Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

☯☯☯

In the dead of night, the last of the Uchiha blinks to the sight of a familiar ceiling blanketed in darkness, slow to wakefulness, in the main house where his parents died a year ago.

He lay there ridgid in his bed, outraged, thinking of all the million little tragedies that led to this final calamitous end, thinking of all the million little ways the prideful adults involved could’ve avoided things getting to this point. (Thinks of his own curse, his ever-burning hatred.)

He remembers his older brother’s pacifist nature and how despite that, he’d been coerced to do awful things with those ever kind hands that had harmlessly poked Sasuke’s forehead and steadied his grip around a kunai in equal measure. Likewise, he recalls that mournful smile during their final match, those same gentle fingers touching his forehead for the last time. (Free of resentment, all there was left was love.) 

Yet still, perhaps most of all, Sasuke remembers the warmth of Uzumaki Naruto’s smile; a smile that followed him through his entire life, for forever and a day—the only light he knew would always lead him back home. (What a leech, he’d been clinging to that sunshine without shame after all he’d done to rend and tear.)

He stews for a long time in that dark room, burning down to his very soul for sins he cannot yet comprehend, internally screaminglamenting about what is lost, what he may never have nor find again.

And Sasuke…Sasuke just exhales, a long measured breath from his underdeveloped lungs that can't even manage a proper Uchiha katon. He makes his first informed choice in what feels like a very long time, and chooses to let,

it

all

go.

☯

Despite everything, when he wakes the next morning, Sasuke is still himself. 

There’s a bit more of him than there was previously, compared to the past year of bureaucracy and mourning that had whittled at his fragile psyche bit by wretched bit, but for better or for worst he’s as clear-minded as ever.


Sasuke knows it in his bones—if he were to pick up a star and aim it at a target, he’d be able to hit the mark every time. He also knows he’d pass out from chakra exhaustion if he tried to activate even a single tomoe of his sharingan with all the tragedy that lingers in wait, heady and intimidating, in his spirit. The boy tests and flexes his tiny fingers in the light of the rising sun, eyes the color of the voids residing within dying stars; all the world stands in opposition against him and his own, his family.


— It should’ve been Naruto , Naruto isn’t selfish the way Sasuke is. Naruto’s entire existence is light, while Sasuke’s is the darkness vying for that light. Naruto gave too much and lost more in return, all for Sasuke’s sins, that was simply the type of person he was.

But somehow, someway, a miracle occurred. From the way the familiar wood panels creek under his bare feet, the scent of dead air in the compound, the sound of crows overhead gathering on the roofs of an equally dead residential neighborhood—singing a
siren song for caretakers that would never again return—every last one of his senses confirmed it:


This is reality.


How Sasuke came back doesn’t matter, because ‘he’ is dead.


The world had gone gray and dim around its edges after that final clash in the Valley of the End, ‘his’ limbs had been cold as ice, tasting nothing but iron on his tongue. The way a familiar head of spiked blonde hair lolled in chakra exhaustion beside him, missing an arm that mirrored his own, sun-kissed skin pallid and lifeless, haunts Sasuke’s psyche even now. The choice to tell Sakura to heal his lifelong rival first, after undoing the Infinite Tsukuyomi hadn’t even really been a choice at all, at the end. 


“Because I’m your one and only friend, that’s what you said, right?”


'I’ll be fine'— that had been the final and perhaps cruelest lie he’d told his new family in all but blood, whom he never allowed closer than an arm’s length.

Kakashi-sensei’s mask had been down as well at the end, the man had worn a relieved smile, twinged with lingering grief. Sasuke had told them all he would be alright, despite the terminal feel of his bone dry chakra reserves, and the way every breath he took felt like a thousand shards of glass piercing his lungs. 


(Truly—he was even more wretched than Obito in ways.)


E ven now, every inch of Sasuke is dogged by exhaustion, down to his bleeding soul.

He misses his Mother. (gods he still misses her so, so much) He wants his Nii-san. (sorrysorrysorry he was so foolish, forgive him all his trespasses, he’s so sorry)


But above all, Sasuke is lonely. He’s been lonely for months, he won’t survive this. Not again. Then again, hasn't he already gone through the motions just fine for years now? His brain is all jumbled, it’s wrong, racing in multiple directions at once. When he tries to slide from his bed his knees damn near give out from under him.

With gritted teeth Sasuke rests his forehead against the wall, tiny fists clenching tight enough to dig into his palms. When had he started crying? That was strange, why would he be crying? He’d done so much at the funeral and in the hospital his tear ducts had gone dry and his throat grew hoarse. He was sure he’d never cry again—no… didn’t he cry in the Valley earlier?

THUD!

(No. That wasn’t right either.)

Sasuke draws in a deep measured breath, blinking hard against his tears, focusing on the cold sweat overlaying his trembling form and the shocks of pain from where his head had connected with the wall.

Focus. Focus. That’s not you. You’re not him.


And, well, Sasuke’s always been a resilient child. He’s lasted this long, hasn’t he? So, he carefully picks the fractured parts of himself out of the maelstrom and the foreign darkness, breath quickening as it threatens to overwhelm him. But, even then, Sasuke persists. He's gritting his teeth as he bangs his head.


Once.


Twice.


Again.


—Desperate to center himself, because he must . Because if he allows himself to be swallowed whole, it will just be another betrayal to ‘that person'. The person from his memories. The person always badgering his shadow even before the massacre.


Uzumaki Naruto.


He can’t give up on Naruto. Never, ever. Not after living through the language of his fists, not after seeing his sheer desperation to lead him home. Sasuke’s felt weak all his life, in both lives now, he supposes. But this…? This is still a thing that can be fixed. Because even with a clean slate Uchiha Sasuke owes Uzumaki Naruto, with promises forged in flame, in blood, in tears, in all the ways that matter just shy of matrimony. He’d do right by him. Father had always tried to ingrain within Sasuke the ideal of keeping his promises.

T he ones to yourself are the most important ones, he’d always persist. Uchiha loyalty, to those who earn it, was a truly unyielding beast, and Naruto had earned it in spades simply by being a fixed morning star in a world of misery and corruption. 

Sasuke’s soul would recognize his from anywhere in the world, the universe, through a hundred incarnations, he’d choose him every time. 

So, by the time he collects himself enough to stumble out of the room twenty minutes later, he’s already outlined the beginnings of a loose plan.


Sasuke cooks himself a modest breakfast, with the last of the fish from the storage cellar from last season he’s been nibbling at for months now. He'd been losing weight recently. He should probably make an effort to fix that; it’d affect his muscle mass further down the line, otherwise.

His mother had bought this fish in bulk right before that terrible night when his older brother had been forced to cut down their parents by the village he loved (at thirteen years of age, younger than Sasuke had even been at the time of his death).

The rage and grief are still there waiting and hungry like a gaping maw. It will probably never go away. But it’s like Sasuke looks inside himself, and all he feels is an empty hole where the bulk of it was, the dullest of aches.


(...A wistful smile flashes in his mind’s eye, chased by the visceral image of a body breaking off into ash.)


Sasuke wishes he could have punched his Nii-san one last time, Sasuke wishes he could shake him by the shoulders and call him a million insults, scream and curse him to hell and back again, breakdown crying in his warm arms. The feeling of wanting to crush him to his chest and never let go ever again is so overwhelming he could drown.

“You don’t ever have to forgive me. No matter what you do, I will always love you.”

He exhales with stinging eyes, and inwardly, he pleads for forgiveness like the broken child he is. 

(Sasuke lets go.)

He eats his damn rice, the ghost of his mother, a specter over at the sink looks over her shoulder and smiles bright as the sun, the impression of his father across the table flashes him a faint smile and buries his face in the newspaper, like he has every morning Sasuke can remember, the phantom of Itachi’s touch ruffles his hair on his way back from night patrol. Sasuke’s own voice is higher than he remembers it being when he speaks upon biting into his egg. 

“... Too sweet.”

It feels like closure.

☯☯☯

Sasuke doesn’t recall those initial twelve months, but that’s not out of the ordinary, ‘he’ barely recalls the first several years after the massacre in the mad rush to be better, faster, make genin so he can be one step closer to catching up to his brother in his single-minded quest for vengeance. There’s an empty, despondent sort of void where the memories ought to be. Sasuke doesn't like to dwell on them.


He walks the empty market streets solemnly, as though in a never-ending procession. The blood stains are gone, buildings wiped pristine only by order of Lord Third, Sarutobi Hiruzen himself. Sasuke is old, but he’s also young. He sees the unspoken guilt in the old man’s orders now, clear as day. The Uchiha Compound is a silent ghost town of eerie serenity and rust, forever suspended in time, a failure so great it eclipses even Uzushio. A graveyard for a founding clan that should've finally found an eternal rest remembered in honor for their service.

But this is not the case, because right this moment, Shimura Danzo has their eyes ebbed into his arm.


That man has the sacred blessing of Sasuke’s family, his kin, his clan, in his right arm, and yet still walks Konohagakure’s streets unmarred—dares to stay breathing. This village with its rotting foundations calls him 'hero'. It’s an injustice to the highest degree. A gross violation bordering on sacrilegious that disgusts him to his very core, the blood of Sasuke’s ancestors screamslamentswails.


Eye thief. Ursuper. Coward. Betrayer.

It strikes him with an inappropriate amount of humor suddenly, how they expected a seven-year-old child to stay sane in a place like this. Even Konoha’s standard housing for undesirables would’ve been better than this large, deafening, memorial full of ghosts, wrought upon the village by their own actions. Ah, but then, Sasuke was set up to fail from the start, wasn’t he?


(So was Naruto, the only difference is that one of them rose above while Sasuke toiled and dug with bleeding hands and jagged nails.)


Saving them would’ve been impossible at his age, he knows, but still.

Sasuke stares blankly at an Uchiha artisan stall, thinking of an Uncle who’d been proud of his wife and bright four-year-old twins, due to enter the academy in two years. He'd told Sasuke to look after them since they'd be so close in age. The weight of even a whisper of the memory is almost enough to bring him to his knees. He exhales, shakier than the one last night, and lays his head against the side of the stall, trying not to think of the bodies he’d seen lining these streets. With a heavy heart that makes his very soul buckle under the sheer force of the weariness, Sasuke… lets them go.

He loved them, he misses them, his large, tightly-knit, family and their Uchiha-owned wares and shops, the way he’d bounce through the streets and hands would ruffle his hair, calling him ‘Fugaku’s boy’—Sasuke can admit that now.

Wavering in front of the empty shop for a long time, Sasuke blinks against the sting in his eyes and continues on his way. 

☯☯☯

When he makes his way to the academy, there’s a brief lull in conversation as Sasuke enters. His gaze casts over the other stiff clan heirs, the ones who cannot even fathom but yet still understand exactly what he’s lost this past 'anniversery', along with the civilians who only know the vague shape of it. He pauses on Sakura for a fraction of a moment, images of a girl with fire in her soul, willing to rip and tear to protect the things she holds dear, values that touched ‘Sasuke’ even in his darkest moments.

They might have been friends, he thinks, if she’d ever seen him as a person from the get go instead of a ‘thing’. 

(Maybe this time they could be.)

He makes a beeline to his usual window seat, avoiding various sets of inquisitive gazes as he settles. Thankfully, no one is eager to break Sasuke's self-imposed solitude, reeling from the unreality of an entire clan’s purge even a year after. A core tenant of one of the village’s major municipal functions was simply gone now, carved out of existence in the most violent yet maliciously efficient way possible. How had Danzo justified not replacing the police force in his last life, Sasuke wonders. Had he whispered poison in Sarutobi’s ear, calling it ‘redundant’ to push the village further into a more militant approach to law enforcement, disappearing more children into the shadows of ROOT under the old man’s nose with no outside parties left to investigate? How had he convinced the others on the council that killing his babycousinshisnieceshisnephews was the only path forward? How dare they be so arrogant as to think those lives were in their hands, when not even a quarter of them had a prestigious bloodline to their name?

It was as though the Uchiha were less a founding clan of Konoha, and more a cumbersome pack of rabid attack dogs to be put down. They’d proven every iota of paranoia Uchiha Fugaku had as right and true with a single order, then had the cruelty and audacity to use his own firstborn heir to do the deed.

(Itachi was only thirteen, how could they.)

Sasuke’s pencil snaps in his hand at the thought, making every non-civilian child in the room flinch. Even the Nara child cracks open an eye from his ‘nap’ to watch him cautiously, as though waiting for a tag on a kunai to go boom . This is fair, because that is exactly how Sasuke feels right now, leashing the thrashing beast crawling under his skin, fighting down the bile as he puts together the full scope of what had been done to his family. (He’s tired. He’s exhausted. He hates everyone here living an unbothered life, the blood is on all of their damn hands.)

“Sasuke-kun?” 

His eyes shoot up to meet his academy sensei’s worried gaze. Sasuke distantly realizes the class is filled with social chatter instead of the waning silence that usually came from a room of bored children sitting through a lengthy lecture on chakra theory the clan kids were already familiar with, while the other half daydreamed. —There’s nothing on the notebook paper in front of him, and the sun’s position in the sky has changed without his notice. With only a subtle glance at the chalkboard, Sasuke knows intrinsically he could recite every major point in this lesson with nary a pause if Umino asked it of him, he also knows that shouldn’t be so, because this is entirely new material. 

Umino smiles ruefully, fearless in meeting Sasuke’s dead-eyed stare, while the rest of the room seems to hold their breath. “Would you like to go home for the day?” His voice is shinobi quiet, Sasuke notes, and Umino’s eyes are kind, just like Naruto’s eyes; it feels like a million years since Sasuke last had anyone else look at him with such. His heart is softened, more than he’s willing to admit even to himself. His glances around the room, not finding the familiar shock of blonde hair today. Unwittingly, the wave of disappointment the realization brings guts him.

“... No, Sensei.” He grunts out of courtesy—not that he’s used it in the past decade or so—but still, of all the adults that failed Uzumaki Naruto in this village, Umino has failed him the least amount, he thinks; and that in itself is a start. Sasuke will never be chatty, but he has heard things about being cordial. At some point or another, he was a ‘spare’ to his brother as clan heir, after all.

He hesitates for a beat, then: “Thank you, Sensei.” 

A warm hand clasps onto his shoulder, Sasuke blinks in surprise, brows furrowing incredulously. As he meets his (Former? Current?) Sensei’s eyes, “Alright. Tell me if you do, I’m always here to help, Sasuke-kun.” His lips quirk, expression soft and gut-wrenching in its mercy. Iruka doesn’t say anything further, squeezing Sasuke's shoulder in a grounding gesture, before standing from his squat.

When had he crouched down? How had Sasuke not noticed such a condescending motion from the older chuunin?

Oddly enough, he shakes off the knee jerk reaction to snap just before it takes root, nose scrunching in a childish scowl.

(Sasuke feels like he’s going to have a fucking mental breakdown. What was this?)

He grips two of Umino’s fingers, just before he returns to the front, presumably to leave them all for lunch. There are eyes on his back as his furrow deepens, and he glowers down at his sandals. Iruka lingers, eyebrows raised high in surprised apprehension—he hadn’t been expecting an answer, and why would he? Sasuke never answered. 

“Of course, Sensei.” Sasuke tries not to dwell on how large Umino-sensei’s hands feel when his own are as tiny as they are. “I’ll… keep it in mind. Thank you. For everything.” The words are ash in his mouth.

He watches the man's face light up in a goofy smile, worthy of a true Uzumaki —ah, come to think of it. They were the first class Umino saw to graduation, weren’t they?   Sasuke quickly relinquishes his grip, turning his gaze towards the window instead. 

“Let me know if you need help with groceries, Sasuke-kun.” 

Sasuke didn’t need it, he’d learned well enough on his own the first time around, through many failures and clumsy trial and error, but the concern ignites a warmth in his core. He can’t seem to remember if he’d ever had these conversations, if anyone else had ever cared aside from this man who’s probably only a few years his future self’s senior at this point. To his horror, Sasuke feels his ears start to heat. 

“.... Hn.”

☯☯☯

There are two Uchiha Sasuke’s these days.

There exists a him who is a child, one who is naive and only just able to comprehend the cruelty of this world, who’s angry and,

drowning,

drowning,

drowning.

This boy who now knows there’s no one coming to save him, who knows that everyone in the place he calls ‘home’ will sooner blind themselves to the truth simply because reality is easier to swallow that way. He will be failed by everyone around him, now and in the future, he will spend the nights lamenting and his days raging and burning.

Then, there is the second—the newoldfamiliar Sasuke, who is much older and steeped in just as much anger and grief, who has destroyed and exchanged bonds for knowledge, and died clasping the only thing his broken, shattered self had left to cherish. He is sad, he is worn, he is full of hatred for reasons Sasuke knows yet doesn’t know, ‘his’ thoughts are mixed into Sasuke’s own essence like a bastardized petri dish.

The knowledge gained from 'him' is pain, it is all suffering and it hurts. Yet, that pain intermingles with Sasuke’s own rotting bits all the same, making a home were it doesn't belong.

There are many nights where Sasuke lays on his back and stares, blank-faced at the ceiling, just weeping silent tears, then he'll stumble to the Academy the next morning without a wink of sleep, eyes red rimmed with slumped shoulders. There’s no way to tell where Sasuke begins and ends with the maelstrom of griefguiltfury both sides of him share. The shards of his future self, mismatched yet still conjoined with his very soul bite into him, bleeding him dry; the most he can do most nights is breathe, low and steady, as his mind settles and foreign thoughts and memories persist night after night in the darkness of the Uchiha’s main house. They are merged and they are not, complimentary yet untenable. These days it’s getting harder and harder to distinguish which one he is.

Sasuke is eight and he is seventeen.

Genjutsu is one of Sasuke’s worst subjects to the disappointment of his father; he once released a world from an eternal sleep on his final breath. Sasuke struggles when it comes to practicals; he has once woven lighting chakra into steel to strike down a battalion of parasitic demons. He is strong and he is weak, his mind aches with cutting recollections not of his own as the veil between their memories grows ever thinner. When he blinks, his hands are covered in blood, when he wakes, his sins whisper against the shells of his ears. A million and one déjà vu’s roar under his skin with every walk of his day, every trip outside the compound.

“I am not you.” Sasuke spits the words into the darkness creeping at the edges of his consciousness, after ten days of endurance and just as many sleepless nights, nails digging into his sides as he curls into a tight, vindictive ball, "I will never become you. So you may as well go to sleep.”

The moonlight streaking through the window is cold and blistering, like ice in his veins. Sasuke can’t help longing for the sun to chase it all away. It’s the only thing about this other set of memories he finds comfort in, a light at the end of the tunnel, a long awaited reprieve from the grief and the pain. 

—He thinks the other ‘him’ agrees with the sentiment, but it's getting harder to tell as the line between them begins to blur night by blackest night.

(Letting go is harder when it comes to those endless nights.)

☯☯☯

Sasuke comes across a boy alone on a dock at sunset after Naruto being a no show in class for a long stretch in October.

He recalls ignoring the sight numerous times in the past, even when he’d been whole and unbroken. There’s a flash in his mind of a broad grin and a hand held out, shaking and bloody, to complete the other half of a certain hand seal, one meant to wake the whole of the world.

Let’s go home together, Sasuke.

(He’d broken that promise too.)

Before he realizes it, one foot in front of the other, his legs carry him forward, all the way down the steep hill, across the bank, until he finally reaches the side of the better half he’s been missing. He wants to fall to his knees in rapture, he wants to hug the boy who’s always been his salvation tight in his arms, the only thing in the world that’s never truly left him alone. He wants to beg for forgiveness.

Uzumaki Naruto meets him when he comes up short, expression for once dull and tired, shoulders curled inwards as though anticipating a cruel jab. And… he’s not wrong for it. Because even a few months ago, it’s probably exactly what Sasuke would’ve done. At present, however, he shuffles his feet and hesitates, before reaching out a hand in clemency, for the only person he’s ever deemed worthy. Those wary blue eyes are like that of the oceans of a long-dead homeland, swimming with flecks of sunshine and gold from the sunset—reflected currents and unyielding as steel. 

Sasuke wonders, not for the first time, how the him in his memories had walked away under the furious intent of such a gaze. 

He drops his hand when he gets nothing in place of a response, gripping the corner of the dock to ground himself and stop the edges of his fingers from quaking. He drops into a crouch and cages the other in with an arm against the wood, gaze ruinous pits of black as waking reality overlaps with a vision of an older Naruto’s dominant arm, blown clean off by their mutual blast, of an even earlier memory, with that fool standing with him back to back countless times covered in wounds.

Again and again, Naruto sacrificed his body, his autonomy, and his soul , for friends he substituted in for this flimsy thing he’d never known called ‘family’, or, rather, the closest thing that Naruto could get to the concept of having one. In retrospect, ‘Sasuke’ lost the moment he hesitated to smother that patch of stubborn sunshine on his way out of the village, or, perhaps, he’d lost from the very beginning of that first C-rank, where he’d momentarily forsaken his quest for revenge, drowning in a surge of raw panic to shield Naruto against a rain of poison needles in Wave.

(Would things have changed if ‘Sasuke’ had done things differently? He wonders.)

“The hell do you want?”

Sasuke blinks, slow and cat-like, before inclining his head, the insignificant words that tumble from his lips are lame as they are clumsy: “Have dinner with me, dope. You look like shit.” 

☯

There is a serene silence at dusk as two children make their way to the empty husk of a main house Sasuke resides in. He physically drags Naruto through the empty streets of the desolate Uchiha district with a clenched jaw, revving himself up for the numerous questions that have become synonymous with outgoing Naruto he knows. To his surprise however the blonde is, for once, silent and pensive while taking in the coo of the crows lining the empty residential buildings, eyebrows scrunched up, not fighting Sasuke’s firm grip on his wrist. His gaze itches .

(That bleeding heart is going to get him into trouble one of these days, many of these days, and Sasuke will be right there to watch his back this time.)

Sasuke doesn’t let him go the entire solemn trek; deep down, he’s always known he never could. 

They have a dinner made up of the last of Sasuke’s salmon, plain rice, pickles, and miso soup he’d found frozen in the back of the fridge this morning. Naruto had brightened up immensely at the reminder of food, immediately bustling into the kitchen and heckling the other boy’s cooking. He pokes and criticizes Sasuke’s way of braising the fish before groaning and bumping him over with his hip to banish him to vegetable duty. Something warm blooms in Sasuke’s chest as he huffs and ducks his head with a thin, close-lipped smile.

The kitchen feels brighter compared to the empty, almost sterile air of the past few year. Sasuke bumps his shoulder against Naruto’s while chopping leeks, (his) sun cackles boisterously and bumps him right back. The dinner they end up with isn’t the best, with choppy unevenly cut pickles and salty miso soup. Sasuke munches on his fish with Naruto chats about the prank he’d pulled on some fruit seller in the shopping district who’s been stiffing him for weeks. He stubbornly pretends he’s not indulging the blonde by playing footsie with him under the table.

Naruto’s always been annoyingly perceptive in his own way. He doesn’t once ask questions about the ghost district, or what he’s been up to like a civilian child might have; he just fills up the emptiness of Sasuke’s dull kitchen and his even duller, bloodstained life. He chases away the autumn chill and the freezing moonlight with his smile, ankle interlocking with Sasuke’s while they eat. Sasuke finds himself physically leaning forward into the warmth of him, just like a starved flower, his stomach digs into the wooden edge of the short table. All he wants is to burrow into the other’s soul and take the long, restful nap that his body’s been denying itself for what feels like an eternity. 

Thankfully, unlike everyone else, Naruto does not leave. 

At the entryway, Sasuke’s ears burn as he grips the back of the other’s black tee shirt where he’s bending down to slide on his shoes. Naruto simply turns, putting his arms behind his head with a curious look, before he grins again, lopsided and bashful. He follows the other boy to the bath with that burning azure gaze, without a single complaint.

☯

“I don’t get you at all, why’d you go an’ approach me today, anyways? You’ve been livin’ like the dead for weeks now.”

He’s half hanging out of the side of the tub eyes wide and quizzical, Sasuke tosses water over his shoulders, scrubbing his hair with a low hum, “Dunno,” he shrugs trying to find the words, there’s too many, there’s not enough, he can’t justify a single thing, and yet—

“I… guess I got tired of being alone.” 

The words ring true in the steam-filled bathroom, both in this life and in the future. After leaving the Leaf Village, Sasuke still found himself cycling through companions again and again, because—try as he might—deep down he abhorred, even dreaded , the crushing silence that followed isolation. At present he glances at Naruto, subconsciously memorizing every inch of his face, the way his expression scrunches in concentration as he tries to see the layers under Sasuke’s mask. It makes him want to smile, helpless and bitterly amused.

He’s always known him best, hasn’t he?

“Everyone else just pretends that night didn’t happen. You’re the only person in class who’s ever looked at me.”

Naruto blinks once, then again, “... Hah? Ain’t everyone lookin’ at you, though? You’re the top of the class, you’ve always been an overachiever.” 

Sasuke drowns his sour expression under another bucket full of steaming water, he searches for the words he’s never managed to put together as a child nor as a full-fledged nin.

It’s... complicated.

Sasuke’s emotions are turbulent and too troublesome to put into words on even the good days, for most people he wouldn't even bother with trying. But it’s Naruto. Naruto with his childhood innocence as he earnestly tries to understand every problem he comes across with a gumption that he can solve anything.

Naruto, Naruto, Naruto who he can spend forever paying back and never scratch the surface of what he owes.

So, Sasuke can try. For Naruto, he can try.

“But, they don’t really like me .” He continues, turning back to Naruto, frowning.

“They like the idea of me, maybe. They like the thought of the last Uchiha being loyal to Konoha, or even to them specifically. But that’s different from liking ‘me’.” Naruto pauses face twisting in a way that gives away how hard he's thinking, so much so that Sasuke can imagine steam coming out of the blonde’s ears. “Those civilians that follow me around probably don’t even realize what kind of food I like.” 

Naruto sits up tilting his head this way and that as he drags a hand down his chin, “... I get that feeling around town sometimes, when… when people toss me outta their shops for no good reason, ya know?” He shifts uncomfortably in the mineral-rich bathwater, nose wrinkling his nose like he’s smelled something nasty, “The Jounin look at me like they’ve seen a ghost, the townsfolk look at me like I’m shit off their shoe,” Naruto pouts, sinking further into the tub as Sasuke shakes like a dog, arching a brow. 

“Oh please, here’s no one in this village who’s as annoying as you.” Sasuke scoffs, “Who would anyone be seeing when they look at you besides Uzumaki Naruto? Adults are dumb.” 

Naruto blinks slowly for a moment, before he grins sheepishly, laying his cheek against the flat side of the tub as Sasuke reaches out to bury his fingers in drooping blonde spikes with a deceptively cool expression, “And there’s no one in this village as crabby an’ irritating as you, teme. No matter what, you’re just plain old Sasuke to me.” 

“Guess that makes us a proper match, then, usuratonkachi.” And Naruto beams so big at the familiar insult, that Sasuke’s chest hurts a little. He climbs into the tub and soaks, head turned decisively away as Naruto leans into his touch like he's starved. It rankles, the thought of Naruto—bright, cheerful, unreal Naruto who’s always been Sasuke’s guiding star back home—being lonely of all things . The memories in his brain are all wrong, and he hasn’t got his head screwed on straight yet, but this feeling of indignation, he knows at least, is real. 

“Heh! I guess you’re right.” Naruto jerks, splashing water over the bathroom tile as Sasuke lazes over the side, resting his eyes. “You’re not so bad, bastard.” 

“You’re not so bad, yourself.”

He only needs to meet those clear, unwavering eyes to know what Naruto would do if he came back instead of ‘Sasuke’. Somehow, that makes all the difference. Hesitantly, Sasuke reaches out a tiny hand, hooking his pinky in one of Naruto’s equally tiny, tanned fingers. It couldn’t be this easy, things never go easily for Sasuke, he was used to bleeding for the things he wanted most. 

“... Hey.”

“Yeah?” 

“ Stay. ”

His voice is too small for the angry, wrathful version of him that knows too much and holds hatred for everything in the world; it’s too shy and weak for the knowledge that one day he’ll have the ability to cause quakes in the earth with his footsteps and drag gods and moons from the sky with his accursed eyes. He’s too big and too small for this time and place, but again, for good or for ill, Sasuke is still ultimately ‘himself’, just as that twisted, broken enraged thing cowering in the back of his mind is also a him that will never be. 

Sasuke has never wanted for anything with his entire being before, not like this. 

They both fear rejection, they brace for it because that is all Sasuke’s life has ever been. Never strong enough for Fugaku or his clan, too slow compared to Itachi, not enough to keep Orochimaru from marking him or resisting the pull that followed, never enough to resist Madara’s. Weakness begets loss, and loss begets weakness. It was one of the earliest lessons both fractured versions of himself had learned. 

But then, just like that, the sun rises.

Naruto smiles crookedly, and ruffles Sasuke’s damp hair in an unpracticed mimicry of the earlier show of affection, “Of course—we’re friends now, ain’t we?” He says it so damn easily, like it'd the most obvious thing in the world and Sasuke’s brain hits a wall. Mouth dropping briefly as he frantically searches both sets of memories for even a hint of where this came from, before warily cocking his head.

“... Friends?”

“Well, duh. You fed me, let me use your dumb personal bath with salts an’ everything, shared stories an’ woes… that makes us comrades now, ya know!” Naruto rolls his eyes as though he’s the weird one, but Sasuke sees how his eyes skitter away, colored in that anxious fear; it’s in the way he fidgets, disturbing the cloudy green water. He sees that same fear of rejection reflected back. Sasuke blinks before responding, just a bit in awe by how disgustingly easy it is, by how easy it's been all along.

“Yeah, I… guess we are.”

Sasuke smiles for the first time in weeks-months-years ; that older him quiets and the endless humming that had numbed Sasuke’s ears all week long slowly fades away, just like a passing nightmare. —Had that broken version of himself and his memories really been so loud ? The knowledge sticks around, and it still burns him inside and out, but the weight of it eases when Naruto knocks a friendly fist against his.

“You’re never gettin’ rid of me now, teme!”

“Oh please, you told me you drank spoiled milk with your cereal the other day, obviously you need me more.”

Something missing clasps securely into place, and color fills in the grayscale that’s lingered since Sasuke came home to see his clan slaughtered like pigs in their own homes last October. He gets a distinct feeling that this is ‘right’, this is how things should’ve always been. Would that other him still have wound up that way if he’d reached like Sasuke had, he wonders?

Then, Naruto grins at him, and comments on how fluffy Sasuke’s towels are, asking where he’s spending the night in the same breath. Sasuke’s worries all seem to fall away. 

☯

“Oi, Naruto.” 

They’re sharing a bed because the only other ones in the house are that of his parents’, his elder brother’s, and a dusty futon that hasn’t been aired out in close to a decade. Sasuke recalls they seldom kept guests in the home the main family slept in, so his mother never felt the need to keep extra futons around. Itachi and Sasuke were both die-in-the-wool introverts, and Shisui usually wound up sharing Itachi’s when he stayed over, besides.

Sasuke lies on his stomach, cheek pressed against his pillow, Naruto lies on his back, looking for all the world like he’s still not sure exactly how he got here, “Whaddya want?”

His mouth spasms over the habitual ‘bastard’, Sasuke’s shoulders unwind, “Do you wanna be a part of my clan?” He recalls something at the end, something from the Sage saying their lines were at the very least joined and split off one thousand-odd years ago. 

Naruto blinks and turns his head so they’re nose to nose, “Wha--? I thought clan was a blood thing, you can just… adopt people?”

Sasuke shrugs, “I’m all alone. Everyone in the registry is deceased and there was no one on mission when…” he stumbles over his words, childish and clumsy, not having the same level of stoic poise as his older self yet, “I…uh. You’re alone too, right? I figure we can be alone together. Let’s make an alliance.” Electric blue eyes seem to glow in the darkness of the bedroom, Sasuke looks away; that gaze seems to strip him down to his very core. 

“Okay.”

“.... ‘Okay’?”

Naruto shrugs and turns to him with a sheepish smile, “I dunno if I wanna be a part of your clan yet though! Iruka-sensei says that’s something reserved for adults, y’know!”

Sasuke huffs into his pillow, “Dummy, this is different. That’s not what I meant, anyways.”

He deflates, or did he? It’s hard to tell with the intermingling strands of memory and the fractured, messy emotions attached, all jumbled up in a mess of knotted strings in a brain he knows probably isn’t developed enough to handle the full scope of the memories he’d gained. Even now Sasuke only knows broad strokes of what will happen in the future with a few phantom sensations of déjà vu and interspersed foreign thoughts. The more detailed memories come in the form of nightterrors—the thought of what’ll be left of him once he’s stable enough for all the pieces is enough to leave him short of breath with his heart pounding. Once more, Sasuke puts it out of mind and out of thought—Naruto. It's always easy to focus on Naruto.

“But joining a clan is important! I gotta bring something to the table.” Naruto declares proudly, rolling over so his shoulder brushes against Sasuke’s, “The whole village will acknowledge me one day, and I’ll be able to say ‘this is my buddy Sasuke, you better not mess with us’!”

Sasuke settles under the futon, letting the bright smile wash over him in a bit of a haze. He takes Naruto’s hand in his. This close, even in the moonlight, their coloring is a stark difference. Naruto’s skin is kissed by the sun itself with golden, wild, spikes to match and blue eyes that blaze; Sasuke is pale like the moon outside of his window, with hair and irises of the sky between the stars. A perfect match in every way, as though Amaterasu herself crafted both specifically for the other.

(He'll make sure he never loses this ever again, in both this life and in the next, and the next… and the next…)

The feeling is so intense, that Sasuke tightens his grip, earning a curious noise from the boisterous blonde, “... ‘Kay, later then. Just stay.” 

Naruto nods and gives his hand a happy squeeze in turn, “Don’t worry, Sasuke-teme, like I said, you’ll never be rid of me, I’m real stubborn, doncha know!”

(He knows it so intimately he aches.)

𖦹𖦹𖦹

Naruto meets a boy on a lonely dock at sunset; it is a boy he used to envy more than anything.

He’d been ‘monster’, he’d been ‘demon’, he’d been ‘a waste’ back at the orphanage up until he entered the Academy and fought and fought to change those into anything else.

His apartment front had been peppered with graffitied insults he used to think were his name up until the age of four when Jii-jii started coming around to visit. He’s tried being ‘good’ but quickly found that didn’t make things any better. People still vandalized his home, none of the kids would play with him, but worst of all—no one would meet his eyes. He was treated like a ghost, meant for disdain, hated for reasons he couldn’t comprehend. Numb days spent in dead silence in the tiny civilian apartment on the edges of the poverty district, teachers looking past him in class, peers and villagers on the street swerving him as he walked and… well.

He never had a choice in the first place, did he? 

So, Naruto got loud.

He stopped being ‘good’ because long ago he realized it made no difference. He took up space and spat back when he was spat at, pranked stall owners who hated him and painted blasphemy over the venerated Hokages’ faces. Naruto deserved to exist and he’d prove it to every single person in Konoha who chose to look away from the skinny little orphan brat with uncanny whisker shaped birthmarks and a form wound tight enough to snap. 

(More than anything, Naruto wanted people to see him. Even being hated and reviled was better than being ignored.)

Naruto didn't know when his birthday was until last year, the cold Sister in charge of the orphanage never told him. Just told him stiffly ‘October’ the one time Naruto had asked when he was four--she was never cruel, but never warm either. When it was time for Naruto to start at the Academy she’d handed him a box of his things and Naruto knew the elderly woman didn’t want to see his shadow darken her step again after. He'd only figured it out after finding his own birth certificate at the very bottom of the box. Both his parents names with blocked out with bold black ink.

What he does know is that October is always the worst. Naruto hates October.

He usually tries to stay in, but sometimes the vandalism gets downright frightening, the loud bangs and broken windows too unbearable. He doesn’t read the derogatives attached to the bricks, and, regardless, Naruto honestly doesn’t think he could read the kanji on the crude notes if he wanted to. There’s an animosity in the air that makes him nauseous, a poison in the villager’s eyes as he walks the streets. See, Naruto didn’t fancy himself particularly smart or anything of the stretch, but he had more than enough survival instinct to see where he was and wasn’t wanted. And in October, Naruto very aggressively wasn’t wanted, be it his pranks or by his simple presence--so, he made himself scarce.

Finding out about the Uchiha clan after a lengthy stint in Konoha’s woodlands last year had been a gut punch.

It hadn’t been satisfying seeing his rival shattered last year, it was just plain awful. The boy’s eyes a blank void of despair for months after, shambling around like a ghost, sitting out of spars, seething and lashing out like an injured stray at anyone who’d come close. Naruto had once envied Uchiha Sasuke for his bright giddy smile he saved only for his brother who’d pick him up after the Academy a few times a week, how he was alone in class but had a large family that stuck with him through the village’s malicious whispers.

(He had seen Sasuke's mother once and only once, she'd come to pick up her son. She had given Naruto a smile so warm and so full of unfiltered affection, he about stumbled over his own left feet with how fast he ran away. Naruto had cried in the forest for a long time, that day. She'd seemed kind. He wishes he'd said hello.)

Before, he’d resented Sasuke's talent, his looks, the clan heir’s ability to effortlessly draw stares everywhere he went. And most of all, Naruto resented his pride, how no matter what Sasuke held his head high, earnestly working to live up to his family’s reputation and the name that he bore. He’d been a quiet moonlight, a beacon when Naruto felt low.

Now, however, that moon was shattered Naruto just felt sad.

Now, he knows all he’d wanted was for that Sasuke to look his way and give him that bright, bashful smile he only reserved for his family, and tell Naruto he was worth something, anything at all. But the chance had come and gone, and in that Sasuke’s place was a hollowed out shell of what once could've been.

No one else can see the light dying beyond the surface level angst and it’s borderline maddening. Then again, Naruto doesn’t think anyone watches Sasuke quite like he does. He’d watched the bastard wither away, bags growing under pit-like eyes, endlessly staring out of the window for months on end as treacherous legs habitually carried him to the Academy morning after morning. 

He lets that hand pull him along because those eyes are the first that have met his since the start of October; it is also the most light he's seen in those eyes since last year's incident. He follows the boy attached to that hand home and stays, because Naruto fears if he doesn’t, that moonlight of his will crumble and break into a million pieces right there at his feet, all over again.

