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Summary:

In another world, Sasuke and Sakura's situations are reversed. What will happen because of it?

Started out short, ended up long. Oops.

SasuSaku Month 2021: Role Reversal

Chapter 1: A whole ton of stuff happens

Chapter Text

7 year old Sasuke was walking around the village after shuriken practice when he heard 2 women whispering. 

“Did you hear? There was a massacre! An entire clan was wiped out!” the first whispered excitedly. 

“No way!” the second responded.

“Yeah! Apparently it was a young boy who killed them all!” 

“A young boy? Why?” 

Sasuke dropped down and fiddled with his laces. He untied them and retied them, straining his ears to listen. 

“I don’t know! He was probably crazy or something.” 

“Which clan?” 

Sasuke held his breath. Please not the Uchiha. Please not the Uchiha. 

“The Haruno.” Sasuke let out a sigh of relief. It was horrible, but he was still glad his clan wasn’t gone. 

“There was one survivor right?” A survivor? Who?

“Really? A survivor? Huh.” Who was the survivor? 

Right when the other woman was about to reply, a man walked up to them. The topic changed and they walked off, leaving Sasuke alone in the middle of the path. He briefly contemplated running after them and asking who the survivor was, but it was late and Sasuke had a curfew. He was probably late for dinner as is. So he ran off towards home, mind whirling with all the news he had learned. 

When he got home, he burst in excitedly with the news. Nii-san already knew; he was an ANBU so they probably told him there. Tou-san already knew; Nii-san told him. Kaa-san also knew from Nii-san. Nii-san told them there were two survivors from the clan. One was a little girl, and the other was the killer. The boy killed his entire family? It was fascinating and horrible. 

The next few days passed in a blur. The Uchiha’s were moved back into the center of the village. ANBU found a broken door in Hokage Tower. There were forbidden scrolls missing. The clan meetings were shorter and Tou-san was in a better mood. It seemed that Tou-san had just been stressed about some recent events. Nii-san was also more fun and he took him out to train more often. 

When the weekend ended, Sasuke returned to school. Nothing was different until class started. There was a seat next to him that was empty. Usually, there was a pink-haired girl that was obsessed with him sitting there. Maybe she was sick. 

“Class,” the teacher called, “I have an announcement to make. Haruno Sakura will not be attending this class for a month.” Haruno Sakura. That was the pink-haired girl’s name! So she was the survivor?

“What class will she be in then?” a girl with blonde hair and blue eyes asked. 

“Yamananka-san. She is not going to be in school for the month,” he replied. 

There were shouts of disbelief and anger. 

“Why does she get to skip school?” a blonde boy shouted. His name was Naruto and he was always bothering Sasuke. “You never let me skip school!”

Sasuke realized then, that no one else seemed to know about the massacre. It made him feel proud. He knew something they didn’t!

“Because her family is dead.”

The class went silent. 


When Sakura finally returned to class, she didn’t turn to Sasuke and ask him how he’s doing. She didn’t stare at him. She didn’t even glance at him. In fact, she didn’t look at anyone or anything. She sat in her seat with blank eyes fixed on her desk wearing a jacket, a sweatshirt, and an overcoat, shivering. A couple of times, Sasuke asked if she was cold, but when there was no answer even after his 4th time asking, he let her be. It was weird and different. Any sudden noises caused her to jump. Any loud noises made her flinch. Any touches made her shrink away. Sasuke didn’t know what to do, so he didn’t do anything. 


A week later, Sakura dyed her hair dark brown. 


Sasuke was happy. He was graduating after passing the exams and Nii-san was coming to see him graduate. He was top of the class by 20 points more than the runner up and tou-san finally told him he was proud of him. It was easy though. Sakura was top of the class in some subjects until the massacre. Now, she was below Naruto. She barely managed to graduate but she didn’t go up for any other awards. Sasuke walked home, hanging off of Nii-san’s arm, squirming away from Kaa-san pinching his cheeks and ruffling his hair. Out of the corner of his eye, he caught sight of Sakura walking home, a wide berth around her like she had a disease. 


Sasuke was put on the same team as Naruto and Sakura. Tou-san was a little worried, but no one else seemed to mind. When Sasuke asked why, Tou-san just brushed the question off. Nii-san told him Tou-san was worried about Naruto. What was wrong with Naruto? He was just annoying, but then again, so was everyone else. After a few days of nobody protesting any of the teams, Tou-san calmed down. 

“My name is Hatake Kakashi. My likes and dislikes are none of your business. I have a few hobbies. My dream? Hmmm… never thought of it.” So apparently his jonin instructor was a complete fake. 

“My name is Uzumaki Naruto! I like ramen and Iruka-sensei buying me Ichiraku ramen! I dislike the 3 minutes it takes for ramen to heat up! My hobby is trying and comparing ramen! And my dream is to… get everyone to acknowledge me and become RAMENKAGE- I mean, HOKAGE!” And his teammate was an addict. 

“My name is Uchiha Sasuke. I like training with Nii-san and tomatoes, I dislike sweet foods and weird people, my hobby is training with Nii-san, and my dream is to become a better ninja than Nii-san!” Hmm… Maybe he said too much about Nii-san. Maybe he was an addict too.

“My name is,” she mumbled something incoherent. “I like… nothing, I guess. I dislike… people. My hobby is… I don’t know. My dream is to… become the fastest person ever.” And she was weird. 

What a team. A fake, 2 addicts, and a weirdo. Sasuke privately wondered whether Team 7 would ever amount to much.


Tou-san said Hatake Kakashi was eccentric but extremely powerful. Kaa-san assured him he will do fine. Nii-san warned him to look underneath the underneath. Sasuke was worried. Kakashi was an elite Jonin and he had mentored Nii-san in ANBU. Nii-san had told them stories of Kakashi fighting the likes of Orochimaru, someone with Wood Release, and having a perfect mission record. How could Sasuke possibly fight against that?

The next day, Sasuke arrived at the training grounds 30 minutes early. Sakura was already there. Naruto arrived 32 minutes later. Kakashi-sensei arrived 104 minutes later. Sasuke sat while he waited. Naruto took a nap. Sakura jogged in place. 


They passed the first try. Naruto started out with a one-on-one confrontation. He used some clones that were solid. They were called Shadow Clones. While Kakashi defeated them, Sasuke dragged Naruto into the bushes. He found Sakura and told them his plan. Naruto burst out with shadow clones again. Sasuke threw shuriken expertly that boxed Kakashi-sensei in. The clones surrounded him so he wouldn’t have room to dodge the shuriken. Sasuke then used a fireball to torch the area. When Kakashi-sensei jumped out of the way, Sakura sped forward and grabbed the bells. Naruto grabbed the bells and made a shadow clone. It replicated the bells and they all had one. Kakashi-sensei passed them. 


Nii-san was happy and proud. So were Tou-san and Kaa-san. They had a celebration dinner. 


Their first higher ranked mission was a disaster. The client Tazuna was a drunk and he asked for their names. Sasuke told him his first name only; the Uchiha name was a powerful one, but also one with lots of enemies. Kakashi-sensei told him he was Hatake Kakashi, Jonin of the Hidden Leaf Village. Naruto told him he was Uzumaki Naruto and he’s going to be the next Hokage, dattebayo! Remember my name! Sakura muttered something under her breath. 

When Tazuna asked for her name again, she muttered again. From the looks of things, Kakashi-sensei didn’t know her name either (he probably didn’t even bother to open their files) and Naruto had probably forgotten her name. 

“Her name is Haruno Sakura,” Sasuke informed them politely. 

That was a mistake. 

Sakura’s eyes widened and her breathing began to speed up. Her eyes were glassy, her fists clenched, she hunched over, covered her ears, closed her eyes, buckled her knees, and began shivering. They watched in silent horror as she spasmed on the ground. Kakashi-sensei talked to her quietly and felt for her pulse. It was erratic and fluttering uncontrollably. What did he do? All Sasuke had done was say her name. It wasn’t like anything big! What was wrong with her? After a long, long debate, they decided to continue with the mission once Sakura was back to normal. 

When a puddle transformed into 2 ninja, Kakashi-sensei dispatched them instantly. Then he questioned Tazuna. Did he have anyone after him? Those were chunin level rogues. He couldn’t tell who they were going for but assuming they were going after Tazuna, he needed to know. Tazuna confessed that his land was poor and there was a man hunting him down. He was trying to inspire hope in his people. Despite his character, Tazuna seemed like a good man. Sasuke voted to help them. Naruto agreed. Sakura had calmed down enough at this time to agree. Team 7 continued on. 


When Sasuke returned, Nii-san was happy he was safe. Kaa-san was worried but relieved and Tou-san was proud he completed an A-rank. He was also proud he unlocked the 2 tomoe sharingan. Sasuke had gotten it when desperation and a sheer need to protect had come over him. He thought he died, but he had woken up. Naruto nearly killed Haku for that, but stopped at the last second. Kakashi-sensei fought Zabuza. Sakura had protected Tazuna. Or at least that’s what she was supposed to be doing. She had collapsed again when Zabuza drew his sword. Tazuna had spent the rest of the fight trying to calm her down. 


Sasuke was ecstatic when he qualified for the chunin exams. They were all entering. With his sharingan, the written portion was a breeze. Sasuke had the ingenious idea of Naruto using shadow clones to get the answer. Before the test, Naruto made 20 shadow clones and transformed them into necklaces. Then he transformed into an instructor and gave the necklaces out. Near the end of the test, some of the shadow clones dissipated and Naruto was able to get the answers. Sakura was sleeping soundly. She didn’t even write a thing. When the tenth question was given out, she didn’t rouse. Sasuke was confident in his sharingan ability and Naruto still had 13 shadow clones left. Sakura was a gamble but Sasuke decided not to quit. They passed. 


Inside the forest of death, Sakura slept soundly. It was extremely hard to wake her up for her turn to keep watch and in the morning. Sasuke could barely sleep. It was too creepy and scary in the forest for him to sleep. They had entered and Sakura was lagging behind and dragging her feet, so Sasuke had told them they should turn in for the night almost immediately. Setting up camp and gathering food would take some time anyway. Naruto had complained but Sasuke subtly drew his attention to Sakura who was falling asleep standing up. When he saw that, Naruto resigned. 

They passed through the forest in no time at all. It was a new record. 3 hours. They had gotten lucky. A team had passed them an hour after they had started setting up camp and they had an extra of the scroll they needed. Naruto grabbed their own scroll and replicated it using shadow clones. He then offered one of the cloned scroll in exchange for the extra. The other team accepted. Once they were far away, Naruto released the clones. The fake scroll in the other team’s hands disappeared. That team didn’t make it to the third round. 


Sasuke was up against a person who can drain chakra from people. His name was Yoroi. Sasuke easily defeated him by beating him up. His taijutsu sucked. Naruto was up against Kiba. At first, it looked like Naruto would lose, but he scraped by with a fart. Sakura was up against Ino. They began by trading fists. Ino tried using her mind transfer jutsu, but something happened and it failed. They continued to trade fists. Things spiralled downhill once Ino pulled out a kunai. Sakura scrambled backwards, shivering, and pressed her back against the wall, her chest heaving. After a tense few minutes, Sakura slowly pulled out her own kunai. With his sharingan, Sasuke could pick out the slight trembling of her hands. Sakura took a visibly deep breath, closed her eyes, and charged. She almost literally exploded off of the ground and plunged the kunai into Ino’s arm. Without even pausing once, Sakura drove the kunai into Ino’s arm over and over again. It took 3 Jonin to stop her. Sakura had a crazed look on her face. Ino spent 4 days in the hospital.


That night, when Sasuke told his family what happened, Nii-san told him that the girl came from a civilian clan. The boy who killed her clan was her older cousin. The older cousin was also a civilian. He murdered 156 men, women, and children that night with a kunai knife he stole from her bag. That was probably why she was so scared of kunai knives. He had also attacked her with the knife: not enough to kill, but enough to leave scars… in a certain pattern. She was left alive for unknown reasons and she refused to speak on the matter. 

Sasuke resolved then and there to be nicer to her. She wasn’t weird, she was just traumatized.

There was news they had to tell as well. Orochimaru of the Legendary Sannin tried to take Nii-san’s body, but Nii-san was too strong for him. 2 seconds after the initial confrontation started, Orochimaru was in a coma. Ha! No one can beat Nii-san.


It wasn’t that hard to be nice to Sakura. There was something about her big green eyes staring at everything with poorly concealed fear, her small, shaking hands, and her small, unassuming figure that made it easy to sympathize and pity her. 

Sasuke was training with Nii-san for his final fight against Shino. Naruto was supposed to be with Ebisu, but he found Jiraiya of the Legendary Sannin for a teacher instead. Sakura was training with Kakashi-sensei. 

After training days, he went with her and Naruto to Ichiraku Ramen for lunch/dinner. He paid for her food most of the time, since she had no source of income besides what the Hokage gave her, and paid for half of Naruto’s food. Even if the Uchiha were wealthy, no one could afford to buy 10 bowls of ramen every day. 

He learned pretty early on that Naruto had a crush on Sakura. Sakura was pretty and cute and she was so small that she looked fragile. She was thin and her distinct coloring gave her a fairy-like quality. Sasuke was pretty sure that crush ended when Sakura freaked out over Naruto calling her ‘Sakura-chan’. Sasuke and Naruto had to physically restrain her to prevent her from attacking them and the red scratch marks lasted for a week before disappearing. Naruto was wary of her after that and kept his distance, both physically and emotionally. He was still friends with her and hung out, but he kept his personal confrontations at a minimum. They all slowly got closer as the month went on, meeting often, conversations that much smoother, laughter (in Sakura's case, half-smiles) burbling out easier, characteristics previously thought different and strange, now familiar and comforting. Sakura was still a little too withdrawn and Naruto still a little too loud. Sasuke found he kind of balanced them out. He was quiet but he enjoyed their company. It was nice to be with peers who were equal and (dare he say?) a little inferior to him. It was a breath of fresh air to stop being judged and compared and criticized by the Uchiha as the spare heir. 

Sasuke was a little jealous and kind of angry that he never got enough attention, but as time went on, he found that Tou-san didn’t prefer Itachi over him. He loved both sons equally, but he had to spend more time with Itachi because he would be the next heir. Sasuke actually didn’t really care for the heir, politics kind of stuff, so he didn’t mind. Kaa-san nagged as always to bring his friends over, which he adamantly refused to, because he knew if he brought over Naruto, it would make Tou-san uncomfortable, and if he brought over Sakura, Shisui would never let him hear the end of it. 


The day of the exams, things changed. Dosu had dropped out for some reason so Gaara was automatically moving up to the next round. Sasuke was fighting Shino, Kankuro was fighting Sakura, Shikamaru was fighting Temari, and Naruto was fighting Neji. 

Sasuke burnt most of Shino’s bugs and his sharingan allowed him to see when bugs were creeping up on him. He had to admit, some of Shino’s strategies were really smart. Without the sharingan, he wouldn’t have noticed the bugs on his arm. He wouldn’t have noticed the Shino in front of him being made of bugs. Shino was extremely powerful, he was just a bad match-up for him. Sasuke won. 

Sakura charged immediately after the proctor said to start. Before Kankuro could even smirk and get a snide comment in, she smacked both figures in the face. The puppet caved. Kankuro’s nose began to bleed. He doubled over clutching at the wound. He connected to the puppet and was attempting to control it when Sakura broke off some of its arms and legs. Another punch to Kankuro’s face and he was out cold. It happened so fast. Well, she did say she wanted to be the fastest ever...

Shikamaru was smart. He used shadows and the sunset and a parachute to elongate his jutsu. Temari marked where his shadow ended. But then Shikamaru tricked her by falling flat on his face in the middle of the jutsu. His body created shadows on the ground which he used to propel the length of the shadow, and before Temari could overcome the surprise of Shikamaru suddenly collapsing, he caught her in his jutsu. Once he had caught her, the stands nearly went crazy. They all knew she was trapped. She couldn’t do anything. What was Shikamaru going to do? He forfeited. He complained he was out of chakra, but Sasuke knew Shikamaru didn’t want to go against Naruto, Neji, or Gaara. 

Against all odds, Naruto defeated Neji. He began by using Shadow clones to confuse him but Neji’s taijutsu was too good. Each and every time Naruto made shadow clones, they would soon be destroyed. Then Naruto’s tenketsu points were all hit and closed off. He couldn’t even use his chakra anymore. Sasuke thought it was over right there because Naruto had huge amounts of chakra, and his fighting style consisted of ninjutsu and taijutsu. He could barely stand and his chakra points were blocked; at this point, he was a sitting duck. Then he released some sort of angry, heavy chakra and his speed and power suddenly increased. There was a struggle between them for a while before the arena exploded. When the dust settled, Neji was crawling out of a hole while Naruto was unconscious on the floor. Darn. It was a good fight though. Naruto suddenly burst out of the ground! His fist connected with the bottom of Neji’s chin and snapped his head back. That unexpected ending had Sasuke screaming and cheering along with the rest of the crowd.

It was now Sasuke versus Sakura and Naruto versus Gaara. Temari forfeited as soon as she saw Naruto take out Neji. Apparently, his chakra seemed familiarly scary and she wanted no chances that she would verse him. They were given a week of rest and training time. 


Sasuke didn’t want to fight Sakura. She seemed so weak and helpless. But Sasuke knew she was probably stronger than she looked. Tsunade Senju came into the village to heal Orochimaru at the behest of the Third Hokage. Apparently, even though Orochimaru was evil, the Third still cared about him. Tsunade Senju was impressed by how much Sakura figured out about chakra enhanced speed and strength and offered to teach her. It was a real honor. 

Sasuke was learning sharingan techniques and genjutsu with Nii-san. Tou-san taught him some more fire style jutsu and taught him some signature Uchiha-style kata. He was also doing some training with Kakashi-sensei now that he was free. He learned the Chidori, Kakashi-sensei’s own jutsu. He increased his speed like crazy to be able to blitz Sakura, hopefully, and to be able to handle the jutsu’s speed.

The day of the fight, Sasuke was nervous. His parents and Nii-san were in the stands watching him. Nii-san was wearing a cheesy “We Love Sasuke!” shirt and Kaa-san had these giant noisemakers. At least Tou-san was normal. No, never mind. He had painted ‘Go Sasuke’ on his chest and now he took off his shirt. Ugh. 

Somewhere, Orochimaru was in the stands. Nii-san had shown Orochimaru a torture so painful that Orochimaru abandoned his experiments. Being on the receiving end of the torture and pain made Orochimaru realize that giving people power and searching for immortality at the expense of others was probably bad. It seemed like an obvious thing, but to Orochimaru, this was a huge realization. For the first time in years, the Legendary Sannin were back together. 

As soon as the match started, Sasuke charged forward, hands empty. Kunai elicited a negative reaction from her and a chidori would probably be lethal. His sharingan was active so he was able to see any counter moves. Hopefully, he could hit her hard enough to make her forfeit without major damage. But Tsunade was a healer and the best one at that. If she had taught Sakura anything, it would probably be to heal herself. For all he knew, Sakura would probably be able to heal any damage he inflicted on her and just outlast him. 

He swung his arm like a club and nearly toppled over when he hit empty air. What? Sakura was probably the first person to outmaneuver an Uchiha with their sharingan active. In his defense, Sasuke was more worried about her than he was about hitting her and he only had 2 tomoe. Oh, who was he kidding? That was still impressive. Before he could get his balance and go for another attack, Sakura forfeited the match. She declared she wasn’t ready for the rank of chunin and ran out of the arena. Sasuke just stood there in shock. 


Naruto and Gaara’s fight was epic and intense. Naruto used a rasengan, which was the signature jutsu of the Fourth, to drill through the sand and many shadow clones to get closer to Gaara. Then he punched him very hard. Gaara went crazy and transformed into a monster, but Naruto summoned a giant toad which leapt about spewing water bullets to counter the monster’s air bullets. The frog then pulled out a giant sword and began slashing through the columns of sand hurtling towards it. It flipped and twisted as it fell, showing grace, poise, and agility far above any normal ninja’s level. When the toad finally got close enough to grapple with the monster, Naruto leapt off. He ran forward and smashed his head into the slumbering Gaara’s. The sand began to crumble and fall in large chunks. With a thundering roar, the monster crashed to the ground, its shape gone. Gaara lay on the floor, dazed and in pain. Naruto staggered to his feet and the proctor declared him the winner. The crowd went crazy cheering and screaming Naruto’s name. They all loved him now. 


After the battle, Sasuke found Sakura crying outside. 

“What’s the matter?” he asked. It was always good manners to ask what was wrong when someone was crying. 

Sakura just sniffled and shook her head. 

Was she scared? She was scared of kunai and swords and her name. Sasuke had done none of those things. 

Suddenly, Sasuke had the greatest idea. 

“Can I call you Ra?” he burst out excitedly. “Ya know, instead of… your name?” 

Sakura just stared uncomprehendingly. It had been kind of off topic, Sasuke thought sheepishly.

“I’ll call you Ra, okay? Ra-chan,” he clarified.

Sakura nodded slowly. The corner of her mouth lifted slightly. It was progress. 

“So, Ra-chan, what’s wrong?” 

She took a deep breath. “I-I’m sorry.” Her voice was high and thin and pretty. “I’m sorry for quitting. I didn’t want to fight though. I’m scared.” 

Sasuke was confused. “Scared? Of what?” 

“Fighting,” she replied simply.

So Sakura didn’t want to fight at all. And knowing what happened to her, Sasuke could understand. If she became a chunin, she would be sent on more dangerous missions where she would have to fight more. So she quit. 

“It’s okay. I understand,” Sasuke reassured her. He squatted beside her. He didn’t know what to do. All of the Uchiha girls were giggly and flirty or they were tough and gruff. He never met a sad girl and now he had no idea what to do. He knew he should try to cheer her up or something so he thought of what would make her laugh. A joke? Sasuke recalled a joke he had heard Shisui tell a girl once. Maybe he could try that. 

“Hey, are you an S-ranked ninja? ‘Cause you snuck your way into my heart,” he told her. 

Sakura openly gaped at him. What? He sighed in relief when she started to giggle into her knuckles. Good. It worked. 

“D-did you just use a pick-up line on me?” she sputtered. Sasuke fidgeted. A what now? He just told a joke… 

Sakura apparently found it hilarious. He didn’t know what he did, but if she enjoyed it, it was good enough for him. They stayed there talking about nothing in particular until Kaa-san called him away. He waved and got up. His knees were all creaky and sore and he might have groaned a little like an old man. Boy did he hurt all over. As he turned to leave, Sakura got up as well. She shyly wrapped her arms around him and pressed her lips to his cheek before running off in the opposite direction. For the second time that day, Sasuke stood there, shocked. Was this the first time he was kissed by a girl? Obviously not. Was this the first time he was kissed by a girl other than Kaa-san? Yes… Did he like it? ...No comment. 


After a three day break, Sasuke faced off against Naruto. Even with all the training Nii-san gave him, they tied. Naruto summoned a toad and Sasuke quickly trapped Naruto under a genjutsu. It was only a simple E-rank genjutsu, but Naruto wasn’t too good at breaking out of genjutsu. Then, with his sharingan activated, he dodged the toad’s attacks. He forced the toad to disappear when he cornered it and threw a kunai at him. It was either the toad go back, or it gets impaled. Naruto broke out of the genjutsu at that moment. The playing field was level with Sasuke’s sharingan and Naruto’s numerous clones. Sasuke used a fireball but Naruto used a dozen clones with rasengan in their hands to direct the fireball elsewhere. They began playing a deadly game of dodgeball with Naruto lobbing clones and rasengan and Sasuke blowing fireballs and chidori. Eventually, Sasuke and the real Naruto clashed with a rasengan and chidori. In their exhaustion, Sasuke’s lightning chakra fizzled out and Naruto lost control of the tightly spinning rasengan. It exploded and blew them to opposite ends of the arena, knocking them both out. 


In the end, Shikamaru, Shino, Sasuke, Naruto, Neji, and Temari were promoted to chunin. Gaara was too unstable, and Kankuro was defeated too quickly. Sakura was considered for Chunin, but she denied it. Naruto barely scraped by, but his unconventional thinking style was eventually approved as smart enough to lead a team. Sasuke was relieved Sakura wasn’t promoted. She had already had enough trouble in her life. 


Tou-san and Kaa-san invited all the chunin and a couple Uchiha to their house for a celebration party. They were allowed to invite others. Shikamaru invited his team (Ino demanded it), Shino invited his team, Sasuke invited his team, Naruto casually invited the Legendary Sannin and the 3rd Hokage, Neji invited his team, and Rock Lee invited the Sand Siblings. 

Their house was jam packed with people. Shikamaru was off in a corner sleeping, Choji was next to him eating, Ino was talking to literally everyone (except Sakura), Shino was standing in another corner, Hinata was next to him (staring at Naruto), Kiba was jumping off the walls, Naruto was talking animatedly with everyone, Sakura was in another corner of the room, Tsunade was drinking, Orochimaru was apologizing, Jiraiya was talking to Tsunade and Orochimaru, the Third was smoking and laughing genially, Neji was hovering around Hinata protectively, Tenten was talking with a few people, Rock Lee was being ‘youthful’, Gaara was trailing Naruto, Kankuro was desolately fixing his puppet, Temari was bossing some people around, Gai was looking for Kakashi-sensei, Kakashi-sensei was avoiding Gai, Asuma was smoking and avoiding the Third, Kurenai was drinking, and Sasuke was with his family. 

Some partway through, when Sasuke managed to extricate himself from his family, he walked over to Sakura. Naruto and Kakashi-sensei joined them a couple seconds later and they began to talk about training, the exams, missions, and the future of the team. Kakashi-sensei told them that since they were chunin and technically full ninjas, they were able to run missions by themselves. They could leave the team any time they wanted to take solo missions and work towards Jonin. Naruto shouted about how he would never abandon his friends and how he would stick by his team forever. Sasuke was quieter, but he agreed with the sentiment. Sakura and Naruto were people he knew and trusted. Besides, if he and Naruto left, Sakura would be all alone. That wouldn’t do. 

Naruto went off to play pin the tail on the donkey with a couple of friends except the pin was a rasengan and the donkey was a picture of a rogue ninja. Ehh… Sasuke supposed that with some adjusting of the placement of a couple of pictures, the hole in the wall wouldn’t be too visible. Kakashi-sensei continued to meander around the room avoiding the shouting Gai while reading his Icha Icha. Sasuke and Sakura were left alone in their corner of the room. They sat in comfortable silence. At one point, Shisui found them and began teasing him.

