Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

They don’t land in a field.

This is the first sign that something is wrong but, in the moment, Sasuke is too busy dragging himself up and out of the crater he’s made in the floor. Groaning, his presses a hand to his forehead, the uncomfortably familiar sensation of blood trickling down from his eyeballs barely even registering at this point. His vision is blurry as fuck and the only comfort is that the blaze of Naruto’s chakra (more a spark than the usual bonfire but hey, breaking the laws of chakra takes energy, damn it) is a hop, skip and step away. Peering out from better his eyelashes takes effort but Sasuke persists. Because, for all that he can hear the wind, can hear water lapping up against stone and rodents scuttling around somewhere… he can’t sense any chakra.

For a moment, he thinks they’ve landed in Rain, for all the sense that would make (fuck all sense it would make, to be precise). The buildings are tall and shiny, there’s no grass around them whatsoever and there sure as fuck isn’t a war happening right now. Which, yeah, bonus. In fact, he can’t sense any fights in the immediate vicinity but that may very well be because his senses are broken.

“Nnnrgg— ‘suke?” Naruto’s whimper of his name is mere pitiful. Not in the ‘injured and lying on my deathbed’ kind of way, but more of a ‘fatigued beyond recognition, don’t make me get out of bed’ way. Typical… He needs to see her. If he thought opening his eyes had been challenge then, woah fuck, is standing up another beast altogether. The world spins and the ground is ripped out from under him and— no, wait, that’s his left leg giving out. It’s bleeding. That’ll need sorting out soon. Through what is potentially sheer willpower alone, Sasuke gets to his feet, running on fumes and a stupid bundle of emotion undead-Itachi had unflinchingly pulled out from the layers and layers Sasuke had buried it under her.

Did he love Naruto? Yeah. He hadn’t wanted to acknowledge it but since his zombie-brother had voiced it the thought hadn’t been able to leave his head even when he really should have been focusing on the goddess that was very much a threat to his and Naruto’s life (and the world, but he didn’t care too much about that). He’d put it not quite on the back-burner, but certainly next to the main objective of survival. They’ve very much survived and, while the location is questionable, Sasuke no longer feels like their lives are in immediate danger.

He probably shouldn’t have used Orochimaru’s time travelling jutsu. Especially given the Sannin had labelled it ‘time-travel?’… Probably shouldn’t have gotten Naruto to power it with her ungodly levels of chakra either.

Eh. He hadn’t fancied dealing with the fallout of having won a war he honestly didn’t give a shit about. He was there for Naruto. That had been it.

“Naruto?” Willpower alone is what makes him say Naruto’s name, not slur out a half-arsed attempt like she’d done as he stumbles over to her, a motion a half-blind man may have kindly called a stagger. If he were squinting… and a few hundred yards away.

She’s face down in the odd-stone, blonde hair sprawled around her skull like blood from a head-wound. He doesn’t see any blood, doesn’t smell any either. She heals quick regardless. She’ll be fine. Sasuke squats down beside her, sways, very nearly crumples in a heap across her back but manages to catch himself at the last second. Right. Experimental jutsu. Experimental jutsu from a Sannin with questionable ethics and morals so hole-riddled he could shoot a kirin through them. Probably.

“’Id i’ work?”

“We’re not on the battlefield anymore,” Sasuke confirms, looking around and very determinedly not voicing the fact they didn’t appear to be anywhere he knew. Could be Rain if, you know, it were raining. Rain hasn’t had a rainless day in, probably forever. The sky above his head is very much clear, the stars suspiciously absent but there’s a fuck-ton of light being shot off by the city around them so, probably because of that. Moon’s still there though. Fucking moon. Better not be a goddess in that one. Whoever’s moon it is.

“’M tired.” Right. Powered the unknown, potentially dangerous jutsu. Probably wouldn’t have knocked Naruto off her feet normally but, following a war of one… two… three? (who knows, fuck keeping track) days of endless fighting— yeah, no wonder she’d tired.

Damn his brother. He can’t leave Naruto out in the open like this, as they sure as fuck can’t stay here when his (eyes, hearing, smell, sensing) everything isn’t working reliably. Where’s that great big, fuck-off sized fox when he needs it to protect them? Using chakra in this state is… likely going to be a no. He can feel undead-Itachi judging him from the pure-world for even considering it but he’s tired. Sleep sounds amazing but that won’t happen until they get to book it out of here for shelter. Sasuke eyes the crater they’ve created (and looking down, away from the light, is so much better than trying to squint up at it) and hums. Yeah, if this city is anything like Rain, someone will be along to check on that. Maybe. He thinks.

Eh. Not his problem.

“Come’on, idiot.” Sasuke plants on knee on the floor, hooking his hands under Naruto’s arm before he slings it over his shoulders. She grumbles, half-asleep already (unbelievable), and buries her head into his chest the moment he stands up. The zipper of his shirt broke at some point and it’s fallen halfway down, exposing most of his chest. If Naruto’s hot breath ghosting across his pecs isn’t enough to make him snap awake, then he really does need to fucking sleep.

With just enough chakra left to throw over the both of them in a ‘don’t fucking look at us’ genjutsu, Sasuke begins stumbling away. He’s got enough awareness to register the scraggly looking hobo that goes sprinting past them, but he’s out of fucks to give on why the local homeless population feel the need to investigate their landing site.

Chapter Text

He’s sure the cost of a tomato here is outrageous.

Walking out of the convenience store, Sasuke adjusts his hold on the paper bag full of groceries, eyes scanning his surroundings, biting into the sweet flesh of his midday snack. This world is odd as fuck, but he’ll give it its due; they have a good variety of tomato breeds here. Around him, the hustle and bustle of Tokyo continues, people pushing to and fro to get to their destination and acting like the guy with a fish-head is completely normal. Which it apparently is because, you know, ‘quirks explain everything’. Utter bullshit but then this is a bullshit world. Sasuke doesn’t care. What’s important is there’s no war here (no fighting and certainly no one who’s screwed his family over for the sake of illusionary peace). Another big plus point is that Naruto’s here, even if she’s sleeping eighteen hours a day in a desperate attempt to recover all her lost chakra. It’s been three days now and Sasuke is starting to worry. Yeah, he said it. Worry. About Naruto. Undead-Itachi was right (and a bastard for pointing it out). He’s never known anyone end up weak as a baby for days on end trying to recover chakra. Then again, Naruto is the only person he knows who has more chakra than the Leaf’s population put together… and then some. She’s got a lot to gather back up. She’ll be fine, she’s always got up when he didn’t want her to, she won’t break that record just because he is actually waiting for her this time. 

Day one in this new world had been spent further securing the section of park that Sasuke’d managed to find in the maze of too-fucking-tall buildings, rigging it to the high heavens with all sorts of ninja traps on the off chance some idiot bumbled through his genjutsu (or worse, an enemy forced their way through). Then, he’d done fuck all but sleep. Pro; he’d been wrapped around Naruto as he’d done so. Con; it hadn’t been a conscious decision on her part. Plus, she’d drooled all over his left sleeve and he’d not had a change of clothes on him. 

Day two had been a little better, what with being dedicated to recon. With a hefty eight percent of his chakra (a step up from the two-ish percent he’d had on day one), Sasuke had ensured Naruto’s dead-to-the-world form was as secure as possible before heading out. His first conclusion had been that there were no shinobi here. Not one. Everyone just went about their lives and if someone decided to endanger others or break a law, flashy idiots called ‘heroes’ would descend on them for a slugging match, usually with said hero coming out victorious. Given the vast majority of the population here look like they’ve been plucked straight from Orochimaru’s rejects’ bin, it’d made an odd sight. Sasuke’d marched on through the town, stolen a few pairs of clean clothes for himself, stolen a few pairs of clothes and a fucking bed pillow for Naruto, and stolen some lunch for them before making his way back. The plus side of being in this freak show world was that no one had given his Rinnegan fuckery eye anything more than a curious second glance. No running for the hills (or running to rip his eye out). Sasuke’ll count it as a win. 

Which brings him neatly to day three. Standing on the side street, a wallet full of stolen money (people just walk around with it bouncing about in their pocket, don’t even have zips or buttons to guard it, they’re asking for it) courtesy of some idiot that’s climbed into some big car and his shopping in hand, Sasuke looks around. It’s the most peaceful place he’s been in… in a while. Naruto’ll like it here, Sasuke thinks. She’ll like the lack of war and the fact the brats seem to genuinely get the chance to be brats. No packing them off to war when they’re not even pushing five foot (or four foot, as the case may be; looking at you, Kakashi). It’d be a good place to settle down, come to think of it. Sasuke watches a mother and her brat go trundling past, lips lifting in a small uptick. Kid’s got thick black hair and blue eyes. Heh, maybe his and Naruto’s future child will look like that. Sure, he’s still gotta ask her out, but that needs to wait until she’s coherent enough to register something more than ‘I brought you ramen’. He’s pretty sure that launched him to the top of her good books list… and there’s not another soul who knows about her in this dimension. His chances aren’t horrific. Yes, she’s too good for him but, for some outlandish reason he still can’t understand, Naruto has picked him again and again. Has chased him across the elemental nations for years. Even his luck’s not bad enough for her to change her mind the second he finally sits up and takes note. Right?

A hand rests on his arm and Sasuke stares at the old woman who has so blatantly come up to him. She peers right back, eyes fogged over but clearly not blind given how she meets his gaze. 

“Help me cross the road please, young man?” Is this a joke? There isn’t a single part of his entire appearance, character, sheer presence that screams ‘I will help an old lady cross the road’. Unfortunately, he can only imagine the shit Naruto will give him if she ever finds out about this. The only way he could make it worse would be to say no; then Naruto would give him shit about it and be disappointed in him. 

“Should you be out on your own if you can’t cross a road,” Sasuke snipes, more a grumpy grumble than an honest to God question. Infuriatingly enough, the old woman hums instead of answering, tapping the floor once with her cane. Her hair sparkles, like it’s threaded with a precious metal instead of organic matter. Probably one of these fucked up quirks, though he doubts sparkly, metallic hair is of any fucking use. ‘S probably a bitch to trim too. Unbelievable. Is this how this warless place works? A few skirmishes between the odd miscreant who doesn’t want to abide by the law and then the odd elderly demanding to be escorted across a road? The traffic isn’t even moving that fast, Sasuke notes as several cars whip by. An academy student could dodge these… maybe. With a sigh, Sasuke waits for the green light that comes from pressing the button, the mother and child from earlier having also decided they wish to cross at this point. Why they hadn’t used the crossing they were closer to and had actually come back to this one… the people here are stupid, Sasuke realises. The lack of war and these ‘heroes’ running about have made them soft and stupid. Is this what will happen to him if he remains? Naruto’s already made him soft and stupid inside for her, does he want to risk changing the rest of himself by staying here? Worse, what if they don’t have a choice? What is they can’t get back? It’s no great big loss for him; the only thing he could have possibly mourned losing at this point is here with him. Naruto though, well, when she’s awake enough to comprehend what’s happening, she’ll be devastated. 

He’ll have to prove he’s enough for her then. Just like she is for him.

“What’s on your mind, young man?” Urgh. Is this woman actually trying to converse with him? Really? Again, what part of his appearance has given her the indication he’s likely to answer her? Is it the lack of sword that’s no longer keeping them at bay? No one else seems to openly carry weapons here (barring these ‘hero’ types that is, but the last thing Sasuke wants is to be associated with that flashy lot) but maybe he should just do it anyway if it keeps this lot away from him. Sasuke eyes the woman, searching for any kind of trick hidden behind those kindly eyes. 

It is with great reluctance he voices an answer. “A girl.” And doesn’t that sound pathetic? He’s thinking about a girl, lovestruck and with absolutely no intention of ignoring his feelings. Academy graduate Sasuke would be horrified if he knew. Well, tough shit. Current Sasuke wins on this because Naruto is fine as heck, has always been in his corner (and if they do get back to Konoha, he’s gonna really need that), and there’s no one around to steal her attention from him. Alone at last (even if Sasuke had been unaware he wanted to be alone with her until recently).

“Ah,” the woman breathes, smile on her face, “young love.” Yes, exactly. Maybe this isn’t so bad if she—

Sasuke’s head snaps up, sensing the danger a moment before it occurs. Three cars, previously sitting in a neat little line as they waited for the civilians to finish crossing their path, suddenly flip forwards. The useless idiots inside scream in terror; it’s clearly not their choice for their stupid metal receptacles to come careering toward them. For a hot second, Sasuke seriously considers abandoning his post, leaving the old woman who’d asked for an escort to meet her maker and all the others who’re crossing to either be graced with serious injury or a very squishy death. Just one hot second. But he’d agreed (non-verbally or not) to help the old woman across and Naruto would be disappointed in him if he let the cars turn her into road paste. Scooping her alone up isn’t an option either so—

Susanoo blooms in a flare of fiery purple chakra (chakra he really doesn’t have to burn, better make this quick), as big as he can make it to cover the small herd of civilians and he catches the three cars in one hand each, the last one free to grab the idiot that’d thought flipping cars like fucking coins in a game was a good idea in the middle of a busy street. Whatever beef he’s got with the hero flavour of the day, Sasuke wants leaving out of it. 

There’s a moment of still silence as everyone involved in this shit show (barring Sasuke whose mind actually works at a reasonable speed) processes what’s just happened. By that point, he’s broken the legs of the idiot that is in Susanoo’s fourth hand, dropping him to the ground. Then, he turns to the elderly woman who’s staring at him in a way that’s very different to how she was doing before. “Is crossing the road always this eventful?”

She snorts (Sasuke was correct, she is an elder with no fucks left to give) and pats him gently on the arm. It is only because of her that he gently puts the cars down instead of dropping them, chakra wavering (back to two percent, fucking damn it). And, well, if that’s his excuse for dropping the broken-leg idiot, so be it. This whole thing has been a waste of time and has nearly cost him his groceries. Naruto’ll be up sometime soon and probably be expecting lunch, gluttonous pig that she is. 

“That, was so, cool!” The brat from earlier cries among the stunned silence (and the whimpers from broken-leg-idiot, but he’s an idiot, his vocalisations don’t count), all bright eyes and happy little grin. Sasuke turns to assess the kid, lips twisting as he considers. Then, he flicks the brat on the forehead (gently of course; he’s a civilian and Sasuke’s an asshole, not an outright monster) before hefting the elderly woman the rest of the way across the road. He plants her on the sidewalk, giving her a quick once over but, barring a sudden brush with death, she seems fine.

“Good call not crossing the road on your own,” Sasuke states, watching her nod, still dazed as she pats at his arm. More important than the glazed-eyed elder is the fact it’s been thirty minutes precisely since he walked out of the park. That’s thirty minutes away from Naruto. And yes, while personal space and boundaries are important, while time alone is important, leaving her alone for a chunk of time when she is vulnerable is very much not okay. Yesterday’s recon had been done in ten minutes dashes, he’s taken a risk today. And look how that’s turned out; chakra low, starry-eyed civvies and some loser potentially crippled for life if they don’t have a decent medic-nin… eh. Not his problem anymore.

“Sir! Excuse me, sir!” Fuck. Sasuke keeps walking, as if he can’t hear a thing, as if he assumes it’s someone else being addressed and not him, as if he’s nothing more than an uninterested passerby and not one of the greatest ninja of his generation who just so happens to be so ridiculously low on chakra that he’s not got enough left to get away clean.

“Sir!” A hand is planted on his shoulder and it is only an act of god (and the fact he’s left his sword with Naruto) that prevents him from cutting it off. Sasuke tips his head back, angled over one shoulder to stare at the offender. Fucking manic blonde hair, like Deidara’s only slicked back in a stupid updo that can’t be natural. Sasuke’s seen some weird hair in his time, but this is certainly up there in the top ten. “Lil listener!” The man chirps the second he sizes up Sasuke’s face, stupid grin under an equally stupid moustache.  What part of his fucking face says ‘speak down to me please’ to these people? He’s seventeen and has fought in a fucking war. Patronisation had been a thing of the past for him, hasn’t happened in earnest since his clan was among the living.

Sasuke stares at the hand until the idiot gets the hint and releases him. 

“Look, Lil Listener, let’s head down to the station—“

“No.”

“To make a— no?!” The man squawks, a little too loud for comfort (blond hair, loud, can’t be a relative, they’re in an alternate dimension damn it, Sasuke’s already had an awkward chat with her father and he wants fuck all else on the family front).

Sasuke doesn’t repeat himself, doesn’t say anything else. It’s been thirty one minutes and Naruto’s an unpredictable disaster who’ll probably be waking up any second. 

He flickers away. 

Chapter Text

“Thanks for the grub, Baa-chan!” How did this happen to him?

Sitting up to table with Naruto to his left, Sasuke plucks up his chopsticks and examines the lunch before him. He’d seen it prepared, had watched Elder Kino chop and cook and season each and every dish. But old habits are hard to break. Even if the vast majority of poisons no longer work on him.

“I can believe you got adopted by the local Granny gang,” Naruto snickers under her breath beside him, snapping to attention when Kino raps the back of her knuckles with her own chopsticks. “Sorry, sorry.” Sasuke pushes down the instinctive urge to stab the woman with her chopsticks for the unwelcome reprimand, instead opting to slurp up his noodles. It’s good. ‘S been a while since he had any decent, home cooked food.

It’s day four, a day on from the road walking disaster that has seen Sasuke’s face (a remarkably good picture given it’s been taken by those tiny devices called ‘phones’) plastered across the four o’clock news about him being ‘wanted by the police’ for ‘questioning’ and ‘unlawful quirk use’. Stopping the cars from squashing civilians is apparently fine; breaking the legs of the culprit is not. True to form, Naruto had been wide awake when he got back to the park. Mercifully, her twenty story chakra monster had not. If Naruto’s word is to be trusted (usually is) then the beast’ll be a sleep for a while. With any luck (surely some of Naruto’s outrageous luck must rub off on him at some point, right?) then it’ll be after Sasuke’s managed to weasel his way into a relationship with her. Because Naruto does not let go of bonds; he knows that better than anyone else. Back on track though. He’s now a wanted criminal. Low level and the actual ‘criminal’ label hasn’t been applied yet but, given Sasuke has zero intention of presenting himself before the police, it’s probably only a matter of time.

“—both of us are orphans. Sasuke lost his whole family when he was seven and I never had one but he’s my best friend even if he’s an ass some— most— all of the time.” Kino laughs, sounding absolutely delighted by Naruto’s insistent chatter. Not like she’s dumping their entire life story out there or anything, digging up old trauma he’d long since buried (it’s a shallow gravel that’s exposed whenever so much as a gentle wind brushes over the soil, but he’d tried burying it, okay? That should get him some points).

