Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

By the time Sasuke realises his mistake, it's too late to go home.

He'd thought he was used to loneliness, before. He's spent five years on his own, after all. Living alone, cooking his own meals, looking after himself; it should have been easy to go back to his self-imposed isolation.

But it isn't. Three months on, almost to the day, and it still aches.

He runs his fingers across a new scar, freshly healed, raised across his left pectoral. The skin feels stretched, all shiny and pink. He's homesick. There is no other word for it.

He misses his friends. He misses Naruto's idiocy and Sakura's quick temper, and Kakashi's lazy drawl as he tells them all to behave. He misses ramen after missions and bickering with Naruto and scheming with them to see under Kakashi's mask. He misses their clumsy way of showing that they cared.

There's not a damn soul in this place that cares about him; not beyond his role as Orochimaru's favourite.

Orochimaru disgusts him. It hasn't taken long for Sasuke to realise exactly what kind of man he is: One who toys with life, and walks all over the weak to make himself stronger.

He's just like Itachi. He's everything Sasuke doesn't want to be. And Sasuke had walked right into the palm of his hand.

He curls into a ball on his side and squeezes his eyes closed. Wishing he'd made a different choice won't change the fact that he didn't.

So he doesn't.

At three months, Orochimaru calls him to the training grounds. He stops dead when he sees the girl.

"What the fuck are you doing?" He demands, glaring at his teacher. He's not afraid of Orochimaru, like everyone else here. Orochimaru wants him to become his next vessel—he won't damage Sasuke's body. And there's nothing he can do to his mind that Itachi hasn't already done worse.

"Look what we found, Sasuke-kun." Orochimaru jerks his chin to the terrified girl on the other side of the field.

It's not the real Sakura; Sasuke knows that immediately. For starters, Sakura isn't the kind of girl who cowers on the ground anymore; Orochimaru is basing her behaviour on what he saw in the Forest of Death. But he thinks of the brave girl who stood between him and Shukaku, who deliberately got herself stabbed when trying to fight off three shinobi of vastly superior skill to protect him and Naruto, and sneers at the pale imitation.

"S-Sasuke-kun? Is that you?" Her voice is a damn good copy, but, Sasuke realises, he knows Sakura better than whoever is impersonating her. Her eyes are wide, and her hands are trembling where they clutch at her clothing. She looks like she's expecting him to crush her.

Sakura has never been afraid of him, even at his worst with the cursed seal. There's no way she would cower like this, he thinks venomously. He's offended they thought he'd fall for it.

"That's not Sakura." He looks through her before turning back to Orochimaru.

"Oh?" Orochimaru's eyebrows rise.

"She's not that weak." He sneers at the copy again. "Don't waste my time."

And he spins on his heel and stalks back the way he came. He has no time for mind games.

"So I heard," Kabuto says as he heals Sasuke's wounds in the fourth month, "that Sakura-chan and Naruto-kun are both training under Orochimaru-sama's former teammates."

He doesn't let on that he's interested. He'd been told that Naruto had trained with Jiraya before the chūnin exams, and that he'd also gone on the trip to find Tsunade, so finding out that the moron has landed an apprenticeship isn't a huge shock. It's Sakura who is the bigger surprise of the two; what had she done to get the attention of the Godaime?

And what about Kakashi? Where is he? Why isn't he training the remainder of his team?

He doesn't ask.

Instead, he keeps his voice detached, even as the ache of their absence in his life throbs under his ribs. "So?"

Kabuto is a master of mind games, Sasuke had realised early on. A competent spy, Sasuke suspects that Orochimaru has ordered him to keep an eye on Sasuke to ensure he doesn't harbour any thoughts of running back to Konoha.

Not that he could. He's a criminal by now. Genin or no, defecting from one's village is a death sentence. There's no going back.

He nearly breaks at five months, when he's served ramen for dinner.

"What the hell is this?" He snaps at Kabuto when the med-nin brings him his food. The scent causes his heart to constrict even as his mouth waters. Thus far, he's been restricted to soldier pills and field rations; all optimised for nutrition while compromising completely on taste and texture.

The smell makes him think of dinners at Ichiraku, after finishing a mission. Of Sakura's high laughter and pink cheeks, of Naruto's loudmouthed bragging to Teuchi and Ayame behind the counter, and of Kakashi always taking his to go and making them pay for it. He stands immobile as a stone.

"Dinner, Sasuke-kun." Kabuto pushes the tray into his hands. Even after six months, Sasuke is not allowed to mix with the rest of the base for anything other than training. He's Orochimaru's next vessel, after all. The man has so many enemies; he keeps his prized assets under lock and key, to protect them. Or to prevent anyone from stealing them away. "You've made significant progress; Orochimaru-sama decided you deserved a taste of home. One of our spies in Ame was instructed to pass through Konoha on his way home and pick some up for you from that stall you and your old team liked so much. He froze it so it would keep on the trip back."

Despite himself, Sasuke refuses the tray, pushing it back. He's been here long enough to know that this is a test: If he accepts a comfort from home, then he hasn't fully assimilated into Oto. "I'll pass."

He knows he's made the correct choice when Kabuto smiles. "Very well. I'll come back in a little bit with something else for you."

The smell lingers after Kabuto takes the food away. Sasuke grits his teeth. He curses his brother for taking one more thing from him—because he wouldn't be in this situation if Itachi hadn't killed their clan. He'd still be home, if not for him.

Except, a little voice whispers in the back of his mind, that this is a mess of Sasuke's own making. He was the one who made the choice to leave, after all. Even when his whole team tried to stop him.

The field ration that Kabuto brings him ten minutes later tastes like ash.

He's allowed to wander the base by his sixth month.

There's not really a lot to it. There's the infirmary, where Sasuke has spent more time than he'd care to admit; the mess hall, where he never takes his meals, because he's on a special diet; Orochimaru's private quarters, which Sasuke only visits when the man wants to speak to him; the laboratories, where he's not allowed to go; and the dungeons.

There are at least a dozen men in the dungeon, the first time he visits it unsupervised; captured shinobi from surrounding nations, based on their hitai-ate, awaiting experimentation.

Sasuke almost starts when he sees the symbol of the Leaf among the captives. The man has an ANBU tattoo on his arm, and is glaring at him through the bars of his cell. "Uchiha. I remember you."

Sasuke's eyebrow raises, but he doesn't speak.

"All that work we put in, watching you during the exams." The man sneers. "What a waste. You're a traitor just like your brother, but the Hokage won't even declare you a nukenin."

Sasuke's rage at being compared to Itachi is superseded by his surprise. "What?" He should have been declared rogue the moment he stepped out of the gates.

"Fucking bleeding heart of a woman." The ANBU spits on the ground at Sasuke's feet. "She let the kyūbi brat talk her into classifying you as a kidnapping victim, even after you nearly killed him. Did you know that?" Sasuke merely shakes his head, palms beginning to sweat in his pockets. "Guess that's what happens when you're from one of the great clans; you people get so much special fucking treatment."

Sasuke bites his tongue to prevent snapping back. Instead, he demands, "Name?"

"Excuse me?"

"What's your name?"

"What's it to you?"

He shrugs. "Nothing."

He and the Konoha-nin stare at each other, not saying a word. Then, Sasuke turns and leaves the room.

His mind races for the next three days. He's not a rogue. Naruto argued for him, even after everything he did.