“Who’s the lucky girl, Sasuke-chan?” he asked, voice high and lilting. “Is she pretty enough for Icky-poochie-kins? What’s her name?” 

Uh-oh. Sasuke glanced over at Sakura, worried. Hopefully, she wasn’t too uncomfortable. Shisui saw his look of concern and was about to tear into him until Sasuke minutely shook his head. Shisui leaned in for a better look at Sakura’s face. She was pale and trembling. Luckily, he got the message and backed off. 

After that, nothing much happened except a fiasco with a wine bottle, a drunk Rock Lee, a stray cat on steroids, Orochimaru, Kakashi-sensei’s Icha Icha, and the Third Hokage’s hat. Sasuke didn’t even know where to begin describing the situation. In the end, a miffed Tsunade healed a scratch covered Rock Lee, unstretched a floppy, nearly lifeless Orochimaru, heimliched Kakashi-sensei’s Icha Icha out of said Orochimaru, and lectured a triumphant cat. Said cat went back to brag about destroying Orochimaru in a fight with Drunk Lee running interference. The Third Hokage’s hat would not be coming back any time soon. It was either digested, on the moon, or on the other side of the world. Sasuke had lost track of where it was halfway through the situation. 

Besides that, everyone enjoyed themselves, mingling, meeting new people, and establishing friendships. A surprising friendship developed between Gaara and Shino (although they were both shy and quiet and controlled things in a similar manner). Naruto made friends with everyone there. He especially had a great time hanging out with Shisui. Adults drank and kids played and generally had a great time. The party went until midnight. 

Chapter 2: Sakura's Fear

Summary:

Sakura's trauma is revealed.

Notes:

More focus on Sakura's problems and less focus on plot.

(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)

Chapter Text

The next day, Kakashi-sensei was late as usual and gave them D-ranks as usual. They were boring missions as usual and they trained as usual. Sasuke trained his lightning techniques and Naruto worked on making the rasengan bigger. Sakura worked on speed training. They went home at sunset.

For 3 days, this pattern continued. On the 4th day, Kakashi-sensei announced that they had another C-ranked mission. With 2 chunin and a Jonin, this would be a breeze. The mission would be 2 days long and they would be retrieving a scroll from the Land of Iron that they had lent. The next day, they set out. 


Sasuke was convinced Team 7 was cursed. Every single C-rank mission they went on, always increased in danger. They had arrived at the Land of Iron in 12 hours. They took a quick tour and received the scroll. They slept over and left early the next morning. It was on the way back that they met the 2 men in black cloaks. They had red clouds on the cloaks and a scratched out hitiate to symbolize their rogue status. One of them appeared to have blue skin and an enormous sword wrapped in bandages on his back. The other was a plain looking brown haired man who looked a little older than Sasuke. He had a fanny pack strapped to his waist and was wearing a polka-dotted onesie underneath his cloak. They took off their straw hats. 

The blue dude had small circular eyes and what seemed to be gills underneath his eyes. His hair was slicked straight up and he was - for lack of a better term - ripped. He was tall and his bulkiness just added to his intimidating, towering figure. The other man was much more plain. He had dark blue-grey eyes and a tanner skin tone, but otherwise, the man looked like a male Sakura. It was easy to see that this guy was obviously Kiiroibara*, Sakura’s cousin, and the murderer of the Haruno clan. 

Sasuke put his training to good use and placed them under a quick genjutsu. Naruto summoned a couple clones into existence. Kakashi-sensei pulled his headband up. Sakura ran. She ran so fast, she was out of sight before Sasuke could say a word. Judging from her reaction, the man with the Leaf insignia was her older cousin. The other man was from the Mist. Apparently, he was Kisame, wielder of Samehada, and he also killed his teammates. These men were dangerous. They were listed as S-rank criminals in the Bingo Book. Suddenly, their chakra spiked. They had noticed the genjutsu. 

They struggled for a minute before breaking out. Sasuke slipped in another genjutsu the moment they broke out of the first one. 

“What are your goals?” he asked them inside the genjutsu. It was worth a shot. They could get cocky and let information slip. 

“Well,” the shark skinned one grinned revealing a row of sharp teeth, “An Uchiha guarding the Nine-tails, huh? He must be unstable.” 

Nine-tails what? Unstable what? 

“We are the Akatsuki,” the other one said. “We are here to capture the Tailed Beasts.” 

Tailed beast? Sasuke had heard rumors of Naruto being a monster. There was that weird chakra he felt in his fight against Neji. And Temari had said she felt the same chakra in him as the one in Gaara. Could they both be Tailed Beasts? This was bad. They had to get out of there. 

Sasuke looked at his remaining teammates meaningfully and Kakashi-sensei understood immediately. Naruto created a swarm of clones to keep them busy. They ran. Once back in the village, Kakashi-sensei reported to the Hokage, and Sasuke took off to look for Sakura. She wasn’t in her home. She wasn’t in Hokage tower. She was in Kakashi-sensei’s house. He pet her hair and spoke in a soothing voice. He explained what happened as gently as possible. Her cousin wasn’t here. He couldn’t hurt her. She was strong now. Probably stronger than him. Faster than him. She shouldn’t be afraid of him now. He was only a civilian. He could do no harm. 

But deep down, Sasuke wasn’t sure. Why would the organization Akatsuki, full of S-rank criminals accept a random civilian? How could a civilian with no chakra break out of a genjutsu? His mind told him that a civilian could do no harm, but his heart told him the man was more dangerous than everyone in the Akatsuki.


Sasuke told Tou-san and Nii-san what happened. He left out the part about Sakura though. They went to Hokage-sama together. Tou-san proposed that the Uchiha clan go out and destroy the Akatsuki. Hokage-sama agreed. 25 Uchiha men and women would be going to decimate the Akatsuki. Sasuke would be joining them. 


They killed all the members except 4: Tobi, Kiiroibara, Zetsu, and Pain. Konan: Amaterasu; Deidara: Sasuke fought him; Kakuzu: 3 Uchiha’s took him out; Hidan: Amaterasu; Kisame: Amatersu; Sasori: Visual prowess to dodge and defeat him. The 4 surviving members escaped. 


Sakura refused to return to her house until Kiiroibara was dead. No matter how much begging and pleading they did, Sakura demanded to stay in Kakashi-sensei’s house. Eventually, they let her be. 

Sakura lived in Kakashi-sensei’s house for 2 years. 

During that time, Sasuke trained. He learned how to create needles from lightning. He learned how to extend the chidori. He created a jutsu of immense destructive power using natural lightning. 

Naruto trained. He worked with rasengan. He created a wind style rasengan. He developed that into a rasenshuriken. He created bigger and bigger rasengan. He learned how and when to use his clones. He learned taijutsu. 

Sakura trained in her speed. She trained in getting faster and faster still. She worked on endurance and sprinting at top speed for longer and longer periods of time. She did some taijutsu as well. She also worked on overcoming her fears. Sasuke tried to help her in secret.

“Ra-chan. This is a special genjutsu. I can see your memories, but you won’t see them, okay?” Sasuke was trying to see what her trauma stemmed from. If he knew this, he would be able to help her better. Sakura looked into his eyes and Sasuke activated the genjutsu. 


Sakura was 7 years old. She was walking home from school. She was humming a song that she had heard Ino singing. She swung her bag a little too hard and nearly fell over. Whoops. She giggled a little and looked up. 

“Hi Sakura-chan!” one of her neighbors called. Sakura greeted him. There were always neighbors greeting her. Sometimes it got annoying, but they all seemed to think she was so cute. 

“Mom! Dad! I’m home!” she yelled as she threw her bag on the table. She kicked off her shoes, placed them carefully on the shoe rack - she didn’t want to get yelled at by Mom - and walked to the cupboard. She rummaged for a few minutes but there was nothing she wanted to eat in there. Ugh. Mom was supposed to go shopping today. 

“Mom?” she shouted up the stairs. “Where’s the food?” There was no answer. “Dad?” she tried. No answer. She placed her foot on the first step. Should she go up? She placed her foot on the second step. What will she find if she does? She placed her foot on the third step. What happened? She placed her foot on the fourth step. Are they alive? She placed her foot on the fifth step. Or are they just not home? She’s supposed to be walking up the stairs, but it feels like she’s descending. Descending into what? She doesn’t know. She walks to the door at the end of the hall, muffling her steps as best as she can. Wham! The door next to her burst open and a figure leapt out at her. 

“SAKURA!” it screamed. 

Sakura tried to leap backwards but hit her head on the wall instead. Her dad collapsed on the floor, clutching his sides in hysterical laughter. 

“Oh my gosh!” he wheezed. “You should’ve seen your face!” He attempted to mimic her face with comically wide eyes and a slack jaw. 

Sakura meanwhile worked on getting her heart rate back under control. She almost had a heart attack. 

“Stop that! Where’s mom?” she asked once her breathing returned to normal. 

“Oh, shopping,” her dad responded nonchalantly. “Anyway, wanna play a game?” 

“I can’t,” she answered regretfully, “I have homework.” 

Her dad groaned and walked downstairs. “I’ll get dinner ready then!” he called. 

Sakura started her homework. Math was easy. The answers were always right. There was no opinion or reading into the problem. 25 times 36 was always 900. Dang, she was thirsty. She trotted down the stairs and nearly slipped. The stairs were wet. Was the roof leaking again? As she caught her balance, she caught sight of her dad, laying facedown in a pool of his own blood. Shrieking, she ran to him. Blood. There was so much of it everywhere. It stained her hands as she tried to turn him over. Where his throat should have been was a deep gash. It was no accident, it was a murder. Like something straight out of a horror movie, a creak sounded behind her. Except it wasn’t a horror movie. This was her life. She turned around, face to face with her cousin. Behind him, her bag lay open, on the table. In his hand was one of her kunai. It was bloody. 

Kiiroibara had a gastly smile stretched across his face. “Hello Sakura-chan,” he purred. “I’ve been waiting... a long time... to do... THIS…” He lunged forwards. Sakura turned and flew out the window. 

Sakura ran down the street, hoping and praying for somebody to notice and save her. She ran up to the door of the first house she saw and hammered the door. 

“Let me in! Help!” No one answered. 

She ran up to the door of the next house as the light flickered on. The door swung open and Ms. Shion stepped out. 

“Sakura? What are you doing out so late?” she asked. Sakura nearly wept in relief. Without a word, she bolted into her house, dragging Ms. Shion behind her and barricading the door. 

As quickly as possible, Sakura explained the situation. She had to pause every so often to catch her breath and to gather her thoughts, but she eventually relayed the situation to her. 

“You liar!” 

Sakura stuttered to a halt. 

“Kiiroibara is a wonderful young man! He would never do such a thing! Get out of here at once! I don’t ever want to be a part of your pranks ever again!” 

Bewildered, Sakura left. She had scarcely closed the door when Ms. Shion’s scream pierced the night. The small amount of peace Sakura nursed disappeared. She ran to the next house. They were dead. She ran to the next house, they were dead. She ran to the next house. A man stumbled out. Thank goodness! She was about to call out, when he collapsed. She cautiously approached him. He was dead. A small object sailed out of the second story window. Sakura dove for cover in the bushes. Heart in her throat, she waited the tense seconds out, anticipating something happening. When nothing did, she approached the object. 

It was a smashed baby. Also dead. 

She needed to get help. She forced herself to her feet and staggered off to the next house. Dead. Next house. Dead. There were so many dead people. They were starting to bleed together. The streets she was running on were flowing with blood. Her feet were sloshing through the copious trails pooling on the asphalt. Next house. Dead. She was getting a cramp. Next house. Dead. Next house. Dead. Side stitch. Next house. Dead. Next house. Dead. She gasped for breath. Breathe through the mouth. Breathe through the mouth. The smell of blood filled the air. It was nearly solid. Her feet felt like cement blocks and the air was solid blood. Get. To. The. Next. House! Her toe caught on a loose rock and she face planted in the street. Blood smeared down her face. Her knees and elbows were scraped red and raw. They stung. Her blood mixed with her clansmens. Her blood was joining the dead clan’s blood in the streets. It reminded her of an ancient ritual. A blood sacrifice. But this was no sacrifice. There was nothing gained from this senseless slaughter. It was murder. Manslaughter. Next house. Dead. What was the point? She had seen so much death. She might as well die as well. Next house. She wanted to die. 

Wait. 

The people of this house weren’t dead! Hope. Something like that flickered into her chest. She ran into the house. 

“Kigiku-san!” she yelled as he walked around the corner. “Stay there!” She stuffed chairs and tables under the door knobs. She shut the windows tight. Luckily, Kigiku-san believed her. They pressed their backs against the wall furthest from the door and waited. Sakura picked up a pan and Kigiku-san picked up a pillow. It wouldn’t do much, but it was all they had on hand. Sakura braced herself for the doorknob to rattle. 

“Hello, Sakura-chan,” Kiiroibara’s silky voice drifted out of the closet. “Fancy meeting you here.” 

Sakura ran for the door. She tore the wooden table and chairs away and burst outside. Fear raced through her veins. Kigiku-san’s scream nearly caused her to stumble. She had sacrificed him so she could live. No time to dwell on that. Find someone who can help! 

She raced to the next house. Dead. Next house. Dead. Next house. Dead. Bodies sprawled all over the floor, couches, stoves, on each other, Sakura had seen every position possible. Wives, husbands, sons, daughters, kids, adults, women, men, babies; everyone was dead. Keep running. Next house. Dead. Her feet were beginning to hurt from slapping on the pavement. Yells and screams from up ahead alerted her to Kiiroibara’s presence. Run faster! Maybe she can save someone! 

But no matter how fast she ran, she heard the sounds of murder just ahead of her. Faster! Her heart was beating too fast. Her head hurt. Faster! She leaned even further forward and pumped her legs faster. Push her legs down even harder! Spring forward! She stepped through an old homeless man’s rib cage and went down hard. Her ankle hurt. Her face was scraped and she was bleeding again. Just a little rest. Then get up again. A little rest. A scream rang out. She told herself that when she heard 3 screams, she would get up. 2 screams. She was still so tired. 3 screams. She corrected herself. At 5 screams she would get up again. Another scream. Her heartbeat was so erratic. Another scream. At 5 more screams she would get up again. 3 screams and 6 screams total. 4 screams and 7 screams total. 5 screams and 8 screams total. Never mind. The more rest she got the better. At 10 screams and 10 dead corpses she would get up. 

Get up! These are people’s lives you’re counting, she scolded herself. 

She got up again. Her legs burned and felt like jelly. 10 seconds in, the pain was bearable. Adrenaline filled her and oiled her aching joints. Desperation lit a fire in her engine and began beating its steady engine of life. Look for life. She skipped a few blocks and ran down the 3rd right. She ran. Anyone? Dead. Anyone? A light flickered on. 

She kicked down the door and barreled into the inhabitant of the house. 

“Mister! Miss! Run!” she warned the person. She stepped back to get a better look at her neighbor. It was Kiiroibara. 

She turned tail and sped back down into the street. 

“Saaakuraaa-chaaaan!” he sang behind her. His voice carried down after her. 

She checked the next house. Kiiroibara opened that door as well. How was he moving so fast? She ran back out the street. Run, run, run. He will be slowed down by killing people. She ran past three houses. Which house was he in? She nearly jumped out of her skin when she saw Kiiroibara jogging next to her, casually. Of course! He was taller and she was only 7. 

“Hey, Sakura-chan.”

“GO AWAY!” she screamed. Her voice barely carried above the wind. 

Kiiroibara pulled the kunai back out. He leapt into a house. Sakura kept going. There! Botan-san’s house! She stormed up the stairs. She grabbed his phone and called Emergency. Botan-san’s cry of pain led her to slam the phone back and roll out the door. She needed to stall Kiiroibara so he didn’t have enough time to kill everyone before the police got here. She ran into Churippu-san’s house. She pressed her back against a hidden escape route. She had played here as a kid and knew all of the escape routes in this house. 20 minutes passed before Kiiroibara predictably entered via the front door. 20 minutes of uninterrupted gutting.

“Sakura-chan! There you are!” he exclaimed, as if nothing happened. 

“Why?” Sakura cried. “Why did you do it?” 

Kiiroibara laughed. It wasn’t an evil laugh. It was an exhilarating laugh, a laugh of humor. Like she had said something funny.

“I hate you.” 

Sakura didn’t even have to fake confusion. 

“Let me explain. When I was young, I was just like you: naive, curious, dumb. But I grew in knowledge and in strength. Did anyone notice? No. Everyone decided they loved the pink haired, green eyed girl  better. The girl who got perfect grades and was attending the ninja school. No one looked at ME. I was a civilian with boring brown hair. You stole my limelight! My everything! I am better than you, greater, stronger, smarter than you, and they couldn’t see it! So I killed them. And guess what?” Sakura didn’t want to guess. “I enjoyed it.” 

Sakura couldn’t bear to listen to him anymore. He was crazy. Sure, there were instances where Kiiroribara was left out of parties and his friends all left him to fawn over her, but surely that wasn’t enough to kill everyone? There had to be another motive? Right? He didn’t kill Dad and Mom for… Mom! She was at the store!

There was a fire lit underneath her now. Sakura ran towards the store. Her mom’s favorite store. The lights flooding from the store windows created a silhouette of a person. Who was it? The figure began to run towards her. It was Mom. Sakura and her mom sprinted toward each other and embraced. 

“Mom,” she sobbed. Her mom was overbearing at times, but she meant well. And there was no safer place now, except in her mom’s arms. They were wheezing, there was snot on her face, blood in her hair, tears running down her cheeks, and dirt on her clothes, but they were safe. Sakura was so glad and so tired. Her mom was heaving as well. Panic and exhaustion made her tired. She was almost half-asleep when her mom sucked in a particularly large glob of saliva and started coughing. Sakura would have laughed if the atmosphere wasn’t so dreary. 

“Sakura,” her mom coughed. “Run.” 

Immediately, Sakura’s eyes snapped open. There, buried in her mom’s back was the dreaded kunai. It wasn’t saliva her mom was choking on; it was her blood. Sakura leapt out of her mom’s arms, horrified. Mom’s knees buckled, and behind her, was Kiiroibara. 

“Sakura-chan,” he gloated. “Do you want revenge?” 

He handed her the knife, handle first. “Take revenge then. Kill me!” 

Sakura had gone to ninja school. She had sparred and played ninja. But that was exactly what it was. Play. She couldn’t kill someone no matter what they had done. At least not yet. 

Kiiroibara scoffed. “Exactly. You’re weak.” 

He swept her feet out from under her and she crashed hard onto her side. The wind left her lungs. Kiiroibara grabbed the kunai, laid her on her stomach, and plunged the kunai straight down. A white spike of pain shot through her back. He dragged the kunai down. He drew abstract shapes. What they were exactly, Sakura didn’t know. All she did know was the pain. She was bleeding and her back was cut open and she was covered in scrapes and bruises. He was telling her something but she couldn’t hear his words. She nearly passed out. Before she was granted the sweetness of oblivion, there came the sound of shouting men. 

Kiiroibara paused. “Wouldn’t do to get caught! See ya around, Sakura-chan!” he leapt away and sped off into the dark night. People clammored around her and were yelling incoherent words. A man leaned over her and peered at her with black eyes. Black eyes and black hair. Black clothes, black night, she blacked out.


When Sakura woke, she was in the hospital. She vividly remembered last night. She had woken up to a man/boy slapping her face. She needed to stay awake until they got her to the hospital. He lifted her up gently and carried her on his back. She remembered freaking out because of his mask. It could be anyone. Kiiroibara could be behind that mask. He pulled it off to reveal a face with black eyes and black hair with deep tear troughs. He carried her to the hospital. Hours later, a different boy returned with word that Kiiroibara escaped. He was a civilian with no chakra to track. He was the lone culprit. Sakura blacked out after that. 

The nurses told her that there were words carved into her back. “Ugly”, “Useless”, and “Weak” They had gotten infected. 

Once they were healed, the nurses revealed that there was scarring. It would never go away. Sakura may have thrown a tantrum at that point, she couldn’t remember. Apparently, they also suspected that Kiiroibara was the one who had stolen the Forbidden scrolls. There were no survivors except her. 


Sakura was back in that horrific night. People fell. Everything was exactly the same. There was blood, guts, and kunai raining down from the sky. Sakura ran to help, find help, give help, anything. She never made it anywhere on time. If only she was faster! Go! She put on an extra spurt of speed. There! A house with its lights on and 3 people moving around. She was nearly there… she grabbed the door handle… she wrenched the door open to see the 3 people fall, faces empty, and throats cut out. Her mom staggered in behind her, body covered in kunai, blood rushing down in rivers and streams and waterfalls. Her mom hugged her one last time. Then she turned into Kiiroibara. He brought her face down to meet his knee and smashed her nose in. Punched her in the gut. Sakura staggered backwards. He chopped her shoulder and grabbed her arm. With a mighty heave, he flipped her over his shoulder. She met the floor with a thud. She rolled over groaning. A weight dropped on her back. The kunai glistened above her. This time, she could hear him through the pain. 

“I really hate you, Sakura-chan. It might seem irrational, but It’s really not. You see, I had better grades, was better-looking, better everything, but you were different. That’s all that’s special about you. You have PINK hair and GREEN eyes and a freak. Of course everyone would know about you. I was better and cooler but I was normal so I wasn’t anything to anyone. My mom, your aunt, would always talk about ‘precious Sakura-chan’. Sakura-chan this, Sakura-chan that. I was tired of it. She was the first to go. Then your dad. And the last was your mom. How fitting, right?”

Sakura tried to roll over, launch him off, anything. He was too heavy. Her desperate attempts apparently did nothing as he continued on as if nothing happened. 

“You were a girl on top of all that craziness. You had the highest scores out of all the girls. Who cares? What about me? I had the highest scores out of everyone! That includes the girls! Did anyone notice? No! It’s because you’re a freak that everyone notices you. They think you have a handicap so the smallest things you do, they compliment you. Well, you’re MY handicap. So I’m getting rid of you. Death? No, no, no. Death is too easy. I’m not letting you off the hook. I’m going to do something much worse. I’m going to let you live. I’m going to make you live. Don’t even try killing yourself. I embedded a tag in your back to prevent suicide. You won’t be able to as soon as you think about killing yourself. And another thing. You know your freakiness? You know who else is like that? The Nine-tails boy. He’s a freak and he gets special treatment. He can get away with dissing the Hokage and ruining shops. If I tried that, I would get jailed. But it’s fine. I’ll be getting my revenge on him someday. Just you wait. And watch your back everywhere you go. I will hunt you down and destroy you. Just you wait.” 

Sakura woke up heaving. She was in the hospital. The doctor was walking out. Wait. She recognized him. He wasn’t a stranger. She recalled meeting him twice before this. A dream. Nightmare. She had been having a nightmare. 

Sakura thought about what Kiiroibara had said. The sad part was, it was true. All of it was true. She was a freak. Who had pink hair? Who had such a big forehead? All the girls always made fun of her for those things. Maybe she wasn’t the best of the class. Maybe she was just… the most pitied. The doctor walked in, mouthing something. She couldn’t hear it. Her ears were ringing and blood was pounding through her ears. He held something up. It was a kunai. A bloody kunai. Kiiroibara had killed her doctor and replaced him just to get to her. Run!

She vaulted off the hospital bed as fast as she could. She dove for the window. 2 pairs of hands grabbed her before she could. She was dragged, kicking and screaming, back towards her bed. They fastened restraints on her and held her down. Sakura tried to kick Kiiroibara in the face. But he wasn’t there. The doctor was the doctor again. He was holding a stethoscope. Kiiroibara wasn’t here. 


Kiiroibara was holding a kunai. He was smirking at her. His hair swayed in the wind. Sakura didn’t want a repeat of that night. She pulled out her own kunai. Chakra. She was a ninja now. She could fight back. She used her chakra to explode off of the floor. She held the knife in front of her and plunged it into his flesh. She could feel tendons snapping and flesh ripping. She pulled out the knife and stabbed again. And again. Again. Again. One for every one of her neighbors. Revenge felt good. But Kiiroibara was behind her now. In front of her was Ino. Kiiroibara grabbed her and dragged her away. Turn around and stab him! Sakura tried to twist out of his grip. A hand swatted the kunai out of her hand. Sakura collapsed onto her back. Don’t flip over no matter what. If you flip over, the kunai will be plunged into her back. When she opened her eyes again, she was laying on the Chunin Exams floor. People were whispering and staring. What had she done? Ino was on a stretcher, covered in blood, and it looked like she was the culprit. Sakura was a menace to society. She should be locked up. Kiiroibara was right. She WAS a freak.

Notes:

*Kiiroibara is a yellow rose and stands for jealousy.
** All of the neighbors' names are random flowers.

Chapter 3: Training

Summary:

Sasuke helps Sakura and life moves on.

Chapter Text

Sasuke jerked out of the genjutsu. He couldn’t even begin imagine the sheer terror and pain Sakura had gone through. He had to help her. He created a mental checklist of her problems. 

Problem: Kunai. Symptom: Panic Attack. Reason: PTSD from massacre with a kunai.

Problem: Her name. Symptom: Panic Attack. Reason: Manifested from Kiiroibara calling her by name multiple times during the attack.

Problem: Speed. Symptom: Wants to become faster. Reason: Too slow to save others. 

Sasuke needed more. He needed to follow her to see if she had any other problems. From what he could gather, Sakura wasn’t that different except for the fact that she slept extremely well on missions and in the forest of death. 

That night, after asking for permission, Sasuke had a sleepover at Sakura’s house. He was appalled to find out she had gone back to living in her old home. This place was full of triggers! She noticeably avoided many things. The table she had thrown her bag on. The place her dad had died. Her working desk. She sat on the floor to eat, study, and sleep. And when she did go to sleep, she moved fitfully and screamed. 

Problem: Home. Symptom: Can’t sleep, avoids places. Reason: Associates those things with the attack. 

When she woke up, she seemed a little less tired. That was concerning. From what Sasuke could see, her rest wasn’t very restful. If this was considered restful for her, he didn’t want to know what she looked like when she was having a nightmare. But why did she sleep better? Maybe it was because there was someone to protect her? He didn’t know yet. But he would try to help her get comfortable and be able to rest.