At present, his fingers tighten around icy digits in the blackness of the room when Sasuke wakes up wheezing with quiet sobs he thinks Naruto can’t hear, heartbreaking, and keening into his pillow, curled into a tight defensive ball. And… Naruto never had a person be truly kind to him ever in his life aside from Iruka-sensei and Jii-jii. 

But he remembers their warm embrace, he clings greedily to the memory of Iruka-sensei’s chime-like laugh as he’d spun Naruto around during a rare instance when Naruto had caught the chunin off guard enough to catch him in a tackling hug around his middle Naruto had been too light to pull off. So, tentatively he curls around the trembling body, feigning sleep as he feels the other lonely boy lock up and soundly rests his cheek on a head of fluffy black spikes he can see even in the dim moonlight of the room. It doesn’t feel right, but Naruto buzzes at the contact, shoulders unwinding at the sense of safety that fills him, just by not being alone anymore. 

“Sasuke… sleep…” he mumbles, throat dry, as he indulgently buries his face into black locks with its calming scent of ash and honey. “M’right here, so sleep ‘kay?” 

As Sasuke hums in distress, a self-soothing sound Naruto’s uncomfortably familiar with, he tucks him a little closer, and thinks about staying. He thinks until his head hurts and Sasuke’s soft, half-delirious crying quiets down. Overworked steam may as well be blowing out of Naruto’s ears, as he rubs a thumb over wet cheeks and smooths out the wrinkles between deeply furrowed eyebrows. All the while, Sasuke’s limbs twitch in his sleep, as though fighting back an invisible specter. 

Naruto makes a choice; he figures, like Sasuke said, if nothing else they may as well be lonely together. 

☯☯☯

They make quite a pair. 

That first day when they’d walked into the academy, side by side, with Naruto’s arm tossed around Sasuke’s shoulders and Sasuke loosely, nonchalantly speaking to him with low, quiet tones. It’s a startling contrast to the blonde’s loud exclamations, half the girls in class have a meltdown. Sasuke doesn’t acknowledge the ruckus, he only has eyes for a certain blonde and the warmth that should’ve been by his side all along.

Iruka-sensei had simply beamed, for once looking his age, “You two are a bit late, but we haven’t started lecture yet, go ahead and take your seats—Naruto, Sasuke-kun.”

“Understood, sensei!” Naruto grinned proudly, nearly overpowering Sasuke’s more subdued echo. 

And that was that. 

That very same week, out of the blue, Naruto stops playing pranks altogether. 

It is jarring for everyone in class aside from Sasuke, who has inexplicably allowed the excitable blonde to take up residence next to his infamous window seat, pressing ever closer against his side, babbling between breaks and reading obviously over the unbothered Uchiha’s shoulder. Their classmates don’t understand the throughline—but Sasuke does. Naruto doesn’t even have to say anything, it’s all in his clingy body language, his over the top mannerisms, as he slowly comes to the realization that Sasuke firmly is not leaving. That he’s here to stay, and Naruto isn’t alone anymore. His smiles are content and genuine, even when they bicker over spars and schoolwork, seats shoved together and sides melding like two halves of a whole.

(So, yes, Sasuke knows exactly why the pranks stop, because this is all Naruto’s ever wanted—even if it's someone as gloomy and prickly as him— a real friend. )

As Naruto chats Sasuke’s head off between and during lectures, his vocabulary and range of subjects are as endless in their multitudes as grains of sand on a beach. ‘Yin’ and ‘Yang’—sun and moon, compliments , that’s what the Sage had called them.

Sasuke thinks the first time around he hadn’t understood what that represented, too caught up in his own angst and hurt to see that inherent kindness as anything short of condescending. But now he knows better, with his cheek resting against a furnace-warm shoulder, and that clear gaze, always focused on him alone. Sasuke thinks he understands now—why there’s another set of memories in his head echoing the burning need to run far, far away. After all, how could someone in Uzumaki Naruto’s orbit resist the pull of hearth and home his chakra seemed to pulsate just by breathing? Can’t the people ignoring him feel it? Sasuke is like a cat sometimes, basking in sunbeams, he lives and breathes it, chakra reaching out in search of that familiar patch of warmth even when Naruto was out of his sights.

The more he opens up, the less he feels like that other him. It's reassuring in its own right, that Sasuke wasn’t completely over-written; he’s still just… him. He has way more memories and knowledge than he knows what to do with, but despite everything he’s still here , which means he can make different choices, and that is important.

One slow day, he’s sitting under the tree in front of the academy after classes, patiently pointing out characters to Naruto in a notebook as the boy whinges and complains about the difficult ones he can’t remember. There’s a tiny scarred, tanned hand buried in his black spikes; Sasuke thinks he could fall asleep just like this. In comfort and in affection, being pet like a feline. And just as suddenly, it hits him just how desperately he doesn’t want to lose this. He’d burn down villages, slaughter a thousand clans, fell entire nations just to keep this. He knew with a certainty he wouldn’t survive losing it.

(Perhaps it's this overwhelming surge of emotion that made Lord Nidaime so wary of the Uchiha, that lead Shimura Danzo to take such drastic measures to keep them in line.)

Sasuke blinks and his vision clears, Naruto is poking his cheek with a pout, “Oi, Sasuke-teme, are you ignoring me…?” Sasuke’s lips twitch as he grips the hand, carelessly entangling their fingers once more, as he’s been doing more and more often. The notion itself is silly, Sasuke always keeps at least half of his senses on Naruto, he listens to every word.

“Like I could, you’re so loud my ears ring every time you open your mouth.”

Naruto stares at him hard, squinting, long and searching before he leans back, face relaxed, “That’s fine I guess, just stay here with me, ‘kay?”

Sasuke would die for him.

He doesn’t know which fractured shard of him admits it, maybe it's all of them at once, maybe it's just plain old Sasuke—the truth is unshakable all the same. It becomes his foundation.

“Course, dope. Where else would I go?”

☯

The compound is noticeably brighter.

Weeks stretch into euphoria filled months as Sasuke learns more about Naruto than he ever had before, according to the second set of memories in his head. He’d instinctively known his ‘soul’ of course. He had known Naruto as large swaths of expressive color on canvas, all the little curiosities and those million tiny tells had eluded Sasuke while he drowned. In the end, they often wasted more time fighting than they had actually speaking. It’s how he knows now, how much it must’ve hurt Naruto in that timeline, waking up without that other distant, broken version of Sasuke he’d been chasing, a mirage he knew so painfully well, but would never truly get the chance to pin down and see. Selfish, he’d been selfish to the very end.

He’d been Naruto’s person just as distinctly as Naruto had been Sasuke’s. 

Sasuke inhales as he stares at the ceiling of his bedroom, Naruto’s body wrapped around him like a particularly clingy octopus. The blonde snores into his hair with both their legs tangled together under the futon.

He wants to be better for him. 

They spar together, they study, eat and sleep together. They breathe in each other’s oxygen with how close they are day to day. Naruto’s so clingy, Sasuke soon struggles to pick out times they aren’t at least touching. It would be easier to just count how many steps he took during the day. The thought of leaving this behind had quickly become incomprehensible, he can’t tell where he begins and where Naruto ends and it hadn't even been a month—he’s curious now, about how that would translate in combat. The memories inside him sing a ballad of blood and harmony, of a blaze of twin gold and purple supernovas, a complimentary chakra signature at Sasuke’s side, his other half, his equal . Something lost, something found, something that he never should’ve let go of in the first place.

(There’s so much regret in these memories laid bare at Sasuke’s feet, shattered into splinters like the reflections of a damning mirror.)

He doesn’t yet know what to do, or what he can do at this point; all he knows is the precious things he needs to keep. Naruto is one. His nii-san is the other. His nii-san whose lungs are drowning in blood right this moment with every unlabored breath Sasuke dares to breathe . The horrifying realization catches him off guard in the darkness with a violent jolt, followed by a memory of chalky, bloodstained fingers knocking against his forehead.

... Come to think of it, hadn’t his brother been a pacifist? That’s what Shisui always said, always wistful, so hopeful for an Uchiha—it’s why he’d fought so hard for peace in the first place, after all. 

The thought sticks. Sasuke rolls it over in his head. 

Pacifism was firmly not in his nature, in any of his lives, really. Sasuke is an avenger at his core, a killer, a survivor, at times he can even be a protecter, like his father was, but never a healer. Uchiha's weren't healers. He taps patterns into Naruto’s skin, eyes more black than gray, reflecting the silver of the moonlight streaming in through the patio doors as he considers . Because he had seen Orochimaru and Kabuto do horrific and marvelous things in equal measure under their tutelage, he had seen Haruno Sakura do that and more against a reality breaking goddess. He knows he will be strong, it is in his blood, preordained and imprinted onto his very soul. 

One day, when you have the same eyes as I do, come stand before me. 

But he’s already seen that ending, through eight years of a future that never would be crammed into his skull. It ends with Naruto exhausted and determined, trying again and again to grab Sasuke by the hand and lead him back to a home that's never really felt so, vowing to force it into that mold. It ends with Sasuke bleeding out in the Valley of the End, his vision graying at the edges after saving the world, telling one last lie to the sole person who deserved anything but.

(Medics could be monsters, just as much as they could be sages, in the world of shinobi, they could be all-rounders on par with a Hatake if they chose to be.)

There had been a time once, a million years ago, when Sasuke liked learning new things outside of being the Uchiha clan’s spare, just for the sake of it. In part because it would earn him praise from his Nii-san, and also, simply enough, it was rewarding to learn a new skill, in the same vein as solving an intricate puzzle. Sasuke finds himself curious one sleepless night, about whether it’s even in an Uchiha’s nature to ‘heal’ instead of ‘destroy’, when the latter is all they’ve been known for since the Warring States period. And how much would that just piss off his remaining relatives, knowing Sasuke chose a path of blossoms over thorns, so defiantly in opposition to the Curse of Hatred? The power to topple nations at Sasuke’s fingertips, yet he’d dare desecrate his lineage, specializing in a role meant to nurture.

Tou-san would be aghast, were he still alive.

The clan elders would go into cardiac arrest, even if Sasuke was simply meant to be Itachi’s shadow (a spare pair of eyes for the future clan head).

The other him that exists in Sasuke’s memories would absolutely despise it, he knows, down to his marrow, how much ‘he’ would hate the weakness inherent in circulating his chakra for anything outside of a display of power (that same power which he used to hurt Naruto again, and again, and again .) Sasuke curls around his sun in the overcast, desolate, light of the moon, eyes burning with an aggrieved Sharingan that hasn’t fully awakened yet.

At his core, Sasuke is a spiteful creature.

☯☯☯

“Hey, whatcha readin’, Sasuke-teme?”

“Medical textbooks.” Sasuke says, bluntly, barely blinking as Naruto leaned his entire body weight against his back, chin perching on his shoulder.

He’s grown used to the clingier aspects of the other boy’s antics over the past several months since Naruto’s moved in. Socks and various articles of clothing now litter Sasuke’s previously utilitarian style living quarters, trinkets and magazines line his shelves that used to hold strict ninjutsu studying materials, even before the massacre.

—Sasuke is slowly coming to realize… he probably wasn’t all that happy ‘before’, it’s a bitter pill to swallow without rose colored glasses. He doesn’t even have anyone left to confess it all to, in order to ease the strain. So, it gets buried. Along with all the other breakthrough realizations over the past couple weeks. It almost feels sacrilegious to think badly of his own clan, after all they’ve sacrificed, how deeply and fiercely they’d loved him. They'd loved him so much, but they didn't know how to make Sasuke happy, not like Naruto did. Naruto was all encompassing and all accepting, Sasuke never felt out of place, he never felt 'small', he was always where he ought to be.

Sasuke doesn't let the realization fester, he lets it go.

(There's nothing to forgive but he gives it to his parents' altar, anyway. It's a part of his morning routine now, cleaning and lighting incense. Kaa-san would've like Naruto.)

During that gradual move, Naruto had excitedly brought his civilian movie posters from one of the larger cities up north, some upcoming actress he was fond of—when Sasuke looks at her face he remembers rolling fields of endless snow and the whisper of a grateful smile with a autograph slid carefully into an envelope. The poster of the bright young woman with shoulder length black hair stays. 

It’s the most home this room has ever felt, in either set of memories.

“Ehhh, I thought you wanted to be strong?” Naruto squints at him in suspicion, bringing Sasuke's thoughts back to the conversation.

Sasuke shrugs, he doesn’t lie: “It’s practical for chakra control, and I want to be able to protect those precious to me—this is a way to do that, I think.” 

Naruto stares at the book for a long moment, “... Well, if you say so. Is that your dream?”

He actually reels back in confusion, Sasuke’s had goals and ambitions, but never something as childish as ‘dreams’. It was never in the cards for him, his life had been laid out for as long as he could remember, and even then, this fancy for medical ninjutsu was ultimately still a means to an end.

“My dream?”

“Ya’know, your nindō, your ninja way! To be a really amazing healer and save your precious people, an’ stuff.”

Sasuke actually pauses, ruminating on the thought for a bit, “... I shouldn’t. Healers don’t belong on the front lines, they’re too important. People rely on them too much for them to lead any charge. My skill set is shaping up to be more in alignment with a frontline assault type. Runs in my blood.”

Naruto scoffs, pushing off Sasuke’s back, “Screw that! Why can’t you be both, then?”

What.

“Hah? ”

“Just be so strong no one can strike you down, then there’s nothing to worry about, right?”

Sasuke hums low and thoughtful as he leans back into a stretch, meeting Naruto’s eyes as he tilts up his chin, “The Uchiha aren’t known for healing; we destroy, we bring ruin,” he closes his eyes, picturing Mardara’s twisted sneer and Indra’s gaze of hatred, “it doesn’t make sense to be a medic nin when you can spot and hit a mark from several clicks across a battlefield.”

“Then why do you wanna be one, then?” The blonde scowls in confusion, growing irritated.

He blinks slowly at that. The momentum of his choice had carried him through this past week, so much so he hadn’t even thought about it until he was carrying numerous library texts on anatomy and scrolls far above his year level back home one afternoon. Even then, he’d kept pushing the more complex implications of his choice to the back of his mind for a solid week. Sasuke clicks his tongue, he goes with the easiest answer, because, really, what led him here began and ended with a span of seventeen years plus eight, and a million and one preventable tragedies.

“The world wants me to bend and break to its tide, and I hate being told what to do. —Simple as that.”

Naruto’s face twists, once again overcome with disgust at the vague metaphor, “Ugh, the hell does that even mean?”

Sasuke rolls his eyes, closing his book, “Remember what we talked about that first night? They see my brother, they see my dōjutsu, my clan,” the one they murdered in cold blood simply for wanting a seat at the negotiating table, “I am a well-bred weapon, as any shinobi worth their salt ought to be. It’s in my veins. But they don’t see me.” He says, and closes his eyes, lets the words and the loss wash over him. 

Let go.

“And…. my clan. I want it to die with me and my brother. I just want a world where I don’t have to lose anything anymore. This cycle of blood, tragedy, and pain… it’s all we’re known for, and it came all to roost on that night.” No more loss, no more grief because of the thrice damned Uchiha name and a thousand generations of hatred and strife, “I’m sick of it, Naruto, I have things I wanna protect no matter what. If I can use these stupidly large chakra reserves to heal instead of hurt, I’ll never lose anything again.” And that includes you.

He must’ve admitted it out loud, because Naruto’s eyes are suddenly wide, and shining with a glaze of wetness. Sasuke twists around and leans forward, touching their foreheads together. “That means you can’t die on me, okay? Can’t watch my back if you die, idiot.”

Naruto’s grin is a bit shaky, his nose nestles affectionately against Sasuke’s cheek; he’s not phased by Sasuke’s messy, broken, possessive bits that would chafe and irritate anyone else. He takes it all in stride, embracing them as he does all the broken little things the blonde has the habit of picking up—because he’s got those same bits, too. Naruto is all encompassing, all accepting, he’s the only constant in Sasuke’s life, in both of his lives now. Sasuke laces their fingers, marveling at how warm Uzumaki Naruto is, like an ever burning flame, even in the dead of winter. 

“Uhn! We’ll protect each other, Sasuke. That’s a promise.” 

“... ‘Promise’?” 

The other boy inclines his head like a bemused puppy, “For sure, I never go back on ‘em, ya’know,'' Naruto is smiling so hard his eyes remind Sasuke of a mischievous fox, “Let’s become strong together!” Sasuke feels a pressure at the backs of his eyes, his vision flickers and goes a little fuzzy, blood rushes past his ears as he tightens the grip he has on their intertwined hands. 

“Don’t break it.” Is all he says, burying his face into Naruto’s shoulder; to his horror he finds his voice fracturing. “Everyone else can break their oaths, betray me, leave me, but not you, you’re the only one who I can’t…” Sasuke squeezes his eyes shut tight, shaking his head to get back on track.

“—Doesn’t matter, you won’t, will you. It’s a promise, got it, idiot?”

Naruto rolls his eyes, trapped in Sasuke’s firm grip, “I heard ya the first time, teme—didn't I already say it? You’re stuck with me.” 

Sasuke nods, slumping back against Naruto’s collar bone, thin shoulders unwinding when something close to contentment washes over him. Stunningly enough, he believes him. 

☯☯☯

He reads at night under lamp light sometimes, with Naruto curled in a warm ball against his side. Others he’ll be at his desk with a head of sunburst yellow spikes in his lap. During the day, while they train, Sasuke feels eyes crawling up his back—he can usually tell which are the ‘good’ ones and which ones are the ‘bad’ ones. When the bad ones are watching, Sasuke’s eyes will flicker red as he stares across the treeline, ushering a loudly complaining Naruto back into the house, blandly informing him that they’d be mediating today instead of doing katas. 

ANBU stalkers aside, Sasuke quickly learns that Naruto is brilliant.

A proper diamond in the rough. Sasuke is smug that he’d found him before the Toad Sage could ruin him. When he’s focused enough, his instincts and spatial awareness even surpass Sasuke’s own—he’s a perfect match in every way in a world where Sasuke has always placed people in the distinct categories of ‘stronger’ or ‘weaker’. 

Itachi had been so far above his level, Sasuke doesn’t even think he won against him—not really, judging from the other set of memories he peruses late at night, he gets the impression his Nii-san had allowed him that win.

It rankles, even secondhand, how pointless all those efforts had been in the end. Because, once more, contrary to the popular belief, Sasuke does not see himself as a prodigy.

He’s a product of good shinobi clan breeding and the Uchiha’s sordid lineage—he is special because of his kekkei genkai and a cocktail of fortunate genetics, but ‘Sasuke’ on his own is nothing special. There’s still a muddle of complicated memories in his brain he doesn’t quite understand, like the Sage of Six Paths and something about rabbits, as well as the burning impression of a crescent moon he feels should be on his palm yet for some reason isn’t. Sasuke instinctively knows he does not hold control over any of these things, nor can his powerless self do a thing to circumvent them the way he is now, so, he focuses on what he can do.

Train and research.

The civilian librarian glares at a fidgety Naruto whenever Sasuke drags him along for these excursions, each time Sasuke meets her gaze unflinchingly, without fail, until the woman bows under the judgmental pressure and bends. Resentment on Naruto’s behalf is the one thing Sasuke finds he can’t let go of. He won’t. Why? Because it doesn’t even occu r to Naruto to hold onto such grudges in the first place. Sasuke’s sun is far too good for the likes of Konoha, but it is also where the lovable idiot has chosen to roost—thus, like it or not, Sasuke does what he does best:

He endures.

The village, the knowledge, the subtle way Naruto clings like Sasuke is the only person that’s given him more than an iota of attention. Sasuke endures even the eyes crawling down his back as they walk the shopping district during afternoons, hunting for stalls that will sell them actual fresh fruits and unspoiled goods. There aren’t many who do. That first day, Sasuke’s rage is palpable as it finally dawns on him, just what kind of life the Naruto from his memories must’ve lived, and what kind his Naruto was living up until recently.

Trash, every last one of them. 

He loses his temper only once.

A month or two after Naruto fully moves in and they settle into their routine of cohabitation, a burly shop owner chucked something heavy and solid at Naruto’s head in one of the recreational shops. When he’d turned to see the blood trickling from Naruto’s temple, Sasuke felt himself slip , just a little bit. Red tunnels his vision at the sound of a pained, puppish yelp from the other boy at his side, hand slipping from his grip, and.. and,

-he sees a bridge covered in mist and there’s blood on the concrete- and -- 

Sasuke blinks. 

He is inexplicably elsewhere, outside the shop of wares they’d visited to replace the dented soup pan in Sasuke’s kitchen. The pots are scattered across the ground at his feet. —There is now dead silence in the district. He’s got the shop owner on his back, his shinobi standard sandal crushing the scum’s windpipe, the eyes on his back are more intense now, at his sides, Sasuke’s fingers start to twitch. He briefly fantasizes about choking the man out.

Suddenly, there is a sensation pulling from behind, gently but insistently tugging at the hem of his shirt. Slowly, perhaps ominously, Sasuke turns only to meet a pair of anxious blue eyes, his muscles unwind at the sight.

“Oi, Sasuke-teme, I’m fine. It happens a lot, I heal fast, dummy.”

The Uchiha gives him a long flat stare, until Naruto is shifting in place, glare unwavering, “You’re not supposed to use your Academy training on civilians, y’know, Iruka-sensei said so!”

He rolls his eyes, but eases up his foot on the adult’s windpipe, gaze never once breaking from the civilian’s fearful, dilated eyes. He inclines his head, fluid as a feline’s as he measures the man up against Naruto’s many (many) enemies, his gaze is dispassionate as though looking upon a pinned butterfly in a spider's web.

Sasuke finds him lacking. What a joke. 

He channels a bit of that distant, bitter future into his next words, allowing the boiling emotions and cutting memories to cover him in an ominous shroud, leaking from his person like a thick miasma. “Know this...”

He leans forward, bent at the waist, glower flashing red as twin tomoe whirl to life in his irises, open wide and spinning. A burgeoning migraine starts at the back of his eyes, immature chakra coils straining as he forces them open. The civilian is frozen into silence and shaking, the only one close enough to see the immature sharingan. Sasuke doesn’t even care to learn the poor bastard’s name. 

“Make him bleed again, and I’ll make you bleed twice over for every drop that sinks into Konoha’s soil.” He projects his voice, subtly addressing the hushed crowd. “Uzumaki Naruto is an ally of the Uchiha clan. A transgression against him is a transgression against me, the last acting head. Next time, I won’t be this lenient.” 

Naruto is slack jawed when Sasuke straightens up, eyes abruptly easing back into black voids with a few blinks, face softened of the glacial frost that had briefly taken over. His head is pounding, that was a mistake, everything hurts. He grabs the blonde by the hand, his tone is colored with unflappable ease.

“Oi, let’s try another store, usuratonkachi. This one's no good.” 

Dumbfounded, Naruto nods and stumbles to keep up with the boy’s brisk pace. And Sasuke already knows without having to ask, that the other has likely never had someone defend him before, he’s probably never had someone claim him as theirs before. All Naruto had ever wanted was to belong, it’s the reason he’d wanted the hat after all; something so childish yet so, very devastatingly simple. It makes Sasuke feel righteous rage up to his eyeballs. 

( —He now understands the mancousinenemy in his memories ‘Uchiha Obito’, just a little bit. If he gave Naruto an eye and everyone used, manipulated, and shunned him for it, he too would probably drag his rotten soul back from the Purelands themselves to personally burn this village to the ground more than once.)

The other stores on the block promptly and efficiently give them adequate service, the ones who don’t fall swiftly in line fold easily with the Uchihas’ thrice damned heir’s blank glower over his bubbly companion’s shoulder. There are no further incidents, they make their way back to the compound hands filled with bags with Naruto chattering about this new elemental seal he learned about in a book at the library, he’s not so good at kanji yet, Sasuke’s been tutoring him on that front too.

So many people have failed the son of Namikaze Minato and Uzumaki Kushina it’s staggering.

With the amount of legacies his memory sings of, Naruto holds all the hopes of the people that came before him and then some, it’s patently absurd that the kid isn’t treated like royalty, spoiled rotten and raised with love. But... soon enough he would be. He didn't 'need' Sasuke, the way Sasuke needed him to stay centered.

This is, of course, because unlike Sasuke, Naruto is not weak.

Sasuke has two years in the academy under his belt and another decade's worth of memories he didn’t live besides, watching and dealing with Uzumaki Naruto’s specific brand of harebrained determination. Even if he took a step back and didn’t intervene in this cruel preordained play, Naruto would bounce back from scorn again and again, forcing himself into various people’s hearts, making them fall for him hook line and sinker. 

His charisma was otherworldly—a genjutsu in its own right. 

Naruto won’t protect himself because he is durable, he is strong. In some ways, he’s stronger than Sasuke. So, no, Naruto does not need Sasuke’s protection.

This does not change the fact of Sasuke’s loyalty to the one person who’s stuck by his side and stayed after his entire world was ripped apart by politics and greed. Sasuke had long decided that he would pick him this time around, again and again, no matter what. He owes it to the broken version of himself that lives in that second set of memories, he owes it to the Naruto from those memories he’d left behind, a shining beacon of light in the eye of a raging black sea.

The boy in question grins back at him brightly, golden hair backlit by the setting sun on their way home (home, what a concept, the compound was home again) Sasuke feels himself soften as he lightly bumps their shoulders, seamlessly melding their shadows into one.

☯☯☯

The Hokage calls Sasuke and Naruto to his office the next morning, they miss class for their trouble. 

It is the first time Sasuke has seen the man since the massacre, it’s even longer if he factors in the second set of memories in his head. The part of him that rages against the blood and the bodies that had soaked into the Uchiha clan’s streets is viciously glad the final memory is a black casket.

But now, Sasuke inclines his head, and he waits. He does not understand why the village is the way that it is, honestly, he resents the previous him for not at least fishing for how things got this bad, for being too wrapped up in his own hatred to even notice besides. Because, if Sasuke doesn’t have all the information, he can’t win this argument, he’ll have to rely almost entirely on emotional tactics to keep from drowning.

The very thought of even pretending to be vulnerable around this man and a bunch of hidden eyes is enough to make Sasuke want to hurl. 

Naruto’s hand shifts into his, and he mutters real low, “We can make a break for it if you want, it’s just Jii-jii.”

Sasuke relaxes and rolls his eyes, “We’re not doing that—and don’t call that man Jii-jii. He’s kind of a jerk.” Hiruzen sputters, choking on the smoke lazily drifting up from his pipe.

“I’ll say it again. Jerk. Short-sighted. Irresponsible Adult. Son of a— ” To Sasuke’s displeasure, Naruto shoves both hands over his mouth, sweating.

“Sasuke…!” He hisses, eyes darting to the slack-jawed Lord Third, who clears his throat and swiftly moves on.

“... Now, Sasuke-kun, it’s come to my attention that you have taken Naruto into your home, and that you’ve grown rather,” he pauses, eyes sweeping over the two of them, lidded but bemused like he’s trying to figure out a particular conundrum, “close, over these past few months, following the tragedy.”

The sheet audacity has him physically reeling, Saskue’s fingers twitch for a weapon’s pouch that isn’t on his thigh. 

“Yes. The genocide.” He parrots back mechanically and says no more, the wording as reckless as it is intimately personal. Uncomfortable silence stretches between the residents of the room and up into the rafters, even Naruto starts to squirm, brows furrowing.

“... Erm! Right. Sorry, there was some trouble in the shopping district, Jii-jii! Won’t happen again,” Naruto grins sheepishly, “didn’t think it would get that intense.” 

Sarutobi exhales a cloud of thick smoke, disappointment heavy in his eyes that actively avoid meeting Sasuke’s own. The coward won’t even look him in the eyes. “Yes, I’m aware. But in the future Naruto, I hope you’ll exercise the discretion of a future Konoha shinobi. You’ll have to apologize to the stall owner later. He claimed you damaged his wares…” 

Naruto laughs, fake and stilted, and it’s wrongwrongwrong Sasuke wants to claw his own throat out, the expression so blisteringly false. Because how many times has Naruto downplayed the way the civilians treat him—the people who call themselves adults while shunning a child.

Sasuke’s expression goes blank and furious, “It was me.”

“Sasuke! ” 

He lifts his chin proudly, eyes narrowed as he stares down Sarutobi, with a clenched jaw, “He was rude to an honorary ally of my clan. I informed him to show respect.” 

The Hokage stammers for a moment, eyes practically popping out of his skull, “You… what? An ally of your clan?”

“Me and Naruto have an informal registry agreement. I adopted him into my clan as an ally months ago, and he verbally confirmed the contract. The Uzumaki and the Uchiha are to be joined under one banner when we both make genin rank and become legal adults. It’ll be legitimized under the old Warring States era laws.” His back is ramrod straight, he doesn’t speak with so much as a stutter, just like Kaa-san always taught him. He’d done hours of reading and research in the library, just to see this gobsmacked look on the old bastard’s face. 

Hiruzen looks ready to keel over, he’d pray harder for it if next in line for the hat wasn’t Danzo. “S-Sasuke-kun, surely that is quite the dramatic overreaction to that incident in the shopping district, you are still recovering, are you not?”

Sasuke’s eyes sharpen as he glares up through his lashes, he repeats himself steadily to hammer his point home. “I will petition every clan head personally if my word alone is not enough, as I said, I’ll legitimize our alliance under the Warring States laws if I have to. Naruto is my family, and a part of my clan. So, as acting Uchiha Patriarch, he is under my protection. I exercised that protection yesterday. I will continue to exercise it over and over until the citizens of this village get it through their thick skulls.”

He’s pleased to see the Sandaime grow at least several decades older with every word that leaves his lips, Naruto is looking at him with that wide-eyed look of awe again, Sasuke’s chest swells with pride. “If you fight me on this, you will lose,” he locks eyes with a wary Nara Shikaku standing at attention just behind the Kage’s desk. He is the real threat in the room after all, the brain of Konoha’s light-side, the Nara clan head.

"Naruto doesn't even have a clan."

And Sasuke blinks, tilting his head, his eyes slide to the portrait of the Fourth on the Wall behind the Hokage, the old man follows his eyes and promptly clenches his traitorous jaw shut, white-faced as he pointedly looks away from an increasingly confused Naruto. He clears his throat, smoothly changes the subject like he hadn't slipped while Nara Shikaku grimaces. Sasuke feels the urge to laugh a bitter, terrible, laugh, but swallows it down.

Cowards.

“... You’re rather young, a child. Why not simply wait until you’ve both made chunin rank?”

He raises his chin again, refusing to back down, “That’s too long, this is the fastest way to keep us both safe.”

Hiruzen flinches at that, brows furrowing as unease rolls over his shoulders, no doubt seeing all the ghosts standing behind the children in his office. 

“You… feel unsafe?” 

How could the leader of one of the most prominent shinobi villages in the world be so shortsighted—this dense ?

Sasuke raises his eyebrows, “Sir, with all the respect you’re due,” —which was admittedly none in Sasuke’s not-so-humble opinion— “all I did was walk into that shopping district yesterday and the violent intent towards me and Naruto was so strong it made me nauseous. I haven’t felt like that since I walked out of my home and found my family gutted.” Sasuke thinks he feels a flash of white-hot, blazing, chakra, it is, in the space of a moment, so intense he almost tastes ozone on his tongue, Sasuke is reminded of the ‘good’ eyes he sometimes feels at his back. Oddly enough, it leaves the tension in his shoulders unwinding.

He uses ‘family’ instead of ‘clan’, because this is personal. He wants everyone in the room to know what they look away from, he wants them to look at him and see all two hundred and ninety-six ghosts they’d allowed to be slaughtered. Yet, paradoxically his tone remains impersonal because it must be. If he lets himself think about it for too long, he’ll break and probably do something stupid, ‘slip’ the way he did in the market, and that cannot happen. Sasuke reminds himself, it absolutely cannot happen in a room full of ANBU guards.

That’s how he loses Naruto, and despite everything, Naruto unfortunately loves his Jii-jii. 

He can’t be too emotional either. It’s a game with adults in Konoha, you’re a child until you’re not, but you’re also an adult until it's convenient to treat you as a child. 

If he doesn’t keep pushing, there’s a chance he’ll wind up all alone in that house again, and this is unacceptable. Sasuke somehow knows he’ll really go insane if he’s forced to return to the deafening silence after that touch of warmth; something must show in his hardened gaze because the old shinobi’s words soon shrivel up and die in his wrinkled throat, face sinking into a grim, pained expression. Sasuke’s eyes narrow as he rocks back on his heels.

“Naruto’s the only one who’s stayed. As far as I’m concerned, he’s the only family I’ve got.” Sasuke feels more than hears the sharp inhale to his right, he twines their fingers and keeps his stubborn glare straight ahead. Every inch of him is arching like an offended alley tom even admitting this out loud, to this many people, but he needs this. The thought of returning to that house, of walking through those empty districts without that cheerful burst of sunbeam at his side, sends a wave of nausea rolling in his gut.

“—This is all the Uchiha name’s good for, with me as the last remaining member. I don’t care what you say; I’ll adopt him and give him the Uchiha name if I have to.”

Since you won’t.

Sarutobi flinches, minute and near-undetectable, Sasuke crushes Naruto’s hand in his. It's a dangerous game he's playing, he's relying on Sarutobi having less pride and more guilt. If it was pride Sasuke's words were only aggravating his ego and if it was guilt...

...

This pause is exceedingly more charged than the last, as Sarutobi just groans and rubs his temples with bony, aged, fingers.

His senses pick up on the uncomfortable energy buzzing from all corners of the room, from the grimace on the Hokage’s face, to the eyes of the ANBU detail burning into his proud back. He’d never let them forget for a second, Sasuke may be in the process of letting go, but he sure as hell wasn’t going to let anyone feigning apathy forget. He’d remind them every day, etch it into his skin that he was the last and that there was no fixing it, no going back.

The choices this village had made the night of the massacre were irreversible, they owed a debt in blood to the Uchiha and Sasuke would force them to pay their due back in full with interest. Konoha was Naruto’s den, so it would be Sasuke’s too. If the village refused to be hospitable, then Sasuke would force it into that mold the way that other Naruto had silently promised with every plea for him to come home.

Uchiha were known to be tenacious and vindictive when wronged—there was good reason why the Council was terrified at the mere thought of a coup, after all—and oh, despite his controlled demeanor, Sasuke felt very, very, wronged.

Eventually, the old man bends, laughably feeble, like wet rice paper, then breaks under Sasuke’s fiery, accusing, gaze. Naruto wavers between the two of them, uncharacteristically hesitant to intervene, or at least struggling to find a place to cut in. —But then, Naruto’s used to defusing these things with humor, hopping back out of reach, trying to look as harmless as possible, wasn’t he? How else would he have survived this long?

(Sasuke hated it, the entire manner just screamed ‘don’t hurt me’ and Naruto should never feel that way, not towards the people who are supposed to be on his side.)

“... Very well. You two boys have express permission to live under the same roof,” Sasuke scoffs bitterly, like he needed to ask permission as a clan heir. “By my authority, I recognize this future alliance.”

Sasuke inclines his head, a vicious smile growing on his face—it’s the one his cousin Shisui used to wear before sparring with his brother, or when going into an argument with the clan elders he knew he was going to win. “I’m glad we’ve come to an agreement, Lord Third—now,” he cocks his head further, predatory as a cobra, yet his eyes remain innocent as can be. It is a trap:

“Let's discuss Naruto’s orphan stipend.” 

The Sandaime does not bring up the topic of an apology again, he dismisses the two boys frantically after just under an hour of intense scrutiny. Sasuke walks away with his head held high and a significant increase to Naruto’s monthly allowance. 

They head off to the academy hand in hand. Naruto’s watching the pleased Uchiha warily, Sasuke’s got the biggest grin on his face he’s had in months. He’s smug as a prideful cat. 

“Oi, Sasuke, back when you said you’d make me a part of your clan… you don’t mean actual marriage, do’ya?” Sasuke looks over his shoulder, raising his eyebrows wordlessly, Naruto huffs, puffing out his cheeks. “C’mon at least answer me. You can’t mean it like that, it’s impossible.” 

“What makes you so sure of that?”

“C’mon! I’m just an orphan on a stipend until I either become a genin or take on some dumb apprenticeship. Even, I know that much.” Naruto rolls his eyes, “Uzumaki’s not even a clan name!”

Sasuke’s eyes bore into the son of the Yellow Flash who’s been so wronged by so many adults, the irritation that surges through him leaks into the dismissive hum, “You’re saying that with an awful high amount of confidence, dope.” Wary blues level him a distinctly suspicious look. Naruto already knows the tone he’s using.

“... What d’ya mean by that?”

Sasuke’s hums again, taking a sudden interest in the sky, “Who knows?” 

Naruto rolls his eyes, “Anyways, I’m sayin’ you deserve better than being tied to a no-name like me! Even an alliance feels dicey. Shouldn’t you wanna marry a pretty clan girl or somethin’?”

He hums, “I don’t think so. I’d rather stay with you,” he gives Naruto’s hand a silent squeeze, “... Do you want to marry a pretty clan girl?” 

The boy stumbles, face reddening, “I…! Well, I dunno, that’s for adults!”

“We’ll be adults in four years by the village’s standards.” Naruto sputters, eyes wide with flailing limbs as Sasuke keeps them on the track home, falling deep into thought.

Sasuke picks apart the jumble of memories in his head, only to furrow his eyebrows at the large amounts of conflicting information. That other him didn’t care for things like romance, his life’s purpose had been for two things: killing his Nii-san and reviving his clan, with the first taking precedence. It had probably been even less of an afterthought in his eyes, he imagines, a blip on the quest to obtain his true ambitions. 

(... Now what a morbid thought train that was. Did he expect to die? That's the million ryo question. Sasuke suspects he might have, he thinks at the end 'he' probably wished it so.)

Although, Sasuke was many things—willfully ignorant, stubborn, and moody on a good day to boot—he was not, in fact, dense. Naruto had awakened his Sharingan twice over, after all. Any Uchiha who’d gone through their first round of clan lessons knew exactly what that meant; all the working parts are there and Sasuke’s always been a bright child, even next to his prodigy elder brother. 

Besides, he remembers Shisui’s fervent devotion, sure as he breathes, where Itachi got his shattered mangekyo isn’t hard to surmise.

“It’s okay if you do.” Sasuke says, finally cutting off the blonde’s increasingly derailing rambles, “We don’t have to marry. I’ll follow you anywhere.”