He could go home, if he wanted to.

He'd face consequences, of course—he's not naïvely optimistic enough to believe he wouldn't. There's no way the Godaime wouldn't rip him a new one at the very least, and he'd probably spend some time in I&T if only to be pumped for information on the enemy.

But he wouldn't be the first runaway student of Orochimaru's to be allowed to go home. The Sandaime had allowed Anko to return. And if Tsunade was really set on having him executed as a rogue, she wouldn't have allowed Naruto to talk her into a more sympathetic version of his departure.

The plan is slapdash, made on a whim—not unlike the decision that led him here. He packs a bag and seals it inside a scroll. He slips it into his clothing. He plans to walk straight out the front door and into the night with confidence and not look back. Most people avoid his eyes now; no one will question what he's doing. So long as he isn't caught by Kabuto or Orochimaru, his path should be clear.

Except… there's the Konoha-nin in the dungeons.

Gritting his teeth at his own niggling conscience, he turns back the way he came. The trek is short; he places the warden under a strong genjutsu with his eyes and finds himself standing outside the man's cage in a matter of minutes.

"Back, traitor?"

Sasuke looks down his nose at the man sitting on the floor of his cell. "Are there any other Konoha-nin here?" He demands. He jingles the keys he stole from the guard to get the man's attention. He doesn't care about the shinobi from other nations.

The man looks taken aback. He stares at the keys. "Not that I know of."

Sasuke examines the man through the bars. He seems healthy enough. He's probably not been here too long. A few weeks? A month at most, judging by the beard. Orochimaru keeps his test subjects in good condition—how else will he get accurate results? The man has probably been fed chakra inhibitors in his food, but that only matters if he tries to use any ninjutsu stronger than an E-rank.

Sasuke unlocks the cell and pushes the door open. "Come on." He turns to leave.

"What are you playing at?" The man demands, making Sasuke turn back. "Disobeying your master, are you? Guess your loyalty is just as fickle as I thought."

He doesn't acknowledge the sneer. "Stay if you want. I don't care." He keeps moving toward the door.

He's almost to it when a large hand grips his elbow. "Is this some kind of joke?" The man hisses under his breath.

Sasuke looks at him over his shoulder, face impassive. Silently, he unseals a kunai from the wrappings on his wrist—a trick Orochimaru taught him in his first month—and hands it to him. The man's fingers uncurl from around his arm, accepting the kunai with a trembling grip. Sasuke turns away and starts up the stairs. "Come. Or stay. Your choice."

The man follows.

The walk is utterly silent. It's late; everyone is asleep. Sasuke casts genjutsu on anyone who encounters them along their walk, leaving three shinobi in crumpled heaps where they fall. The ANBU slits their throats for good measure. Sasuke ignores the crimson pools that bloom under them in their wake.

They emerge aboveground, the ANBU squinting into the night. "What now?"

"We return to Konoha." Sasuke informs him casually.

"I don't know which way it is. I was drugged when I was captured." The man's voice betrays a wavering hope. Sasuke finds it unbecoming in an ANBU, even as he feels his own heart buoyed by the same feeling.

"South-west." Sasuke points. "A little under three days journey. When we get into the trees we'll use a henge."

They don't stop until the next night.

Their disguises—Sasuke as a little girl he conjured from somewhere deep in his memory, and the ANBU as a woman who could pass for her mother—mean that they're granted a room in an inn with little fuss. Sasuke has just enough ryō on him to pay for a night. It's the best chance they have of getting some sleep undetected.

Orochimaru will have noticed them missing, by now. He'll be looking. Furious, probably. He'd thought he had Sasuke.

"You sleep first, kid." The ANBU fingers his borrowed weapon. The fierce expression he wears looks at odds with the sweet countenance of the woman whose face he's adopted. "I've got a few hours' worth of watch in me."

Sasuke grunts. "Wake me in five hours. After you sleep, we don't stop until we reach the gates."

If the man is perturbed to be taking orders from a thirteen year old, he doesn't show it. He simply nods.

Sasuke lets the henge go and quickly falls into a dreamless sleep.

"My name is Asahi, by the way." The man tells him as they prepare to leave the next morning. Sasuke is tired enough that he could probably sleep for another twelve hours, but he's alert enough to change back into his little girl face and move on. "Higuchi Asahi."

Sasuke nods. He takes the ANBU-turned-woman's hand to complete their ruse as they move downstairs to check out. There's no need to tell the man his name; he already knows it.

Chapter Text

The gates of Konoha loom on the horizon early the next evening, and Sasuke finally allows himself to breathe again.

They hold their disguises right up until the moment they're greeted by the guards; Asahi drops his henge to identify himself, and motions for Sasuke to do the same.

The guards stare. A runner is dispatched to Hokage Tower. No one quite knows what to do with him.

Eventually, both of them are sent to the hospital under heavy ANBU escort. Asahi grins at someone whose mask he obviously recognises. Sasuke feels the wariness surrounding them.

Konoha is exactly as he remembers; bright and cheerful, with green and splashes of brighter colours everywhere. He almost expects Naruto to have intuited his return and come barrelling down the street at him.

It doesn't happen. They're directed to a secure ward and held under armed guard. Sasuke climbs onto one of the cots and closes his eyes, breathing in the sterile scent of antiseptic.

The next time he opens them, he's staring up at a very irate Hokage.

"Give me one good reason," she growls through slitted eyes at his bedside, "why I shouldn't have you executed on the spot."

He sits up and shrugs with a yawn. He must have fallen asleep. Asahi is gone.

Tsunade notices him looking around. "He's been discharged." She informs him tightly. "He told us quite the story." When Sasuke doesn't take the prompt, she demands, "Why did you rescue him?"

Sasuke shrugs again. He doesn't really have a reason.

"Words, Uchiha!"

"I don't know." He grits through his teeth. He knows he's not helping himself, but the fact that he's not already dead means that they're not planning on executing him. At least, not yet. "I just did."

"Another one of those famous 'my body just moved on its own' moments?" Sasuke's face slackens in surprise as he stares up at her. "Yeah, I heard about that. Sakura tells stories sometimes. You really fucked her up when you left her on that bench, boy."

Sasuke's face burns at the mention of his former teammate. "I know." It's almost a whisper. He'd known what he was doing when he left her behind. He'd known it would hurt her. He'd done it anyway.

He's regretted it since.

"You're lucky your friends are so damn forgiving." She sneers at him. "I nearly lost an entire squad of genin chasing you that day. If Kakashi hadn't brought Naruto home when he did, he would have died."

"I thought the kyūbi would have healed him." Sasuke looks down at his hands on his knees. He'd asked Orochimaru about the writhing mass of chakra he'd seen in Naruto in the valley; Orochimaru had explained what a jinchūriki was to him in detail, and how his friend has been one his entire life. It explains a lot about Naruto's incredible growth.

Tsunade stiffens. "That," she says quietly, "is an S-class secret. No one your age is supposed to know."

Sasuke scoffs. "It's obvious." At least, it had been once he knew what to look for. A boy orphaned on the night of the kyūbi attack, who the entirety of the adult population seems to hate for no good reason? He feels stupid for not realising it earlier. "I guess no one is supposed to know that he's the Yondaime's son, either?" It was something else Orochimaru told him.

Tsunade grabs his collar and lifts him to her nose. "Not even Naruto knows that. And you will not tell him, got it?"