Sasuke began by exposing her slowly to objects that triggered her panic attacks so she can learn to get over the fear. 

“Ra-chan. I’m going to hold up a kunai, okay?” Warning beforehand? Check. 

He slowly pulled out the fake kunai. Objects that represent the object? Check. 

He held it gingerly with 2 fingers. Non-threatening position? Check. 

He slowly drew circles in the air with it. Make sure it gets her attention? Check. 

Then he dropped it on the ground. Let her know nothing is going to happen? Check.

He breathed a sigh of relief. Although it wasn’t too big of a deal. Sakura had been having lots of exposure to kunai and other knife objects lately. From his test, she was fine with everything besides kunai. Shuriken, kitchen knives, and fake kunai were all fine. Real kunai were not. 

He repeated the same process with a real kunai. Slow, gentle, sure movements. Sakura had to close her eyes a couple times to reground herself, but she didn’t seem too panicked. When he dropped it though, the sudden movement startled her and she jumped backwards. Not good. 

Over the course of a week, Sasuke’s method seemed to be moving too slowly. She was still too skittish around kunai and quick movements scared her. He would have to try something else. 


Itachi found him buying 3 dozen dango the next day. 

“Otouto? I thought you didn’t like sweets?” he asked bewildered. 

Sasuke flushed. “N-no. It’s for a friend.”

Itachi raised an eyebrow but he didn’t say anything. 

“What? She likes dango,” he replied defensively. 

Itachi’s eyebrow crept up further. She? He glanced at the bag Sasuke was holding. 

“She likes Anko Dango?” he asked. “Did she ever try the Sanshoku Dango? It’s really good. How about the Green Tea? Or maybe-”

“Itachi! Stop it!” Sasuke complained. Itachi tended to go overboard on his sweets. 

“You know,” Itachi began contemplatively, “You haven’t called me Nii-san in a long time. You’re always calling me by name now.” 

That was true. Maybe it was a sign of Sasuke’s growth. Maybe it represented him growing out of his obsession with his older brother. Whatever it was, it didn’t matter. 

“Sorry Itachi, I gotta go!” Sasuke yelled over his shoulder as he ran off. 


He met Sakura at their training ground. He held up the bag. 

“We can do this two ways, Ra-chan. One: Every time you have an acceptable reaction to a kunai or other trigger, you get a dango.” 

Sakura contemplated this for a second. “Go on.”

“Two: We work on just the kunai trigger for now and I hand you dango using kunai as skewers.” 

Sakura contemplated that one as well. “Let’s try the second one first,” she eventually decided. 

Sasuke slowly grabbed a kunai and stabbed it into the bag. It came back up with a pink dango. He handed it over. Sakura grabbed the kunai no problem. She ate the dango and held the kunai back out again. No problems. Huh. Sasuke reached out to grab the kunai when everything went wrong. Sakura went rigid and locked her hand around the knife. When Sasuke reached for it again, she drew her arm back in. 

“Stay back,” she snarled. 

“Ra-chan?” What was going on with her? He thought that she had problems with him holding a kunai. Why was she having problems giving it back? As a precaution, he activated his sharingan. 

“I’ll show you, Kiiroibara! I’m NOT weak!” Kiiroibara? Weak? Everything clicked. She couldn’t hand it back because she felt like returning the kunai would result in her getting her back torn up. 

“Drop the kunai! Ra-chan! DROP THE KUNAI!” Sasuke shouted. 

Sakura cracked one eye open. Recognition flitted across her features. She peeled her fingers from the kunai and it dropped to the earth with a small thud. Sasuke slumped against a tree in relief. New plan. 


Sasuke started again in small steps. He retreated 10 feet away as soon as she accepted the kunai skewered dango. In his hand, he held a length of wire. If anything goes wrong, he can tug the wire and the kunai would slip out of her hand. 

As the days went on, Sasuke decreased the distance between them. Within a week and a half, he was half a foot away. Within 2 weeks, he was catching the kunai before it hit the ground. Within the month, he was able to have her drop it directly into his hand. Sometimes, he would advance too quickly so the next few days were devoted to backing off. By 2 months, he was able to grab the kunai from her hand. 

She seemed to have no troubles with kunai anymore, so he decided to fight her using kunai only. No jutsu, no other weapons or taijutsu. She panicked. Sasuke was at a loss of what to do. For months, she had been fine with holding a kunai. She had been fine with Sasuke giving her the kunai as well. So what was different about them both holding a kunai? 

He was still mulling over the problem when he walked into Ichiraku. Naruto had invited him for ramen because he, “needs to get out more, dattebayo!” Even though they didn’t see each other much, they were still good friends. And friends knew when something was wrong.

“What’s wrong, Sasuke?” Naruto asked. Case in point. 

Sasuke respected Sakura’s privacy so he didn’t tell Naruto outright what was wrong. “Suppose there was a person who went through trauma. Say they associate paper with paper cuts. And so to help them, someone was to give them a treat wrapped in paper to get them used to paper. Once they got used to paper, the person was exposed to a book. Why would they get scared of paper cuts still? They are used to paper so why is the book any different?” 

Naruto looked at him like he was dumb. “Um… because the treats wrapped in paper are wrapped so they can’t give paper cuts?” he stated like it was the most obvious thing. “Think about it. A book can give paper cuts right? But treats wrapped in paper just need to be unraveled. The sharp edges of paper are folded on the insides! So there’s no danger!” 

Sasuke felt dumb. Of course! He was handing her kunai with the sharp part covered in dango! She wouldn’t see the sharp part so she would be fine with grabbing it! Then when she saw Sasuke carrying a sharp kunai with the edge exposed, she freaked out. It all made sense. 

“You’re right,” he conceded. “Thanks. I’ll pay today.” It was the least he could do. And it would probably mean a lot to Naruto. 

“Of course I’m right ‘ttebayo! I’m Uzumaki Naruto! And I’m going to be the next Hokage!” he cheered. 

Sasuke left the ramen stand in a considerably better mood. 


Sasuke began stabbing the dango outside of the bag. He pulled the kunai out, pulled a dango out, and stabbed the dango in front of her. As the days went on, he held the kunai out for longer periods of time. He also stabbed the kunai down a little deeper. 24 days later, Sasuke held the kunai out for 30 seconds before handing Sakura the kunai with a dango around the handle, blade part fully exposed. 


There were relapses, but for the most part, Sakura was fine around kunai. 4 months of reconditioning, and Sakura was comfortable with kunai. That was good progress. Better progress than Sasuke had expected. 

Sasuke moved onto other triggers. He would revisit kunai just in case, but that would be at a later date. 

Her own name was a trigger. So far, Sasuke never had a slip-up with her name since the first time, and everyone had grown comfortable with calling Sakura some other name. For some reason, Sakura didn’t like anyone else besides Sasuke calling her ‘Ra-chan’. Over the weeks, Sasuke had heard many variations of her name, ranging from ‘Pinky’ to ‘Green-eyes’ to ‘Tsunade’s disciple’. Kakashi-sensei called her ‘his favorite genin’ and Naruto called her ‘Member of Team 7 except Not Kakashi-sensei and Not Sasuke’. Despite all of these nicknames, Sasuke knew she had to get used to her own name and fast. From what he saw in his genjutsu, Kiiroibara called her ‘Sakura-chan’ all the time. And Sasuke had a bad feeling that they would be seeing a lot more of Kiiroibara now. 

All he could do was the first letters of her name and slowly build up. From S to ‘Sa’ to ‘Sak’ and so on. 


Sasuke didn’t know what to do. 3 months had passed and nothing had changed. He could get up to ‘Saku’ just fine, but as soon as he said ‘Sakur’, she freaked out. It was frustrating. He could tell Sakura was frustrated with herself and that she was really trying. It seemed like a simple fix, but it seemed it was so ingrained that she would never like her name again. They couldn’t waste all their time on this though, so Sasuke moved onto other triggers. 

Sakura was already working on speed every day during training. It seemed Sakura had internalized the fear and it manifested itself in a need to become faster. Being faster would help her save more people and if it came to it, running away. Being fast was fine, but from what he had seen, Sakura’s speed training was borderline obsession. He’ll do something about it later. 

Sasuke couldn’t do anything about her house. The best thing to do was move her to an apartment or something. It would take too much time to slowly increase exposure to the triggers because there were so many of them. Besides, it wouldn’t affect her unless Kiiroibara or some other enemy brought a table to a fight. As much as he wanted to, Sasuke couldn’t house her in the compound. He would get teased endlessly by Shisui and Itachi as well as Kaa-san. There was also the problem of village suspicion and rumors. Sasuke knew that even the most harmless acts can become dangerous if word spread to the right people. He’d rather not have that. Even if the Uchiha were generally accepted again, many still held prejudice against them. Taking in the last member of a clan, and an apprentice to the Legendary Sannin, would only give them the ammunition they were looking for. He would have to find somewhere for her to stay… 


Naruto’s apartment complex had lots of empty rooms, so he offered to ask if she could stay across from him. Perfect. Naruto could keep an eye on her home life and Sasuke can help her after training. 


Sasuke wasn’t just working on Sakura for half of a year though. They were all finding progress as the months went on. They had all turned 15 and Sakura’s 16th birthday was approaching. This was the beginning of the prime of their lives. 

Sasuke discovered this when one day, he found his chakra reserves to be much larger. They had nearly tripled in size overnight! His chakra control suffered, but it was still exhilarating to have so much at his disposal. When he approached Itachi, he got the standard, ‘When a boy turns into a man…’ Yeah, he knew. So this was the result of puberty. 

Naruto had gotten stronger as well. In terms of chakra, not much had changed, but that was because he had so much already. Every punch and kick had a lot more power, and his jumps had gotten higher. When Sasuke approached him, Naruto claimed he didn’t even know the difference. 

Then Sasuke had some… changes… and he grew. Training was difficult. He grew and his center of balance changed. His reserves grew and his control suffered. Some days, he would improve by leaps and bounds, and the next, he felt like crawling back home. During those slow days, he focused more on theory. It was starting to make sense. With those changes in his body, he could feel more things. His reserves grew to the point where he could almost tangibly feel his chakra. Jutsu became easier because he could feel his chakra moving. He lost his baby fat, so Kaa-san wasn’t able to pinch his cheeks anymore. HA! (Although secretly, he felt guilty and he missed it.) All in all, he was changing and growing into himself. 

And while these things were happening, he couldn’t help but notice Sakura had gone through… changes… as well. It only fully registered a few days ago that Sakura had… grown. It was weird. Sasuke didn’t know how to talk to her anymore. It was kind of awkward. He had taken to teasing her when he didn’t know what else to say. He wasn’t exactly the most sociable, okay? 

Sasuke also noticed that Naruto seemed more into girls as well. Well, one girl in particular. He was seen in Ichiraku with Hyuga Hinata a couple of times, and they walked around hand in hand. Kiba even claimed he saw them kissing once. But that was from Kiba so who knew how accurate that information was?

From what he could gather, the Hyuga and the Uchiha had rekindled their rivalry. Apparently, Hiashi, Hinata’s father, was pushing her so they could beat the Uchiha. Like that’ll ever happen. Hinata was normally a shy person, as he recalled from the Post-Chunin exams party, but she had been pushed to the breaking point. Her going out with Naruto, the forbidden boy, was her way of “forcefully introducing her tallest finger up her Father’s posterior” as she so eloquently put it. Hinata had that whole ‘shy girl demeanor’ in class, but Sasuke had to admit, that was pretty bold. Naruto was head over heels in love with her whether for her ramen obsession that can match his own, her willingness to listen to him, or her ability to be calm, he didn’t know. Sasuke didn’t even know if it was a short-lived crush or if it would evolve to a full blown relationship. 

It seemed everyone was pairing off actually. Shikamaru was talking to that Sand girl more frequently and even if he denied that anything was happening, everyone knew their feelings ran deeper than just ‘mutual respect’. 

Neji actually let Tenten bandage his ribs when he broke them, which was an improvement for him. Apparently, he had refused a full body cast once because he didn’t like human contact. So maybe there was something going on between them? 

Sasuke didn’t know if Rock Lee liked anyone. Maybe he had a crush on Gai? That would honestly make a lot of sense, what with all the hugging and crying and declarations of youth. Oh gosh, he was going to puke. 

Ino was rumored to be dating anything that moved. She had apparently begun dating around, from civilians to ninjas to rogues. Some rumors were flying around that she had even dated an official in Cloud Village. 

Sasuke had no time for girls. He had tons of fangirls in the academy, which was kind of annoying, but he had politely (kind of) told them to leave him alone. And by politely, he meant he hadn’t physically harmed any of them. Well… at least not permanently. He couldn’t fool around with crushes and romantic feelings! He had to help Sakura overcome her fears! 

Even the Jonin were getting together. Asuma and Kurenai were together, but that was old news. Itachi was seen sharing his oh-so-beloved-anyone-who-steals-it-will-suffer-a-fate-worse-than-Orochimaru Sanshoku Dango with a girl. Sasuke had seen her over a few times and she seemed nice enough. He was a little, just a teensy bit, jealous of all the attention Itachi was giving her, but that was just a little. Very little. Infinitesimal even. 

Kakashi-sensei even claimed he had a girlfriend named Yua though Sasuke had never heard of anyone in the village named Yua. And he had never seen Kakashi-sensei anywhere else besides walking around reading those Icha-Icha books. 

On the technical side of things, Sasuke had learned lots of nifty tricks. He had received a sword from Orochimaru that supposedly never broke and could pierce through anything. He learned kenjutsu and how to augment lightning into the sword. He learned taijutsu and sharingan techniques. And he learned various fire styles to add to his arsenal. 

Naruto was now working on controlling the Nine-tails. Sasuke spent 2 hours a day helping Naruto and another 2 hours helping Sakura. Then he spent 4 hours training with Orochimaru. Then he spent 2 hours with Itachi. He went home at the end of the day, completely wiped out.

Training with Naruto was the most exhausting. He and Kakashi-sensei worked together to keep the Nine-Tails under control when it rampaged and Naruto lost control. It was happening frequently with seemingly no major improvement. He probably used his sharingan during these two hours more than he did in Itachi’s training. All of these hours they spent were mostly wasted. Naruto had tried many approaches from a bargaining approach, to an abrasive approach, to a rational approach; none of them worked. The Nine-tails held a hatred so powerful it consumed Naruto almost instantly. 

Time passed, and Sasuke fell into a sort of routine. There were a couple of days when he trained with the other teams and got advice from other sensei, but it never happened very often. If Sasuke wasn’t cataloging data, he wouldn’t have even noticed he was improving during this time. Almost without realizing it, he had been improving by leaps and bounds. Looks like all of his rigorous training was paying off! The days flew by with a lack of distinction between each of the days to ground him. It wasn’t boring per se, but it was kind of monotonous. Months passed in the blink of an eye. He needed a change in his schedule, a break, or a vacation. He got that when he was 16 years, 8 months, and 14 days old, in the form of a mission. 

Chapter 4: Mission to the Sand!

Summary:

Team 7 gets a mission to the Sand Village.

Chapter Text

They received word that Gaara was attacked by the Akatsuki 2 days ago. Team 7 rushed to Suna to help them. When they arrived, they were informed that Gaara had been taken to a hideout. Chiyo, one of the village elders, went with them. Along the way, Team Gai came to assist them. They removed the seals and Team 7 rushed in. There, they found Tobi, Zetsu, Pain, and Kiiroibara guarding Gaara’s body. 

Naruto, as hot-blooded as usual, ranted and raved. He spat curse words and demanded they return Gaara. Apparently, the two Jinchuriki had become closer friends than any of them had realized. Naruto had explained to Gaara that he was powerful because he had someone to fight for and because he had friends to back him up. Gaara had approached him after the Chunin exams and promised Naruto that he would establish ties with people he can call friends. He considered Naruto his first friend, and now, Gaara was going to be shown exactly how far Naruto went for his friends. Tobi and Zetsu simply melted through the floor, heading for the outside. Kakashi-sensei went after them. Naruto and Chiyo engaged Pain. And Sasuke stayed with Sakura against Kiiroibara. 

Sakura was skittish and looked ready to take off again. Sasuke needed her to overcome this fear of facing her worst enemy.

“Ra-chan. Look at me,” he instructed. “We’ll be fine.” 

Sakura locked her gaze onto his, and noticeably relaxed. Good. Kiiroibara was an unknown, but he had to be plenty powerful to have escaped the Uchiha Attack Squad. He activated his sharingan. The first thing he noticed was the differing skin colors of his arms. One of his arms was pale white, like it was made of dead skin… or dead cells… or…

“Hashirama cells?” Kiiroibara prompted. Sasuke flinched. Could he…?

“Read minds?” Kiiroibara finished. “No. But I am extremely smart. When I told Sakura I was smarter than her, that wasn’t just an empty boast.” What the… How…?

“Did I know?” Kiiroibara guessed. “Simple. I saw the way you checked on precious Sakura-chan-” Sakura nearly fell over, “-and the way you looked at me. It’s obvious she told you her version of events. No doubt she probably twisted everything to make me the villain.” 

Sakura was leaning on Sasuke with nearly all of her weight and hyperventilating. This was serious. No matter how much therapy or conditioning was done, it was impossible to fully get rid of the fear that the main object of trauma inspired in a person. Add on the fact that said object of trauma called her by name, another major trigger, and her reaction was understandable. She was probably reliving her worst nightmare all over again. And there was the added bonus that this could possibly get worse because her abuser was here to dole out more pain. If Sakura couldn’t get through her own mind on her own, Sasuke didn’t know if he could do much to help her. All he could do was be a shining beacon of light that she could return to, no matter how far she fell into the darkness of her thoughts. And if he couldn’t do that, he could at least be a shield to protect her from getting hurt even more. 

Step 1: Stall - Keep him talking to gain more information and give Sakura time to recover. 

Kiiroibara had given Sasuke plenty to ask about so he started off with the most prominent question in mind. 

“Say you’re not evil and Sakura has been twisting the sequence of events; why would you kill everyone?” Sasuke asked. He didn’t even need to fake curiosity. After all, what reason could be good enough to slaughter an entire clan? 

Kiiroibara laughed. “Oh you see, I wanted to ruin her life,” he said with a shrug. 

Well, that effectively killed the conversation. 

Kiiroibara laughed again. “I killed the conversation huh? Yeah, I know what you were trying to do, Uchiha Sasuke. Fortunately for you, stalling is one of my favorite pastimes. Why don’t we continue our meaningless banter to give the poor girl some time to recover?” 

Sasuke was at a loss for words. There had to be more to the meaningless slaughter than just ruining someone’s life out of jealousy right? And now, Kiiroibara had taken control of the conversation. 

“You know,” Kiiroibara began, “I always thought that you and I were the same. Uchiha Sasuke. Your name inspires fear and panic in everybody. You are the son of the Head of the Uchiha clan. But isn’t that all you are? Overshadowed by Wicked Eye Fugaku, Shunshin no Shisui, and Itachi-doesn’t-need-a-nickname-to-inspire-fear, you were never able to make a name for yourself. To everyone, you’re just Shisui’s cousin, Fugaku’s son, and Itachi’s brother. Naruto’s friend, Mikoto’s son, and the spare heir.” 

Sasuke was unaffected. He already knew all of this. People had been comparing him to Itachi all of the time. Itachi was a prodigy and Sasuke was never able to compare. He had accepted this long ago. Now, Sasuke was done making a name for himself. He would just help people from the backstage, working in the shadows like a true ninja. Yeah, he wasn’t the strongest fighter in the frontlines, but he knew he could help his friends back at home. Being overlooked was actually his forte. And if they attacked him, they would find that Sasuke could more than hold his own in a fight.

But Kiiroibara wasn’t done. “I was exactly the same. I wanted to be more than a merchant civilian. My clan was holding me down. So I killed them all! See where I am now? I escaped the strongest clan of the Leaf, possibly the world! You and I could be partners. We can change the world together! The weak will be strong and the downtrodden will actually be able to live like humans! Why should they be hurt and disposed of just because some higher ups want to get even more money and power? The rich will never be satisfied! Let us show them to be satisfied with what they have by taking everything from them! The system will be turned on its head! Naruto and the Copy Ninja are going to die soon anyways. Just dispose of Sakura-chan right now and we’ll work together to make you known.” 

That was his big mistake. For a second there, Sasuke had an epiphany. He was actually talking sense. Sasuke could see where Kiiroibara was coming from and was nearly convinced. Those small voices came back: doubt, envy, hatred. Who knew how many more people were suffering because they thought themselves weak? How many people could he help raise up to be the best they could be? But he wanted Sasuke to abandon his friends. Kill Sakura? Yeah right. Sasuke didn’t like the spotlight. He was shy by nature. And he always helped his friends. Naruto had drilled that into his head. There was no better way to do this than to help Sakura overcome her fears so she can succeed. Then, wherever Sakura went, Sasuke would feel just as accomplished. He had a hand in whatever she did. 

How dare Kiiroibara underestimate his loyalty to his friends? How dare he underestimate his friend’s abilities? How dare he try to lump him in with himself? Sasuke looked up. “You may not know this, being a civilian and all,” he told him, voice clear and low, blood rushing in his ears, “But I’ll fight to keep my bonds with the people I love. Because that’s my ninja way.” 

Instantly, Sasuke felt his brain kick into a higher gear. Patches he had never known existed filled up in his sharingan. His eyesight was sharper, power behind his eyeballs, chakra rearing as it reacted to Sasuke’s emotions. This was the fabled Mangekyou Sharingan. It typically awakened to the painful emotions of a loved one’s death. Apparently, Sasuke’s declaration was so strong that it awakened. 

And Sasuke knew it was true. He felt so strongly the rage towards Kiiroibara for all he had done. He was different from him. He would never kill his loved ones for whatever reason. He would nurture those bonds and make new bonds because it wasn’t worth the pain and frustration of cutting them off. 

Sasuke knew this wasn’t enough. He had one final thing he had to say. “And now, Kiiroibara. You are going to die, here and now, because you insulted my friends. Naruto is more than a Jinchuriki and a ninja of the Leaf, he is my best friend! Kakashi-sensei is not the Copy Ninja. The sharingan is not what makes him Kakashi. His ability to endure is beyond any other, even through the pain of losing all that he has loved, he is still strong; that is what makes him Kakashi. And Ra-chan? She is the strongest person I know. You may have taken all that she had. But she has reestablished all of that! She is our precious teammate and we will fight to help her. But more than that, I love her and care about her. And this love I have for her, it will never die. As long as we, Team 7, live on, her family is still alive!” he declared. 

Sakura was staring slack-jawed and starry eyed at him. Tears glistened as they slid down her cheeks. Normally, he would become embarrassed at this point and look away, too shy to say anything else. But Sasuke knew this was an important moment for her. He locked eyes with her and gave her his gentlest smile. “Let’s go kick this guy’s butt, Ra-chan,” he said. 

Together, they got up and charged. 

Chapter 5: Pain v. Naruto and Grandma Pinocchio

Summary:

Naruto and Chiyo v. Pain

Chapter Text

Naruto and Grandma Pinocchio were having trouble against Pain. Shadow clones and puppets versus 6 dudes with insane powers wasn’t really a fair match-up. This dude had a rinnegan and some sort of eye infection. Normally he would feel bad for the guy especially since he had a ton of weird sticks inside his skin, but he had kidnapped Gaara and Naruto wanted to beat him up. Grandma Pinocchio was smart and analyzing all of the Pain guys. She apparently saw a pattern in their attacks. The middle guy was the guy with the whoosh and the vacuum. The other guy was the animal guy. The next was the guy who sucked up ninjutsu. The weird looking guy was the one with the BOOM stuff and the swords and stuff coming out of his face. The other 2 guys were just in the way and they were defeated easily. 

Naruto had like 200 clones on the battlefield right now. There were like 50 clones fighting the summons and a hundred trying to overwhelm the Pain guys. The Pain summonings were so strong though! There was like a dog that could split heads or whatever, and like super crazy gigantic stuff. Man. If only Naruto had some summons that could- Oh right. He did. He ran through the hand seals, bit his thumb and smeared it on the ground. Poof! A gigantic frog appeared underneath him. It was the big boss. Awesome. He asked the boss politely to fight those big animals which the gigantic frog begrudgingly agreed to do. Now, all that was left was the Pain’s themselves.

Naruto needed to be smart. He needed to have a good plan. He needed to trick the guys and beat them up! Every clone and attack was pushed away or absorbed. Every charge was met with explosions and sharp objects. On top of all of these weird things, the people seemed to have some sort of 6th sense. They were reacting to things they shouldn’t have. Maybe it had to do with the fact that they had the same eye infections? Or was it because they had a rinnegan? Was a rinnegan like a rasengan? Naruto was so confused. 

There were 3 of the guys facing towards them, and one of the guys facing backwards. The guy facing backwards was the animal guy. Grandma Pinocchio sent a puppet veering around them and made it dive bomb the animal guy. Of course, the animal guy just grabbed it and smashed it into the ground. The amazing thing about Grandma Pinocchio’s power was she could use bits and pieces of the puppets even if the puppets were destroyed. She sent a chunk of the puppet flying towards the back of the animal guys head. 

WHACK! 

Wait, what? It hit? All 4 guys were facing forwards and the guy got hit from the back! Now that he thought about it, all of the guys were previously facing different directions. Could they see things that the other people can see? That would make sense! That's why they all had the same eye infections! It was probably one of the powers of the rinnegan! 

Grandma Pinocchio had apparently come to the same conclusion because she started to grab Naruto’s clones and throw them at Pain. He didn’t use a rasengan because that would just get absorbed. She used her chakra threads to maneuver the clones in midair to avoid flying projectiles and explosives. Under cover of her clone assault, Naruto created another platoon of Naruto’s and sent them running towards the Pains. Just as he expected, the pushy guy pushed a lot of the clones away. But that was what Naruto was hoping for. Before he could reload or recharge or whatever he did, Naruto smashed a rasengan into Pain's face. Right before contact however, the animal guy leapt in. He flew backwards, spinning into the air, and out of sight behind a cluster of rocks hundreds of meters away. There were only 3 now.