“Well, your boy here risked his life—” No he didn’t. “—to save my young life—” No it isn’t. “—and he didn’t look half bad doing it.” N— actually, that one’s a yes. He probably did look fine as fuck saving the day. Shame Naruto wasn’t around to see his good deed of the… month (maybe year). 

Naruto barks out a laugh, slapping her open palm on the tabletop those rattles with the force. “He always looks good!” she announces, warming Sasuke’s shrivelled black heart. “Always been a pretty-faced bastard.”

“Well, you and your bastard are more than welcome to sleep in the spare flat next door. Me and the girls put all our retirement funds into owning a residential building. Ain’t much but we all get along and have no problem bitching at each other when there’s an issue.”  Sounds like hell.

“Sounds amazing!” Naruto chirps, shattering Sasuke’s big dream of a house in the back-fuck of nowhere and rebuilding it situating them somewhere a little more populated. At least a school would be closer then to hustle the kids to, he guesses. He’s not entirely sold on the idea of living here instead of the elemental nations (if he’s even allowed back and not on the ‘shoot on sight’ list. He’s probably on the ‘shoot on sight’ list). Maybe he can use that to influence Naruto’s decision on going back. Really, other than being Hokage, and Sakura and Kakashi and the rest of their former academy class, and their academy class teacher, and Tsunade and… okay, so she’s got a lot to actually go back to. If they can manage to do so. Maybe setting up shop here won’t be so bad? Even if it’s filled with grannies with metallic hair that can apparently track a loose strand using ‘radio waves’ (whatever that is) and use it to hunt down unsuspecting rouge nin.

Sasuke’d almost skewered the woman before Naruto barrelled into him when she’d turned up in the park at the arse-crack of dawn. He’s still not sure if he’s glad Naruto stopped him. Still, sleeping with a roof over their heads could be nice. That Naruto had burst into hysterics upon realising he’d been successfully tracked by an elderly woman incapable of crossing the road by herself had swung him in the ‘non regretting’ category. That can change pretty fucking quick though.

“Thank you so much for helping us out, baa-san!”

“You are a treasure, Naruto-chan,” Kino outright coos, gently pinching one of Naruto’s cheeks to better admire her sunshine smile, “don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.” Okay, the old coot gets a few brownie points for being able to see Naruto is a bundle of pure sunshine. She’s still on thin fucking ice though. “I’ll let the girls know you’re moving in; here are the keys.”

Day four and they have an apartment.

Sasuke stands in the centre of the room, one hand in the pocket of his pants (thick, fleecy things that have a fair bit of movement but are warm as fuck, if they find a way back, he’s taking seventeen of them with him) as he surveys the room. Kino had been kind enough to give them her spare futon, though it barely classified as a double and the old woman had known this as she handed it over, had even winked at him. His estimation of her has gone up. With the bathroom apparently coming with a shower, bath and sink already, and the kitchen with inbuilt appliances, they only need to furnish the one bedroom and sitting room. Huh.

“This is weird,” Naruto breathes, also looking around the room with something akin to shock in her eyes. She’s standing tall, the sleeveless shirt pooling a bit around her waist but tight on her hips (when had she gotten hips? More importantly, how long had he not noticed?) and in a similar pair of pants to him. Only, hers are bright orange. He knows her. She’d have sensed there was the option for orange somehow and moaned at him if he’d not gotten them. The colour doesn’t look right on anyone else anyhow.

“What’s weird, idiot?”

“We were fighting a war, and then we were ready to duck it out to the death and now— that’s it? We’re just here? You’re just okay with this?”

“No one here has wronged me.” Yet.

“What about me?” What about her?

Sasuke looks at Naruto, honestly looks at her. She’s still not quite her usual self; there’s a tiredness to her eyes that he can’t remember seeing before. That’s the first thing that has to go. “You’re Naruto. Our bond can’t be broken.” There can never truly be bad blood between them, Naruto won’t let there be. It’d taken Sasuke far too long to see it. They could have been on so many dates already if only he’d pulled his head out of his ass sooner.

Naruto sniffs, a wobbly looking smile on her face. It’s bright, it’s happy, it should offend every one of his senses. Instead, he opens his arms just a smidge in invitation (fuck physical affection, he has fuck all idea how to initiate it but for Naruto he’ll fucking try, alright?) and then he’s suddenly cradling pure happiness close to his chest.

“You’re a bastard.” It’s grumbled into his shirt and she’s clinging to it tight enough that with one wrong movement, it’ll be ripped right off him. A thought for another time, recorded and logged.

“Your bastard.” She’s his idiot, he’s her bastard. And he’ll beat the shit out of anyone who tries to say otherwise.

“What have we got on our pawpetrator then?” Officer Tamakawa Sansa asks, scratching at the fur of his left cheek as he does his utmost best to focus on the current case and not his drastic need for sleep or a warm glass of milk (or both). Their latest vigilante case (because that’s just what they needed, another civilian with a half decent quirk (and by witness accounts and CCTV footage, this one was a doozy) deciding to take the law into their own hands. They’d snapped leg bones like toothpicks with it and caught three cars in the four stupidly large hands.

The worst thing about it all is that there’s no one on record with a quirk to summon up some kind of energy-based demon/guardian/god.

“Whatever he does to get away from Present Mic, it’s something our cameras can’t pick up on.” And Present Mic himself had said the kid had been there and gone in the next breath. Irritating. The boy (and it had been a boy; Present Mic had been very insistent about that, stating the kid probably shouldn’t even be out of high school yet) has flared up a lot of red flags. A quirk that’s not on record, one that doesn’t explain his disappearing act, no facial recognition pinging for the brat… it’s one big mess. One big mess that Sansa is in charge of. They should be able to find him. Present Mic had been very clear about the left eye; how many kids are there with an eye completed purple with four to five rings expanding out from the pupil? Zero is the answer; there no one or record for that in Japan. They’re having to reach out an ask neighbouring countries given the boy’s Asian features. 

“No sign of him on camera for several blocks.”

“Load up the shop footage then.” Backtracking the boy’s movements is not difficult in the slightest. He’d been at the street holding a paper bag of groceries and made no attempt to hide his actions prior the summoning the skeletal warrior god with four arms. The bag even had the shop logo on it. Sansa watches the boy meander through the aisles, shoving several different breeds of tomatoes and an ungodly amount of instant ramen into his basket. The sheer amount shoved in there should probably be impossible and, had Sansa not seen his actual quirk in action, he’d be saying the kid had some kind of hammerspace thing going on (maybe he does and that’s where the god came from; he’ll make a note of that one). If anything, the boy’s shopping list makes it abundantly clear he’s a teenager. Tomatoes, cup ramen, the only thing that doesn’t make sense is the way he pauses and eyes the energy drinks like it’s something he’s never encountered before. Even plucks one off to read the label and ingredients before  putting it back. What kind of teenager doesn’t spend their days necking energy drinks?

“Have we just had the one announcement on local TV?”

“Yes, Tamakawa-san.”

“Keep it that way. We’ll alert the local pros and officers, but let’s not hound out skittish friend for the moment.”

“Understood, sir.” 

Chapter Text

“So, everyone only has the one power?”

Sasuke hums in response, both hands shoved into the depths of his pants pockets, slouched and stationary next to Naruto as she inspects the shop front. It’s day five and now that they’ve been fed, watered and bathed (alone, unfortunately), it’s time to explore. At least for Naruto, that is. Sasuke’s seen enough of this place already. The technology is advanced (a bit too advanced) and he’ll need time wrap his head around it, and the generally accepted morality of the population seems to be a very clear cut back and white (as opposed to the shades of grey he’s been used to) but… but he likes it here. Yes, it’s probably due to the lack of history he has for this place, the lack of Hokage and advisors that’d kill off an entire clan rather than fix the fucking problem that pushes the clan into doing something stupid— back on topic. He likes it here. Five days to decide he likes something, that’s probably a new record. God knows it’d taken him years to realise Naruto’s it for him.

“So cool!”

“Don’t stand so close, idiot,” Sasuke grunts, reeling Naruto back from the shop front where she’d all but pressed her nose to the glass in order to see the television a bit better. Only the wealthiest of their world had possessed one of these screens and, even then, there’d only bee a handful of channels. Here, the fucking screens are everywhere. There’re streets where they’re mounted on the fucking walls to advertise some ridiculous hair-care of make-up brand or (in one memorable case when Sasuke’s mind had shot into overdrive) lingerie. The model had a fetching shade of red and he’d only been able to begin imagining it on tanned skin before Naruto had suddenly grabbed his arm and dragged him over here.

“We need to get one of these,” Naruto decides, one finger pressing insistently to the glass and the ridiculously expensive ‘TV’. The price-tag is outrageous (probably due to the size) but Sasuke is quite certain he’d be able to make off with it if Naruto is really insistent. As if she can sense the intent of criminal activity stewing about in his brain, Naruto reaches into his pocket, draws forth the wallet he’d purchased with his stolen cash (because only an idiot doesn’t abandoned a stolen wallet after it’s been stripped of cash) and says, “I don’t think we have the money for one this big though.” Urgh, right. She’s got morals. Depriving a shop-keeper of their livelihood is something that doesn’t even cross her mind. Damn.

Before she can begin to question the immoral origins of his money, Sasuke says, “Our best chance of getting back is hoping one of the locals has the power to rip holes through dimensional voids.” When it’s said out loud, the chances of it actually being a goal they can achieve are remarkably… low. Sasuke is very much okay with this.

“Right. But there’s no Hokage Tower or anything here. I don’t know anyone, nevermind who I need to shake down for information.” Sasuke has no problem with being shaken down by Naruto. However, that will not be very productive for either of them; Naruto won’t get any information and Sasuke won’t get any satisfaction because Naruto has yet to realise he is very much into her. One step at a time.

“They’re civilised people,” Sasuke notes, looking around the street and it’s damn near blissful how no one really looks at him, at Naruto. True, it’d taken a genjutsu covering his sword for people to stop sending him cautious glances but now? Now it’s like they’re invisible, like they’re not worthy of note in the slightest and it is glorious. “Chances are good they’ll have a library. We just have to find it.”

Now, Sasuke set out from the shop front selling TVs (the location taken note of for future purchases) with a very specific goal in mind; find a library, find some relevant books, find some kind of quirk census if they’re really luckily. What he finds instead, however, is so much better. It’s incredible, it’s something that’d been beyond the scope of his imagination, it’s something that he’d never have believed possible.

They call it, the internet.

“And they just store information on this thing, unguarded, for free?” Naruto asks, ludicrous. It’s no wonder. In the Elemental Nations, any and all information is a closely guarded secret. Here, there are these ‘websites’ that are dedicated to the concept of recording and publishing any and all information they can get their hands on about, well, anything. Best of all, there are some people (because there must be some people doing the information gathering and writing this) who focus solely on heroes. Favourite foods, most likely places to see the hero patrolling, costume features, quirk analysis, birthdays— it’s all there. All housed within this ‘internet’ that is accessible through a laptop or phone. Forget the TV, they’re getting one of those first. They can’t afford not to. Besides, they can also perform the same actions as a TV could. It’s a no-brainer.

“Sasuke, look at this guy!”

Sasuke leans to the right on his seat, resting one arm along the back of Naruto’s chair and, when she doesn’t move in the slightest at the sudden contact, he rests his hand on her shoulder. On screen, an overly muscled blond man (strength build, questionable regarding speed but, given how these quirk things work, who knows?) has several unconscious civilians thrown across his broad shoulders. Both himself and Naruto watch in silence as this recording of a hero (All Might; bit big-headed, isn’t it?) saves more and more people, others hailing it a record debut. The clip goes on to give an overview of the incident and it’s titled ‘The Origins of the Number One Hero’. This guy’s a big fucking deal then. If he’s the number one, the one that everyone is striving to beat, then chances are good that he’ll know a lot of people. A lot of heroes. A lot of people with interesting quirks.

“We should find him,” Naruto decides, slamming one closed fist into her palm, grin wild and eyes burning with an unholy level of determination. “I bet he knows someone who can help us, dattebayo!” Probably, though Sasuke gets the feeling he’s less like the Hokage of this dimension that Naruto is probably perceiving him as right now.

“Let’s find out some more information before you just go hunting him down, Naruto.” It’s better to be well informed. This internet has probably got something that will help them out. Decided, Sasuke clicks on the first link.

Four hours later, they’re standing in Roppongi in Minato, Tokyo and his head is still spinning. Who knew there was so much information to be collected on a person? There’d been answers on All Might fan-pages to questions Sasuke didn’t know the answer to about himself, nevermind another person. His head is spinning a mile a minute because, after stumbling across one ‘pop-up’ advert on the computer, Naruto had been thoroughly distracted with finding out the location of every ramen restaurant in the vicinity. She’d written a list on a small notebook the librarian had kindly offered them. Why on earth does Sasuke need to know that All Might’s own phone as a ringtone of him saying ‘a phone call is here’? He doesn’t, at least, he doesn’t think so. But no information is worthless. Not to people like him.

“This is the place,” Naruto declares, planting her hands on her hip as she inspects the very tall tower. It’s bigger than the Hokage monument and twice as revered given the crowd of people outside all snapping photographs of the building. This world is so exceedingly weird; who wastes film on a photograph of a building? The pedestrians of this universe apparently. When pictures are stored on the computer, phones or the internet, Sasuke can hardly blame them. He’s getting himself a phone before the day is out and the first thing he’s going to do (after password protecting it) is take a photo of Naruto. It’s practically criminal that he doesn’t have one already. 

“The website said you need to go to the door to report a case,” Sasuke grunts. It’d also said it was a felony to waste a hero’s (or their highly trained staff’s) time by talking about anything other than a request for help regarding a villain. But, what is a felony to a felon? Not that this world is aware of his previous ‘wanted’ status. If he wants a half-decent life with Naruto, he kinda needs to keep it that way too. If they’re staying here, that is. If they get confirmation someone can fire them back to their original dimension, then all bets are off. 

“I’ll do that,” Naruto says, eyeing the guard at the door like it’s a challenge to be conquered, not a conversation to be had. Then, Naruto slams a hand into the centre of Sasuke’s back and nearly sends him stumbling. “After all, people skills aren’t your best quality, bastard!” And then she’s off, bouncing away across the street, leap-frogging over one startled civilian that doesn’t get out of her way quick enough. Sasuke watches her go with a smile, leaning against the building to his back, arms folding over his chest as he waits. It’s good to have her awake now, good to see that bright smile and hear her… exuberant (and occasionally grating, if he’s honest) voice. At least fate’d had the decency to drop him in a completely different world with the one person who makes putting up with life’s bullshit worth it. For that, Sasuke will try his best to please her, will try his best to be better, to be someone worthy of Naruto’s attention. It’s not because he’s particularly invested in being a better person, but because he wants to do good. But, that’s what she wants of him. So that’s what he’ll strive for. Speaking of strive—

Naruto’s making her way back to him, though she makes sure to yell over her shoulder (and fire off a rude hand gesture that Sasuke is more used to seeing fired at him than anyone else) toward the guard. Didn’t go well then.

“He threatened to call the police on me!” Naruto cries when she’s covered half the distance between the two of them. Only when she’s a little closer does she continue. “He said I’m the fourth person to claim dimension hopping in the last five years!” Well, that is… something. Either their situation is more common than Sasuke had accounted for, or the people here are fucking crazy. Regardless, the key thing to take away from this is that the honest route didn’t work. Which means—

“When’re we breaking in?” Naruto asks and thank fuck, she actually lowers her voice to a loud whisper. Luckily enough, Sasuke had stood apart from the crowd of gawking tourists so they shouldn’t have overheard. Sasuke eyes the building (eyes the guard who’d not thought to believe Naruto; who wouldn’t believe Naruto?!) as his mind races. 

“We need to make sure this ‘All Might’ hero is actually in the building. Once we’re sure he’s in there…” Well, no one here knows what they’re up against. They may be used to heroes and villains, but shinobi? They’re a different breed altogether. 

Chapter Text

Though they have only seen him on the computer screen, the figure that leaps across half the street to land on the balcony of the tower (impressive given the lack of chakra in this dimension) is unmistakably All Might. The fans gathered in the street suddenly decide to lose their collective minds. Why they do is beyond Sasuke. So the number on Hero had leapt over their heads, so what? Naruto, who was admittedly the Hokage’s biggest fan (she’s glorious but has poor taste for heroes), had never once lost her mind like that when she’d been in his presence. Hell, the closest thing Sasuke can compare it to is his own fangirls. He wouldn’t have wished them on anyone.

“Okay, the big guy is in the house,” Naruto whispers from the edge of the building they’d picked for their stake out. It’s not as tall as some of the others surrounding it, but it is a straight shot across to an office worker in All Night’s building, one Sasuke’ll be able to ensnare with eye contact to genjutsu. Then, they’ll be in the building once the poor mooch opens the window. Of course, that means ensuring no one is tailing them, something that’ll be a bit more difficult than normal given no fucker here has any chakra. He’ll have to rely on his other senses for it. Still, they’d managed to lose the fucker the security guard had sent after them with less than a minute’s effort. Again, heroes/villains vs ninja; when it comes to escaping a tail, Sasuke’s quite certain Kakashi’d reach across dimensions to gut him if he couldn’t get away from a bumbling idiot like the one who’d tried following them.

Naruto powers herself off the edge of the building without so much as a ‘by your leave’ and Sasuke watches her go, a small smile on his face. Do they really need to go back? Is it not enough for them to spend every day like this, chasing down some desire or whim together, in a world where idiots put on skin-right suits and capes and go chasing down the bad guys, flashy as can be? If they go back, they have to deal with all the bullshit of politics and finger pointing and the ‘you tried to kill who-har and teamed up with ‘what’s-his-face’ to instigate war’ and really, who has time to iron all that out? Sasuke jumps after Naruto.

When he’d searched the internet earlier, there’s not been one account of someone able to raise the dead which can be done (sort of) in the Elemental Nations. If they can’t do that, chances are good they won’t be able to send them back. Either way, come what may, he’s not leaving Naruto’s side again. They won’t even be able to prise him off with a crow bar. Not now, not never. Now that he’s had the pleasure of falling asleep next to her, of waking up to her face glowing soft in the early morning light— he can’t go back to before. Can’t go back to pretending his awkward bond with Naruto was just due to their shared history as orphans. No, it’d been awkward because he pushed it away. This is Sasuke 2.0. This is Sasuke upgraded by Itachi’s blunt force, psychological smack-down of an awakening. This Sasuke recognises that the outcome of their current task does not matter to his happiness; either they will gain a new lead, or they will be back to square one. Which one happens doesn’t matter because they’ll both end the same way at the end of the day; with him crawling onto a not-quite-a-double futon to curl around Naruto and snooze for a minimum of six hours. If he’s really lucky, Kino will cook them breakfast in the morning.