Sasuke glares at her. "Why not?" Naruto has a right to know who his parents were.

"Because Minato had a lot of enemies that won't hesitate to take out their anger on his kid, even if he's not around to be hurt by it anymore." Tsunade growls. "He already has a big enough target on his back by being a jinchūriki." She drops him back onto the cot. "Not a word to anyone, Uchiha. That's an order."

He scowls up at her, challenging. "Orders only apply to me if I'm a shinobi of Konoha." He points out.

Tsunade glowers, hands on her hips as she looms over him. Sasuke resists the urge to squirm; this is a woman who is almost as powerful as Orochimaru. She could flatten him with a single finger, if the stories are to be believed.

She leans down to hiss into his face. "You're lucky there were extenuating circumstances surrounding your… departure." She grits out. "I fought the council for you, boy, because Naruto and Sakura begged me to be lenient. Don't make me regret it."

She straightens. "You're stripped of your rank for the time being. I may reinstate you if you prove you can be trusted." She folds her arms over her chest. "You're going to spend a few days here until I'm satisfied that you're in good health and not suffering from any drug withdrawals, because who knows what Orochimaru fed you—"

"He didn't give me drugs." Sasuke cuts her off. "He didn't want my body going through withdrawals when he took it over."

"Be at as it may, I'm going to check anyway." She snaps, shutting him up. "You'll also undergo a physical and psychological evaluation. After we're finished, you'll take a trip down to I&T. What happens after that depends on how cooperative you are. Understood?"

Sasuke nods. "What about—" He snaps his mouth shut, irritated at himself. He wants to ask, but he doesn't want Tsunade to look down on him any further.

"What about what?" She prompts. He refuses to answer, shaking his head. "Answer, Uchiha."

He wraps his arm across his chest, the first sign of vulnerability he's displayed since the interview began. His voice is small when he finally asks, "What about—Naruto and Sakura. Will I be allowed to see them?"

Tsunade, to his surprise, softens slightly. She's not friendly, but neither does she seem so hostile anymore. "Naruto isn't in the village right now." She tells him. "He's off training with Jiraya. Since you know he's a jinchūriki, you should know that the Akatsuki are targeting him." Sasuke nods. Orochimaru had told him as much. It explains why Itachi had come for Naruto that day. "They move around to keep them off his tail. I don't know when they'll be in the village next."

Sasuke nods again. He should have expected that. Still, it's a disappointment.

"As for Sakura," Tsunade sighs, "that's up to her. You won't get visitors in I&T, but I won't stop her if she wants to see you while you're in the hospital. But remember, that information about Naruto is a village secret. She doesn't know."

"Understood." He acknowledges, averting his eyes.

"Cooperate, Uchiha." Tsunade says quietly. "For their sake if not your own."

He just nods. She leaves the room.

"Sasuke-kun!"

Sakura throws herself at him less than an hour later, arms wrapped around his neck. For the first time in his life, Sasuke slowly wraps his arms around her waist and buries his face in her shoulder. "Sakura."

"I was so worried about you!" She sobs into his neck. He grips her tighter. "We searched and searched. Tsunade-shishō had ANBU looking for you everywhere!"

"I'm sorry." He murmurs. He's not sure she hears it.

She still smells like strawberries, he realises as his heart begins to race. Strawberries, and what smells a little like antiseptic. Her eyes, when she pulls back, are watery. He's surprised that he has to look down at her now, ever so slightly. They were almost the same height when he left.

She slugs him in the face.

"Fuck!" He cries out in surprise, falling back and catching himself on the bed behind him, hand over his broken nose. He doesn't ask what it was for. He knows. He almost respects her more for it. Blood drips over his lips and down his chin.

She pulls his hand away from his face and raises her other; he almost flinches back before it begins to glow green, mending the damage she caused. Right. She's Tsunade's apprentice now. "That was for knocking me out and almost killing Naruto." She sniffles. "I still can't believe you did that to him."

Sasuke doesn't answer her. He doesn't have an answer for her.

She brushes her tears away when she finishes, pulling a handkerchief out of her pocket to wad up and wipe the blood off of his face. He lets her. She's trembling too much to really clean it properly, though. "Why'd you come back?" She asks quietly, voice tremulous. "You were so—I begged, and you just left. Why come back?"

"It was a mistake." He takes the cloth from her shaking hand to wipe his face himself. "Leaving."

She tosses her head imperiously. "I know it was." She frowns at him. The tear tracks on her face mar the severe expression she tries to fix him with.

He meets her gaze. She's furious with him—rightly so—but he can still see affection in her eyes, even after everything. "I'm sorry."

"You should be." She punches his chest, right above his scar. She doesn't infuse it with enough chakra to really hurt. "Jerk."

A nurse opens the door, then, causing Sakura to take a step back. The woman fixes them with a wide smile. "Good evening, Haruno-san."

"Hi, Yoshida-san." Sakura's smile is fragile. "Are you here for Sasuke-kun?"

"I am." The nurse—a kindly older woman with greying hair tied into a low bun—nods. "I'm afraid you can't come, Haruno-san. Hokage-sama's orders."

Sakura straightens her posture. "That's okay. I should get home, anyway." She demurs. "I'll come and see you tomorrow, okay Sasuke-kun? Is there anything you want me to bring you? I have the afternoon off, so I can pick up some food or something on my way in."

"Ramen." He answers instantly, remembering the tray he'd been forced to reject a few weeks ago. He's craved it ever since.

"From Ichiraku?"

"Yeah."

If she's surprised, she doesn't show it. Instead, she beams. "Okay! I'll get your regular order, then. I'll see you tomorrow, Sasuke-kun!"

"Okay." He watches her leave the room, heart sinking when she slips out of sight.

He's being stupid. He'll see her tomorrow.

"If you'll come with me, Uchiha-san," the nurse motions to the door, "this won't take very long."

Kakashi comes to visit the next morning, before Sakura is due for lunch.

Sasuke and his former sensei stare at each other from opposite sides of the room. He doesn't speak, waiting for the other to begin. Kakashi steps forward, reaching out a hand. It comes for his head, and Sasuke flinches away, remembering Itachi's tendency to flick his forehead.

Kakashi just ruffles his hair. Six months ago, Sasuke would have knocked his hand away in irritation. Now, he just accepts the gesture. His throat closes up; he has no idea what to say.

"Long time, no see, Sasuke." Kakashi says quietly, none of the usual flippant tone in his voice.

"Yeah." Sasuke can't meet his eye.

"Tsunade-sama told me what happened. You did good, freeing Higuchi. His wife just had a little girl six weeks ago." Sasuke looks up in surprise. "He's been missing for five. Everyone thought he was dead. The entire ANBU is buzzing with it."

Sasuke notices the white mask hanging from Kakashi's belt. Then, he notices that his uniform is no longer the green flak of Konoha's regular forces; he's dressed in the black of Konoha's ANBU. "You went back." He realises.

"I did." Kakashi nods, moving to sit on the visitor's chair. "Without you and Naruto there was no reason for me to stay as a teacher."

"You had Sakura." Sasuke points out a little petulantly.

"Yes," Kakashi tilts his head in acknowledgment, "but I didn't really know what to teach her, anyway. Tsunade-sama is a better teacher for her than I ever was."

"I heard about that."