The animals disappeared so Boss Toad was able to join the fight. He stabbed downwards as Grandma Pinocchio sent a red-haired puppet with two swords at the group. Naruto charged up another rasengan. 3 things happened at once. The push Pain pushed the sword and Boss Toad away from him; the weapon covered pain engaged the red-haired puppet; and the last Pain created a barrier, ready to absorb the rasengan. Boss Toad flew backwards and crashed into the ground on his back. The puppet and weapon wielding Pain were still locked in combat. Naruto dissolved his rasengan at the last second and clenched his fist. The Pain in front of him widened its eyes before Naruto smashed its face in with as much force as he could muster. Not giving it any time to recover, he created 2 shadow clones and proceeded to beat the Pain into a pulp. 

Boss Toad got up again with some difficulty and quickly stomped at the group of Pains. The pushy guy jumped out of the way as did the weapons boy, but they weren’t fast enough. The weapons guy sacrificed himself as well as a missile to boost the pushy guy out of the range of Boss Toad’s foot. The stomp reverberated through Naruto’s skull, rattling his teeth, with an ominous resounding boom that sounded like a death toll. Perfect. One to go. It seemed this Pain was the strongest or the most favored because all of the other Pain kept sacrificing itself for it. 

Plan, plan, plan. Okay! He got it! He created a shadow clone to relay the information to Grandma Pinocchio while Naruto told the Boss he was good. No, he wasn’t being cocky, he just didn’t want the Boss to get hurt or overexert himself. 

The clone popped and Naruto knew the plan was on. Grandma Pinocchio attached a chakra thread to Naruto and he made a shadow clone. This was going to hurt. Naruto ran towards the last Pain alongside his shadow clone. Pain, as expected, used his pushy powers predictably, and pushed both of them backwards. Grandma lengthened the chakra string on his clothes and wrapped it around Naruto. Naruto grabbed his clone’s hand. The chakra thread fastened itself into the rocks, burying itself underground. The push came. A split second burst of overwhelming power blasted Naruto straight in the face. The wind was knocked out of his lungs, and the lines dug into his skin, but he held his ground. His clone however did not. The clone slipped backwards and dragged Naruto back as well. Instead of flying backwards together, the chakra string held Naruto in place; he was a pivot point. The clone instead was swung around and launched right back towards Pain. The clone rocketed towards him, and summoned 2 more clones in midair. There was only 1 chance for this. Quickly! The three clones joined hands in the middle and worked on making his baddest rasengan yet. 

When it was done, the clone with the jutsu in hand leapt off of the other two to get a boost. Pain was flat out sprinting for his life now. But it was too late. His end had come. Naruto quickly caught up to him and thrust his arm out. 

“Super massive, gigantic, ginormous, big, gigantic, huge, enormous, large, immense, gigantic, colossal, mammoth, tremendous, hulking, whopping, prodigious, gigantic, vast, jumbo, oversized, monster, gigantic rasenshuriken of gigantic-ness!” he yelled. 

The Super massive, gig- never mind. The jutsu exploded. It engulfed like the size of an entire city block in a blue swirling chakra. He was pumping his fists when he dispersed in a puff of smoke. Aw man. The real Naruto leapt and danced around. It worked! But it also hurt his arm to be that close to the super massive, gigantic, ginormous, big, etc… jutsu. He would have to work on that. Grandma puppet was looking funny at him. 

“You just said gigantic like 5 times,” she said incredulously. 

Well, excuse him! He didn’t make up the name! Oh wait. No. Yes he did. He gave her a sheepish grin instead. 

They walked towards the direction of the hideout again, exhausted and talking about the fight. Apparently, the eye infection was actually the rinnegan? Who knew? It was then that Naruto saw the person. Uh-oh.

Chapter 6: Kakashi v. Tobi Zetsu

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

Kakashi was having a little trouble fighting Tobi. Despite his goofy and insane actions, he was still plenty strong. He slipped through every attack thrown at him and joked all the while. Anyone who can do that would certainly be extremely powerful. On top of that, Kakashi had no idea what jutsu he used because he didn’t even try to attack back. He just dodged and defended. 

Zetsu, the other opponent, had left after conversing with Tobi for a minute. Kakashi had no idea where he was. He couldn’t even go investigate because Tobi wasn’t letting him pass. It was like he was being toyed with! He couldn’t stand it. He unveiled his sharingan. It was risky, but Kakashi knew there was probably no better time to use the Mangekyou than this. He needed a quick win to go help his kids. They were powerful, yes, but they were still inexperienced kids. 

He focused chakra into his eye. The familiar burning signaled his mangekyou was active. Perfect. Was it his imagination or did Tobi pause for a moment? Kakashi proceeded to charge in. Probably not the best move considering his mangekyou was long range, but he had to for what he had in mind. He leapt in and lobbed a kunai at Tobi’s face. It was easily dodged. Kakashi lunged forwards for a tackle and found himself falling through Tobi. He caught himself and stood up. If he could pass through things, maybe he could pass through the mask… The mask was too close to the guy’s face to actually see anything so Kakashi gave up on that. Other than that uncomfortable closeness to the guy’s face, nothing happened. Until Tobi smacked him making a quip about how he didn’t know the Copy Ninja was into that kind of stuff. 

Kakashi rolled backwards, ignoring the sting in his face. He jabbed at the face then quickly swept Tobi’s feet from under him. Or, it should have if it connected. They both passed through. Hmmm… Still not enough information. He pulled a scroll out of his Jonin vest (buy now before stock runs out!) and chucked it over Tobi’s head. It unfurled and shot out a ton of kunai and shuriken and a mass of other sharp objects. As expected, Tobi turned around and slipped through them all. Kakashi dashed forwards and pivoted on his left arm to kick him. It slipped through yet again. The flow of kunai stopped and Kakashi retreated. All part of the plan. The clone he had sent underground when he pivoted on his arm leapt out from underneath Tobi. Before he could react, Clone Kakashi smashed his fist into his face. The mask broke. 

Perfect. It looked like whatever Tobi couldn’t see, or predict, he couldn’t phase through. That means it was probably a jutsu he was using to make himself intangible. It was actually different and scary enough to throw experienced ninja off balance. In fact, the more battles you went through, the more ingrained fighting would be in your mind, and when your fist doesn’t connect with a body when you expect it to, it would make lots of people panic. The fear factor alone would cost hundreds their lives. 

Kakashi used that time to side kick Tobi in the stomach and chop him in the throat. They both passed through of course, but Kakashi quickly snagged the kunai he had thrown earlier and jammed it into Tobi’s back. He dove backwards yet again and kamui’d Tobi away. There we go. The fight was done. 

That’s what he thought. He was sighing in relief when Obito reappeared. Wait… Obito? What the heck? Obito was alive? Was it a genjutsu? He disrupted his chakra. Nope. Who… how… what was going on? Could this situation get any more complicated? 

Yes it could. Of course it could. Kakashi’s life was never easy and of course it wouldn’t start now. Zetsu reappeared. Now he had two enemies and one of them he had no idea what he could do. Okay. Calm down. He created a shadow clone. Shadow clone Kakashi charged in. Kakashi ran for his life. 

Notes:

Wow, these chapters are getting shorter and shorter.

Chapter 7: Kiiroibara's Power

Chapter Text

Sasuke had always looked up to the Hokage’s all his life. Hashirama was the strongest shinobi in the world, even stronger than Madara, the strongest Uchiha to ever have lived. His passion burned so strongly he was able to create an entire village from scratch. Tobirama, his brother, was a genius. He created numerous jutsu that broke so many laws of nature and created the general infrastructure of the village, without which the village would have collapsed long ago. Hiruzen was powerful. He knew every single jutsu of the hidden leaf village, but had the wisdom to not use them all. There were some things best left unused. Teacher of the Legendary Sannin and the beloved Hokage, he was a national figure. Even with all of this fame and recognition, Hiruzen had a kind heart. Although not the best at politics, he knew every person in the village personally. Everyone felt comfortable around him. Minato was also beloved. Everyone loved his ridiculous power and his intelligence. His kindred spirit solidified himself into everyone’s hearts as the best hokage. 

Each and every one of them were so powerful and amazing and talented that it was nearly overwhelming. And the Fourth Hokage? He created 1 jutsu (that Naruto learned) and modified another. With those two jutsu, he became the fastest and most powerful man alive. And Kiiroibara had stolen it. The forbidden scrolls taken from Hokage tower, that had been him.

The Flying Rajin was originally developed by Tobirama to counter the sharingan. The Fourth took that jutsu and developed it further, until it was basically instant teleportation. Considering Sasuke was an Uchiha, who relied mostly on said sharingan… They were in trouble. The only reason Sasuke was still alive was because Sakura was protecting him all this while. Her speed had increased to levels so ridiculously fast, that she was going head to head in a race against instant teleportation, and winning. Of course she was using chakra enhanced speed, but it was still absurd. 

Sasuke was feeling a little useless. Scratch that. He was feeling a lot useless. He could see them just fine, but every time Kiiroibara disappeared, it took him a millisecond to register he was gone, and another millisecond to find him again. It may not seem like much, but at the speeds they were fighting, it was the difference between a hit and a miss. He couldn’t even react before Kiiroibara disappeared again. If this was how he fought, it was no wonder the Uchiha Strike Force couldn’t capture him! 

Besides teleporting, nothing much was happening. Kiiroibara was throwing some punches and Sakura was nudging them to the side. Sasuke was standing there jerking his head left, right, left, right trying to keep up. Oh forget this. Sasuke slid his right foot out as discreetly as he could. Wham! Kiiroibara tripped and face planted into the floor. That… actually worked…? That was anticlimactic. Unfortunately, before Sasuke could take advantage of his fall, Kiiroibara teleported away. 

“Uchiha Sasuke. You are a constant thorn in my side. I must get rid of you,” Kiiroibara drawled. It would have been impressive if his nose wasn’t bright red and dripping blood. Kiiroibara disappeared away and reappeared right in front of Sasuke. Luckily, Sasuke was expecting just that. He attempted to jab him in the throat, but Kiiroibara disappeared again. Sasuke caught a slight movement in the corner of his eye and whirled around. Before his leg could connect, Kiiroibara disappeared yet again. Sasuke ducked and tried to sweep him off his feet but Kiiroibara disappeared yet again. Sasuke sprang up and tried to punch him in the face. He hit empty air. Sasuke spun around to find an empty room staring back at him. He turned a quick 360, but Kiiroibara wasn’t anywhere to be seen. Where was he? More importantly, where was Sakura? Unwittingly, he had allowed Kiiroibara to lead him out of the room and into another. Sasuke was hopelessly lost. 

Panic gripped him in the throat. What if Sakura was hurt? No. no. That couldn’t happen. She could hold her own. She was doing fine before. Sasuke was the liability here. He needed to up his game. No time for fear here. Sasuke ran out of the room. The adjacent room was the room he and Sakura had started in, together, but now, they were in opposite sides of the hideout. Who knew how many rooms there were? Sasuke had just made up his mind to try one of the passages when Kiiroibara appeared again. 

“Perfect,” he grinned. “Now, we’ll have some quality time to ourselves!” 

Ourselves? That couldn’t mean… 

“That’s right. Poor Sakura-chan put up a good fight, but it wasn’t enough,” he simpered. Sasuke couldn’t believe that. Sakura was stronger than that. And Kiiroibara had said they would have some quality time together. Surely that meant she was only incatacipated temporarily? Sasuke charged him. 

Kiiroibara had conditioned Sasuke to expect an attack. But now that Sasuke was finally comfortable with Kiiroibara’s attack pattern, he changed it up. Instead of darting around, Kiiroibara was now shifting slightly to the sides and using redirection to throw off his attacks. Sasuke didn’t train all those years with just one teacher though. He had copied some of the Gentle Fist techniques the Hyuuga used and now, he replicated them. 

He slipped through Kiiroibara’s defenses and attempted to land a devastating strike to his sternum. Kiiroibara shifted slightly to the right and smacked Sasuke’s arm to the side. Sasuke used that momentum to spin around and backhand Kiiroibara, which was promptly blocked with a casual forearm block. Kiiroibara slipped his arm underneath Sasuke’s and attempted to arm bar him, but Sasuke bent his arm before it was locked into place. Using his left, he tried to palm strike his chin, but Kiiroibara rolled his head back and around, trapping Sasuke’s arm in between his neck and his shoulder. They continued like that for a couple minutes, trading glancing blows and smooth transitions, looking for all the world like they were dancing, until Kiiroibara changed his style yet again. When Sasuke slipped underneath another one of Kiiroibara’s attacks, he nearly got kneed in the face. A swift kick to his stomach had Sasuke stumbling backwards. 

He braced himself on a nearby wall to catch his breath. Kiiroibara advanced menacingly. Sasuke was watching his upper body, so he nearly missed the attack from below. Kiiroibara switched tracks from Gentle Fist to a kicking oriented style. Gentle Fist didn’t really work on kicks because kicks were so much lower and harder to maneuver so Sasuke switched to a defensive stance. He bounced in place, watching and waiting for the next attack. When Kiiroibara twitched, Sasuke leaped away. They began bounding after each other, throwing kicks in occasionally and skipping around each other. They spun, kicked, and leaped, both trying to get the upper hand. A couple times, Kiiroibara landed a couple hits, lashing out immediately after Sasuke kicked, snaking in through a small opening in his guard and scoring a hit. 

Sasuke went in for another kick, preparing himself for the follow up, when he was stopped short by the impact of his foot against Kiiroibara’s forearm. He grabbed his leg and threw it to the side, spinning Sasuke around. Sasuke skid to a stop. Kiiroibara smashed his right arm downwards, which Sasuke barely avoided, and continued to bludgeon his way through Sasuke’s defenses. His forearms were hurting and he was sure bruises were going to form, if he could survive the onslaught of attacks that is. 

Sasuke didn’t even try to attack back, knowing Kiiroibara would probably tank a hit to get a hit. He ducked and bobbed, keeping his arms in front of him protectively. He watched Kiiroibara carefully, taking note of every detail in his fighting stance, form, power, and everything else. Kiiroibara did a right arm jab, which Sasuke easily evaded, and pain exploded in his face. He might’ve blacked out for a second because when he opened his eyes again, he was on the floor. The room was swirling with grainy colors of green, blue, purple, and even yellow. His ears heard nothing but a high-pitched screeching. Numbly, he noticed Kiiroibara’s left arm outstretched, himself sprawled on the floor, and a blur of pink streaking towards a surprised looking Kiiroibara. 

Sakura had arrived.

Chapter 8: A Painful Talk

Summary:

Hah! Get it? It's a pun! If you don't, you will.

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

Naruto watched in disbelief as a middle aged woman with white gunk on her right half waltzed into the hideout. She had blonde hair tied in a ponytail and wore a standard hitai-ate for the Cloud Village. Was this a deserter? An Akatsuki member? She walked stiffly and jerked every so often, something that was important, but what it meant, Naruto didn’t know. He was so surprised that he didn’t even react until Grandma Pinocchio snagged her with some chakra strings. 

“Where do you think you’re going?” Grandma demanded. 

The woman responded in a voice Naruto didn’t expect. “Wouldn’t you like to know, Old Lady!” The voice was slightly higher pitched, but had a distinct male quality. On top of that, the woman had to be a ventriloquist because she didn’t even move the left half of her mouth. Then the woman spoke in another voice that sounded more like how a woman’s voice should sound. Albeit a woman’s voice that sounded like she could snap every single one of his bones with her left pinky, but a woman’s voice nonetheless. “H-help me…” she rasped. What an interesting performance!

Grandma didn’t seem to think so. She started to pull the woman apart until she was splitting in 2 different directions. It wasn’t until the white gunk was halfway off that Naruto realized the white gunk had a face and was alive. Gross. It plopped to the floor and started to wiggle, reassembling itself into a more recognizable human shape. But the thing in front of him was most definitely not human. Pasty, white skin, thorns of some sort sticking out of its skin, sharp teeth all culminated in a thing that introduced itself as White Zetsu. The woman was actually a normal human that was now retching and gasping on the floor, opposite the White Zetsu. 

“Are you… the Jinchuriki of the Two-Tailed Beast, from Cloud Village?” Grandma tentatively probed. 

The woman coughed for a couple seconds before responding. 

“Who are you guys?” she demanded weakly. She staggered to her feet and attempted to strike an intimidating pose before puking. That ruined the effect. 

Naruto finally snapped out of his daze. “Who are we?! Who the heck are you!” he shouted. He lowered his volume as soon as he saw the lady clutch her head. “You can’t waltz in here with White Guy over there and demand who we are!” 

The lady puked again. 

Awkward… A couple puke filled seconds later, the woman finally straightened up. She seemed to have recovered a little at least. Either that, or adrenaline was firing her up. “I am Yugito Nii, the Jinchuriki of the Two-Tailed Beast from the Honorable Cloud Village! You better beware-” More puke spewed. 

The woman collapsed, puking and gasping for breath on the ground. It didn’t look like she would get up anytime soon so Naruto took that time to rasengan White Zetsu. It was really interesting to watch because the Zetsu was kind of mushy so the rasengan looked like a blender. The blue of the rasengan slowly pulled up the white in a spiralling pattern, twisting around and around, revolving around each other, solid white mixing in with the streaked blue- Sorry, he was getting off topic. 

The lady was still puking when the other guys arrived. The first guy introduced himself as Killer B (“The name’s Killer B as you can see. If you don’t like me, you can go climb a tree. Wheee!”). The other was Darui (Seriously? Darui? Ends in -ee? Set him free! It’s not funny!) and the last one was C (To his glee, Killer B amazingly enjoyed his rhyming spree. He wished he could be a part of those three, then he could guarantee a fan that would see that rhyming is key. Team 7 would flee from his poetry, unfortunately, and he would beg and plea for them to agree that it was really crazy that there were so many words that end in -ee. But they’d give him rosemary, set him on a tee, call him a banshee, and send him over the sea. Aieeeeee!) 

Grandma Pinocchio deduced they were other Cloud Ninja. How she got to that conclusion, Naruto didn’t know- Oh, the hitai-ate. Of course. Naruto liked Killer B. He was fun, pretty cool, and he rapped often enough that it was amazing how many different words he could find that rhymed. He was also the 8-tails Jinchuuriki. Did he mention that? Wow. What are the odds? The 1 tailed beast, the 2 tailed beast, the 8 tailed beast, and the 9 tailed beast all in one area! 

Killer B sprouted a tentacle and grabbed the 2-tailed Jinchuuriki, something that he explained was one of the Eight-Tails’ powers. Well actually, what he said was, “This is a power the Eight-Tails has, he’s gentle as a flower, but strong as brass. When I was young we didn’t get along, but now we’re friends and we’re SUPER strong!” Naruto begged him to teach him how to control the beast. (“Teach me please! I like to eat cheese. Don’t break my knees. I’m going to sneeze. Oh! There’s a breeze. If you give me a squeeze, I’ll wheeze, like the trees, pay some fees, run from bees, lose my keys, sweet dreams are made of these, I’m a friend of Rock Lee’s, I hate to eat peas- What was I talking about? You’ll meet me when? At 10? And then? At the bear den? Or next to the hen? The chicken pen? Just us two men? Ok. Thank you again!”) 

Naruto bid farewell to Pinocchio Grandma (who was looking oddly relieved for some reason) and was setting off with the Cloud Entourage for Lessons on Controlling the Nine-Tailed Fox with  B and Company (aka. LCNTFBC; pronounced Luh-kun-tuh-fub-kuh), when Kakashi-sensei burst into the clearing. He was looking the most winded Naruto had ever seen him, which meant Kakashi-sensei’s chest was rising and falling at a rate that was slightly above average. He still had that bored face but Naruto picked up on a panicked vibe. Don’t ask how he knew. 

“Oi, Naruto! Long time no see!” Kakashi-sensei called. “I see you’re going off on a quick journey with the Eight-Tailed Jinchuriki!” 

How did he know this stuff? Also, cool rap.

“Oh, by the way, there’s some people after us so you better run,” he finished casually. Thanks for mentioning that now! It was at this moment that 2 people burst into the clearing. The first guy was pure black sludge with the White Zetsu gunk on half of him, enclosed by a plant thing. The second was a guy with a scarred face and black, messy hair. Oh yeah, he also had the sharingan. 

“I am Uchiha Obito,” the man introduced himself. “All of you demon holders are going to die.” 

Wow. The Nine-tails had nearly destroyed the village and he wanted to fight a battle against 4 of those things? He was either impressively good or insanely crazy. The guy activated his sharingan. It was a Mangekyou. Let’s say he was impressively good. 

Grandma Pinocchio stayed behind to help Kakashi-sensei, along with Killer B, Yugito Nii, Darui, and also C, while Naruto fled to find the person who controlled Pain. He saw a cave that seemed to have Pain vibes so he rasengan’d in. 

“Hello?” he tentatively called. Oops. Ambush failed. He kept going anyway. He found an emancipated old man in the back of the cave. Was it emancipated or emaciated? Whatever. 

“Nine-Tails Jinchuriki,” the guy rasped. “What is your answer to peace?” 

Wow. Naruto didn’t come in here to get his world view questioned or to have an existential crisis. Nevertheless, he thought about it. “I wanna protect my friends,” he answered confidently. 

The guy laughed. “And what about me? You would kill me and all my friends would be sad. That’s not peace for them.” 

Naruto screwed up his face in concentration. Whaaat was this guy talking about? “You’re totally wrong. You’re my friend too.” 

The guy did a double take. “Say what?” 

“You’re my friend too,” Naruto repeated. 

“Even if I wanted to kill you?” the man questioned. 

“Yeah, well, you didn’t want to kill specifically me, so I guess we have no ill will towards each other right?” 

The guy looked thoughtful. “Interesting point of view… Give people the benefit of the doubt and make them all your friends…” He appeared to mull something over. “What a foolish point of view!” he laughed. “What will you do if you misjudge and they hurt you?” 

Naruto wondered what was wrong with this guy. “Seriously? Then you just forgive them and keep going. Don’t you know that forgiveness would only free you? You are carrying the burden on yourself for no reason. The person who hurt you probably doesn’t even remember you. It’s sad, but it’s true. Forgiving them would forgive you.” 

The guy looked even more thoughtful. “That’s like… really unrealistic. Who do you think you are to be above pain?” he demanded. 

Naruto was appalled. This guy lived life not knowing what forgiveness was? “I’m Uzumaki Naruto,” he explained. 

The guy stared at him. “Like… the ramen topping?” 

“Yeah! I love ramen by the way. I especially love the-”

The guy cut him off. “Like Naruto, the ramen topping, student of Jiraiya?” 

“Yeah.” 

“Kid?” 

“Yeah?” 

“... never mind. What’s the most important thing to you?” 

“Huh?” 

“Like a ninja way.”

“Oh… I’LL NEVER GIVE UP! ‘CUZ THAT’S MY NINJA WAY!” 

“Are you even real?” 

“Yeah, why?”

“It’s like you literally came out of a book.” 

“Ok.” What else could he say to that? 

“Ever heard of Tales of a Gutsy Ninja?” 

“Huh?” 

“Written by Jiraiya of the Legendary Sannin.” 

“Dude, I’m underage.” 

“No, no! It’s one of his only books that aren’t perverted.” 

“And you know that because…?” 

The guy coughed. “Um… um… forget it.” The guy coughed again. “Hey, kid?” 

“Yeah?” 

“Thanks for the talk. It opened my eyes a little.”

“Really?”

“Yeah… It was fun. I think I need to find myself. I’ll stop the Akatsuki, stop the killing, stop the world domination plan and start over.” 

“REaLly?” 

“Yeah. You know, years ago, I lost my best friend. He was kind of like you. And talking to you again… it was kind of like talking to him. It… made me think, ‘what if there was more good to this life? More good people in this world? More friends in this world?’ I don’t think I’ll ever get over the pain of losing my friend, but I can surely work my way around it, you know?” 

“Yeah. Yeah, I know.” 

“Naruto? Thanks. I hope I see you again.” 

“Yeah.” 

Naruto left the cave. It was dark, but there was a light at the end of the tunnel. 

Notes:

Okay. I initially meant for this story to like be a one-shot of Sakura and Sasuke and reversed situations, but I suddenly thought of ways I could develop the characters so I guess this is going to go really long. I didn't mean for this to turn into a full story so if I get somethings wrong or there are plotholes, forgive me.

Also, sorry for kind of disappearing for a while, but I was busy and I wrote a lot of content so I'll try posting like weekly or something. Maybe shorter intervals if I get lucky?

Chapter 9: Kakashi Naruto Darui B Chiyo Yugito Nii C v. Obito

Summary:

They fight Obito.

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

Kakashi, Chiyo, Killer B, Yugito Nii, Darui, and C were still fighting Obito. Kakashi kept using his kamui, albeit not very well, to send things to the other dimension and hit Obito there. Most of the attacks still missed. Obito had also implanted Hashirama’s cells into him and so every attack that did hit, healed almost immediately. Every one of them were getting impatient, and slightly frustrated. And when 6 high level Jonin got frustrated, that’s when you know things are bad.

Naruto arrived just as they tried to attack again. Where was Black Zetsu? Naruto created one hundred shadow clones and sent them into battle. He had waited a couple dozen seconds when the memories started to flood in. One of his clones had found Black Zetsu over by the trees, and they were holding him hostage right now. Naruto ran over, clones still joining the fight against Obito, and grabbed Black Zetsu. 

As he was carrying him over, Black Zetsu began to melt. He molded himself and latched himself onto Naruto’s arm. Desperately, he shook his arm, but Zetsu was stuck tight. The black sludge crept its way up his arm and slowly encased itself onto him like a second skin. The difference was, he was rigidly forced to move however Black Zetsu moved him. His clones all converged on him and tried to pull Black Zetsu off, but their efforts were futile. 

Naruto felt Black Zetsu build up chakra and felt a tugging sensation in his stomach. Nothing happened. The markings on his stomach especially burned, but nothing else happened. Black Zetsu growled in frustration and began making its way towards Obito. No! Naruto struggled to stop his feet from moving, but they moved of their own accord. He disrupted his chakra, physically strained against him, and even tried to mentally force him out, but Zetsu kept walking him along. 

He stood by Obito, helpless and trapped. Darui managed to land a glancing strike to Obito’s head with black lightning, which stunned him momentarily. Yugito Nii took that opportunity to scratch at Obito’s legs, but Obito had already recovered. He dodged and stepped back. Kakashi-sensei had taken cover behind Naruto’s clones and the Cloud entourage to build up chakra in his Mangekyou. He aimed it at Obito now, fully charged, and began using Kamui again. 