Naruto freezes outright, physically rolling back on his heels, bringing them both to a halt, “But I… just don’t get it, y’know.” Naruto blinks quickly, scowling stubbornly at his feet, to Sasuke's growing horror, the other boy's eyes are red-rimmed.

“What’d I do right with you that I didn’t with everyone else? Why d'ya even bother with me?”

“You stayed when I asked. So, I’ll stay with you in turn.” He doesn’t even need to think about the answer. "You didn't do anything wrong."

“Just like that?”

“Uhn. Just like that. I told the old man you’re family, Naruto. As far as I’m concerned you’re an honorary Uchiha in all but name, so that makes me an Uzumaki.” He turns on his heel, looking the stunned boy straight in the eyes, “And that means we protect and look after each other no matter what. If we’re together, we’ll never be alone.” 

And, to his shock, Naruto bursts immediately into tears right in front of the main house entrance—it's an ugly, full body sort of cry. Sasuke hugs him tight anyways, it’s late and the streets close to the Uchiha district are empty. His small body stumbles under the blonde’s body weight and he slides down the door frame, clumsily patting Naruto’s trembling shoulders.

“S-Shhh, there, there…” he mumbles slightly panicked and just this side of terrified, he is firmly out of his element, but still, he rests his cheek on top of fluffy blond spikes humming low and comforting. He thinks these words used to help, it’s how Nii-san and Kaa-san used to comfort Sasuke on the bad days when the pressure was too much and nothing was going right.

“I’m here. There, there…” 

Naruto cries and sniffles all the way through Sasuke warming up dinner—the house made ever warmer by his presence filling up its empty spaces—Sasuke senses eyes on his back again before he slams the shoji doors leading out to the garden shut. (He doesn’t worry about it beyond general irritation, these are the ‘nice’ kind.) Like usual, they fall asleep, a knot of tiny tangled limbs, with Naruto’s obnoxious snoring in Sasuke’s ear. 

He wouldn’t have it any other way. 

☯☯☯

Sasuke keeps up their routine, emptying the Konoha library of its medical texts and anatomy scrolls. 

He patches up Naruto’s scratches and bruises for basic first aid practice, he stitches up his own, he uses needles to mend the wear and tears in their clothes, just like Kaasan used to with him and Itachi’s training wear. He can't do any further hands on experiance, he needed to graduate first to even considr petitioning someone at the hospital for an apprenticeship.

When they train, he feels himself getting better, his reaction time is quicker, his strikes sharper. Naruto is right there with him, practicing katas. They’re so intertwined, Sasuke can’t even consider the other as anything short of a dominant limb. He can see echoes of why the future version of him had picked Naruto as his special person; reluctantly as the memories settle he sees all the ways that light must’ve seemed blinding to a version of himself who’d thrown away everything he cherished but the need for vengeance. 

Naruto was pure and good, unlike his tainted, ugly self. Naruto deserved to be surrounded by love. He’d wilt without the comfort and light of other people, while Sasuke only feels like half of one on the best of days and absolutely nothing on the worst. 

It dawns on him during classes, looking out at the clustered groups of clan kids during break time. Sasuke’s eyes brush over Sakura—the way she is now, he knows anything he says will fall on deaf ears. Shikamaru, though… he taps his fingers on the desk in consideration, while Naruto snacks on a package of crackers to his left. They’d end up with Sakura later anyways, but they’ve still got a good several years left in this academy.

(The other civilians are a lost cause, unworthy of even mention. None of them even graduated with ‘Sasuke’ the last time around.)

Clan heirs tended to come in threes, future knowledge aside, Sasuke’s still one of them at the end of the day, he knows all the politics, the hundred-year treaties, who hated who, why, and the dirty laundry that came with it. Hyuuga’s, for example, were often paired in tracker teams for their eyes which made them a good match for the Inuzuka Clan and their specialized sense of smell. Ino-Shika-Cho trio’s on the other hand, had a hundred year long legacy, going back to the Warring States Era, their alliance was one of the oldest ones in the village.

The story went that Hashirama recruited the three clans in a roundtable style discussion and they immigrated as one. In theory, tug one on a string and the rest will quickly follow. Nara Shikamaru was a good initial trail run, he’s easy enough, pragmatic.

Even if Sasuke’s clan had been more isolated than the others in Konoha, information was still power, knowing thy enemy was an ideal impressed upon most Uchiha from an early age.

So, Sasuke plots.

One sunny day, he grabs both his and Naruto’s lunch bentos during break and plops himself right down next to Shikamaru and Chouji. Both children are wary, Naruto digs his heels in looking like a confused dog, Saskue wordlessly sits and starts to eat. Across the room, Ino’s eyes are, for once, less starstruck and more bewildered. The class is so quiet, one could hear a pin drop–it’s been months since him and Naruto have socialized outside their little bubble, after all. Slowly, haltingly, Naruto strikes up a conversation while cheerfully sharing bits of his lunch box with the placid, stunned Akimichi about the fresh salmon he and Sasuke found at the market on their day off. 

Shikamaru looks at him with a crinkle in his brow like he’s reached a roadblock in a particularly frustrating crossword. Sasuke chews his tamagoyaki and raises his eyebrows.

On the third day of the new routine, Shikamaru casually gives Naruto tips on his chakra control after the boy loudly complains over a particularly unsuccessful venture in genjutsu practicals. Chouji asks Sasuke about his favorite food and brings him a fresh bag of tomatoes from his mom’s garden. His smile is warm and bright, like a teddy bear’s, alas, Sasuke is not strong enough to turn the gift down. 

From across the room, the Yamanaka heiress stares with a frown that’s more of a pout. Sasuke looks her in the eye and bites into the juiciest tomato he’s ever had.

(It’s rare he gets to be ‘mean’ these days.)

Even before the massacre, Sasuke’s always found it strange, why she preferred fickle civilian children to the lifelong allies she’s had since birth. As someone who grew up in a district of Uchiha with its many generational bonds and life debts upon life debts, blood and loyalty—the rest of the clans are very strange. In fact, from Sasuke’s perspective, the clan most similar to what he was used to would have to be the Hyuuga, barbarism against its branch families aside.

That particular heiress unfortunately wasn’t conducive to his blossoming little extrovert of a housemate anyways, the girl hardly got a word out when Naruto was around.

Yamanaka though… he watches her fume as the week drags on, growing more and more agitated in a way only a child losing a best friend can be. Shikamaru raises an eyebrow at him a few times as Sasuke starts to taunts her in subtle ways, locking eyes with her across the room like a smug big cat; it’s startlingly easy, for that starstruck look to leave her eyes, replaced by steely cobalt. 

He keeps up the occasional eye contact throughout the week—he’s not touchy, not with anyone but Naruto, nor is he affectionate by any stretch of the term, but if there’s one thing Sasuke’s always been good at, it’d have to be getting under people’s skin. So, he just keeps up the conversations, chatting with Nara about shogi one day, and giving Akimichi tips on protein in-take the next. He tags along with Naruto when the blonde becomes brave enough to talk to the two clan heirs outside of lunch period, casual as can be. Each and every time he sees Ino, without fail his eyes squint in faux innocence before he smirks. 

Watching Ino trip over her own feet while walking in the same direction as her civilian lackeys just warms his cold, barely beating heart. Naruto catches him only once, shooting him a confused look. 

“Oi, what are you doing? Ya look like you're up to something.”

“Nothing bad, just doing some long term investment.”

Naruto looks skeptical, Sasuke's almost offended.

“Uh-huh, riiight. Just don’t go overboard, teme, I like Chouji.” 

“I have no idea what you’re talking about.” 

Needless to say Ino looks downright murderous by the last lunch of the week two; Sasuke’s lips twitch in amusement when she unceremoniously plops herself down beside him on day fourteen with her bento, bright red and annoyed as she wordlessly feeds her tempura to a bemused Chouji when he opens his mouth to question the seating change.

Naruto looks up from his conversation with Shikamaru about kanji. The Nara had been completely aghast and awed into silence last week when he’d realized just how far behind the blonde was in memorization, even with Sasuke’s help. It's downright impressive that Naruto hasn't flunked out yet without knowing every tenth character, he’d said, and promptly gotten Naruto a pocket notepad to study with. He was actually a bit uncharacteristically intense about it, Sasuke has a feeling he’s used to taking care of other people.

“I know them way better than you two idiots ever could.”

The prideful girl spits once she’s settled, glaring hard at her lap as her civilian friends titter in confusion at the front of the class, nowhere near brave enough to venture any closer to a group of clan heirs, Sasuke notes.

“Hn.”

“You didn’t convince me of anything, I don’t care that you’re all eating lunch together.”

Sasuke blinks innocently, “I didn’t even say anything.”

“You’re a menace, that's what you are.” 

“I didn’t know possessiveness was a Yamanaka clan trait,” the sound she makes barely sounds human, Sasuke rolls his eyes, “I was prepared to milk this for a month.”

Naruto just tilts his head like a confused hound.

“Wait what’s going on?” The blonde stage whispers in a weary Shikamaru’s ear.

The Nara shrugs, “Don’t worry about it, Ino’s just sore that she lost.”

“Lost?”

“Like I said, don’t worry about it.”

“The girls have you all wrong,” Ino pouts, whining as she slumps over the desk, “Shika, why didn’t you warn me about the weird mind games? I thought that was your thing.”

Shikamaru just shrugs, “That’s your own fault for always prioritizing looks over personality.”

Chouji also perks up, cutting in: “Yeah, Obaa-chan is always telling you to judge people by their character.”

Ino looks noticeably sore at that, scowl deepening further, “Ugh, whatever. Ne, Sasuke-kun, can I punch you? Just this once to make myself feel better?” She says it honey-sweet with a dash of malice underneath, but there’s far less of the uncomfortable flirty sweetness Sasuke had grown so averse to over the years. Maybe this is just closer to the ‘real’ her, the one she shows to the people who actually know her.

Sasuke feels kinda weird about being in that category, considering he initially only did this to grow his dope’s admittedly depressing social circle. He’s thankful when Naruto interrupts. 

“Oi! You’re Shika and Chouji’s Ino, right? Hey, hey, how do you do your nails like that, y’know, they never seem to chip in training!” Ino raises her head and sizes Naruto up warily as if seeing him for the first time, softening up at the affirmation of belonging to two of her oldest ‘brothers’. Sasuke watches her reactions with the lazy eyes of a resting tiger, wondering if he’s going to have to scrap this whole plan and settle for dog breath, the Hyuuga heiress, and bug boy after all. 

Then, slowly, she tilts her head this way and that, then says: “Papa is T&I he has access to lots and lots of materials and stuff,” she holds out her nails, preening. “I can lend you some if you want. I’m not supposed to give stuff like that to civilians… I don’t think you’re one of those, though.”

Naruto beams, bright enough that Sasuke feels like he should look away, “Cool! I keep wanting to paint mine, but the lady at the cosmetic shop recognized my henge and stopped sellin’ to me.” 

She hesitates,  “... Because you’re a boy? That’s dumb. I paint Shika’s all the time!” —"Completely against my will.” Shikamaru grumbles, grunting when Ino promptly, wordlessly slugs him in the arm— “It’s common for Shinobi to use all sorts of cosmetics, even face paint, I don’t get it…”

Naruto’s cheeks color as if in shame, Sasuke, once again, weighs the pros and cons of setting the Farmer’s Market on fire for making Uzumaki Naruto feel small. “Oh, uh, the civilians don’t like me much. Might be all the pranks I used to pull.”

Ino’s brows furrow, she wavers and looks at Sasuke who offers a studiously blank look, but his working jaw and the irritated tapping of his pointer finger on the desk quickly gives him away. The girl, to her credit, lifts her chin haughtily and takes the oddities in stride. “Ah, well, I guess I can lend you some of mine. I make my own polish, you know? Papa says I’ve gotten really good at it, once I make genin he’ll train me in poisons!”

Sasuke wonders how it must feel, blunting your fangs to fit in with civilian girls. He wonders why she bothers. He likes her better, he thinks, when she’s not putting on airs. Sasuke drifts as he watches the two blondes interact, bringing an entirely new dynamic to the little lunch group as more and more of the clan heirs start to glance over. As if feeling his gaze, Ino whips her head around, squinting at him suspiciously.

“Naru-chan’s fine,” (‘Naru’ huh? That was quick.) “But you’re on thin ice, Uchiha!” 

“Not a fan anymore?”

She straightens her spine and sniffs, far too proud for her own good, “I’m the heiress of a major clan, you should be courting me. ”

Sasuke scoffs, “Wha, quite the personality you’ve got there. Careful, that won’t make you popular with the guys at all.”

Ino twitches, fingers curling as she hisses like an offended wild cat, “Why you—”

Shikamaru sighs, long and suffering, before tugging her back by her bun, biting into the egg between his chopsticks with his freehand, “Troublesome… it’s not like we’re less,” he makes a vague hand gesture, seemingly unable to figure out another way to describe the connection between himself, Chouji, and Ino to the uninitiated company, “you know, because Uchiha wants enrichment for his enclosure.” 

She flushes, frowning, Sasuke watches her flounder for a moment before finally bowing her head, words coming out quiet and sullen. “But you didn’t show interest in them before.”

“Chouji likes Naruto, and he’s got a good track record when it comes to people. Sasuke plays shogi.” 

“...”  

Naruto blinks eyes darting between Ino, Shikamaru, and Sasuke, “Uhm, I’m a bit out of the loop here, y’know, can someone catch me up to speed?”

Chouji eats his chips, shrugging his shoulders, “I say don’t worry about it, Ino and Shika have been like that since forever.” 

Naruto lowers his voice, “That doesn’t clear things up even a little bit.”

“It’ll be fine. Shikamaru likes him.”

“Ehhh, his expression never changes when they’re talking though!”

Chouji looks at him, bemused, as though Naruto’ s the weird one, “I mean, he doesn’t dignify the people he doesn’t like with conversation, he’ll usually put his head down and pretend to sleep, or something.” He munches around a chip, raising an eyebrow, “It means he likes you too. Which is weird ‘cause Shika only barely tolerates Kiba.”

“Is that how it works?”


“Nara’s are weird.”

Sasuke blinks at Shikamaru, who has returned to studiously eating his bento, focusing on anything in the room but their little lunch group. Ino rolls her eyes and pulls Naruto back into a conversation about different polishes again, Sasuke looks down at the bunny apples Naruto had cut this morning. It’s a deformed sad little thing, too choppily cut but bursting with gumption and effort.

His smile is faint and barely there as he takes a bite, leaning his shoulder against Naruto’s lazily, “Well, Nara’s not so bad himself.”

Gaining allies wasn’t a terrible idea by any stretch. He recalls his other self being good at it, despite being terrible all the way round. Sasuke… wonders how things might change if he tried this time around. 

Looking at the way Naruto lights up, leaning over the table to chatter at Ino, he thinks it’s worth it.

☯☯☯

(Within the ruthless depths that make up Sasuke's psyche, there is an amalgamation of inky blackness that lives--separate from the one that had formed the day he watched his older brother cut down his (their) parents. It is a decade-old hatred of everything unjust in this world, it is a void, bleeding and aching, always wailing. Sasuke’s already gotten in the habit of locking it away, for it is a beast willing to harm and claw and bite; he can’t allow it around Naruto, not ever again.

At first things had been overwhelming, keeping it from consuming him had felt impossible, he’d lay awake each night, vigilant, fearful that it would simply swallow him whole one day and Sasuke would cease to be. He thought he'd have to live with that weight from now on. That stretch of days had been terrifying, filled with anxiety over which memories were truly his own as he desperately anchored himself with bitten lips and the sharp pain of clenching nails against the skin of his palms.

It'd fought so hard, to swallow him whole those first two weeks. Sasuke refused to let it. Again, he'd been prepared to fight it forever.

.... And yet.

Yet, seemingly out of the blue, the darkness grew complacent with an immediacy that left him disoriented. When one had become two in that empty house and he and Naruto started living together the darkness almost seemed cowed, shying away from the blonde's sheer brilliance.

Sasuke doesn’t know what to make of it. 

Stranger still, he swears the more time he spends playing shogi with Shikamaru, the more afternoons he spends correcting Chouji’s forms, the more he tolerates Ino complaining about his nonexistent skincare… the darkness seems to shrink. It still elicits an instinctive feeling of scorn from his person, even now. But perhaps contradictorily, as Sasuke looks upon this terrible, awful thing inside of him, studying it with eyes less marred by grief… he can’t help the way his gut twists in pity. 

It almost looks like a person.

The majority of Sasuke bitterly hopes it never opens its eyes, yet, a smaller part of him, the him that was raised by his idealistic brother who’s always hated suffering, silently prays to Amaterasu that the monster has kinder dreams of a better world.)

Chapter Text

☯☯☯

Sasuke takes to medicinal herbs like a raptor to a wind gust.

His interest in the human body had been purely rudimentary in the memories still wading close to the surface in his head. 

For example, you put a hand through a mark’s chest, they die―you take off their head and they die faster, and more permanently. That’s all any assassin needed to know at the end of the day, and arguably, that’s all ‘Sasuke’ needed to know in his quest for vengeance. Everything had been a means to a grim, solemn end. But somewhere, in the midst of having his head buried in an herbalist’s almanac and a dusty book on natural toxins, Sasuke realizes he’s fallen in love.

It drives him up several walls, realizing Orochimaru, for all the scientist’s half-mad ravings, was actually right about the inherent beauty of the human form. He hates the ‘him’ in his memories for many things, but laments his lack of interest when it came to listening in on Kabuto and Orochimaru whenever master and student would get absorbed in swapping medical theory.

A shame. A terrible waste.

Nonetheless, he still falls hard for his anatomy charts, his books on foreign flora, and all the civilian approved Shōsen scrolls he can get his hands on. He’s head over heels for the musculature, the weaknesses therein, the pressure points, the meridians, all working together to keep everything functioning at, or above capacity for a healthy shinobi.

It hits him all at once, fingers pausing on a paragraph labeled ‘cultivation’.

His gut squirms at the realization, with something like excitement, as he looks out over the otherwise sunny spring midday blanketing the overgrown garden of the Uchiha main house. Naruto is out in the house’s garden, a concentrated furrow in his brow as he goes through the standard academy katasㅡa part of Sasuke preens and rages with the knowledge his idiot is getting faster than him lately. 

With a puff of resigned hair, ideas already brewing, Sasuke leans back on an arm, cups a hand over his mouth and calls out: “Oi, usuratonkachi!”

“What!?” Naruto huffs, stumbling over his stance and wrinkling his nose. Sasuke watches him flub the roundhouse kick with slightly judgmental eyes.

“Help me build a garden. We’re shopping this Sunday for seeds.”

Naruto pauses, cocking his head, “... Does this gotta do with your healer schtick, again?”

“Hn.”

“Kay, I’ll go find a hoe and a plow.”

Sasuke’s chest blooms with warmth. It makes him a bit sappy as he crosses his ankles and watches the blonde with scrunched, bemused eyes as he fights down a smirk.

“... No complaining this time?”

Naruto beams, sun-kissed skin seeming to glisten in the light of the afternoon, “Hehe, well Sasuke’s asking me for a favor, which means you’ll owe me next time, ain’t that right?”

I already owe you my everything.

He glances away with a shrug, his ears feel hot, “... Hn. We’ll go to Ichiraku after we weed out this area.”  

Naruto dashes over to the porch Sasuke’s lounging on, then, with a delighted laugh, pressing so close the Uchiha feels the sweaty heat of the other boy’s skin. Gross. Still, he blinks, rests his head against a clammy shoulder and breathes . “I did some reading on herbs and salves. I wanna practice and I don’t trust the old bastard who runs the apothecary.”

That nets him another confused blink, “Why’s zat?”

Sasuke scoffs, rolling his eyes skyward as he glumly kicks his legs from where they’re hanging off the porch, “He glared at you like you were dirt under his boots when we stopped by last week for rosemary. I hope he dies in a ditch.”

And he grinds his teeth because it’s maddening, the amount he’s started to notice now that he’s with Naruto consistently these days. It’s as though he stamps out the rot in one place and several more troublesome layers reveal themselves everywhere else he looks. The amount of ire one child can elicit just by breathing is absurd. 

(Wasn’t the Yondaime Hokage relatively well-liked? His damned visage is carved into the mountain side, overlooking the village, judging all of them. How can these people damn well sleep at night?)

“Uwahh, incredible, you sure can hold a grudge, Sasuke,” Naruto blinks after an extended stunned silence, “that won’t make you likable at all.”

Shrug. “You like me. That’s all I need.” He turns his face into Naruto’s shoulder, “I don’t care about anyone else.”

Naruto’s head rests on top of his, humming lightly, the songs of chirping sparrows drift through the air as he tangles their fingers together, “For what it’s worth,” he flounders for a moment, expression twisting like he’s looking for the right words, “...when it comes to the people willing to get to know you, I think you’re more likable than ya think.”

He’ll die for him as many times as it takes.

“... You’ve rested enough, dope. Let’s see what we can scrounge up from the storage house in the way of cultivation tools.” 

So, Naruto helps him build an herb garden. 

Sasuke is bent over, in one of Kaa-san’s kitchen aprons and an old oversized veil-hat she used to look at with a wistful eye. It was big on her, so it absolutely dwarfs Sasuke’s tiny form, veil coming down to his ankles as he works earnestly in his task of tilling; his fingers are caked with dirt down to his nail beds. 

The clan elders would be outraged if they were alive to witness what he’s done to the main house's traditional gardens, completely excavated as the yard now was.

—The pond stays untouched, serene as it's always been from his birth; Sasuke wouldn’t know what to do with Lord Madara’s frankly colossal twin black and white carp koi, besides.

"Susanno", the glossy black koi with a blotch of pearl white encapsulating its nares, and "Amaterasu", the shining white koi with an obsidian blotch on its tail. Their bodies have been circling each other since before the Warring States era, some even say Lord Madara himself doesn’t quite know how old they are. Sasuke hesitates to ponder how they’d survived a year’s worth of neglect, though they seem healthy enough. Dwelling on the kois’ fate in that dark mass of memories isn’t something he wants to linger on. It’d make him too angry.

Now, he is simply glad they’re here, with him. 

Unlike everything else Sasuke’s lost, he’s glad at least they are still alive. They’re a rare but precious remnant of family-hearth-home, spared from the village’s machinations, and Sasuke hoards it greedily. Itachi had utterly adored them, a mindset copied from their mother. He clings to the memories of soft nibbles on his soles during summers spent with Shisui and Itachi and their feet in the water. He refused to squander the first time Kaa-san had stuck his hand in the water to stroke over smooth iridescent scales and calmly introduced him to the Uchiha clan’s oldest elders and dearest friends. They came before the felines, before the crows and even the raptors.

The koi were the Uchiha’s first dragons, and dragons took care of their hoard.

Sasuke’s smile is small and private as he brings the plow down and gouges the loose soil. There’s sweat on his brow and the taut muscles in his forearms are burning, in a way vastly different from an afternoon spent mimicking Uchiha taijutsu drills. He all but glows as he rocks back on his heels to take in his handywork until —

Sasuke feels eyes on his back.

Annoyance shoots through him like a lightning strike, head whirling in direction of the presence: “Either help us cultivate the land or. hide. better. I don’t care which, ignoring you lot is a hassle.”

His voice is flat and bland, all traces of genuine emotion nonexistent as he works the ground with more force than necessary. It's not ROOT, but the Hokage's shadows are an irritant in comparison to that cold terror, a but like comparing a buzzing bee in your ear to a knife at your throat. Sasuke disliked both on principle, but at least the old man's guilt was relatively harmless on his good days. In the middle of Sasuke's quiet fuming, Naruto pops his head out of the kitchen, lemonade pitcher in hand.

“Ne, who’re ya talkin’ to, Sasuke?”

“... Just a stray cat, don’t worry about it.” 

Sasuke straightens and dusts his gloved hands, looking again out at the dugout yard, decorative stones stacked neatly in piles on the porch to be sorted and placed later, his lips quirk humorlessly as the presence abruptly disappears.

(Or, perhaps more accurately, ‘hides better’.)

He doesn’t know the chakra signature very well—it felt familiar in the way an old song feels nostalgic on a radio in the next room over. Sasuke puts that aside for now, he drinks his lemonade.

☯

“Chouji.”

The boy in question glances up from his chips, cheeks stuffed like a chipmunk’s, to Sasuke’s burgeoning discomfort he’s started to find the sight… ugh. Endearing. The Akimichi heir swallows, he’s nothing if not polite.

“Yeah? What’s up?” 

Sasuke hadn’t realized how tight his shoulders were until they relaxed, “Can you drop by mine with some seeds? I’m working on a herbal garden and you mentioned something about your Obaa-san planting her own vegetables…” 

Chouji hums, squinting his eyes in thought, “I mean sure, mind if I invite Ino, too then? She’s probably got way more seeds than me.”

Sasuke hesitates and looks across the room locking eyes with Ino who’s giggling next to Sakura and a few civilian girls, her nose instantly scrunches up and the young heiress sticks out her tongue. He clicks his own in turn.

“Right, poisons… shinobi flower shop. Makes sense.” 

Chouji lets out a hardy laugh.

“Man you two really don’t like each other, it's like watching two cats getting introduced for the first time!” 

“Or a pair of feral strays vying for territory.” Shikamaru mumbles, dry as the sand dunes of Suna, unfurling his pillowed arms and stifling a yawn, “We’ll all come over Sunday, not like I have anything better to do.” 

Sasuke arches an eyebrow, “ You? Doing manual labor for the sake of it? I’ll believe it when I see it.”

“That’s no way to ask for help, Uchiha.”

Twitch. “I asked for seeds. ”

Shikamaru shrugs, umber eyes half mast in amusement—the smug bastard’s lips don’t even have the decency to twitch into a smile. Sasuke is immediately struck with the intrusive thought of wringing his neck. 

However, in a show of what he personally thinks is great feat self control, Sasuke simply tsks before he looks away.

Sasuke is not pouting. Shinobi do not pout.

“... Do whatever you want. Just bring your own groceries—Naruto likes to make curry or stew for lunch on Sundays and the fridge is only stocked for two.”

“Roger that,” Chouji chirps, cheerfully. “We can have a picnic!”

Sasuke can’t help the long suffering groan that leaves his lips, “... Only if you help us with lunch. Bring tempura to fry.” 

That Sunday, Sasuke snaps awake with a start before the sun’s even risen.

Breath coming out in harsh exhales, he looks down at Naruto, tangled in their shared futon. He stares at his bedmate’s goofy walrus cap and that drooling, peaceful face in the dimness of the bedroom for what must be an uncomfortable amount of time. His sleep-addled brain struggles to fight off the haunting images of another Naruto’s face, waxen and lifeless, drenched by a downpour of dower rain, and left injured on the bank of a valley that Sasuke never wants to see again.

He takes a moment firmly pressing his middle and index finger just to the side of his housemate’s throat, only relaxing once he finds the telltale pulse of a steady heart.

(The Sasuke in his dream hadn’t checked , he’d just walked away, how could he just walk away?)

His eyes sting for the first time in months, he breathes through it, touching his forehead to Naruto’s, eyes fluttering shut as he steadies his internal rhythm. That's not you, that wasn't him, you're safe, you're both safe.

“You’re my very best friend too, you know?”

Sasuke whispers it like a secret, even if it isn't, not really. Fighting against the urge to curl up against Naruto’s blistering body heat, make his home there, laze around until noon Sasuke breathes in, and out and... Instead, he sits up after an indulgent moment, swinging short legs over the side of their bed.

Sasuke had work to do.

He shakes off the visages of the dream (nightmarememorydelusion) making more onigiri than usual in the early morning light of the kitchen. 

Sasuke hums a familiar folk song about a celestial maiden, as he molds the rice balls between his palms—his mother would always sing when she was in a jubilant mood. Often when a direct cousin from her branch would gain the blessing of the famous Uchiha dōjutsu, for example, or during a wedding, which was often a lengthy affair officiated by Uchiha traditions and clan rites. Hearing Kaa-san sing in concert with Itachi-nii’s low, gravely tenor was something mesmorizing.

Uchiha were beautiful, and deadly things, beautiful for their slender limbs and elegant hand seal work, gorgeous for their smokey black eyes that bled a feral, hypnotic red. Many compared certain members to the ilk of yokai with how well a motivated Uchiha took to seduction missions. Sasuke, however, sang for comfort, like a distressed kitten purring for its mother’s missed warmth. 

(There is no shame, because everyone who he’d disappoint with his weakness are now dead, their eyes stolen away and devoured by a venomous snake hidden in the leaves.)

So, Sasuke sets a few rice balls aside with Naruto’s favorite red bean filling, a weight is lifted off his shoulders the more he hums the familiar tune.

The memories… don’t hurt as much as they used to, they’re crisp yet dreamy around the idealized edges, like Sasuke is watching a scene just from under the surface of a lake. He knows, sure as anything, the him from that other, bleaker, world must have cooked for himself in a dead, festering silence, drowning in too much rage to even remember Kaa-san’s songs. Recollections of warm summer afternoons spent on the back porch with a bowl of shaved ice come flooding back, the sounds of his mother and Itachi singing about passing seasons and a lost love filling his ears. Shisui used to lay out in the garden just to listen and nod off.

Sasuke sees all of them behind his eyelids whenever he blinks. 

“Round, round, go round, waterwheel, go round 
Go round, and call Mr. Sun,
Go round, and call Mr. Sun,
Birds, bugs, beasts, grass, trees, flowers 
Bring spring and summer, fall and winter 
Bring spring and summer, fall and winter  
Go round, come round, come round,
O distant time,
Come round, call back my heart
Come round, call back my heart 
Birds, bugs, beasts, grass, trees, flowers 
Teach me how to feel 
If I hear that you pine for me 
I will return to you.

Ah— Sasuke starts, violently, yanking out of the memory of a children’s song, his fingers linger over empty glass sauce containers —he’d forgotten to refill the condiments. 

When Sasuke looks to the window, there’s far more natural light filling the kitchen than he remembers there being, the sun well and truly risen. Sasuke barely even remembers starting on the sweet egg mixture for the tamagoyaki on autopilot. When he casts his eyes back down it is to a rather impressive spread of rice balls, his fingers and palms are still sticky from the task. 

Slightly embarrassed at having lost so much time, Sasuke finishes breakfast quickly, humming and hawing over the protein before ultimately deciding on just splitting a mackerel from dinner the night before. He hops off his little step stool and sets the table, before dutifully clapping his hands in thanks and eating a simple meal in the relative peace of the silent Uchiha kitchenette.

Sasuke remembers to set a place for Naruto, his mental clock tells him his housemate shouldn't be waking for a couple hours yet.

The morning moves a bit faster with the sun steadily rising from the east, Sasuke scurries to the shed to gather a pair of oversized, well-beaten gardening gloves his mother seldom wore after going back onto active duty, tying an apron around his back as he hitches up his sleeves and draws the strings on his joggers so they don’t catch anything while he’s kneeling. 

(He’s careful with Kaa-san’s veil, he’s not sure how to fix the straw if he accidentally punctures it. He thinks she mentioned it was for more formal occasions, Sasuke’s never seen her wear it, though. The shape is perfect for blocking out the midday sun, at the least.)

“Right.” Sasuke exhales a breath, muttering to himself, taking stock of the neat stacks of stones he’d excavated laid out in rows on the porch, “Let’s start with mapping out the medicinal…” 

Shikamaru happens upon him with disgust in his tired gaze, barefoot in a mesh tank on Sasuke’s back porch.

“Only you would rope in the help of like four other people and proceed to do half of the work by yourself. So damn troublesome.”

Sasuke looks up, shaded by his bulky veil, face shining with a thin layer of sweat, smeared with dirt. His joggers are more brown than gray after working all morning.

“Is that a damn uchikatsugi?” The Nara makes a face, “Why would you use that as a sun hat, it’s practically an antique. Only noble ladies in the civilian cities still wear this stuff.”

Ah. So, that’s what it was called.

He’s sure not willing to admit that Shikamaru got one over on him though, so, instead of admitting defeat, Sasuke arches an eyebrow. He doubles down. 

“I’m from the branch that burns under sunlight, I think the veil is nice.”

“I can hear like all of your great-grandmothers’ crying right now, Uchiha.”

(And the words... don't hurt at all, it's surprising enough that Sasuke keeps up the banter. It helps, when people don't treat them like an unbroachable topic, like its normal, like they're not a curse to fear. It is proof of his family's existance, even in passing. A year ago he'd have blown up over the comment, he thinks.)

“It makes for a decent sunhat. I call it pragmatic.” Sasuke presses, ever stubborn while Shikamaru groans, dragging a hand down his face.

Before the conversation can devolve into further sniping, Ino trounces around from the front of the house a sly grin on her face, she’s got two canvas bags filled with gardening equipment, dressed in a pair of faded overalls.

Sasuke hears Chouji and Naruto’s voices from the kitchen.

Had he really been locked in for that long setting stones?

The sun is in the middle of the sky now, which explains the rising heat and his parched throat. Sasuke exhales and stands, taking in his handy work as Ino leans obnoxiously over his shoulders, a side effect he’d failed to account for upon acquainting himself with the girl. Yamanaka is territorial, rowdy and abysmal when it comes to personal space, especially to those she considers to be within her inner circle. —A circle, which Sasuke, quite loudly and reluctantly, has thoroughly tripped into these past couple maddening weeks.

“Oh, I don’t think I’ve ever seen the class pretty boy dirtied like a lowly civ! It suits you, Uchiha!”

Sasuke grunts and shrugs her off, “Did you bring the things on the list I gave you in class, Wednesday?”

She huffs, flipping back her bangs with an eye roll, bouncing over with a sunhat of her own, “Of course I did, who do you take me for?” Ino takes out flowers and herbs from her large tote bags in neat stacks as Sasuke stalls and blinks.

“I… only asked for seeds.”

Ino scoffs again in disdain, “Dummy!” —Sasuke mouths back the insult in mild offense, brows furrowing in confusion—“You missed the time period for planting some of these, you’ll have to store these seeds for next Spring, but having the plants at least should get you started.” 

Sasuke blinks and takes out his pocket almanac, skimming and mumbling under his breath, cheeks going rosy when, to his dismay, the resident flower girl is unfortunately… right. He’d missed March by at least several weeks at this point. His nose crinkles, as he does some mental math and… oh. Naruto officially moved in right at the tail end of November, hadn’t he? It’s mid-May now.

Had it really been almost six months?

Sasuke clicks his tongue but nods, mulishly, “I, okay, listen…” his nose scrunches up again as Ino raises an unimpressed eyebrow.

“Don’t think too hard, Uchiha.” Shikamaru taunts, tone low and droning. 

“—Shut it, I… owe you for the trouble,” Sasuke grumbles, shoulders slumping as he plops down from his crouch and into the dirt, “... thanks, I’ll pay you guys back.”

“That is possibly the most put upon ‘thank you’ I’ve ever heard.”

Ino on the other hand shrugs, perching next to him with a triumphant beam; Sasuke wishes it were socially acceptable to toss Ponytail into the koi pond. He does not do this, because he knows from experience it would make Naruto frown at him really hard for the rest of the day. And he is, alas, subjecting himself to this for Naruto.

“No need, just getting to tell you you’re a novice at something is good enough for me.”

She takes out her trusty shovel from yet another pocket on her bottomless mystery bag, eying the different plots separated out by neat rows of stones, “You started early, not bad! Now, tell me which plants are going where so we can get finished before the curry’s done.”

Shikamaru is still on the porch, leaning against one of the columns, “Oi, Uchiha, where’s your shed so I can store Chouji’s soil for next season?”

Sasuke shoots him a sharp look, “You just don’t wanna get your hands dirty, deadweight.”

The other boy looks unimpressed, “A deadweight you can’t beat in shogi after thirty-one tries—“

“Thirty-eight.” Sasuke grumbles in annoyance, clicking his tongue again.

It’s a rather useless endeavor against a Nara, but the thought of that smug, half lidded expression fills him with more rage and determination than turning down a match ever could.

“Yeesh, Uchiha are nothing if not tenacious, huh?”

Sasuke stands and dusts his hands, “Just shut up and take care of planting the medicinals; I’ve finished digging those plots already. I’ll take the poisons.” 

Shikamaru yawns but cracks his neck this way and that, setting down the seeds, “Yeah, sure, whatever, but I want first dibs on the red bean onigiri.” Sasuke makes a face.

“How in the hell did you even smell that, they’re barely different from the rest.”

Nara takes a row of herbs, marching to the other end of the yard with a snort, “—Easy Uchiha, you should work on your habits. You make one for Naruto’s lunch every day, like clockwork. So, I guessed you probably made them first because you’re weird about him like that.”

Dunking his head under his hat with his cheeks burning, Sasuke finds he can’t come up with a single retort. He understands Tou-san and his Uncles’ many grievances on the force now—Nara’s are nosey as they are irritatingly perceptive, especially when they scent a secret. 

The boys spend the afternoon filling in the garden with a layer of high drainage dirt and laying wood panels, repurposed from around the compound, to create a walkway. Ino happily dives into her task of planting the flowers and herbs while Shikamaru complains loudly but keeps working, sweating doggedly in the sun alongside the rest of them.

—Sasuke is a bit winded by the time Chouji comes around with a wheelbarrow, a shrub Sasuke had only mentioned off-handedly in its bed.  

Spreading yew. Therapeutic for fevers and joint pain, but deadly poisonous and known to induce cardiac arrest.  

Sasuke is too enamored by the new addition to notice how the squad of clan heirs’ quietly trade pleased smiles over his head. 

The growing sea of green is comforting somehow, warm in comparison to the traditional gardens that had become overgrown and depleted over the past year since the massacre. His first thought, upon looking out at the fledgeling garden is how much Uchiha Madara would hate a healer in his clan with Senju cultivation habits. 

Come to think of it, hadn’t Senju Tobirama always tended to a garden for medicinal purposes? Hadn’t Hashirama himself grown Konohagakure’s plentiful woodlands? 

Indeed, Lord Madara would hate this place with the fiery passion he’s always been known for. Perhaps he’d burn it to the ground. Maybe, he’d even deem it an eyesore worthy of his mighty Susanno to erase its existence from his bitter sight. He’s probably rolling in his temporary grave right this moment, seeing the meticulous destruction Sasuke’s wrought upon the traditional gardens, constructed to mimic the clan’s ancestral lands.

(The thought puts a bit of a pep in Sasuke’s step for the rest of the day.) 