"You did?" Kakashi's eyebrow raises.

Sasuke shrugs. "Kabuto told me. I don't know how he knew."

Kakashi sighs. "They probably have spies in the village. I wouldn't be surprised."

"Probably. He mentioned spies in Ame."

"Well, I'll let Hokage-sama know." Kakashi shakes his head. "Hopefully we can flush them out."

They lapse into silence. Sasuke expects a lecture that never comes.

He's still there when Sakura arrives. It had occurred to Sasuke after about fifteen minutes of silence that Kakashi is actually his ANBU guard for the midday shift. He doesn't ask why he isn't outside, at his post.

Sakura seems surprised to see him. "Sensei!"

"Hello, Sakura." Kakashi is smiling under his mask. "It's been a while. How are you?"

"Fine." She shoots a glance at Sasuke. "I brought your lunch, Sasuke-kun. Sorry, sensei, if I'd known you'd be here I'd have brought you something."

He waves her off. "Don't worry about me. I shouldn't even be in here, technically. I left a shadow clone at the door." He winks at her.

She giggles. "You'll get into trouble if Tsunade-shishō finds out." She warns him.

"Well, she'll only find out if one of you tell her." Kakashi says conspiratorially. "But I suppose I should get back out there. Call me if you need anything." He slips his animal mask back over his face and steps out of the door after patting Sakura's shoulder. They hear the poof of a clone dispersing as the door closes.

Sasuke attacks the ramen Sakura gives him. It tastes better than he remembers.

"Teuchi-san gave me a second serving for free, when I told him you were home." She says shyly, handing him a second bowl from the takeout box when he finishes his first. "He says he hopes to see you back at the stall soon."

"Maybe." Sasuke eats his second bowl with less gusto. "I don't know what's going to happen."

"Tsunade-shishō had a screaming match with the Elders this morning." Sakura tells him quietly, sipping at a bottle of iced tea. "They want to punish you, but she's fighting them on it. They weren't happy that she didn't declare you a nukenin when you left in the first place."

"She told me." He nods. "You and Naruto argued my case."

Sakura's cheeks puff up, even as they turn pink. "Of course we did! You're our friend! And we know you wouldn't have done all that stuff if you'd been thinking clearly."

That's the problem, Sasuke thinks. He had been thinking clearly. At least, he thought he had been. Now, he's not so sure.

"Thank you."

Her face snaps to his, eyes raking over him. "That's what you said to me, that night." She tries to smile. She fails.

Sasuke grimaces. "I remember." He's thought about it more times than he likes to admit.

She fidgets, putting her drink down next to his empty ramen bowl. "Listen, Sasuke-kun…" she bites her lip when he looks up at her. "You… if you want," she takes a deep breath to steel herself, "we can pretend I never… said the things I said. I was—I was desperate to change your mind, but—"

"Why the hell would I want that?" He demands, voice sharper than intended.

She flinches. "I just—I don't want to annoy you." She whispers.

Sasuke sets his half-empty bowl aside and looks up at the ceiling. "It didn't annoy me."

She's deep pink, looking up at him through her lashes. "But—but then why did you say—?"

How can he explain to her that the things she and Naruto make him feel make him want things he can never have? That distract him from his life's all-consuming ambition?

More than anything, being with them before made him want to be a normal kid; he wanted to be able to screw around and goof off and scheme to get their sensei's mask off his face just for the hell of it.

He's tired, he realises. He's tired of being angry and hating the world all the time.

He scowls. "Forget it. It's just—it didn't, okay?"

"Okay, Sasuke-kun." She whispers. "If you say so."

Chapter Text

No one else visits him while he's in the hospital. By the time he's moved to I&T, he's seen Sakura three times, Kakashi once, and the Hokage twice.

Tsunade is the one who brings him the news he's to be transferred. She looks down at him from her full height, flicking through his file.

"You're in perfect health, aside from a few new scars the medics noted." She sniffs, shutting it. "No drugs, no implants. We did find minute traces of poison, though."

"He wanted me to be immune." Sasuke tells her with a shrug. "Kabuto gave me small doses."

Tsunade's lip curls. "Bastard." She growls. "Well, it goes without saying that that stops now." She holds out her hand. "Arm. I'm going to give you a generalised antidote to flush it all out."

He obeys. She ties a tourniquet around his bicep and takes a moment to find a vein in his elbow. When she sticks him with the IV needle, she tells him "ANBU will be here for you this afternoon. I've left instructions with Yamanaka Inoichi to oversee your time in I&T." She hangs the bag on a stand and pushes it to his side, undoing the band on his bicep. "Whether you want to use your words or just let him into your mind is up to you."

"Which one is faster?" He asks.

"Probably just to let him in." Tsunade shrugs, taking her gloves off and tossing them in the trash. "What I decide to do next depends on what he gets out of you, understood?"

He nods.

Having the Yamanaka clan's secret jutsu used on him over and over leaves him drained, even with how skilled and unintrusive Ino's father is while extracting information.

On his fifth day underground, Inoichi brings him a carton of okaka onigiri. Sasuke doesn't bother questioning how the man knows his favourite filling. He's only spent hours upon hours in Sasuke's head over the past four days; he probably knows Sasuke better than Sasuke does at this point.

"You're allowed to be angry with Itachi for what he did." The man tells him as Sasuke listlessly shifts the food from one hand to the other. The boy shrugs. He feels like a wrung out sponge, too tired to even get angry. "I'm going to ask you a question, and I want you to try to answer it without getting defensive or angry, alright?"

Sasuke takes a small bite and chews, waiting for the question.

"Do you honestly think your parents would want you to be this miserable for the rest of your life?"

Sasuke freezes. His mind helpfully displays a crystal clear image of his parents as he'd last seen them; collapsed onto the floor of their sitting room, blood pooled and cooling beneath them with Itachi standing over their lifeless bodies.

Inoichi snaps his fingers in front of Sasuke's nose, startling him out of his trance. "Don't think of them as they died." He prompts. "Think of them as they were when they were alive. Do you think they'd want this for you?"

Sasuke tries. He remembers his mother's smile as she told him that his father talked about him all the time behind closed doors. He remembers his father saying 'that's my boy' when he mastered the katon. He thinks about how his mother would make his favourites for dinner when he'd had a bad day. He remembers his father telling him not to be like Itachi.

He swallows the rice with difficulty. "I… don't know. Not… not Kaa-san." His mother would weep to see him now, he thinks. It's the first time he's really thought about what his parents would say if they could see the way he's grown up.

"I knew your father." Inoichi says softly, making Sasuke's eyes widen. "He was a terse man, but he cared about his children. He wanted you to grow up a part of the village, Sasuke, not isolated from it. He fought the Hokage and the Council on a lot of things, purely to give you and the rest of the children in your clan a better future. He was a good man."

Sasuke thinks of his father, for the first time in a long time. Not Clan Head Fugaku, but the man who would come home after a long day at the station and carry Sasuke around on his back or shoulders in the garden while his mother made dinner; the man who tried to teach him to play shogi and ruffled his hair when he said something funny. Who seemed to smile so seldom, but always managed to summon one for Sasuke.

He'd only really gained the acknowledgement that he craved towards the end, while the rift between Itachi and their father grew, and only then because Itachi was no longer the favourite son. Sasuke wonders now if his father had any inking of what was to come. The thought is painful, like a knife twisting in his heart.