Sasuke meets the eyes of the startled worker and then they’re in.

Sticking to the ceiling with chakra and cloaked with a genjutsu, Sasuke keeps low and works his way along the ceiling, following after Naruto. It’s best to let her take the lead, to regulate himself to watching her back as she leads. Look at all the times he’s tried leading in the past. Useless. Every time it’s gone wrong (hunting Itachi) or Naruto’s had to mop up his mess (Gaara; and doesn’t the Chunin exams feel like an age ago?). Nah, he’s happy to follow after her now; there are no other goals for him but her. Revenge had nearly cost him everything, had cost almost every Uchiha before him their lives and loves. He’ll change it up, see how it goes.

“There’ll be an office somewhere, like Hokage-jiji’s,” Naruto mutters to herself, making for the stairs. Near the top of the building probably, good vantage point and if he always arrives by leaping onto a balcony to avoid the ravenous fans… there’s something Sasuke wishes he’d known how to do when he was back in the academy. Live and learn. Even if they do make it back to Konoha, he highly doubts that there’ll be any fangirls racing around after him now. Which is good; Naruto’s the only one he wants chasing him and, given their track record over the past four years, that shouldn’t be an issue. He just needs to figure out how to change the rivalry/friendship to something romantic. Can’t be too hard… right?

They ascend up the stairs, sticking to the walls and moving in short, quick bursts, always listening carefully to the exit doors in case a member of staff are making their way over. But no, no one ever seems to use the stairs in this place. Knowing Tokyo as he does (for all of five days), Sasuke can guess there’s some kind of technological advancement that is better than using the stairs. There’s another thing he’d noticed right there; physical fitness doesn’t seem to be for everyone. The entire population aren’t encouraged to be fit enough to defend themselves (or run away from enemies, as the case if for Konoha civilians) and it seems only a handful outside of heroes take physical fitness seriously. It’s odd.

“Wanna try second from the top?” Naruto asks, stopping by the door out into the mass of corridors, her bangs dragged down by gravity and looking like the stupid haircut their target has.

“Might as well.” Sasuke jumps down, Naruto following a breath afterwards and her hair reverts to the normal short-ass cut (a response to that ridiculous rumour he likes long hair, how daft, hair is hair) with bangs the longest part and framing her face.

Pushing open the door, Sasuke lets Naruto go first. This isn’t out of any form of chivalry; she’d have steamrolled over him if she wanted to be in the corridor enough anyway. No, this is out of practicality; Naruto can take heavy hits than him and he’s got better eyesight to catch anything she misses when going first. However, the one tall figure in the middle of the corridor is quite hard to miss, despite how thin he is.

Sasuke and Naruto stare and the figure stares back in surprise, brow heavy enough that it casts dark shadows over his eyes, leaving only the blue, burning irises staring out. After the half-second where they register one another’s presence, the man coughs in surprise and blood splatters out across the palm he’d hastily raised up. Yeah, point eleven on this dimension being whack; no one in Konoha would be idiotic enough to have someone so ill work in a place so high profile as this. It’s like asking for there to be casualties right off the bat.

“Oh geeze!” Naruto squawks, arms flapping as she divvies over offering immediate aid or continuing the mission, you know, like a good ninja would. “Are you okay?”

“I wasn’t expecting someone on this floor,” the man mutters, dabbing at his lips with a handkerchief already dappled in dried bloodstains. Oh, to most people it may look clean but to Sasuke? Yeah, he can see the bits that still linger, that were not cleaned off properly. Clearly this is a reoccurring ailment. Not something to worry about; he’ll make sure Naruto’s aware as they leave so she doesn’t feel guilty. If she hasn’t already smelt the blood herself.

“Yeah, sorry about that—” Naruto rubs sheepishly at the back of her head. “—but we did try to talk to the guard and he threatened to call the police on us but we really need to as All Might a question, so here we are.”

“You broke in?” The man asks and it’s not that he’s shocked at the action they’ve undertaken, Sasuke realises, but the fact they were even able to do it at all. Again, shinobi vs. heroes/villains. They’ve no idea what they’re up against and have no chakra. Ergo, they’re not sure what they need to defend against. Sasuke doesn’t exactly plan on leaving enough clues for them to figure it out either.

“I am afraid All Might isn’t here,” the man says and there’s no uptick in his heartbeat, no shifty looks to the side; the man is genuinely telling the truth. “Though, as his secretary, I can pass on your message.”

“Aww man, I wanted to meet him too.”

“Just get on with it, idiot.”

“Shut up, bastard. We’re not in a rush,” Naruto snaps, utterly ignoring the way the man looks between them, as if trying to weigh up their relations to each other based solely on their interactions. Heh, good luck with that. It’s taken Sasuke years to understand the depth of their bond and he makes up fifty percent of it. The chance of an outsider understanding it? Nah, not gonna happen.

Naruto turns her big blue eyes on the secretary who really shouldn’t have his position given his condition, lips pressing into an unconscious pout at Sasuke takes a moment to just stare. Cute.

“We’re from another dimension and All Might’s an important guy, right? So We were hoping he’d know someone who could send us back!”

“Leave any information with the librarian at Municipal Chūō Library and say it’s for—” Sasuke sighs. “—the idiot and the bastard. It’ll get to us.”

“Oi!” Naruto swats out a hand to hit at his arm and Sasuke takes the hit without issue; there’s none of Naruto’s usual brute strength behind it. Scarecrow secretary still seems like he’s been hit over the head by their sheer presence, eyes flickering between the two of them as if he’s trying to complete a complex addition but the sum keeps coming out incorrect.

“Do you both need help?”

“Huh?” Naruto cocks her head to a side, looking the man over but, fuck Sasuke sideways, he’s sincere about the offer. Well hell. He can’t recall the last time someone had offered help without an ulterior motive. Again, another reason this person shouldn’t be working in such an important building. Regardless—

“We’re good.” They’ve got a little flat, have a little home base in the middle of nowhere that no one has managed to track them to yet, have laid down all the relevant seals and jutsus to defend it, and have a little old lady next door that is, ninety percent of the time, willing to feed them. They’re good. Besides— “Only incompetents can’t look after themselves.” Naruto nods along, though Sasuke is sceptical on if she knows what an incompetent even is. He doesn’t want to find out either. Instead, he makes for one of the big glass windows at the end of the corridor, unlatching it without a care in the world. If their number one hero isn’t around, then Sasuke doubts there’s anyone who stands a chance of matching himself or Naruto in this building. They have the power of a god between them. He’s pretty confident.

“One sec, bastard!”

Sasuke turns around in time to feel his heart leap into his throat as Naruto darts to the secretary, planting one glowing golden palm on the man’s narrow chest just as he’s starting to rear back with the sudden burst of speed. Sasuke himself calls up on the pull factor of the Rinnegan not a moment latter, summoning Naruto to him as quickly as he possibly can, just so he can get his hands on her to try and shake the stupidity out of her.

“What the hell, idiot?!” He snarls, pulling them both through the open window, feet latching onto the side of the building via chakra before they’re both bouncing away, Naruto laughing.

“There was something wrong with his insides, his chakra was going to dead-ends like he’d had parts of him ripped out,” Naruto explains with a shrug, but all that Sasuke can focus on is—

“These people have chakra?”

“Yeah, but it’s really, really little! Like, worse than Bushy-Brows.” Right, Naruto’s recently become a sensor, of course she can tell. It’s just him that doesn’t have the ability to sense the chakra of those near him, that makes sense. Urgh, he’s going to have to train to fix that problem, isn’t he?

“We’ve tried the lighter side of things,” Sasuke says, body flickering three streets away so the wall mounted cameras (honestly, how much money does this country have to afford such a thing?) lose track of them. “Time for the underbelly.” With any luck, the criminals will be more willing to give each other up once faced with Susanoo’s might. But first— “Let’s go get something to eat.”

He holds out until the two disappear out the window. Then… then, it’s like One for All explodes out of him. Like he’d suddenly been holding in a breath that he just had to let out, like he’d been sucking in his gut but it was post-Thanksgiving Dinner and he could no longer supress the food baby.

All Might stands in the centre of his corridor, right outside the door to his office where two dimension travellers had accosted him. And they had to be dimension travellers— he’s never felt energy like what the girl had pushed into him and when he breathes, it’s not a strain, he’s not left feeling like he’s only got half a breath (half a lung) and he’s still in All Might form but the tugging in his naval to transform back is no longer there. He needs to see Chiyo, needs to go get checked, he doesn’t want to dare hope but— he feels better than he’s felt in years. Better than he’s felt since he faced that bastard All for One. He feels… he feels whole. And if he is—

He needs to track those two down immediately.

Chapter Text

It’s been a week since Sasuke woke up in a crater in this dimension and he is loving life. The sun is shining, the autumn leaves are falling, the love of his life is snoring, and Sasuke is working on breakfast. Today promises to be an eventful day; what with yesterday being a ‘scope out the criminal underground’ day, they have all the information they need. 

“And just what is putting that smile on your face?” Old lady Kino is only present by the grace of Sasuke’s good mood (and the fact she’d brought him new groceries; funny how she could cross the road fine to fetch them this time). It’s not even been a full week yet and the elder has practically adopted them as her grandchildren, citing that she’d never found someone man enough to want to raise a child with, but they she’s an independent bitch who can damn we’ll do as she pleases now. And yes, that is a direct quote. Sasuke’s not about to point out the fact he’s not paying rent on this little apartment like any non-relative would do, so if it means treating his next-door neighbour like family (family several generations removed, at that), then so be it. 

“Life is good,” Sasuke says, plating up the food and using a nifty little wind jutsu to send the smell soaring toward the bedroom. His enticing offer works; the snoring stops and, after a moment, Naruto appears in the doorway, one hand pawing sleepily at her face as she ambles over. Her nose twitches, lips smack together, and then she’s standing right beside him with her cheek pressing up against his shoulder. Their height difference has never been starker than it is now, side by side and neither of them ready to explode into motion. With any luck, he’ll keep growing, will get tall enough to plant his chin atop her head when he draws her into his arms. He’s still got a year or so of growing left in him, right? The world can’t really afford for Naruto to grow anymore; that’ll just give her room to ram even more ridiculousness into herself and honestly, the world won’t survive it. He prefers Naruto concentrate. Small package, explosive flavour. 

“Morning, bastard.”

“Idiot,” Sasuke grunts back, giving one of her terribly short pigtails a gentle tug in greeting. They’re stupid, short little things that sit at the base of her skull, one behind each ear and her hair is not smooth enough for it the style. He doubts that’ll stop her though. Why she’s suddenly decided to grow her hair is beyond him after years of the same short-ass cut, but he’s not bothered enough to ask. Short hair, long hair, both’ll look good spread across his bed-pillow. They’re practically at that stage now thanks to old lady Kino; it’s one of the reasons he’s not so fussed about the elder invading their little apartment every so often.

“The girls and I are going shopping for cushions, Naruto-chan. What colour do you want?”

“Oooh! Orange please, baa-chan. And navy for the bastard.” Kino clicks her tongue, making for the door and Sasuke (begrudgingly) shakes Naruto off his arm so that he can make for the table. The idiot is quick to get the hint, dropping into the seat next to him to begin inhaling her breakfast. After the turbulence of the previous few years, it’s frighteningly domestic. Thank fuck they’re going to spend the rest of the day beating up assholes.

Finding the criminal underground (or at least, the upper layer of it) comes as something of a cultural shock. There is not one ninja in the Elemental Nations that would think conducting their business in the shadiest part of town was a good idea; it all but asks do-gooders to come and kick the shit out of them for getting up to questionable shit. Apparently though, shady parts of town are avoided by the everyday person in this world unless that absolutely cannot afford to not traverse through the place. There’s also a significant lack of big-time heroes wandering around the place. Yes, there’s not a lot worth actually defending from villains here, but surely the heroes don’t leave the villains well alone until they decide the start making a menace of themselves… right?

“Well, that was a bust,” Naruto grumbles, dropping the latest drooling simpleton to the floor as she scans the room, as if waiting for an actual challenge to appear from the next room. She hadn’t even had to use any chakra yet, so Sasuke gets the disappointment. Then again, these are ‘small fries’. Or, he hopes they’re small fries. Yes, he’s always up for a friendly spar with Naruto, but fuck him, he does have the energy to spar with her everyday. Which he can see happening if someone doesn’t pop up and present her with a challenge soon.

“On the plus side—” Sasuke squats down to one of the near-unconscious casualties, grabbing hold of the fucker’s chin to angle his face better toward his own, just so they can make eye-contact.”— I’ve an idea where some human trafficking is taking place now. We can go break that up.” Certainly, it’s darker shit that selling semi-illegal highs to school-children. And fuck him, school here doesn’t end until eighteen. Thank fuck they’re in the country illegally; he’d probably kill someone and end up on the run is someone tried to force him into completing another year of schooling. Especially because they don’t seem to teach anything that can’t already be found out by browsing the internet if he needs to know it. Konoha may have a lot of fucking problems, but their education on critical thinking, problem solving and other actually useful skills have more than prepared him for life. No thank you, no further education needed.

“Sounds good, bastard.” Naruto throws her arms overhead, cracking out her back and Sasuke takes a moment to appreciate the long line of her spine, the generous curve of her hips and the fucking perfection that is the muscles of her thigh, exposed by the loose orange shorts with thick black undershorts that qualify as ‘workout’ gear in this world. Yes, it probably won’t survive in a fight… if Naruto was to get hit. Given she’s his equal (given she’s better than him) and that this world is relatively useless in training half-decent fighters, Sasuke doesn’t think the shorts will be suffering any damage anytime soon. Still, they should probably find the place or people that supplies the heroes of this world with their costumes. Naruto may have a track-record of being unbothered by public indecency, but Sasuke has no intention of running about the place starkers if it can be avoided (former shirt-choices cannot be held against him, he was under mental duress).

“Onto the next one?”

“Hell yeah!”

They move through the shadows, the dusking sun stretching them far and wide across the thickly packed streets. There’re little trees here, even less grass on the streets in favour of the concrete and steel these people favour. The longer they spend in this world, the more and more obvious it becomes that this is not Konoha, that this place has never had contact with Konoha. It sets him at ease… no wait, that’s not true. It dials his rampant paranoia down to something that’s a little more manageable. Not that he couldn’t deal with the paranoia before, no matter what all the other fuckers in the Elemental Nations may want to imply (and Naruto may verbally declare).

It’s only as they’re approaching their new destination, drawn from the last fuckers head by Sasuke’s Sharingan, that he realises with a jolt there’s something familiar about this location. After another minute of travel, Sasuke realises exactly what it is that’s making his brain sit up and take notes. This is where they landed. Typical, trust Orochimaru to dump them in a crime hot-spot when hopping dimensions (instead of time-travelling like the jutsu was actually supposed to do; fucker).

“This where we landed?” Naruto asks, crouched on the edge of one of the large metal containers beside him, blue eyes narrowed as she takes in the scene before them. Given the people here apparently have a very, very small amount of chakra and Naruto can sense it, then their landing site still slathered in their own chakra probably stands out like a beacon to her senses. It certainly does to Sasuke’s. It’s also been sectioned off from the rest of the dock with brightly colour tape that reads ‘crime scene – police investigation’. How cute.

“Can you use the energy to take up back?” He needs to ask it, cannot not because if Naruto later comes up with the idea and asks why he never mentioned it— yeah, he’d be in deep shit.

“It doesn’t lead anywhere. ‘S like we popped out of nowhere the break the floor.” She shrugs, hard frown on her face. It doesn’t suit her in the slightest; Sasuke reaches over and pokes her in the centre of the forehead. The look of absolute offense is a delight. “What the hell, bastard?!”

“Bet I can catch more criminals than you.”

“Oh, you are so on!”

Aizawa Shota is suffering from dejavu. He’d been at this dock a week previously when some kind of explosion had gone off, creating an outrageously big crater in the floor when there’d been no evidence left of what caused the crater by the time he arrived. It’s still niggling in the back of his mind that they don’t have answers for that one. No villain (or even low-level criminal) in the nearby vicinity had owned up to it (or been the topic of whispers regarding the sudden blast of power in the area) and the investigation team had informed him that the crater had a massive energy reading that was taking an obscene amount of time to dissipate. Worse, they had no one on record in Japan linked to that particular energy reading. Worrying.

And now he’s back at the docks following a lead on potential human trafficking. Just how he wanted to spend his night.

Ducking his chin into the warm comforts of his capture scarf, Shota edges his way along a particularly battered shipping container, goggles on but eyes peeled for any sign of life. After all, all workers should be at home now that the moon has risen and the sun has vacated the sky. Crouching low, Shota edges along the metal surface, keeping his footwork light to muffle any excess sound.

Of course, that all becomes unnecessary when he reaches the very edge and enters what appears to be some kind of sound-based quirk that had prevented noise escaping from a set area. One moment, it is near silent except for his breathing. The next, there’s the unmistakable sounds of a fight, flesh hitting flesh and breath being knocked out of lungs and the sound of… metal screeching?

Shota’s eyes shoot the source in time to see a young woman finishing ploughing through a shipping container with a ball of energy clenched in one fist, twisting her body to kick at the lucky bastard who’d just dodged what may have well been a devastating attack. The opponent he recognises; Bearhead, a wanted criminal that dispatch had recognised as being in the area and affiliated with the human trafficking ring. A heteromorphic quirk… well, if the vigilante (and she must be a vigilante, there’s been on recent graduate hero that looks like she could claim family relations with All Might of all people) wants to deal with that one for him, then Shota is hardly going to stop her. Yes, he will have to report her and make a go at arresting her, but subduing the villain and rescuing the civilians comes first. If the oh-so-helpful vigilante just so happens to get away while doing that, well, it’s a shame that Shota has to prioritise, isn’t it? He takes a single moment to assess the vigilante (experienced, she’s got the fight well in hand and just appears to be toying the with the villain; he can leave her to deal with that) before he makes for the distant sound of whimpering.

A minute of exploration later (the shipping container that the girl had blasted through turns out to be an entrance to an underground storage facility and the whole dock is gonna have to get cornered off now) and Shota finds himself standing in a corridor with a significant number of unconscious criminals, all in various states of distress. Some bleeding, some delirious, some jabbering to themselves nonsensically like they’d personally witnessed the end of the world, and the trail of beaten villains leads to one room right at the end. Inside, there’s a collection of men, women, and children all huddled against the far wall. Barring two children, who are clinging desperately to the only one in this mess who doesn’t look like a victim. It takes Shota a second (only a single second because Hizashi had described this fucker to him in the day they’d had a run in) to identify the kid. He’s on the police watch-list for unlawful quirk use and refusing to stop for the police.

Kicking the shit out of a human trafficking ring will get him a bit more attention than that one instance on the road.