The kitchenette is bright and full of laughter again.

Chouji, ever eager, serves everyone before gleefully getting a couple plates for himself while Ino loudly complains about the stew not being spicy enough and Naruto loudly talks over her, saying: well, he likes it savory, you cook it next time then, y’know! Shikamaru demurely bites into his red bean rice ball, making stoic eye contact with Sasuke, smug like a cat. 

Despite the racket they make with their loud squabbling, a feeling of warmth blooms in Sasuke’s chest, one he hasn’t felt, truly since his clan died, or even before then.

Bonds .

Has Sasuke ever had ‘true bonds’?

Well that was the question, now wasn’t it?

He had Itachi, his brother by blood, then there was Shisui, and his mother and father—but Shisui was always his brother’s. And Sasuke was a quiet child, with the social skills of an Uchiha, raised in an isolated compound of tightly knit clan members overprotective of their wards, doubly so following the accusations of the tailed-fox attack. Never mind that he was the oldest of his generation and thus had few peers. See, he’d grown up with countless cousins, nieces, and nephews, even as a spare from the mainline, Sasuke was aggressively loved.

The Uchiha weren't the Hyuuga, they took care of their own.

This did not, however, mean he ever truely felt anything close to ‘wanted’.

But now? Looking out at the table, watching Ino squawk loudly as Naruto swipes a piece of chicken from her curry, feeling the casual camaraderie of Shikamaru nudging his shoulder, signing at him to pass the miso?

Sasuke feels warm.

(He’s immediately hit with a sense of guilt so intense it makes his eyes sting. Who is he to find happiness, when his family is deadeaddead will never come back? How dare he find comfort in their absence, question the way he'd been raised and loved?)

“Sasuke?” His eyes shoot up, Naruto’s face is inches from his own, calloused hand and inferno against his cheek. Sasuke blinks slowly.

“I’m fine.”

No one looks convinced, Ino shares a troubled look with Shikamaru and Chouji, and Sasuke —he. He needs—he needs to …

Let.

Go.

“Sorry.” He inhales, pulls himself together and picks up his chopsticks, blinking hard and fast to get rid of the damning sting in his eyes. “Just a headache—been out in the sun too long, I guess.”

Naruto, not one to be brushed off, leans into his personal space with a scrutinizing squint, "Are you sure you're fine, teme? You're actin' weird all of a sudden."

Four sets of eyes bore into him skeptically, and Sasuke scratches at his cheek, completely against his will, his lips upturn ever so slightly, into a smile. "I've honestly never felt better." 

☯☯☯

One day, while Sasuke is tending his newly built garden, veil blocking the midday sun, a pair of sandal clad feet land on the outer wall of the main house, purposefully in his field of vision. 

He lifts his head, knowing the feel of coiling ivy and rough mossy bark anywhere, locking eyes with a soulless Cat ANBU mask. 

“Took you long enough. Here, take these and plant them.” 

He tosses a bag full of seeds at the ANBU, who snatches it out of the air with a suitably cat-like head tilt. Sasuke offers a slow, placid blink, “This is a Pieris japonica. Can you make it bloom, Mister? I know it's mid-summer, but I’d like to test a few things with the blossoms.” 

There’s a beat, then several as the agent regards him warily, before he slides off the wall, landing heavily on stiff feet. Sasuke barely even blinks, going off a hunch as he crosses his arms and stands as well, pointing to an empty plot of dirt marked by rounded stones. 

“Didn’t I tell you? Either help out or hide better. I could spot you from a mile away.” 

Sasuke rolls his eyes, tapping his foot, memories of thick roots and trees emerging from crumbling earth cresting over the space where he’d tucked away that wretched knowledge of another time, a darker place.

“I know you can do it. Your signature is dense like a forest.” 

The ANBU shifts uncomfortably, long chestnut hair tumbling down his shoulders like he can’t decide on what to do, before silently, he advances with the seeds and sets them into the damp earth. Sasuke huffs in approval as his palms begin to resonate with the familiar green tint of focused not-quite-earth-natured chakra—willing the sprouts to life. 

By the time the sun is a bit higher in the sky and Sasuke’s watering pail is empty, the ANBU has long disappeared back to his previous hiding spot, just in time for Naruto to come stumbling down the stairs, whining about Sasuke not waking him up earlier. 

Curiously, the man comes again the next day, early in the morning as he silently starts working alongside Sasuke once again. Sasuke gives him a short nod, going to tend his garden with the heavy watering tin. 

The ANBU is dutiful like a loyal stock guardian dog, though he’s still silent as a grave.

They work together in the dirt, weeding in companionable silence, before Sasuke furrows his brows at a sudden flare of familiar chakra to his right. He glances over, brain slow to catch up in his confusion as hands larger than his fly through a series of simple hand signs for a water style jutsu. Sasuke is momentarily mystified, he can’t tell which one it is, because the previous him was too prideful to record anything other than taijutsu techniques after his crushing defeat in the Chunin Exams, and Sasuke was never any good with water release besides.

Sasuke’s eyes widen a fraction as he parts his veil with his fingers, fledgling irises flickering red for a moment as if to memorize the sight, despite not having the chakra pools for it.

The translucent form of a large koi swims across the yard, raining water droplets as it glides through the air, glistening with the telltale golds and lavenders of the rising sun. It brushes up against him teasingly, getting his side a little wet, and Sasuke can’t hold back the way his lips twitch upwards as it circles him twice before dissipating into the koi pond to join Amaterasu and Susanno.

He stifles the childish urge to dart forward and peer down into the water.

The ANBU tilts their head at him again, demeanor stiff and hyper aware in a way that reminds him distinctly of his Nii-san. 

Or, maybe that stiffness was just a trait of an emotionally dysfunctional black op in general. 

Sasuke hums, tilting his head up to squint at the sky. By his estimation, he had another good few hours before he had to get Naruto up for school. After a moment of indecision, Sasuke curls his hand around the black-ops’ index and middle finger, pulling on him insistently, Cat is solid and unyielding like a brick wall, despite his slight size—nonetheless, Sasuke looks up at him and presses. 

“I made lemonade yesterday, you should have some.” 

Slowly haltingly, armored legs shuffle mechanically forward, following Sasuke deeper into his home. 

He’s decided he likes the shinobi’s chakra signature. It’s not Naruto’s sunshine and there’s something distinctly extra mixed in he can’t place--the feelings closer to ‘artificial sugar’, maybe.

But… well. 

He’d helped Sasuke water his plants. He’d shown Sasuke a koi fish instead of a water dragon simply because he saw a koi pond in Sasuke’s yard and figured that a hardworking child might like to see that shape instead.

So, he figures that the ANBU can’t be all bad, even if he’s an extension of the Hokage’s many eyes around Konoha.

Before long, Sasuke is seated at the low table, knocking his bare ankles together as he sips the cold drink. For a long moment, the Cat mask stares at the glass in front of him, and, tentatively, a gloved hand lifts it just enough so he can sip from the straw without disturbing his cover. The visual is so ridiculous that Sasuke for a moment feels he really is coaxing an anxious cat. 

Either way, the boy hums in the companionable silence of the kitchenette.

It’s nice—peaceful.  

(He distantly wonders if there's ever been a time when the other Sasuke felt truly at ‘peace’ before laying his heart bare at the bitter end.)

⚘⚘⚘

This assignment is strange and frankly, Tenzo isn’t sure how to handle it. 

Watching over the last loyal Uchiha is a task Team Ro had volunteered for after their esteemed captain’s abrupt departure following the Uchiha Incident. That first year had been turbulent with Tenzo and Yugao taking over leadership, but the team still felt they owed it to their defected former-comrade. 

The child who’d been left alone and spiraling, taken advantage by worse adults. The child whom they’d failed — if only they’d seen the signs sooner . 

If Naruto was an official mandate from Lord Third and a legacy to protect, Sasuke was an accumulation of karma.

But that had blinded them too in the end hadn’t it? Children. They’d just been children, like Tenzo had been in ROOT, like Kakashi had been when he’d graduated early during war time.

(Was Konoha truly any better than the evil festering in the shadows of its branches?)

No one had cried, when the revelation came that their own co-captain had massacred his own clan; their little co-captain who would’ve been a genin in any sane society, so strong and awkward in his kindness. Shinobi do not cry. Oftentimes their missions were unfair, their lives at the mercy of their superiors and sponsors. They were finely tuned weapons not heroes, they looked the other way when something felt wrong, they completed the mission. Shinobi had no right to cry. So, there had been pale-faced fury and frustration, but no mourning that night.

However, this did not mean they were blind or deaf.

They were survived by their attention to detail, their abilities in tracking, missing even the slightest thing out of place on a mission often had catastrophic or fatal consequences. Even upon touching down on the compound that night to alleviate the upcoming insurgency—they had all felt something akin to a rock sinking in their stomachs. This was clean work, this was professional work.

The Uchiha Massacre stunk to high heaven.

Half the dead bodies didn’t feel like Weasel’s work at all, often gutted, stabbed multiple times and left to bleed out painfully, because Weasel had always been a pacifist, echoed in the swift, deadly whistle of his blade and merciful kills. He never had missteps, whenever a mission required butchering, Crow or Hound would step in instead; the Hokage surmised that the other half were members Weasel’d held personal grudges against, but Team Ro quietly disagreed.

A wrathful Weasel was sloppy Weasel, but even sloppy he went for heads before he’d ever consider gutting. Assassins were very particular with their rituals and Weasel’s quirks were beaten into his marrow since he was a toddler. 

Clean. Quick. Silent. 

Their co-captain who followed at Senpai’s heels like an obedient puppy and visibly glowed whenever Team Ro was assigned to collaborate with independent agent, Crow. Their precious co-captain, forced to grow up far too early, whose spirit seemed to leave him along with that swift footed Crow that flew far, far away. Agent Weasel, Uchiha Itachi, was admired for his efficiency and flawless dedication to the mission in every way. With Crow at his back, the two Uchiha agents were the pride and joy of their seniors.

One could only get yanked out of danger and thank the near omnipotent eyes of Susanno's children so many times before gaining a healthy respect for human mortality, after all.

Tenzo sees a lot of that co-captain in his assignment, they all do. Team Ro is the best of the best, built of legacies and Hatake Kakashi’s pride in equal measure. The Jounin prodigy had strict standards and had trained each and every one of them into their own niche, vouched for the misfits, found mentors, and took the heat when missions went sideways. Team Ro was ‘pack’—comrades.

Never leave a friend behind.

That was Kakashi’s iron-clad rule that had constantly dragged them through thick and thin. And they’d all followed it even after the Hokage relieved him. Being a mismatched group of maladjusted assassins tended to foster a certain degree of codependency in the best of times. Once again, you can only physically suck the poison out of a comrade’s wound, or stitch a delirious teammate up so many times in the wilderness before wires start to get crossed. There was good reason why so many of them tended to pair up or stick together.

In the worst of times… well.

You got the kind of devotion where you slaughter your entire clan in a single night and your ANBU squad’s first instinct is to ask themselves: ‘Why didn’t he confide in us.’

Most ANBU teams had to separate themselves and compartmentalize just to keep sane with how high the death rate was. Not Team Ro.

They met up outside of ‘work’, they kept in touch as though they were regular Jounin—a whole other mess of brainworms and disquieting dynamics Tenzo wasn’t getting into. Team Ro wasn’t family exactly, but they were certainly something for better or for worse, there were bonds between them, forged with spilled blood, trust, and loyalty.

Kakashi’s approach as team leader wasn’t the most traditional, but the results were undeniable.

Ro was a well oiled machine that never lost a squad member and whose varied specialties meant a high rate of completed classified S-ranks. Though, it came with a somewhat unhealthy mindset for a standard black ops squad—losing a squadmate to anything short of medical leave or regular retirement set their collective teeth on edge.

(There were very well-documented reasons why Danzo wasn’t even allowed in the same room as Tenzo.)

Point being, Team Ro in particular are fiercely protective of their own; they always wound up taking in the young prodigies no one wanted to work with thanks to the habits of their esteemed former-leader. So, despite it being well below their skill grade, they kept taking the missives to watch over their youngest member’s baby brother, just the same as they do the would-be-brother the Sandime so cruelly took from their former captain. Things became even more convenient when their two most precious assignments started living together last year despite the Hokage’s misgivings.

That is, of course, until Tiger and Bear come back wailing about Weasel’s terror of a little brother catching them twelve consecutive times in their rotation.

“Kid isn’t normal, seriously!” Bear groaned, dragging his hands through wavy hair, “I’ve tried seals, I’ve tried cloaking, good old fashioned civilian subterfuge, but he still catches my eye! Every time!”

Yugao had inclined her head, humming lightly, “Well, he is Itachi-kun’s younger brother, after all.”

Tiger had shot her a dirty look, “We were several clicks away last time and the kid still caught us surveilling.”

Bear cuts in, “—Mocking us! Mouthed ‘found you’, even! Then, had the nerve to wave!”

“Now, now, he’s just a child, Aburame.”

“He swatted several of my bugs out of the air without even looking! Brats a damn menace is what he is, dammit.”

Tiger groans, hitting the front of his head against his locker, taking off his mask and shaking out his hair, “Ugh… I need a vacation.”

The other unlucky ANBU moans in dismay, collapsing back onto the bench, “I feel like my ego’s been through the ringer being bested by an academy brat.”

“More like played with, he sees us as bait, we’re not even food, I don’t think.”

Tiger snaps his fingers, nodding quickly, “Right!? That’s exactly it, he’s not planning to eat us, we’re not even a snack and it’s borderline insulting.”

“‘Borderline’?”

Yugao rolls her eyes, cuffing both of them over the head, “Enough you two. He’s a child, remember?” 

“One that’s going to give me stomach ulcers if he gets any faster at taijutsu.” Bear grunts. 

“Uchiha’s have crazy stamina in general, don’t you remember Crow?”

Both black ops shiver, body language queasy, “Never seen someone chatter so carefree while slaughtering a battalion before.”

Their current co-captain sighs, almost wistfully, “I really do regret not being able to test my sword against him properly…”

“Adrenaline junkie.” Tiger laments, groaning again as he paces, “I can’t do this anymore, seriously take my shift, it’s like looking after Captain on his bad days but permanent and worse, somehow.” 

“Captain as in ‘Cat’, or Captain as in ‘Hound’?”

Tiger looks at Yugao steadily and simply says: “Yes.”

Having been listening for quite a while at this point Tenzo had heavily considered walking right back out of the locker room in that blissful breath of a moment, where he hadn’t yet been noticed. He has not, in fact, had his turn yet. This is because Tenzo is in high demand for his unique abilities and experience; if he hurries he might even get the Hokage to put him on another assignment off the tail of his last one in Kiri.

He inches back, despite knowing he’s been caught based on the minute twitch of his co-captains head. Abruptly, Yugao whirled around to meet his eyes, smiling widely as their coworkers continue their rants in the backdrop. It sends a foreboding chill down his spine.

“Tenzo! Good timing, Lord Third mentioned you needed some time off!”

Tenzo grimaced, “Tell him no thank you and to please give me my next solo assignment.”

The kunoichi grips his shoulder in a firm, painful, grip, smile widening as she leans into his personal space, “Nonsense, Captain! Looking after our cute kouhai’s little duckling should be a stress free break, wouldn’t you agree boys?”

Tiger and Bear nod vigorously in unison, the traitors. 

⚘

‘It will be easy', his co-captain had assured him,‘he’s just a child, not even out of the academy yet’, she’d insisted. 

The assignment catches him a week in, little shoulders tensing ever so slightly before going purposefully slack in Tenzo’s view. He'd found himself blinking owlishly, sluggish to figure out what had changed. Then, the boy had looked up from the plot he’d begun plowing; his eyes are pits, endless and magnetic, like a pair of twin black holes set into an otherwise cherubic face. They’re just like Itachi’s, capable of beautiful and terrible things, so terrified of losing what little he has to hold onto. For a moment, Tenzo is brought back to post-mission locker room chats, to memories of a barely there smile and the way Crow was the only one who could make their stoic Weasel laugh.

Until, alas, in true Uchiha form, he opens his damn mouth. Tenzo reads his lips, seeing the disdain on the boy’s expression, even from a distance:

“Either help us cultivate the land or. hide. better. I don’t care which, ignoring you is a hassle.”

With the nostalgia factor wholly and truly broken, Tenzo shivers. The impression of their eyes locking is absolutely uncanny, even from several clicks away, hidden between the branches of an aged tree. He grimaces and runs through a standard tiger sign for good measure, concealing his presence as his body flickers several blocks further away. 

The child’s eyes follow him, Tenzo inclines his head in surprise, hesitating before…

Tentatively he flares his chakra, the boy, now alone in the yard lashes right back—it’s no more disorienting than a kitten’s swipe. Despite himself, Tenzo finds something inside of him that starts to thrill. He is again, reminded of a boy only slightly younger than him, mousey outside of battle, brutal in even friendly spars, yet never arrogant.

In the distance, after one last warning look, he sees that same, gentle smile, directed at the jinchuuriki. As Sasuke studiously goes back to working the earth.

In the interim, he settles amongst the branches of yet another tree and watches the boys, subconsciously noting down the plots and what scraps of conversations he catches about landscaping and… ‘poisons’. Is that something a pair of nine year olds ought to cultivate? 

Hm.

Then again, Tenzo wasn’t exactly what one would call a ‘clan raised child’, perhaps this was just the norm. He’d have to remember to inquire with Yugao-san once he got back to headquarters. 

It’s a pleasant Spring day, so Tenzo rests and enjoys the breeze, feeling the Shodaime’s very heartbeat beneath his fingertips as he settles against the bark. He wants to meet Itachi’s brother, he thinks, he wants to know the little brother their fledgling Weasel adored so much in his quiet, beaming way. 

He’s sure he can talk the rest of the team around. 

It’s not as though Uchiha Sasuke didn’t already know they were watching. 

☯☯☯

Sasuke feels eyes on his back a lot these days, they’re usually the good kind.

Occasionally there’s a sensation of bright white chakra in his periphery, a shock of untamed lightning, so familiar Sasuke knows he could follow the thread all the way to a Jounin with a head of silver hair on the other side of Konoha.

He never does.

(He can’t face those grieving, shattered, eyes—not again, not yet. They’re one of the last things ‘Sasuke’ ever saw, after all. He thinks maybe his sensei knew he was lying at the end. They’d always been similar creatures, after all.) 

To the Uchiha clan, the love of battle was adjacent to a tapestry of art. 

Combat was ceremonial, generational. A proper Uchiha was a polished blade tempered by age and tradition, looking to wield and be wielded in turn. Thus, training was a habit baked into Sasuke’s very soul, one of those unbreakable vices he goes to when his eyes are too heavy to read medical scrolls, with his fingers too unsteady to take notes. Because even with his body weary and exhausted, mind too fried to rub two brain cells together, his katas never betrayed him. They’re tight and sharp, unruly like a raging forest fire.

—Itachi’s forms were a musical arrangement, Shisui’s a passionate inferno, a dance of fire to his future clan head’s accompaniment. Mother and Father were two halves of a whole, circling forever like the koi’s in the pond, watching them spar in the dojo had been his favorite thing.

Sasuke is eager to know what dance he and Naruto would someday create. 

So, he keeps his breath even as he blocks another knee and Naruto blocks his fist with a cheeky grin that Sasuke returns with a gamely smirk. The class watching their spar doesn’t matter, Iruka-sensei off to the sidelines fretting doesn’t matter. There’s just Naruto with his language of fists, and the way he bullies Sasuke in spars, cornering him in ways no one in class has ever managed. 

It never fails to set his blood ablaze. 

His Sun has improved in leaps and bounds over the past several months alone with a permanent partner, and Sasuke feels a burning need to see what he grows into like he needs water to ease his parched throat in a rolling desert. His pupils dilate at every hit Naruto counters, every opening he exploits while getting stronger, better —leaving Sasuke wrong footed and breathless. 

He thinks this is how an Inuzuka must feel, whenever they find a mate worthy of hunting alongside.

In class their spars end in more draws than victories lately. At home, however, they can wind up going for hours on end if they hit a second or third wind. Endlessly, until one of them is too exhausted to keep getting up again, or neither of them can throw a single punch. It’s exhilarating, throwing himself full tilt at an equal. Sasuke knows Naruto inside and out, and Naruto knows him thoroughly in turn.

Sasuke, at his core, is not complicated by any means—arguably, most Uchiha are tragically simple. 

They were simply born into a complicated world that built itself on lies.

When he’s not training with Naruto, Sasuke spends his evenings drawing poisons from blossoms and grinding herbal remedies; it’s become somewhat of a pastime while he studies and applies what he can, since he’s still too young to intern at the hospital. He stores the useful things and sets aside the leftover parts to be used in something else later.

Waste not want not, as the saying goes. 

Cat gives him a B-rank book on distilling poisons one morning, after watching Sasuke struggle with what he could find at the civilian library.

Sasuke is fairly certain he’s not supposed to have it, he’s sure it must be from the ANBU’s personal collection. He wears it out anyways, reads it cover to cover, notates over existing notations, adds more shrubbery to his garden. And, it’s somehow fun.

Learning about new things is fun—what an alien concept.

Sasuke hasn’t had fun in years. 

☯

When he turns ten that July, Ino uses Shikamaru and Chouji to haul an apothecary chest half way across the village.

She has the skin thick enough to bluff about her Dad needing to get rid of it to make room for a new one, as though the wood detailing doesn’t pre-date the Warring States Era and the sturdiness was anything less than an ancestral clan piece. It’s not just a gift between two children who share a class at the academy, it’s a gift of friendship between clans from a political angle. 

Following Yamanaka’s lead, Shikamaru brings him an absolutely ancient shogi set the next day, one that’s older than the both of them, commenting casually that no one plays this version in the clan anymore since his great-grandfather and his uncle passed. Thirteen inches across, with intricate forestland and deer details carved and painted into the red tinted maple wood, there’s enough hand-carved pieces to make his head spin; Sasuke almost feels like he’s holding something he shouldn’t be, like he’s wandered into the clan treasury and he’s handling one of his own great-grandmother’s precious white jade vases and getting his hand prints all over it. 

Then, one the third day, Chouji gives him a bō. 

A terrifying bō staff with a case that’s thrice the length Sasuke is tall, solid bronze, complete with silver and blue butterfly motifs, it’s clearly not meant for practical use. Sasuke feels dizzy. The clan heirs’ look unreasonably smug with themselves, Sasuke swears he hears more than feels one of his ANBU stalkers fall out of a tree a block away.  

“You all can’t be serious,” Sasuke says numbly, face carefully blank, “… you realize I can’t use these right?” 

Shikamaru, the bastard, simply shrugs, “You can use the chest for your herbalist hobbies, and I think Chouji’s staff would work as a beautiful mantle piece. A status symbol, even.” Sasuke barks out a somewhat hysterical laugh. “The shogi board is tricky though. I guess it’s also pretty enough for a display piece.”

“I’m not stupid, Nara.”

“Don’t hurt yourself,” Shikamaru rolls his eyes with a scoff, “These are from us and our parents.” Sasuke goes very still.

“What.”

The boy pats his shoulder, pausing at the open door way, “Look, all I'm saying is maybe you’re not as alone as you think you are— you’re not exactly short of people willing to help out in little ways, either.” He pauses, giving Sasuke a long, considering look that’s fit to give him hives. Then, the bastard has the face to smile, like he's trying to coax a feral animal that's itching to bolt. Sasuke can't even be mad for it, because he still just might.

“Happy birthday, Uchiha.”  

Sasuke’s legs kind of give out on him then, he sits down heavily on the porch steps. Inside, Naruto is eagerly chatting with Ino in the backdrop, arguing about where to place the apothecary chest; his chest feels fluttery and plain odd as he blinks hard.

“…But, why ? Why any of this? You didn’t need to go this far for an alliance. I’m not even a clan anymore—any power I do have is superficial at best.” 

Nara waves him off: “That’s the thing about gifts freely offered, there’s never any reason for ‘why’, just what you do with the tools you’re given.”

Fuck.

Sasuke thinks, indignant, with a scowl on his childish face, curled up next to a snoring Naruto under the futon that night. After a day of rowdy bickering in his kitchen while five children argued over what to make for dinner, the realization hits him like the buck of a horse. 

He thinks of Chouji, steadfast, loyal Chouji, who came along to rescue a Sasuke too far gone, simply because Shikamaru asked him to. 

He remembers Sarutobi Asuma, and the million and one things that go wrong that the previous him only gave a passing glance over in his pursuit of revenge. 

He recalls seeing Team 10, battle hardened and wary, smiles lost somewhere on the battlefield. Ino weeping as her father’s mental connection snaps easily as cutting a thread, immediately taking on his duty because, at the end of the world, she could not afford to mourn. Shikamaru, losing two fathers yet grimly pushing on, desperate to protect and take care of what’s left of his people.

In the darkness of the bedroom, he groans in dismay, hitting his head back against the pillow a few times as though trying to clear his unruly thoughts. 

Fuck.  

I have to save them, too. 

☯☯☯

Uchiha Sasuke had always been a loner, too reserved before the massacre to talk to any civilians or clanborns in his classes, isolated by being an Uchiha, and by his own inferiority complex. 

He’d severely underestimated just how much his bustling clan, one that boasted being the second largest in Konoha, made up for the deficiency. The sudden lack of contact was jarring, going from dozens of aunts, uncles, and cousins that would wave to him while patrolling Konoha’s streets, ruffling his hair in the privacy of the compound where it was safe to show weakness among fellow kin—family.

He doesn’t realize the empty feeling that had stayed with him for months after the fact, even with Naruto around to fill in the cracks just… wasn’t there lately. Not until he actively starts taking note of it, that is.

The attention is replaced by Chouji’s booming laugh as he pounds Sasuke’s back after a good spar. By Shikamaru napping beside him in silence while Sasuke reads, just the edges of their arms touching in quiet companionship; this is how Sasuke learns Shikamaru only sleeps deeply in front of people he actually likes. Nara is almost always wide awake in class, the absolute bastard. It’s also replaced by Ino, hanging off of him like her own personal jungle gym, chattering in his ear about his nonexistant skincare routine and flowers in equal measure.

(Sasuke finds he really can’t hate them. It’s the worst possible scenario.)

This change of course coincides with Ino spending less and less time with her civilian friends, until it’s dwindled down to nothing sans her wide eyed pink-haired shadow that doesn’t at all resemble the one in Sasuke’s memories. It makes him uncomfortable. He brushes it aside for now—it won’t be his problem to solve until they all graduate regardless. She seems far more desperate for Ino’s attention this time around weirdly enough, and Sasuke’s sure not tempting fate with that stroke of fortune.

That previous ‘him’ did her wrong, Sasuke thinks. 

Memories surrounding Haruno Sakura are dull and lifeless up to a point, only to fill with color and the murmurings of fondness too little too late. All he sees now is a lonely civilian girl, far in over her head with a mind too sharp for a quiet civilian life. Sasuke puts a pin in that for now, watching her attempts to keep Ino in her orbit, little hands frantically clutching the friend she instinctively feels drifting further and further away. 

An inevitable chasm between a lofty clan heiress and an ordinary girl. 

Honestly, it’s a wonder Yamanaka keeps civilian friends at all with how dense she is about the class politics surrounding this sort of thing. It’s part of why Sasuke never bothered. He shares a look with Shikamaru who makes a complicated face, scrunching up his nose, shaking his head sharply once—Sasuke shrugs as Naruto’s eyes dart between them in delighted curiosity. 

“Stay out of it. It’s a headache and a half and Ino doesn’t even know it yet.” Nara says to reiterate his point, stifling a yawn. “She’ll give up eventually.” 

Sasuke hums with a purposeful impassivity, “Wasn’t planning on it. Though… I wouldn’t count her out just yet if I were you.”

“Oh? What makes you so sure?”

“Just a hunch. She’s a stubborn one.” 

Naruto pouts, groaning into his homework, “Ugh! I hate when you two do that, not all of us can keep up with your weird one-sided monologues y’know…!” Sasuke hums, flicking the other boy right in the middle of the forehead, earning an offended squawk for his trouble.

“Need to know basis, usuratonkachi.” 

☯

It hits Sasuke in October, a week before Naruto’s birthday and three days before the third anniversary of the Uchiha Massacre, two tragedies rolled into one wretched week. 

(He spends all day kneeling in front of the family altar on October 7th, Naruto’s hand clenched tightly in his in a borrowed black kimono—Sasuke introduces him to his parents and relatives with a voice that can’t seem to stop shaking.) 

The whispers around town that week are vicious and terrible and Naruto doesn’t understand.  

All he knows is that the adults in the village hate him more viscerally in October compared to the other months. And worse yet, he’s just so damn used to it at the age of nine he has a collection of fail safes and contingencies just to survive October in a village that should be worshiping the ground under his blessed feet, and Sasuke is going to kill someone. 

Shikamaru takes notice first, when Naruto’s babbling during break time about not being able to shop these next couple of days because ‘the second week of October is always the worst’. His eyes narrow fractionally, locking with Sasuke’s over Naruto’s animated gesturing.

Sasuke’s gaze is black ice, jaw locking in place. The only sign he gives is a slight tilt of his head—outwardly Shikamaru only hums, a purposefully detached sound from his throat. In response, Chouji and Ino both stiffen in their seats from where they were squabbling like siblings, eyeing their future team captain warily. 

“Huh. Is that right,”

He doesn’t phrase it as a question, the words drawl like a carefree song, leaning forward on his cheek as his eyelids rest at half mast, “Tell me more."

By Naruto’s birthday, three vendors in the market have suddenly decided to leave the district, swiftly replaced by clan run businesses. There’s at least several serious injuries involved, multiple broken bones, and a grown man in the hospital—all of which are chalked up to ‘simple accidents’.

Ino treats them all to ramen on the day of Naruto’s tenth birthday with her allowance, looking suspiciously triumphant. 

All in all, Sasuke thinks he may have severely underestimated the consequences of befriending the three heirs of the most powerful clans in Konoha. The heavy miasma that’d previously dominated the market place dissipates like bad air. It’s a clean-cut, clinical solution that had Nara fingerprints all over it. Cut away the rot and the instigators to let the roots grow unobstructed, an irritatingly simple yet effective solution. 

Naruto is still feared and reviled, yes, but no civilian is stupid enough to outright abuse him in the streets anymore, not with three clan heads behind him and a baby Uchiha with a glare that could evaporate a lake.

They close ranks around him and Naruto at the Academy.

The other clan heads take notice—the butterfly effect is startling, Sasuke hadn’t even planned on approaching anyone else. When suddenly, out of the blue, the Inuzuka clan heir comes bobbing over like a curious puppy, bringing his lunch along with the quiet Aburame heir dragging his heels with a scrunched up expression.

They sit in the seats in front of their little entourage, and Shikamaru doesn’t ignore them at least, he even raises his head. “Aburame.” 

“Kiba!” Chouji cheers in contrast, sharing a fist bump with the eager Inuzuka.

Shino bows shortly, obviously the more polite of the pair, “We have come to have lunch with you. Why? Clan heirs should stick together.” 

Shikamaru looks at Kiba for a long, measured moment as the boy cocks his head in unison with his baby ninken, “The Old Bat said your Pops is real dumb and should stop overthinking so damn much about this.”

“Language.” Ino says, looking skeptical, stealing a dango from Naruto’s lunch, much to the other blonde’s exaggerated groaning. Sasuke promptly uses his chopsticks to pop one from his own bento directly into his mouth to shut him up seemingly on autopilot. 

(This was an unprecedented development, he’d only considered the clan heirs’ strings, he hadn’t at all considered their parents as factors to account for.)

“Also, I don’t have any idea what you’re talking about.” 

Kiba bounces on his heels leaning his weight forward on the desk, “Well, no one told me Uzumaki was a clan kid , that changes things!”

Sasuke blinks, very slowly rolling the words over in his brain because… it kind of does, doesn’t it?

Shikamaru similarly blinks in surprise, eyes going momentarily blank before he groans, hitting himself in the forehead with his palm, “Ugh. Why didn’t I think of that? No wonder Tou-san’s been so smug lately. He’s gonna be so obnoxious for the rest of the month.”

Naruto also furrows his brows, looking between seven sets of eyes, mouth twisting in confusion, “… I don’t get it, what’s that supposed ta’ mean?”

“The major clans in Konoha have a loose alliance off the books,” Shikamaru starts, running a wary hand down his face, “the Warring States Era was—to put it simply—a damn mess, almost three hundred years of grudges and betrayals on every side will do that to you as a bunch of twitchy, paranoid mercenary clans. A lotta people did a lotta messed up stuff to protect their own, a lotta people lost a lot of precious things in the process." He looks over at Naruto evenly, “Long story short, taking a bunch of clans that have been vying to kill each other for decades was a complicated political shitstorm all around.” 

“... So, how did they solve it? They had to solve it somehow, right?” Naruto is fully attentive now, having scooted closer, leaning heavily on Sasuke, who answers instead.

“The Shodaime had all the clan heads and their elders exchange wine glasses and break bread together. Same with his wife’s family.” He only gets a blank look in response, and he rolls his eyes, fondly, pushing a squawking blonde’s head down into his lap. “It made them all Konoha shinobi. Any grudges became water under the bridge, their kids were all raised together.” Sasuke hums, “It’s probably why our parents’ generation was so close, now that I think about it.” 

“So… wait. I’m a clan kid?” Naruto’s eyes widen, then his jaw drops, “Wait a minute, teme! I had a proper shinobi family? A non-civilian family!?” 

Sasuke pinches him and hisses to pipe down, eyes slanting around at the children outside of their little group, making sure Umino wasn’t in the room to hear them casually swapping village secrets.

“Uzumaki was the clan the Shodaime’s wife originally came from before she married into the Senju. It’s common knowledge among clan families.” Shikamaru grimaces, “We all wear your clan’s damn sigil on our uniforms, it’s strange that according to Sasuke you were living in the lower districts, even if you’re the last remaining descendant, someone should’ve at the very least taken you in.” Sasuke silently watches his mind work, distantly pleased as others in the group shift anxiously in varying discomfort. 

“Huh? But what about…”

“Sasuke?” Shikamaru’s eyes slid over to the boy in question, nose wrinkling, “Well, he’s—” 

“—Like hell if I was letting the village seize my clan’s district,” Sasuke interrupts, scoffing, “like hell. I said I was going to continue taking up residence there and that it was my birthright as the only clan head apparent.”

“At the age of eight, like an absolute lunatic.”

“It’s harder to reclaim things once they’re taken from you once. That’s what Kaa-san used to say.” He cocks his head, arching an eyebrow at the other, “You should be able to deduce that better than anyone, considering the Council’s… past behavior. I chose not to give them a chance this time is all, Nara. Besides, it’s not like I’m lonely.”

Naruto smiles up at him, Sasuke allows his lips to quirk right back and Shikamaru lets out a long, suffering sigh.

“Anyways, point being, you and Sasuke have way more friends in this village than you think you do.” 

Naruto’s eyes are shining now from where he’d rolled over to use Sasuke’s lap as a proper pillow; Shikamaru is looking at them with an odd look of fascination and mild disgust, like he’s just watched his parents share a kiss at the dinner table. Sasuke is way too focused on seeing Naruto's excitement to care.

“So, basically, what, clans stick together?”

He gets a shrug in response, “In theory their heirs do, at least, it makes for strong community building. Makes team bonds stronger for it too.”

“Whoa! I didn’t know that at all, y’know. Clan stuff’s way more complicated than I thought!”

And how could he know?

Sarutobi had hidden his heritage and his birthright, isolating Naruto from everything that made him a ninja under an archaic gag order. Worse than that, Naruto wasn’t raised or even fostered under Sarutobi’s clan, he was raised as a civilian orphan, and one living in abject poverty in squalor at that. It makes Sasuke feel insane to think about for too long, even when he’d technically grown up as his older brother’s ‘spare’ he’d understood the importance of clans and their politics enough to survive. He still doesn’t understand what the old bastard had been thinking when he’d given that order, if he was thinking past his own selfish grief at all.

In truth, Sasuke actually had quite a few guesses about the previous him’s mindset the first go around. 

The Uchiha were isolated by the time he was a toddler and downright reviled by the time he entered the Academy. His parents had been gradually pulling away from inner clan circles for years by then. —Of course he wouldn’t cultivate alliances with future clan heads, the concept never even occurred to him, it just wasn’t how he’d been raised. Alliances didn’t save his father, or his clan elders, and certainly not any of his countless cousins. So, it goes to show why Sasuke didn’t see Konoha clans and their heirs as assets, they were downright liabilities.

The Uchiha became worse pariahs than even the pompous Hyuuga Clan by the time of the massacre, Sasuke had simply carried on that antisocial reputation like a poison in his veins.

But then, somewhere along the line… things shifted.

Sasuke had shifted and now the world was scrambling to rearrange itself around him to keep pace. 

“… Is that why the market has so many shinobi owned shops now?”

Naruto prods further, squinting suspiciously at Ino and Chouji who studiously avoid eye contact while Kiba laughs uproariously at the statement taking a bite of his bento box full of… majority rare meat, a frankly distressing amount of protein if Sasuke’s being honest.

“That’s an understatement! I’ve never seen the Nara Clan Head on a warpath before, Ma said he was out for the civilian council’s blood .” Kiba’s baby fangs show in his grin as Akamaru yips excitedly from his favorite spot atop his master’s head. 

Sasuke looks at Shikamaru. 

Shikamaru only blinks back at him, slow and sluggish, like a cat awoken from a midday nap. 

“I just told him the truth. That’s all.” Sasuke’s eyebrows raise further, “I may have embellished the scarcity of your barren refrigerator, growing your own crops—” 

“Poisons and medicinal herbs.”

“—and the fact that we all have to bring you groceries on Sundays.”  

“… The food you bring over as payment for eating my curry in my house, you mean?”

“You should be thanking me, the Akimichi clan has great butchers with fair prices and they were looking to buy out a few spots in the marketplace’s center anyway. Ino’s aunts were delighted to open shop and force that ancient Apothecary keeper into retirement.” 

Sasuke gives him a flat look, Shikamaru smirks looking unfairly pleased with himself. “You should really play up the kid aspect while you're a fun-sized Uchiha. You’d be surprised by how overprotective clans are when it comes to their young, blood bonds aren’t the only things that bind us.” And Sasuke doesn’t have much to say to that, because, logistically speaking, Nara is correct. He just sighs in defeat, contenting himself with glowering and burying his fingers in Naruto’s fluffy spikes.

