it sat there all the same, as he reviewed his cute little students’ research.

Chapter Text

Maybe Sasuke understood Kakashi’s own reservations regarding his mysterious past when Sakura emerged with a new set of color-coded binders, even thicker than before, promising answers to questions Sasuke hadn’t even thought to ask. “I didn’t want your help.”

“Well, you have it anyway,” said Sakura, with faux cheer, unloading everything.

Sasuke was sweating badly. It was one thing sort-of, almost, kind-of opening up with his severely depressed ex-ANBU teacher. It was another thing entirely, the girl with the grades but no real skills to back it up, civilian born and bred trying to understand what happened that night.

No one would be able to understand. “I don’t want it.”

Sakura frowned. “It could be useful, thought,” she said. “More information is better, right? On Itachi, and—”

“I don’t want you to say his name—”

“Then what do you want, Sasuke?” Sakura snapped. There was something almost refreshing about, cool and unadoring, the first time she’d spoken to him like a human being in months. “What are you looking for, here?”

“I want…” Sasuke hesitated. Wrongness crawled over his skin, at talking about this with someone else, with Sakura, but he’d more or less poised the same question to Shikamaru, hadn’t he?

And anyway, it was becoming abundantly clear that she would find out on her own. So. He might as well control the narrative.

“I want him dead,” said Sasuke, lowering his voice. “Obviously. He deserves—for what he did—”

Thankfully, Sakura’s face remained impassive. He forced himself to keep talking. “But I want to stop him first. Defeat him. He’s set the rules for too long.”

“Stop him…” murmured Sakura. “What does he want?”

Then, like a Chidori to the chest, Sasuke put two and two together. He’d been trying to forget it, trying not to question it or fear spiraling even further, but Sasuke was pretty sure he’d spiraled to rock bottom already. How angry he’d been. Angry and confused, and it had all gotten blown up after his adventure in a coma and getting kidnapped and breaking into Kakashi’s apartment but—

“To abduct Naruto is the number one priority of the Akatsuki.”

“Naruto,” said Sasuke. “The goal of his organization. The Akatsuki wants to abduct Naruto.” He turned to her. “That’s why they came to Konoha.”

Sakura blinked at him. “Naruto? Why?”

“I don’t know,” snapped Sasuke. “The moron probably doesn’t know, either.”

They sat with that. Sasuke’s brain kept stuttering over the thought, allowing it to slip past him, Naruto, Naruto, Itachi’s weird little club was interested in Naruto, when Sakura cleared her throat.

“They’re two angles here,” she said decisively. “Naruto himself, of course, but also the Akatsuki. If we find out more about them, the other members, then that’s a step in the right direction. Was there anyone with—”

She cut herself off before saying the man’s name. Sasuke felt equal parts irritated and grateful. “Yes,” he said. “He looked distinctive. Like a fish. Blue-ish skin. The headband was Kiri, I think. Crossed out.”

“That’s somewhere to start,” said Sakura. “Then for Naruto, if you don’t want to ask him—well, do you know anything about his parents? I don’t think I do.”

“Just that they’re dead,” said Sasuke shortly, remembering what Sakura had once said about orphans and their bad manners. For better or worse, she didn’t react.

“Right,” she said. “Someone had to have the last name Uzumaki in this village.” She paused. “I’ll start with that. You can take the fish man. There’s a few Bingo Books floating around.”

Sasuke didn’t argue with her. Why bother?

Besides. It was practical, to divide up the work. It spoke to someone well-grounded and reasonable, and not someone who chucked their pen against the wall as soon as he was left alone.

He would start researching…after some kunai practice.

--

“Okay, this is weird.”

Sasuke wasn’t sure when Sakura had turned a one-off conversation into a meeting, but they were having a meeting, and she’d printed out and laminated her notes, all color-coded. He wasn’t sure when he’d invited her into his living space, either, but after breaking into Kakashi’s apartment, maybe the universe was paying him back in kind.