The kid (and Hizashi was right, it is a kid, he shouldn’t even be out of school yet) meets his gaze, red-purple eyes to Shota’s twin crimson. It’s only thing to ignore a vigilante that hasn’t been sighted before, another thing altogether to not make an attempt to collar a kid already wanted by the police, even if they’re keeping it on the downlow right now. With Erasure activated, he wouldn’t be going anywhere.

“You a hero?” The kid asks, funny accent to his words, eyes flicking over him like he’d altogether unimpressed. Like he has room to judge; Hizashi may have had something to say about Shota’s hero outfit, but at least he wasn’t running around taking down criminals in honest-to-god sweatpants.

“Yeah, kid. Stick around while the police turn up.”

“No thanks.”

Shota doesn’t blink. He doesn’t. But, one moment the kid’s there, then next? He’s gone. And Shota knows he didn’t blink, knows that he’d kept his eyes open because they’re dry, drier than they’ve been all night and he hasn’t blinked. Where the hell did the kid go?

Back-up arrives three minutes later, after Shota has finished escorting the hostages out. Once he gets out, it’s easy to see the absolute carnage the girl has wrecked while he was underground; clearly whatever villain had been used the sound-muffling quirk had ensured the noise hadn’t reached Shota while he was with the hostages; he likes to think he’d have otherwise noticed the rampant destruction that has torn through the dock if not. Half of the damn dock is just missing altogether, some kind of giant metal beast lying broken in its place, half submerged in the water. And the villains; they practically litter the dock, all very much alive but all very much unconscious. They certainly hadn’t been put to sleep by a quirk; every single one in injured in one way or another. They’re latest vigilante takes no prisoners, that’s for sure.

More worrying is the fact that Hizashi’s demon-summoning school-boy is working alongside a girl he clearly trusted enough to deal out this level of damage to leave alone while he saw to the hostages. Given the boy’s quirk could catch three projectile cars without issue, it says something about the girl.

Most important of all is the lack of sleep Shota is now facing while he writes up this damn report. The damn kids better pray they aren’t caught until they hit eighteen; otherwise, he’ll be pushing for them to be put in the teenage vigilante rehabilitation course UA offers. Then he’ll be able to treat them to the same damn level of paperwork they’ve now dropped on him.

Chapter Text

“I’ve got a hit!”

He almost chokes. Hacking and coughing, All Might clears his throat, downs the last of his hamburger, which is his fourth of the lunch-hour but he has the stomach for it (he has the stomach for it now), and then shoots over to stand behind Muto from logistics desk. The man himself is rapidly typing away on the keyboard, throwing up several screenshots as he whips through the camera feed and then on screen, sure enough, are the very two people that All Might has spent the past three days frantically searching for. If Chiyo has been metaphorically smacking him with her cane to get a move on so she can meet the girl with a healing quirk that outstrips her own, then… well, it’s only part of the reason that he’s been conducting such a thorough search. He had good enough photos of the duo from his office’s CCTV to start scanning, but this is the first time they’ve had a hit on the duo.

On screen, the dark-haired boy is walking along the street without a care in the world, hands planted firmly in the pockets of his dark purple pants, high-collar drawn up to cover his chin and mouth. The only reason his face had registered on the search is because a helpful gust of wind had ruffled the collar in question enough to expose the lower half of his face. Beside him and blatantly not attempting to cover her features in the slightest, the girl (that had been referred to as idiot by her companion but All Might refuses to use such a thing and has, perhaps foolishly, just been calling her the healer in his own head) swings a shopping bag back and forth as she chatters away to… to the bastard. He needs to find out their names because, for all the girl’s nickname hadn’t stuck in his mind… well, given his attitude, the boy’s certainly had.

“Which street?” All Might asks, leaning almost fully over Muto’s seated form to better stare at the screen. The boy rolls his mismatched eyes skywards, though the uptick of one cheek indicates that, whatever the girl has said to him, it’s amusing. Muto pulls up the address and All Might flicks his eyes across the words, mind whirling. They’re literally a minute away.

He takes off without hesitating.

“Fuck.”

It’s the sixth time in two days that they’ve both been out on the street and, not five minutes later, All Might himself has dropped down from the sky dangerously close to their location. The first time, Sasuke had been rightfully suspicious. After all, there’d been no villain or danger around. Given their recent run in with his security (and the whole breaking and entering thing but honestly, how petty could the Number One Hero be to chase down the two of them for that), he’d considered the man could be after them. When he’d shown up three hours later on their tail again, Sasuke’d been secure in his own assessment.

Now, he’s just grumpily pissed off.

“How does he keep finding us?” Naruto whispers from where she’d sitting beside him on the park bench, busy devouring Sasuke’s ice-cream (she’d insisted he buy one even though he hates sweet things) as she watched the larger-than-life man instantly get mobbed by his vast array of friends. “Pretty sure he can’t sense chakra so it’s not like he could follow me.”

“…How would that moron know your chakra enough to follow you?”

Sheepishly, Naruto laughs and rubs at the back of her head. “Shit. Yeah, All Might was actually the guy missing some of his organs and I kinda re-grew them?” …Well, that certainly explained the sudden uptick in All Might appearances. Sasuke had even googled his appearance rant (the internet was truly a marvellous invention for your everyday ninja to use and abuse) and the man was up by something ridiculous, like three hundred percent or so. Well, he had he’d looked one harsh breath from keeling over before Naruto had gotten her miracle hands on him. Still. This whole fucking thing of All Might bombing out of he sky whenever they so much as go out to eat or take a walk (to go on a fucking date) is really killing the mood. Sasuke’s one more surprise arrival away from activating Susanoo and swatting him back to where he came from. It’d be like spiking a volleyball now that he’s got the vast majority of his charka back. No effort whatsoever.

“Fuck, idiot; that’s cold!” Naruto laughs, swiping her finger through the blob of half-melted ice-cream that she’d allowed to drip onto his forearm. She’s a fucking ninja, there’s no way she wasn’t aware that was about to happen. He’s not going to say anything else about it though; watching Naruto lick that off her finger is giving him all sorts of ideas. The kind they really shouldn’t be in public to conduct. Yes, he has a genjutsu going to disguise them, but the point still stands. Naruto may be the kind of shameless that doesn’t mind running around half-naked… And yeah, he was at that point too previously (not anymore, his chest is for Naruto’s eyes only now), but he highly doubts Naruto will be willing to put her tongue to work on licking more than ice-cream out in the open like this. Or let him put his tongue to work; Sasuke isn’t picky. Yet, they just aren’t being left alone; short of hiding in the apartment for the next few days until All Might cools his jets (yes, he loves Naruto but fuck, Sasuke does not have the energy to be trapped in an enclosed space with her for days on end if there’s no sex on the table) Sasuke doesn’t have an answer to this one.

It doesn’t answer the question of how All Might is finding them from a distance but failing at close range though.

“Idiot, look here.” Naruto looks up, tongue lapping at the near devoured ice-cream and Sasuke snaps a picture on his phone, inspecting the image as Naruto consumes the last of her treat. Big blue eyes, adorable blob of strawberry ice-cream on the tip of her nose, fucking pink tongue on show; it’s cute.

“Hey, bastard! Don’t be taking weird photos of me!”

Just like that, All Might’s head whips around to stare in their direction, eyes filtering over their faces and it clicks. It’s the cameras. Genjutsus mess with the mind’s perception of things but cameras just take pictures of what is there. The bastard is finding them from the local cameras but he can’t find them close up because, like everyone else around them, he’s susceptible to the genjutsu Sasuke’s been putting them up around them since that first day he dropped out the fucking sky. Even now, among the swarm of fans, he’s trying to figure out where they are, looking the right direction because of Naruto’s ridiculously loud, ridiculously distinctive voice.

“Then let’s get one together, idiot.” Sasuke stands himself up, turning so his back is to the hero that is now outright hunting them (doesn’t he have anything better to do than chase after them for breaking and entering his property? Kinda makes Sasuke curious about what other secrets are housed in the building) and angling his phone to take a… ‘selfie’. What a stupid name for a self-portrait. Too cutesy. He has exactly a second to prepare himself before Naruto, for lack of better word, glomps him from the side, cheek pressing up against his shoulder as she grins up at the phone’s camera. Resting his cheek against the top of her head, Sasuke snaps one photo. Then, feeling really fucking daring, he twists to lick a strip along Naruto’s cheek, getting that damn blob of ice-cream off her nose as she screeches bloody murder. He laughs, he can’t help it. Any of the girls in Konoha (back before he’d gone rogue and tried killing them all off that is) would have done fucking backflips to have touched his tongue. Not Naruto though.

“Damn it, bastard! You’re only supposed to use tongue for kissing. How the hell do you not know that?!” He almost, almost points out that tongues can be used for a lot more than that and he’d be happy to show her. Another, more opportunistic part of him, senses an opportunity.

“I know that, idiot. Just surprised you do. Have you even had a proper kiss before?”

“Bastard! Of course I have.”

Sasuke angles his head back, lets the usual teasing smirk that comes so easily when face with Naruto grace his lips, and then says ever so slowly, “I don’t believe it.”

“I’ll prove it!” And just like that, her lips are on his. It’s fucking violent, far too much pressure because Naruto is out to prove it as always and Sasuke nips at her lower lip in response. She sucks in a breath against his mouth and he drags his tongue across her lip, challenging. It’s wet and messy and this is the only idiot (the only person) he’s ever kissed so he’s nothing to compare it against (barring Kakashi’s fucking romance books from the Chūnin exam training trip but he’ll sooner die than admit he’d read one of them). But Naruto’s flushed cheeks and the low, throaty growl she gives when she nips at his lip in revenge is really fucking interesting.  Again, not something for public; thank fuck for genjutsus.

It’s only when she’s pulled back, hands fisted in his shirt (when did they get there?) and triumphant stare boring into his eyes, that Sasuke says “that was my first kiss.”

“Was it hell,” Naruto snarls, shaking him back and forth and Sasuke gently grabs her wrists in his own hands, palms pressing up against her wrist bones. “You’re first kiss was—” she cuts off with a strangled cry, no doubt recalling exactly what the events leading to his first kiss was. Him, her, graduation day and another challenge that’d led to her locking lips with him. Only difference is now? Now he can appreciate it.

“Young lady!” Fuck. He got distracted.

“Bastard, you dropped the genjutsu?” Naruto chortles with delight, half-hunching over on herself and, had this been the Sasuke of three months ago, he’d have about died knowing Naruto had distracted him enough for him to lose concentration on a jutsu. Now though—

“That’s just what you do to me, idiot.”

“Eh!? Don’t be weird about it!” Sasuke grabs Naruto’s hand, body-flickering them out of there before All Might can plant those frighteningly large hands down on their shoulders.

A day after his almost catch, All Might received a single photograph in the post. It’s of the healer girl and the bastard from the day before, both smiling up at the camera (though the boy looks obnoxiously smugger than the girl) and, shamefully, he’s there in the background, looking roughly toward them but not seeing them in the slightest. It must be some element of the boy’s quirk, had to be for him to so blatantly miss them.

Underneath it, in the most atrocious handwriting he’s ever seen, is a simple ‘better luck next time, dattebayo’.

The only upside is that comes on stationary printed from Municipal Chūō library, the name of which he’d forgotten in the aftermath of suddenly having his organs regrown.

“Keep looking for them, Muto-san.”

“Yes, sir.”

Chapter Text

“How was I supposed to know they were doing weird Snake-bastard experiments in this world too?!”

Seated on the floor and staring at his hands (his own hands, not the cloudy blur he can recall from the hazy but his own human hands), Shirakumo Oboro does him damn best not to break out full on manic-laughter. He settles for half-crazed instead, well aware the dark-haired one is eyeing him like a wild dog he’s not sure if he should put down or not. Oboro doesn’t care. He’d been, well, not conscious since those fuckers had brought him back to life, but it’d been like being in a dream, a world where he could watch how his body interacted but had no conscious control, had no idea what was happening after he’d been stuffed full of quirks. Quirks that are now spread out around the room, lying in the shape of amputated limbs, one of which the goddess who’d rescued him is currently poking at with a look of sheer disgust on his face. Really, it’s a good thing it’d been his body that’d been used as the base; at least that means whatever she and the dark-haired one with the freaky eye power had done meant he’d been the one to… come alive again.

Yes, Oboro was sure he’d been dead, dead but still connected to the body that’d kept living through some Frankenstein shit that would probably make him cry if he thinks too much on it so he doesn’t. Then, the girl had asked the boy to help her and she’d healed his body as the boy had stuffed his fucking soul back into his body.

That kind of power isn’t normal. It should belong to an aged hermit with horns or something, not two teenagers who can’t be any older than him. How much time has passed? Have Shota and Hizashi graduated already? Has he been left behind.

“Hey,” dark-haired boy grunts, poking at Oboro’s thigh with his boot, looking disgruntled and altogether like he hasn’t just torn through a mad scientist’s base of operations like it’d been nothing more than wet tissue paper. “You evil?”

“No?” What an odd question. “I was training to be a hero before they took me.” It tumbles out of his mouth and then, a second later, the girl has scooped up his body (which still doesn’t feel quite like his body, more like a body filled with jello but he doesn’t want to ask the boy when his body will start feeling like his own again because that means acknowledging all the shit of the last however many years) and has turned to her… friend?

“He’s a good guy, Sasuke. Let’s help him out.” ‘Sasuke’ rolls his freaky eyes skywards, huffing out a breath but it’s blatantly obvious he has no capacity to say no to the golden goddess who can light up like a firework with that warm energy. Man, it’d been nice. Oboro’s pretty sure he wouldn’t be able to say no if she asked anything of him either. Not with those big blue eyes and the amazing energy she was throwing out.

“Hey, are the two of you a thing?” He slurs, the words tumbling out before he’s really had a moment to put them into a coherent sentence. Huh. “Like, is she single.”

“No.”

“That sucks,” Oboro mutters as the girl starts screaming at Sasuke that he doesn’t get to make that decision. That the boy’s instant response is to profess he’s in love with her (which hey, Oboro totally gets, he’s only just met her and he’s halfway in love with her himself, though that might be the fact she’d chosen to save him from whatever the fuck his body and soul had been put through since he died) only makes her splutter more.

What kind of quirk lets you beat the shit out of the Scientist’s henchmen, machines, monsters, subdue whatever the hell Oboro had been before, and then restore him to being, well, human? The only downside is the Scientist had gotten away. Oboro understands why the two had stood and stared though; if someone started coughing up black gunk, he’d be hesitant to approach them too.

“This is the sixth base we’ve destroyed of this fucker and you went and whammied the only one with one of those ‘warp quirk’ things.”

“I don’t have a warp quirk,” Oboro points out, one finger held up to try and make his point obvious to Sasuke but Sasuke just stares back at him, all deadpanned. “They frankensteined my quirk into a warp quirk.” Though, given he can go into his clouds, maybe he could have a warp quirk? Could be transport himself between clouds if he had more than one going at once? Something to try later when his body no longer feels like every cell is full of hot soup. Ah, soup. He could really use some right now. Sasuke is staring him in the eye, the freaky red one spinning but the purple one has stopped rippling, hasn’t done so since he shoved Oboro’s soul back in his newly healed and cleansed body.

“He doesn’t know anything. He’s been a prisoner since he died.”

“Well, we can’t just leave him!” Under his breath, Sasuke hisses something that sounds like ‘naruto’ (which again, Oboro totally understands, he’s starving too) but instead settles for kicking at one of the broken machines that’d been attached to the tank of death. Said machine is quickly embedded in the steel wall. Super strength as well. Eh, Oboro isn’t gonna question it. They saved him; as far as he’s concerned, they’re gods with multiple quirks and he will happily spend an hour a day worshipping them. Either of them, both of them, he’s not picky. They’re both hot as fuck.

“Fine. Let’s cart him back. At least it’ll give the old geezer someone else to focus on.”

“His hair is so cool!”

Cloud-boy had passed out halfway out of the secret underground lab (Sasuke’s getting flashback to Orochimaru’s many bases even now, especially given they’ve blown up every single one they’ve come across so far; good times) so Naruto had piggy-backed him all the way home. Still odd as fuck there’d been a person under that purple mist, crimes against nature or not. At least he’d not been a willing participant to whatever horrors he’d been subjected to. Rinnegan fuckery had meant Sasuke could stuff his soul back into his body when Naruto was done healing it, not that he really wants to have another go at that now. Everything (particularly his chakra coils and his fucking eye socket) aches. No wonder it’s killed the Akatsuki leader bringing everyone in Konoha back to life. Not that Sasuke’d have bothered. Half of them were better off dead anyway. Well, maybe a little less than half, but his point stands. Waste of time.

“It’s so soft~” Naruto hums, running her fingers through it and Sasuke can see it, the sibling adoption unfolding right before his eyes, just less violently than the Gaara one had done. He has no idea what the kid’s plans were before he’d been orochimarufied, but whatever they were, they’re probably out the window now. He doesn’t doubt Naruto will want to ensure the kid’s fit, healthy and capable of taking care of himself before they let him loose on the world.

On the other hand, this may be a bond capable of throwing weight behind Sasuke’s whole ‘let’s stay in this dimension’ argument. Not that, given there many raids this fortnight, it looks like they’ll have much of a choice in that matter. Hell, they’re torn through the vast majority of the underground and, barring actually following through on the request All Might had finally left with the librarian, there’s not a whole lot left for them to check now. Sasuke’s not stupid though; the Number One Hero had been hunting them down before he left his message; it’s a trap, he’s sure. He almost regrets sending the taunting picture to the man. Almost. Does Sasuke have a copy of said picture framed on the wall of their apartment? He sure does. Alongside several others. In fact—

Phone out, Sasuke takes a quick picture of Naruto and the brat, sending it to the wireless printer he… borrowed. Once it’s out and has been given a quick title of ‘adopted a cloud-boy ’, it’s soon on the wall with the rest via drawing pin. Hey, he’s only got one picture-frame, don’t’ judge him.

"There's something not right going on with that scientist guy," Naruto grumbles from where she's got the cloud-boy's head in her lap, patting at his cheek like that'll wake him up. What a wuss; Sasuke'd have registered the hand coming at his face long before contact would be made. "I don't like it." 

"If we're going to be here for a while—” A good long while if Sasuke has any say in the matter. “— then we need to do something about that!”

“Sounds good.”

It’s three hours later as Sasuke’s serving up his latest attempts at ramen (the star-struck look Naruto gives him is worth it every time) when cloud-boy wakes up. He has the co-ordination of the baby (a civilian baby) as he stumbles off the sofa where Naruto dumped him an hour previously, looking around the place like he can’t quite believe his luck. Yeah, if Sasuke had been brought back from the dead and stuffed into his recently healed body, he’d probably be feeling the same. For all of a second. Any longer than that and you’re just milking it. Then, the kid just stares at the two of them. Classy.