Obito was now helpless. He couldn’t use his own Kamui, because Kakashi-sensei was countering with his own. If Obito tried to phase through, Kakashi-sensei’s Kamui would send the attack to the Kamui dimension and render the Mangekyou ability useless. But Naruto was trapped by Black Zetsu and nobody had the courage to kill Obito. It was one thing to kill someone in the spur of the moment, in the middle of the fight, with adrenaline pounding through your veins, clouding your thoughts, and urging you to bloodlust. It was another to kill a helpless enemy, in front of you, no matter how many crimes he had committed. Murder and manslaughter were two different things. No one wanted to be a murderer. No matter how much killing was accepted in society, there was still a portion of the human mind that whispered that it was a taboo. 

Obito dodged and ran, trying to outrun the spinning vortex that rendered his best jutsu useless. Kakashi-sensei turned his head, to and fro, trying to focus his chakra into the kamui. The group still attacked, but none went in, with the intent to kill. It was almost more cruel than killing him in cold-blood because they were dealing damage, and elongating his pain. Obito fought back, physical attacks rusty from lack of actual contact. They attacked back, trying to hurt and maim, but not kill. Obito attacked back in self-defense, against the group of people who had ganged up against him. They attacked back, trying to convince themselves they were the people who were right in this situation. 

Notes:

Hey! I'm going to post another chapter tomorrow!

Chapter 10: Fight! The end?

Summary:

Sasuke and Sakura fight Kiiroibara.

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

Sasuke managed to get back up. Kiiroibara had tricked him! He had used long, slow, heavy hits until Sasuke assumed he would keep doing so. His entire attack pattern had been calculated so Sasuke would read into them and find the pattern behind Kiiroibara’s attacks. Once Sasuke had found the pattern (switching styles after 23 blows), Kiiroibara switched his style too early, effectively throwing Sasuke off. 

Sasuke massaged his nose and got up. Sakura was standing in front of him, kunai in hand, brazenly facing her old tormentor down. Kiiroibara laughed. “Look at little Sakura-chan!” he gloated. Sakura barely flinched. “You’re so braaave, protecting poor little Sasuke-kun on the grooound!” he sing-songed. “I don’t think even Sasuke-kun would be able to handle the massacre…” His voice dropped menacingly, “... if it went through.” 

Sasuke wondered what he meant. Sakura didn’t care. She charged him with a guttural cry, kunai in hand, and Sasuke followed close behind. All the weird tips Itachi had given him during sharingan training suddenly started to make sense. It had probably been so many years since Itachi had awakened his Mangekyou, that he had forgotten key differences between the Mangekyou and the three tomoe sharingan. It was good for Sasuke now though, as those weird tips started to make sense in relation to his own Mangekyou. It was partly the reason why Sasuke had been able to fight Kiiroibara in one on one combat where he had been previously struggling. 

Now, Sasuke used the enhanced perception his Mangekyou provided to fight in tandem with Sakura. She was still faster than him, but he was at least able to register what she had done a couple milliseconds after she had done it. There was a noticeable difference between the current fight and the first fight they had engaged in. For one thing, they clearly had the upper hand in this fight. For another, they were attacking more fluidly. Each attack complimented the other; each attack opened a gap that the other slipped into. Each punch, kick, block was perfect. Even when Kiiroibara teleported, Sakura found him almost instantly. How she did it, Sasuke would probably never know, but why question it if it was working? 

Sakura flew through the signs for the fireball jutsu. What was she doing? She couldn’t breathe fire! Then she glanced meaningfully at him and he understood. He copied her hand seals and blew a fireball. As expected, Kiiroibara teleported away. The room filled with smoke, something that didn’t really bother Sasuke. His sight was blocked, but Kiiroibara’s was as well, and his mangekyou would pick up any movement much faster than Kiiroibara’s eyes could. There was a stirring in the smoke so Sasuke directed his attention there. Sakura appeared from the smoke. The mangekyou granted him better vision than most people when it was activated, so Sakura hadn’t noticed him yet. Sasuke silently waved to get her attention. 

She placed her index to her lips, the universal gesture for quiet, and whispered directly into his ear. If the situation wasn’t so serious, Sasuke would’ve squirmed away. It tickled. “Sasuke, fireball places he teleports to,” she breathed under her breath.

Sasuke used a simple wind style he had copied (stolen) from Naruto to clear the smoke in the room. He was part of a team, it wouldn’t be strategically smart to have one teammate unable to see, even if the enemy couldn’t see either. The room cleared, revealing Kiiroibara standing close to the wall, back towards them. Sasuke was sorely tempted to attack him there, but he reigned in the urge in favor of listening to Sakura’s instructions. As soon as Sakura charged, Kiiroibara made an undignified little yelp and teleported away. Sasuke frantically searched for him until he saw him in the Northeast corner of the room. Sasuke burnt that area. He cleared the smoke again and burnt the Southern wall. He kept clearing the room of smoke and torching the places Kiiroibara landed, until Kiiroibara stopped teleporting. 

Sasuke blew another fireball towards him, and this time, Kiiroibara side-stepped it. His hair singed, and the heat was probably intense from the proximity, but he walked out, relatively unscathed. Sasuke drew his sword and charged. Kiiroibara met his attacks with a kunai of his own. They clashed, Sasuke overpowering Kiiroibara until he forced him into a corner. Sasuke raised his sword, prepared to end it, and brought it down. Slice! At the last second, Kiiroibara had lunged sideways and taken the hit into his arm. The blade bit into his shoulder and sliced it clean off, but blood didn’t spurt out as expected. His entire arm, up until his shoulder, was Hashirama cells. 

The cells, now laying on the ground, not being actively suppressed by Kiiroibara’s chakra, split and spewed a multitude of tree trunks and wooden beams. The wood grew and split, intertwining around a common center, until it burst out of the roof, splintering plaster and sending building material raining down on them. A cloud of dust forced itself into their lungs. When the aggravating substances were finally coughed out, and the dust settled, Sasuke was separated from an armless Kiiroibara by a towering tree. 

Kiiroibara vaulted through the trees and lunged for Sasuke’s throat. Sasuke dodged and slashed with his sword. Kiiroibara twisted and wrenched the sword out of his grip. It clattered off to the left. Sasuke took that time to weave seals and willed lightning into the palm of his hand. Kiiroibara dodged, but Sasuke was too close. The chidori punched a hole through the side of his ribcage, sending Kirroibara staggering off to the right. Sasuke willed another chidori into his other palm and slammed both into the ground. Lightning flickered around him, arcing through the ground and racing up Kiiroibara’s nervous system. 

Sasuke grabbed his sword and slashed it down with all his might. Kiiroibara grabbed a discarded kunai, and met his attack halfway. Sasuke had both of his arms though, as well as gravity on his side, so he forced Kiiroibara down onto one knee. Kiiroibara’s arms shook from the strain. Beads of sweat trickled down his temple. His arms slowly gave way, inching closer and closer to the top of his head. Sasuke kicked his blade down with the heel of his foot and the blade twisted out of his grip. He fell forward in slow motion, straight into the outstretched point of Kiiroibara’s knife. Sasuke kicked off of the ground and rolled over him, recovering his feet and spinning around in one fluid motion. 

Kiiroibara took his time getting up, single arm shaking and weak. This fight was never going to end was it? Kiiroibara finally got his feet under him and bent over, arm braced on his knee. Sasuke saw from the corner of his eye, Sakura climbing stealthily through the branches. He needed to keep Kiiroibara’s attention on him. Sasuke was at a loss of what to do though. Talk? Fight? He decided to bluff. He began making hand seals, continuing longer and longer, feeling quite a bit silly and silently willing Sakura to hurry up. Kiiroibara’s brow furrowed more and more the more time passed. His eyes jumped from Sasuke’s expression, to the hand seals, to body posture, and recognition lit up his eyes. He wheeled around, an expectant look on his face, only to meet the blade of a kunai with his stomach. 

Sakura heaved the blade down, cutting open a jagged opening into Kiiroibara’s stomach. Blood spurted out, pouring, and gushing from the wound. Gray matter, Sasuke didn’t even want to think about what that was, spilled out, flopping on the floor with a disgusting squelch. But more disturbing was Kiiroibara’s face. There was betrayal, confusion, and fear etched into every square inch of his face. “Why?” he pleaded. “Sakura-chan, why?” 

He collapsed face-down onto the floor. The blood drained from Sakura’s face. “I thought we were family,” Kiiroibara mumbled, voice muffled through the floor. Sakura ran and flipped Kiiroibara’s listless body over as gently as she could. “I thought we were friends,” he whispered. Tears glistened in his eyes. 

Sakura touched his face with her fingertips, like she was scared of breaking him. “I-,” her voice cracked. She sniffled and tried again. “I don’t understand.” 

Kiiroibara frowned and Sasuke saw that the blood filling his mouth made his teeth shine a bright white. “I was your family,” he told her. “You killed me.” 

Sakura opened her mouth and snapped it shut. She gaped like a fish. Sasuke had to look away. What was going on? Was Kiiroibara secretly working for them? Was he a spy, working for the village? Was that why the other Uchiha let him go? Sasuke had never thought to ask. He had assumed Kiiroibara to always be the bad guy. Was this all just an act? Sasuke turned around, ready for answers. 

And he was launched into a genjutsu without warning.

Notes:

I think I'll update 2 chapters next week.

Also, next chapter is probably my favorite chapter. It really solidified the plot and all the characters.

Chapter 11: Kiiroibara: A life of Jealousy

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

Sasuke looked around. He was on a grassy knoll at the top of the hill. Birds chirped in the trees around him with the faint laughter of children in the background. Butterflies looped lazy circles around him, floating from flower to flower. A young boy with straight brown hair lay in the grass next to him, spread-eagled on the ground. He moved his arms and legs through the long grass, flattening patches and leaving an imprint of his body behind. Sasuke had stood there observing for about a minute before he came to the conclusion that no one could see him in this genjutsu. 

Genjutsu were mainly used as an attack, to warp and twist the mind of the individual, to get them fighting the illusion so they miss out on the real world. Because of this, the genjutsu had to be subtle enough that the subject didn't notice. This genjutsu was none of these things, which is the reason why Sasuke’s first response wasn't to break out of it immediately. This was a vision, Kiiroibara was showing him something. 

A part of him wanted to break out and help Sakura, but a stronger part of him was curious about those offhand remarks Kiiroibara kept making. He knew it was probably all in Kiiroibara’s plan, but he couldn’t help himself. 

A woman, Sasuke vaguely remembered from somewhere, walked up the hill. “Yellow! Get off the grass! You’ll ruin your clothes,” she scolded. The brown haired boy got up scowling. 

“I know, mother! You don’t have to apprise me,” he griped. “I have already changed to informal clothing.” The boy’s vocabulary was surprisingly advanced for a 4 year old. Sasuke was sure the kid was just showing off. 

The mother detected the tone of the boy and reacted accordingly. “Young man! You will NOT speak to your mother in that tone of voice!” she reprimanded. “Now get over here and change back into your suit! You aren’t allowed to walk off on your own, and especially not at your new cousin's baby shower!” Sasuke suddenly remembered where he had seen her. She had been one of the corpses Kiiroibara had left on the night of his attack. The woman changed her tune again. “Have you seen her?” she squealed. “She’s soooo cute! Pink hair and green eyes! How precious!” She eyed the boy’s hair with distaste. The boy appeared not to notice. 

The air rippled around Sasuke, and he was tugged into another scene. 

The same boy was sitting on a bench working on a piece of paper covered in writing Sasuke couldn’t see. He was moving closer for a better look, when the boy suddenly looked up, face drawn in concentration and suspicion. Sasuke stopped. Could he see him? 

“You can come out,” the boy called. 

Sasuke sheepishly stepped forward. “Sorry, I-” 

He was cut off by a girl-ish scream. “Kii-san! How did you know?” 

The boy frowned. “Who are you?” The girl emerged from the bushes. It was a mini-Sakura. Back when her hair was pink, back when she had chubby cheeks (he finally understood why his mother always pinched his), back when she still had that carefree, shy smile, and life in her green, green eyes. 

“Mom always told me you were on this bench not doing anything,” Sakura said. 

The boy frowned. “Who are you?” he repeated. 

Sakura wilted. “I’m Sakura.” 

The boy shrugged and looked at his paper again. “You’re that weird cousin everyone’s talking about,” he muttered without looking up. 

“Kiiiiiii-saaaan,” Sakura whined. 

The boy looked up sharply. “What did you call me?” he asked. 

“Kii-san!” Sakura replied happily. “You like it? It’s Nii-san and Kiiroibara together!” Kiiroibara? Sasuke couldn’t believe this awkward, little, eight-year-old boy and the bloodthirsty villain were the same person. 

Sakura giggled. Kiiroibara scowled. “I’m not your brother,” he whispered scathingly. It came out as more of a pout. “And don’t call me that.”

Sakura giggled again. Wow. Sasuke had nearly forgotten how much of a girl Sakura had been. She playfully pushed him. “Kii-san! Let’s go play a game!” she begged. 

Kiiroibara fixed her with a glare. “Leave me alone,” he growled. 

Sakura kept pushing. “C’mon! Let’s go!” 

Kiiroibara pushed her back. “I said, leave me ALONE!” Sakura sprawled on the ground. Her bottom lip trembled and tears welled up in her eyes. Kiiroibara rolled his eyes. “Look, I’m sorry, okay?” he amended. “But leave me alone.” Sakura stared at him, tears still dripping down her fat cheeks. “Please,” he added as an afterthought. 

Sakura wiped her cheeks and stood up. “Okay…” she walked away slowly. 

The air rippled again and Sasuke felt the tell-tale tug into another scene. 

Kiiroibara stood proudly in front of his mother, a paper on display. It was a report card: All top marks. His mom gave him a quick ‘good job’, and a pet on the head before buttoning up her blouse. She was in a hurry. Sakura-chan had gotten accepted into the Ninja Academy! How exciting! 

The air rippled again, and Sasuke was launched into a different room. 

Kiiroibara slouched into the room and threw his bag onto the couch. “I’m home,” he called listlessly. No one answered. Not that he expected them to. Kiiroibara sighed and flopped onto the dining table. He fished out a paper from his pocket and slammed it down on the table, hard enough that it creaked. It was another report card. All top marks again. A couple minutes later, Kiiroibara raised his head and left the room. 

Sasuke checked out his surroundings. The walls were covered in a pretty, bright yellow wallpaper with pink flowers and bees buzzing around them. A dark brown, wooden table stood proudly in the center of the room, a vase full of flowers standing on top. The furniture was clean and pristine, scrubbed and polished like new. The refrigerator held a meager stash of pictures: A group picture, a picture of a baby with pink tufts of hair, and a report card. The report card detailed the academic achievements of one Haruno Sakura, passing classes with flying colors and recommendations from ninja teachers. Hanging from one corner at the bottom left of the fridge was a small photo tag of Kiiroibara. 

Sasuke felt an enormous jolt and his surroundings changed. 

Kiiroibara watched an orange boy leaping around, splattering paint all over the shops in the general vicinity. He watched in furious resentment as a particularly large glob of paint landed on his house. This was the ninth time! His mother blamed him every time this happened and each time, HE had to clean it up. Kiiroibara grabbed a rag and a can of paint remover. What was up with freaks ruining his life?

The room spun, and Sasuke was sucked into a different day.

Kiiroibara, now a 10-year old, sat in the library, studying books on chakra. Chakra Control for Beginners , Chakra: What is it? , and Chakra and Civilians lay on the table in front of him. A thick stack of read books sat to the left of him. A concerned librarian was hovering over his shoulder, alternating between reaching out to tap him on the shoulder, and checking his watch. Kiiroibara turned another page. 

The world tunneled and Sasuke found himself in the academy. 

“-orry, Mr. Haruno, but it’s too late for you to join the Academy at your age,” an instructor was saying. A sullen Kiiroibara kicked at the floor and shuffled uncomfortably.

“But I know all of the material,” he tried. 

The instructor shook his head regretfully. “Ninja rules, kid. You wouldn’t understand.”

Kiiroibara tried again. “I do! I memorized them all! The ninja rules say that in special circumstances, an applicant can be sponsored by a ninja or instructor to be passed immediately.” 

The teacher shook his head again. “ Special circumstances, kid. You aren’t special enough.” 

Kiiroibara forged on. “If the student gets to genin and passes the entrance exam with the highest score in the class, he may be instated as a full-fledged ninja, without restrictions and at no penalty to the sponsor.” 

The teacher checked his non-existent watch. “Oh! Look at the time! Sorry! Bye!” He hurried out, the door slamming in finality. 

Kiiroibara kept talking. “If the student doesn’t make genin the first try, he or she may try again in 3 months with a probationary period for the sponsor where he or she is not allowed to recommend an applicant for that time period.” Kiiroibara stood, talking to the empty classroom long after anyone stopped listening. 

Sasuke blinked and he was in a deep cavern underground, in an unfamiliar place. 

Kiiroibara was kneeling in front of one of the village elders, Shimura Danzo. “You aren’t suited to be in the ANBU,” Danzo rasped. “The ANBU are only for the elites or for those that are special. You have none of those things.”

Kiiroibara bowed. “I understand,” he said, masking the bitterness he felt. 

The scene changed again. 

Sasuke was back on the grassy field, listening from a distance to two girls talking. Kiiroibara stood next to him, listening from behind a tree. 

“What about that boy, Kiiroibara? Isn’t he pretty cute?” one of the girls asked. 

“Nah… If he had his cousin’s hair, imagine how cute he would be then?” the other giggled. 

They both squealed, conjuring up visions of a green-eyed, pink haired, male version of Sakura between them. Kiiroibara turned away, tears stinging his eyes.

The world flipped and changed again. 

A boy stuck out his hand to Kiiroibara. “Hey! Can I be your friend?” he shouted. 

Kiiroibara gingerly gripped the boy’s grubby fingers. “Okay…” How exciting! A friend! 

“C’mon,” the boy urged. “Let’s go to the park!” Kiiroibara followed meekly. 

The world blurred and Sasuke was standing in the park. 

The boy shyly fiddled with his pants pockets. “Hey, can you introduce me to your cousin? The one with pink hair?” 

Kiiroibara’s smile dropped. He stormed out of the park. He never saw the boy again. 

The world blurred and refocused. 

Kiiroibara tore open an envelope, bouncing and laughing to himself. The envelope was addressed to Haruno Kiiroibara. The sender was the Hokage’s Advisor. A small, succinct message fell out: Hokage Towers. 10pm. Kiiroibara burned the letter, for security reasons, his excitement still palpable. 

It was night now. Kiiroibara stood in front of the designated tower, trying, and failing, to keep in his energy. A bag dropped on his head, and a hand clamped over his mouth. When the bag was taken off, Kiiroibara stood, red-faced and shaky. He was back in the underground cavern with Danzo. But this time, they weren’t alone. An ANBU stood at attention in the corner, watchful eyes boring into Kiiroibara’s skull. 

“Would you like power?” Danzo asked Kiiroibara. No. Not particularly. Power wasn’t something Kiiroibara aimed for. Recognition for his power on the other hand was something he WAS looking for. Kiiroibara simply nodded. “Good,” Danzo purred. He clicked his fingers and another ANBU appeared at the door. “Follow him,” Danzo instructed,” And he’ll give you what you want.” 

Sasuke fast-forwarded to the operation. 

Kiiroibara lay writhing on an operating table screaming. His arm was severed, and lay bleeding on the table. Masked individuals milled about his bloody body, poking and prodding at his arm, pulling tendons and nerves out, stripping bone, slicing muscles. In the back corner, a case of white substance lay in an open case, quivering ever so slightly, at random increments. An operative brought the case over and pulled out a needle and surgical thread. The thread was threaded through the needle and the needle was threaded through the white substance. They brought the stump of arm and white substance together and… 

Sasuke appeared in the library. 

Kiiroibara was studying again. He was wearing a long-sleeved sweater, but his hand was clearly visible underneath. It was a pale white. Hashirama cells. They had implanted Hashirama’s cells into him. 

A variety of books of different widths and thicknesses lay strewn around him, from anatomy, to chakra control, to past hokages, to powerful jutsu, to anything related to the ANBU, the Nine-tails attack, and the Uchiha. 

A person crossed past and the scene changed. 

Kiiroibara sat inside a dank tunnel, perched on the sides of the walls, listening intently for conversation through the floor. Sasuke floated downwards, into the room. It was the underground room Kiiroibara had met Danzo at. Danzo and the ANBU operative from before were conversing. 

“Take off your mask,” Danzo ordered. 

The ANBU pulled off his mask to reveal Itachi. “Danzo-sama,” he replied, “Heed my warning. You will not touch the Uchiha, at all. NONE of them.” 

Danzo narrowed his eyes. “Are you threatening me, Itachi?” 

Itachi lifted his chin and stared defiantly back. “I am more powerful than you right now, Danzo,” he boasted, and Sasuke knew he was right. “There is nothing you can do or say that will make me change my mind.” 

Danzo smirked. “Perhaps,” he hissed, “but I have leverage you cannot escape. Namely… your brother and the rest of your family.” 

Itachi’s eyes flashed. “You will not. Do you know why?” Danzo gasped as Itachi’s eyes morphed into the fabled Mangekyou’s in front of him. 

“H-how? When? Why?” Danzo stuttered. 

“Just now,” Itachi cooly replied. 

Danzo registered what Itachi had said and smiled. “Then you do not know how to use those eyes,” he gloated. 

Itachi held up his hand. “On the contrary, I have been a genius my whole life,” he informed him. “Why should this change now?” 

Danzo sat down on the only chair in the room. “Fine. I accept your terms,” he eventually conceded. 

Sasuke felt a jolt and Itachi was gone. In his place was Kiiroibara. Danzo wore different clothes. This was a different day. 

“Itachi is not willing to massacre his clan anymore,” Danzo was saying. What? AnyMORE? “You must do so.” Kiiroibara was assigned to kill the Uchiha clan? 

Kiiroibara bowed. “With all due respect sir, I cannot. I am not strong enough to defeat the entire Uchiha clan on my own. Please lend me a couple men.” 

Danzo snorted in disgust. “Failure. Weak. Useless. What is the point of giving Hashirama’s precious cells to you if you cannot even do anything? Get out of here. I never want to see you again.” Danzo left in a storm of fury. He would now have to find someone else to destroy the Uchiha. That, or they would destroy themselves. He decided to wait and see. 

Kiiroibara stood there in the middle of the room, back bent in a half-bow, fists clenching and unclenching in time with his jaw. He repeated Danzo’s words to himself. 

Right before Sasuke’s vision blacked out, he heard Kiiroibara mutter, I’ll show you.

Sasuke regained his vision to Kiiroibara murdering his clansmen. If he couldn’t kill all of the Uchiha in one night, he would settle for destroying another entire clan. He WAS powerful. Why couldn’t anyone see that? As a bonus, his tormentor would be forever doomed. She would never recover from this. What a weak pathetic thing. She was so tiny and useless. How could an ugly maggot like her get into the ninja academy? And speak of the devil… There she was. Kiiroibara’s face split into a ghastly smile as he advanced towards his unsuspecting prey…

Sasuke woke up. He was back in the cavern. Kiiroibara was still bleeding out. Sakura was sobbing over Kiiroibara’s body. 

Reality was jarring. Kiiroibara had seemed like a young, happy, carefree kid. Until Sakura was born. Then, jealousy had consumed him, and he had turned desperate and dark. In the vision, he had done it in revenge. But if the massacre was a vindictive pleasure, why was Kiiroibara so betrayed? He should have expected Sakura would come after him to kill him. 

“Nononnononono,” Sakura’s voice jarred him out of his thoughts. “Kii-san! You can’t die!” she pleaded.

Kiiroibara slumped against Sakura, strength gone from his body. He tried to speak but nothing but a pitiful rasp came out. Sakura cradled his head and wept. 

Right before he died, Kiiroibara locked eyes with Sasuke, grinned, and winked. 

Notes:

I liked this chapter. It was fun to write and it sets the rest of the plot in stone.

Chapter 12: Aftermath

Notes:

I very nearly forgot about this. Sorry!

(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)

Chapter Text

Sasuke dragged Sakura out into the sunshine. “Get yourself together!” he shouted.

Sakura screamed. “How can I!” she howled, “I just murdered my family!” She dissolved in a fresh wave of tears.

Sasuke felt his frustration mounting. “YOU didn’t kill your family!” he yelled back. “KIIROIBARA did!” 

Sakura wailed louder. “Kii-Kiiroibara… He IS my family!” 

“He’s manipulating you!” Sasuke told her. “He’s a villain!”

Sakura beat him with her fists. She accentuated every word with a blow. “Don’t. Talk. About. Him. Like. That!” she shrieked. Sasuke stood his ground.

Sasuke tried again. “He deserved to die! He needed to die!” 

Sakura covered her ears and screamed her throat raw. She screamed and screamed until Sasuke’s ears were ringing and he couldn’t hear anything else. Her screams bounced off the hills and amplified her grief. She screamed until she couldn’t anymore. 

Sasuke used the loss of her ability to scream to his advantage. “Sakur-” 

“Don’t call me that!” she shot back with as much fire as she could muster. Oh no. This was the first time he had messed up her name. 

“Ra-chan,” he corrected. “He’s trying to ruin your life.” 

Sakura looked up at him, eyes red-rimmed and dead. “Is there even anything to ruin?”


Sasuke was seething mad. No one ever told him! Sakura had her meltdown, they began the trek back, and Sasuke thought. He thought and remembered. Itachi. He had kept secrets from him. Itachi had been planning with Danzo to kill everyone in the Uchiha clan. How could he? 

Sasuke stepped into the clearing and stopped so suddenly Sakura bumped into his back. Kakashi-sensei was squatting behind Naruto’s clones and using his Mangekyou. Other people he didn’t recognize were fighting a scarred man. Naruto was standing in the corner, observing and covered in mud. 

It was at that moment they noticed him. Kakashi-sensei shut his Mangekyou off and clutched at his eye. Blood leaked down his cheek. Naruto continued to stand there. The rest of the people attacked, but now their attacks were going through the scarred faced man. The man walked through the attacks as if they were nothing and approached him. 

“Uchiha Sasuke,” the man said, “ I am Uchiha Obito.” 

Sasuke really didn’t care. “You know me?” he asked. 

“Of course I do,” the man replied, “More than you know. How is your brother?”