“What?”

Sakura pointed. “The only Uzumaki I could find is this Academy Student named Kushina. The age is probably right—maybe a little on the young side, but I can’t find anything about her graduation date or genin team at all.”

“Maybe she died before she could graduate.”

“I don’t know,” said Sakura. “That would make the age—well, anyway, there are usually more records not less if someone dies in the Academy or even as a genin.”

Of course, thought Sasuke. He’d already shared what he found out: that the ninja accompanying his brother was almost certainly Hoshigaki Kisame, formerly of the Hidden Mist, wielder of the great sword Samehada and yes, someone who also murdered a bunch of people before leaving his village, how wonderful.

At least they had an idea—when did they become they—of who this weird organization was potentially comprised of.

“Do you think Naruto even knows her name?” asked Sakura, more softly this time. “It seems like she was an orphan, too. And I don’t think she was born in Konoha.”

“But then she would’ve immigrated during either the Second or Third War,” said Sasuke. She wasn’t the only one who’d paid attention in their history class, dammit. “That seems unlikely.”

“It could have something to do with why this organization is interested in Naruto. Maybe it’s because of his family.”

One part of Sasuke found this very agreeable, since it was ridiculous that any S-rank missing ninja would be interested in Naruto himself at all, let alone multiple, but a loud minority found that insulting to Naruto’s skill as a shinobi—

What skill? Screaming and charging the enemy?

He beat Neji. He beat Gaara. Who’s to say he couldn’t—

“Sasuke-kun?”

“Right,” said Sasuke, eyes flying open. He’d been down that road before and it only led to embarrassment and promises he suddenly had to keep. “His family.”

“We could ask,” said Sakura, clearly unsure. “He might know.”

He definitely doesn’t. “Sure,” said Sasuke. His brain felt like gooey egg yolks on rice. “Let’s ask him.”

Naruto was more difficult to track down than normal. That was to say, that he hadn’t tried dragging either Sasuke or Sakura to ramen in about a week or so, not that Sasuke had been paying attention, and he hadn’t even really tried showing off one of these new jutsu that he would ordinarily be bragging about.

Sakura hypothesized it was a combination of Orochimaru’s bodyguards invading the village and having a terrorist organization targeting him. Sasuke could not believe he was even trying to guess.

You’re stuck here, though, he thought grimly. You promised to stay here, so you’re stuck here, so you’d better get used to Sakura being bossy and Naruto yelling in your ear. Is that going to make you stronger?

Shut up, he told himself, equally as irritated.

The back-and-forth continued. Sasuke followed Sakura’s lead, and eventually they were all sitting at a restaurant that miraculously was not Ichiraku’s, and Naruto was ordering off the menu like a normal person. Onigiri? What was going on?

Naruto half-heartedly offered up riveting tails of his escapades with some frogs. Sakura was literally twitching; Sasuke could feel her bony leg against the table.

“Naruto,” she said, and they all breathed a sigh of relief. For now. “Do you know why the Akatsuki are after you?”

Bold, thought Sasuke, watching Naruto’s eyes widen before dimming.

Was it the mysterious Uzumaki Kushina? Was it something about his parents, something they might not have any way of knowing?

Was it—

“Yes,” said Naruto quietly. “I know why they’re after me.”

Sasuke had been so certain Naruto was going to shout “because I’m an amazing, awesome ninja ‘ttebayo” that his mouth was already open to rebuke him, and then his mouth just stayed open, frozen, mirroring a bewildered Sakura so closely that Sasuke snapped it shut.

“You—” Sakura struggled. “What? Why?”

Naruto glanced around nervously. Sasuke pushed down the edges of hysteria threatening to reemerge, enough of that, thank you. “Spit it out.”

Instead of beginning to monologue, Naruto grabbed both of their arms and pulled them underneath the table.

“Naruto.”