“Hungry?” Naruto asks after a painfully long moment where she’d stared between their guest (rescued kidnappee, currently-useless dependent) and the spread of ramen. Looking like it physically pains her, she pushes the bowl to one side of the table, silently inviting the other to sit down. Nevermind the fact they only have the two chairs. Naruto seems to realise this at the same time Sasuke does, lips thinning into a frown as she looks between the kid’s feeble fawn legs and the empty space. “Here, you can have my seat, ‘ttebayo!”

“Come here, idiot,” Sasuke grunts, leaning over to catch Naruto’s wrist and reel her in until she’s sitting neatly on his lap. Yes, it makes eating a hell of a lot harder. But it’s also a hell of a lot more pleasant to have his arm around Naruto’s waist too. If it just makes it explicitly clear to cloud-boy their relationship… well, spoken aloud or not, the amount of times Naruto’s lips have been on his in this universe compared to their home one is a significantly larger amount than he’d have thought for having only been here a month.

For a few minutes, there’s silence as they dine, Sasuke and cloud-boy eating at a reasonable pace, Naruto demolishing bowl after bowl after bowl. It’s only when the kid has cupped the worn bowl between his palms, drained the last of the broth from the bottom, and neatly placed his chopsticks on the rim that he decides to start speaking.

“So, er, not that I’m not grateful or anything—” He rubs sheepishly at the back of his head, looking between the two of them through eyes that’re near closed under the pressure of his smile and Sasuke is very aggressively reminded of pre-genin Naruto. “—but what happens now?”

“We find the bastard who did this to you and kick the crap outta him until we know he won’t do it again!” Naruto slaps one closed fist into the palm of her other hand, grinning all the while.

“Neato. But I meant more ‘what’s happening to me’ now. Will I explode if I get too far away from you and your quirk?” Explode? Does the kid think they made him out of a shadow clone or something?

“It’s permanent,” Sasuke drawls, eyes rolling skywards because honestly, are the quirks of this world so useless that they do something at it falls apart after it’s seen a bit of milage? No wonder Naruto and him were able to crush their opposition without breaking out the big jutsus. “We’re not incompetents.”

“Yeah! I mean, you’re not the first person I’ve whammy-healed and I’ve seen Sasuke’s soul-rebirth thingy in person work on a whole village and none of them kicked the bucket.” That she knew of. Cloud-boy soundlessly mouths ‘soul-rebirth thingy’ to himself, genuine worry crossing his face. Tch, what a baby. One near-death experience (true death, resurrection, whatever who cares) and the kid really needs to get over that if he’s gonna be hanging around with them. Which he will be; Naruto’s got that look in her eyes. He could easily tell the kid that putting up any kid of resistance is futile. More important than the kid’s mental breakdown over his sudden adoption is Sasuke figuring out how to make a genjutsu work through cameras. Yes, you can catch an opponent wearing glasses so it’s not the lens of the camera that’s the issue and he’s practised a few times with Naruto at the camera on the phone; looking at the genjutsu through the camera itself when in the presence of the genjutsu means it still works too. There has to be something about how the camera logs the image and then sends it to the monitors. Yes, he’s been reading up on it; he’s sick to death of All Might ruining the almost-dates already.

“So, I’d be good to go?” Cloud-boy asks, looking entirely weirded out by the situation. Sasuke can’t blame him.

“Feel free to stick around for a bit if you want,” Naruto chirps from his lap, leaning back against Sasuke’s chest and he sighs at the contact. “We’re not gonna run you off. It’ll be cool having a new friend around for a bit! Maybe you can help us deal with the Science-bastard who escaped!”

The kid hums, reaching into his pocket and pulling out a wallet (there’s no cash in there; Sasuke already checked). A plastic card with ‘provisional hero license’ printed across the top. One pale thumb runs across the edge and he grins, slotting it back in his wallet. “I’m in. I was on my last year of training to be a hero anyway.” Sasuke and Naruto share a look. The kid is quick to catch on to what they’re doing and frowns. “What?”

“Yeah, whatever training you got before, forget that. We’re putting you through Konoha bootcamp before we let you loose now. Right, bastard?” And really, the kid’s got some muscle tone to him but he’s still feeble as a freshly caught fish even after sleeping and eating. He’s gonna need the Chūnin exam special.

“It would be a waste if cloud boy ended up dead again.” A waste of their time and effort that is.

“C-cloud boy? It’s Shirakumo Oboro!”

“Neat! This is Uchiha Sasuke and I’m Uzumaki Naruto! Nice to meet ya!” Great, another loudmouth. Is it too late to change his decision?

Chapter Text

Oboro survives. That’s about all he can say regarding the bootcamp from hell. Is he now a lot stronger after that one week? Yes. Was it worth it? Was it really worth it? Maybe. He can’t say with complete certainty. What he does know is that he’ll not be dying in the same way again; Naruto-chan and Sasuke have all but ensured that. He’s pretty sure he could survive anything short of an All Might Smash at this point… once his muscles regain feeling. Putting one foot in front of another to walk beside Naruto in the street right now is something of a success and Oboro will take it. The success that is. He’ll happily get rid of the pain if he could.

Nah, it’s all worth it actually because the aliens from outer space (outer space, another dimension, he doesn’t care what they say, Naruto and Sasuke cannot have grown up on Earth or a planet like it, no way, no how) have started teaching him how to use ‘the chakra’. Sure at the moment he can only stick a leaf to his forehead, but Naruto-chan promises he’ll soon be walking up walls like gravity ain’t a thing anymore. So cool. If it didn’t come with hell training, he might even say it’s worth it. 

“Alright there, Oboro?” And yeah, that’s another thing. Naruto is very much not a fan of the formalities. She’d gone straight to calling him by his given name without so much as an invitation and hadn’t seemed offended in the least when he’d first addressed her as ‘Naruto-chan’. Sasuke, on the other hand, is a whole other kettle of fish. Naruto uses his given name affectionately; Sasuke uses it with the utmost disrespect, like learning someone’s whole name is too much effort and god forbid he learn the family name when he may one day run into said family and have to address him by an additional name. Oboro kinda likes him for it, though he totally gets why Naruto calls him ‘bastard’. Were it not an obvious pet nickname (and what a doozy of a nickname it is) then Oboro would probably be addressing him by it too. 

“Yeah, I’m good. Where’s Sasuke at again?” 

“Bastard said he was going hunting for our guy. Which is why I’m with you! It’d suck to have to resurrect you again because the wannabe snake-bastard gets his hands back on you!” Right. He’s being babysat while one half of the alien/demi-god duo went and hunted down the fucker who’s cost Oboro at least a decade of his life. If it weren’t for the fact he knows the Hero Commission would immediately take custody of him, Oboro would have gone running to All Might days ago. He’s about the only hero Oboro would trust to deal with whatever that scientist guy was neck deep in. Him, or the two he’s currently living with, whose sofa he’s slumming it on. Blessedly, they’re not bonking each other’s brains out in the bedroom. Not that he can hear anyway. Which, you know, part of him is intrigued because they’re both smoking hot. And the other part does not want to have his next wanking fantasy revoke solely around the human-looking aliens that he currently owes his life to. He thinks… 

“And we’re doing what, exactly?” Naruto blinks, scratching at her cheek with one hand, the other clutching the wallet Sasuke had pressed into her grasp before he’d ninja-disappeared on them both. After the wall walking thing, that’s the next thing Oboro wants to learn. 

“Exploring?” she offers after a moment of silence and Oboro muffles a laugh into the collar of his borrowed hoodie (it’s a little tight, Sasuke isn’t as muscular as Oboro is, built more for speed instead). She has no idea. It’s cute. Ah, what a shame Sasuke’s so blatantly in love with her and her him; it’s almost like the plot of a good TV show. They better still be doing TV shows like this.

It’s as they’re both snacking on fresh fruit (bought on Sasuke’s dime, though Oboro is now well aware the illegal alien he owes his life to most certainly does not have a job but he’s not going to think too much on that one), walking down the street on a particularly nippy late morning, that is all goes to shit. First, there’s the earthquake. Yeah, he hasn’t missed experiencing those. The ground shakes, people scream and flee for cover, and Naruto spends the entire time the earth is shaking looking around for the cause. As if she’s never experienced an actual earthquake before. Which, you know, alien goddess, maybe she hasn’t?

Debris falls from the surrounding buildings, bits and bobs that aren’t as secure as they should be in a country as prone to earthquakes as Japan is and Oboro’s there with his clouds, stretching them above their heads as wide as he can manage, as dense as he can produce and he’s pushing down the flashbacks, pushing down the reminders because the ground hadn’t shaken like this last time. Last time, he’d been on his own, last time he hadn’t been quick enough, strong enough, good enough.

That’s when a whole fucking building starts falling.

He must black out for a bit, must end up out of body for a moment because one moment he’s registering the falling tower, registering the concrete and glass coming his way— then there’s the golden fire. The spiralling, twirling fire that had saved him, that had healed his body as his soul was stuffed in through, as Sasuke had put it when asked, ‘Rinnegan fuckery’. Naruto’s there, body lit up and the golden glow of her arms extends well beyond what the actual limbs do, pushing against the tilting building and unbelievably holding it in place. Now, Oboro’s doesn’t have any form of super-hearing, but seeing the people pressed up against the glass in that building screaming is a loud enough visual for him.

There’s silence around them as the earth stops shaking, Oboro’s heavy breathing all that he can hear in the mess of his dispersing clouds and Naruto’s sun-like form.

“Oboro, how many people can you fit on a cloud?” How many people can he fit on a cloud? It’s not really something he’s ever had the chance to experiment with.

“I don’t know?”

“Get everyone out the building; I’ll hold it up.” Right. No time for past trauma when there’re people’s lives at stake. Swallowing around the lump in his throat, Oboro steps back and away from Naruto, watching her glow that little bit more and seeming to grow, golden arms shrinking to match the growing torso and legs. She’s about two stories high, near a fifth of the falling building’s size but the foundations are ruined so even if she pushes it back into place there’s no promise it won’t fall; it’s a miracle it hasn’t fallen already. A cloud forms under his feet and then he’s off, rising into the sky. There are people to rescue, he has his provisional, the only one in actual trouble if they get caught is Naruto. The quicker he can do this, the better. No need to worry about his own issues with falling buildings and not being enough, that can be dealt with… later (never).

Oboro is… slow. There’s no other way to put it but he’s not a ninja, isn’t up to ninja speed, so that’s kinda expected. Still, this’d be a hell of a lot easier with Sasuke here, even if the bastard’s being weird and keeps challenging her in stupid new ways that makes her stomach flip and flutter.

This’d also be a hell of a lot easier if the furry bastard in her gut would actually get his act together and regenerate his chakra a bit quicker and wake up (it’s been more than a month, okay, she’s worried about her trusted comrade).

Gritting her teeth, Naruto pushes more of the fox’s chakra through her arms to stabilise the building, watching Oboro grab another handful of civilians. His cloud buckles, almost full and there’re still civilians on the top floor. It’s his second trip, there others had stupidly crowded around on the ground until Naruto called for them to scram. Kurama’s chakra isn’t bottomless like usual and she’ll never breath a word to Sasuke but the sheer amount it took the fox to use that ‘time-travel jutsu’ (fuck Orochimaru, the bastard) has her worried if they’ll ever get back. Naruto doesn’t want to think about it too much though; everything will be fine back home. Everyone was working together just fine at the end and Kaguya was defeated and all will be well. Even if they can’t get back, the cycle of hatred has surely been broken.

“One more trip!” Oboro calls to her, his blue eyes blow wide and there’s a noticeable tremble to his hands as he helps a woman off his cloud (his ability is cool as fuck, almost like Gaara’s sand disk thing he can float on; he’ll have to take her for a fly later).

“I’ve got this!” She has. She won’t give up, she won’t let the building slip ‘till everyone is in the clear (she’ll never not be quick enough, strong enough again, there won’t be another Neji as long as she breathes). Besides, she’s the only one nearby that seems to have the strength for this; the two that can make water shoot about are busy with some asshole who’s decided to rob the bank three buildings down and they’re doing a damn good job of it, though Naruto’s keeping one eye on the situation. Whatever had caused the earth to shake like that must be the reason the heroes are busy; after all, there’s loads and loads of people who live here, way more than Konoha, all packed into this city that’s so very big.

Under the hands of the Kyūbi cloak, the building groans and shudders; Naruto eyes Oboro as he floats his way back up, smashing through the remaining window with one cloud so the trapped occupants can make their way out. At least whatever attack has happened here wasn’t as instantaneous as Pein’s on Konoha… Sakura had told her about it under the dark cover or night in the aftermath, how it’d all been there and then gone between the blink of an eye. Here, there are chances galore to save others, even if some bastards are taking the opportunity to—

Naruto rockets out from under the building, as fast as she possibly can and she catches the fist just in time, standing over the duo of water-based heroes who’d abruptly lost the upper hand against the gross slab of muscle. Urgh, what an awful power, even the weird nature-guy on Sasuke’s stupid Akatsuki hunting team hadn’t been this gross with his transformations. Behind her, the building groans again, held in place by the hastily erected truth-seeking-balls.

“Wha— bitch!” Muscle-head goes for another swing, arm bulging and ugly, gross red and Naruto catches that hand too, feeling her feet skid across the ground with the force of the blow but she holds steady any true. Yeah, she’s burning through the little about of chakra Kurama’s managed to claw back in the aftermath of their dimension jumping, but she’s got a fuck-ton herself. Tightening her grip, Naruto twists, hefting the bastard up and over her shoulder to slam him into the concrete ground. Around her, the civilians (who really need training on what to do when a fight breaks out, man, even the toddlers in Konoha had known to scatter when fights break out) gasp and flutter, all pointing those funny camera-not-cameras at her, like the one Sasuke had gotten his hands on. With any luck, the Kyūbi cloak will hide her features. Hopefully.

Muscle-bastard gets up with a snarl, clawing himself out of the bastard-shaped crater she’d put him in. Man, she hopes this isn’t gonna get back to Sasuke, he’ll be pissed at the lack of ‘low-profile’.

With a growl, Naruto launches herself forward.

Chapter Text

One unconscious body slumped over his shoulder, a genjutsu shrouding them from the prying eyes of the crowd currently gathered around the TV store, Sasuke presses a forefinger and thumb to the bridge of his nose.

God fucking damn it, Naruto. What part of ‘don’t make a scene’ didn’t she understand? Rolling his shoulders back (and nearly losing his grip on his Mangekyōed hostage; Sasuke huffs out a sigh and continues watching as Naruto forcibly makes it very clear she does not appreciate the asshole with the muscle-based quirk trying to kill someone right in front of her. Of course, Sasuke could have told the idiot that before he tried it but, somehow, this is so much more satisfying. Given that, until recent days, it’d been him on the end of that argument— well, it makes a change to be the observer this time. Plus, even with her features sort-of masked the by Kyūbi chakra, she looks fucking hot effortlessly destroying an enemy that’d given the local heroes (ha) trouble.

Shifting his weight to the left, Sasuke watches as the camera shakily adjusts to showcase the building that Naruto’s truth-seeking-balls are currently holding up (he had no idea they could do that but, then again, Naruto is well known for pulling miracles out of her ass) and the cloud-boy that is just finishing off rescuing everyone inside. He’ll make a good replacement for the hawks Sasuke can’t summon in this dimension; flying up on a cloud for an aerial view is a good option to have. And they’ll need options after Naruto’s made her very loud proclamation that she’s here.

“—News just in, All Might is now on the scene and— woah! She’s gone!” And then, to catch up the poor guppies who are having to watch this through a screen, the television cuts to a quick, familiar shot of All Might plummeting from the sky to land in the street. Naruto’s already reacting at his sudden arrival, dropping the chew-toy (sorry, muscle villain, whatever) that she’d been thoroughly trouncing in order to go scoop up their adopted cloud-boy. Then she, for lack of better terms, hoofs it out of there. Leaving All Might with he choice of chasing after her, or securing the muscled-bastard that is still trying to get up after the absolute slap-down Naruto’s delivered him. Probably in his best interests to stay down in all honesty.

“Is she a new hero?! That was so cool, did you see that!”

“—wonder what her quirk is, bit flashy for—”

“—all those people in that building. They’re very lucky they—”

Snorting, Sasuke stealthily removes himself from the crowd, sauntering up the side of the building wall to get away. While there should be an explanation of how the fuck Naruto had got involved… he’s not got his hopes up.

They’ve beaten him back to the apartment, but only just. Walking in to the sight of Oboro shamelessly slipping out of, well, all his clothing and patting the dirt and dust from his body, Sasuke rolls his eyes and drops their latest addition on the floor with a thump. Brat doesn’t so much as groan. Sasuke doesn’t quite know what to expect; the only one he’s used Tsukuyomi on had been the eight-tails jinchūriki and the squid-fucker had gotten up hella quick from that. Doesn’t look like that’ll happen here; probably be more like when Sasuke himself had gotten put under it. Does he understand why Itachi did it? Yes. Does he appreciate that? No. Not in the slightest.

“That’s enough,” Sasuke grumbles when cloud-boy reaches for the waistband of his underwear, smacking him upside the head before he gets any ideas. Utterly shameless.

“When the hell did you get back— Holy shit! Did you save someone else?!”

Sasuke eyes the second idiot in his life and wonders how soon he can get him out of it. Surely there’s someone out there missing a cloud-boy in their life? Sasuke’s already got the embodiment of sunshine lighting his life; he doesn’t need or want any more weather based phenomenon, thank you. Glorious sunshine is enough for him.

Against his will, Sasuke eyes the brat on the floor, nudging him with the toe of his boot until the body flops over onto its back. Only the slow rise and fall of his chest indicates there’s any life and Sasuke hasn’t brought home what a mortician and lawyer would label ‘evidence A’ in a trial. If the brat kicks it, it’s not because of Sasuke. That dry, crackling skin doesn’t look particularly promising but, if it’s a problem, Naruto can just whammy heal him too given she’s dishing it out to everyone and their dog at the moment.

“Didn’t find the scientist,” Sasuke grunts, giving his own shirt a once over for any kind of blood or goo but it appears he’s gotten out of this one clean. “Did find some strange fucker in a mask.” A fucker who’d reminded him a bit too much of Danzō given his whole ‘working from the shadows, brainwashing children’ system. It’d taken a bit of effort on Sasuke’s part to catch the eyeless fucker in a genjutsu (alto-Danzō? One with too many eyes, one with too little?) but once he’d done and gotten him confessing— well. The less others know, the less crimes that can be associated to him in this new world. Besides, he’s still alive. Suffering, but alive. Sasuke’s kinda hoping that the scientist will come looking for his master and he’ll be able to track him through that later on. Plus… not his dimension, not his villain, not his problem.