The conversation moves on, Shino and Kiba’s personalities fit almost seamlessly into the Ino-Shika-Cho dynamic, oiled by years of clan meetings and playdates as toddlers. This is also distressing. Sasuke sees many, many more rowdy dinners in his future. 

Then, abruptly, he freezes.

Sasuke feels eyes on his damn back—

His head whips around and sure enough, across the room, the Hyuuga heiress watches with wide, translucent doll-like irises. She’s fidgeting anxiously with her hands, alone at her desk as she watches her fellow heirs congregate around Naruto and Sasuke, as though drawn in by their unparalleled orbit.

For a brief moment, Sasuke locks eyes with her and considers pretending it never happened at all. It’s a childish urge his Nii-san would surely admonish him for, even if every Hyuuga stereotype he’s heard growing up is mostly true as far as Sasuke’s seen from both lives. 

(But they were sister clans of a sort, weren’t they? The Uchiha and the Hyuuga, once upon a time before the Warring States Era, before they became rivals, increasingly protective of their own dōjutsu.)

It pains him, what he does next. Just the same, he holds a hand up, defeated and grimacing, as Hyuuga Hinata goes ramrod straight in her chair in wait. He beckons her over with his fingers, and several eyes watch curiously as the girl blushes, expression blooming open, like a flower even if she doesn’t physically smile. Quietly and quickly, she gathers up her lunch, scurrying over to their little group.

Shikamaru raises a vaguely skeptical eyebrow while Sasuke waves him off, watching Hinata squish between an apologetic Kiba and a grinning Chouji.

“The Hyuuga are the least useful to you, you know. The clan itself is staunchly individualistic.” Shikamaru comments blandly, muttering under his breath.

“I’m not in the business of kicking baby lions.” Sasuke says, looking Hinata in the eye as she blinks owlishly, “She could be the Head, one day, you know?"

⸙⸙⸙

Umino Iruka spots a surprising schism forming in the class that hadn’t been there before.

It’s just one of those things that once you spot it, you can’t seem to stop seeing it. 

The civilian children don’t take notice because really only Ino mingled with them, and the hole she leaves is quietly filled in by the herd. Little Sakura seems distressed by this, frantically looking back at the other side of the room, too shy to speak up, the odd one out who truly notices the shift. Meanwhile, the clan heirs subtly gravitate towards Naruto and Sasuke—which, of course, would make sense to the average outsider in the know about clan politics in the village. Sasuke is the last Uchiha and an heir-apparent, under technicality, he’s ‘one of them’ still at the end of the day.

But Naruto? Now that is where things get interesting.

The son of the Fourth Hokage, the Yellow Flash, as well as the final Uzumaki-hime’s thrice blessed son, making him the potential patriarch to one of the unofficial founding clans of Konoha, and a core fixture of Uzushio. It used to be common knowledge, before Lord Yondaime’s sacrifice and the gag order put over everyone in Konoha, from the youngest civilian to the highest ranking officer—the schools of course were a prerequisite. 

The whole business was nothing short of malicious in Iruka’s opinion. 

Politically, it’d made Sarutobi and his council vastly unpopular with the—then—younger generation that had been loyal to Lord Yondaime and his wife. He himself had been a child at the time, but he’d heard enough in passing to know the fall out had been immense. Certain facts about the first and second Great Shinobi Wars were unceremoniously scrubbed from the Academy’s curriculum to further continue the farce, the council meetings that followed had been a waking nightmare based on the rumor's he'd heard from his senpai's. 

Speaking of the Uzumaki clan wasn’t explicitly banned, but it was still considered a soft gag order to this day, implicit in concert with not informing Naruto of his jinchuriki status, nor his relation to the Fourth. All this to hide the village’s history from one, singular, orphan child who just wanted to be loved.

Iruka wasn’t from any major clan, and thus had little to no influence of his own, in fact, his parents were both first generation shinobi in their civilian families. However, he knew enough politics by now to see what was happening in his class from a mile away.

(This has Shikaku’s handprints all over it.)

It’s honestly fascinating to watch.

Iruka cannot wait to see how this all plays out and comes crashing down, and he certainly doesn’t want his Hokage to put an end to it before things can truly blossom. So, the chunin tucks his observations away with a smile, wrapping on his desk to get the room’s attention before starting back on his ninjutsu practical lesson. 

Maybe he’ll take Sasuke and Naruto out for ramen later. 

☯☯☯

Sasuke hits the end of what he can study in the civilian section of the library that winter. He’s read Cat’s book back to front five times, hungry for the knowledge like a sponge. Ino hears him complaining one day while they’re resting in the grass after taijutsu practicals, as Chouji wraps one of his arms, she sorta tilts her head this way and that in thought, ponytail bob bouncing in time as she hums. 

“Do you wanna try my clan’s personal library?”

Sasuke blinks, mind going a little blank, “What.” He asks, blandly, and Ino flips her bangs, clicking her sandals together, looking annoyed and bashful.

“Well, uh, the Yamanaka started out as poison dealers, you know? Papa won’t mind. The books just can’t leave the house, so you’ll have to come over after school, or on Sundays.”

Having allies is a truly groundbreaking experience, Sasuke mechanically nods his head on autopilot because doing otherwise would just be a waste .

And, with that he gains another routine, showing up at the Yamanaka main house with Ino, Naruto, and a notepad that evening. Shikamaru and Chouji tag along for dinner, they call Inoichi ‘uncle’. 

Sasuke skims every bit of relevant text he can find, some of the texts are very old, pre-Warring States Era 'old' in a few cases. 

He takes notes on herbal remedies and distilled poison, the amount of information is dizzying. Sasuke returns three times a week, Inoichi watches him silently those first couple weeks as though expecting the boy to bend, to break. 

Then, during the fourth week, the clan head finally sits down with him. It happens while Sasuke is busy muttering to himself, fervently taking notes to pour over later, something about extracting alkaloids from moonflowers.—Sasuke startles when a shadow blocks his light, blinking slugglishly as Naruto and Ino bicker about what protein to pick for dinner.

Inoichi beams down at him, he reminds Sasuke of Uncle Teyaki with his boisterous smiles and his love for his children. He's pretty like Ino is from an aesthetics perspective with smile lines on his face, even in what must be his thirties.

“You know, I’d given up hope of anyone else specializing in poisons from my clan,” he rubs his chin, “are you planning on making it your niche after you make Chunin? I can put in a good word for you to some potential mentors.”

Sasuke straightens in response, but sharply shakes his head, “No.”

The man cocks his head ponytail swaying behind him, looking bemused as he hums, unbothered by Sasuke’s curt responses, “My! Is that right? Why the sudden interest in poisons, then? The stuff you’re studying is way above academy level for a simple passing curiosity.”

“I want to be a medic.”

Silence.

Sasuke’s expression is set in stone, eyes solemn black pits of determination as he closes the book, “To be a medic, I have to know what I can and can’t cure on the battlefield. I have to know the inner workings of everything that can hurt me or my squad inside and out—I don’t want to lose anyone ever again.”

Inoichi’s eyes sharpen, he leans back on his palms with a low, impressed whistle, now seeing an inferno where he’d thought were mere embers. 

Normally medics were rushing water and crashing waves—this is why Uchiha didn’t normally go medic. They were on the frontlines, ripping and tearing through battalions in vengeful effigy, throwing themselves at impossible targets, burning down camps with their devastating fire release. There’s a light in the clan head’s eyes now, one of excitement at the prospect of a medic forged in molten hearth and protective flame. Surely, not even Tsunade-hime with her steadfast mind and stout earth held a candle to a motivated Uchiha with a passion that burned so intensely it leaned into obsession. 

“... Say, Sasuke-kun,” he begins, tone deceptively casual, “The last poison mistress in the Yamanaka clan was my Grandmother. I still keep her journals in the clan archives, would you like me to lend them to you in the evenings?”

Sasuke fixes him with another deep searching look, head cocked like a cat’s, “Why?” 

Inoichi’s lips twitch warily, such hyper focus no doubt unnerving on a young child’s face. 

“They’re just gathering dust on my personal shelf, it’ll be educational reading if nothing else.” 

And Sasuke, though isolated, is still a Konoha clan heir in theory, raised on the traditions from the moment he could walk, learning at his mother’s knee beside his brother, and, as such, Sasuke immediately feels a chill down his spine as the offer registers. 

Clan secrets were a big deal, even between families as tightly woven as the ones in Konoha, Sasuke wasn’t marrying into the Yamanaka house and didn’t plan on it.

What Yamanaka was even flirting with was tantamount to adoption in shinobi terms. Sharing clan techniques, even defunct ones outside of blood family, was considered absurd.

That’s how you lose specialties in the clan over time, that’s how your clan’s specialty wound up a part of the Academy's curriculum in ten years.

And Sasuke… doesn’t understand. But he won’t refuse the knowledge either, he’d be foolish to do so, and unlike the previous ‘him’, he also knows when to mind his damn manners. Thus, Sasuke bows low enough that his little forehead touches the ground, when he speaks he does not stumble:

“Thank you for your consideration, Yamanaka-sama. I would be honored.” 

He still feels dizzy—that’s happening a lot these days—as Inoichi laughs his boisterous laugh, hauling Sasuke up by the scruff like a shellshocked alley cat. 

“Nonsense! I was great friends with Mikoto-chan, she’d never forgive me if I turned away such an eager student!” Inoichi smiles Ino’s smile, gray-blue eyes lighting up in mischief. “Besides, I can’t wait to see what a monster you grow into, Sasuke-kun. You are the son of Wicked Eye Fugaku and Manslayer Mikoto, after all.” 

Sasuke blinks slowly and calculates the clan head’s demeanor in a new light, “… I 'want' to be a medic.”

Inoichi sniffs innocently, “Tsunade-hime was also a medic, didn’t make her any less of a monster.”

☖☖☖

Shikamaru likes proverbs.

He’d die before admitting it to his old man, but still, it’s one of the few things they have in common.

They’re simple word play, a turn of phrase meant to shill out wisdom. Shikamaru appreciates how they’re short, sweet and to the point--a bit like how he himself is. 

Don’t get him wrong, it’s not as though Shikamaru hates “complicated”, that’s one thing people tend to misunderstand. The Nara clan is famous for being a den for eccentric geniuses and harebrained theorists, their reputation for collecting oddballs proceeds them. A complex problem with an intricate solution was like catnip to a motivated Nara with a special interest. 

It just so happened having a clan wide obsession with strategy games tended to yield competent generals.

Exchanging wine with the Akimichi and the Yamanaka had been a logical step for the Nara clan’s survival in a turbulent era; the centuries of friendship had been a pleasant surprise.

(‘Domestication by choice’ as one would have it.)

Circling back to his point, proverbs were his favorite thing because though he’d never, ever admit this under any thing short of knife point, Shikamaru tended to apply them to the people closest to him. His brain was actually fairly compartmentalized all things considered. It’s a skill that was heavily encouraged in his clan. Segment out your thoughts, examine your reactions to those thoughts, put them in their place. Memories, bonds, theories—they all went in their tidy corners to peruse at his leisure. 

Ino was a foreign, borderline alien, creature he met as a toddler, rowdy like a stake that needed to be hammered down. She was a sharp contrast from the reserved adults Shikamaru was used to, clingy and always smiling, babbling as she tugged him along to play. Chouji, he met soon after, a child always made fun of for his weight, one who could fall seven times and stand up for eight. He was warm and reassuring like a campfire, presence perfectly, paradoxically, fitting into Shikamaru’s quiet thunder, snuggled right there beside Ino’s raging rapids.

They ground him, humble him even, Shikamaru understands maybe why his nomadic ancestors chose to settle—allies and dissenting voices tempered arrogance. Arrogance led to death in a ragtag clan of shadow jutsu users and geniuses. Either way, no one else in the village caught his interest, he’d been prepared to just have the three of them as a trio forever. 

That is, of course, until Uchiha Sasuke came along. 

Where Ino was a stubborn wooden stake, Uchiha was steel. His gaze had been furious with a cold fire since the massacre that Shikamaru had immediately clocked as a ticking bomb ready to explode. His spars were brutal, he never stopped training, he was always bristled up like a tomcat pet the wrong way. Not that he could very well blame Uchiha. Shikamaru doesn’t think he’d ever leave his house again if his clan were butchered like pigs in their own district. 

(Yikes. Maybe Ino was right about needing to work on his social cues, that was callous, even for him.)

He’d even intended to fully wash his hands of it after that first lunch, pull his brother and sister in all but blood back from the potential threat… then Uchiha flipped everything on its head again by having the nerve to become a functional human being. 

The change had been absurd , enough that Shikamaru was intrigued enough to keep watching. Uchiha were notoriously tribal, they almost never intermarried with other clans and often tended to live recklessly on the battlefield and die young. Outside of battle however, they were vastly unpopular for their blunt, severe demeanors and their tendency to self-isolate, a reputation Sasuke embodied for a solid year.

Then, he sat with Shikamaru at lunch and kept up with his snark. 

Then, he went and helped Chouji with his taijutsu drills. 

Then, he won over Ino.

He’s decent at shogi, excels at chakra theory, stoic but always listening to the conversations around him. He goes easy and adjusts depending on who’s sparring with him. He cooks for an extra three… four… five, on Sundays lately because he’s started expecting them in the afternoons. He tends to their scratches and bruises after training, droning on and on about potential infections. 

Shikamaru’s stomach hurts just thinking of introducing him to his shark of an old man after Inoichi-oji took an immediate shine to him.

Sasuke is, against all odds, fucking likeable, yet paradoxically he still doesn’t get it. And, frankly? It’s started driving Shikamaru a little nuts, the way Uchiha thinks he’s fooling anyone.

He’ll do this terrible, awful, thing where he gets this deer and headlights expression on his face whenever he clocks someone being nice to him. This can range from anything between gifts to genuine compliments void of  snark. Without fail, there'll be an awkward shuffling of feet, followed by a skeptical angling of a head full of spikey hair as if to ask ‘was this for me’? Almost as though Uchiha Sasuke doesn’t even register a reality in which he receives anything ‘nice’ outside of his sunny flatmate. 

It’s messed up, it sets Shikamaru’s damn teeth on edge and honestly, if he sees the look turned on him one more time, Shikamaru thinks he might do something drastic and most certainly amoral. At least Naruto smiles when shown a random act of kindness, Sasuke just looks like he’s waiting for a mean punchline to a joke, it’s the worst. 

And even worse than that? The feeling is mutual.

Sasuke likes them too, he’s just an absolute weirdo about it for reasons Shikamaru can only blame on the aforementioned stereotypical Uchiha upbringing.

(Naruto was a whole other can of worms. Untangling the rapid loss of faith Shikamaru experienced regarding Konoha’s spotty childcare system is soul crushing in a way he’s not unpacking until he’s in his thirties .)

Letting other people in is so troublesome. 

But… he stoically watches Uchiha concentrate on his next move. It’s Sunday, so they’re playing a few rounds while Naruto and Ino are making hamburger steak in the kitchenette, speaking over each other about seasonings. His brows are knitted so tightly he looks like he has a migraine as his fingers hesitantly hover over a stray pawn.

“Don’t hurt yourself, Uchiha.” Shikamaru jeers, just to see Sasuke’s brows twitch as he growls low and deep in his throat, more decisively advancing his bishop instead.

Hang ups aside, to his immense discomfort, Shikamaru is alas invested now. He’d been fine with Ino and Chouji—but he supposes if the Uchiha wants a ‘garden’ it ought to flourish instead of wither. No stopping it now, Sasuke had planted bamboo in his plot, neither fire nor ice could purge what he’d gone and planted. Shinobi were a stubborn, loyal bunch after all.

He smiles pleasantly and advances a lone promoted knight, putting his frustrated opponent in check.

Spilt water won’t return to its tray.

Shikamaru hopes Uchiha will do well to remember this in junction with the bonds he weaves.

☯☯☯

The following Spring, Sasuke’s herbal garden is properly thriving. He’s back out in Kaa-san’s veil hat and apron—the house isn’t as quiet as it used to be. It’s actually very loud these days.

Sasuke has never been a people person, he barely liked them before the massacre, but, he supposes he likes his and Naruto’s people well enough.

Cat still shows up in the mornings, there and gone like a ghost after assisting Sasuke with his morning errand—he can’t remember the motakun user’s name. But, ‘Cat’ has worked fine as a stand-in so far, and admittedly Saskue does like watching the ease with which the ANBU makes his out-of-season flowers bloom. 

Chouji on the other hand, cheerfully bought Sasuke some crops that spring, saying his grandmother suggested that it’d be a good way to save money on vegetables.

(Embarrassingly enough, the homegrown tomatoes tasted better than the ones in the market.)

Naruto has gotten better at taijutsu, still more of a brawler, but his defense is tighter for it, with just enough flare to add an element of unpredictability to his fight style. Sasuke keeps up with him, eager blood rushing in his veins. He doesn’t have a name for their ‘dance’ yet, but their spars are the most fun he’s ever had. Ino eagerly plays referee to their mock battles in the garden and on the training grounds, betting on who’ll win in the pair’s endless duels.

Shikamaru simply acts put upon more often than not if he’s asked. Kiba and Shino are also decent sparring partners, but could be better—it didn’t hurt that Akamaru’s fur was soft and he’d come trotting over to lay his head on Sasuke’s thigh when his owner was otherwise occupied with taijutsu drills. 

(Sasuke’s always liked animals. They’re simple, easy.)

During those moments, Kiba would look over his shoulder, and grin brightly, with the excitement of a puppy making a new friend. Sasuke is, again, too embarrassed to admit that he doesn’t hate it.

Hinata is a more recent addition to the mix, quiet as a wallflower, always trailing behind Kiba like a shadow. On Sundays, she feeds the koi with a soft little smile on her face, simply happy to bask in the presence of people who won’t scorn her to be there. She, quite damningly, reminds Sasuke of himself as a spare, overlooked in a clan far too large to ever truly be seen in a way that mattered. (Which is blindingly absurd because isn’t she the oldest? )

The realization had been utterly devastating, the secondhand embarrassment? Absolutely unconscionable.

Sasuke had screamed his irritation into a pillow for twenty minutes straight that night while Naruto watched on with bemused wariness. Sasuke was due a tantrum, he thinks, deserves one or three, even, if he’s seeing echoes of himself in a fucking Hyuuga of all things. Tou-san would faint if he heard. Shisui would probably laugh at him, the traitor. 

Wasting no time, that very next morning in fact, Sasuke marches up to her desk during break, fingers twitching as he meets her milky, somewhat intimidated, eyes. He’s determined to rectify this clear issue immediately. 

He’s not dealing with seeing a ghost in his periphery until he hits genin rank, Sasuke refuses. 

“You’re pairing up with me in practicals from now on.” 

“U-Um… I don’t understand?”

Her voice is quiet and breakable, Sasuke is honestly shocked she’s gotten this far—no, she’s not a baby lion like he’d first assumed. She is a circus animal, caged and smothered under a clan too obsessed with preserving its own lineage and dōjutsu , and that is much, much worse. Because for all Itachi was restrained to his role as heir apparent, Tou-san at least allowed him his own choices. 

“If we’re going to be,” Sasuke pauses here, ‘friends’ still sounded wrong, “… comrades, you’re going to need to be able to survive, and obviously the people you’re training with need to be meaner about it.”

Her eyes squint a little anxiously, Sasuke barrels on, in a proper ranting mood now, more heads turning in the classroom.

“You have the killing intent of an anxious snow rabbit despite your forms being solid. What kind of Hyuuga acts like prey? What are you going to do if you lose the right to succession? Doesn’t your clan like pit siblings against each other or something—Oi. Eyes on me.” Sasuke wraps the desk sharply with his knuckles and Hinata squeaks, head shooting up from where it’d been bowed lowly towards her lap, wringing her hands. Just as Sasuke is preparing to go back in again, Naruto appears, propping his chin gamely on the Uchiha’s shoulder, casual as can be. Sasuke could’ve sworn he was just across the room.

“Dun’ worry, Hinata! This just means Sasuke likes you a lot.” He thankfully uses the platonic word for ‘like’. “He’s this way with all our friends!”

The girl makes a sound like a cresting tea kettle. 

Sasuke crosses his arms over his chest and lies with the conviction of a career politician.

“Nonsense, Naruto’s my only friend.”

Seated behind them, Shikamaru loudly snorts while pretending to nap. Sasuke, for the fifth time this week alone, weighs the pros and cons of wringing the Nara heir’s neck. 

Ino flounces over with a giggle, leaning forward on the desk, “You shouldn’t bully girls, Uchiha.”

“This isn’t bullying, believe me, you’d know if it was bullying.” Sasuke says, unimpressed, while Naruto nods sagely.

“Totally, that was the teme’s mother henning voice, he’s wayyyy meaner when he gets going. He'll, like, curse all five generations of your family, deep cuts too. Sasuke’s kinda a busybody like that, y’know? You’ll all hear it eventually, it’s only a matter of time, just you wait— OUCH!” 

Sasuke swiftly whacks him over the head, “What’d ya’ go and hit me for!?”

“If you ever use that word to describe me ever again, dope, I’m burning all your terrible, cup ramen in the fire pit.”

Naruto lets out a dismayed yell and Sasuke huffs, looking at Hinata again. He reiterates his points, perhaps softening his voice a little this time around. 

“Kiba’s too nice, pair up with me from now on.”

But when he looks over, Hinata is covering her mouth with both hands, head bowed again, shoulders shaking; for an uncomfortable moment, Sasuke wonders if he really had been too harsh. Gods. He hopes she’s not crying. Crying girls are so uncomfortable to deal with—Sasuke could never seem to clock them right.

But, thankfully, instead of tears when the Hyuuga lifts her head, white-lilac eyes dance with mirth. 

She gives a jerky sort of nod, muffling her soft raspy laughs. She really does have the vibes of a small woodland creature; Sasuke is, again, rightfully skeptical about how her nightmare of a clan could’ve possibly spat her out. 

“R-Right. I’ll be sure to, Sasuke-kun.”

Sasuke returns to his desk, cheeks burning as Ino smirks at his back, meanwhile, Naruto clings stubbornly to his shoulders, still begging on behalf of his unhealthy junk food. 

All in all, it’s an average day at the Academy. The things Sasuke needs to protect just seem to keep growing lately, but when he looks over at Naruto, the other boy’s cheeks rosy from laughing at something Kiba had whispered in his ear— he still can’t find it in himself to care all that much. 

Naruto has that effect on people, he thinks. 

☯

Later that evening, Umino-sensei treats them to ramen at Ichiraku’s, he’s in a suspiciously happy mood, paying for at least three bowls for Naruto alone.

Sasuke is still on his first bowl when he catches Naruto beaming at him, eyes bright enough to take his breath away. He sets down his bowl—Umino-sensei is busy chatting with Ayame-san. 

He ignores Naruto for as long as he possibly can, eventually breaking as Naruto’s stare only grows more intent. 

Sasuke sighs.

“What is it now?”


 “Nothin’ just,” Naruto grins wider, leaning his cheek on his palm, “… I told ya so.”

Sasuke’s eyes narrow, irritation burns in his chest, like he’s lost a game he didn’t even know he was playing.

“What?” He cocks his head at a ninety degree angle, wracking his brain for any clues.

Could it be sparring related? 

No, couldn’t be, Naruto’s been giving him more and more tips lately yes, but nothing hugely embarrassing the way the blonde’s widening grin is promising. Sasuke feels a foreboding chill down his spine. 

“What are you talking about now, dope?”

“Like I said before—you’re more likable than ya think.” Naruto finally leans over whispering the damning words into his ear like a secret. 

He blinks once when the blonde pulls away with mischievous eyes, then twice, remembering that night that feels so long ago when he’d planted his garden. Sasuke’s cheeks and ears burn. He growls and shoves a cackling Naruto’s face away, growling in annoyance. 

“Shut up and eat, will you!? So damn annoying!” 

Naruto’s unruly cackle is delightful, as he scoots close enough to Sasuke so their shoulders bump, draining the broth in his bowl. 

“... I was right though, wasn’t I, teme? Trusting other people once in a while isn’t so bad at all!” 

Iruka looks at them curiously as Sasuke dunks his head, aggressively tipping back his bowl of savory ramen. 

(Sasuke doesn’t answer, but he also pointedly doesn’t move away from the warmth, either. Why would he argue? The idiot knew him better than anyone, after all.)

☯☯☯

“Say, Sasuke haven't ya been practicing your aim for long enough?”

Naruto downs his water canteen as an exhausted Kiba snores in the grass beside him. The five of them had decided to actually spend their Sunday doing something useful for once. 

The upside to their little group's growth had of course been the new ability to outvote the aimless Ino-Shika-Cho trio who preferred lounging in his front room, eating shaved ice and probably spilling village secrets they shouldn’t be on their days off.

Luckily, with Shino and Kiba to tip the scales, Sasuke could now wrangle them into extra training at least every few weeks. Their foundations are solid as a gaggle of main house clan children, but nothing to write home about. However, Sasuke isn’t looking for ‘solid’, he needs them to be ‘exceptional’. He needs Naruto’s garden to thrive, he needs them to survive. 

(The sleeping monster slumbering inside of him thrums in agreement, a quiet thunder under Sasuke’s skin.)

Unfortunately--Sasuke is also very small, half of the adults in the compound would be calling him ‘fledgling’ at this age, as a matter of fact. All of them are small. They are weak targets, and that is unacceptable to an Uchiha who’s begrudgingly placed a claim on them as ‘his’. Of course, vigorous genjutsu training was well enough in order, dragging the idiots kicking and screaming to the top of the class rankings was a high priority, the fact they weren’t already was kind of pitiful in Sasuke’s opinion. Maybe other clans were just more lax about this sort of thing? Sasuke's father would've glared at him for months if he dropped below the top three.

Shikamaru had grumbled at him that first week and entreated him as to why by the third. Sasuke had given him a blank look and lied openly, saying it was payback for all the shogi matches he keeps losing. 

Because you’re not strong enough, none of you know what’s coming. You all need to be stronger. Naruto’s not losing you and neither am I. 

Something in Sasuke’s gaze must have convinced the Nara heir because with an exhausted groan he’d gotten to his feet and returned to doing taijutsu drills. Ino and Chouji fall in line with Shikamaru, even at this age, and Hinata and Shino fall in line with Kiba’s loud personality out of habit. 

With that in mind, it’s fairly easy, getting them to do some extra sparring outside of class. 

At present, however, Hinata sits prim and proper in the grass of the academy training ground, not much further away, red-faced and twiddling her thumbs while Ino happily weaves her short hair into the style of a crown braid, pointedly ignoring the other boys. She's delighted, having a fellow heiress in their entourage. 

And if she looks at Hinata a little too long sometimes, pausing mid-sentence as though seeing another equally shy girl in her place. It’s firmly none of his business, as far as Sasuke’s concerned.

(Either they work it out or they don’t, Sasuke may have kickstarted the schism in class with the civilians, but it wasn’t his fault Yamanaka realized how ‘othered’ she was the more time she spent with her own kind. It wasn’t.)

Sasuke turns, addressing Naruto’s question, snapping up the canteen and draining the other half while an exhausted, sweat-drenched Shikamaru gives him a patently disgusted look, muttering under his breath about ‘backwash’. Sasuke arches up a bold eyebrow and doesn’t so much as flinch. 

“My sharingan hasn’t awakened yet, so I may as well strengthen my hand eye coordination in advance.”

Naruto rolls his eyes, sitting back on his palms, “Ehhh, you practice every morning too, though? You hit the mark every time.”

He only shrugs, “Practice makes perfect. I’m building up muscle memory—” or, rather, he’s making sure he doesn’t lose what’s already there, “—it’ll improve my reflexes in the long run. If you draw the fastest the fight’s already over before it starts.” 

The blonde hums, tilting his head this way and that, “Hrm… I guess you’re right about that, but ain’t ya fast enough already? I mean we’re not even genin yet.”

And Sasuke thinks of his cousins. 

He thinks of Shisui’s unmatched, frankly monstrous, space defying, shunshin technique, and Obito’s absolute cheat of an impermeable mangekyo ability with a grimace. He shudders at the very thought of his great-grand uncle's legendary speed. 

“No. I’m not.” He lets out a hysterical laugh, several sets of puzzled eyes look to him for his break in composure, “I’m really, really not.”

He’s so far below on the totem pole when it comes to his clan even taking a step back to look at the bigger picture gives him vertigo. In retrospect, the Senju going toe-to-toe with the Uchiha for multiple generations was patently insane, he shudders again, he hopes he never meets one in this lifetime. 

Naruto, on the other hand, sizes him up for a lengthy moment, no doubt scrutinizing Sasuke’s pale face and far away expression before nodding. “... Okay. Well. We better get to work getting stronger, then!” The blonde bounces back, bright like sunshine as Kiba whoops and Shikamaru lets out an exhausted moan. 

It is a lucrative training session. 

☯

(That night Sasuke walks a path of black obsidian, glittering like stardust in the darkness. 

The shards cut painfully into his bare feet, but still, he pushes on in his solemn one man recessional. He follows the path to a weeping figure in a fetal position, ripping and clawing at its own skin; its face is a black void, but he somehow knows it is crying bitter, lonely tears. 

How pitiful. How disgusting. 

He watches the wretched bleeding thing as it leaks molten black ichor, shrouded in shadows with a mismatched set of red and purple eyes. 

Sasuke doesn’t touch, he doesn’t forgive either. He just goes to his knees, allowing black shards to dig further into his flesh, and keeps vigil over the monster that would’ve been him. Not for the first time, Sasuke wonders what Nii-san would do.)

Chapter Text

☯☯☯

Sasuke has never had a friend group before, even when his clan was alive he was never—god forbid—social.

Uchiha’s were close-knit, habitually codependent, and generally inhospitable to outsiders, which, honestly, made the advent of Konohagakure even more impressive a feat. The way to an Uchiha’s weakness is through their ‘heart’, their kin is quite easily betrayed when in proper thrall. Just look what happened to Madara-sama and his brother, his parents would lament, betrayed killed like dogs. A cautionary tale to keep your walls up, to cover yourself in thorns and winter ice, let in few and bear your fangs with strength to avoid your weak spot being exposed.

This keeps them cautious, his father would insist at the dinner table, keeps them humble, his mother would gently correct. Their clan was built on loyalty, blood bonds, and trust—and an Uchiha could always trust family.

It is why his father and his mother’s marriage was so harmonious, Fugaku was initially his mother’s protector. Those often turned into marriages in the Uchiha clan. It was also the general expectation after Shisui begun circling his Nii-san, who always took after their mother.

Itachi really was a model clan heir.

Perhaps that’s what made Danzo’s audacious use of the clan head’s very own firstborn cut so deeply. There’s no doubt in Sasuke’s mind that there had been a moment of frozen horror, of disbelief on his family’s faces. Their soft spoken future leader who always knew everyone’s names and who followed his mother around like a dutiful duckling as a toddler, coupled with the cognitive dissonance of the efficient whistle of a wicked blade. (Did they wonder who was behind the other mask? Did anyone see the second betrayer in their midst that fateful night?)

His distrust for others in his last life really wasn't that unfounded, with the state of things by the end.

Several layers of conspiracy on top of the expected espionage of a village that only bred assassins was enough to make anyone perpetually jumpy.


Within those awful memories there was never a moment to breathe—not until those frustratingly brief moments with his genin team. The older Sasuke gets, the more he’s come to realize there really hadn’t been any other options for his old self. It’s a bitter pill to say the least. Sasuke doesn’t think he’ll ever forgive ‘him’, but he’s starting to understand, he thinks. The process is painful, drawn out and dreams of hatred and darkness wake him at night sometimes, burning, burning, burning, ozone on his tongue, tear tracks down his cheeks someone is screaming who keeps screaming—and… Sasuke gets it.

What a pathetic creature.

How ugly. How childish. How disgusting.

The timeline doesn’t matter—Sasuke still hates himself the most.

☯☯☯

The first time he meets Nara Shikaku, officially, is not during a formal visit, nor an ill-conceived dinner as it had been with the Yamanaka clan head. There also are no formalities to be had, or military rests behind the Hokage as the old man’s advisor. He enters the nest Sasuke’s built casual as a spring breeze, loose fist wrapping against the door, clad in a forest green yukata. His hands tuck between the folds of the sleeves while he waits outside Sasuke’s house one unremarkable Sunday, on the cusp of the season’s end, a lazy bit of stubble showing on his jawline as he scratches his cheek.

Sasuke cracks the door, taking in the scarred Jounin commander’s disarming grin.

“Heard you’ve got something of mine, kid. The missus sent me down here to collect in person, it’s meant to rain this evening.”

The Uchiha blinks, slow and purposeful, as he slides the door open the rest of the way. The sky has been clear for the past three days, oddly, Sasuke can’t scent any rain at all, but, nonetheless, he answers honestly:

“He’s napping in the garden.”

“Very well,” Shikaku’s lips cant to the side in amusement, “lead the way.”

There’s a heady silence as they both size each other up.

Shikaku rubs his head with a roguish smile, shoulders relaxed where they’d normally be tense in Sarutobi’s office--it doesn’t fool Sasuke. Every Nara he’s ever met almost exclusively wears incompetence like it's a set of battle armor, and Sasuke doesn’t care much for mind games he doesn’t start.

It’s Sunday, he has to work out ways to improve Ino and Shino’s abilities in taijutsu, at the very least he needs them on par with Hinata when she isn’t playing blushing violet. In conclusion, Sasuke really doesn’t have time for whatever the Nara head’s deal is today.

Thus, he hops down the stoop of the entryway still barefoot-whatever he'd wash his feet later- looking at Shikaku over his shoulder whilst the jounin blinks in surprise at the boy refusing to play his game. The lazy smile returns quickly though, and he soon follows.

(A part of him is kind of miffed about that—past, present, or future, Sasuke hated being underestimated.)

Sasuke pokes his head around the side of the house to the sight of Naruto grumbling with a notebook in his lap and Shikamaru on his back, facing the clouds, in a deep sleep.

Everyone else had gone home for the day, Shikamaru had stayed a bit later to help Naruto with his kanji, again. The blonde’s been getting better at memorizing characters after Shikamaru and Sasuke figured out Naruto learned best with visual associations rather than basic repetition.

When he glances back Shikaku’s expression is—

Sasuke sees a man in his mind’s eye, dressed in formal Uchiha darks.

The clan head’s normally severe expression is for once at ease as he lifts his slumbering Nii-san up in his strong arms. The two had been training together until late, when Itachi, no doubt exhausted from back to back ANBU missions, had promptly conked out against one of the trees while keeping an eye on Sasuke’s katas.

His more built physique had not passed down to either of his sons, so it was no effort at all to tuck Itachi against his chest using the crook of his right arm, sparing his left hand to offer up to hold Sasuke’s as he saw them all home. A fatherly smile, a hand rough and calloused.

Safe.

Protected.

Tou-san.

…

…

Sasuke blinks and the memory disperses just as easily as it was dragged forth. His cheeks burn, abnormally hot, as he swiftly looks away from the scene—a bit irritated with himself at the surge of envy he feels watching Shikaku glide over to heft the young, slumbering Nara up in his arms. Uncomfortably, Sasuke notes how the man makes an effort not to wake his son.

(It reminds him too much of those precious memories he keeps behind rose-colored windows, when Tou-san allowed himself to be a father before a martyr.)

Naruto promptly closes his book, to gape up at the Jounin Commander.

“It’s you! You’re Jii-jii’s—”

Shikaku lifts a hand to his lips in a shushing motion, smoothly maneuvering Shikamaru onto his back, Sasuke tries not to look, it feels like he’s intruding or… something to that effect. Naruto darts over to his side, sensitive to his moods even when Sasuke wishes he wouldn’t be.

His stomach rolls in discomfort, ears burning, the Jounin studies their joined hands for a moment before he grins.

“It’s nice to see you boys off duty. I’ve heard a lot about your hospitality from Inoichi and the kids.”

Sasuke arches a skeptical eyebrow, “Yes, thank you kindly for the shogi set, Nara-sama, it makes for a wonderful mantle piece. It is a shame I won’t get much use out of the heirloom.”

Shikaku snorts, momentarily jostling the grumbling boy on his shoulders--now that Sasuke thinks about it, he forgets how young they all are. That jealousy rears its ugly head and he crinkles his nose.

Annoying.

“Don’t even fret about it, you should learn with our bocchan—no one else in the clan plays it anymore. Why not come to dinner sometime?”

Sasuke shifts closer to Naruto who also vocalizes his confusion at the sudden invitation. His face scrunches up as he mentally looks for a way out of it. Feeling Inoichi’s sharp blue eyes on his back while he studied poison almanacs was enough scrutiny for a lifetime, thank you, he didn’t particularly want to deal with the Nara head on top of that.

“Nara-sama I don’t think--”

“C’mon! It’s the least I can do, Shikamaru’s a real layabout whenever he gets comfortable enough somewhere new, just ask Ino-chan.”

“Dinner sounds great, Shikaku Jii-chan!” Naruto chirps before Sasuke can refuse again.

His head whips around to face the beaming blonde menace in question, he fights down the urge to hiss like an offended animal, “Naruto—”

Sasuke huffs as the blonde promptly kicks him in the ankle, the action no doubt noticed by the Jounin in their midst.


“I still haven’t thanked you for that thing at the market!”

Shiver.

Sasuke’s heart beats in his chest as that signature of gentle midday shadows on a forest floor suddenly fills his senses with a dread like the scent of winter frost.

He freezes accordingly, hesitant to meet those steely gray eyes.

It’s fascinating—the way the man’s face darkens, for a split second in rolling anger. A bit like Shikamaru’s quiet thunder and lightning quick precision but on a more mature face.

-A face that can actually back up the threat.

Sasuke holds his breath in that moment, a chill traveling the length of his spine as his eyes narrow again in distrust. Meanwhile Naruto just smiles, bouncing on his heels restlessly, until, just like the snap of a finger, the Jounin Commander returns the boy’s beam and crouches down. There’s no more trace of the killing intent Sasuke had felt under his skin like a million writhing beetles.

(Sasuke knows enough, at least, to feel relieved it wasn’t directed at Naruto for once.)

Shikaku hums, “That wasn’t a favor, that was just some good old fashioned ‘house cleaning’, kiddo.” The smile that unfurls from the clan head’s lips is warm, lines on his face wrinkling as he crouches down to ruffle Naruto’s hair.