He wraps his arms around himself, leaning forward as if to curl around the ache in his chest. He doesn't have the energy to maintain his usual emotional walls right now—not after being probed and prodded all week.

For the first time in a long time, he admits to himself that he wants his parents. He's only thirteen. He's already spent nearly half his life without them.

Inoichi rounds the table and squats at his side, hand on Sasuke's knee. "It's okay to miss them, son." He says softly. "But I think they would have wanted you to heal and find happiness, don't you?"

For the first time in a long time, Sasuke cries.

Of course, there's no healing while Itachi is still alive out there, somewhere, getting away with it. He still wants to be a part of the team that brings him down. After all, Sasuke's parents hadn't been the only ones taken that night. There is a whole clan's worth of blood on Itachi's hands, and Sasuke desperately needs to see him punished.

But Inoichi's report is good enough to get him moved to back to his old apartment. The place is untouched after nearly eight months, a light layer of dust over everything. It looks exactly the same as it did the night he left.

The first thing he does is pick up the Team Seven photograph and set it upright again. Then he showers, before beginning to move slowly through the apartment, dusting off surfaces and stripping the bed to wash the linens. He hasn't had to do his own housekeeping in months, but he's not allowed to roam the village without an escort until further notice. It passes the morning.

A knock at the door reveals itself to be Kakashi, out of his ANBU gear and back in his green flak vest. "Yo! I heard you need to go grocery shopping."

"You're my escort?"

"That I am." Kakashi stuffs his hand into his pocket. "Ready to go?"

Sasuke grabs his wallet and keys, and follows his ex-teacher down the stairs and into the street.

"How are you holding up?" Kakashi asks lightly.

Sasuke shrugs. The sunlight on his face feels good after so long cooped up indoors.

"They let me read your file, you know." Kakashi tells him. "I saw the recommendation that Inoichi made for therapy. Are you going to do it?"

Sasuke kicks a small rock in the path. "I have to, if I want my hitai-ate back."

It's part of his parole conditions—because that's the sum total of his punishment for running away: House arrest and therapy, and a boatload of community service to be served in the form of unpaid D-ranks once he gets his hitai-ate returned. Sasuke had expected a lot worse, honestly. He's surprised he's not in prison, at the very least. The Council hasn't even seized his bank account, which he supposes he has Tsunade to thank for.

"Good." Kakashi nods. His voice laces with mischief. "You know, Naruto will be quite upset if he comes back and finds that, not only did you return on your own, but you advanced to chūnin without him. He was quite determined to drag you home kicking and screaming, if he had to."

Sasuke smirks. "I'd need to start training again."

Kakashi pretends to consider the non-conundrum. "Well, I happen to know a jōnin who has some small experience with teaching who has nothing better to do in the afternoons." He muses.

Sasuke stuffs his hands in his pockets, shoulders hunched. "Am I even allowed to go to the training grounds?"

"Of course you are." Kakashi rolls his eye. "As long as you have an escort, you're permitted to visit any public space inside the village gates. Our Hokage, in her boundless benevolence, has assigned me to afternoon guard duty five days a week. We can go then."

Sasuke nods. "Tomorrow, then."

Therapy and training are both exhausting, in their own ways.

Sasuke is not a boy who likes to talk about his feelings, but Yamanaka Inori is good at asking questions. She comes to his apartment two mornings a week, bearing a smile, a folder, and a plate of senbei. Sasuke makes tea, and they sit at his table awkwardly until she prompts him to speak.

"Quite frankly," she tells him the first time she visits, "I'm surprised we haven't met before now. You should have been assigned to me when you were seven."

Sasuke shrugs.

"Looking at your file," she flips through some paper in front of her absently, "the doctors at the hospital felt you were coping just fine after it happened and didn't see the need. Do you remember what you were feeling back then?"

Sasuke shrugs again.

"Sasuke-kun," she prompts, not unkindly, "in order for this to work, you're going to have to speak to me. This isn't like I&T, where I can just extract the information out of you against your will."

"I don't remember much from the first few weeks." He mutters, snapping a senbei in half. He considers eating it before dropping it back on his plate.

She hums, nodding. "It's likely you were in shock at the time. Did you ever go back to your house?" Sasuke nods. "And what happened?"

Sasuke's fists clench on his knees. "They didn't clean the blood properly. It was still in the floorboards." She makes a sympathetic sound that grates on his ears. He glares at her. "I don't need your pity."

"Sympathy and pity aren't necessarily the same thing." She points out softly. "Pity implies a shallow sadness over someone's pain. Sympathy is a little more personal; it's closer to a sense of concern for someone's welfare in the wake of said pain."

Sasuke says nothing.

"So, I spoke with Kakashi-san before I came to see you." She reveals. Sasuke bristles. "Don't worry, we didn't actually discuss you, exactly. I was more inquiring about your teammates. You all haven't been friends for very long, I understand?"

Sasuke shrugs again. "After we got placed on the same team, I guess."

"After the mission in Wave?" Sasuke nods. "It's not uncommon to form a bond with someone after sharing a life-threatening experience together. According to Kakashi-san, you've had this with both of your teammates?"

"Yeah."

"Can you tell me about those?"

Sasuke takes a breath and looks up at the ceiling.

Beating up a training post feels better than Inori's visits; he feels like he's moving again, headed toward a goal. Most of his training is done alone while Kakashi watches, but a few weeks into his new regime, Kakashi steers him toward Team Ten.

"Go. Train." Kakashi waves him toward the group staring at him across the training ground before taking a seat next to Asuma.

Sasuke stares. They stare back. Then, Ino steps forward. Sasuke braces himself—for a blow or a hug, he's not sure.

She slaps him across the face.

"You're the biggest fucking asshole I've ever met." She tells him with finality. "Sakura deserves way better than you, jerk!"

Sasuke just blinks at her.

"You almost got us killed, you know." Shikamaru and Chōji have approached while Sasuke was preoccupied with their female teammate.

Sasuke's eyes slide to Shikamaru. These people aren't his friends; he doesn't owe them any apologies. "You're shinobi." He says simply.

"Is that all you have to say for yourself?!" Ino seethes. "You almost destroyed Sakura and Naruto when you left, you know!"

Sasuke grits his teeth. As if he hasn't heard all of this already. From someone far more threatening and powerful than her. "That's not your business."

"The hell it isn't!" She grabs his collar. "You left, and then Naruto bailed! Who do you think had to help Sakura pick herself back up again when you bastards were off doing your own thing?!"

"Ino." Shikamaru reaches over and prises her fingers off his shirt. "Calm down."

"Calm down?" She lets herself be separated from him. "Shikamaru, he was the reason your first mission as a chūnin was a failure!"

Chōji simply watches, munching on his chips.

The Nara boy sighs. "Let it go." He says a little more forcefully. It's probably the most serious Sasuke has ever seen him. "Sakura's forgiven him, and you know Naruto will too. Nobody died on the mission. It's all good."

"All good?" Ino hisses at her teammate. "Are you kidding me?"

"Holding a grudge is too much of a drag."

"You," Ino sticks a finger in Shikamaru's face, "are the laziest person I've ever met!" She seethes. "Screw this. I don't have to be here. I'm going home."

The three boys stare after her as she stalks away. Asuma calls out to her; she waves him off. Sasuke looks over at the adults and sees them shaking their heads.