As for the brat… well, Sasuke had tracked him down through the underground base (again, big fucking flashback, maybe he should have blown in up Chidori style?) and then genjutsu whammied him too, only with the truth he’d extracted through the masked bastard. Hence the whole unconscious thing.

“How does that even relate?” Oboro mutters, looking between Sasuke and former-hand-fucker. Sasuke gives the unconscious body one more nudge but no, he’s not waking up anytime soon. More importantly, he’s just heard the shower finish up. Yes, the idea of waltzing in there earlier had crossed his mind but, even slowly edging Naruto to the idea that they’re practically married (their chakra is literally two halves of a whole, they make one whole god together, legal formalities are the only thing that need to be observed now) he knows she’s not ready for that… Yet. He’s not entirely sure he is either; wants it, yeah. But, trauma. He’s not sure if there is any that might sneak up on him like that but, given the last time they’d been under the spray of water together had been when they were thirteen and he’d genuinely tried to kill her… Yeah.

Thank fuck for the fox that day. Sasuke absolutely refuses to let trauma get in the way of the first time they fuck so on a bed it’ll be.

“Ya think maybe you should get a bigger apartment?” Oboro pipes up with a laugh, snatching up a towel from the little linen closet as Naruto emerges from the bathroom, amidst a billowing cloud of steam with droplets clinging to the hair that, now wet, graces the tops of her shoulders.

“You think maybe you should fuck off instead?”

“Rude.” Oboro goes to pat him on the shoulder, clearly thinks better of it (good call) and makes for the bathroom himself. His pants hit the floor before he closes the door and Sasuke looks up to the sky, praying for patience. Is it too late to drop him off at the police station’s doorstep in a wicker basket? Surely someone would take him in?

“Eh? Sasuke, who’s this?” And now that the shower is going, he can actually retell the story without cloud-boy overhearing. Naruto won’t blab; she’s got worse dirt on him anyway.

“I want in.”

It is through some eldritch power that All Might doesn’t instantly leap up and hiss like a cat at the sudden, unexpected voice. He hadn’t exactly been expecting someone to creep up on him from the side but that’s exactly what this other hero… er… what’s-his-name had done. The yellow goggles, black jumpsuit-ish combo thing… the name’s on the tip of his tongue.

“In on what, my boy?” Yeah, for all he’s aware that the stranger’s name is… escaping him, All Might is quite certain he’s not yet hit thirty. Though that five o’clock shadow is a bit misleading.

“Eraserhead,” the man, Eraserhead, mutters with a sigh, crouching on the side of the building and taking little care with just how very close to the edge he is. Before, All Might would have grabbed the man by the collar (the scarf?) and reeled him back, very conscious of the fact he was running out of time with One for All. Now though— it’s been weeks and not once has he ‘deflated’, as Chiyo had so ruthlessly put it. He’s the healthiest he’s ever been— or, he had been at the check-up she’d given him right after. No muscle tears, no cuts or bruisers. Hell, even the previous breaks he’d had on his bones were gone. What a healing quirk! Or so he’d thought.

Eyeing the remains of the building sprawled out on the street, the one that’d crumbled after the black rods that’d been holding it up had disappeared, All Might swallows around the lump in his throat as he wonders. She can’t have anything to do with All for One. All for One is dead, dead and gone and All Might had paid the price for it. So, unless she’d gotten her second quirk prior to his fight— no. The bastard wouldn’t have let a healing quirk like that go, nevermind whatever the hell had been that golden fire she’d lit up with. Unless, it was all one quirk in itself? It sounded ridiculous but then, so did the ability to steal quirks, to pass quirks on.

“You’re chasing the vigilante from today.” Shit.

“I have no idea—”

“I’ve looked through the camera footage,” Eraserhead interrupts, shifting from where he’s hunched over to glance up at All Might, eyes flashing red behind the bars of his odd goggles. “Every time you’ve popped up in the last few weeks unexpectedly, when there’s been no villains nearby, the girl was somewhere in the crowd. Her and some dark-haired boy. The—” he chokes slightly, coughing and glancing away again. “The other boy started joining them recently.” Ah. Does Eraserhead know the other boy? If he does, he’s making no move to share just how he knows him, not that All Might is about to open his big mouth and explain exactly why he is currently hunting the two down. Dimension travelling, while sounding somewhat ridiculous, is not utterly outlandish when one takes into account warpers… The sheer ability of the girl’s quirk however… oh, and the dark-haired boy’s demon/god summoning and super-speed (teleporting? Invisibility?) ability is also something to take note of. It’s certainly making them damn difficult to track and the girl had been quick to ditch Muscular when she’d realised he was here and had it all in hand. Yes, he’d tried calling out to her, to get her to stop and listen, but she’d just booked it right outta there.

It’s been a long time since someone so blatantly ignored him.

“I— there is a perfectly reasonable explanation for that—”

“You’re looking for them too.” Ah. There’s no getting out of this one, is there? Well, he had been playing with the idea of joining UA as a staff member in the future if he couldn’t find a successor himself in the next couple of years… Perhaps this will make a good trial run to see how well he gets on with a staff member?

“I am looking for them too,” All Might parrots in agreement, inspecting the scene of carnage below on the street. From the report he’d gotten off of the police following Water Hoses’ interviews, the two heroes were incredibly lucky the girl had been able to do… whatever it was with the building she’d done in order to interrupt that fight. They could very well have lost two good heroes today.

It is, however, now a race against time to find the girl and her companions. The underworld will be very much aware of what has happened here today and, should they ever learn of her gift to heal someone to the state she has done All Might… she will never know a moment of peace. That he also wishes to express his most heartfelt thanks is just another thing to add to the list. He only wishes that he had remembered the name of the library earlier; for some strange reason, they now appear to think the message he left there is a trap. Why on earth would someone have wanted to trap them at that point, prior to the world witnessing the girl’s abilities?

“Why are you—”

“They’re underaged,” Eraserhead cuts in, scowl on his face as he eyes the Muscular-shaped holes (the many, many holes) in the road. “They took down a human trafficking ring some weeks back and I watched them do it.” It goes unspoken that he had only watched because they had it well in hand. High praise from a professional hero. “I’m going to put them through the teenage vigilante rehabilitation course.” Oh dear. All Might gulps, adjusting the collar of his suit. It would seem the two had somehow managed to upset his fellow hero (maybe the new one, the cloud-boy, had done so too?) to the point he’s already plotting his revenge.

“Then I suppose we should share our information, young Eraserhead!”

“…never call me that again.”

Chapter Text

“Welcome to the ‘I was rescued by two demigods’ club, my friend.”

“I wasn’t rescued,” the boy seethes. “I was kidnapped. And I’m not your friend!”

In the background, old lady Kino (Sasuke’s grandmother in all but blood, not that Sasuke gets a say in this; yes, Oboro finds that hilarious) is berating the aforementioned demigods for not mentioned they had another (ungrateful) mouth to feed. Sasuke takes it all like a champ, full of good humour that only a superpowered alien who knows he can squish this woman like a grape between forefinger and thumb can. Like, goals.

Naruto, not quite exhausted after that outstanding performance with the tower and the villain but closer to tired than Oboro has ever seen her, is stretched out across the sofa. Her short golden hair spills across the sofa arm and her own limbs are thrown about hazardously, the girl herself awaiting the call for dinner as eagerly as Oboro himself is. Hell, they’re all hungry for dinner and he’s pretty sure the grumpy guss who only just woke up after his two weeklong powernap (that’s not normal is it? What the hell had his captors been doing to him before Sasuke got him out?) is in the same state. Only, he’s too busy seething over the fact Sasuke’s rescued him from what was clearly not a good situation, no matter how his ‘twisted by his captor’ brain tries to explain it.

Oboro had listened to the story once and, yeah, that’s enough for him. All Might’s greatest enemy (and holy shit, Sasuke’s out here dropping truth bombs like nobody’s business) kidnapping the grandson of the man’s mentor to twist into his evil henchmen is right out of a comic book. Yeah, there are villains, but that’s an almost cartoonish level of villainy right there.

Old lady Kino has apparently given up on reading Sasuke the riot act, turning back to the stove where she’s throwing all their perishables into a stew that’s no doubt going to be amazing; Oboro’s already salivating at the scent of it and there’s still a quarter of an hour to go. Sasuke, in turn, has approached the sofa and stands at the lower end where Naruto’s shins currently reside.

“Legs,” he grunts, slipping onto the couch when the girl accommodatingly lifts her legs. He doesn’t look surprised in the slightest when Naruto drops them down on top of him. Just takes one foot in hand to begin rubbing circles into the sole with his thumb. The noise that Naruto makes then is, well, it’s pornographic. Oboro shares a look with the captured ass who has yet to give them a name (though no doubt Sasuke’s already weaselled it out of him, it’s no help for Oboro because he doesn’t use it and has just taken to calling the stranger Scratchy; yes, he’s quite happy he got cloud-boy in retrospect) and isn’t surprised in the least to find the other boy looking just as uncomfortable as he feels. Yeah, Oboro loves these guys, he really does! But fuck him sideways, he needs to get out of here soon.

“I’m not giving you a foot-rub, bastard.” That Naruto is blissfully oblivious to the intent that is in everything Sasuke does is the only thing that’s stopped this going from uncomfortable to downright intolerable. The demigods needs to get a move on and deal with the asshole who cost Oboro years of his life and fucked over Scratchy-McGee here. He wants to get back out into the world properly, damn it!

Old lady Kino finishes cooking them a stew and fucks off, leaving the four of them to eat. Sasuke’s all for the lack of chairs in the apartment now because it either means Naruto’ll be pressed up against his side on the sofa, or sitting on his lap up to table while Scratchy and cloud-boy take the other two seats. Hell, they only got the third seat because Kino had taken pity on Oboro when they’d first dragged him home. Their latest addition apparently doesn’t look like this world’s version of a ‘boy-next-door’ because Kino doesn’t say anything about getting another fold-out chair for Scratchy. Sasuke can’t blame her; if he had a choice, he wouldn’t have much to do with Scratchy too. Hell, he’d only brought him along because the amount his life has been fucked up by an underground fucker that covers his face came irritatingly close to how effectively Sasuke and Itachi had been fucked over by Danzō. The bastard. 

It’s not pity; Sasuke doesn’t do pity (doesn’t do a lot of emotions if he’s honest, the vast majority of what he feels is dedicated to Naruto with only a low simmer irritation left over for everyone else) and even if he did, he wouldn’t be pitying Scratchy. Maybe if he’d tried picking himself up now that Sasuke’s turfed him out of there, but the idiot has done nothing but complain. Oh, sure, he’s not complained to Sasuke’s face (that’d be a sure fire way to getting himself drop kicked out of the apartment window and left for mask fucker to find again… if he’s out of the genjutsu yet), but Sasuke has ears. He heard what he said to cloud-boy. Oboro. Who gets his name used occasionally because it’s his real one. Like fuck is Sasuke calling Scratchy by that fucked up one the masked bastard did. He gives them his real name, or he’s remaining as Scratchy. In fact, fuck that. He’s staying as Scratchy regardless. 

“You were part of some creepy Danzō-copy’s underground army,” Naruto says, utterly point blank with no fucks left to give. There’s no cutting around the bullshit for her, just right to the point. She’s not quite clicked on to the fact the people do this universe aren’t so damningly blunt, that they actually try to avoid bringing up painful memories or scamper around things society deems impolite. Sasuke, on the other hand, is very much aware of this fact. He just effortlessly discards it as useless. Like fuck is he changing his behaviour just because they’re in another dimension. Who is there capable of taking him to task over it? Naruto? Ha, she’s worse than he is for abrupt, invasive sentences. “You know anyone capable of making portals?”

“You stole our only taxi.” Scratchy fucker doesn’t look at her as he hissed it out, stabbing into his Kino-made stew with his chopsticks as if wishing it could be Naruto’s eye instead. Sasuke’ll tear him apart before that happens. 

“Eh? You mean Oboro?” She turns to look at cloud-boy, who half chokes and sets down his near empty bowl that he’d been in the process of draining. There’s broth around his mouth. Disgusting. “That’s sick— you can’t fuck people over like you did him, ‘ttebayo.”

“He was like that before I met him,” Scratchy mutters mutinously, childishly. Holy shit, there’s even a little pout forming on his lips. Great, they’ve adopted a cheery, near-nudist (okay, he’s exaggerating a bit there) cloud-boy and he’s dragged in the human equivalent of an alley-cat. Sasuke eyes Scratchy’s hair suspiciously, lips pursed. Potentially a flea-riddled alley cat… he’s throwing him in the shower the second he’s done eating. He’ll hose the brat down himself if he has to. 

“Wait,” cloud-boy says, brows knitting together in a physical representation of his confusion. “Why do you two even need a warper when you’re demigods?” He’s soon quick to regret that question. See, Naruto doesn’t do anything by halves and that includes explaining not just the fact that they were launched here by their desire to change the past, but why exactly they want to change the past. And, for Naruto, everything ties together. So, it’s pretty much a condensed, emotionally charged history of the Elemental Nations, the Bijū, the Uchiha and Senju bullshit, and the clusterfuck that was Sasuke and Naruto’s own childhood. 

By the end of her story, an hour or so has passed, the last dregs of stew are a distant memory, and both cloud-boy and Scratchy are blatantly staring with something resembling horrified awe. 

“You’re more fucked than I am,” Scratchy breathes with something close to reverence as he looks at Sasuke which— rude. For all that life has continuously fucked him over, Sasuke thinks he’s done pretty damn well for himself. Like, sure he’s lost… a lot. But he’s got Naruto. That outweighs all the negatives. Yes, he’s not got Itachi, which he would have done had Orochimaru’s time travel jutsu actually fucking worked (not a surprise given its the snake bastard, but Sasuke reserves the right to be disappointed anyway), so that means no older/younger brother babysitter. Yet, if he plays his cards right with these two, really and truly whips them into shape… well, he might trust cloud-boy with a kid for the duration of one date night… but it’s gonna take a lot of work. 

“Scratchy’s right,” Oboro declares, ignoring the hisses correction of Scratchy’s name that isn’t his actual name so therefore won’t be used. “That’s fucked up. You should both stay here. Shit like that doesn’t happen here. Not from anyone other than a villain.” Yes, and Sasuke is clearly more than capable of taking on the worst of the villain offerings here. He feels no worry in declaring he’ll be staying here, would actually prefer it. It’s just Naruto. 

Naruto who is humming, frowning hard, clearly thinking. It looks painful. That’s okay, Sasuke’s smart enough for the two of them when it comes to academia; Naruto can rely on him for that if she wants to. He presses a lingering kiss to her shoulder that she barely even notices. So used to his presence, to contact with him. Sasuke can live anywhere as long as he’s got this woman with him. 

“I mean, we did stop Kaguya… and everyone was getting along.” 

“Nothing to stop you protecting people here now that everyone in our world is safe.” Sasuke’s doubtful of the validity of his words; he’s quite certain the five great villages will soon be at each other’s throats without Naruto to keep them in line but hey, what does he care? What had the five great nations ever done for him? Fuck all, is what. They can fuck up their own lives but they’ll never touch Sasuke’s again. 

“Well!” Cloud-boy suddenly chirps, clapping his hands together and grinning like a maniac. “If you’re staying, clearing out that nasty villain who’s been manipulating Scratchy here—” There’s a furious hiss at the continued use of the name but none of the sensible people in the room acknowledge it. All bark, no bite; if he wanted to attack them, it’d have already happened and Sasuke would’ve already put him back in his place with great prejudice. “—would be an excellent start. Then we can swing around UA and straighten everything out.” 

For a single second, Sasuke weighs the sensibility of listening to Oboro’s plan. Just a second. But then he recalls this fucker is the only native of this dimension (who hasn’t a. been totally fucked over by the biggest asshole in the land or b. proven themselves a ballsy grandma figure who wouldn’t take no for an answer) currently sitting up to table and that he should have some inkling of how the world works. If it all goes tits up, Sasuke can point fingers (that’re casting genjutsus) and fucking book it outta there with Naruto over one shoulder (or him over Naruto’s; he’s not picky). He’s even got a prime distraction in the form of Scratchy that he can throw in the way of any pursuers.

Nothing to stop them trying again and picking up a new gremlin tag along down the road, is there? 

“Sounds like a plan!” Naruto declares, one fist slamming onto the table to support her decisiveness. It collapses instantly, hitting the floor with a muffled bang. Scratchy only just got his toes out of the way in time. And speaking of Scratchy—

“You’re showering. Now.” 

Chapter Text

With a hundred pounds of sopping wet man-child not quite tucked under one arm (but he’s going the right way about it) and Naruto’s hand lovingly cradled by the other, Sasuke stands at the edge of a particularly tall building and looks down on the street below.

“What’re we doing here?” Oboro asks quietly from just behind them and he going to have to get over that hesitation of approaching the edge. Past trauma or not, it’s going to get him killed and then Sasuke will have to use Rinnegan fuckery to go digging for his soul because Naruto’s gone and gotten attached. It’s never more evident than when she spins on heel, snatching for cloud-boy’s hand and reeling him forward to stand beside them. At least she doesn’t let go of Sasuke’s hand in the process. Then he would be giving Oboro a quick and dirty lesson in how to not worry about the edge of a building.

“Getting some good will?” Naruto offers, shoulders shrugging before she squats down, pulling Sasuke down with her. He doesn’t care, takes the opportunity to huddle that little bit closer to her instead. After a brief moment of consideration, he yanks Scratchy down to join them, smacking him upside the head when their latest tagalong goes to complain about it. Corrective therapy or whatever that shit’s called. Whenever he says something wrong, Sasuke gives him a gentle (for a ninja) reminder that it’s not something they do. It ain’t shit about how to conduct himself in civilised society and all to do with the fact Sasuke won’t put up with that shit. Nah, Naruto had heard that tragic backstory and instantly decided she was gonna give Scratchy a better life. As usual, her method of choice is to steamroll over any and all attempts he makes to decide otherwise. As such, Scratchy is a reflection of Naruto and Sasuke will not allow him to present any aspect of Naruto poorly. That includes her ‘reform the villain’ ways. He’s seen her track record; he refuses to allow Scratchy to break that.

“So, the plan is to just run around beating up villains,” Oboro checks, eyes squinting as he looks between them, nervously toeing the little half-foot tall ledge that separates him from the edge of the building and the open air on the other side. “Really?”

“Nah!” Naruto wafts a dismissive hand through the air, bright eyes locked on the street below. “Plan’s to show up all the heroes ‘till they have no choice but to accept us! Starting with the big guy!”

“The big— oh.”

He’s midway through a villain takedown, fist primed and ready to deliver the first (and final) blow when the villain is suddenly…gone? All Might skids to a halt, only just preventing himself from flattening the villain that is already pressed to the pavement.