He looks like he’s seeing someone else. Sasuke thinks he knows who—even if that previous ‘him’ had only seen Namikaze Minato in textbooks and flickers of gold out of the corner of his eye during the Fourth Ninja War.

‘The Yellow Flash’.

A Hokage who still held the loyalty of every single Jounin from the previous generation despite being dead for over a decade. His generation had adored him, Shisui had idolized him—no doubt that borrowed legacy must have been how Sarutobi convinced his noble cousin to betray his own clan (their family).

Lord Yondaime was a constant specter of what could’ve been, haunting the narrative of a better, united Konoha everyone had long since given up on in their grief.


Sasuke inhales. He feels the rage coursing through his veins, all for the boy who’d suffered most as a direct result of this reckless grief.

Yet, even more so, he holds onto the memory of the days spent in his garden, surrounded by his classmates on Sundays, of playing shogi with Shikamaru’s teasing grin across from him, of Ino’s fussing, and Chouji’s cooking and so on, and so forth.

What was done was done.

(They were trying to be better now, that’s more than last time, wasn’t it?)

Sasuke lets the rage go. After all, what space does it have to linger, pinned like a fleeting butterfly under Shikaku’s soft, paternal gaze? Least of all in Sasuke’s place of peace, his garden he’d built with his own two hands. Instead, he hums, interrupting the brewing conversation before it can get too off track:

“Why." The question is not really a question, other adults might have condescended to him, others still would’ve even played dumb. Instead, Shikaku only grins lazily, and treats the inquiry with an earnest cadence that makes Sasuke’s gut twist in discomfort.

“I’m just a father who wants to know his son’s new friends a little better. That’s all, Sasuke-kun.”

Sasuke tilts his head pensively, thinking about this mess from the Jounin’s perspective—it takes no more than five short seconds for him to wince.

Just picturing the last year alone without the context of Sasuke clumsily following the lit beacon of his aggrieved heart in the black twilight is a bit of a nightmare. Two major village security risks making connections with a bunch of future clan heirs after, seemingly on a whim, moving in together? Terrorizing civilians? Wielding influence with the precision of a sledgehammer?

Circumstantial or not, this was at least enough to raise eyebrows.

To Sasuke “this” was building Naruto’s garden early to ease the boy’s gnawing loneliness, the same one he’d have built himself in the future after becoming too strong to ignore. To Shikaku, as a Jounin Commander assigned to monitor said security risks, it must’ve looked eerily like an Uchiha seeped in thoughts of vengeance gathering powerful allies. Once was a coincidence, thrice was a pattern, every pillar clan, including fringe antisocial ones like the lofty Hyuuga with a long standing rivalry with Sasuke’s extremely dead extended family was downright panic worthy.

Caution was the name of the game in a shinobi village, Sasuke’s surprised Danzo hasn’t increased root presence around him in preparation for their upcoming graduation.

“... Right.”

Shikaku tosses his head back with a booming laugh, jostling Shikamaru who groans and smacks him drowsily a couple times in irritation. (This is what Ino might call ‘blackmail material’, too bad Sasuke didn’t have a camera on him.)

“I look forward to visiting Nara-sama.”

The man grins, sharp with amusement, “Call me, Shikaku-jii. Mikoto was a sister-in-arms.”

Sasuke blinks.

He doesn’t recall his mother being quite this social but, then again, people aren’t static portraits. People were closer to a reflection in a river bank, constantly shifting, ever changing, some had a different ‘self’ for every encounter and this sentiment went doubly true for shinobi.

Uchiha Mikoto might be a mother and a caretaker to Sasuke, or even to the clan at large, their elegant main line Uchiha-hime who excelled at flower arrangement and tea ceremony.

But, to Konoha’s previous Jounin generation she was the efficient Manslayer Mikoto with a tanto blade that sang in battle alongside the Hokage’s chain slinging Uzumaki Princess. She was a reliable comrade and big sister who tempered team dynamics and reassured rookies. This was a version of his mother Sasuke has only ever caught scant glimpses of even when the Uchiha’s reputation was in the metaphorical dumps. The Jounin never disrespected Kaa-san, not the way the lower ranks and the civilians would.

“Yes sir. Thank you for your generosity… Shikaku-jii-san.”

“Wonderful! I’ll tell the Missus we’ll be having company Thursday. Yoshino’s always worried about this boy making new friends.”

Sasuke tries not to look too flustered when the Jounin Commander lets out another laugh, ruffling his hair before he hefts a mumbling Shikamaru up further on his back and turns to leave the garden the way he came. Then, he pauses, looking over his shoulder.

“Oh, and Sasuke-kun?”


Sasuke looks up from his bangs warily, shifting awkwardly from foot to foot.

“Remember, in Konoha, you’re never alone. Not everyone needs to be an enemy.” With that, Nara Shikaku offers up a wink, then saunters away with his son draped over his reliable back.

Sasuke can only nod stiffly as the man heads off, disappearing around the bend of the house. It’s not long before he hustles Naruto back inside, he’s a bit keyed up and raw after the interaction, like everything’s too much and not enough all at once. He can’t remember the last time he’s ever felt truly, genuinely safe; it almost loops back to feeling unsafe. Trust has never come easy to Sasuke.

Seriously, he really hates Nara’s—the father and the son have a bad habit of needling.

(What a bother, if he adds any more weekly social rituals he won’t have time for much else.)

☯☯☯

Herb space starts to become a little tight during Sasuke’s eleventh spring.

Sasuke hums and haws about the looming conundrum, standing barefoot on the back porch,with Naruto sitting beside him, bare legs dangling over the edge as his companion happily devours a cup of instant noodles while diligently study something he’s actually quite good at: Fūinjutsu. Naruto does best in practicals and traps, or rather ‘pranks’.

He’s thankful to those dark memories, at least, for giving him the tip. It’s made Naruto annoyingly, but still endearingly, confident—finally pulling ahead of Sasuke in something for once.

At present, the blonde hums a happy tune working his way through a scroll on storage seals brows furrowed as he mutters to himself.

(“Well that’s not right… mmrm… wouldn’t it be more secure if they just--oh! I know-”)

The comforting drone from his partner helps center him, but not by much, Sasuke looks out at the garden with a critical glower on his features, head tilted at an angle as his mind works.

He’d asked Inoichi-san to order him some yomogi and dokudami seeds from Kiri because he wanted to experiment with medicinal teas. He glances over at the far left wall and frowns, there’s not enough space for a proper plot. Dokudami tended to be a bit on the aggressive side, he didn’t want it to invade the flora he’d cultivated last year.

Ugh, what a bother, maybe he could start a hanging garden, or… He blinks. Sasuke’s eyes slide over to the far wall again, mentally calculating the space in the bare plot--he recalls something he’d read in a book last month. He tilts his head the other way, letting out another low hum. Now, there’s an idea.

“... I guess a step-garden could work.”

Naruto glances up at him, curious, Sasuke offers him a slight smile, “How do you feel about some more digging, usuratonkachi?”

“... I thought you were happy after you built those flower beds a few months ago, I’m still finding dirt in my nail beds!”

Sasuke raises an unimpressed eyebrow. “I don’t actually need your help, dummy, you’re the one who winds up joining in even if I don’t ask.”

The other boy huffs, rolling up his scroll with narrowed eyes, “That’s ‘cause you always dig soooooo slow, watching you makes me antsy, y’know!”

“Now who’s the busybody? Not everyone has the unbridled stamina of a sight-hound. You’d have gotten all weird and pouty with me until I asked you for help. So, I’m streamlining the process.”

Naruto rolls back and hops to his feet, cheeks puffed outward before he leaps down from the porch, no doubt irritated at being so thoroughly called out. “Stop using big, complicated words, dammit, you sound like Shikamaru. Ugh!”

He throws his hands up in the air, Sasuke expertly dodges the Uzumaki’s flailing limbs, a skill honed from sharing a kitchen space together for years now. “I’ll always include you, dumbass. There’s no one closer to me than you—literally. I’m always hot at night because you wrap around me like an octopus. He loves Naruto’s scent, his warmth, the slow pulse of his chakra in his sleep, waxing and waning like the waves of a shore below Sasuke’s matching moon. A perfect match.

It’s disgustingly domestic.

Ino always jokingly says they go together like hydrangeas and daylilies. A pair of summer flowers, one of passionate fiery red and cheery gold, the other a somber cluster of weeping flowerheads, seeped in deep emotion, begging for forgiveness.

She doesn’t understand the true implications, not really, no one ever will if the Uchiha had anything to say about it. But Sasuke did and, so, quietly, he’d dedicated a reserved section of his herbal garden to the blossoms, cultivating them carefully, to bloom together for this summer and a dozen more after.

(He can justify planting them to Ino at least, since their roots were useful for rashes and hayfever respectively.)

At present, Sasuke rolls his eyes fondly as Naruto lets out a long, suffering groan–he’ll never get tired of teasing him, he thinks, things would just feel wrong between the two of them, without the banter.

“Shut up and help me find that dumb second shovel!”

Naruto shouts over his shoulder before stomping away in a huff. Sasuke snorts affectionately, but soon finds himself trailing after, lightly brushing Naruto’s side with his shoulder.

“Whatever you say, loser.”

(He’d die a thousand deaths just to keep the soft moments like these, preserving them for eternity in his self-made glass coffin.)

☯

They finish the digging within the week, in part due to Naruto’s, frankly otherworldly, vigor.

Sasuke finds himself fiercely proud to see the other so bright and healthy. He’s even put on some bulk with the proper meat on his bones this time around, as opposed to the somewhat distressing sinewy muscles brought on by years of malnutrition everyone but Iruka-sensei had ignored.

It makes Sasuke feel good. It makes him let out a breath he doesn’t realize he’s been carrying.

The next morning, once the plot is fully prepped, Sasuke sits and waits on the porch with his tea and filled watering can, head tilted upward towards the sky as he listens and reaches for a chakra signature that sang of the earth under his feet and the rolling woodlands of Konoha.

Cat appears like clockwork as he does every morning, cocking his head in curiosity at the rare sight of a slacking Uchiha. Sasuke holds up a crude sketch of the step-garden and its ascending shelves like an offering.

“Can you make this?”

There’s an answering flare in the chakra that sings of reluctance, likely the man’s ANBU training kicking in, not wanting to be too terribly obvious about his abilities for fear of being discovered.

(Which is silly in Sasuke’s humble opinion, because the second time they met he’d used his chakra to make a seed bloom from nothing.)

Though… Sasuke can somewhat understand the sentiment, there’s only two living people in this world with Mokuton after all. One is standing right in front of him, while the other is dismantling Kiri plank by waterlogged plank across the continent. But, he isn’t thinking about that right now.

Now, Sasuke is busy considering reachable things, like space allotment and all the ways he is going to maximize use of his future garden stairs plot. Building upward is certainly an idea to look into for the future, assuming this works out and he could put off building into the Uchiha main house outright for a few more years yet.

So, off Sasuke slides from the porch step, to tug the reluctant shinobi over to the dugout plot off one of the property walls. He shows him his rough drawing again.

“I’d like it to take up about this amount of space. I’ve dug out the plot already, and the alternating steps need to be filled in so I can walk up and water them more easily.”

He gestures as he speaks, motioning to the rest of the plots, “I want to separate the dokudami from the rest of the herbs as much as possible, because it’s pretty fast-growing and invasive, kinda like bamboo. So, I figured this was the best compromise.”

Sasuke pulls a pen from the front pocket of his gardening apron, tapping it against the notepad, frowning, “What do you think? Is it doable?” There’s a beat of silence, then several while Sasuke internally holds his breath, waiting on the black op’s final verdict. For a second, he fears Cat will say no, and that he’d have to go about doing this the long way, with spare wood from the compound and outside expertise.

—Sasuke always hated the long way, it took months and owing Shikamaru and Ino favors always sucked.

Finally, much to the boy’s relief, the ANBU gently plucks the tapping pen from Sasuke’s fingers and draws a proper closed railing onto the doodle, Sasuke crinkles his nose.

“I’m not a civilian kid, you know. I won’t lose my balance.”

The agent tilts his head innocently, gently pressing back on Sasuke’s shoulder blades. It's strange. For a moment, he’s reminded of Itachi. Sasuke blinks, stepping backwards by virtue of pure muscle memory alone.

(“Sasuke, I’m going to show you this katon one more time, focus and stay back, little brother.”)

The hand signs the other runs through are too fast for Sasuke to follow, as the Motukon user slams their hands into the earth without much fanfare. Sturdy vines weave over each other, intertwining like pairs of united lovers as Sasuke hangs back with the same kind of awe he’d first felt seeing the water koi hydrate his garden.

He keeps his face carefully blank over the display, though Sasuke can’t stop the way his eyes shine, witnessing the spectacle of the wood merging and knitting in on itself. In no less than a handful of seconds a demure, skeletal structure of a freshly grown flower bed takes up residence in the plot.

Sasuke fights down his triumphant smirk, clapping his hands together to get the ANBU’s attention. “Well. We best get to work before Naruto wakes up.” He offers up the seeds, with a confident tilt to his chin, eyes squinting in satisfaction over a task efficiently done.

“Thanks as always, Neko-san.”

Cat inclines his head once more in turn, but takes to the assigned task with grace.

Sasuke heads off to the shed to grab the high quality soil Chouji had gifted him a few weeks back. He honestly can’t wait to see the outraged look on Naruto’s face, when he wakes up to a month’s worth of work finished in less than a morning. Cat wasn’t 'family' to him, not last time round, ‘Sasuke’ was too far gone at that point, far too distant to acknowledge Naruto’s most recent warden as anything short of a nuisance.

Too jealous. Too wretched and lonely with only the devil for company.

The man Sasuke’s come to know over the past year is quirky, even behind that mute porcelain mask of his. He’s prone to flailing when caught off guard, often considerate, usually fretting whenever he catches Sasuke hauling soil bags bigger than his little body could reasonably handle. Surveillance mission or not, Sasuke finds he might not mind having Cat around in a more permanent fashion. He hugs his knees to his chest, watching the ANBU work, half baked images of the Uchiha main house bursting with evergreen running through his mind.

Yeah, he wouldn’t mind that at all.

☗☗☗

Shikaku sees ghosts everywhere he looks these days.

His Hokage’s legacy is present in the face of a beaming young boy, with his father’s kindness and his mother’s passion. Naruto’s is the type of sunshine that worms its way into a stranger’s heart without even needing to try. The thought of him being stifled by something as foolish and ignorant as Konoha’s civilian populous makes Shikaku want to claw his own skin off. He’s still grinding at the bit to keep biting and tearing at the sheer amount of systematic cruelty he’d uncovered in that marketplace, right under their noses, and with an ANBU watch at that.

(Shikaku’s going to rip that entire guard a new one when he gets his hands on them.)

But, perhaps most damningly, he also sees the teammates he’d abandoned in Uchiha Sasuke’s cautious onyx eyes, sharp and vigilant just like Mikoto-senpai’s eyes.

Kushina would never forgive him.

Shikaku knows this in an abstract sort of way, when he goes to the after life, Kushina is going to break his fucking jaw and he’ll deserve it for what he’s done—or rather what he hasn’t—to these kids. He’s made his peace with it. He makes his peace with it as he observes Sasuke and Shikamaru’s shogi match, seeing the way the young Uchiha’s face puffs up in indignation as his boy lures him into yet another trap, straight faced but with sparkling eyes.

It’s the same expression Mikoto got when she knew she was losing.


Mikoto, who was the quiet thunder to Fugaku’s steady downpour.

Mikoto, who mentored every new Chuunin in her squad like a mother duck, who joked about them being her children away from home.

Mikoto, who was gutted by one of those children.

Much like his mother, the final loyal Uchiha likes to build a stout nest. It’s apparent in how Sasuke treats the allies he’s been steadily collecting, mending their wounds, adjusting their stances, begrudgingly hearing out their internal hurts, pivoting to accommodate the many complexes of a gaggle of clan heirs.

Little Sasuke really is her mirror image during the rare moments Shikaku catches him relaxed and off guard.

It’s all in the eyes.

Wide and intense, dark like the stolen space between the stars—piercing straight through you to your very core. Itachi and Shisui had the same gaze. Shikaku always thought if any Uchiha could overcome the nepotistic red tape surrounding the Hokage position, it’d be one of Mikoto’s boys. He hoped it would be Itachi, a gentle leader for a kinder era.

But Shikaku had underestimated this world’s evil.

Lately it feels like, one by one, the healthy sprouts planted by Minato’s generation are being snuffed out. Senselessly. Greedily. By old men long past their prime.

Shikaku is a loyal shinobi. He loves his family.

He loves his people like a proper Nara ought to.

But, Sandaime-sama is an aging fossil, who was taught on Senju Tobirama’s paranoid teachings. Half of the council were Tobirama’s brightest pupils—it was no wonder the Uchiha had been cornered the way they had. Lord Shodai’s brother would’ve done the same out of fear and lack of trust.

(Ironic how quickly they forget about how an Uchiha of all things had been his favorite pupil—or at least according to what Shikaku’s mother used to say.)

Either way, Sarutobi needn’t fret about something as juvenile and harmless as children at play when he has a village to run and a council full of warhawks to wrangle. He doesn’t need to know about Kushina’s books either, even if none of her former comrads are even allowed to say her name in public above a whisper. Sarutobi has a bad heart—he should really focus on his rest.

And, well, if Shikaku’s feeling vindictive enough to allow the Hokage to ‘misplace’ a few weekly ANBU reports, that’s his own business, isn’t it?

☯☯☯

Sasuke has no idea how things have escalated to this point—it’s as though all these interlopers (or ‘friends’ as Naruto keeps calling them) decided his house was a public park or something. Worse still, is how utterly natural it all feels, a downright blight on his already struggling psyche is what it was.

Clan-born shinobi are miles apart from civilians and civilian-born shinobi.

The broad strokes of growing up in a large prestigious family with generations of history was difficult to explain to an outsider. Being a culture of assassins only further complicated matters when interacting with anyone outside of that bubble, there was a fine line to be walked, between telling too much and too little. 

Shinobi must not be feared above the threshold of a basic military officer because a shinobi lived and died by commissions and contracts.

Rogue ninja, for example, struggled the most in getting work due to their abysmal reputation among the civilian masses. It’s why one didn’t see a lot of missing Kiri nin in the Land of Fire, they were notoriously violent, neurotic on a good day, and tended to generate large bounties. Their own country didn’t even hire Kiri ninjas, choosing to outsource instead.

There are far more baseline non-chakra sensitives in the world than there are shinobi. Numerous like flocks sheep, easily spooked by wolves.

This was an unshakeable fact of life.

In order to ‘survive', a ninja’s job is to ‘adapt’.

From a young age, even isolated as the Uchiha were, Sasuke’s parents still put in the work to socialize their second heir towards outsiders as much as possible for the future. —Work that ‘Sasuke’ promptly undid by ignoring every living person in his vicinity in his quest for a proper death avenging his fallen clan. Sasuke on his own has never been social, but he’s thankfully learned enough cues to know that a civilian would not be interested in the sixty-five ways he’d learned to kill a man with a hair ornament by the time Sasuke turned six.

A Nara, however, could nod along and tell him more ways with a pen, and a Yamanaka would likely chime in to start up a conversation about chopsticks. Even the smallest Clans the shinobi world had to offer were a den of apex predators to the average person.

The Academy has always been more of a recruitment center for the village at large rather than anything remotely useful for a clan child, presumably taught all of these things and more from the moment they could sit straight and listen properly. Tobirama-sama had designed the curriculum with the basics in mind, crafting the lessons from the forward thinking perspective of drafting civilians as the population grew.

It was an efficient way to bolster a village’s reserve numbers and cultivate potential standout talents if graduates wanted to specialize. Devious and ingenious.

Sasuke is sure he and Madara-sama would’ve gotten on well if the Nidaime hadn’t gone and killed his brother.

Point being—for better or for worse—Sasuke can viscerally relate to everyone in their little entourage who keeps darkening his literal and metaphorical doorway. From someone as irritating as Nara, to the mousey Hyuuga heiress, he reluctantly understands the long standing Yamanaka-Nara-Akimichi model better these days.

Their kekkai genkai didn’t just make for a decent team comp, but the social aspect and sense of community made for a higher success rate overall.

(Perhaps Senju Tobirama saw something there too when he mapped out the Academy’s curriculum.)

But that doesn’t matter. What matters is his meditation.

At present, Shikamaru observes Sasuke meditating in the garden.

Whilst the boy sips his lemonade, Sasuke lets the world fall away, moving into his lotus pose as he sweeps out his senses, shoulders unwinding. He usually only does this in front of Naruto, but he knows Shikamau well enough at this point that he can shake off the impulse to constantly watch his own back. He brushes against the Nara heir’s stolid, umbral signature, feeling the presence startle before he lets it alone.

Sasuke presses out further, feeling the twin souls of the koi in the pond, an ANBU watch a few blocks away that also startle at his touch, the plants in his garden, the trees, the birds chirping in his ears. He distances himself from them, simply because they are not him. They are his environment, they are all that breathes and sings, they may even be his scenery, but they are not him.

The chakra flowing through his coils waxes and wanes like an uneasy sea, immature, unwilling to flow to his eyes. The Uchiha’s brows furrow, he channels his chakra through his meridians, and the earth below, reaching out into the roots of his plants to concentrate.

His eyes are burning.

With a soft gasp, Sasuke winces, his fingers spasm and his trance is abruptly broken by a sharp pain. His vision is spotty with an ocular migraine that lingers from his efforts.

“Tch.”

Still too young, huh?

His lips twitch into a defeated frown as he abruptly yanks back on his senses, snapping back into himself, rubbing his pounding temples. He reluctantly decides to stop there, he’ll be out of commission for the rest of the afternoon at this rate.

Sasuke is still tuned into his environment enough to feel a glare on his back.

When he turns, Shikamaru is giving him a blank look, mouth hanging open a bit like he might catch a fly. “Gods, Dad was right, I hate Uchiha’s—what the fuck was that?”

Sasuke blinks and cocks his head at an angle, face twisting in confusion, “… Mediation? That thing you do all the time while pretending to nap in class?”

Shikamaru lets out a dazed laugh, it’s a bit unduly hysterical in Sasuke’s opinion.“I don’t know what you think that was, but it was definitely not meditation. I felt that, you weirdo. You were sending out flares. I’ve only seen seasoned Jounin do that.” 

Shrug. “Feeling the energy in the things around me helps me find my center. I use it to clear my head.”

Shikamaru mutters something disparaging in response followed by a sentiment that sounds like ‘un-fucking-believable’.

“Did your parents know you’re a sensor-type?”

Sasuke blinks, answering bluntly: “No, because I’m not.”

Shikamaru raises his eyebrows incredulously, “Yeah. You are. You really, really, are. You’re practically a textbook definition. It’s nuts you’ve been in the academy for several years and no one picked up on it. Usually sensors can at least sus out other sensors…”

Sasuke shifts, frowning a bit, “The Uchiha clan hasn’t had a sensor born into its ranks since Madara-sama’s younger brother passed on the battlefield.”

The other boy only groans in distress, dragging his hands down his face. “What. With how many of you there were? I know there were at least a couple Uchiha healers.”

Ah, so Shikamaru had been looking into his family history to see if Sasuke’s goal of being a medic was possible, that’s… actually disgustingly genuine and thoughtful.

Gross.

“How could you not have been genetically diverse enough to produce at least a few sensors a generation? There were almost three hundred of you even after three wars.”

His shoulders lift helplessly, Shikamaru’s eyebrow twitches.

“Dunno. Just never happened, and you’re right, three ninja wars didn’t exactly help the Clan’s numbers either. We used to be double that during Lord Madara’s time.”

It should hurt more, talking about his family in terms of statistics, but Sasuke was a clan spare and an eager one at that. He’s had this conversation with his mother so many times he could probably list-off the numbers by heart.

“Besides, Itachi-n—” he stumbles over the beginnings of an honorific, making a complicated face as Shikamaru frowns and visibly catalogs the slip. Dammit. “My… brother, was the prodigy, I was an afterthought succession wise.” 

(Somehow he gets the impression that telling Shikamaru about the expected eye exchange wouldn’t go over too well, nor ingratiate him to the deceased Uchiha clan in the slightest. So, Sasuke leaves that be, ‘future problems’ and what not, it wasn’t as though he’d be running into Nii-san anytime soon.)

Shikamaru nods, gracefully moving on, face carefully blank, “Makes sense, the next Nara successor after me, if I don’t have children, will be my second uncle’s daughter who just turned eight months old in March.”

Sasuke hums in understanding, sitting heavily on the porch with an exhale, at this point he’ll take any conversation topic. “Hn, You’re all only-children, aren’t you?”

“Kiba and Hinata both have an older and a younger sibling respectively, Shino…” Shikamaru frowns expression darkening, “that’s complicated.” 

“What kind of complicated?”

“Shimura Complicated.”

Sasuke inclines his head at the name biting down a scowl, eyes narrowing. “Danzo? Nidaime’s former student, the war hero?”

“He fancies himself Lord Third’s second-in-command. Rumor goes he has tons of shady projects. The Aburame head was visited by Danzo when Shino was six. The councilman left with the clan head’s older adopted son who happened to have an interesting blood limit mutation instead.”

Shikamaru rattles off the facts in a carefully detached manner, but the way his eyes darken in frustration suggests he’s anything but. Sasuke hisses in a sharp breath that’s more anger than sympathy.

“ANBU?”


“That’s the official story, but no one’s seen a hide or hair of him since in any of the upper ranks.” Shikamaru says, blandly once again, “My old man thinks it was Danzo’s personal organization who snapped him up.”

Sasuke stares down at his lap, mind blanking.

Then comes the indignation, because Shino was an heir, a proper one. Danzo had essentially used his political influence to try to pluck an affluent Konoha clan’s main heir from their heritage and house, for his own classified pet project. A pet project, mind you, that was a well-known open secret that sowed unrest among the ranks, it’s part of why the Uchiha had pulled away from the more inner circles, they’d seen the writing on the wall for what it was. A show of political power. Insurance to stay in line.

Your soft Hokage cannot protect you. Danzo is saying with a heel on their necks.

At the end of the day, the Uchiha were far too protective of their own young to ever let them go. As a clan they were always paranoid when it came to those who’d covet their blood limit, it’s why hardly anyone ever married outside of the clan, why they stuck together in groups.

‘Safety in numbers' was one of Lord Madara’s long staying virtues as a commander from the Warring States Era, one the Uchiha never truly broke.

The Konoha police force was a simple extension of that defense mechanism which, ironically, wound up isolating and endangering the clan even further.

And look at how bold the village has gotten since. 

(It’s not paranoia if they’re actually out to get you.)

Sasuke flexes his hands several times, frown deepening, “… So what, because he’s on the council he gets to spirit away whoever he wants?”

Shikamaru shoots him a dry look, “Nothing anyone can do about it since the Hokage has a soft spot for his shitty war hawk of a former squad buddy.” 

“How is anyone okay with that?”

“Simple. They’re not.” Shikamaru hums, “Lord Danzo is actually really damn unpopular among the general shinobi populous, even more so than the current sitting Hokage and his abysmal handling of the Hyuuga incident. The civilians only like him because he brown-noses up to them and gives decent speeches. He’s just a senile old man that’s accumulated a shitty amount of power in his old age and now all anyone can do is wait for him to die.” 

The worst part is, Shikamaru is right, and it’s maddening. His entire clan, slaughtered because Sarutobi couldn’t keep his council in line. He feels the frustration down to his bones, Sasuke wants nothing more than to open his mouth and scream. Apathy disguised as pacifism, how befitting of a village like Konoha.

Sasuke inhales another centering breath. He closes his eyes, and tries to picture an image of the Aburame heir in his mind's eyes—quiet, a bit awkward, passionate about his insects and those he silently trusts.

He’d offered a fraction of his hoard for the pollination season, he recalls. Sasuke imagines him not reserved, but instead as a void, his entire self scooped out and replaced by Shimura Danzo’s ideals, a tool for his pipe dream of being some twisted shadow Hokage. 

The thought enrages Sasuke more than he’d assumed it would. It surprises him. He’d barely spoken more than several sentences to the other boy. Something in his chest just twists. He shakes off the picture immediately, a chill racing down his spine.

He’s suddenly eager for a lighter subject change.

“Naruto and Ino will be back soon, they’re about—” Sasuke pauses, reaching out for the twinning chakra signatures of hearth and wind, tilting his head in a certain direction, “... A few blocks away.

Shikamaru’s somber face flips back into a put-upon grimace: “Yeah, no, how did I not notice this? We’re gonna have to talk about a game plan sooner rather than later.” 

“I’ll deal with it when I’m a chunin,” he rolls his eyes, “it’s not like I can specialize until then.”

He gets a light kick to the side for the comment as Shikamaru ignores him utterly, the condescending bastard, “Tell Inoichi-oji next time you’re over Ino’s. He’s a sensor type, he’ll be thrilled to give you pointers.” 

“... I don’t think I will.” Sasuke feels a sense of foreboding as Shikamaru grins at him with all of his teeth.

“We’ll see.”

☯

Despite Sasuke’s very insistent and continuous protests, Shikamaru mentions it when they’re having dinner at the Yamanaka’s.


Sasuke about hops across the table to strangle the fucking busybody. The only thing that stops him from following through is the way Naruto’s eyes light up in curiosity from his usual seat beside him demanding to know why Shikamaru knew before he did, while Inoichi grins in dawning delight.

He’s given an entire stack of books on sensors, and, to Sasuke’s continuous despair, it is engaging reading. Which of course means he needs to notate every inch of the stack within the month. 

(Sasuke hates ‘caring’, truly.)

He learns about meditation and growing both one’s chakra pool and range through circular breathing, purposely controlling the flow of qi through the meridians. Inoichi starts meditating with Sasuke in the evenings he comes to the Yamanaka main house, dragging Naruto along while he cultivates another skill. It’s a useful one for a healer, he supposes.

What help can a healer provide if they can’t tell their enemies from allies on a battlefield?

—The first thing he does when he’s got a shaky enough grasp on things is memorize Naruto’s signature, enshrining in a special place in his heart just for that slice of sunshine, as he laces their hands over the kitchen table. Naruto had been a little confused but he’d squeezed right back as their chakra signatures twined around each other like dancing dragons. 

“Sasuke?”

Naruto blinks his wide blue eyes, so heartrendingly trusting, and Sasuke adores him. He’ll die for him—if anyone hurts him again he’ll rip them limb from limb. 

“I’m just memorizing the feeling of ‘you’, Yamanaka-sama said it’d be good practice. Don’t think too hard.” Sasuke leans across the floor table pressing their foreheads together as Naruto’s cheeks color a bit bashfully.

“I mean… guess that’s fine. Feels nice,” The other boy’s eyes flutter closed, “Like I just sunk into a cool ice bath when it’s real hot outside, y’know?”

Sasuke hums, pulling back only after he’s properly etched the memory of his idiot’s chakra signature into his very soul. Naruto is warm, so warm he could bask for ages. If he’d seen the ocean in this life, he thinks that’s what he’d compare it to, a summer breeze by the sunny seaside, a comforting afternoon doze. He smiles, closed-lipped and sweet, this expression is reserved for Naruto, always for Naruto. The only person in this doomed village worth every concession Sasuke makes to simply coexist.

He’d kill to keep this.

“Hn.”

“What do I feel like, anyways?” 

Sasuke keeps their fingers tangled together as he answers simply: “You feel just like home.”

Sunshine, hearth, and warmth. Everything, you’re everything. Naruto's goofy grin is enough to tug another smile out of him. He adores him so much he aches and—yeah. It’s worth it. 

That smile makes everything worth it. 

☯

His hair is longer than he’s used to.

Sasuke can’t quite tie it back yet but in a few more months he thinks he’ll be able to, last time he was over at the Yamanaka house—a more and more common occurrence to the boy’s reluctance—Inoichi had said he looked just like his parents’ son. The comment had made a damning warmth bubble in Sasuke’s chest.

Gross.

(He distantly wonders if he can grow it out longer than Itachi’s.) 

Naruto has also changed, for the better he thinks.

Meeting Kiba’s family had been a whirlwind of vigorous inspection by large canines, boisterous matriarch relatives and a lot of aggressive hair nuzzling. It’s a stark difference atmosphere-wise to the other clan heads who at least attempt to appear palpable and civilized.

It’s the kind of loud environment Naruto thrives in, with another added bonus that knocks her up to the top of Sasuke’s list of ‘trusted adults’: Inuzuka Tsume has absolutely no care for decorum, or respect for the gag order in the walls of her own home. She tells Naruto all kinds of stories about Uzumaki Kushina—the boy may never know of his father, but she stubbornly insists she’d be damned if he didn’t know his mother. Systematic sexism in shinobi politics certainly had its advantages.

“What gag order?”

Naruto asks with wide, confused eyes, voice pitched low like he thinks she’ll change her mind, his fingers are white knuckled in his lap as he fidgets, Sasuke places a hand over the fists. Naruto perks up, forcing a bright smile, strained at the edges.

“He’s a clan kid.” Sasuke says, evenly, eyes dark, “And he was living in squaller. Next to the redlight district.”

Tsume winces, they’re in the sitting room now, the clanhead fills her cup with sake that she takes in one go instead of sipping. Her house kimono is loose and half hanging off her shoulder, legs splayed out causually as she immediately pours herself another cup, clan markings flickering in the candlelight.

“It’s politically complicated.”

Kiba wiggles from his side of the table, squished between his mother’s monstrous ninken and a pointedly skeptical Shikamaru: “But, Ma—”


“You’re not a baby, Kiba, speak properly in front of others.” Her voice is rough but fond, smile knife-like as she reaches over to ruffle her son’s mop of messy hair, before scratching under an eager Akumaru’s chin.

She pluck’s him from Kiba’s lap, holding the puppy like a baby. Sasuke gets the impression she does this a lot with the way Kiba flushes in mortification. He wonders if he’s witnessing one of this odd clan’s social conventions, curiously watching Tsume’s ninken whine and pant, licking the sullen boy’s face with a distinctly maternal demeanor.

(He’s envious. He’s envious whenever he bears witness to these soft moments. He hates that he’ll never have it again.)

“... Yes, Mother. But this doesn’t make sense at all.”

“It doesn’t.” She readily agrees, rolling her eyes, “I told Sarutobi as much, and he put me on probation for several months. Honestly,” she snarls, “what is he, a child?”

Sasuke blinks, “Probation?”

“A lot of people loved Kushina and...” she paused shaking her head, “sorry, you know how it is.”

Sasuke didn’t, but he doesn’t say much, fuming as he sips his tea and Naruto leans forward, eyes wide and focused, ever eager for scraps, for the bare minimum.

“It’s not right, how they went about it,” says the Inuzuka woman with an open grimace, hand heavy on a grumbling Kiba’s head, “So, I’m correcting things, best I can, pup.”

(Naruto looked about ready to cry. Sasuke wants everyone on the council who decided on this gag order to burn.)

Kushina and her accomplishments may have been scrubbed from the history books, but the Hot-blooded Habanero was a shinobi that was dearly loved by her comrades. Not even Hiruzen’s grief-fueled machinations could erase that simple fact. Sasuke listens too, holding Naruto’s hand in a warm grip under the table as he watches the other boy light up at the Inuzuka head’s outlandish stories of Kushina’s—and Mikoto’s—youth. It’s nice hearing about his mother from someone who loved her, who knew her smile.

Having ‘bonds’ is a messy, exhausting affair.

Initially there was Naruto, Sasuke’s future team, and then ‘everybody else’. Now there’s Naruto, Sasuke’s future team, the Cat ANBU that comes to see him in the mornings and helps him with his garden, Shikamaru and his clever tongue and dry demeanor, Ino’s snark, Chouji’s warm smiles, Hinata’s shy requests to partner up, Kiba and Akumaru’s sloppy duo attacks, Shino’s pollinating bees, the old man and his daughter from the ramen stand—the list keeps getting longer.

Truly, Sasuke had done the work cultivating a support system where Naruto can smile freely, but he’d also, to his dismay, forgotten that they shared everything in sickness and in health, from life to death always bound to each other’s sides.

For good or for ill, Naruto’s people were just as much Sasuke’s people now, and for an Uchiha that is absolutely detrimental. 

So, Sasuke adapts, like he always has. He sees no other path forward but to advance. 

Something shifts with the puzzle piece of Naruto learning his mother’s name.

The blonde’s still loud and overly energetic—Naruto wouldn’t be Naruto without those traits—but he’s noticeably more confident with a group of powerful friends to fall back on when he stumbles. He’s happier knowing he has a history, that his parents wanted him, loved him. It’s an open secret that Chouji’s dad and Kiba’s mother had taken to getting him started on sealing wherever their little entourage was bouncing between clan houses during any free afternoon.

The exclaimation of pure delight Naruto had leashed when he’d found out both his parents were accomplished Fuinjutsu masters was enough to make even Shikamaru crack a grin.

“There should be a picture somewhere,” Tsume mentions offhandedly, “Mikoto and Kushina were really excited to raise you two together, you know?”

Sasuke files the knowledge away, the thought of going through his mother’s things felt daunting but... he looks at Naruto, bent over a scroll tongue poking out of the corner of his mouth in immense concentration, eyes practically sparkling as Tsume guides his brush through the motions.

Well.

He didn’t have a choice now, did he?

𖦹 𖦹 𖦹

Naruto is never complaining about Kiba ever again.

Mom! He has a Mom, that was probably just as sweet as Sasuke’s and loved him just as much! No one will tell him about his Father yet but Naruto has a Mother (!!!!) with a proper clan name, and he knows the kanji too, Kiba’s mom showed him a picture from when she was his age. And-And,

And, his mom had slanted fox-like eyes (like his!) and a mischievous grin that was so big it brightens up her entire face… He has a Mom. He looks like her. Her name was Kushina, but she existed—and she had people who loved her. It’s embarrassing how much he wails like a baby, looking at his mother’s genin team with her smile that could be his twin’s.

“This can’t leave this room, kid.”

Tsume-obaa-san had said something to that effect but Naruto had giggled between sobs because who would he even tell? The first person he’d go to is sitting next to him with dark eyes with a steadying hand clamped on the nape of his neck, and the others already knew before Naruto had.

He’d cried for a long time looking at that tattered little photo, a missing puzzle piece he wasn’t even aware of snapping right into place. He learns lots of things! Mom was good at seals, like him(!) she loved ramen, she was looking forward to him and bragged all around the village, she was strong, and brave and her hair was red like strawberries!