“What’s the—”

But he looked feverish in a way Sasuke hadn’t seen since—actually, Naruto looked more intense than he had when they were stalking Kakashi, like a live wire of anxiety, legs crossed as they sat hidden by the fabric tablecloth. “It’s not really a secret,” he said. “Well, it’s supposed to be a secret, I guess, but a bunch of people already know.”

He swallowed. Sasuke hated to admit it, but he was curious, now.

“You remember, uh, well not remember, we were too young, but you know how the Nine-Tailed Fox attacked the Village?”

Obviously. Of course they knew about it. Sasuke’s brows furrowed, trying to figure out how it was related—

“To stop the fox,” Naruto swallowed again. “The Yondaime Hokage sealed it…in me. I have the Kyuubi sealed in me.”

Any ability to speak fled Sasuke’s brain. A strange, buzzing noise filled his ears, the admission of something he refused to believe could be true—that beast? That creature? Inside of someone like—

Sakura laughed, nervously. “You can’t be serious,” she said, even though Naruto’s face hadn’t been this serious since—

Red chakra. A howl of rage, more animal than human.

Skin knitting over itself too quickly. Shop owners who gave Naruto dirty looks when he tried to go inside.

Sakura’s eyes were blinking and wide.

Naruto looked scared out of his mind.

Of how we’ll react, thought Sasuke, embarrassed and relieved at once. What a fucking secret to keep, though. Sasuke hadn’t thought Naruto capable of it.

“You must think you’re really special,” drawled Sasuke, letting the words roll out. He could accept this. He could accept the presence of a demonic fox more than Naruto magically and amazingly getting stronger on his own.

Now Sakura and Naruto were both blinking at him. “That’s it?” asked Naruto finally.

“What’s it?” asked Sasuke. “The Kyuubi, okay. So that’s what the Akatsuki is after.”

(Afterward, Sasuke would realize that if he hadn’t said anything, Sakura might have left the restaurant screaming, and that was the reaction Naruto had been expecting, like he was going to transform into a goddam fox right in front of them.

Sasuke had slightly more faith in Naruto than that, Kami.)

“Yeah,” said Naruto, breathlessly. His eyes were weirdly shiny. “Yeah, I think that’s what they’re after.”

“Can we get out from under the table now? I wasn’t done eating.”

“Oh, I mean, sure, ‘ttebayo—”

They all climbed out. Sakura’s shoulders were still tense, but she swallowed and brought out her notepad. “Maybe there are more of these…demons,” she said carefully. “Maybe they’re—”

“Gaara,” said Naruto, after quickly eyeing their neighboring booth. “Gaara has one, too. Actually, maybe I should warn him, now that you say that.”

The giddiness coursing through Sasuke’s chest would’ve caused Kakashi to re-submit him for that psych eval they’d both avoided. A demon, a demon! Of course they were aided by something. Sasuke could sing. He would get stronger, stronger than both Naruto and Gaara, demonless-ly, and oh, how sweet it would be.

Naruto’s not bad competition on his own, Sasuke mused, a statement he’d never admit aloud. But with a demon…

“I see,” said Sakura eventually. Maybe there wasn’t anything else to say.

And on his way back from the restaurant, ignoring Sakura’s trying-not-to-be-nervous expression and Naruto’s wet eyes and declaration to beat him up in training next, I promise I will, you bastard, Sasuke thought about Itachi.

This wasn’t new. The disappointment was, though.

“How boring, nii-san,” murmured Sasuke. An organization comprised of thugs with the grand, noble goal of—what, building weapons? Kidnapping people like Naruto?

He’d built Itachi up as something beyond that. He wouldn’t make that mistake again.

It was becoming clear that Itachi was only trying to wind him up to torment him, keep himself entertained while failing at kidnapping Naruto. Naruto. What a joke. An embarrassment to the Uchiha name, really, and Sasuke was done giving him the satisfaction.