"Don't worry about Ino." Shikamaru says, drawing Sasuke's attention back to the boys. "She's gotten weirdly protective over Sakura since then."

"I thought they hated each other." Sasuke has vague memories of Sakura bitching about the blonde girl during the chūnin exams.

"Girls, man." Shikamaru shrugs. "So hey, you're good at shurikenjutsu right? Asuma's got us trying to bend them over there." He points.

He spends a few hours throwing shuriken with the other boys. It isn't until Kakashi drops him off at home that he realises that Kakashi had forced him to socialise for the first time since his return. Until today, the only person his age that he's seen has been Sakura, and even then only for a little bit at a time.

It's the first time he's trained with anyone in months that hasn't ended in injury or anger—well, not counting Ino's outburst, but that happened before the training started. It occurs to him that these are the people he's going to have to work with if he gets reinstated.

He stares down into his bowl of rice at dinnertime and wonders how long it will take.

Chapter Text

His first re-introduction to Team Eight includes a brawl. Kiba throws himself at Sasuke the moment they lock eyes, like a dog whose leash has been cut. There's some shouting about Sasuke being a jackass, but he honestly doesn't pay much attention to the words as he proceeds to beat Kiba and Akamaru into the dirt while Shino and Hinata watch on.

Sasuke isn't terribly surprised that he manages Kiba handily, though. Just because he's no longer with Orochimaru doesn't mean that he isn't keeping up on his training regimen. And the boy isn't nearly as powerful as Naruto was back in the Valley of the End. If Sasuke could manage Naruto back then—while he was utilising the power of the kyūbi and fighting desperately—there's no way Kiba is doing anything to him.

Hinata and Shino approach him when they're finishing up for the day. Hinata's hands are clutched together and fidgeting nervously. Sasuke stares her down. She meets his eyes for a brief moment before her gaze skitters away.

"What?"

Shino shifts, drawing Sasuke's eyes, but it's Hinata who speaks. "W-we just wanted to say: Welcome back." She mumbles. "N-Naruto-kun and Sakura-chan missed you a lot," she draws a deep breath, "so I'm glad you came home."

"Indeed." Shino nods succinctly. "Pay no attention to the likes of Kiba and Ino." He must have heard about that from Team Ten. "Why? They are idiots. All will see in time that you are a loyal shinobi of Konoha, just like the rest of us."

"Right!" Hinata's smile grows in confidence as she meets his eyes again. "You made a mistake, b-but you came back. Everyone knows that you saved that man's life. Everyone will forget that you ever left, in t-time."

Sasuke isn't sure about that. He gets stares and mutters when he walks through the streets with Kakashi; they follow him everywhere. The only places he can get away from it are at home, or the training grounds.

His neighbours avoid him, and some shopkeepers either outright refuse to sell him things or ridiculously overcharge him. Kakashi has had to step in more than once, and Sasuke now has a list of stores where he has to use a henge to be charged a fair price.

He has a newfound appreciation for how Naruto must have felt as a kid, when the entire village had despised him. Everyone whispers behind their hands when Sasuke is around, not even bothering to hide the disdain in their eyes as they track him. It's exactly the same behaviour that he'd observed people exhibiting around his idiot best friend, worse than he'd gotten as a kid by far. The only people that don't look at him like that are Kakashi, Sakura, and the people at the ramen stall, Teuchi and his daughter Ayame.

Still, he says none of this to the other two. He merely nods and accepts their words.

Sakura comes to his apartment with a bright red handprint on her face. Sasuke stares at her in the doorway, eyes zeroed in on her cheek. "Who hit you?"

Sakura is a kunoichi; a slap to the face is nothing compared to the beatings she's taken during training. Hell, she'd suffered worse during the chūnin exams. Still, there's a difference between being injured in a fight and being slapped; there's an inherent level of disrespect in the latter.

She tries to laugh it off, covering it with her hand. The handprint is bigger than hers; her palm doesn't completely cover the mark. "Oh, it's nothing. Don't worry about it."

He stands to the side, holding the door open. His eyes narrow as she passes. The handprint is the size of an adult's hand. "Sakura."

She freezes, looking at him with wide eyes. "Yes?"

"Who did it?"

Sakura shakes her head. "It's not important, Sasuke-kun—" She breaks off as he begins to glower at her. She sighs. "Please. I… don't want to talk about it."

He stares her down for a little while longer, expecting her to crack and begin talking. It's what would have happened, before.

She simply drops her hand and stares back.

He breaks eye contact first, shutting the door behind her and jerking his head for her to follow him.

She brings him library books when she visits, to fill his empty evenings; there are only so many pushups and crunches he can do in a day without inviting cramps and leaving himself bedridden. Most are fiction, but today she hands him a book of jutsu that he'd specifically requested. He'd been studying it in his off time in Oto, but forewent packing it in his hurry to escape. Still, there's no reason that he can't continue reading it in Konoha.

"The library didn't have it." She says apologetically. "I had to order it in from the bookstore." Sakura frowns down at it as he takes it. "Apparently it's published in Suna, so it was difficult to get ahold of."

"How much do I owe you?" He doesn't mind owning it. If anything, he prefers it; this way he can make notations as he goes.

"Nothing! It's a gift." She clasps her hands behind her back. He wants to argue, but she doesn't let him. "Is Kakashi-sensei on duty today?"

"No, it's his day off." Sasuke shakes his head. Whoever his ANBU 'escort' is doesn't bother showing themselves when Kakashi isn't there; he's learned to get his errands done on the days that his former teacher is on duty. "Why do you still call him 'sensei'? He's not your teacher anymore." Kakashi had dropped Sakura the moment he and Naruto left, after all.

She shrugs. "Neither is Iruka-sensei. We still call him that. Besides," she looks at him under her lashes, "Tsunade-shishō is considering pulling him from ANBU and reforming the team again when you get reinstated. You'll need a team and a supervising jōnin, after all."

"That's a long way off." He points out. He's been under probation for three months thus far, with no end in sight.

"She's still fighting with the elders over it. I think the Daimyo is going to have to be involved." She follows him deeper into his apartment, sitting primly on his couch as he moves into the kitchen to continue making lunch. There's very little they can do without leaving the apartment, so on days when they can't go to the training grounds, they usually have lunch together. "I don't think you're in much danger though. Shishō says the sharingan is too valuable to let go of," she says this somewhat apologetically, as if Sasuke hasn't long been aware that he's more of a bloodline than a person to the village, "and I think she feels a little guilty for letting you run away in the first place."

That surprises him. "Really?"

"She hasn't said as much, but I've never seen her this fired up over anything." She confides. "I remember when you first left…" she shakes her head. "She cracked down on security so tightly, the gates of the village were pretty much closed unless you were on a mission or had some kind of legitimate business and sent word ahead of time."

Sasuke keeps his eyes on the cucumber he's slicing. Sakura doesn't often talk about the fallout of his departure—she's mostly caught him up on things he'd missed, like Neji's promotion directly to jōnin after the winter chūnin exams, a few missions she'd been on with Team Gai while Neji was off on another mission, how her studies are going with Tsunade. She hasn't talked about how much trouble he'd caused.

"Do you need any help?" She offers into the quiet a moment later, perhaps sensing that it's time to change the topic.