And… and Naruto can’t meet her... but she was loved! (Unlike him, maybe there was something wrong with him?) People grew up with her! She was strong and had comrades she could rely on! And that’s something, isn’t it?

That first afternoon Naruto heads back home with puffy eyes, happily swinging Sasuke’s hand in his as he chatters on and on—their mom’s were friends, just like they wound up, they apparently met before Naruto was even born, and wow is that kind of dizzying to think about for too long. Sasuke indulges him just like he always does, his expression though... it scares Naruto sometimes, how far away Sasuke gets when no one’s looking. But, Naruto always notices when it comes to Sasuke. All it takes is a light nudge, or a firm squeeze to bring him back, usually.

His cheeks are chubby and cherubic, if it wouldn’t get him a jab to the gut, Naruto thinks he’d pinch them. His skin seems to glow in the ambient light of the setting sun on their meandering way back home. The ghostly streets of the compound are eerily quiet aside from the occasional cry of a crow and their twin footsteps on the cobblestone.

(Once in a blue moon Naruto catches Sasuke feeding and chatting with the birds, when pressed about it Sasuke had shrugged in that nonchalant way of his, saying flatly that they’re apart of his ‘inheritance’—whatever that means. Sasuke was kinda weird sometimes.)

They’re always falling into sync. Whether it be hand in hand as they walk, when they’re maneuvering around the kitchen, working around each other, getting ready for the day, during spars—even their breathing levels out in perfect unison if Naruto is close enough to feel the rise and fall of his friend’s chest.

Naruto doesn’t think Sasuke’s noticed it yet, not the way he has. But that’s okay, Sasuke tends to overthink stuff like this. He squeezes those pale, slender fingers tangled in his own—unworthy, crooked, rough, as they are scarred. Hm. He thinks as Sasuke turns and quirks his lips fondly just for him, squeezing right back. I want to keep this.

It’s different from wanting someone to acknowledge his talents when he played pranks, or how he loudly proclaimed he’d be Hokage one day. ‘Gratitude’ would be too easy to describe this bond, but ‘friendship’ didn’t fit either.

Sasuke was just… Sasuke.

No one pushed him like Sasuke. Nothing made him want to be more, and be better than Sasuke’s unimpressed looks and disinterested hums. No one could make Naruto’s entire being light up in happiness, frustration, or determination quite like his pompous bastard.

And... well, no one had ever shared everything with him before the way Sasuke had.

A roof over his head without a shitty landlord to worry about, a consistent stream of food, training, so many new friends and now—a family. Sasuke gave Naruto a name and a face to his family, just by being, and Naruto doesn’t know how to encapsulate the way the warmth of that realization fills his chest up to the point of bursting.

He hasn’t stopped smiling for days.

Yeah, he thinks again, after a long bath, tangled up as usual with his housemate in their shared bed, I’m keeping this.

Chapter Text

☯☯☯

Midway through his last academy year, after almost two summers of studying anatomy alongside obscure poisonous flora and toxins, and no less than several months of flexing and testing his limits with Inoichi— Sasuke tells Naruto not to worry about studying anymore.

Shikamaru had given him a judgemental look, eyes rolling back into his skull.

(Of course, he’d clock Sasuke right away, Nara’s are the absolute worst when there’s a secret to needle.)

“Clingy bastards.” 

“Pineapple head.” Sasuke replies serenely, eyes skimming over Naruto’s worksheets as the blonde pouts from the other end of the kotatsu. 

Ino, Kiba, and Chouji are sleeping in a tangled puppy pile on the other end, under the blanket as the snowfall blankets the ground outside of the frozen storm shutters. In a corner Hinata is also napping, curled up in Shino’s lap with Akamaru burrowed in her hoodie. —They all sleep over at least one day out of the month, Sasuke has no idea how or when this unspoken precedent was put in place.

All he wanted was seeds for his damn garden. Yet here he is, three years later, in hell, with a bunch of codependant clan children, eating his food on the daily. Sasuke hates it here.

He supposes he’d worry if Hinata didn’t come for spars on Mondays, though... or if Shikamaru stopped popping over in the afternoons for shogi... or if Chouji and Kiba stopped showing up for Sunday dinner after taijutsu training with Naruto, or if Shino didn’t show up thrice a week to check up on his bees, or if Ino stopped coming to heckle his gardening skills—

Ugh. He hates these losers so. much.

Shikamaru holds a comb between his teeth as he unravels the slumbering Ino’s increasingly long ponytail, taking it over his lap to brush it out. It always gives Sasuke the shivers, whenever the Nara clan heir falls so naturally into a big brother role, it doesn't fit the nightmare deadbeat’s persona at all.

“He’d probably wind up with one of us regardless,”—“Hey, stop pretending I ain't in the room!”— “It doesn’t really have to be you.” 

Sasuke gives him an unimpressed look, “We work best together, and if the Hokage puts me with puppy breath I’m burning this place to the ground.”

“Yikes. So intense. You threaten that every week, you notice that?” 

“What would you do if Ino and Chouji weren’t guaranteed squad mates? Could you sleep at night knowing you weren’t around to watch their backs, you control freak? Would you trust their backs to a stranger?” 

Perhaps tellingly, Shikamaru doesn’t dignify this with a response: “You two headaches are gonna overwhelm anyone who winds up with you. Can you even function with a third?”

Sasuke hums, “If they can keep up.”

A thin eyebrow arches in irritation, “... Even if it's the Haruno girl who’s been neck and neck with you and Ino in scores since last Spring? Book smart doesn’t mean much on a battlefield—civilians are finicky that way.”

“So little faith? You shouldn’t look down on first generation civilians, your bias is showing, Nara.”

Shikamaru makes another complicated face, clicking his tongue, “I don’t wanna hear that from you.” 

“How’d you guess it’d be Haruno?”

“Again, she’s at the top of the class. ‘Rule of three’ is a common enough tradition that all the Jounin draw straws to avoid taking on a team of two geniuses and what equates to the bottom rung. Even distribution of talent and whatnot.”

“Wealth. The saying is ‘wealth’.” Shikamaru stresses, but Sasuke thinks his point still stands, honestly. Nara was such a busybody.

Naruto chooses that moment to lean his entire body weight on Sasuke’s back, aggressively nudging against his hair with a whiskered cheek. Sasuke is immediately reminded of a wailing fox.

“Teme! Stop ignorin' me! What does Sakura-chan have to do with anything!?”

Sasuke stoically holds him up, only tipping forward slightly as he leans his cheek on an elbow, reaching back to ruffle Naruto’s hair, “Got it in one. Naruto’s practicals are above average but his written exam scores are enough to drag him down the ladder below the weakest civilian.”

Shikamaru nods sagely, “You’ve got that right.”

Naruto looks between them. “… Why do I feel like I’m being insulted.” 

Finally, Sasuke twists around, addressing him, lacing their fingers together out of habit, “Say, Naruto. Do you want to be separated from me, once we graduate?”

Suddenly the blonde looks significantly more alert, rapidly shaking his head with a deepening frown, “No! Not ever! Who’s gonna watch your blind spots? No one else can keep up with me but Kiba and that’s only when he’s at full energy.”

Sasuke quickly covers his (lovable) idiot’s mouth before his voice crests into a proper rant and wakes the others. He certainly didn’t want to deal with more comments from the peanut gallery than was strictly necessary.  So, he inclines his head, lips curling into a smile only reserved for a certain sunshine blonde:

“You want us to be on a proper squad together, dope?” Eagerly, Naruto nods, blue eyes focused and determined. 

(He would give this boy the entirety of the elemental nations on a silver platter if he could.)

“Alright. In order to do that… I’m going to need you to fail.” 

Naruto still doesn’t quite understand the concept. That’s okay, though, that’s what Sasuke’s here for. 

☯

“Sasuke-kun.”

“Yes, sensei?”

“Where is Naruto?” 

Sasuke looks his academy sensei dead in the eyes and tells him the unwavering truth, “He slept in today.”

“It is eleven in the morning, there were several quizzes covering genjutsu applications today.”

The Uchiha tilts his head, “Well that’s not good, the idiot should really set more alarms.”

Iruka-sensei drags an exhaustive hand down his face, crouching to his haunches as he hangs his head with a groan, “I can’t believe I’m getting bullied by a twelve year old—”

“Oh, don’t worry, you’d know if it were bullying, Sensei.” 

Dark eyes squint at Sasuke in suspicion, “What does that mean?”

“Nothing you need to worry about. Lord Sandaime on the other hand…” he trails off, basking in the memories of needling the old bastard every time Naruto (unwisely) drags Sasuke to his office. His favorite game as of late is amusing Shikaku enough to break his military rest. 

No doubt disturbed, Iruka-sensei doesn’t press further, sighing in defeat, “At least bring him his homework after the school day’s done, for my own peace of mind.”

For a moment, Sasuke’s eyes are black pits of darkness that just seem to suck up all light in the room, then he smiles. “Of course, sensei.” 

He does not give Naruto the homework, Sasuke goes right home after school and promptly watches the offending stack of papers smolder in the fire pit, whistling a jaunty tune.

He’s already done the math, Naruto’s scores in practicals are strong enough to drag him to the graduation ceremony at least. The problem was the genjutsu portion—that was a headache and a half, and Naruto couldn’t graduate without it. Sasuke blinks at the thought, skimming over the edges of the surface level memories.

… Ah?

How had Naruto passed his exam that first time around?

The worst part about it is that Sasuke knows exactly why he doesn’t know the answer, and it’s frustrating to the point of being maddening. 

‘He’. didn’t. ask. 

Wasn’t there a bell test after their graduation? He could’ve sworn Naruto used clones during the bell test… no, wait.

Had ‘Sasuke’ ever seen Naruto use genjutsu during that past life?

He blinks as the realization sinks in, then blinks down again at the fire pit. He tilts his head in growing confusion. That… can’t possibly be right. Even Sasuke knew basic genjutsu though he scarcely used it, and what Naruto had produced in front of the class that day was so far from it that Iruka-sensei saw it as an insult.

So, how did a failed genin-hopeful learn shadow clones presumably in a single night?

Ugh. He hates this. He can’t even confide in Naruto like he usually would to collect his thoughts, because the one that mastered that jutsu wasn’t even his Naruto.

It still felt like he was missing pieces to the puzzle here, and Sasuke was wholeheartedly ready to blame it on his asshole alternate self’s borderline hostile asocial habits. Naruto never did get any better at chakra control, it’s almost as if he realized brute force was the only option with his chakra pools, maybe Sasuke could go to Shikamaru about it—

Silence. The courtyard is too quiet.

Jarringly, the boy snaps out of his thoughts hissing in a sharp breath and… he feels eyes crawling down on his back. 

Sasuke’s fingers twitch as a shudder races down his spine. Oh. That wasn’t good. These were the ‘bad’ eyes, he’d let his guard down because he’s been feeling them less and less often recently as he neared graduation. —ANBU gazes didn’t linger on Sasuke’s skin like a thick oily sludge, he could usually sense impressions from them at least, of a human underneath the mask.

These gazes were different, those of a predator of a different kind. Now that Sasuke’s a bit older, he can place the uncomfortable feeling they bring; almost like he’s a piece of livestock being sold on the market, being felt up for the firmness of its meat and muscle. A potential asset. A tool. He shakes off his shivers and trudges back inside, exhaling a long breath into the winter air, as he soundly closes the heavy wooden shutters followed by the shoji doors.

It won’t help. They can still ‘see’ him, but it grants him peace of mind.

His hands don’t stop shaking until he’s properly fastened his apron to start on dinner.

☯

“Sasuke-kun, what would you say your range is?”


Sasuke glances up from the book in his lap to lock attentive eyes with Yamanaka Inoichi; the man’s blond hair is a dead ringer for Ino’s tumbling over his shoulders as he casually lounges in his rich silk yukata. Then, the question registers and he blinks slowly and actually thinks.

It’s been months now, since he’s started training with Yamanaka senior. He works his way through the poison libraries on Thursday evenings after Academy, and he comes over Saturday afternoons on halfdays to read up on the comparative mountain of sensor literature and chakra theory. It’s slow going, as stated, Sasuke is not a genius. But, he likes to think he’s a fairly avid reader.

Sasuke taps his finger as he tilts his head back and forth, searching for the words as the man’s eyes brighten with a kinetic energy Sasuke still can’t categorize.

“I don’t know,” he admits, finally, “I’ve never tried to expand past the west quarter.”

Inoichi beams, clapping his hands together, “Well! Why don’t we start with that, since you’ve acquainted yourself with the basics.”

Sasuke only gives the man a wary look, despite its brightness, the smile isn’t a friendly one. This is all Shikamaru’s fault.

“Again.”

Two weeks in, a droplet of sweat slides down Sasuke’s cheek, fists clenched in his lap as he projects himself outward. It’s like throwing himself headfirst into a stone wall.

He’s dazed and flustered with it, swaying in place as he imagines himself with outstretched hands and pours himself out like a broken faucet. His back feels like it’s been drenched with ice water, every inhale like a punch to his solar plexus. His eyes are fuzzy while he stubbornly keeps them open at half mast, swaying in place in a stanza position he’s had memorized since he was a toddler.

He senses five people in the Hokage’s office in the Northern Quarter and plucks Hinata, Kiba, and Shino out of a haystack in training ground three to the west.

He babbles this off to Inoichi’s firm, bright eyed gaze, in the middle of the Yamanaka dojo. His words run together as his reach snaps back to him like a strained rubber band. Sasuke lets out a yelp he’ll never admit to, bare arms twitching as he finally dips forward so his forehead kisses the floor; he doesn’t break his stanza. Every inch of the Uchiha is straining as a long moment passes where all that echoes in the dojo are his own ragged breaths and the ticking of the sole analog clock mounted on the far wall.

“Well done, Sasuke. Next time we’ll see how well you can sweep the east quarter.”

“I want to try again.”

Inoichi pauses, inclining his head, “Oh? You’ve already surpassed your previous limit, haven’t you?”

Sasuke’s jaw sets, mulish and stubborn, “One more time. I want to sweep all of Hokage tower, not just the office, Yamanaka-sama.”

Inoichi barks out a laugh, a gamely grin breaking past his stoic facade, “That’s the spirit! Now you’re really sounding like Mikoto-chan!”

The compliment is, it makes him…

Sasuke inhales.

Exhales.

He slams a harsh fist into the tatami mat and forces himself up, a red mark on his forehead from where he’d pitched forward in a heap earlier. He throws himself against that invisible wall over and over, until he can count every chunin and jounin in the Hokage Tower on the other side of the village.

It’s pitch black out by the time Inoichi considers his progress ‘good enough’. Bastard doesn’t even look tired.

Later, Inoichi carries him home on his back while Ino skips along and fusses. He’s barely conscious but her voice is sugary and familiar. Sasuke’s limbs are heavy and they won’t listen—but it’s been so long since he’s gotten a piggyback ride from anyone.

The last one had been Shisui, two weeks before his death.

So… when he feels Naruto’s comforting inferno come into his passive range, he gives the familiar presence the lightest of tugs, there’s an impression, an after image of fingers ghosting ever so slightly through spikey blonde hair before Sasuke feels himself drift.

He’s handed off at some point he thinks.

“Thanks so much for bringing him, Inoichi-jii! I’ll be sure to wake him up for his bath, y’know!”

“Anytime, thank you as always for letting us borrow him for a bit.”

Sasuke is far away from his own chakra body as Naruto jostles him, tucking him against his neck and—Sasuke burrows, humming soft at the familiar scent. If possible he becomes an even looser deadweight, he only catches snippets of the Yamanakas’ farewells after that.

He barely remembers the bath, stumbling around with clumsy feet and limp arms, laying his weary head on Naruto’s shoulder in the bedroom as the boy chatters at him, helping him into his yukata like he does every Monday night after he started training with Inoichi-san.

They practically have the ritual down to an art form. They take care of each other--Sasuke does the same whenever Naruto heads over Kiba’s to get his ass handed to him by the Inuzuka head and her spawns twice a week.

Soon enough, Sasuke is bundled up in the comforter, hair tousled and damp, limbs tangled up in Naruto’s, properly out cold.

☯☯☯

Graduation day comes sooner rather than later. Sasuke still hasn’t gotten an answer. 

Instead he winds up with a bubbling pit of rage he no longer knows how to correct for, a circle of seething clan heirs, and a missing Naruto. Sasuke can’t even remember clearly where the other boy had disappeared off to, the fallout after the choice to fail Naruto had been nightmarish with the fuss Ino and Kiba kicked up. Sasuke knows if his ears are ringing, it must be far worse for those who are used to the Yamanaka heiress’s demure, if vain, demeanor. He doesn’t think he’s seen a Jounin dressed down quite like the judge Ino had verbally ripped into who’d (unwisely) tried to tell the head of T&I’s daughter to quote ‘calm down’.

The shock that had run through all of them at Naruto’s exam results was staggering. Shikamaru had long strode off with narrowed eyes to speak tersely to his father, standing a ways off from the Hokage. Sasuke simply felt confused and numb, skin still buzzing with the blonde’s lingering warmth after Naruto’s hand had soundlessly slipped from Sasuke’s grip.

(He’d watched that dejected retreating back with a blank expression; all Sasuke felt was rage.)

At current, he snarls, ramming his bare, unwrapped fists into a tree in a secluded training ground, fracturing the bark several inches past the wood, panting sharply, eyes wide and furious. His knuckles bleed, but the sharp pain doesn’t phase him in the slightest. Sasuke hasn’t been this angry since that first time he and Naruto strolled through the Konoha marketplace.

He grits his teeth, slams his fist into the tree again and again, muscles not quite enough in his preteen body to do more than superficial damage without chakra.

It’s worse because Sasuke can’t get the image of Naruto, his kindest sun, his partner, his everything, folding under those cold gazes like an overcast sky, looking just like the lonely boy on the dock Sasuke had sheltered and taken home.

—Sasuke’s missing pieces.

What is he missing? 

Naruto is the best practical taijutsu user in the class and yet, he fails the genin exam due to a minor easily overridden rule in the Academy curriculum? And he’s good, he’s fast, charismatic, a team player and,

And Sasuke is going to kill someone.

It might be Sarutobi. He hasn’t decided yet.

Sasuke’s fists clench, remembering Iruka-sensei’s quiet anger compared against Mizuki and the other academy instructors’ open disdain, coupled with Naruto’s large sad eyes as he’d looked back at Sasuke.

His latent sharingan's perfect recall guarantees crystal clear clarity of the memory. That bastard had been holding back a sneer; Sasuke caught the subtle movement of Mizuki’s twisted, sadistic lips upturning as Naruto’s voice had cracked upon being rejected by yet another adult who’d failed him, betrayed him, and—Sasuke is going to kill someone for this. 

Months, years now, he’d spent building Naruto back up only for a few shitty instructors to tear him out of the sky, just as easily as Sasuke pruning back one of his bushes.

He punches the tree with another bitten back snarl, the wood fractures under his fist this time round, blood staining the wood. —With a deep, centering breath, Sasuke forces his body to run through taijutsu katas until his heart is calm again and there’s an exhausted buzzing in his limbs. 

It’s a long time before he can bring himself to trudge towards home, lips pressed into a thin bloodless line. The full moon is now high overhead.

He is still missing something.

He can feel it in his bones and it rankles, his mind goes a mile a minute—he’s changed things a lot already, he’s still not even sure how Naruto passed the last time, or if he will this time. Sasuke could conceivably refuse to leave the academy until Naruto does, spend a year drilling the boy’s genjutsu until it was literally oozing out of his ears, but then he’ll be even less sure how to proceed.

A whole host of things happened during Team 7’s first year as genin, after all. 

When he returns to the compound, still stewing in deep thought, a sudden chill runs down Sasuke’s spine and he lifts his head to see a pitch black main house—no, it was empty.

And Sasuke… he. His heart quickens, feeling dizzy as he stumbles forward, palm slamming against the threshold of the home that finally felt like home again with Naruto in it.

His entire arm shakes as his vision doubles, he recalls another night with a scene just like this and,

(there’s so much blood in the streets, so many bodies…

Mother he wants Kaa-san she’ll know what to do, where is she is she safe—)

“Oi, Uchiha, I’m going to need you back here.”

Sasuke comes back to his body so quickly he staggers away from the locked door, as though burned. He whips around stiffening as Nara melts out of the shadows from around the side of the house.

“Focus.”

Sasuke blinks, shoulders unwinding now that he’s really listening, he can feel the coals of three more familiar chakra signatures clustered near the back porch. “… Shikamaru.”

The boy grimaces, but tugs on his wrist, “Come on. Some serious shit’s going down in the Hokage’s upper brass right now, and we need to find Naruto sooner rather than later.” 

With a task in mind, Sasuke straightens, frowning as he keeps pace at Shikamaru’s side with furrowed eyebrows, “What do you mean by that?” 

As he rounds the corner, he’s met with three pairs of solemn eyes, Kiba is pacing across the wooden panel paths of the garden while Chouji and Shino speak in hushed tones on the porch. His shoulders unwind, images of his brother standing over their parents with a raised sword and crimson eyes dissipates like a miasma fog. But, Shikamaru stays damningly silent and unmovable like a stone.

Sasuke almost doesn’t want to know what would put that kind of expression on the normally laid back clan heir’s face.

Finally, Shikamaru lifts his bowed head, eyes solemn, the next words out of his mouth make Sasuke want to strangle Naruto in every single timeline there is because the pieces he’s been missing to the puzzle suddenly slot neatly into place: 

“All of our parents have been called out—Naruto’s stolen the Scroll of Sealing.” 

𖦹𖦹𖦹

Every day since Sasuke had taken his hand and led him home has felt like a dream; a long, bright, unattainable dream that Naruto had thought would take years to achieve.

But he’d gotten it just by taking one tiny outstretched hand. Recognition. Friends. Family.

And now he’s gone and messed it all up, like he always did, and... Naruto inhales, shoulders droopping, insides cold like ice as he watches the warm sunset in the middle distance. Sasuke would be so upset he ran off like that, he hates coming home to an empty house.

(Dammit. Naruto can never do anything right.)

His eyes sting, lips wobbling on the lonely rooftop. He’s so ashamed he just wants to curl into himself like a pill bug—he really did want to pass, become a version of himself beyond that dirty orphan brat with a monthly stepend.

Somehow this hurts more. The hope torn from his grasping finger tips, just when he’d been so close, is worse than if he never had any at all.

He can’t face Sasuke or their friends like this he... he needed to put a smile on or he’ll bring the mood down even further. Naruto lets out a watery laugh, rubbing at his raw cheeks, tears still coming down hot and fast—Shikamaru and Ino might actually murder someone, with all the tutoring they gave him in practicals in their attempts to get him over the finish line. He’d even seen Hinata-chan getting upset towards the back of class, shaking, milky white eyes blazing with that fire everyone’s worked so hard to drag out of her.

Naruto loves his friends. And in this moment it feels like he’s betrayed them and, in his eyes, that makes him lower than dirt.

He just. He needs a bit of time to pull himself together that's all, then he can head back as usual and-and apologize, and maybe they won’t leave him behind completely while Naruto is still stuck at the academy. Maybe he won’t wind up all alone again—

Suddenly, a shadow blocks the light of the setting sun, casting itself over his form: “Naruto-kun?”

Naruto looks up with his morose face, sniffing, rubbing at his blurry eyes to see Mizuki-sensei, silver hair falling in front of his face as he offers a sympathetic (condescending)smile.

“Down for a chat?”

☯☯☯

“Scatter but keep low to the streets, every able-bodied Jounin on duty is out there searching for Naruto. Hinata can’t leave her household right now due to clan buisness, and Ino’s stuck at home because of her outburst in the Academy earlier.”

They all stand in a tight circle in front of the entrance to the Uchiha compound, heads all tilted towards Shikamaru.

Sasuke is the sole figure glaring hard at the ground, eyes flickering red, “Naruto… he likes the forests, they’re some of his favorite napping spots. If he’s still in the village he’ll be hiding out in one of those wooded areas across Konoha.”

He lifts his head, “I’ll take the eastern wall.”

“In that case, Chouji and I will comb through the South woodlands near the river.” Shikamaru says, putting his hand to his chin, “Good a place to start as any.” 

“Then me, Akamaru, and Shino’ll take the Southwest quarter!” Akimichi grins, slapping the boy in question on the back, showing his teeth as he meets Sasuke’s hard eyes, “Don’t worry, Uchiha. We’ll find him, knowing Naruto this is probably just one big misunderstanding!”

Shikamaru looks troubled but nods firmly, “Either way, we have to find him first and figure out a game plan. Sasuke, look at me. It’s going to be fine, Tou-san will handle the fall out.”

Sasuke… trusts those words. Somehow, someway, his shoulders unwind with the words.

And isn’t that just a novelty, trusting others to cover his back instead of carrying everything on his own? Outwardly Sasuke gives a short decisive nod with a drawn solemn face.

“You with us?”

“... We’ll meet back up at four, before sunrise. Don’t get caught.”

The Nara smiles warily, “You kidding me? The old man’ll demote me back to the Academy.”

Once they break, Sasuke makes a beeline towards the Eastern woodlands, he tosses out his feeble senses, picking up on various Jounin level flares of chakra in the area.

He takes the long way around the cluster of energies, reaching until the telltale strains of a migraine almost cause him to stumble his way off of a civilian roof. He… catches Iruka-sensei’s signature and inclines his head with a frown.

Were chunin also called in for this commotion?

His gut squirms uncomfortably, realizing they were both headed in the same direction—the way things were now, Iruka might reach the woods before he could. 

Gritting his teeth, Sasuke presses himself onward, entering the trees in quick succession, at least fifteen minutes behind.

It takes a moment, with how laughably weak his range is, even with Inoichi’s dry insistence that he’s far above what should be normal for an Academy graduate, but, clumsily, Sasuke reaches out again. He almost immediately touches a chakra signature that feels like sun and warmth and home—and-He veers towards it, as it grows ever stronger.

Sasuke breaks out of the woods, sandals skidding to a halt in the dirt, blowing up a cloud of dust. He’s hit with a spike of distress in Naruto’s chakra, sunshine becoming clouded skies and wailing thunder. His essensce lashes out, blowing a burst of air throughout the clearing, rattling the old shack. 

He sways back on his feet, head buzzing as Sasuke struggles to rein in his bearings—Mizuki, up in the trees, Naruto, cursing and holding back tears, Iruka-sensei covered in stab wounds. He cannot grasp the situation as he tunes into the ongoing conversation, rage already building. 

“—No one accepts you. Even Iruka hates you!”

He’s never wished to kill anyone more than when he hears those words leave that vaguely familiar bastard’s lips. He’s not even a skilled enough shinobi to notice him, not as good as Iruka-sensei who’s eyes snap to him immediately, paling rapidly as he subtly shakes his head, trying to motion for Sasuke to retreat and go for help.

Iruka-sensei had always been protective of their class, Sasuke grimly wonders if the previous him helped contribute to the man going gray. 

“Die! Naruto!” 

The large shuriken whizzes through the air and Sasuke shoots forward without a second thought—but Iruka is faster. Sasuke and Naruto both wince as the blade digs into his flak jacket, right in the middle of the Uzushio spiral.

There’s a roaring in Sasuke’s ears, as Mizuki finally lays eyes on him in the middle of the field, a snarl on his lips. 

“Ah, it’s the Uchiha.”

Sasuke inhales as he’s addressed, firmly taking a taijutsu stance in front of Naruto and their former-teacher. 

“Take another step forward and I’ll rip you to shreds, you rat bastard.” Mizuki tosses his head back in maniacal laughter, but Sasuke’s stance is stout as stone.

Naruto finally sees him, “S.. Sasuke?” His eyes clear of the confusion and pain. “Sasuke! Dumbass, what are you doing here!?”

“You were late coming home for dinner, usuratonkachi. So, I came to get you.” Naruto lets out a sound like a wounded animal. “Everyone else is out looking too.” 

Mizuki stares at him for a moment, something seeming to snap at the sight of Sasuke’s unwavering gaze and stance, despite being up against a chunin. “Thrice damned Uchiha brat, are you in cahoots with the demon fox, too!? Hah!?”

Sasuke doesn’t even blink, “It doesn’t matter to me. Naruto is Naruto. I don’t care about any demons or foxes.” Naruto is Sasuke’s equal, the other half of his fractured whole—some chunin with an inferiority complex didn’t get to make Uzumaki Naruto feel small.

“How tragic,” the man snarls, “You don’t understand a single thing, do you, poor unloved thing.” Mizuki drops down from the tree, foolishly giving up his high ground, “I’ll have to teach you another lesson then…!”

Sasuke leaps out of the way of the kick that shatters the earth where he’d just been standing, landing a couple feet away. His gaze flickers to Naruto who’s watching him with wide, horrified eyes, he looks back at Mizuki's crazed expression, and hopes the blonde never had to face his words all alone.

“Naruto is a better shinobi than you’ll ever be.”

The words only enrage the chunin further—Sasuke blocks a hit and rolls with the impact, unused to fighting someone with such a long reach. He jabs him in the side and Mizuki snarls like a wild beast, pressing forward until Sasuke is grimacing, in a deadlock as he blocks a blow to the skull, choking as a boot manages to get him in the chest.

It knocks the damn wind out of him, but not enough to make Sasuke do more than stagger, panting in exertion. He takes up the starting stance again, while Mizuki stares at him with cold, dispassionate eyes.

“How long do you plan on doing this for? You’re going to tire out eventually.”

Sasuke breathes in and out, eyes a bit hazy, “I won’t. There’s still a bunch of reckless idiots I have to protect. I’ll hold you off as long as I’m still breathing, even if I have to use my fangs to rip your juggler from your ugly lying throat.”

Mizuki’s eyes narrow as he takes out his other shuriken, rising it high above his head as Sasuke bends his knees in preparation to roll away again.

“I’ll just have to kill you too then. End your wretched line for good—that will surely make Orochimaru-sama look at me.”

He reels back in momentary confusion, the vertigo of hearing that name in another time, another place, throwing him off kilter.

What the fuck.

What. The. Fuck.

Who even is this guy? Figures this mess would somehow be that immortal snake’s fault.

Narrowing his eyes, Sasuke rocks on the balls of his feet again, breaking the formal stance and instead loftily crooking his fingers in a come hither motion. As he inclines his head, he runs through half a dozen nightmare scenarios in his brain, taking stock of Mizuki’s body mass to the cruel slang of his lips.

His hands raise for the Tiger hand seal, gut still buzzing in numbing pain from the earlier hit and—

Just then, Naruto’s slams into Mizuki’s jaw with a flying kick, eyes a bright piercing blue, utterly enraged.

Sasuke blinks, thrown out of his stance in his surprise.

Then, there’s another, oh, another, oh that makes five… six… a dozen. Sasuke falls back, steady tan hands catch his shoulders, holding him upright—oh, that makes twenty. 

“I won’t let you lay a finger on Iruka-sensei, Sasuke, or any of my precious people.” Naruto says coldly, far too cold for the boy’s usual demeanor. Mizuki stumbles to his feet a little ways away.

“Why you—!”

“Kage Bunshin no Jutsu!”

Come sunrise, Sasuke is on his knees behind Iruka with the small medical kit laid out in front of him. He’s glad he thought to bring it along, he can’t do medic ninjutsu or anything yet but Sasuke’s gotten pretty decent at first aid using Cat as a practice dummy.

Naruto, meanwhile, is chatting away animatedly, Iruka’s hitaiate displayed proudly on his forehead as he sits between the stunned chunin’s splayed legs. 

“I knew you had a favorite.” Sasuke mumbles from under his breath, snorting as Iruka’s ears redden with the admonishment, Naruto peeks over his shoulder curiously. 

“Whaddya mean by that, teme?”

“Nothing,” Sasuke says shortly, dabbing at the back wound again with a cotton ball, “just a harmless observation that’s all. You really are good with children aren’t you, Iruka-sensei?”

He gets a sour look from his current patient, followed by a defeated sigh, as Iruka leans back on his palms.

His eyes soften in mirth as he lightly ruffles Naruto’s hair. “Both of you are menaces, I hope you give your Jounin-sensei an absolutely terrible time.” 

“Is that your final assignment for us, sensei?” Sasuke bites the thread he’s using to stitch up the chunin’s back, Iruka-sensei barks out a laugh, it’s just a bit on the side of unsteady from the lingering adrenaline of the night.

“Hell! Sure, why not.” 

Shikamaru appears not long after with his father on his heels and his shoulders visibly slump in relief, pausing, taking in the battered chunin tied to a tree and Sasuke dressing Iruka’s wound. He tilts his head to the side taking in Naruto’s new forehead protector and the general mood of the clearing.

“… Mizuki?”

“Goddamn, Mizuki.” 

Shikamaru groans, “Ugh, what a drag—I always hated that guy.” 

Shikaku only laughs, patting his son on the head before signaling the other Jounin combing the southern woods with a sharp whistle. His eyes are warm and fond when they pass over Naruto who hasn’t stopped beaming, Sasuke gets the distinct impression that the Jounin Commander had a barebones background knowledge of yesterday’s events all along.

(He kind of wants to throw something at him about it, must be a Nara thing.)

“Congratulations on your graduation, Naruto-kun!”

☯

Naruto curls next to him in the early morning, after things have finally been ironed out and Naruto has been promoted to genin rank. But, his gaze is focused on Sasuke, face solemn in a way that doesn’t suit him at all.

Sasuke lays on his stomach, watching Naruto right back with slow, curious blinks, the events of the night quick to catch up with him. 

“Say, Sasuke?”

“Hn?”

“You know you’re not alone, right?”

The words make Sasuke rear back a bit, he’s a bit annoyed—reaching out a hand to soundly flick the boy in the forehead. He gets a yelp for his trouble.

“No shit, dope. My house has been practically overrun these past couple of semesters, also I don’t wanna hear that from someone who stole the Scroll of Sealing and went off half-cocked without even telling me. You should’ve told us. We would’ve helped.” Sasuke has already ranted at his fool plenty but he’s still annoyed enough to put on airs at least.

Naruto chuckles sheepishly, cheeks coloring, but rather than cowed he somehow looks incandescently pleased being scolded. Sasuke flicks him twice more for good measure. “Heh, sorry, Sasuke.” 

“Don’t do it again.”

“I won’t.”

“If anything happens to you, I’m burning this place to the ground.”

“No, you won’t.” Naruto hums, grinning brightly, laying his cheek on the pillow, something about his knowing gaze gives Sasuke wary pause.

“… Why do you say that?”

“You like the people here too much now to do that, teme.” He sounds so damn proud of himself it leaves Sasuke unsteady.

And… his mind goes blank for a moment.

Then it starts to race—utterly ridiculous, is his first instinct, he’s doing this for Naruto in the first place, that barely makes sense… right? Grudgingly, he watches Naruto’s grin widen and more pieces click into place.

Ino was fun to shoot barbs back and forth with, but would always fall into a companionable silence as they both flexed their ranges as sensor types during meditation. She was softer to Naruto, always giving him pointers on his more feminine hedges.

Shikamaru was a quiet but central presence, helpfully tutoring Naruto’s kanji and sneaking Sasuke medical scrolls from his clan while his father looked the other way. 

Chouji was cheerful and warm, not in the same way as Naruto, but Sasuke still found himself occasionally putting aside Akimichi's favorite food more often than not in preparation for Sundays these days. He was a calming presence, if anything.

Hinata had gotten better at spars—between Sasuke and Naruto they’d both thoroughly beaten any semblance of hesitation from her forms in combat, though her soft spoken demeanor stayed true. She’s always adding more enrichment objects and stone structures to the koi pond.

Shino is also stoic, a bit nerdy, always eager to talk with Sasuke about poisons and toxins.

Kiba and Akamaru are surprisingly energetic sparring partners taijutsu-wise; Sasuke had found himself picking up a quite a few things on veterinary care after seeing Kiba so distraught over his ninken puppy’s terrible upper respiratory infection this past winter.

There was also the ANBU and the father-daughter duo running the ramen booth, that one kindly old lady who always gives Sasuke and Naruto an extra dumpling. And… and… 

Oh.

Oh, no. 

Some hint of Sasuke’s mounting panic attack must show on his face, because Naruto promptly collapses into giggles, “Wow, you should see the look on your face, like the world’s endin’ just because you made some friends, Sasuke.” 

Sasuke lets his face fall forwards into the bed, he wants to scream.

“They’re not my friends They’re nuisances.” He says, childish and unconvincing, even to his own ears, voice muffled by the pillow. It only makes Naruto laugh at him harder.

“....You’re not alone either, you know that right?”

Naruto’s laughter immediately cuts off.

“I don’t care if you’re a demon, or a monster, or something else altogether. You remember our promise… don’t you?” 

“Yeah… yeah, I know,” Naruto huffs, laying a hand over Sasuke’s, still gripping pillow in a white knuckled grip, “the two of us together, to the very end, you possessive bastard. It’s a promise. I won’t go anywhere without you.”

Sasuke finally lifts his head, moving it so he can bury it into Naruto’s shirt, “… That’s right, it’s a promise. So don’t run off again without me, idiot.” 

☯☯☯

The day comes for squad assignments and Sasuke brings a medical textbook with him to the academy much to Naruto’s burning curiosity. 

“Ne, Sasuke what’s the book for?”

“I hate being idle, so I figured I’d catch up on some reading.”

And that was that.

Iruka-sensei is properly bandaged up, likely having taken a trip to the hospital. Sasuke gives him a quick glance over, taking in his condition as Naruto bounds ahead, chattering his greetings as Iruka’s expression does… something.

A thing that Sasuke can only describe as ‘melting like putty’ as he squats down to earnestly meet Naruto’s eyes, nodding and listening to every word. Sasuke wonders how he hadn’t noticed before, Naruto’s had an older brother all along, hasn’t he?  

Sasuke glides over, plucking Naruto by the collar as he gives a sight bow for the both of them, “Thank you for your lesson in the eastern quarter a few nights ago, Iruka-sensei.” His former teacher brightens, and Sasuke subtly shifts his gaze between him and Naruto—their smiles are the same, despite not being related by blood.

“Of course. You’ll always be my precious students, feel free to visit sometime, alright?”

Sasuke smirks, “Even if you play favorites?” 

Iruka coughs, cheeks burning, “I do not play favorites.” 

“Keep telling yourself that, sensei. I know who made that jumpsuit the dope refuses to get rid of.” With that, Sasuke hums, tugging Naruto away while Iruka sputters at the front podium.