I’m not building my life around you, he thought. You don’t deserve it. You don’t deserve a single thought. And once you believe I’ve given up, that I’m a cowardly weakling, that I couldn’t care less whether you live or die…

Sasuke smiled. It would not be described as a friendly thing. “You won’t even see me coming, Itachi.”

--

As for Naruto’s strange avoidance of him, well, that explained it, didn’t it? A demonic fox, sure, sure, and even Sakura was starting to warm up to the idea.

Kakashi probably already knew.

Kakashi definitely knew.

But the week went on, and Naruto was still acting like Sasuke had some revolting odor wafting off of him, grimacing and making excuses. Normally, Sasuke wouldn’t care because he had better things to do than spend time with Naruto.

If the moron wasn’t training, that wasn’t Sasuke’s problem.

He was standing outside Naruto’s apartment anyway.

At least I knocked on the door, he thought wryly, contemplating once again the shitshow his life had become since that night, when Naruto opened the door, still in his pajamas. “Are you dying?”

“Sas—what?!”

“Are you dying?” Sasuke repeated. “I can’t think of any other reason why you’re neglecting your training. I thought you were trying to beat me, dobe.”

Against all odds, Naruto did not take the bait. Maybe he actually was dying. “I am training.”

“Here? Like that?”

Naruto lowered his head against the doorframe, looking thoroughly put out and mumbling something that suspiciously sounded like Kakashi said and found out and a bunch of other nonsense syllables. Sasuke rubbed his forehead. “What?”

“I’m, uh, leaving,” said Naruto, and for a second, Sasuke thought he meant his apartment, which, good. He was getting bored. “Konoha.” Naruto added. “I’m leaving Konoha.”

Something dipped unpleasantly into Sasuke’s stomach. He thought he heard a ringing echo of laughter.

Foolish little brother…

“Not forever or anything,” said Naruto hastily. Sasuke hoped his face was remaining still and not reflecting the various, unkind thoughts he was thinking. “Just for a little while. With Ero-Sennin.”

“With who?”

Sasuke wasn’t sure when it happened, but he was standing in Naruto’s barren apartment. Naruto looked like he’d rather be anywhere else. Like, out of the village with some pervert sage—“Wait,” he said. “Not Jiraiya the Sannin.”

“He’s not that impressive at all,” yelped Naruto. “He’s a total loudmouth and can’t go two minutes without trying to spy on women changing or women in bathhouses or women swimming—”

“He’s the one who taught you Rasengan,” said Sasuke. The pieces were falling together.

Naruto frowned. “Kakashi-sensei taught you Chidori. He taught you that whole month during the Exam, what else was I supposed to do, ‘ttebayo? And now Kakashi-sensei is going to keep teaching you, so when Ero-Sennin offered—I don’t know, I asked Baa-chan, and she told me it was a good idea.”

Right, baa-chan, the goddam Godaime Hokage. The same woman that Sakura had apparently asked to apprentice with.

For ten, long seconds, temptation seeped into Sasuke’s bones stronger than it ever had. Stronger than the nightmares about Kakashi’s mask, and stronger than when Orochimaru’s bodyguards had tried to convince him to come willingly.

They were going to get stronger. His teammates were going to get stronger, maybe even much stronger, and Sasuke was struck by a wave of sudden sickness at the idea of being left behind, of being left in the Village while Naruto got to prance around—“How long?”

Naruto hesitated. Sasuke felt like he’d swallowed a bug. “A couple of years,” said Naruto. “They want—it’s safer, I think, if I’m not here.”

“So the Akatsuki won’t infiltrate Konoha,” said Sasuke, pushing down every awful emotion. It made sense. It also meant that Sasuke would likely not be allowed to leave, except for brief missions, for the opposite reason.

“You’ll do, what was that, anything I want if I show you my face? Such as staying in Konoha and not seeking out power anywhere else, or from anyone else?”