"No." He shakes his head. In truth, he hates cooking, even though he's decent at it. He'd been forced to learn how to feed himself after the death of his parents; he'd gotten sick eating takeout for every meal for the first six months or so.

But it passes the time while he's trapped at home. He'll take half an hour of doing an activity he hates over half an hour of idleness any day.

He finds himself in a conference room in Hokage Tower six months after his return to Konoha, Kakashi and Sakura standing off to the side. There's a small cadre of elderly people staring down their noses at him with disdain in their eyes, but Sasuke ignores them in favour of looking straight at Tsunade.

The Hokage hands him a fresh headband with a tight smile. "You defaced your old hitai-ate," she says as he takes it, "so we issued you a new one."

"I didn't deface it." He corrects, clutching it in his hand. The metal is cool against his palm. "It was damaged in the fight."

She tilts her head, as if to say 'it doesn't matter'. "Your duties are restricted to the village until further notice, but you will no longer require an escort to move about. However," she fixes him with a hard look, "you have absolutely no security clearance. You are not permitted in any area that is off-limits to civilians. If a mission requires you to enter such a facility, you are only permitted to do so under Kakashi's direct supervision."

Sasuke nods his head. "What if I want a book from the library?" There are several sections of the library that civilians aren't permitted into, mostly containing books about ninjutsu and other shinobi arts.

Tsunade tilts her head again, considering. "I was under the impression that Sakura was already getting your books for you."

"I don't mind." Sakura pipes up helpfully. "I can keep doing it."

"Then there's no problem." Tsunade shrugs.

Sasuke doesn't like having to rely on her to do something so basic. But he's not really in a position to argue; it's a minor miracle he's even allowed to be a Konoha-nin again after abandoning the village.

"You'll continue your sessions with Yamanaka-sensei until she feels that you no longer need her." Tsunade hands him a piece of paper. He takes it and unfolds it to see an address, a date, and a time written on it. "But you'll go to her office now. This is your next appointment." He stuffs the paper into his pocket with a grunt. "You won't be paid for the first thirty D-ranks you complete." Tsunade leans back in her chair. "How quickly you get through them is between you and your team." She waves her hand toward Kakashi and Sakura. Thirty D-ranks is three years' worth of missions for a typical squad. He grimaces inwardly. "Luckily for you, they were eager to volunteer to put their hands up to be teamed with you again."

Sasuke shoots them a glance. Sakura's cheeks are pink and Kakashi is smiling at him with his visible eye. He's quite aware that they're practically putting their careers on hold for him. His ears burn as he looks away.

"Ordinarily, we'd assign a third genin to the squad," Tsunade continues, "but there aren't any spares at the moment. You'll just have to work twice as hard to make up for Naruto's absence. Aside from that," her tone lightens, "we'll have ANBU check up on you for a little while longer, but it won't be around the clock surveillance anymore."

"Hokage-sama." A voice growls from the group of geezers. Sasuke's eyes snap to the speaker; a man with bandages covering half his face and his arm in a sling. The man's visible eye is narrowed at Sasuke, even as he addresses the Hokage. "I want it known that I object to this course of action. Uchiha should have been executed the moment we extracted all the intelligence he had to offer."

"Quite frankly, I don't care what you think, Shimura." If Sasuke thought that Tsunade had seemed hostile to him at times, it is nothing to the coldness in her voice as she addresses the man. "Sasuke has returned to Konoha of his own free will, saving the life of one of our own in the process, and has willingly provided us with invaluable intelligence on one of our village's greatest enemies. Considering that it was our own lax security that lead to his being coerced into running away in the first place, I'm not inclined to insist on the death penalty for a child."

Sasuke bristles. He's not a child. He bites his tongue to prevent spitting his retort in her face.

The man opens his mouth to argue in the same moment, but Tsunade cuts him off. "No. We've been through this. I don't care. And I've got the backup of the daimyo in this. Your objections have been noted and dismissed. Leave it."

His mouth snaps shut with an audible click. "As you say, Hokage-sama." He growls between clenched teeth. "Excuse me." He turns on his heel and stalks from the room. The other two, throwing Sasuke a dirty look apiece, stalk after him.

"Ignore them." Tsunade waves them off when the door slams shut behind them. "You can begin your missions immediately. There's probably some still left at the office if you hurry."

"Thank you, Hokage-sama." Kakashi bows, gesturing with his hand for Sasuke to do the same.

But Sasuke has always been irreverent. He merely lowers his head in the briefest of perfunctory nods, reaching up to tie his new hitai-ate over his forehead.

The weight is familiar, even after a year without it; it grounds him. It's such a stark difference to how he'd felt cooped up in Orochimaru's base that it catches him off guard.

He has a team again. As they move through the halls of the Tower, he's flanked on either side by people who care. He has a mentor in Kakashi and a friend in Sakura—and a best friend in Naruto, somewhere out in the world.

It should worry him, how easily he's slipped back into accepting them into his life. This is a weakness that he'd railed against just a year ago; he'd left them behind because he couldn't stand how being around them distracted him from his life's goal. Now, as he stands next to Sakura while Kakashi pores over mission scrolls, he's unable to stop himself from wanting to be around them.

Of course, he still has to kill Itachi. That hasn't changed. He can't move forward as long as that man is still out in the world.

There's no way Itachi hasn't heard of his brief defection. Orochimaru has a network of informants all over the five great shinobi nations—and even some in smaller countries. There's no way an organisation like the Akatsuki doesn't have spies as well.

If Itachi manages to figure out why Sasuke returned—that he's found people he cares about and is unable to completely give up in order to pursue power—there's no way he's not going to come for them.

The Akatsuki is already hunting Naruto. And Itachi has already proved that he's more than capable of handling Kakashi, so Sakura wouldn't stand a chance. If Sasuke's hatred is too weak for him to give them up, then he must push himself harder, get stronger faster, in order to protect his friends.

He won't let it happen. He was too young to do anything, too trusting of his elder brother to see the signs and stop him from taking their parents—their whole clan—from him. But he'll be damned if he lets it happen again.

Even if it kills him, Sasuke will not let Itachi strip him of his precious people a second time.

Chapter Text

"Do you really think that's a weakness?" Inori asks with raised eyebrows when Sasuke tells her of his newfound resolution. "Caring about people?"

Six months of regular therapy has gotten Sasuke to open up enough to speak his mind. He still doesn't like discussing his emotions, or his family, but he's able to talk about at least some things now. Usually, his daily life and his missions. And sometimes, he will answer honestly when she asks questions.

Inori has encouraged him to think of their sessions as a kind of box that he can leech his darkest thoughts into, without worrying that it will make it to the ears of others; he's even been given permission by the Hokage to talk about missions. The only time Inori will tell anyone what he's said, she's promised, is if she thinks he's a danger to himself or others.

Not even the Hokage knows what he says in this room.

In answer to her question, Sasuke frowns and nods.

She presses her lips into a line, clearly thinking hard. She passes no judgement, but Sasuke has a feeling that she thinks he's said something wrong. "What?"

She hums thoughtfully. "I've looked at some of your team's mission reports, you know." She reveals. "Hokage-sama gave me permission to read through the ones that Kakashi-san felt were relevant to my questions."

"So?"

"So," she draws the word out thoughtfully, "it could be said that some of your team's greatest feats were performed due to you and your friends caring about each other."

He narrows his eyes at her. "What?"