The girl he’s spent the last three weeks searching for is standing on top of said villain. She’s smiling at him.

“Too slow! She chirps, all bright blonde hair and a suckerpunch smile that may as well have been copy n’ pasted right off his master’s face. And then she’s gone, bouncing aware and All Might’s arms close around empty air a half second too late to catch her. It is only because he is very much on the clock and that there’s no other hero around to take over the arrest that he doesn’t give chase immediately.

Now, that one incident wouldn’t have been such a massive problem. One in person sighting for the first time in three weeks was promising! However… that isn’t the first time. By the end of his official shift (a full shift too because he hasn’t needed to exhale, cannot deflate anymore because he is healed) rolls around… it’s happened nine times. Nine. She’d even beaten him to the old lady needing to cross the street and every single time she’d slipped right through his fingers. Just out of reach, laughing and bouncing and utterly unconcerned by her blatant acts of vigilantism right before the number one hero. If that even means something to a woman (a young woman, not yet past the point of being a technical child really) from another dimension. Yes, All Might believes her. How could he not, having witnessed what she is capable of today It is the first time he has ever clocked off work without making a single arrest, without saving a life. Of, it won’t affect his official stats (not that he cares) because the law considers the hero who cuffs the villain to be the one who made the takedown, not the vigilante who actually beat them. Otherwise, there’d have to be a major shift in the rankings.

“Thirsty?”

All Might startles, looking down to find the menace herself standing before him, an iced slush in each hand, one orange, one blue, each as violently vivid as the other. He doesn’t miss the fact that the vast majority of civilians around them, while retrieving their phones to angle at them in order to record what is sure to be All Might’s next failed lunge, have taken a collective step back. Several of them, in fact. He also doesn’t miss the fact the slushies are the cheapest one available in the surrounding area. Which brings up the question of just how these dimension travellers have been funding their expedition here.

Now, All Might may not have been the most… academic of students (Gran Torino had made that painfully clear throughout his schooling years), but even he can recognise continuing with one strategy despite overwhelming failure at every other attempt is foolish. As such, he accepts the blue slush that is presented before him, taking a seat on the curb. Thankfully, there’s a bus lane between him and the rest of the road, though those passing in their cars slow in an obvious effort to gawk outright at him. He inhales, his side doesn’t ache, and he take a long, smooth slurp of the slush.

The girl sits down next to him.

“We’ve decided we’d like to stay here,” she says, blunter than, well, All Might himself. She grins at him, not an ounce of shame to the expression as she takes a humongous sip of her own slush, cheeks hollowing with the effort. He can spot a handful of police officers now working their way through the crowd, approaching carefully in the very same manner that they’re trained to when a hero is on the scene but the villain/vigilante is stronger than said hero. Which… yes, that is a position All Might can freely admit he never thought he’d be in. After all, he'd always imagined One for All dead at his feet and that man had been the only person who could potentially classify as stronger than him; certainly not someone he’d battle in a populated area.

“In this dimension, or in Japan?”

“We’ve already been adopted by a local granny,” the healer says with a grin, rubbing sheepishly at the back of her head, legs stretched out before her and rocking at the heels, the tips of her toes dipping inwards with every rock to knock against each other. “So, here as in the city? How many more bad guys do I gotta beat up to get a hero’s welcome?”

All Might laughs, loud and booming and utterly unable to help himself. Is this truly why she has been shadowing him all day, upstaging his every villain take down? An attempt to prove herself as someone worthy of staying here? Three weeks of searching and she decides to turn up herself here, out of the blue, asking if she can stay like he has any authority on that at all? She… might not be wrong, he does have a lot of favours he could be calling in to help with this situation, to smooth things over.

“After how you helped me, my girl,” All Might says, watching her repeat ‘my girl’ beneath her breath with wide blue eyes that are startlingly close to his own, “I have been searching for you to offer my thanks. I would be happy to help you… Though, where is your—” bastard. “—partner?”

“Eh? Sasuke?” Sasuke. He must remember that name; it has become a little too easy to call his ‘bastard’ without an official name. He’d not even assigned himself a vigilante name, nor helped enough civilians to be gifted one. No, the two of them had been busy blowing up what appears to be the last remnants of All for One’s partners. Just another reason to offer the duo help; they have found fractions of All for One’s network that have escaped even him in a startlingly short period of time.

“Yes, is he around?”

“Oh, right. We split up, so me and Oboro have been following you, but he’s too shy to come over because he used to be a hero-student before he got Orochimarufied—” Before he got what? “— and he’s a little worried about if his plastic card thingy covers him helping me the other day with that building.” Plastic card— could it be a hero license? It would make sense if the boy had been a hero-student previously. “Sasuke took Scratchy with him to do the same thing as me but with the Number Two Hero.”

With the Number Two Hero… oh no.

Perhaps he had been a little… absorbed in his work today but, given he’d found the healer (Uzumaki Naruto, she’d introduced herself as), All Might is sure that Gran Torino… No, not him. He’s sure that Chiyo will excuse his absent-mindedness.

Still, it is a sight to see, the other side of the city where the bastard— Sasuke (excuse him) has been… stealing Endeavour’s heroics.

Naruto had gathered up the other boy who had been with her the day of the incident with Muscular (it’d taken two days to straighten out all the villain shaped dents in the road), who had stared at him star-struck before robotically introducing himself as Shirakumo Oboro, third year heroics student who’d been held hostage for over a decade. All Might tactfully doesn’t mention the boy does not look to be any older than an actual third year student. Who knows, maybe Naruto had healed all his ills too? It is something to dig into later, when they have a chance to get this whole story ironed out. After All Might has ensured Endeavour hasn’t… well, not roasted the boy to a crisp but… well, he need to ensure Naruto’s partner in crime hasn’t been hurt in his zeal to match his accomplishes achievements today.

A minute later, All Might cannot understand why he even worried about the little bastard.

There’s a great big pillar of fire three streets over (hopefully coming off Endeavour’s shoulders and not some lingering testimony to the property damage that has been inflicted today), there are countless scorch marks smeared across the street like a toddler goes to town on paper with the crayons, and in the middle of it all, there’s Naruto’s bastard. He’s got a hold of some scrawny, light-haired boy that he’s holding off the floor (impressive given the lack of bulging muscles on the boy but who knows how people are built in this alternate dimension) and doesn’t even flinch when the other kicks him in the shin. Just whacks him atop the head.

“Eh? Damn it, bastard! Don’t give him any more head trauma!”

“I’m not traumatised!” The captive boy hisses and All Might almost trips over his own two feet when he gets a look at the face under all that scraggily hair. Yes, the skin is peeling like half-prepped potato, but that jawline, that mole—

“”VIGILANTE!” Ah. Seems Endeavour has caught up to them now. “If you attempt to flee as I arrest you, you will become a wanted criminal.” Naruto’s partner in crime scowls, dropping the boy whose face is giving All Might a heart attack (is this what a heart attack feels like?) to glare over at the approaching Number Two Hero. He does not look worried in the slightest.

“Newsflash, dickhead,” he snaps, arms folded across his chest and head tipped back to peer down his nose at the much taller form of Endeavour. “I was a wanted criminal in our home dimension.”

“Sasuke, you bastard! We’re supposed to be building good will!”

A half-step behind All Might, the former (current? What is the protocol for captured hero students anyway?) hero student breaks out into deranged laughter, both hands clutching at his stomach.

Does he regret offering to help Naruto? No, not at all. Though it would appear he’s going to have his work cut out for him, from here on out. He just feels like he’s… forgetting something.

Chapter Text

Arms folded across his chest, legs kicked up on the shitty metal table and utterly ignoring the third pair of handcuffs that he’s snapped in the space of three minutes, Sasuke eyes the glass that would be a one-way mirror to anyone with a normal set of eyes. Beside him and also ignoring the fact that they had been put in separate interrogation rooms at the start, Naruto leans onto his shoulder, grumbling about shitty prison food and a lack of ramen. It’s not even like they’re in a prison; just a room that is for a ‘quick chat’ with ‘non-aggressive personal’. Whatever the fuck that’s supposed to mean. Just a lighter, friendlier name for a fucking temporary holding cell. All Might knows, Naruto knows, Sasuke knows, and the police officer who’d slapped that third pair of handcuffs on him knows that they don’t have to be here. That they wouldn’t be here if they didn’t want to be. And speaking of not wanting to be here—

“I should have gotten away from you shitheads when I had the chance.” Scratchy is, well, scratching up a storm in the corner, having used his weird as shit fingers to disintegrate the handcuffs that’d been on his wrists and none of the police officers had been brave enough to try putting a new pair on when he looked like a feral badger one wrong move away from chewing off the offender’s leg. Even cloud-boy is eyeing him warily and they’ve actually been living in relatively close quarters so far. 

“You’d never have lasted five minutes in the real world on your own,” Sasuke drawls, if only to watch the brat seethe. Because he can’t snap back, can’t proclaim he’d have done just fine because he can go around doing things that are most certainly not legal. Can’t say that out loud when All Might et al. (Sasuke is vibing with some of that psychology shit he found on the internet, he really is) are all put pressed against the glass to their left. Yeah, Scratchy isn’t society’s biggest fan, but even he realises that the masked fucker has fucked him over and that sticking with them is better than the alternative. He doesn’t lean over to smack the boy up the head if only because that means jostling Naruto who is shamelessly making herself comfortable in leaning against him. Sasuke lifts his arm, letting her lean a little bit more into his embrace before he ruthlessly reels her in, hand curled over her hip and fingertips brushing against the soft rise and fall of her belly.

“Urgh, you two are disgusting,” Oboro grumbles, rubbing at his forehead like his eyes haven’t shamelessly lingered on them multiple times.

“Don’t worry, Oboro!” Naruto chirps, clapping the brat on the shoulder (and removing herself from Sasuke’s side for a moment to do so; Sasuke glares at the brat because that is his fault) before he tips her head back to grin up at Sasuke. “I’m sure there’s some asshole out there for you.”

“Oh an idiot,” Sasuke tags on as an afterthought, much more interested in the recently arrived hobo on the other side of the glass that is now gawking at Oboro. Sorta like Sasuke imagines he did when he saw resurrected Itachi. You know, for that half a millisecond before it registered someone had defiled his brother’s grave and he now had another person to rip a new one. Such a shame Itachi had seen something in Kabuto worth changing. That, or he’d taken more satisfaction in truly fucking Orochimaru over by converting his minion… Sasuke’s eyes flickered over to Scratchy, his face dropping into a frown. Shit. Hasn’t he done that himself with Scratchy and the masked fuck? Pretty much… eh. He can see why Itachi did it.

Eyes finding All Might’s (blond idiot with a lot of power; Sasuke’s well aware of the type of person who holds all the cards; he’s sitting next to one), Sasuke juts out his chin challengingly. “We’ve answered all your questions. I’ve got shit to do so let’s move on.”

“You’ve got shit all to do,” Scratchy condemns, red eyes narrowed (lesser red eyes, not Sharingan red but some cheap knock off). “You just want to lounge about with Naruto now that you’ve got your daily fill of fucking with other people’s lives.”

“And?” Is he supposed to be going somewhere with that?

There’s a moment’s silence, Scratchy at a loss for words, cloud-boy suffocating his own laughter into the palm of his hand, their audience gawking through their ‘not a one way’ glass mirror. Then, the soft click of a button.

“You can see through the mirror?”

“Obviously.”

It takes another half-hour of sorting paperwork, of scribbling signatures (Naruto’s current one is still as shit as the genin one that she was cracking out last he was in the village) and having their pictures taken for databases. Fingerprints are… well, a bit of a fuck up. They might not have a lot of technology back in the Elemental Nations, but they sure as fuck knew all about fingerprints. Genin have those burned off with a medic ninjutsu in their first week because no village is idiotic enough to release fresh recruits into the field without getting rid of any and every identifying feature that they can. So yeah; unsurprisingly, that doesn’t go down well. The hobo (who looks familiar, come to think of it; maybe Sasuke’s stolen his wallet before) takes Oboro away with the promise of returning him eventually and his eyes spend the entire time boring holes into Sasuke like he’s personally offended whatever hobo god he prays to. Which, even if Sasuke hasn’t offended his god, it’d certainly be on his to-do list; like fuck is he allowing any god at all to think he favours them now, not after the last one he met. Damn moon bitch.

“All Might— are you sure you want to do this?”

“Of course!” All Might proclaims with a grin, clapping one hand down on Naruto’s shoulder, the other on Scratchy’s; Scratch buckles like an academy student on their first endurance hike. Naruto takes it like a champ, shoulders not so much as flinching from the sudden onset of pressure. That’s his future-wife. “I have never had the delight of taking interns and, while academics are not my best point, I am sure Nezu will offer me a helping hand— er, paw.”

“That sounds suspiciously like studying,” Sasuke interrupts, Naruto’s nose scrunching up the moment he’s done talking. Why has he agreed to become a hero again? Surely a villain’s lifestyle would be far less hassle; he needs no formal acknowledgement from the government to start doing that and he’s got a head-start on all the others out there, what with his three, near four years of criminal activity from another dimension under his belt.

“It is to become a productive member of our society and aid those we can, young-Sasuke!” Urgh, helping society? Hard pass. But that does make him think of why. Yes, being a villain would be easier in the short-term, but in the long term? He’s pretty certain that the heroes would try and ‘save’ any children of villains and, while no one here is clearly capable of taking him to task (Naruto excluded for obvious reasons), there’s the whole ‘children should go to school to socialise’ and ‘children shouldn’t witness their parents getting into serious fights with outsiders, not until they’re old enough to realise their parents are demi-gods who can kick the shit out of anyone’. How exhausting.

Naruto, it seems, has a more pressing worry.

“Academics is book-smart stuff, isn’t it?” she asks, deep suspicion in her voice. Before All Might gets a chance to say anything, she turns on Sasuke, big blue eyes wide and utterly oblivious to the fact he could never say no to her, pleading puppy face or not. “Sasuke, you gotta help me study!” Her hands clasp around his, pulling them close to her chest like he’d be able to feel the sincerity of her plea, the nervous beating of her heart. Not from being close to him, oh no, from the impending deadline of a test that they don’t even have a date for yet.

“Yes.” What else could he say? It won’t be hard in the slightest, not when she’s got shadow-clones to read a shit ton of stuff and he has his Sharingan; there’ll probably be done with the schooling of this world by the end of the month. If idiots like that flame-orienteered bastard can become the number two hero, it can’t be that hard, can it?

“Thanks, bastard,” Naruto breathes, looking at him like he hung the stars, like he blew up the moon, like he invented fucking ramen broth. Fuck, she’s so beautiful, so strong and takes no bullshit, the perfect woman and she’s chased him across their original dimension. It’s only fair he does the same thing here, isn’t it? Only, Naruto’s not going anywhere so he’ll just follow in her footsteps, one at a time, admiring her ass the whole way.

“You’re both fucking disgusting.”

Sasuke kicks Scratchy through the nearest wall, all the while not looking away from Naruto’s glorious self. There’s a bang, some swearing, and Sasuke’s fifty percent certain All Might tries to tell him off for it but he doesn’t care. Naruto is still grinning up at him. He plants his forehead against hers, inhaling the familiar scent of her skin, luxuriating in her very presence. Nothing could be better than this.

Only, he’s wrong. Forty-three minutes later and they’re at All Might Tower. The big man himself is still a bit weepy in the eye because Sasuke had given him the SparkNotes (that’s another word the internet has allowed him to add to his vocabulary and Sasuke fucking loves that invention, he really does) of Scratchy’s life and now the man is only held back from engulfing the brat in those tree-trunk arms by the knowledge he could get dusted for it. But, that’s not the part Sasuke cares about. Fuck no. He doesn’t give a shit about Scratchy or All Might or even where the fuck cloud-boy has been hoisted off to. No, the most important thing at the moment is that he’s been given his own apartment. As in, removed from Scratchy and Oboro with All Might a floor up as the big cheese had told them himself. Which means— they’re all alone.

“Sasuke! Come quick!” Were it not for the distinct lack of panic in her voice, Sasuke would have shot through the apartment. Given she’s just about to burst with excitement, he instead opts for a leisurely stroll in her general direction, inspecting the big sofa (fabric material, huge cushions, perfect for a last night movie or an early morning, fell asleep on the sofa snuggle) and the kitchen (outrageously big oven, an even bigger fridge; perfect for cooking copious amount of ramen on) as he goes.

Stepping into the bathroom though, Sasuke instantly understands Naruto’s excitement.

“It’s like an onsen but made by people!” Naruto cheers, the tap of the gigantic bathtub that’s built into the floor already roaring and there are metal ring-like things built into the side with weird plastic protrusions in the centre. Naruto’s already halfway to naked, shirt and sports bra on the floor but far too busy messing with a panel on the side of the bath to finish undressing. The long stretch of her golden skin, the perfect muscles of her back leading down to that slim waist; she’s a goddess. The Elemental Nations had got it all wrong; Kaguya was a fucking demon, a hellish thing that need to be banished. It’s Naruto that’s the goddess, a creature so divine that she deserves all his worship, all his attention and emotion and his everything.

“Eh? Bastard, you getting in here or not?” He’s pretty sure he was supposed to mention something to All Might after the SparkNotes of Scratchy’s life but, for the fucking life of him, Sasuke can’t recall.

If it’s important, it’ll come to him. Sometime after he’s spent a couple of hours relaxing under the fucking side-way jets the too-big-to-be-a-bath bath has. After all, it’d take a complete fool to not join Naruto for a dip and quite frankly, Sasuke’s the bastard in this relationship, not the idiot.

Chapter Text

“What did you do?” All Might sounds remarkably horrified for a man used to kicking ass day in, day out.

“I showed him what I wanted,” Sasuke grunts because what’s wrong with putting the equivalent of a seamstress under a genjutsu to show him exactly how Sasuke wants to dress? Sure, he wants to odd alteration between some of his previous ninja working clothes (a poncho maybe?) but he can’t be bothered drawing that out. Easier to implant the idea in their heads right off the bat. No fucking around with unsatisfactory designs that way.

Against the sidewall and standing altogether too close to Sasuke’s future babysitter (hey, he put the fucking effort into stuffing that soul back inside that body, he owns cloud-boy now, there’ll be no ducking out from babysitting duties in his future), Hobo, who has a stupid hero name so it won’t be used, eyeballs Sasuke. Sasuke eyeballs him right back. Fucker. His eyeballs are vastly superior, have brought death and destruction to all those who fascinated on them (even his own family succumbed to death as a result of the Sharingan in the long run), he is the eyeballing champ.

Sasuke sneers and Hobo scowls right back.