“I promise. On my honor as an Uchiha.”

Oh, he was so stupid. But he’d made his bed, and now he had to lie in it, and it would be more of a challenge, anyway, and Orochimaru’s men had still been beaten by Choji and Neji and the ragtag group of genin, so it made sense to stay here and keep an eye on them; just like he’d thought it made sense to keep an eye on Naruto.

“Something like that,” said Naruto. He smiled sadly. “I feel like I’m missing out. You and Sakura-chan and Kakashi-sensei—”

“You’ll just have to come back stronger,” said Sasuke. That was it, wasn’t it? Sasuke would have to learn from Kakashi and anyone else willing to teach him. Because if Naruto came back like some kind of sage… “That’s it, isn’t it?”

Naruto stared at him. “That’s it?”

“What else?” Two years wasn’t very long at all. Two years and Sasuke could—well, he had other parts of his plan to put into action first.

(An act of complete apathy for the lunatic who’d snapped and killed his family. Sasuke liked that angle. It gave that man—Itachi—less power.

Sasuke wasn’t sure if he could feign pity for the man, but by Kami, if he could somehow convince his brother that he pitied him—

Delicious. Worth waiting for. Worth staying for.)

“Of course I’ll get stronger,” said Naruto. Louder. More confident. “After all, you’re not just going to be sitting around, are you?”

Sasuke didn’t give that the dignity of a response. Instead, he bit his lip. Considered his options. Considered—

“I saw underneath Kakashi’s mask.”

Naruto blinked at him. Sasuke waited, hoping he didn’t look too smug ahead of time—it was better to play this nonchalant, better for Naruto to get himself all riled up.

“Ha! As if!”

Now Sasuke was the one blinking, as Naruto shook his head. “What? I did.”

“Nice try,” said Naruto. All of the weird anxiety from before had turned into a chuckle that Sasuke did not like any better. “As if Kakashi-sensei would let you get close enough to his face, ‘ttebayo.”

“He did. He showed me.”

Naruto laughed again, this time wiping imaginary tears away from his eyes, and actually, Sasuke wasn’t going to miss him for one miserable second. Not at all. “Thanks for cheering me up, I really needed that—”

“You moron—”

--

The day arrived before Sasuke was ready.

Which was stupid, really, because in another life, he might not have even seen Naruto walking beyond the gate. He wouldn’t have seen Naruto wave like an idiot at him, Sakura, and Kakashi, whose goddam mask started all of this, a reminder of his failures and now a promise.

“We’ll send letters!” Sakura called, as Naruto and Jiraiya walked away. We?

“We will?” Sasuke and Kakashi asked at the same time, before Kakashi let out a weird half-grunt and turned away.

Sakura laughed. She had started medical ninjutsu training with Godaime, on fish of all things, but had also worked up a list of S-class missing nin from the Bingo Book to research.

“I guess we will,” said Kakashi. He’d pulled Sasuke aside the day before to tell him there was a secret about his Sharingan, one he hadn’t told anyone about before, not even Gai. Sasuke wasn’t sure what floored him more: that Kakashi was trusting him with this information or that Kakashi and Gai were actually close friends.

The Sharingan eye, hidden underneath a hitai-ate, which had belonged to one of Sasuke’s uncles or cousins. The other student of the Yondaime Hokage. Kakashi had asked if he’d wanted to know more. Sasuke still wasn’t sure.

“I’ll kick your ass when I get back!” Naruto bellowed, far too loud for the growing distance, both of his arms flung into the air. It was ridiculous. It was everything Itachi would have hated, a realization that left Sasuke warm with pride and spite.

Take that. Take that, Itachi.

Sasuke leaned his head back. One on side, Sakura’s smile. On the other, Kakashi’s mask, hiding the face of a normal man, with normal lips and teeth, and no Sharingan where one didn’t belong. As if there could be someone walking around the village with extra Sharingan.

“In your dreams!”