Sasuke was feeling pretty angry towards his brother right now, so forgive him for not answering right away. He asked a question of his own. “You know my brother?” Who didn’t?

The man chuckled. “How could I forget him after he recruited me to slaughter your clan and never showed up on the date he set?” 

Kakashi-sensei opened his eyes and activated his Mangekyou again. Attacks could hit him again. This man was recruited to help kill Sasuke’s entire family? His own entire family? Sasuke saw red. Suddenly, the man writhed in agony. Black flames sprouted on his skin, burning at his flesh, and searing into his bones. Sasuke felt power well up in his eye and the flame responded to his will. The flames tapered into a point and stabbed into the man. The flame exploded, engulfing the elder Uchiha in flames summoned straight from hell. 

Sasuke touched his eyes. He had unconsciously activated his Mangekyou again. So this was the power of the Mangekyou Sharingan. It felt good. Powerful. Obito screamed and rolled on the ground, desperately trying to get the neverending flames off of him. A couple minutes passed, and Obito lay still. Sasuke needed to preserve the body or something because of reasons so he focused his eye on the burning corpse again. At first, nothing happened. Sasuke focused his eye again and redoubled his efforts. The flames slowly shut off. 

Adrenaline pounded in his veins along with something more. It felt… strong. A wild, carefree feeling that he could do anything. He felt like every part of his body was stronger, not just his eyes. Moving and other things were just so much easier. He felt light-headed. He wanted to do nothing more than test out his abilities, but people were staring at him strangely so Sasuke pretended like nothing was happening. 

Team 7 minus Naruto were now traveling back to the village. Naruto was going with Killer B and the other guys to learn the secrets of taming the Nine-Tails. They would contact Jiraiya-sama along the way for the key to the seal. 

Sasuke, Sakura, and Kakashi-sensei made a stop at Sand Village first. They dropped off Gaara and Chiyo, the former still barely alive, and then began heading to the village for real. Sakura didn’t look too good. She was shivering and muttering to herself again, similar to her first day back in school. She didn’t appear to notice the changes in scenery, something she had religiously pointed out with a child-like fascination on the way here. 

They reported to the Hokage and completed the extra paperwork required for the suddenly longer mission. Obito was dead. Kiiroibara was dead. Pain was reformed. The Akatsuki was officially disbanded. The world was at peace once more.


The world may have been at peace, but the battle with Kiiroibara had opened up a whole new can of worms in Sasuke’s life. This world was so much more complicated than he thought, and he had been living his life thoughtlessly, thinking that life was as simple as he had imagined. How long was his family going to treat him like a child? How long were they going to keep secrets from him? These thoughts in mind, Sasuke stormed up the Uchiha walk, determined to give them a piece of his mind. 

The first person he met was none other than Tou-san. Tou-san ruffled his hair and congratulated him for a job well done. Normally, this would be enough for Sasuke, but he had to show Tou-san something. Sasuke stared his father directly in the eyes, something that was normally taboo in the Uchiha clan, and activated his Mangekyou. He smugly noticed Tou-san looked surprised and slightly awed by the six interlocking ovals. Tou-san congratulated him, and was that a little bit of sadness in his eyes? Sauske decided not to dwell on that fact. He acknowledged Tou-san’s compliment with a nod and brushed past him. 

The next person he met was Shisui. Sasuke wasn’t in the mood for games and laughter right now, so he attempted to push past. Shisui stopped him. “Sasuke-chan!” he greeted. “How’s my favorite baby cousin?” 

Sasuke fixed him with a glare. “Leave me alone, Shisui,” he growled. 

The easy smile remained on Shisui’s face. “I’ve heard of EMS before, but did Sasuke-chan unlock PMS?” 

Sasuke activated his Mangekyou. “I said,'' he spit out through gritted teeth, “Leave me ALONE!” 

That infuriating smirk never left Shisui’s insufferable face. “Okay, okay. Itachi’s out back training.” 

Sasuke didn’t need to wonder how Shisui knew. Everyone knew Sasuke met Itachi after every mission. He would keep the tradition running, but this interaction would probably not be as pleasant. 

Itachi was outside, chucking shuriken at a fence post. “Sasuke,” he greeted without looking up. 

“Itachi,” Sasuke parroted. 

Itachi looked up, sharingan activated. “I hear you got your Mangekyou,” he said conversationally. 

“Itachi,” Sasuke repeated. 

Itachi went on as if he had heard nothing. “Let me tell you something about the Mangekyou…” 

Sasuke had enough. “Itachi! Why did you never tell me?” 

“Hm?” Itachi feigned confusion. 

“Why were you going to massacre the clan?” Sasuke roared. 

Itachi raised his eyebrows. “Many reasons. Some I can’t tell you.” He turned back to the fence post and began chucking shuriken at it again. 

Sasuke pulled a shuriken of his own out of his pocket and chucked it at Itachi. As expected, he caught it. Itachi wheeled around casually, hands in pockets. “Sasuke. I’m trying to train. Maybe later.” It was a lost cause. Whenever Itachi used those words, Sasuke knew he wasn’t going to get anything out of it. Itachi turned back to the fence post, only to find a pile of smoking ashes. “The Amaterasu,” he noted. “Just like mine.” 

Sasuke stormed into the house.


That night, Itachi stepped into Sasuke’s room. “Sasuke,” he greeted. 

Sasuke buried his face into his pillow. “I want answers, Itachi,” he ordered. 

Itachi sighed. “There are so many things you don’t understand, Sasuke. I would need to go all the way back to the start of this village.” 

Sasuke rolled his eyes and sat up. “I don’t particularly care about a history lesson. I just want to know why you were even CONSIDERING the murder of our family!” he announced. 

Itachi rubbed his eyes. He did not respond. Sasuke kicked him out of the room and shut the door behind him. 

Notes:

Yaay! Sasuke's descent into madness! How fun!

Take all the cheer and joy you have and cling to it for dear life because you're going to need it. I just added an angst tag and it is there for a reason.

Next week I'll probably post 2 chapters again.

Chapter 13: Problems

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

When Sasuke woke up the next morning, he found a piece of paper slipped underneath his door. He recognized Itachi’s handwriting. 

Dear Sasuke, ’ it read. ‘ I do not know how to voice these things aloud, so I have written them down instead. As you have no doubt learned in school, the village was started by Senju Hashirama and Uchiha Madara. Uchiha Madara believed that the Uchiha would slowly get pushed out of the village system until they were entirely excluded. Unfortunately, he was not entirely wrong. You do not know any other home except for the old Uchiha Compound and this house, but before, we, the Uchiha, were isolated on the outskirts of the village. The reason? The Nine-tails attack on the village. People suspected the Uchiha were behind this attack, and justifiably so, because a 3 tomoe sharingan was displayed prominently in the eyes of the Nine-Tails, a tell-tale sign of a sharingan genjutsu. 

People declared action needed to be taken, and action was taken. The Uchiha were forced to the edge of the village, and the people lived their lives, spitting on the Uchiha name. This was the Village’s fault. What the Uchiha did -or tried to do- in retaliation was unacceptable. They staged a Coup d'etat. They would kill the Hokage and his advisors, no doubt many other shinobi, and take the rights they needed, or rather, wanted. This wouldn’t make things better. It would make them worse. 

I was plagued by doubts. The Uchiha were powerful, yes, but if any enemy were too much for the Uchiha, the village would fall. The Uchiha were better off in the shadows, defending the village as the police. They could even be a last resort if the other frontline fighters were to fall. Being in charge of the police force was a prestigious offer, one given to our clan by the notorious Uchiha-hater, Senju Tobirama. It was a sign of peace, an olive branch, a chance to start over. Our clan didn’t accept it. They took the branch but didn’t take the terms of peace. 

The coup, even if it succeeded, would cause more damage than it would fix. The people would lose their rights. Our clan is not a merciful one. Many more people would lose their rights, and a select few would gain rights. How is this equal? How is this a solution? A concentrated many with full power on top? It would cause another war. A civil war.

The coup was also set in a time of shaky peace. The other countries would take the instability as a chance and attack. The Uchiha and the rest of the Village would fall. It would be better if the coup never happened. 

Admittedly, I did not handle the situation well. I was given an ultimatum: murder the clan in one night before the coup, or perish with the rest of the clan. This WAS after negotiations with the village, but the debates were going nowhere, and both sides refused to relent. I was angry. You are aware of the Uchiha Curse of Hatred. When love turns to hate, that is when the sharingan gets powerful. The stronger the emotion, the stronger the sharingan. I have an immensely powerful Mangekyou, and it isn’t because I’m a prodigy. I was filled with hatred. Hatred to the village for putting us in this impossible situation. Hatred for the Uchiha and their stubborn-headedness. Hatred for the wars brewing. The conflict. The turmoil. 

Everyone I knew believed me to be a traitor. Tou-san and Kaa-san thought I was working for the village. The village thought I was another Uchiha scum. The alliances I made were shaky and temporary at best. I was alone in this fight against everything alive, and I was losing. So forgive me if I decided extreme measures were the answer. This is my reasoning for contemplating genocide. I look back on it now and realize, it was probably not my brightest idea. 

If you want to talk, you know where to find me. ’ 

Sasuke crumpled the letter. Coup? Genocide? Wars? And he was ignorant of it all… He vowed, then and there, that he would do something about it. He would create peace. He would. 

But not right now. Right now, he was late for his team meeting. He hurriedly brushed his teeth, pulled on his clothes, grabbed a bite, and rushed out the door. When he arrived, he found Sakura sitting under the same tree they had parted ways at last night. Grass and twigs were tangled in her hair. 

“Did you even go home?” he asked incredulously. 

Sakura mutely shook her head. There were dark bags under her eyes and there were scratches all over her. The closer he looked, the worse she got. It appeared she tried to tear the skin off her face at some point, and her clothes were shredded. Every inch of her was covered in dirt and dust and she had a runny nose. Probably from staying outside all night. 

“Geez,” Sasuke told her, cleaning her up,“You’re so much work.” Sakura hung her head and whispered a little apology. He blinked. “I meant it as a joke…” he awkwardly told her. Sakura didn’t acknowledge him. 

Sasuke knew Kakashi-sensei was probably going to be another hour or so late, so he ran home to grab Sakura some clothes. He grabbed the first thing he could find and brought it straight back. Then, being mindful of her privacy, he helped Sakura into those clothes. The shredded clothes he burned. They were more strips of cloth now instead of clothing. As expected, Kakashi-sensei arrived 30 minutes after Sakura’s wardrobe change. 

They warmed up again and did some half-hearted exercises. He would never admit this aloud, but Sasuke kind of missed Naruto. Training with a depressed Jonin and a traumatised genin just wasn’t fun. Kakashi-sensei seemed to sense they weren’t in the mood for training, so he dismissed them early. Sasuke wondered why Kakashi-sensei seemed so downhearted today. 

He knew Sakura probably wouldn’t go home without prompting, so he walked her back. They walked side-by-side through the village, not really talking, until Sakura screamed. She lifted a trembling finger and pointed directly at a bewildered shinobi. Sasuke warily eyed the guy, but nothing seemed to be out of the ordinary. The man wore a standard headband, the standard chunin vest, and had the signature dark brown, spiky hair of a Sarutobi. A quick sharingan scan revealed moderate reserves, total confusion, and a mole on his nose. Other than that, nothing of suspicion. Well, besides the standard shuriken and kunai set all ninj- Wait a minute. Kunai! 

Looks like Sakura wasn’t able to overcome her kunai fear. Either that, or it was reawakened during the conflict with Kiiroibara. From what he could remember, there were quite a few uses of kunai during the battle. She could have easily redeveloped the fear during one of those instances. 

Sasuke grabbed her shoulder and herded her out of sight of the kunai. They marched home, double-time to reduce the chance of encountering another trigger, and only stopped when they reached her apartment complex. Sasuke spun her around and looked her dead in the eye.

“Ra-chan,” he said, a hint of steel in his voice. A confused and scared person would need clear and direct instructions. “We are going to meet here, at this exact spot tomorrow morning at 9am, understand?” Sakura nodded. “Now go inside and get some rest,” he ordered. Sakura stiffly turned and trudged up the stairs. As soon as she was out of sight, Sasuke leapt onto her window sill. He felt kind of creepy looking through her window like this, but it was a necessary precaution. True to her agreement, Sakura did her usual nightly routine and got into bed. Sasuke only left when her soft snores filled the room.

Notes:

So... Sasuke's gonna go dark because it wouldn't be an Uchiha without some evil, right? It's going to go real dark, real fast so prepare for that.

Chapter 14: Therapy Part 2

Chapter Text

The next day, Sasuke arrived a couple minutes early. Sakura was standing outside, already waiting. Sasuke really hoped for her own sake that she had only been standing outside for no more than a couple minutes. 

Sasuke began with the same regimen he had used before. It was working earlier, so why bother changing it? He began by testing out kitchen knives and other sharp objects. She reacted to absolutely none of them, except for the kunai. This time, instead of an aversion to anybody else holding a kunai, she refused to hold the kunai herself. 

It seemed that the major problem was that Sakura believed that she was a murderer because she killed Kiiroibara. And because of that, she refused to hold a kunai, the weapon she had used to kill him. But why? What was her thought process behind it? There was only one person Sasuke knew who was his age, was on relatively okay speaking terms with, was one of Sakura’s friends, and could delve into minds: Yamanaka Ino.


Sasuke walked into the one place he had swore to never set foot in, the flower shop. Back at the academy, Ino had been one of his most avid fangirls. And while she had certainly grown out of that phase, she still seemed to retain some of the annoying girl characteristics. 

He was greeted with a bell chime and a higher pitched squeal. “Sasuke! HI!” Ino screamed into his ear. Sasuke had to physically push her off of him. “Did you come to buy Sakura flowers?” she squealed. What? Some of the confusion must have shown on his face because Ino just sighed and sat down, disappointed. “What are you here for?” she asked, suddenly business-like. 

Sasuke told her about Sakura’s condition and about the latest mission. He then asked her for a favor: read Sakura’s mind and see exactly why she is scared of certain objects. Ino immediately agreed. A little enthusiastically with too many assurances and affirmation, but it was good enough for him. They talked some more to sort out their schedules and they decided to meet at the training grounds at 6pm. 

Sasuke left the flower shop feeling slightly better now that progress was being made. The sooner these things happened, the sooner Sasuke would be able to rest.


Ino arrived at the training ground a couple minutes late. Sasuke stood there, Sakura to his left, tapping his foot in impatience. “You’re late,” he accused. 

Ino just laughed. “Yeah, sorry. I had to close up shop because my parents-” 

“I don’t care,” Sasuke cut her off. “Let’s get started.” 

Ino raised her eyebrows but said nothing. Looks like Sasuke was as rude as always.

She walked forward and Sakura scuttled back. Huh? Ino tried to approach her again, but Sakura slipped past her and broke into a run. Sasuke sighed in annoyance and shot Ino a glare. 

“Stay here,” he told her, “Don’t move.” 

Ino stood there in shock. What did she do? She and Sakura had been best friends before this entire fiasco started! Did their years of friendship seriously mean nothing to her? Sasuke returned with Sakura wedged underneath his arm, wiggling and trying to get free. Ino continued to stand there in dumb shock. Why was Sakura acting so weird? She tried to approach again but leapt back in surprise to see tears in Sakura’s eyes. What was going on? 

Sasuke was still struggling to calm Sakura down, so Ino decided it would be best if she left. “I’ll just go,” she said loudly, hoping they heard her. She didn’t look behind her to check, she just turned on her heel and fled.


That night at dinner, through some weird psychic sense her parents had, her mom asked her what was wrong. Ino seriously considered saying that nothing was wrong, but it always helped to talk your problems out with a person. Besides, she wanted to know if there was something wrong with her to make Sakura so scared of her. So she told them. 

“Oh, Ino,” her mom consoled. “There’s nothing wrong with you. Maybe Sakura-chan’s going through something that she needs to work out herself! Besides, it seems like she’s got some good friends already taking care of her. Just give her some time.” 

Ino DID feel better after hearing that, but wasn’t she Sakura’s friend too? Why couldn’t she help? Ino sighed aloud. “I just want to help though,” she confessed. “I wanted to be able to do something for her.” 

Ino’s mom patted her on the back. “I know.” 

Inoichi looked up. “Hey, here’s an idea! I can take a look into Sakura’s mind for you!” 

It was a good idea but… What if it worked? Would that mean that Sakura had a problem with only Ino? But that didn’t matter right? This entire thing was about helping Sakura. If it helped her, Ino should be happy. She should be happy. 

Ino wasn’t happy.


Inoichi stopped by the Uchiha compound to arrange a time and place where he could meet them. He didn’t want to intrude on Sakura’s space and Sasuke was the most reliable mode of communication Sakura had to the outside world. As he approached, he could faintly hear shouts and the tinkering of things breaking.

Inoichi was surprised. The Uchiha were an old clan that were extremely old-fashioned and traditional. There would never be any type of ruckus going on, especially in the head familiy's house. 

He knocked and waited for a couple of minutes before the door swung open. The noises in the background did not cease. Standing in front of him was Mikoto, the matriarch of the Uchiha household. “Hello Inoichi-san,” she greeted politely, a sharp contrast to the shouting (was that Sasuke?) in the background.

“Uh, is this a bad time?” Inoichi asked nervously. 

Mikoto laughed. “Yes, a little. I can deliver a message if you would like,” she offered. 

“Yeah sure… Actually, if I may,” he began,” what’s going on?” Hey! He gathered intelligence for a living. You can’t blame him for being curious! 

Mikoto’s smile soured. “Sasuke has been acting… different ever since he got back from that one mission. For one thing, he’s been spending a lot of time around a girl and keeping secrets.” 

Ah. So they didn’t know Sasuke was actually helping Sakura? “I actually have a message for him.” 

Mikoto looked surprised. “For Sasuke?” she clarified. 

“Yeah.” 

“Okay. What is it?” 

“What is what?”

“The message,” she patiently said. Oh right. 

“Uh, Just tell him that I’ll be taking over for Ino from tomorrow.” 

“Hmm…” Mikoto looked thoughtful. “May I ask what this is for?” 

Inoichi fidgeted. “Nah. I think if Sasuke wanted to, he’ll tell you.” Mentally, he apologized to Sasuke for pushing the awkward questions to him. 

Mikoto looked disappointed. So disappointed in fact that Inoichi felt a little ashamed. “Teenagers,” Mikoto mused. “So dramatic.” 

Inoichi laughed and bid farewell. He only stopped laughing when he remembered that he had a teenager of his own at home. Oh no.

Chapter 15: Therapy Part 3

Chapter Text

After the session, Sasuke learned 5 things. Number 1: Sakura blamed herself for a lot of things. She blamed herself for killing Kiiroibara. She blamed herself for the death of her family. She blamed herself for any and every bad thing that happened to anyone she ever loved. Number 2: Sasuke’s method of rehabilitation was NOT working. At all. In fact, it was doing more damage. Number 3: Sakura had a survivor’s guilt complex. Number 4: Sakura did not give herself enough credit. She had a cripplingly low self-esteem and it hindered her in everything she did. Number 5: She was overly self-conscious and paranoid. 

All in all, Sakura was a mess of problems. It would take years and years of work to fix all of her problems. And it didn’t even help that Sasuke was encountering false leads at every turn. He had started out years ago, helping Sakura get over her initial fears after the massacre and now he found that those sessions were actually making things worse. He found alternate forms of therapy and then learned that those didn’t work. People came out with new medicines and technology “guaranteed to help her” and they consistently failed. If things went the way they have been going, Sasuke was sure it was going to take forever. The most recent setback was actually yesterday. 

Itachi had found him in the library studying. 

“Sasuke,” Itachi called. He gripped the back of Sasuke’s chair and leaned over to read the title of the book he was reading. “Why are you reading books on therapy and trauma?” 

Sasuke had spent hours in the library already and an hour before that wrestling Sakura down after her latest panic attack so he was understandably short-fused. He snapped at Itachi to leave him alone. He would have appreciated it if Itachi got up and left; instead, he opened his mouth to continue interrogating him. 

“There is a technique that an Uchiha with the Mangekyou can do to read minds and erase certain memories,” he lectured. “Why can’t you use that?” 

How many more things were there that Itachi knew, but Sasuke didn’t? Why was Itachi privy to that information, while Sasuke was kept in the dark about everything? Why had Itachi never mentioned this before now? Sasuke begrudgingly accepted the new information and packed his things up. He finished grabbing his things and left the library as fast as he could. 

He met up with Inoichi the next day and Sakura had no problems with him reading her mind. Maybe it was because Sasuke warned her this time. Maybe it was because Ino wasn’t here. Whichever it was, Sasuke was relieved. It was exhausting to have to chase Sakura down every time she got scared. 

When Inoichi regained consciousness, the first thing he did was look directly at Sasuke and tell him that wiping her memories wouldn’t work. Her memories were such a big chunk of her that at this point, it would be erasing half of her life. Even if they had erased her memories immediately after the massacre, Sakura would wake up the next day to an absent family. She would have asked questions and the truth would have come out and the blow would hurt her even more. Memory loss was out of the picture. 

The second thing he told him was that Sasuke’s method of therapy was not working. He listed the 5 quick facts above and told him he would give him a full report tomorrow. The last thing Inoichi said before leaving was that Sakura was feeling guilty for stabbing Ino so many times at the Chunin Exams. Oh. Sasuke had forgotten about that. That explained Sakura's reaction to seeing Ino the day before as well.

With nothing else to do, Sasuke walked Sakura home. He could’ve tried helping her conquer her fears, but that’s pretty hard to do when you learn you’ve been doing something wrong for years. And besides, Sasuke didn’t really feel like working on her today. 

He walked into the house in low spirits, avoiding anyone who might ask him how his day was. He was thinking of going directly to bed, but now that he was here, eating something sounded nice. 

He looked through the pantry, searching for something to eat. There was nothing. Well, nothing he wanted to eat anyway. A hand gripped his shoulder. Behind him stood Shisui, looking more serious than Sasuke had seen him in a long time. 

“Your father wants to see you,” Shisui told him stoically. “The clan elders are there too.” He leaned forward conspiratorially. “He’s pretty angry,” he whispered. 

Sasuke walked down the front porch, dreading the coming confrontation. He arrived at the entrance of the designated clan council meeting room. The door was closed. That was never a good sign. Warily, he slid the door open. 5 pairs of beady eyes were already directed at Sasuke. 

Feeling slightly self-conscious and running through everything he had done, Sasuke sat on the small chair in the center of the room. He tried to convince himself it was nothing bad. The worst they could do, couldn’t be that bad. Then he remembered Shisui’s last words and he changed his mind. He was terrified. 

Their faces were covered by the shadows so all Sasuke could see of them were their feet. There was no way to tell which one was Tou-san and which one was the hated one. The hated one was obviously Sasuke’s least favorite elder. That’s why he called him the hated one, duh. Then there was the favorite one. He was nicer than the others, although not by much, and he seemed more… grandfatherly. Sasuke debated speaking up first but decided against it. They called him here and he had no idea why. Let them break the awkward silence first.

He heard Tou-san's voice. "Sasuke,'' it said, "We need to discuss your future." 

Sasuke had to actively refrain from rolling his eyes.  Every time they ‘discussed his future’, it consisted of Tou-san comparing him to Itachi. Your brother was this, your brother did that, etc. And true to custom, Tou-san began by telling in great and unnecessary detail about Itachi’s accomplishments: Graduated at 7, ANBU captain at 13, top ANBU at 17, and so on. Sasuke could probably recite his entire lecture verbatim by now. 

Then Tou-san said something that was different. “Sasuke, if you don’t have anything to show for in a month, you will be taking the job Itachi offered.”

Sasuke instantly bristled at that thought. Itachi was slowly creeping into everything he did. At the academy, all the teachers compared him to Itachi. During missions, he was identified as Itachi’s little brother. Around the village, he was known as the second heir, also known as the spare in case Itachi gets incapacitated or killed. Now he was deciding what jobs Sasuke was getting? Why couldn’t he just be left alone! 

The elders all began hounding him, claiming they only wanted the best for him and the success of the clan. Sasuke heard their yammering voices and replied properly at the correct intervals. Inside though, he was thinking furiously. If he took Itachi’s job offer, people would accuse him of favoritism and his status would drop. The clan would see him as a dependent person who relied on the success of others to get where he was. Any and all work he did would be credited to Itachi, the reason for his placement in the first place. That would never do. 

The elders dismissed him and Sasuke left the building, intent on finding Itachi and giving him a piece of his mind. 

Chapter 16: Inf(Refl)ection

Summary:

Sasuke is a bad boy. But not in a good way.

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

He found Itachi in his room, pulling off his ANBU gear. “Why the heck,” Sasuke started without preamble, “are you butting into my life?” 

Itachi wearily looked up, paused, and returned to removing his gear. “I only want the best for you Sasuke,” he murmured tiredly. He didn’t even ask what he was talking about. That was all the proof Sasuke needed to know that Itachi was indeed behind this latest attempt to control him. “You haven’t been establishing anything for the past couple years for yourself. Having a team is fine, but you spend all your time with them. What are you going to do when you grow up and...” And... And...And that was precisely when Sasuke tuned him out. 

He heard some birds chirping and some chatter of people talking outside. What were they talking about? Sasuke strained to listen. He couldn’t hear what they were saying. Too bad the Uchiha only had superhuman vision. He wondered what clan would have superhuman hearing. Would it be a kekkei genkai? Would their ears change like the Uchiha’s eyes? He privately laughed at the image of a severe looking, burly, buff dude with purple bloated ears. 

Itachi clapped his hands. Sasuke lazily looked over at him. “Yeah?” he drawled. Itachi looked scandalized. Sasuke hoped he got the message: He did NOT want to listen to Itachi drone on and on about what he should do with his life. 

Itachi sighed and began cleaning his sword. Sasuke took that as a dismissal. Lecture averted.


A couple of days passed and Sasuke suddenly remembered that he was supposed to be finding alternative jobs or work. He could always be a chunin for the rest of his life working at a desk or doing C-rank missions. But that sounded boring. Maybe he could become a Jonin and get a genin team. Nah. How about just a Jonin that did missions? S-ranks sounded fun. But sometimes they were stuck with terrible missions as well… He could go into ANBU. They got S-ranked missions all the time. Itachi was in ANBU as well, but with enough caution, he would never know Sasuke was there as well. After all, secrecy was the base the organization was built on.