“Sasuke! Look! They can make it light up!” The bodysuit combo (while delightfully figuring-hugging) offends every last one of Sasuke’s ninja-sensibilities. Thousands of years of selective-Uchiha breeding rears up and hisses at the light-up monstrosity that Naruto is wearing. It’s too orange, too noticeable, too flashy, too not subtle. It’s also painfully, undoubtedly, very Naruto too. He’ll never talk her out of it. She slams her heels togethers and, yes, the soles of those light up too with the same warm yellow flash as her Kyūbi chakra mode. Thank fuck none of this had been something Konoha was capable of (mainly because no one had ever dreamed of trying to create something so eye-searing, so blatantly conspicuous as this; the goal of ninja was to be unseen) otherwise Naruto’d never have made it past Wave. Zabuza’s too pretty ice bastard (that fucker had looked at Naruto with those kind eyes way before Sasuke did; good thing he’d died young) would have made a pincushion of her in quick succession.

“Really, idiot?” Sasuke asks, even though he knows it’s a useless endeavour. There is no way she’s leaving without those clothes. It’s not a battle he can win. No, he’ll put his efforts into the war of making sure she’s not wearing those hideous shoes out in public unless she’s kicking ass with them. With any luck, she’ll ram her foot so far in someone’s gob that it’ll damage the shoe. That or make the skull light up from all orifices available... he’s almost curious to see it happen.

“Are the two of you really going through the hero course?” Oboro asks quietly from where he’s off to a side, laying out a costume with an almost reverent grace to his actions. It’s a shitty colour combo, brown and blue but Sasuke supposes not everyone has excellent aesthetic taste like he does.

“Eh, sort of.” Naruto shrugs, kicking out at the air around her, twisting and twirling to see how the cloak of her costume floats and flares around her. Sasuke does not miss the way the fabric (seemingly all one piece when standing still) partitions into nine separate parts when in motion. Nine-tails indeed. “All Might’s gonna be our sensei that’s not a sensei thingy and we’re gonna ram through the whole curriculum before the month’s out.”

“Is this a joke to you.” Hobo’s voice is dead, bloodshot eyes on Naruto and Sasuke scowls, stepping forward to meet the bastard’s glare head on. For all the colouring is wrong, for all there’s two eyes and no lateness or lazy as fuck posture (not in the way he’s used to anyway)… this bastard reminds him of Kakashi. His bullshit radar is blaring, flashing and flicking and this fucker is definitely behind it. Sasuke doesn’t even consider it could be All Might; he’s practically this world’s knock-off Naruto. If Naruto had been born a guy and didn’t have a Sasuke to reel in the crazy.

Naruto, bless her golden hair, is clueless. “What’d’ya mean?”

“The UA hero course accepts only the best forty students in the country every year. And you are insinuating that you’d be able to complete a three year course in the space of four weeks?”

“Fuck no,” Sasuke states with a scoff, arms folding across his chest— and yeah, he’s liking the way this test shirt flexes alongside his muscles, moves with his skin instead of falling into line like his old Elemental Nations stuff did. And it’s as comfortably as those sweat-pants. Fuck yeah, he’ll take six of these home with him. “We could do it in two. Four weeks because we have lives to live outside of studying for your shitty society’s laws.”

“Damn it, bastard!” Naruto’s fist clunks down on his head with a bang, one that has Sasuke flinching ever so slightly before he settles back into position, ignoring the way Naruto’s leapt up onto his back to hang off him like a damn monkey, one arm thrown over his shoulders and her legs around his waist. She needs no help from him to stay stable, so Sasuke doesn’t budge. The additional weight is nothing. He’d carry her across the globe if she asked off it. “We’re supposed to be nice! I’m sure there’s some really important stuff to learn in the YA course.”
“UA course,” Hobo corrects, eyes narrowed in on Naruto as he considers the sceptical tones in which she’d spoken. Sasuke can’t judge her; with what he’s seen of these so called ‘professional heroes’, he’s quite certain they’ll be running rings around their hero-course workload before the month’s out.

“Man, studying is gonna suck,” Oboro groans, snapping the bang of his goggles onto the back of his skull and ignoring the steadily rising tension in the room.

“Eraserhead—”

“You’re on, brat,” Hobo grunts, eyeing Sasuke and there’s a smug little tilt to his head, cocked back and peering down at him from the superior height that comes with being a half foot taller. “Two weeks to complete the UA hero course.”

“Fuck no. I said four.”

“What— can’t do it?”

Sasuke sneers, arms folded and just so happens to trap one of Naruto’s hands against his chest. The way she decides to tap impatiently against his collar bone in recompense is maddening. “If you think I’ve giving up time with Naruto to beat you at a bet, you haven’t got a grip on my motives at all.” Which, not a surprise given Sasuke’s motives are literally ‘please Naruto; woo Naruto’ at the moment and fuck all else but, if he’s missed that, he’s missed it all and there’ no rescuing from that. And, speaking of wooing Naruto— “Come on, idiot. I’m cooking ramen for dinner and we need to buy groceries.”

Naruto whoops over his shoulders, still clinging to his back as Sasuke walks away (ignoring the lab-tech that makes on feeble attempt to recover the prototype shirt Sasuke’s wearing before giving it up as a bad job). She invites all three of them to dinner and Sasuke resigns himself to cooking for a group. Though he’s kicking them out if they try to stick around for dessert.

They don’t visit the nearest supermarket (another strange invention but the variety of products on offer more than make up for the bright fluorescent lights that hang overhead) but one that’s a district over from All Might’s tower. Even then, there’s still the news that All Might has taken the two ‘super vigilantes’ under his wing plastered across the screen, accompanied by blurry photos of Sasuke and Naruto on the too big television screens. Sasuke will be paying for one of those with his first paycheck. He remembers that mission with the actress-princess in the Land of Snow, Spring, whatever the fuck it’s called now. Naruto had been enthralled with the concept of films and movies and Sasuke will indulge her.

Plus, he’d seen a short trailer of one of those ‘action movies’. Getting to debate how shit the fight scenes are will be a delight.

“Bastard, look,” Naruto calls loudly beside him, digging one elbow into his side, finger pointing toward the screen. “We’re on the TV!” Snorting, Sasuke rolls his eyes, making for the produce section, mentally calculating the amount of cash he has to hand. He’s got a more than enough left for ramen ingredients given the fucker he’d swiped the wallet from had been pretty well loaded… the fucker who’d been one of the many grunts in the anti-Danzō’s base when Sasuke had blown it up and left their boss in a genjutsu he may or may not be brain-dead from… There’s that thing that he probably should have mentioned to the big cheese of this dimension the other day…

Oh well. If he were such a pressing concern, he’d be getting hunted down. Sasuke’ll tell him after dinner— no, he’ll tell him tomorrow. Bastard is already ruining date night by intruding on their meal, nevermind that Naruto invited everyone they—Naruto (not Sasuke) knows by name. And maybe even one they don’t. Did Hobo introduce himself with his given name, or did he only use his hero-name? And there’s another thing Sasuke needs to nip in the bud. He’ll be known as Sasuke and that’s it. No shitty hero name. If any of his relatives are watching on from the afterlife, they’ll laugh. After they’re done frothing with rage over the fact they’re precious, perfect little bloodline will either mix with the Uzumaki madness or end with him. It’s Naruto or no one. The ancestors want a new generation? They’ll have to suck that shit up and accept it.

By the time Sasuke’s done organising all the groceries and has made for the till, a sizable crowd has gathered where he last saw (can still sense) Naruto. Fucking idiot. It’s no wonder these people love her. Good. So they should; she’s too good for them and he wants them to know it.

Packing all the groceries into the recyclable bags (he’s been doing his reading; why the people of this dimension even bothered with a non sustainable material is beyond him), Sasuke takes a moment to make sure everything is perfect before he seals them away onto the ink on his wristband. The same weapons storage he’d used against Itachi now carrying food; the Sasuke of two years ago would have never dreamed of this. Fuck, the Sasuke two months pre-Kaguya (fuck her) would never have dreamed of it either. 

Ignoring the startled gasp of the severer and the mutter about illegal quirk usage (ha, fuck him, Sasuke has one of those little plastic cards now; he can legally fuck shit up now), he makes for the crowd. Sharp elbows and well placed knees let him work his way through with remarkable ease— again, they should probably consider giving some form of self defence lessons. Half of them don’t even prepare for a fall, never mind they only stumble. Admittedly, Naruto must be getting to him; he plucks up the one brat under ten and plops him out the way. On some bastard’s toes? Maybe so. Who cares? Not Sasuke.

“Ready to go, Naruto?”

“Eh?” She looks up at him, pen in one hand, a kid’s shirt half grasped in the other. Signing her own name in great big scrawl, handwriting as shit as ever. He plucks it out her hand, writing his own name in the swirling ‘o’ she’s finished off with, the shape reminiscent of the damn ramen Narutomakis she’d not been miraculously named after. He’s still not sure that ain’t a lie. Regardless, that’s where his signature belongs, tagged onto the end of Naruto’s, surrounded by her because she’s his world and he’s just the occupant, luxuriating in being there, knowing it’s where he belongs. She can plant him anywhere and, as long as he’s got her, he’ll go happily. 

“Yeah, I’m ready. Let’s go!”

Chapter Text

Dinner is… dinner is a fucking nightmare if only because the bastards won’t leave. 

Sasuke’s eyes narrow, landing on Scratchy first, who stubbornly refuses to meet his gaze. Sasuke does not miss the fact the brat has put the big cheese between them, an unspoken ‘you’ll have to kick him out to get rid of me’. Foolish. What makes him think Sasuke won’t hesitate to boot All Might out of his apartment? He couldn’t care less that the man’s name is on the side of the building, this floor is his. 

Next along the table, cloud boy and his grumpy shadow reside, having turned up bearing sweet desserts, which Sasuke hates but Naruto had drooled over so acceptable an offering, he supposes. But regardless, dinner is done. So why are they still here? Certainly not to help wash the pots; Sasuke wouldn’t trust any of them to handle his new (paid for by All Might) pottery. Both All Might and Oboro are equally as ham-handed as the other so like fuck will Sasuke let them near the breakables, Scratchy doesn’t even know what clean means and… Sasuke eyes the hobo that is still trailing after Oboro. Yeah, probably the same category as Scratchy given the week-old scruff and— Sasuke sniffs, doing little to hide the action. Yeah, the two-day old shirt is not helping his cause here. 

“Something on your mind, young Sasuke?”

“When are you leaving.” He doesn’t phrase it like a question, just meeting All Might’s gaze evenly, challengingly. 

“Eh! Damn it, bastard, don’t be rude.” Naruto clocks him over the head and Sasuke takes it like a champ, barely flinching. It’d have put anyone else on the floor but everyone here is practically made of glass. Well, maybe not All Might, but that’s about it.

“I can’t believe you aren’t missing us already!” Oboro declares, scooping up his cutlery and heading to the sink like Sasuke hadn’t just mentally crossed him off the clean-up team.

“What’s there to miss?”

Oboro whines, pressing one hand over his torso like Sasuke’s words had struck straight and true. Why had they saved this guy again? If Sasuke’d known how theatrical the idiot was, he probably wouldn’t have rammed his soul back in the orochimarufied body after Naruto had finished up fixing it. Probably.

“That hurts, Sasuke. I thought we were friends.”

Naruto stomps on his foot before Sasuke can fire back a retort, gathering up the rest of the plates, bowls and cutlery on the table using the Kyūbi chakra. Probably not how her father had wanted her to use the power he’d sealed away inside of her… and the man wouldn’t have approved of Sasuke being the one to live with her, of that he’s quite certain. Yes, the Fourth hadn’t really disliked him when they met during the war but, then again, he hadn’t known the whole sordid backstory between himself and Naruto. Eh. He’s dead again now; even if he does find it all out in the afterlife, there’s nothing he can do about Sasuke’s proximity to Naruto now.

“Well! It is in our best interests to get an early night! We have patrol tomorrow, young Naruto!”

“Sweet! Can’t wait!” Sasuke can. Still, All Might’s declaration is as good as a ‘we’re leaving now’ so he supposes he’ll let it slide.

He takes great pleasure in seeing them all out the door, slamming it in Oboro’s face when he turns around to say something stupid. Well, he’s pretty sure it’d have been stupid. He’s not really invested enough to find out for sure.

Morning dawns on the distant horizon, hidden by the multitude of high-rises outside and Sasuke dearly wishes he weren’t awake to witness it. Is the sight of Naruto in her exceedingly flattering (if exceedingly orange) hero-suit worth the early wakeup call? Yes. Doesn’t mean Sasuke can’t be grumpy about it regardless.

“Now, unlike Shirakumo-kun, neither of you have previously qualified for a provisional licence, but I have pulled some strings so that you’ll be piggybacking off of my own! All you need to do…” Sasuke doesn’t completely zone out, keeping half an ear on All Might as he explains (poorly) the bureaucratic hoops that he (or more likely, his team) has had to jump through in order to secure a shitty little piece of plastic each for the both of them. Sasuke’d left it to Naruto to come up with his hero name (perhaps a mistake but, given he highly doubts they’ll let a hero saunter around with the name ‘bastard’ as she’d probably like, it can’t be too bad) so he doesn’t actually know what he is registered as. Doesn’t care too much either. 

“Try not to break things, save people, and kick bad guy ass,” Naruto says, holding up a finger for each item listed. “Got it! Where do we start?”

All Might laughs, planting one great big hand onto Naruto’s shoulder like a proud papa, clearly absolutely delighted by her. And why shouldn’t he be? She whammy healed him and now she’s gonna help him put shit to rights with this world, just like she’d done in their old one. And Sasuke gets to leisurely trail after her and ensure she doesn’t cause too much property destruction. Perfect. 

“Downtown Tokyo; make sure you keep your ear piece in!” Yes, another high point of this world; the technology allows you to stay in contact with one another no matter how far away. 

“Wait! You gotta take a picture of me and the bastard! It’s our first day on the job and he’s got a picture thing going.” A wall. He’d moved the wall of pictures to their new apartment and has been systematically cataloguing anything of interest that happens; it’ll be a good way to tell their future kids the love story of Naruto and Sasuke. He was just going to get a picture of Naruto at the end of their patrol instead of the start but, maybe it’ll be good to have one of each. 

Sasuke steps up beside Naruto, curling one arm around her waist to reel her into her side, resting his cheek against the side of her head as All Might fumbles for a camera. At least the Number One Oaf is good for something other than the loud heroics Naruto will soon have him beat at. 

Sasaki Mirai barely holds in the coffee, forcibly choking down the steaming liquid as his eyes water and his tongue quivers under the heat. He hadn’t meant to inhale such a large quantity, but he hadn’t been expecting All Might to come dashing down the street with what can only be described as a female mini-me fast on his tail. The two tear through the gum-like monsters that’d appeared downtown a half second ago, as if they’d been aware they’d appear before the rest of the population had even registered they were there. Mirai stares as All Might (All Might who is injured, All Might who won’t listen to reason and has suddenly taken to completing more hero work than Recovery Girl had allowed him back when he’d first been injured and Mirai’d had to walk away from him) is beaten to the punch. The girl bursts one gum monster with a delighted laugh, spinning to kick out at another fast as, no, faster than the number one hero. 

All Might takes four down, the girl takes nine. Admittedly, the number one hero causes exactly zero property damage, whereas the girl would have done, had a dark haired teen not loyally trailed after her and prevented each potential crater, broken car or shattered window. They work together seamlessly, better than he’s seen professional heroes who’ve been paired for years and the two teens cannot have their full licences yet. Certainly, he doesn’t recall them from UA’s sports festival. He’s been looking, watching the show for someone worthy. Wherever these two have come from, that is not and—

And Mirai hadn’t seen them in All Might’s future. 

He hasn’t spoken to All Might, not since that day but he can’t sit back and ignore this, not when it’s something he didn’t see, not when it looks like he’s been replaced. All Might swore he’d never take a combat orientated sidekick, had only just agreed to work with Mirai and now, now these two are here. Is it because All for One is gone now? Is it because All Might knows he’s losing time—

Are these two being lined up as potential replacements?

“We’ll done, young Hokage and Sasaukage!”

“Sasukage,” the boy deadpans, turning to look at the girl, one dark brow raised above a oddly purple eye. “Really?”

“Clever, right?” She chirps, oblivious to the fact the boy clearly does not think it clever, for all that his mouth ticks up in fond affection, begrudging as it must be. 

Behind them, All Might plants one hand on each of their shoulders, steering them to the left so that they may smile nice and bright for the camera. No matter the disaster, there’ll always be a reporter present, Mirai thinks, distinctly removed from the situation. Before All Might’s injury, that used to be them. Yes, later in the day Mirai would find himself all but chained to a desk sorting through the paperwork, but he was still a part of—

“Hey! You’re All Might’s old kōhai aren’t you!” Mirai barely flinches back in time from the grating voice when a hand clamps down on his wrist (thin, delicate, but with the force of a thousand tsunami’s contained in those little digits) and then he’s across the road, physically dragged toward All Might no matter how much he digs his heels into the concrete (and oh boy did he dig his heels in). He’d though it just the blonde hair and blue eyes, but the phenomenal strength; well, if Mirai didn’t actually know the truth about All Might’s quirk, he’d be demanding to see a paternity test. As it is… he squints, eyeing the girl as he’s forced closer. As it is, he’s still questioning it.

“You were feeling all wistful and I saw you in the picture All Might’s got on his desk, ‘ttebayo!” A pang does not go through him at that news. It doesn’t.

“All Might and I have our differences, now unhand me—”

“Sir Nighteye!” And there All Might is, clapping one of his hands (absent the blonde, who seems to have escaped from under his grasp, and absent the surly male who seems to have forced it off through the power of pure teenaged angst alone) on Mirai’s shoulder and this is it This is why he stayed away, why he avoided ever returning to a part of the city that All Might haunts. Because he wants nothing more than to fall into the good times, to return to the partnership they once had, back when he felt like he was part of something bigger.

“It’s cool, I regrew his stomach and shit,” the girl loudly whispers, utterly oblivious to the fact almost anyone could potentially overhear them, if not for the hustle and bustle of downtown. “Friends shouldn’t fight each other—” She whips around to stare at her fellow sidekick, one fist curled in the air before her. “—Right, Sasuke?!”

“You’ve missed…” All Might breaks off, scrubbing a hand through his hair and booming out a laugh. “You have missed out on a lot, my friend. Allow me to catch you up?” And truly, what else can he say after a bombshell but to agree to that? Stomach and lung regrown? All Might at full health again? There is absolutely nothing that could send him back to Might Tower quicker than that.

Or, so he thinks.

Right up until the point the dark haired one, this ‘Sasukage’, turns around with a slight frown and says, “oh yeah. All for One is still kicking. You gotta sort that shit out.”