Maybe Shikamaru had the right idea, teasing adults about their weak spots was fun now and then.

☯

Their teams assignments listed off, the same as they were before. Sasuke is forced to face something he’s been very ardently avoiding. 

Haruno Sakura. 

Ino had tugged at Naruto’s cheeks, grinning brightly as she congratulated the both of them on making genin—before just as quickly whining about not ‘missing all the fun’ due to her minor house arrest. Sasuke had rolled his eyes, shoving the Yamanaka’s face away before he felt the eyes on his back. He doesn’t even need to look to know it’s Sakura’s glare. 

(Seriously, he really wishes Ino would just make up with her already. This is a different kind of migraine compared to the two of them just competing over him.)

The civilian girl marches right up to his desk after break, as soon as Ino has disappeared with the rest of her team. She plops down next to Sasuke who tries to keep his face as blank as humanly possible, he’s barely looked at her for more than a glance these past couple school years, after all.

This Sakura barely matches the girl in his memories. Her pink hair is tied back into a long partial braid, her top is different than he remembers, he glances down and sees the black hakama style pants she’d replaced her shorts with a while back. For some reason, Sasuke gets the impression that they’re less fabric and more armored, her hitaiate proudly pulls her bangs back from her forehead as she makes direct eye contact. Sasuke slowly raises an eyebrow as Naruto stays frozen, half way between eating his tempura, blinking at Sakura with a clear curiosity.

“… Uh, hey Sakura-chan. It looks like we’re in the same squad!” 

Naruto shrinks as her gaze cuts to him next, straightening in her chair, “That’s right, I’m a genin now. A proper kunoichi, the best in the class.”

She leans right into his face, seafoam eyes just this side of furious.

“Y… yes?” 

“My chakra control’s one of the best! I’m the top kunoichi.”

Sasuke leans backward as Sakura leans forward.

Him and Naruto share a wary look.

“Yeah, why?”

(Hrm. Ignoring her outright seems to have given her a bit of a complex, more problems for later.)

“That means you can’t leave me out anymore. And, Ino will—” Sakura pauses, making a face as Sasuke arches an incredulous eyebrow, “—Doesn’t matter, teammates eat together. So, we’re eating together.”

She’s oddly focused in her stubbornness, unyielding, Sasuke is reminded of a battlefield and a civilian-born shinobi who’d punched a goddess in the face. He inclines his head, clearly assessing her, as her left eye twitches and she struggles as if trying not to show her childish pout.

He scoots over and Sakura takes her spot, squishing him against Naruto. 

“ You’re right, we can eat together. We’ll be teammates, after all."

“R-Right… that’s right.” She repeats to herself like it’s a mantra—Sasuke feels kind of bad. Just a little.

He’d known the form Team 7 would take, but Sakura certainly hadn’t, she’d probably been anxious, watching Yamanaka Ino in her mind’s eye, climbing the stairs to clan succession as a heiress while she was stuck toiling at the ranks as a first generation civilian-born shinobi.

Her muscles are corded, speaking of hours upon hours of training outside of classes while her gaze is sharp and determined.

They’re good eyes, Sasuke thinks. She’ll fit in just fine.

So, he quietly gives her a piece of shrimp and Sakura blinks in surprise before brightening up, sitting a little straighter, anxiety lifting from her shoulders like a shroud.

Naruto shrugs at the silent display, launching into conversation about a scroll on seals Kiba’s mother had found for him recently. Sakura hops in easily, asking Naruto about his taijutsu practicals, which sets them both off about close range advantages versus long range. 

Sasuke munches on his rice ball, in the back of his mind he ticks off another box. Sakura would be happy, much happier than she’d been chasing a hollowed out container for hatred that was little more than a corpse. 

Just one last puzzle piece to find.

☯

Together they wait for their sensei, Sasuke cracks open his medical textbook as Sakura crowds in closer to read over his shoulder after the first hour of boredom.

Naruto kicks his legs from where he’s perched on the edge of the desk. They’re both clingy sorts, in that last life as well as this one—Sakura is still too unsure of her place to be quite as brazen as Ino had been almost immediately. This version of Sakura had watched her best friend drift away, the two of them separated by class and social rank, the ‘game’ between them had never even been started because Ino had left it by befriending Sasuke as a brother instead of an unreachable girlhood crush, building tighter bonds with her fellow clan heirs.

This Sakura is insecure in a different sort of way, and Sasuke… certainly feels a degree of responsibility to rectify it at least.

“Do you plan to specialize?”

Sakura jumps a foot in the air, scooting away from Sasuke with a guarded expression, “… What do you mean?”

“Well, you’re planning on being a career shinobi, right? Are you planning on picking a specialization when you get promoted?”

She wavers, brows furrowing slightly as she bows her head, “I… I want to catch up with Ino.” The words are sullen and subdued but, well, Sasuke’s heard far worse reasonings. At least she’s willing to admit her goal this time.

Sasuke still rolls his eyes a bit, “I mean that’s all well and good, and you seem well-rounded to me even if your stamina can use some work.” 

Sakura’s eyes meet his then, they’re practically blazing, “Not as good as yours.” 

“Not a lot of people are better than me.”


“Naruto is.”

“Naruto’s,” an Uzumaki, a force of nature, his Yang, the vessel of the strongest chakra beast in the Elemental Nations, “special.”

The girl falls silent again, tapping her fingers on the desk, looking away with a huff; Naruto leans his head all the way back to look at the both of them.

“Ehh? So I’m ‘special’ now, teme? Ne, ne! Say it again! I’m totally gonna rub this in Kiba’s face later!”

Sasuke looks him square in the eye, “You’re special and there’s no one in the world quite like you.” He says, bluntly, “If you went off and died somewhere I’d crumple like a wilting hydrangea and never bloom again.”

Naruto whistles, eyebrows raising, as though impressed, “Yikes, you’re bleak, today.”

He tugs at a lock of Naruto’s hair, causing the boy to yelp and almost lose his balance on his haunches. “If you think this is bleak you should see the guy who’s gonna be our sensei.” 

Naruto squints at him suspiciously, “Wait… you know who our sensei is gonna be!?”

Sasuke shrugs, “Just a small hunch. You’ll see what I mean in a little while,” leaving Naruto to pout and stew, he returns his gaze to a thoughtful Sakura, “so, do you have any other goal, besides getting Yamanaka of all people to look at you?”

It wouldn’t do for Sakura to place all of her worth on one persona again, that’s half of what had made the team so dysfunctional the first go around.

Sakura’s eyes darted away, “I… I like genjutsu. I’m good at it, I think.”

“You’re the top of the class, that’s a bit more than ‘good’.”

She puffs out her cheeks in annoyance, “Well! I don’t know. I just figured I’d try to be good at everything to compensate for being a civilian and… ah, well… things sort of…”

Sasuke blinks in disbelief, the truth finally dawns on him, “You… didn’t have a plan past graduation, did you.”

Sakura looks down at her lap with rosy cheeks, Sasuke sort of wants to bang his head into the table, he’s not sure if this is worse or better than the crush thing. Then again, wasn’t this still technically the same thing but with a different target? He soundly closes his book, making a mental note of the page.

“Okay, alright, that’s… fine. But you have to know what the team line ups are shaping up to be, right? With how the Hokage structured things?”

Sakura nods her head, looking more confident again, “Of course. Team 8 is the obvious pick for tracking and scouting, then Ino’s—I-I mean Team 10 is more suited for infiltration and intelligence gathering. It makes sense, all of their blood limits work well together in team comps.”

Sasuke nods, “And what about Team 7.” 

Sakura falters again, face screwing up in deeper thought, “Ah… well, Naruto-kun’s really strong in taijutsu and his stamina is crazy, yours is too, but Naruto’s,” she pauses, looking at Sasuke mulishly, “stronger than you, physically he’s bulkier than you, but you’re… faster. And I’m way behind either of you two.”

She looks like she’s swallowed a lemon just to admit that one. Sasuke’s almost flattered.

He’s also briefly surprised she’d picked up on that much just through watching the class spars alone--she’s pretty sharp overall, general animosity aside. Either way, Sasuke hums in agreement, Naruto had started edging past him in body mass already with a balanced diet, Sasuke meanwhile was looking to be more lithe in stature, built more for speed than anything else. Closer to his mother and Itachi’s body types than his father’s; the previous version of him had chosen to bulk up as much as possible instead of taking advantage. 

“You also have your dojustu, and Uchiha are skilled in genjutsu and ninjutsu.”

“Fire release. It’s our specialty, lightning pops up in the genetics now and then, though. I also want to specialize in poisons.” Sakura blinks at him as if something’s only just occurred to her.

“But… then, why were you reading an advanced medical textbook of all things? You’ve definitely got the makings for a front line fighter like Naruto.” 

Sasuke tilts his head, “Oh, that’s because I want to be a medicnin as my main skill set.”

Silence.

“What?”

“I want… to be… a medic…” Sasuke says again, slowly, wondering if he should just get back to his book as Sakura’s jaw drops, he swears her braid bristles like an offended cat’s tail.

“I-I… you. What.” 

“Sasuke’s real determined!” Naruto cuts in, bouncing in place, always excited to brag. “He’s been studying for a couple years now, Inoichi-oji has been mentoring him in his free time, y’know!”

“D-Did you just call the head of the Yamanaka clan uncle!?” Sakura’s voice takes on a despairing edge, as she grips her hair, “No, wait, go back to the medic thing—how! Why!? Do you even have the chakra control for that?”

Sasuke shrugs, “Dunno, haven’t gotten to that road bump yet.”

“You’re a meathead!”

She continues to wail as though he hasn’t spoken, “You beat Hinata-chan into the ground every day in practicals even though she’s the sweetest girl in class, you’re an ass to everyone but your dumb inner circle…! Your manners are atrocious! Your personality sucks! Why does Ino hang out with you!?”

There it is.

“—Wow, tell me how you really feel, Haruno,” Sasuke drawls sarcastically, pulling more on Shikamaru than he’s willing to admit. “I’m planning on being a frontline medic, if you must know.”

“That’s not a thing!” 

(It was when you’ve got the potential chakra pools of a monster lineage and a host of fire releases in your arsenal.)

“Yeah it is,” Sasuke responds blandly, “I’m making it one.”

Sakura kind of looks like she wants to kill him. Good. She’ll need that fire to be an engaging sparring partner. “… Right, okay, alright, so what about genjutsu—”

“Don’t need it. Don’t want to use it. Burning or punching things yields faster results.”


Naruto nods in agreement,“Yeah! Sasuke says he wants to protect his people no matter what.” 


Sakura’s mouth opens and closes several times, “Good gods, I’m on a team of muscle headed idiots,”she finally mumbles after a lengthy pause, her eye visibly twitches—she should really get that checked out, Sasuke thinks, as she grabs him by the shoulders.

“The point of a medic is to stay to the back of the team, that’s how it works, the frontline protects the medic so the medic survives long enough to treat the team. I-If you became a medic it’d just be a waste of a potential powerhouse!” She shakes him a bit, Sasuke barely even reacts.

“Yeah, and I think that’s stupid.” He says, thoroughly unimpressed. He does not explain any further.

For a moment, he almost thinks Sakura might strangle him for real, right then and there, her fingers flexing and clenching on his shoulders, “Aren’t you afraid, though? A medic is always the enemy’s first target!”

“No, I’m not.”

He raises his chin confidently, staring down the girl who’d made herself small in another life, playing at being a wallflower for an unreachable fantasy. He owes it to her, to be straightforward for once, he’s testing her grit;  he wants to know what it’s like to truly become comrades with the kunoichi known as ‘Haruno Sakura’.

What had she done in that previous life to earn Naruto’s loyalty so utterly? A Sannin’s attention? The respect of their entire generation? ‘He’ hadn’t cared, so Sasuke wanted to try.

“Why not?” Sakura practically whines, presently at her wits end as Sasuke glances at Naruto subtly who’s still grinning, sitting cross legged on the desk, firmly turned away from the door now. 

“Easy, I have Naruto to pick up the slack.”

Naruto nods again, sagely, crossing his arms, “I’ll pick up the teme’s slack when he’s healing and he’ll pick up mine on the battlefield! Win-win!"

Sakura doesn’t have anything to say to that, wordlessly dropping her hands from his shoulders, before groaning in defeat. Soon, she’s back to bowing her head, thinking so hard, Sasuke can practically see the steam pouring out of her ears.

Sasuke cracks open his book, glancing at the clock—it’s three hours past the meeting time. His last puzzle piece should be arriving soon. 

He’s harassed Sakura enough now to give her something to chew on at least.

✇✇✇

The Hokage had taken him to the Uchiha main house. 

Kakashi had breathed in the fresh air of the garden and the scent of flowers and herbs, the two of them gliding through the expanse of the serene household as though traversing a shrine. There’s less dust than he imagined when thinking of two academy children living alone for several years. Kakashi runs his fingers across wooden columns and counters, the space on its own is cluttered but it’s more of an organized chaos. 

It’s a perfect sort of blend of two personalities that should mesh together as well as water and oil. There's a shared television and an uneven stack of civilian movies in the dining room and a bookshelf full of books and scrolls that seem well-worn from tiny hands.

Four years.

Kakashi wonders.

How had these two children lived for four years? What were their routines as orphans who’d met each other once and chosen to hold tightly and never let go?

He thumbs the books with increasingly larger and more complicated scientific names, eyebrows furrowing as he finds himself stopping at a hefty textbook on the human circulatory system. Kakashi’s melancholy lifts in conjunction with his natural curiosity.

This didn’t seem right.

He crosses his arms baffled as he scans through books and scrolls in equal measure while The Yondaime enters behind him, the old man also scanning the titles with an exasperated sort of resignation.

“I don’t recall Itachi being into poisons, Hokage-sama.”

Kakashi raises his eyebrows as he picks up a book at random, skimming the pages with a low, impressed sort of whistle at some of the more… creative annotations he catches. Whoever took these notes had a sadistic streak a mile long, Mikoto-senpai’s hand-me-downs, maybe?

Sarutobi lets out a dry laugh, eyes looking more dead than alive: “Oh no, not Itachi. You’re looking at Uchiha Sasuke’s personal collection.”

The jounin goes very still at that, eyes focusing in on the familiar kanji of a name in the bottom corner of the backs of one of the journals he finds on herbal neurotoxicity.

There’s several names he knows from his ANBU days now that Kakashi’s looking.

Those little shits.

Mechanically the books are slotted back into place, “Uchiha’s don’t usually deal in poisons, though, they’re powerhouses.”

“Shikaku insists the young boy’s using it to cope with the trauma of losing his family so young,” Kakashi pointedly looks past the main room and the open shoji doors they’d entered in from out at the garden full of poisonous flora with a raised eyebrow, Sarutobi makes a face, “It is a rather beautiful yet deadly garden, isn’t it? I’d say it’s a perfect metaphor for Sasuke-kun’s lineage.”

“Maa, that’s definitely something we can both agree on.”

He glances down at the collection of out of print Uzushio sealing scrolls and books and momentarily freezes—his insides clench in something that must be agony, because Kakashi knows that collection better than anyone’s.

Kushina-nee.

He wants to break down then and there, but he’s much too numb.

Which one of her former classmates was it? He can only bring up a scant few, Kakashi had practically thrown himself into ANBU service after the deaths of the Fourth and his wife. Gods, he hadn’t even figured out what happened to their belongings after the fact, how could he have not known? It’s not like Kushina-nee and Sensei had any living blood relatives, of course it’d all go to their former classmates and dearest friends.

Kakashi’s long learned his lesson by now, there is nothing in this world that stays, not truly. And yet… and yet, he finds himself moving, face carefully blank as he steps forward.

Before he can even examine his intentions or the sudden swell of emotion at the sight of the literature Kushina had painstakingly collected after the fall of her village, doggedly wanting to keep every shred of it with her, begging Minato, even after he’d become Hokage, to help her keep searching on the black market.

She’d told Kakashi about it often, after she’d become pregnant, bashfully saying she wanted to raise her son as a child of Uzushio, with his birthright of ink, wind and whirlpools—the way Uzumaki Mito had raised her just the same.

They were fond memories, Kakashi can’t stand the thought of the books rotting away in some treasure vault where Kushina’s son won’t see them for twenty more years.

He stands defiantly in front of the books, Obito would’ve been done proud by the insubordination.

He forces eye contact with Hiruzen inclining his head slightly, “I believe I’ve seen enough, Hokage-sama.”

✇

When he first enters the room, Kakashi is flooded with the urge to flee as fast and as far as he can.

Uchiha Sasuke sits at a desk, pouring over a medical textbook, mumbling under his breath, long black eyelashes obscuring his black irises as they efficiently skim over the pages, he takes notes one-handed in a small notepad that’s nearing the end of its pages. His little face is serious and focused, he doesn’t even look up when Kakashi enters the classroom. 

Uzumaki Naruto is not too far away, letting out sharp grunts as he runs through familiar Uchiha taijutsu forms that sort of leave Kakashi with a sense of vertigo.

(There’s a boy in his mind going through those same katas with black hair and eyes like the midnight sky, and a smile like sunshine and Kakashi doesn’t think he can do this—)

Naruto whirls around with a wide grin that’s a mirror image of Kushina-nee and Kakashi has to completely clear out his mind, otherwise he fears dropping to his knees. 

Haruno Sakura, the least emotionally charged option of the genin litter, is meditating, as far from the other two boys as possible. Her brows are furrowed in concentration, her eyes slide open and she scrambles to her feet, brushing off her skirt with a somewhat timid look.

She reminds him hauntingly of a girl with chestnut hair and purple clan markings on her cheeks.

“Are you our sensei?”

The child asks, braid swaying as she trots over, hands folded politely in front, Kakashi looks down at those large, soft green eyes, and sort of feels a chill down his spine at the amount of trust present in their depths. 

“I dunno, Sakura-chan he looks kinda shady to me…”

“Naruto! Don’t be rude!”

Kakashi wants to bolt.

Kakashi needs to fail them or he'll lose what's left of his entire mind, he can’t do this.

Three heads of black, pink and blonde perch on the steps leading down to the lower platform of the Academy’s roof. Kakashi shoves his hands in his pockets as he tries not to let them twitch—the Uchiha child hasn’t stopped staring at Naruto.

—Something about those fathomless eyes makes his skin crawl in a way that brings him back to his days leading Team Ro with two bonded Uchiha’s, one of which would give him that long stare with a deep, unsettling smile reserved for whenever foreign eyes would linger on his oblivious young partner for a beat too long.

True, Uchiha Shisui was a terrifying force to be reckoned with, but Kakashi doesn’t know what to call whatever this is.

Naruto is also quite oblivious, or, at least he seems to be acting the part, leaning obnoxiously into Sasuke’s orbit practically fidgeting in place as the other boy just sits, relaxed and unbothered while Konoha’s jinchuriki hangs off of him like a barnacle, chattering right in his ear.

Surprisingly the quiet boy responds to each and every one of the Uzumaki’s queries, his voice is low and patient, a hand carding into fluffy blonde spikes and settling there. Their bodies seem to gravitate towards each other. Kakashi somehow has a sinking feeling they’d probably do the same even separated by distance, it didn’t matter if either of them were a sensor, this was the type of connection etched into a shinobi’s very soul.

Naruto’s eyes were blazing just as intensely, fairly obviously at that, if one knew the signs of an Uzumaki who’s laid a claim. —It’s in the way Sasuke subtly tilts his head and unwinds his shoulders offering up nods and allotments he’d never give to anyone else. Kakashi would know. He was once (still is) a similar animal, after all.

His gaze flickers to a pair of intertwined hands, one tanned golden and scarred from days spent under a sun not of his lineage, the other flawlessly pale like moonlight, grip tight and unwavering. They’re absolutely smitten with each other—obsessed—and they haven’t even hit puberty yet.

Kakashi hates it here.

Sakura is making a good case for being his favorite so far, just by virtue of the lack of emotional baggage associated with her existence alone. She isn’t phased by the debacle unfolding a few feet away from her, making confused faces at the textbook she’d swiped.


“I can’t even read this kanji. What jurisdiction level is this?”

“Need-to-know basis.” Sasuke replies, blandly, snatching the book back just as swiftly as Sakura glowers at him mulishly.

It is at this point, perhaps blatantly, Kakashi dryly decides that, wherever this conversation is going, he firmly does not want to know; plausible deniability and all that.

“--Well now,” Kakashi abruptly claps his hands together, getting the attention of his new team of adorable genin, “How's about you introduce yourselves?”

Naruto crinkles his nose, perching his chin on Sasuke’s head from where he’s settled on the first step behind, locking the other boy’s shoulders between his legs as he hums skeptically, “Introduce ourselves?”

“What should we say?” Sakura chimes in, brows furrowed in thought.

“Maa, well, likes, dislikes, your dreams for the future, hobbies—” Kakashi spreads his hands, shrugging, “anything you feel like sharing with your teammates, although,” he pointedly looks over at Naruto and Sasuke, “I suppose only two out of the four of us actually need this exercise.”

Naruto nods, coiling his arms around Sasuke’s neck, casually, as though he’s done it thousands of times before, and honestly, he very well may have if Kakashi’s reading the two’s codependent tendencies right.


“Okay! But you gotta tell us about you first, sensei.”

Kakashi blinks slowly down at the child, Naruto beams back at him brightly and it takes all of his will power not to recoil, “Me? Well. Name, Hatake Kakashi—my likes and dislikes are… ah, I don’t feel like telling you,” Sakura and Naruto both give him a dirty look, Kakashi’s visible eye squints in amusement.

“I don’t have any dreams in particular and—hm. I suppose I have many hobbies.”

Sakura makes a disgusted noise rooted in annoyance, “That didn’t tell us anything.”

“I told you he was shady…!” Naruto groans in frustration, burrowing his face into Sasuke’s hair—who’d begun reading again at some point, eyes scanning down the pages with a frankly unnerving focus.

Kakashi can’t even be offended.

“Sakura-chan, how about you go first?”

Honestly, his instincts, from the way they’re screaming right now, are kind of telling him he’s not at all ready for the mess that’s going to come tumbling out of the other two’s mouths in just a few short minutes.

Avoidance is the name of the game, as they say.

The girl lifts her head, straightens up, “Haruno Sakura, I like syrup coated dumplings and,” she glares down at her lap, she doesn’t finish, she shoots quite the menacing glare Sasuke’s way that has Kakashi inclining his head with a slow blink. “My hobbies are flower arrangement and trivia games, I hate being seen as weak. My dream is to be the best kunoichi in the village.”

Kakashi shifts his admittedly low expectations a bit, there’s steel in the girl’s eyes, different from the ghost he sees in this funhouse mirror version of Team 7. He sits on the railing, leaning forward as he assesses the child he’s planning on failing through no fault of her own.

“Well now, that’s an interesting goal. I recall your parents are civilians, yes?”

Sakura nods firmly, eyes stubborn and forward facing, she doesn’t break eye contact, “Yes, merchants sir. We settled in the village around the Second Shinobi War for protection from displaced rouge nin.”

“Ah, so you’re a, give or take, third generation Konoha native.” Another nod. “So, why pick ninja as a profession? You have a family business, there’s no need for you to seriously pursue a career with such a high mortality rate.”

He watches her face go a little pale, and her jaw set, Kakashi waits for a beat, then several—well, he’s going to fail her no matter what, so it’s not as though the answer truly matters… but.

(There was always a ‘but’ wasn’t there?)

“I… want to be strong, strong enough that people have no choice but to look at me, strong enough that Papa doesn’t have to leave the village every other winter to restock on wares and expose himself to bandits.”

Kakashi hums, the life of a civilian was truly a perilous thing, especially if you weren’t wealthy enough to hire even a chunin level guard when traversing the Land of Fire.

He evaluates the girl’s insecurity, putting it under a microscope. The way she fidgets under his gaze but doesn’t waver—well, she’d do fine next year, she’s got the grit if nothing else.

His eyes slant over to Naruto, who’s wrapped around Sasuke like an octopus, reading over the Uchiha’s shoulder with a confused look in those sky blue eyes, the two boys’ cheeks are soundly pressed together like they’re trying to become one being. Kakashi sort of doesn’t even want to acknowledge either of them for a plethora of increasingly complicated reasons.

He asks the question: “Naruto-kun. How about you go next.” Naruto perks up, back to his position with Sasuke seated between his legs.

“Right, Sensei,” he chuckles, scratching at his nose in a cheeky gesture so familiar Kakashi thinks he might just go insane before the day’s done.

“My name’s Uzumaki Naruto! I like Sasuke first and foremost, he’s my one and only! Then Iruka-sensei, my friends, uh, Tsume-obaa is super nice! So’s Jii-jii, Shikaku-oji is also really nice and he’s way better at teaching me kanji than Shikamaru, uh,” the boy seems to run out of fingers for his ‘precious people’ at an alarming rate.

Kakashi is too enamored by the familiar names of several of the top Jounin in the village all presumably circumventing a standing gag order for years now, to even register the feeling in his gut as jealousy.

This was his would-be baby brother, his sensei’s son. Family. Pack. And he wasn’t even allowed to know him.

He blinks and sits back on the railing, Sakura at least seems to have a proper reaction to the frankly absurd revelations about Konoha’s upper brass. She looks increasingly horrified by the moment, mouth opening and closing as she lets out a keen like a distressed kettle.

“H-How do you know the Jounin Commander?”

“Oh, that’s Shikamaru’s dad. Ino’s papa has been tutoring Sasuke about—”

Suddenly, Sasuke subtly taps Naruto’s ankle, the boy’s mouth shuts with a click. It’s the first time the boy’s made a motion that isn’t turning a page in his textbook in the past fifteen minutes. Naruto tilts his head down as Sasuke tilts his back up. Uzumaki's gaze is penetrating and unblinking:

‘What is it, what’s happened? Did something upset you?’—his eyes seem to implore—‘I’ll give you anything.’

The devotion on display is truly staggering. Kakashi doesn’t envy whoever tries to separate the two on missions when they both get their promotions in the future.

“Dope, you’re getting off track again. What are your dislikes?” It’s the most Kakashi’s heard the kid talk since he walked into the classroom, his voice is gravelly and low. But, there’s a matching fond undercurrent there, reserved solely for Naruto, who beams in response to the comment and nods gamely along.

“Oh, yeah! You’re right. Uh, I also like ramen, so I guess I dislike the wait time when you pour hot water into instant ramen?”

The blonde hems and haws, folding his arms over Sasuke’s head, who’s already returned to reading, “Oh! I also hate raw veggies an’ genjutsu cause I can never get it right,” he mumbles, pouting.

Kakashi inclines his head, but doesn’t comment. Gai was never any good at anything but taijutsu either, after all. “And your goals—? Hobbies?”

The distracted boy perks up again, grinning Kushina’s smile, turning Kakashi’s insides into mush. “I like taijustu and seals! I’m real good at those, Tsume-obaa says I have a knack for ‘em!”

Kakashi has a headache already—Wonderful.

“My goal is to become a super ultra strong shinobi so I can protect my precious people and bring Sasuke happiness!”

Sasuke’s eyes slowly lift from the page at that, brows furrowing, as though he thinks he’s misheard. It’s also the first time the two boys have been out of rhythm that Kakashi’s seen; Sasuke tilts his head back until he’s meeting Naruto’s eyes again, frowning.

“That’s not a goal for the future, dope.”

Interesting.

Naruto huffs, “Nope, already said it, no take backs!”

Sasuke sighs in irritation, eyes rolling back into his skull as he closes the book. Twin black holes meet Kakashi’s single eyed gaze, they soften, just a little. It makes Kakashi uncomfortable, like the kid can see right through him, like he already knows him.

“… Uchiha Sasuke. I like onigiri, tomatoes and Naruto. I dislike liars.” His tone and flat and bleak, for lack of better term, Kakashi suddenly feels a cresting wave of empathy for past Minato, dealing with Kakashi at the age of eight with this attitude must’ve been a nightmare.

“My hobbies are taijutsu, gardening, and studying, And my dream for the future…” Sasuke glances up at Naruto, too subtle for the blonde to notice, his expression settles:

“My dream is to become a frontline medic, find my older brother, and bring him home.” Kakashi feels his stomach drop, his eyes flicker back to the impossible boy in question, who’s said something utterly untenable, “I’ll bring Naruto happiness no matter what.”

Naruto is blinking down at Sasuke, slow and wary, he doesn’t even address the last thing. It’s like the kid already expected it.

“Seriously?”

“Hn.”

“I thought your Nii-san… uh…”

“He’s not well.” Sasuke replies briskly, “I’m going to bring him home and take care of him, since Nii-san won’t take care of himself.”

Sakura blinks out of her shock, before piping up looking a bit like she’s traversing a field of eggshells, honestly, Kakashi can relate. “Uhm… isn’t your brother also a missing nin?”

“He is.” Kakashi is almost impressed by the kid’s poker face, he doesn’t think he’d have managed one quite as flawless at the age of twelve. Sakura, it seems, is equally mystified by the nonsense leaving the last loyal Uchiha’s mouth.

“So, how are you going to bring him home, then?”

Sasuke shrugs, giving a non-answer, “I’ve already decided to bring him back, so that’s what I’ll do. Family’s important to me now more than ever, you know?”

Kakashi really wishes he’d gotten the Hyuuga-hime and her entourage instead of this hot mess. And, in a truely Hatake fashion—he decides to sidestep this particular mess entirely. So, Kakashi swiftly gathers his metaphorical jaw off of the floor, and focuses back to the other alarming thing, the boy had mentioned to start.

“… So, a ‘medic’, eh? Sasuke-kun, isn’t your clan more genjutsu-oriented?”

“It doesn’t matter, I want to be a healer.” Sasuke says, bluntly, eyes serene and unwavering, like he’s already run through his decision a thousand times in his head—he very well might have, as far as the boy’s stubborn continuance is concerned.

“I’m a sensor-type, I just have to figure out a way to channel my chakra into something usable.”

(How did he get three stubborn types on the same squad, wasn’t this too absurd?)

Kakashi kind of wants to laugh, and he does exactly that, shoulders shaking, rubbing a weary hand over his face, “You’re a main house, Uchiha, large chakra pools run in your veins, you’re a direct descendant to Uchiha Madara. It’s why mainline Uchiha’s usually don’t birth medic nin—wait.”

He thinks he just had a heart attack, when he speaks again his sentence comes out flatter than he means it: “… You’re a what.”

“A sensor!” Naruto chimes in, once again while Kakashi is still reeling. “Sasuke’s range is kinda insane thanks to his… uh…”— “Latent chakra pools.” “Yeah, that’s the word! Thanks Sasuke!” “—they’re apparently really developed for his age! Inoichi-oji has been bragging at Wednesday dinner for months.”

Was Kakashi the only one left out of this new development of the upper Jounin echelon collectively and secretly mentoring Kushina and Mikoto’s demon spawns? He’s annoyed, furious, and, perhaps worst of all, distressingly jealous about the whole thing.

Kakashi is filled with the sudden urge to return home to scream very loudly, for a very, very, long time into a pillow.

Alas, all that leaves him is a dry sort of laugh.

It’s the morbid curiosity that ultimately forces Kakashi’s next mistake that absolutely destroys all semblance of future plausible deniability: “… What is your range, exactly?”

Sasuke doesn’t answer, the little shit just looks him in the eye and smiles, real soft and sweet—it doesn’t even reach his eyes, there is no answer other than that. A slow, instinctive, chill creeps up Kakashi’s spine. For a brief moment, he sees the ghost of Manslayer Uchiha Mikoto, his senpai excited for an upcoming hunt, eyes flickering red.

“That reminds me… there used to be the cutest stray cat that would show up to help me garden in the mornings. He’s stopped showing up lately though, did he belong to you?”

Kakashi freezes dead, jaw working as the genin’s head tilts, eyes wide and deceptively beseeching, as though he’s genuinely worried about this ‘stray cat’. “He really was a big help when I added another plot to my garden this year… Please, if you see him, can you tell him I said to come by again? I really do like seeing his water koi in the mornings.”

He grinds his teeth for a moment, Naruto and Sakura glancing between them in awe, like they’re watching a particularly intense kickball game. But Kakashi is a professional in bullshitting, so he answers the little devil, expression flat as can be:

“Of course. I’ll... tell him to visit again. I’m sure he misses you very much.”

Kakashi fucking hates it here.

✇

Kakashi does not fail the children in the following bell test, to his absolute despair, they all (regrettably) work well under pressure.

Naruto and Sasuke are perfectly in sync, hitting him hard and fast with a precision Kakashi expects out of Kotesu and Izumo, not two orphan boy flatmates who’ve just been spat out of the Academy’s stripped down peace time curriculum.

He has to put down his book after the first ten minutes to avoid getting singed by a particularly nasty Uchiha katon. It brings back terrible memories, Obito’s clan jutsu combined with a boy wearing his dishonored kouhai’s face, fighting back to back with a gamely Naruto who’s vicious grin was all Kushina.

It's enough to send him internally spiraling.

The two fight like they’ve been training in sync for years, they practically have their own system of head tilts and clumsy hand motions with no roots in anything Kakashi’s seen in the upper ranks. He thinks he can blame one of his many senpai’s for this, he’s not sure yet which one.

Fighting them feels less like tossing around fumbling toddlers and more like play-fighting with a gaggle of wolf pups.

Sakura, seems intuitive of their bond, at least enough to take up a role of support from a distance with carefully aimed kunai stars—Maa, well there were ways to fix that, she’d grow complacent and stagnate if she got used to supporting the two powerhouses from a distance.

What if Naruto and Sasuke were incapacitated for some reason, or even just one of the two for example? Maybe he could get the girl to cultivate a more fitting specialization, she definitely had chakra control well-above the other two frontline juggernauts in the making, even advanced as the Uchiha boy was. The team dynamic would collapse quickly without a balanced skillset, two man teams just weren’t historically stable. Even Hashirama, the God of Shinobi himself, worked best with Madara and his little brother at his back. Really, Kakashi could probably alleviate this weakness before it festers by,

Hm?

Why was he thinking about future team compositions? Wasn’t Kakashi going to fail them?

The realization makes him stumble, midway through tossing the Uchiha halfway across the training ground; one of the Naruto’s cries out in triumph, snatching the bells from Kakashi’s waistband in a single motion, tossing them just before Kakashi disperses the clone with a sharp, brutal, strike to the gut. Sasuke catches them from several clicks away, the way his eyes squint in time with his smug, closed lipped smile is a mirror of Weasel’s.

Aw, hell.

Kakashi thinks, as Sakura leaps down from the trees with an excited exclamation, giving Naruto a giddy high-five. She shoots Sasuke a wary look, childishly puffing out her cheeks and looking away—only for Naruto to toss his arms around both of their shoulders, pulling them in close, excitedly going off on a tangent about Sakura’s aim and wow, Sakura-chan I bet you’d be really good with a bow and arrow, you actually managed to skim sensei’s flak jacket a couple times!

(She had, she did, embarrassingly enough on Kakashi’s end for writing her off; it’s certainly something the girl has a knack for.)

When he gives them their final test, Kakashi is unsurprised when neither boy hesitates to share their meal with a pouting Sakura, tied securely to one of the wood stake targets.

Dammit, I have to pass them, don’t I?

❀❀❀

By the time Sakura had realized Ino drifted away, it was too late to do anything about it.

It’d started that first day she’d stormed off to eat lunch with Sasuke and the other clan heirs—the process had been gradual. The worst part was that they hadn’t even fought at all, there weren’t big and dramatic with insults they both regretted after, either. Ino had simply… lost her mask. She’d let slip grim facts about politics into their light hearted conversations about boys and gossip, she’d flaunt her knowledge about poisonous flora and the ones shinobi frequently bought out of the Clan shop, she started training harder, speaking to Shikamaru and Chouji in class more often.

This is fine, Sakura thought at first, anxious little thing she was, just happy to listen to her first friend rant and talk about things she barely understood as a civilian. And it was fine, Sakura could be a good listener, even if some of the things Ino spoke about made her head kind of spin, their implications galaxies away from her worry on if her father would come home safe from trading in the next town over.

The day Ino had finally noticed, however, that had been the worst—because again, it wasn’t big, it wasn’t as dramatic as it felt it ought to have been.

She’d been in the middle of a long rant about clan politics, something about her father and T&I, and there must’ve been something in Sakura’s eyes that made her pause. Slowly, her mouth had closed, her beautiful face gone carefully blank, and she’d murmured out the softest of ‘oh’s, followed by a mortified flush.

“You probably don’t really care about stuff like this, do you, Sakura.”

Her voice had been defeated and hurt, like she was waiting for this, like it was a long time coming. Sakura had opened her mouth and stopped, frozen by the look of bleak realization swimming in those blank pupil-less eyes.

Any words she could’ve said died in her throat.

They’d eaten in silence for the rest of lunch while Sakura scrambled desperately for the words to fix this, to make her understand, but they never came. It was the last time they ate lunch together, in fact. After that day, Ino had still been friendly with the girls, but there was a clear distance now, her smiles—her real smiles—were reserved for the far left side of the room, nestled in the cluster of clan children.

Around Uchiha Sasuke, who got so much of Ino’s attention, her teasing, her worrying, her well-meaning barbs and sharp edges she only ever showed around beasts just like her.

(Sakura hates him, a little she thinks.)

Ino stopped looking at her completely after a year, and Sakura… she grew angry, she grew determined—she’d always been a stubborn sort, after all, and Sakura always hated being ignored.

It’s surreal to think she’s made it here, in Sasuke’s house after the nerve wracking bell test, finally (finally) a genin as Ino had come bounding out in an apron, gleeful at the sight of the trio. The first thing she does is tackle Naruto and Sasuke in a bear hug, eyes bright and wide in a way Sakura hasn’t seen directed at her in years. It kind of makes her want to sink to the ground and cry, when those eyes swivel around to face her and don’t dim in disappointment.

Ino hugs her next, tight and warm, it’s one of the best hugs Sakura’s experienced in recent memory, though that could also be the adrenaline from fighting their crazy jounin sensei. Then she pulls back and pats Sakura’s shoulders, bewitching as ever, inclining her head as a pale blond ponytail tumbles over her shoulder.

Sakura’s face feels hot as Ino offers up a mischievous grin, soft hands curling over hers.


“Well done keeping up with these two idiots, Sakura! I knew you could do it.”

Those blue eyes are for once, solely focused on her, and honestly, it's all Sakura’s ever wanted.