That settled it. Sasuke decided to join the ANBU.


Sasuke knelt in a familiar room in front of Danzo. 

“You aren’t suited to be in the ANBU,” Danzo rasped. “The ANBU are only for the elites or for those that are special. I already have your brother. Why would I want an inferior spare?”

Sasuke bowed. “I understand,” he said, masking the bitterness he felt. Here was Itachi overshadowing him yet again. 

Danzo swept out of the room. Sasuke got up and slowly left. As he left, he felt a sense of recognition. A feeling of deja vu.


As Sasuke walked home, dejected from his latest failure, he overheard people talking. 

“Did you hear about the latest mission Itachi-sama took?” 

“No. What was it?” 

“He infiltrated Cloud Village and assassinated a high ranking criminal hiding there! The Raikage, Tsuchikage, and Mizukage all asked for him as a bodyguard!” 

Sasuke scoffed. There was Itachi again, being Konoha’s golden boy. 

“There’s no way he could be a bodyguard for all three of them though!”

“Doesn’t he have a brother?” 

“Sasuke? Yeah, no. He’s not as good. Itachi’s a GENIUS! Maybe if Sasuke was more of a prodigy…”

Sasuke walked past them. He didn’t even look at them. That didn’t mean their words didn’t hurt though.


A girl walked up to Sasuke. “Aren’t you an Uchiha?” Sasuke merely glanced at her. He hummed in the affirmative. The girl rocked back and forth on her feet and twiddled her thumbs. “Ummm… Can you get me Uchiha Itachi’s autograph?” she asked shyly. She held out a piece of paper and a pen with two hands. Sasuke grabbed the paper and tore it up. He left before the tears actually started to drip down her chin.


A boy approached Sasuke. “Hey mister!” the boy piped up. “My cat’s stuck in a tree! Can you get him down? Pleeeeease?” He gave what was supposed to be an attempt at puppy dog eyes. 

Sasuke sighed. Normally, he would tell him no. There was nothing that could get him to do something so unnecessary except for cats and Sakura. He loved cats. They were so independent and had so little regard for authority. They were clean, they cared for their family, it just was a peaceful animal. Until it was roused. Then it was a vicious fighter, fighting tooth, claw, and nail to protect and harm. It was a dual sided creature, something many people didn’t understand. And Sasuke connected with them. Who was he, as a fellow cat, to leave a comrade stuck in a place it couldn’t get out of? And he hoped that one day, someone would help him out if he was ever in trouble. 

The boy stared at him, confused. Here was a boy, worried about his cat and here was Sasuke reciting poetry about a cat. What has his world come to? 

He walked up the tree and grabbed the cat. Except it wasn’t a cat. It was actually a timed water bomb. The “cat” exploded in Sasuke’s face, drenching him in water. The boy erupted in laughter below. He rolled on the ground, giggling and clutching his sides, gasping for air. Sasuke climbed down, seething. He loomed over the boy until he looked up. Sasuke activated his Mangekyou. 

“Do you know who I am?” he asked, voice deadly calm. 

The boy trembled and shook his head. Of course he didn’t know who Sasuke was. No one did. 

“I am the son of Uchiha Fugaku,” he prompted. 

That was the boy’s cue to get up and run away screaming. He took the cue. Sasuke grunted and continued on his way. What was up with kids ruining his life?


The next day, Sasuke woke up, a little less depressed. Today was the day he would cure Sakura! He was sure of it! He rushed to the meeting spot to find a shuffling Inoichi. 

Inoichi perked up. “Hey! Sasuke! My man! Just the guy I wanted to see… See, there’s a slight problem and… well… basically-”

“Spit it out,” Sasuke ordered.

Inoichi grimaced. “That report’s going to take longer than I thought. Probably a couple of weeks.” 

Sasuke groaned. He would never finish Sakura’s therapy! The universe was against him! And speak of the devil… Sakura stumbled into the training ground. “Hey,” Sasuke greeted. Sakura said nothing. Inoichi studied them both for a few seconds and nodded as if he was confirming something. 

“I’ll be going Sasuke!” he called over his shoulder. “That report’s going to be REALLY long!” 

Notes:

Wait a minute... don't you feel like you read this before? Yeah, that was on purpose.

Chapter 17: Itachi's Job Offer

Chapter Text

Two weeks later, Sasuke remembered he was supposed to be looking for a job. Oops. He had a few days before Tou-san forced him to take Itachi's job. Sasuke officially gave up. Itachi was a constant in his life. An unwanted one, but he was a constant he couldn’t get rid of nonetheless. Itachi was going to run Sasuke’s life whether he liked it or not and struggling was just going to make it worse. He resigned himself to a controlled life. 

The day arrived when Itachi would take him to his new job. Sasuke reluctantly followed Itachi to Hokage Towers. There, they met the Third Hokage and Danzo. Sasuke awkwardly stood there avoiding Danzo's gaze and trying not to betray his discomfort. 

"Itachi, this is the new recruit you were recommending?" Danzo asked. "I am afraid that I have already rejected him once. He isn't suited for ANBU."

Itachi cast his questioning gaze on Sasuke. Sasuke stared sullenly back. The Third looked sympathetic. 

They bowed and excused themselves. Sasuke had barely stepped foot outside before Itachi rounded on him. 

"You approached Danzo?" He shouted. "Sasuke! You could've gotten the job if you had just waited for me to introduce you!" 

Sasuke tried to state his own opinion but Itachi cut him off. "No, you could've gotten a safe, high-ranking job but nooooo. You had to do things your way and ruin everything." 

Sasuke had it. "Stop babying-"

"Not a word," Itachi threatened. "I'm trying to get you a 'big-boy' job and you know it." 

Sasuke tuned him out. He pointedly looked away and listened to literally anything else. Itachi's voice bore straight into his skull so he inched away. He focused all of his attention on the ambient sound. Why couldn’t he just let him live his life? He hummed to himself. He listened to children playing and adults talking. Itachi stepped in front of him. 

“Sasuke. I’m trying to help you. I’m sorry for getting mad, okay?” 

Sasuke ignored him. 

“There will be more opportunities,” Itachi told him. “If you become a Jonin and complete a certain amount of ranks and paperwork, you can become a specialized Jonin. Then…” 

Sasuke let the words flow over him. Itachi just kept on trying to control his life. Sasuke had been going along with it at first, but since Itachi blamed it on him, he wasn’t too sure if he wanted to do what Itachi said anymore. 

Itachi asked if he got all that and Sasuke hummed. It was neither an affirmative nor a negative, but Itachi took it as the former. Lecture averted yet again.


Tou-san got mad at him for not getting the job. Of course his family sided with Itachi. Who ever gave Sasuke the benefit of the doubt? No one. It was a “clear-cut job”, that his oh-so-perfect “brother got for you” and he “had ruined it all”. Kaa-san looked sad and a little disappointed. Even Shisui shook his head and cracked jokes about Sasuke not making it into the ANBU because he “couldn’t wait to be a big kid”. Sasuke grabbed his gear and a change of clothes and stormed out of the house. He didn’t know if he would be back.


Inoichi still wasn’t done with the report. Sasuke caught a glimpse of it, and boy, was it really long. Inoichi explained that most of the report was just formalities and terms that Sasuke wouldn’t understand without some background. However, he also told him that Sakura had so many more problems than he had seen in other people. Sasuke snapped at him and told him that ‘other people’ didn’t face the murder of their entire clan. Inoichi apologized. 

With nothing better to do, Sasuke met up with Sakura at the training grounds. He didn’t feel like training and he didn’t feel like doing therapy. He decided to take to her Ichiraku for old times’ sake. They walked in, greeted Teuchi and Ayame and sat down in their usual spot. There was an empty seat to either side of them. How fitting.

It was noon so there were some other customers going in and out of the small shop. Sasuke and Sakura were sitting there for longer than they normally would because the restaurant was unusually busy. Teuchi had just handed them a menu (there was only one so they had to share) when a loud, obnoxious, and familiar voice rang out: “Eh? Sasuke? Grape? What are you guys doing here?” 

Sasuke turned around, his smirk a little brighter and less vicious than usual. “Dobe, we can come here too, you know.” 

Naruto laughed. “I thought you guys hated ramen, dattebayo! Almost as much as Kurama- chan !” Naruto paled. “What? No! I said Kurama-san! San! No, I said, San!” He glanced apologetically at them. “I unlocked the seal. Me and Kurama (that’s the Nine-tailed fox’s name) are best friends now!” He paused. “Yes we are!” he shouted at nothing in particular. He turned toward them. “Sorry, I was talking to Kurama.”

Sasuke accepted Naruto’s energy with ease. It was getting too quiet and sane around the village anyway. 

Naruto grabbed Sakura’s hand. “Hello, Grape. Nice to see you again.” Grape? Why the heck was he calling Sakura ‘grape’? “Well… grapes are small and round fruits like cherries right? So I decided Grape would be a GREAT nickname for her!” he explained. Sasuke thought that was a terrible idea. But Sakura was semi-smiling so he didn’t say anything.

Teuchi came over. “Heya, Naruto!” he greeted. “Welcome back! Would you and the beautiful lady like the usual?”

Sasuke wondered what the usual was. And why Naruto and Sakura had a usual. And why they were greeted as a couple. And why he was excluded from the greeting. He glared suspiciously at Naruto. The blonde just laughed. “Hey teme, you look like a jealous boyfriend!” he teased. 

“Have you guys been coming here together without me?” he asked, unsure if he wanted to know the answer. 

His worst suspicions were confirmed. “Yeah,” Naruto casually drawled. “Why? You jealous?” 

“Yeah,” Sasuke blurted out, surprising himself. 

Naruto blinked. And blinked again. 

“Order up!” Teuchi hollered. Naruto whipped around and began to dig in.

He apparently forgot about that little incident because for the rest of the time, they talked about life, training, and the mission. Naruto hadn’t noticed anything was wrong with Sakura until Sasuke pointed it out. She had been acting normally before he left after all. Sasuke confided how worried he was about Sakura and how tiring the therapy sessions were getting. Naruto told him he was too stressed. He grabbed them both as soon as they were finishing their own food and dragged them to the middle of the village. He claimed he was going to take the stress away. Dread trickled into his stomach. That didn’t sound like anything good was coming out of it. 

Chapter 18: Return of Team 7

Chapter Text

Naruto winked at them, a devilish smirk plastered on his whiskered face. “Watch this,” he demanded before walking alone into the crowd. 

Suddenly, he grabbed his head and began groaning. Passerby began looking at him funny. Some of them noticed who he was and began to veer away from him. Naruto began yelling in pain and dropped to the ground. This time, some of the more kinder citizens approached cautiously, asking if he was alright. Naruto started to scream. Then, like some horror movie, red chakra began to leak out. The angry villagers now panicked and ran for their lives. A full blown Nine-tailed fox burst out and towered over them, roaring and snarling. People screamed and ANBU rushed in, ready for a confrontation. The fox gave one last snarl before bursting out in laughter. Naruto got up, shoulders heaving and tears leaking from his eyes. 

“Man! How great was that?” he laughed. 

Sasuke couldn’t help himself. He and Naruto rolled around on the ground laughing until their sides hurt. It had been months- no, years since he last laughed and he felt like a thousand pounds of stress lifted off of his shoulders. Many of the villagers brushed themselves off and pretended like nothing happened, which just made them laugh harder. There were some who began to laugh with them, appreciating a good joke. And finally, there were those who hissed threats against them. This was the funniest reaction of all. What could they do? Sasuke was an Uchiha trained by Orochimaru and Itachi and Naruto was the Nine-tails’ friend and a student of the Legendary Sannin. And here was a civilian trying to pick a fight with them? 

Once they had finally stopped laughing and regained their composure, Sasuke noticed Sakura looked a tad uncomfortable. She had cracked a smile at Naruto’s familiar antics, but the reactions of the people clearly startled her. He reassured her that nothing was going to happen, it was just a joke, before grabbing her hand and dragging her away. Naruto scrambled after them lamenting over the fact that his traitorous friends were leaving him behind. Sasuke just ran faster.


Sasuke was halfway home before he suddenly remembered all that had been going on there. Instantly, his mood died. All the joy and excitement of the “double-date” as Naruto had called it left his head. 

They had picked up Hinata after the prank because Naruto had apparently “missed seeing her dattebayo! Kurama-chan (‘SAN! I said san!’) makes for terrible company.” Then, they went to Ichiraku’s together. Sasuke tried to tell him that they had just eaten there, but Naruto just whined that he hadn’t had any ramen for a month and so he had a lot to catch up on. Teuchi didn’t seem surprised to see them back so early and he served Naruto his usual. Hinata surprisingly ate just as much as Naruto did, but Sasuke and Sakura both declined another bowl. Instead, they sat there enjoying the fact that the team was finally back together again. 

They had talked about nothing in particular, letting the conversation ebb and flow naturally, going wherever it took them until the sun began to get into Sasuke’s eyes, reminding him that he had to get home. He was abruptly reminded of the harsh fact that Naruto and Sakura both didn’t have anybody waiting for them at home so he offered to walk them home. Naruto refused, he was walking with Hinata, and Sakura said nothing. Sasuke took her home anyway and bid her goodnight before walking himself back home. 

And here he was now, heading home to a den of liars and accusers. Sasuke paused in front of the gate. He had told himself just this morning that he wouldn't be coming back, and yet here he was, drawn back home. He debated turning around and leaving, but at precisely that moment, Itachi walked out. Great. 

Itachi waved him over. Should he go or pretend he didn’t see him and leave? “I know you saw me, Sasuke,” Itachi called. “Just get over here.” Sasuke miserably dragged himself over. 

Itachi sighed. 

“Sasuke, what were you thinking ?” he asked exasperatedly. “Reports have been flooding in about the Jinchuriki and an Uchiha ‘releasing’ the nine-tailed demon in the middle of the village causing a village-wide panic!” He air-quoted the word ‘releasing’. 

Sasuke found many things wrong with those so-called reports. Naruto was Naruto and not a ‘Jinchuuriki’ just as he was more than ‘an Uchiha’. What was with people and labeling others? And where was Sakura in that report? Also, it wasn’t a village wide panic. He was sure Itachi was just exaggerating. 

Itachi was still fuming though. He went on some long spiel Sasuke only half listened to about honor and reputation and never getting a job in life with the way he was acting. He droned on and on about being a more respectable person and acting more mature. 

“You’re going to have to talk to Tou-san, you know,” he informed him.

Itachi dragged him inside and plopped him down in front of Tou-san. Tou-san looked angry. His permanent scowl was more pronounced and his arms were folded over his chest menacingly. Everything from his stance and posture to his facial expression and aura radiated cold disapproval. Sasuke felt very small. 

Tou-san didn’t say anything for the longest time which was possibly worse than a punishment. He just sat there disapprovingly. Eventually, he inhaled. And exhaled. He shook his head and turned away. Then, he left the room. Sasuke sat there, ignored. It was like he wasn’t worth the time. Kaa-san called him down to dinner. Even if he ate already, Sasuke went down. He had to maintain a fragment of normalcy or he would go crazy. And if it wasn’t to maintain his sanity, at least it would be a facade.

Chapter 19: Overwhelming Darkness

Chapter Text

At dinner, Kaa-san was the only one talking. She kept burbling on with a false happiness about Naruto being back in the village and the peace that was reigning in the village and how awesome it was that the Akatsuki was defeated and how great it was that everyone was getting along and how great it was that-

“Sasuke,” Tou-san cut in. “Resign from Team 7.” 

Sasuke froze with his food halfway to his mouth. How could he resign from Team 7? They were more of a family than his own family ever was! He wasn’t ever ignored or overlooked or criticized or compared. He was seen as Sasuke and just Sasuke. If they took that away from him… He dropped his chopsticks. 

He stood so abruptly the table nearly flipped. The bowls and plates slid off the table and onto the floor. No one made a noise besides Kaa-san, who gave a yelp of surprise. Itachi regarded him with an expectant look. Tou-san gave him a cold glare. They all knew any single member at the table could have caught all of the plates before they dropped. Sasuke took two steps back and paused. He turned around and hesitated. He placed his hand on the door. 

“I-” he stopped. “You can’t-” he stopped again. He wrenched the door open and fled from the house. 

He only realized how hard he was heaving when he was out of the compound. He cast his gaze about himself. There were neighbors openly gaping at him. What a sight he must be. Hair disheveled, panting, sweat making his clothes cling to his chest uncomfortably, head whipping around like he was hallucinating. He hated those looks. Those open looks of distaste. He got that every time he walked into a room. What is he doing here? Every single time. Then Itachi would walk in behind him and they would all ignore him. 

He ran. He didn’t know where he was running or why he was running, all he knew was that his legs were forcing him forward with a mind of their own. He wanted to stop. He wanted to quit running. He wanted to go back to the house and apologize and argue and yell and scream and shout and carry on. 

He wanted to be himself and be no one and be everything they wanted him to be and be a perfect son and a perfect shinobi and a perfect brother and a perfect friend but he was none of those things. He was a little bit of everything. Second place in everything. A mediocre jack of all trades. He wasn’t a winner. He was a loser in everything he did. He wanted to win . He wanted someone to recognize him for his work. He wanted someone to recognize him for his efforts at the very least and pat him on the back and say, “I knew you could do it. That’s my boy.” He wanted to be accepted for who he was and nothing else. And yet, he wanted to be himself.

He found himself in front of Sakura’s house. Sometimes, he wondered what it would be like to have his family gone. What if Itachi had gone through with the plan and killed the Uchiha? Every single last one of them? Sasuke doubted he would be spared. But if he was, how good would his life be? How bad would his life be? He could vividly imagine himself hurting and in pain. The loss of so many close people. But he couldn’t see anything else. He couldn’t imagine the pain and heartache and loss and fear, anxiety, worry, dread that would face him at every turn. 

The door silently swung open, surprising him, and Sakura, wearing her pajamas, stepped out into the moonlight. It was like she sensed his inner turmoil. Sasuke grasped her by the shoulders. How small she looked, standing here in a baggy shirt, barefoot and bewildered, bathed in a silvery glow. How vulnerable she seemed, green eyes displaying genuine alarm, thin arms hugged to her body trying to conserve body heat. How unlike him, to have lost everything and have nothing where he has wealth and power and a name and everything. But how exactly like him to be alone and forgotten in a vast world of new terrors. 

He hugged her tightly to his chest, ignoring her small squeak of surprise, and relished the warmth he felt deep in his core. It stirred his mind. It stirred something in his soul. A memory. Something he remembered from so long ago. Was he only seventeen? It felt like so much longer. He remembered the chunin exams. After Naruto and Gaara had first fought, when Gaara was still an enemy. He remembered talking to her outside the walls of the arena, laughing together and enjoying each others’ presence. How many things had changed since then? So many problems… so many unforeseen variables… They had faced Sakura’s offender, they had dismantled a criminal organization, and gorged in the darkness of the world.

But together, they could solve anything. The pain and heartache he felt from the sting of Tou-san’s rejection fired him up. He didn’t want him to be a part of Team 7 anymore? He would show him. He would show everyone that he could do something about himself and he would do it with Team 7. The ultimate defiance. 

Even though it was the middle of the night, he grabbed Sakura and dragged her to the training field they typically used. He paced a couple steps away and faced her. It suddenly hit him that he had no idea what to do. His old method wasn’t working and the report still hadn’t come in. He decided he would talk. That’s what most therapists did after all. They let the patient vent and helped them along after that. 

He sat on the grass and gestured for Sakura to do the same. “So,” he said, carefully touching the tips of his fingers together. “What seems to be the problem?” 

Sakura stared at him. 

“Well?” he prompted. She stayed quiet but her focus shifted to something behind him. 

“Sasuke.” 

He knew that voice well enough. It was Itachi. Play it cool , he told himself. Be cool.  

“What?” Nope. He couldn’t be cool. He sounded annoyed. 

Itachi ran his hand through his hair and sighed. “Tou-san told you to-” he stopped. “I can’t believe this,” he muttered to himself. 

All the calm tranquility left his head. “What do you want from me?!” he shouted. “Why do you have to keep ruining my life? Why can’t you just let me do things my own way? Why do you have to be ‘oh-so-amazing’ and patronize me? Why-” 

“I didn’t come here to ‘patronize’ you,” Itachi interrupted loudly. “Kaa-san told me to get you. She wants to talk to you.” 

Itachi turned and slightly bent his knees. “I won’t tell Tou-san about this,” he called over his shoulder before shunshining away. 

Sasuke glared at the same spot for a couple minutes to get his point across. Now Itachi was acting like a ‘good’ person just so he could show Sasuke how ‘bad’ he was. He suddenly remembered Sakura. She had probably seen that entire interaction. How embarrassing. 

Sakura was staring wide eyed at him. He scowled. “What?” 

It wasn’t surprise. And it wasn’t shock. It was… a kind of recognition. Maybe hesitance? Sasuke couldn’t exactly place what the expression on her face was. Maybe it was fear? That’s what it was. Sakura was horrified. Scared even. Of him. Unacceptable. 

He tried rearranging his face into what he thought was a reassuring smile. “Saku-” That made things worse. She was practically hyperventilating at this point. She gasped for breath and pointed. 

One word came out of her mouth: “Kiiroibara.”

Chapter 20: Party

Notes:

One (or more) emotional whiplash coming right up!

Chapter Text

Sasuke was confused. Kiiroibara? He had been killed weeks ago! Was her trauma so bad she was hallucinating? Unless… he whirled around, expecting to see a brown haired boy behind him but was met with nothing. 

"What is it?" He asked. He felt kind of silly asking that when he knew there was absolutely nothing around. 

Sakura said nothing in reply. She just continued to point with those same teary, terror filled eyes. 

“What?” he asked again. 

Again, Sakura stayed silent.

"What is it?!" Sasuke cried. "You always do this! You always make such a big deal over nothing! This 'therapy' thing is such a waste of time! You'll never change, you burden!" 

Immediately, he regretted what he said. His inner voices berated him. His conscience scolded him. Sasuke didn't want to hear it. He shouted as loud as he could to drown out the voices. "NEVER!" 

And he did what he did best whenever he was confronted with a problem: he ran.


It was a party. He had been called back for a party. Kaa-san wanted to celebrate Naruto's return and the reigning peace in the village. He volunteered to be the one to tell Naruto, because he was his friend—obviously—and he wanted to get out of the house for a while. 

The next morning, he arrived at Naruto’s apartment and told him he was being invited to a party the Uchiha were holding. 

Now that he thought about it, it was probably just a ploy by Kaa-san to get the family all together. And Naruto was the excuse. 

Naruto was eating ramen when he walked in, so Sasuke grabbed the neck of his shirt and began dragging him out of the apartment. 

“Oi! Teme!” Naruto complained.

Sasuke ignored him and continued to drag him out. Oh look. Stairs. Naruto swore as he bounced down the stairs, cradling his ramen carefully so it wouldn’t spill. Once they got to the bottom of the flight of stairs, he scrambled up. 

“Teme! You could just ask, ya know!” he bleated.

“Loser,” Sasuke greeted. “Let’s go.” 

He began walking off again, listening to Naruto scramble behind him with some amusement. Suddenly, there was a blow to his back and he fell to the ground. Naruto sat on his back, victorious. 

“Dobe!” he growled, trying to shove him off. “Get off me!” Naruto was heavier than he thought. It was probably all that ramen he ate. 

Naruto just laughed and boasted to concerned passerby about defeating Sasuke. That is, until he finally fell off with a yelp. Sasuke grabbed him and attempted to wrestle him to the ground. They grappled on the floor, straining to subdue the other, until Naruto’s foot knocked his ramen over. 

“Gasp!” Naruto gasped. “Looketh at the atrocity thy have committed!” 

“Did you seriously say ‘gasp’?” Sasuke asked. “And how is this my fault? You started it.”

Naruo was too busy scooping dirt and ramen into the cup, trying to salvage the remains of his meal. Disgusting. Naruto was weeping and muttering under his breath. 

“When beggars die, there are no comets seen; The heavens themselves blaze forth the death of princes …” Great. And now he was reciting Shakespeare under his breath. 

Sasuke grabbed him by the back of his shirt again and began dragging him off. Naruto struggled and kicked trying to get free. “Unhand me gentlemen! By heaven, I’ll make a ghost of him that let’s me!” he cried, tears streaming down his face. 

“Oh, be quiet,” Sasuke said, wrenching him along faster. 

“Thou hast not half the power to do me harm as I have to be hurt!” 

“Would you like me to hurt you even more?” 

“Uh… Romeo, Romeo, wherefore art thou Romeo?” 

“That’s what I thought.” 

They arrived at the house in time to see the finishing preparations be put up. Shisui was there as well as Itachi and a few other prominent Uchiha clan members. Besides Naruto, there were a few other non-Uchiha guests, like some of the clan heads and their children—and the Legendary Sannin. There were a couple of the Konoha 12 as well, although Sakura and Kakashi-sensei were missing. 

He was told Sakura hadn’t responded to the invitation and Kakashi-sensei was on a mission, so they wouldn’t be able to make it. To be honest, he was kind of relieved because he didn’t think he could face Sakura right now. 

Sasuke was very uncultured in the etiquette of parties, so he silently followed Naruto around, hoping nobody would notice him. Unfortunately, hanging around the VIP at the party drew attention, so he had people walking up to him all evening. They kept asking how he was doing and what direction he’ll be taking his life and what he was currently doing and working on. Sasuke smiled and answered and looked for ways out of the conversation. 

He eventually managed to get away from the adults and found himself around the kids. If possible, the kids made him more uncomfortable than the adults did. They were loud, overbearing, and way too rowdy. They were basically mini-Naruto’s multiplied by 10. He had been trying to delicately extract himself from the situation without hurting the kids, but after being scratched and bitten numerous times, he nearly lost it. The kids practically flew (they were lighter than he thought) and he sprinted out of there, the rest of the mob on his heels. 

He turned corners and backtracked, trying to get them off his tail, and he finally lost them when he circled behind them. He snuck away. His safest bet to survive the night was to hang around with his peers.

Chapter 21: Party

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

It was awkward at first because he hasn't seen any of them in such a long time, but they quickly warmed up to his presence as the conversation went on. Of course Naruto being there to break the tension really helped. Soon, they were talking about random things ranging from the latest gossip to top secret missions. Sasuke strategically left to get a drink when they began talking about careers because he wasn’t in the mood to talk about his future. 

He returned when he thought they were done discussing jobs. He was right: they had started playing ninja Twister. The civilians had a game they called Twister where they had a mat with rows of different colored dots and a spinner. The spinner was spun and the color it landed on was the color you put a limb on. The whole point of the game was to not raise the limb after you put it down. Sasuke had tried it once and hated it. Ninja Twister was so much more fun though. The mat was larger and the spaces were bigger, but most importantly, the people were fighting each other. No chakra was allowed, only weapons, but you had to try to stay put while forcing the other people off. Kunai and wires were counted as ‘valid’ as long as you were touching them. 

Sasuke was at a real disadvantage because his sharingan used chakra, but Naruto had an even greater handicap. Every single one of his attacks used chakra and he couldn’t even use his clones. There was a nasty debate over whether or not Shino was allowed to use his bugs which then brought up the fact that Kiba was using Akamaru to play. There was a big fight and they had nearly come to blows until Shikamaru made an executive decision to not allow anyone other than humans without the use of chakra to play. They all agreed. 

They left the game after Lee won 3 straight times and began to dance. It wasn’t dancing so much as jumping, but they were moving to the music all the same. Sasuke stood there, tapping his foot in time to the music. They’d constantly poke him and prod him, urging him to join in, but Sasuke refused. He would not participate in this undignified activity. They eventually gave up and resumed their bouncing, but they ever so slightly closed the circle. Maybe it wasn’t intentional, but Sasuke was still getting isolated. Not that he cared or anything. 

When the music got too loud for him, he left to go devour the refreshments. He scanned the room going to and from the table watching for people he didn’t want to interact with. Some strategic sidestepping and a couple of undignified crouches later, he was back across the room. From there, he was lost. What was he going to do for the rest of the party? He would go back, but it was just… so awkward. He had nothing better to do though, so he snuck back over to the group. They were still dancing. Sasuke stood just outside the circle and stood there clasping his hands. 

There were people brushing against him every few seconds and some particularly violent nudges. It finally occurred to him that people were trying to dance and that he was maybe, probably, just a little bit in the way. He made his way through the crowd again and went back to haunting the refreshments table. Might as well eat while he was here. 

He had just started on his 13th cookie when the man walked through the door. He didn’t exactly notice him at first, and neither did anyone else, but Sasuke kept getting a weird feeling in his stomach. Maybe he ate too many cookies. Actually, he didn’t even know why he was eating them; he never liked sweets in the first place. 

A roar of outrage stopped everything in the room. 

Everything was suddenly silent and everyone was staring at Tsunade, who they now knew to be the source of the outcry. After a couple of seconds of awkward staring, people began to move again, chuckling and gossiping nervously. Naruto sidled up to Sasuke’s ear. 

“Whaddya think happened?” he asked. 

Sasuke just shook his head. He had a horrible feeling that something was wrong, but exactly what it was he couldn’t tell. He felt like something was different tonight. Something was missing.

His mind raced furiously. The man had approached Tsunade with news that was bad enough to make her shout aloud. That didn't mean anything though. Tsunade was known to get furious over petty things, especially after she had a couple drinks. She took off in a hurry and Sasuke made a split second decision to follow. 

The rest of the group walked up immediately after Sasuke took off. 

“What’s up with him?” Shikamaru drawled, arms clasped behind his head. 

They all shook their heads. 

“I’ll go after him,” Naruto volunteered. “I’ll be back in a sec!” 

Naruto sped off after them. 

“They’re not coming back anytime soon huh?” Ino sighed. 

They all solemnly nodded. 

“Who wants another round of Ninja Twister?”

Notes:

Happy Halloween!

Chapter 22: Downwards Spiral

Chapter Text

Sasuke leapt across the rooftops with his sharingan activated. It wasn’t consciously activated, it just activated automatically in response to his extreme emotions. He clattered into the hospital and jumped the reception desk. There was a scream.

“Where’s Haruno Sakura’s room?” he panted frantically. 

The receptionist shrieked and swatted him off the counter. “Get! Off!” She punctuated every word with a slap. When Sasuke reluctantly clambered down, she cleared her throat and attempted to straighten herself out. Sasuke waited impatiently for her to finish. She checked her clipboard. “Haruno-san is currently undergoing critical surgery and cannot have visitors,” she told him. 

Sasuke left extremely disappointed. He-- What.

What? 

WHAT?! 

Critical surgery?! He spun around and grabbed the lady. “What happened?” he demanded. 

The woman choked. “How in the world should I know?” 

She had a point. Sasuke dropped her and sprinted for the hospital rooms. Shouts rang out behind him, but he was already long gone. He ran down the hall checking off rooms as they passed. 124, 125, 126… 149, 150, 151… 173, 174, 175… 199… He skid to a stop. Where was he going? She never told him the room number! He turned around and ran straight into a security guard. 3 more guys jumped on him and jammed their elbows into his side, wrestling him down to the ground. Sasuke fought to get free, but they grabbed him and dragged him outside. 

They dumped him on the ground unceremoniously and slammed the door in his face. Naruto landed by him a second later. 

“Te...me…” he gasped. “Wait… for me… next time.” He plopped himself down, still heaving, and laughed. “I saw you get dumped like a sack of potatoes. What’s going on?” 

As usual, Naruto’s attention span shifted at the drop of a hat. Sasuke decided not to give him a proper answer, and settled for punching him in the arm. “They aren’t letting us in. Let’s go dobe.” 

He shoved his hands into his pockets and began trudging down the street. Naruto caught up to him and shoved him. “Seriously, teme. What’s going on?”

Sasuke shoved him back. “Sakura’s in the hospital.” 

Naruto retaliated. “Geez. Just tell- mwaaaat?” 

He glanced at him. Sasuke stared back. 

“You’re not joking?” Naruto asked. 

Sasuke mutely shook his head. 

Naruto spun around and began sprinting towards the hospital. Sasuke walked behind him. He really wanted to see Naruto get thrown out, but he didn’t want to be associated with that loser. Naruto skidded to a halt in front of the doors and yanked them open. He barreled in and skidded to a halt in front of the receptionist desk. 

“Where’s Haruno Sakura’s room?” he begged.

The receptionist looked at her clipboard and then back at him. She slid a paper across the desk. “Sign here.” Naruto signed. The woman pointed down the hall. “Room 106,” she told him.

Naruto took off again and skidded out of sight, his shoes leaving streaks on the floor. Sasuke stood there in complete shock. Naruto’s blonde hair reappeared again as he poked his face around the wall. Did he just stick his tongue out at Sasuke? He pulled his head back. 

That’s it. That little munchkin was dead. Sasuke marched his way into the hospital with murder in his heart. Well, not actual murder because murder was bad. But it was close enough. The receptionist glanced at him and narrowed her eyes. 

“You!” she hissed. 

She called the guards back in and booted Sasuke back out. He sat there for a second debating on the pros and cons of fighting his way in. He eventually decided against attacking the innocent hospital receptionist and instead, hung around the doors. Suddenly, he realized that he had been inside the hospital and he knew the room number. Maybe, just maybe, he could look through the window. 

He pretended to leave in case anybody was watching and swung back around towards the back of the hospital. The rooms were arranged in a gigantic U-formation in increasing numerical order. He counted off the windows and stopped in front of the sixth one. He peered up at the window directly above him. Technically, with a bit of chakra, he’d be able to launch himself up there, but he didn’t want to interrupt the other patients. He walked up the wall. When he was finally level with the glass, he pressed his face as close as he could, careful not to touch anything. 

Inside, was a pale, sleeping guy. He had messy brown hair and wore the standard hospital gown. An IV stuck out of his arm and a bandage wrapped around his head. Sasuke dropped off the wall and ran around to the other side of the building. He repeated the climbing process. This time, there was a nurse in the room. He was straightening the bedsheets and fluffing the pillows, probably to get it ready for the next patient. Where in the world was Sakura though?

Behind him, someone cleared their throat. It was the receptionist and a guard. Sasuke had forgotten to hide himself when he scrambled around the building. They kicked him out again and warned him to stay away. Whoever he was looking for was probably fine; they needed rest, and his snooping about was not helping. 

Yeah right. Critical surgery didn’t exactly inspire ‘fine’ for him. 

When Naruto finally came back out, Sasuke latched onto his arm. It was such a ridiculous turn-around of their previous position that if Sasuke had been able to see himself, he would have never done so. Unfortunately for him and his dignity, he couldn’t see himself. 

“How is she?” he asked. 

Naruto shook him off. Sasuke tried to grab his arm again, but Naruto shifted himself away. When Sasuke tried for the third time, Naruto smacked him away. 

“You know exactly how she’s doing,” he rounded on him angrily. 

Sasuke took a step back. Just what was he talking about? 

“You know how she got injured?” Naruto blustered. “She fell from high up.”

That sounded painful, but Sasuke had no idea what that had to do with him. Naruto grabbed Sasuke and pulled him in until their noses were practically touching. Absently, he noticed the whiskers on Naruto’s cheeks were more defined and his pupils were red and slitted. 

“She didn’t fall. She JUMPED.”

Sasuke went numb. His fingers were tingling and his ears were ringing and he couldn’t. Feel. Anything. Ice snaked its way into his brain, stopping his thoughts dead in their tracks. Distantly, he could hear Naruto yelling at him, but it was muffled, like he was speaking through a layer of plastic. His thoughts began to move again, albeit sluggishly, and he wondered if maybe he liked it better when he couldn’t think, couldn’t feel, couldn’t move anything. 

He knew Naruto knew what happened. He was too angry for it to be anything else. Naruto’s grip on his shirt got tighter and tighter, a physical manifestation of the pressure Sasuke was feeling in his chest. 

He saw Naruto’s fist before the hit landed, but he made no move to dodge the blow. It was a penance for his words. The pain of his hand on his cheek, the raking of his nails, the crushing of his throat, was all divine retribution for the stinging words he had inflicted on Sakura. With each consecutive blow, Sasuke grew more and more unsatisfied. He needed more. More pain. More atonement. He needed to take thrashing after pounding after beating until his scars matched Sakura’s.

Golden light flooded from Naruto’s sleeves encasing his arms in clawed sheathes of chakra. But the chakra was darker than the typical chakra Kurama released. It seemed that Naruto still had a dark side to harness even when the Nine-tails was under his control. 

One of the numerous flying limbs caught him, smacking him across the face and sending him through the air. He ploughed a furrow through the ground and slid into a tree with a dull thwack. A hand snaked around his ankles and lifted him into the air. The air whistled through his hair as he was flung about like a rag doll. Naruto slammed him repeatedly into the trees until he was so disoriented that he couldn’t tell right from up. He dizzily wondered if he had a concussion yet, or if he should get Naruto to stop. 

‘Payback, revenge, penance’ kept running through his head like a mantra, as consistent and steady as his heartbeat. But thanks to me, Sakura’s almost stopped. 

Naruto shook him one last time before smashing him into the ground. The chakra manifestation disappeared. Naruto stomped up to the crater where Sasuke lay and poked him in the chest. 

“We are going to the hospital as soon as they accept visitors into the room, and you are going to apologize,” he spat.

Sasuke was reminded quite abruptly that he had never considered apologizing. He had been so close to beating himself up and calling it that. He needed to find favor in Sakura’s eyes; he couldn’t just decide himself forgiven on his own. This was the whole reason they were in this situation in the first place: because he kept running from his problems. It was high time he started facing them head on. 

Naruto wasn’t done. “And the next time something like this happens—” He leaned in. “—I WILL kill you.” 

With that threat hanging in the air, Naruto stalked away. Sasuke laid there for a couple more minutes debating the merits of getting up or staying there all night. He decided going home was in his best interests. But his head still hurt and he was covered in scratches and bruises. His arm was likely sprained at best, possibly broken at worst, and he was so emotionally drained that he felt like laying there until he decomposed. 

He would give himself a few minutes first. Then he’d go home.

Chapter 23: Visit

Chapter Text

When Naruto shook him awake the next morning, he was still seething. “You could have gone home ya know!” He dragged him upright and slung an arm under his, until he was supporting him. “Your parents were worried sick!” 

It took him a couple seconds to remember where he was. His thoughts were still a little sluggish from just waking up so it took him a couple confused seconds to remember they were going to the hospital instead of his home. 

When they arrived, there was a different person on shift. 

“Oh no! What happened?” The guy shouted for a medical team and rushed around the counter. “How did he get hurt?” That was addressed to Naruto. 

But it was Sasuke who answered. “I’m not hurt,” he slurred, still a little dizzy. “We’re here to visit someone.” 

The guy waved away the doctors that had come rushing out and gaped at them. His eyes roved over Sasuke’s many cuts and bruises. “Not hurt?” 

“Yeah.” 

The guy stared into space for a worrying amount of time before suddenly smiling at them. “Okay! Sign here, sign here, date here, and you’re done!” He shoved a clipboard into their hands and walked back to his seat where he held his head in his hands. They filled it out and he looked over the paperwork before directing them to room 127. Then, he went back to rubbing his temples. 

“Room 127?” Sasuke wondered aloud. 

Luckily Naruto understood. “Room 106 is an emergency room,” he explained. 

Ah, yes. That made so much more sense. Obviously, those rooms would be located outside of the U, in some easy access place. And once she was out of critical condition, she would have been moved to a regular hospital room.

They walked in silence the rest of the way. 

Room 127 was a regular hospital room. They hovered around the door until the doctor noticed them and stepped out. “Are you Uchiha Sasuke?” 

Sasuke stepped forward. “I am,” he confirmed. 

“Uh, I don’t know how to say this, but the girl, Sakura, specifically asked to not let you in…” He glanced hopefully at him. “So…” He trailed off, motioning towards the hallway. 

Sasuke just sighed. He should have expected something like this to happen. “I understand.”

The doctor slumped. He mumbled something under his breath that sounded like ‘thank goodness.’ Naruto told the doctor to tell Sakura that they both stopped by, and turned to leave. 

Sasuke caught up with him outside. “You’re not going in?” he asked, slightly surprised. He had half-expected him to get into a fistfight with the doctor to let them both in. Instead, he handled it professionally and honestly pretty well. 

Naruto kept staring at the floor as he walked. “Nah. I figured I could give her some space for a while.” He looked up-- finally --with a look in his eyes that he couldn’t quite interpret. “I do tend to overreact sometimes.” They walked in silence for a while, Naruto obviously bothered by something and Sasuke trying to figure out what that something was. Naruto inhaled. “Ya know, I’m sorry for beating you up yesterday.” 

“No problem. I kind of deserved it.” 

“Mm.” 

“Mmhm.” 

“Great.” 

“Yup.” 

“Yeah…”

“Okay…”

Despite the awkward conversation, the silence between them was actually pretty comfortable. Naruto broke the chain of monosyllabic grunts first. 

“What did you even do? That made her react that badly?” He suddenly asked. 

It caught him off guard. “I…” He thought back to that night. How did it all even start? “Well, my dad said to quit Team 7 and I got mad and left the house and ended up at Sakura’s and we went to the training fields and Itachi told me to go home because my mom wanted to tell me something and Sakura panicked and pointed at something and said ‘Kiiroibara’ and I got mad when she wouldn’t clarify what she meant by that because she always says perplexing things so I told her that she was always like this and she would never be normal.” 

Naruto listened wide-eyed to Sasuke’s sudden speech. He wasn’t sure how much of it actually sank in, but if Naruto got the main gist of it, that was enough. 

Naruto frowned. “Sasuke, just tell me what actually happened.” 

“What are you talking about? That’s literally what happened.” 

Naruto laughed. “You expect me to believe that Sakura-chan said her cousin’s name and a whole bunch of other cryptic words?” 

“Why not?” 

Naruto looked at him like he was crazy. “Sasuke, Sakura-chan hasn’t said a single word since team assignments, 5 years ago.”

Chapter 24: The End of Sasuke's Unemployment

Notes:

Yup. It starts getting a little more fluffy from here on out. That doesn't mean it'll be all cotton candy, pillow puff, clouds of rainbows and sparkles, but there won't be too much dark, dripping, doom of death. Notice I said 'there won't be TOO much' because there's still going to be some angst lol

Also, sorry it's like a day or two late. idk, writers block sucks. I figured out how everything was going to end, but I forgot to plan out what would happen in the middle so a lot of this chapter is bs-ed (is that a thing?) so srry ig. Also, I got really self-concious about my writing like halfway through and had to change a bunch of stuff, then got even more self-concious about that stuff so I changed it back and now here I am rambling and rambling. Where was this when I was writing this?

Chapter Text

Sasuke knew Sakura had said those words. Maybe. But by the end of a 3 hour debate, he was getting a little unsure of himself. Did he just hallucinate everything? He could have sworn Sakura had said all of those things, but now… 

Naruto thought Sasuke had finally cracked. He kept telling him he should get more sleep and be less stressed. He apparently thought everything was getting to him and was manifesting itself in his hallucinations. Well, he wasn’t going crazy and he wasn’t stressed. Probably.

Sasuke knew that Sakura talked. They had talked outside the chunin stadium, on the training grounds, and a whole bunch of other places. In all those cases, they had been alone. Hmm… Maybe he was hallucinating.

“Sasuke!”

He turned around, looking for the source of the voice. There in the distance, he saw Inoichi waving at him. He jogged over, Naruto hot on his heels. 

“Sup?” 

Ah, yes. Sasuke was as respectful as always. 

Inoichi pulled a scroll out of his jacket and handed it over. It unraveled and bounced 5 times on the floor before stopping. 

Inoichi just shrugged. “I told you it’d be long.” 

Sasuke spent the next 3 minutes rewrapping the scroll again. Then, he thanked him again and set off, eager to begin reading the report.


He and Naruto spent the next couple hours poring over the small, cramped text. It was really informative, even if they had to look up words every couple sentences. They only really finished like half, but they were ready to try some of the techniques out. 

The main problem with his first approaches was that he wasn’t exactly helping her overcome her fears: she was just learning to suppress her reaction to them. What he was supposed to do was be open, supportive, and help her through her pain without making her feel like her pain was irrational. Don’t make her feel weak, don’t make her feel like she’s overreacting, and above all, don’t compare her pain to his own. People react to different circumstances in different ways. He was more inclined to react in anger, but Sakura was more likely to react with fear. She didn’t have his courage, or his anger, or his raw fury. 

It was like getting a look inside her brain. This is what he was missing. He just tried helping her how he would have liked being helped if he were put in her place, and completely ignored the fact that she might need something different. From now on, he would put himself in her shoes and walk her step by step through healing. 

With all of this weighing in his mind, he began to see it everywhere. The slightest flinch from a man when an apple was thrust his way. The protective arm of a woman shooting out to protect her son when a pan slipped from its perch with a crash. Naruto’s strange detour around certain stores. It was like everyone suddenly had problems and he could see them all. His brain began cataloging information automatically. Random eyes widening, perspiration, slight startles, deep breaths to calm their nerves. Everywhere he looked, he became more and more convinced that everyone had a problem. 

And he knew how to fix them. He had the knowledge and he wanted to fix them. Inspiration struck him like a lightning bolt. He took off for home. 

“Nii-san!” He kicked the door open. “I need to talk to you!” 

Itachi looked up. “Sasuke.” 

“Take me to Hokage-sama. I need to talk to him.” 

Itachi sighed. “I have a date,” he whined. He finished buttoning up his suit and stood up. He looked really uncomfortable. 

“Pleeeeeaaaase?” 

Itachi sighed again. “Fine.” 

They began walking to Hokage tower, until Itachi spotted the Yamananka flower shop. He stopped by to pick up a bouquet of flowers for his date. 

The Third looked up as they walked in. “To what do I owe the pleasure-” he stopped. And stared. “Are those flowers for me?” 

“Oh… Yes!” Itachi handed the flowers over. “Uh… for being such a great… Hokage,” he quickly invented. 

Sasuke stepped forward. “Hokage-sama. I have an idea to open a therapy section in the hospital.” 

The Hokage appeared to be intrigued. “Go on,” he beckoned. 

He began listing things off the top of his head. “I have seen many people with troubles and I would like to help alleviate this burden on them. It will benefit the manpower without these debilitating troubles plaguing them and it will ease their minds to work on other extraneous things.” 

The third nodded. “You have my permission.” He stamped a paper and handed it to Sasuke. “Give this to the Head of Hospital and tell them you have my express permission.” 

Wow. Sasuke didn’t think it would be this easy. He turned and pushed past the doors, eager to implement his idea as soon as possible. 

“Here you go, Itachi,” the hokage said. “I know these flowers were for your date.” 

Itachi shuffled and bowed. “Thank you Hokage-sama.” He took the flowers and left.


While he was waiting for the time he could finally enter the room, Sasuke finished reading the report. Turns out, Sakura was mute. It was a self imposed muteness that she placed on herself as penance for not being able to save anybody from her clan. The reason why she had been talking to Sasuke was because she felt comfortable around him. The first time they had truly talked, at the Chunin exams, he had treated her as a person, and not as some fragile freak. From then on, their interactions only made her feel better and better towards him. 

It gave him a warm, fuzzy feeling to learn this. Sakura enjoyed his presence? He felt all giddy and warm and he knew his ears were heating up, but he didn’t really care. Then his thoughts turned on him. How did he feel about her? He felt… she was very cute. He knew that for a long time though. He admired her mental fortitude. If he went through half the stuff she went through—well—his life right now was testament to how terribly he handled adversity. 

It was also an attraction to that softness she exuded. Everything she did was full of a grace that no one else possessed. Her hair was such a soft pink as opposed to the garish colors of some of the other people he had seen. She ran like light over water, bounding along like a deer through a meadow, slinking around like a prowling cat. And mostly when she smiled, her eyes softened and glowed a crystal clear green. He wanted to see those clear, laughing, emerald eyes more often. That’s why he wanted to help her so badly.

Naruto lectured him on his reclusive lifestyle. His lecture made sense for once. Sasuke had begun spending so much time with Sakura that he had isolated them from the rest of the world. No matter how much you like a person, being shut up in a box alone with them for years and years means you’re bound to end up in some fights. It was unfortunate that the fight escalated to such a level, but now they knew what not to do. Just because he wanted to help Sakura didn’t mean he had to sacrifice his own social and emotional life for her. 

He could be there for her while still maintaining a healthy balance.

Chapter 25: Mending Relationships

Chapter Text

Sasuke was finally admitted into Sakura’s room after 4 days. He pestered the doctor until he relented. Before he and Naruto entered, he made sure to warn her beforehand so she wouldn’t freak out. 

When he finally entered the room, he lost his breath. As cliche as it sounds, his lungs literally refused to work. The sun slanted through the curtains just right so it bounced off her hair casting a pinkish hue around the room. Her eyes were so innocent and green and peering out at the world with so much vulnerability that it hurt. Her nose was dusted with that perpetual blush that he was now accustomed to. And her cheeks reminded him of peaches. The right creamy color, the soft peach fuzz covering them… Was it bad that he wanted to take a bite out of them?

He wasn’t a superficial person by any means, but Sakura’s beauty was just the cherry on top of an already perfect being. Speaking of cherries, her lips were stained red, the exact same color. They were so red and glossy and glowing. Why was she glowing? Why was she so beautiful? 

Sakura pulled a hand out and waved. Oh goodness. Her hands were so slender and lithe and—dare he say it? No. He didn’t dare. He would have swooned right then and there if Naruto didn’t crash into him just then, ruining the moment.

“Ow! Teme! Hurry up and stop blocking the door!” he griped. 

Sasuke just huffed. “You didn’t need to walk right behind me, you know,” he reminded him. “ You crashed into me .” 

“I wouldn’t have crashed into you if you hadn’t been so busy staring at your girlfriend ,” Naruto accused in retaliation.

Sasuke decided to drop the matter. There was absolutely no need to spout his feelings all over the hospital. He started off with a heartfelt apology. He emphasized his sorrow with a hug (so small!) and stroked her hair (very silky, very soft). He also tried to get himself under control. He was here to apologize, not gawk like a toddler at the zoo! Why was he even feeling this way? 

Logic told him that it was because he was trying to sort out his own feelings. Until he determined how he felt for her, his feelings were going to be a mess. Sasuke told logic to shut up. It didn’t. It continued to tell him that he was going to nitpick her until he decided whether he liked her or not. Well judging from how his thoughts were right now, he was definitely attracted to her. 

The problem was, did he find her beautiful or did he love her? Hmmm… looks like he needs to find out. 

“Oi!” Naruto barked. 

Sasuke jumped so violently that he nearly overturned a couple of the monitors. Naruto asked why he was so quiet. Sasuke replied that he was thinking. Naruto asked what he was thinking about. ...Awkward… Silence… Followed… Well, Sasuke said his apology, but he was going to make it up to her with his actions now. He dragged a flimsy plastic chair to her bedside and began telling her about the therapy section he had been allowed to start. Then he found himself talking to her about his daily life without her, which was pretty boring now that he thought about it. Then the subject changed to the general population in the village, then to daily happenings in his house. Actually, he and Itachi had a talk the day before…


“Sasuke,” Itachi called from the kitchen. He was doing the dishes. 

Sasuke sat on the floor, reading a magazine, trying to pass the time and bored out of his mind. “Yeah?” Relieved for something to do, he got up and walked into the kitchen. 

Itachi wiped his hands on the pink frilly apron he was wearing and looked him in the eye. “You’re calling me Nii-san now.” 

“What?”

“This past week, you’ve taken to calling me Nii-san again,” he clarified. 

Sasuke didn’t see how that meant anything. It was an interesting tidbit, but completely irrelevant. 

Itachi didn’t agree. “I think you’ve been placing me on a pedestal above everyone else since you were young. I was infallible to you. The perfect being.” He paused. “I’m flattered, of course,” he added, “but as I messed up, you held that resentment against me until it built up and began spilling over into every aspect of your life.” 

It made sense. “But how does my calling you ‘Nii-san’ change anything?” 

“Because when I was ‘Itachi’, I was not your brother. I was some figure to you, an ideal perhaps. Now, I’m your brother. A human.”

Ah.


So yeah. His relationship with his brother was fixed. 

Sakura asked about a couple of specific people and they were off. Sasuke didn’t exactly remember everything they talked about, but he did remember about halfway through, that Naruto was still in the room, gaping at hearing Sakura’s voice. He smirked and Naruto shook himself off before creeping out to give them some space. Then they were back in their own world again. 

Sasuke left the hospital 5 hours later. He was only 10 steps out of the hospital and he already wished he was back in there.