"Well, think back to the fight with that boy, Haku." She points out. "What was your primary objective?"

"To defeat him."

"At the beginning of the fight, yes." She nods. "But what about once you and Naruto-kun were both trapped within the dome of ice mirrors?"

"To escape."

"By yourself?"

"No. Both of us." He doesn't see where she's going with this.

"Why not just leave Naruto-kun behind?" She asks simply. "He slowed you down, especially during your early missions. With a second target to draw some of the fire, you might have been able to slip out between the mirrors and get out of the danger zone."

Sasuke is nonplussed. "He'd have been killed." He points out. "Naruto wasn't fast enough to dodge the senbon."

"So?" She raises her eyebrows. "He's a shinobi, too. He knows that he risks his life every time he accepts a mission." Sasuke's jaw snaps shut with a click. Inori presses on, voice softening. "Instead of leaving him to the mess he got himself into, you pushed yourself to protect him. Your sharingan manifested because of it, and that's one of your greatest assets." She points out.

"I also nearly died." Sasuke reminds her, because that's kind of a crucial detail that she's leaving out.

"But you didn't." She points out. "Instead, you came out of that fight with a new weapon, and a friend. Both things you gained because you cared."

Sasuke frowns down at his knees, mulling her words over. The ticking of a clock echoes throughout the small room; Inori's office is little more than a closet, with a desk, a couch, and a low table crammed into it.

"And what about Sakura-chan?" Inori prompts. "Going into the chūnin exams, her skills were… well, her true strengths back then were largely academic." She says diplomatically. "She was nowhere near as skilled or physically strong as you boys, but she still stood between the two of you and the danger, because she cared. Maybe she didn't defeat the enemy all on her own, but she managed to buy time for help to arrive. And now look at her: She's grown by leaps and bounds since then, because she cares for her friends and wants to be able to support them when they need her."

Sasuke is silent.

"And Naruto-kun." She hums thoughtfully. "On the bridge and in the Valley of the End, yes, he resorted to using the kyūbi," she allows, "but against Gaara, during the invasion? His after-action report states that it wasn't just his empathy for a fellow jinchūriki, but also your words that inspired him to stay and fight."

Sasuke's eyes widen. "What?"

"'I don't ever want to watch any of my precious comrades die right in front of me again,' I believe is what you said?" She shuffles through the papers on her desk, handing him a photocopy. Naruto's chicken scratch handwriting meets his gaze as he scans the document. The quote is highlighted in yellow, drawing his eye.

He remembers saying that; he can still feel the echo of the desperation behind the words. The fear that the people he'd come to care for despite himself would be taken away again.

"He was inspired by how much you cared—that you were willing to sacrifice yourself so that he and Sakura-chan could get to safety. That led him to perform a feat that should have been well and truly beyond his limits, because he was determined that all three of you were going home that day. He cared so much that he wasn't willing to sacrifice you for his own skin."

The paper crinkles in Sasuke's hand as he stares at the yellow highlighter, eyes unseeing.

"On the day that the Akatsuki came for Naruto," Inori says carefully, knowing from experience that mentioning Itachi directly can potentially cause Sasuke to shut down completely, "why did you chase him down?"

Sasuke remembers that day so clearly, even a year later; walking into Kakashi's room and seeing the man he'd come to respect most in the village laid out by the man he hated most in the world. When he'd heard that his brother was back and hunting down Naruto, his first thought… hadn't been his vengeance.

"Because if Itachi found him, he'd die."

He'd run to warn Naruto. He knew better than anyone what Itachi was capable of, and Sasuke had known that neither of them were a match for him then. The intention hadn't been to confront him that day—it had been to grab Naruto and return to the village, where Itachi would be deterred from attacking by the sheer number of nin on high alert.

But all rational thought had fled his head at the sight of his brother. His rage had gotten the better of him, and he'd paid the price.

"Have you ever told anyone what Itachi said to you that day?" Inori asks gently. "It's in none of the reports."

"No."

"Will you tell me?" She asks, tilting her head. "You know everything stays in this room."

Sasuke puts the paper down on the table, the words blurring but the yellow remaining stark against the page.

"He said… that I was still too weak, because my hatred wasn't strong enough."

It's the first time he's uttered the words to anyone. They sound ominous in the peaceful quiet of the room.

Inori pauses for a moment. "We all have things or people we hate." She says eventually. "People who have wronged us or caused us pain. But hatred is a fickle emotion. It's normal to feel it, but we need to remember that following it can blind us to reality, or cause us to act in ways we otherwise wouldn't. Has that ever happened to you?"

Yes. When he attacked Itachi.

He merely shrugs.

"If we let our hate rule us," she leans forward in her chair, causing him to look up and catch her eye, "then we become a slave to it. We make mistakes. Everything we have becomes secondary to that festering anger, and we end up losing what's most important. When you left Konoha," she says the phrase without the judgement that most others do, "you let your pain, and your hatred, make you cast aside everyone who loves you. Was it better when they were gone from your life? Did you feel stronger?"

He looks down again. "No." He'd gotten physically stronger, yes, as a result of the training Orochimaru had given him. But his mind had suffered in his loneliness. He'd been so weak that he'd given in and run straight back as soon as he'd realised he could.

She seems to intuit his line of thought. "And now that you're home?"

That causes him to stop and think. "I… don't know." It's true that he doesn't feel as lonely as before. But does he feel any stronger? He's not sure.

"That's okay." She nods, leaning back to sit upright again. "You don't have to have all the answers right now. But it's something to think about."

Lee is at the training grounds when Sasuke arrives that afternoon for jutsu practice. After two hours of sitting still and being prodded to talk, Sasuke is ready to burn off some frustration.

Quite literally. By setting things on fire.

He stalks past Lee toward the other side of the training ground, setting up some straw dummies on the chain and pulley system used for moving target practice. He's just stepping back and summoning the sharingan to better track their movement when Lee approaches.

"Uchiha Sasuke-kun." There's none of the older boy's usual exuberance as he frowns down at him. He's taller than Sasuke remembers, even given Sasuke's own growth.

He hasn't seen Lee except in passing since the chūnin exams a year ago; Team Gai has been busy outside the village, while Sasuke has spent the last six months cooped up behind its gates. He knows that Lee was part of the squad that was sent to track him down, but this is the first time they've spoken since his return.

Sasuke stares and waits for him to speak.

Lee is one of the few people his age in Konoha that Sasuke has any time for. Outside of Sasuke's own team, Lee, Neji, Shino, and Shikamaru have earned Sasuke's respect, whether by strength or intelligence.

Lee is strong. Sasuke remembers that well. He had clawed his way back to being a shinobi after being told that he'd never fight again—and then fought Orochimaru's thugs and survived.

"I have been meaning to seek you out since your return." He says, bowing low. "I had hoped to request a rematch with you after the chūnin exams, but there was not an opportunity."

Sasuke gives him an odd look. "And you're asking now?" He's clearly been training for a while; the bandages wrapped around his hands and wrists are scuffed and dirty, and he's sweating profusely.

"Now is as good a time as any." Lee's cheerful grin lights up his face all of a sudden, nearly giving Sasuke whiplash with how quickly his mood shifts. "I have been training with Sakura-san for the past year, and I would welcome a new sparring partner to challenge myself."

"You've been training with Sakura?" He doesn't know why he's surprised. The Hokage is a busy woman. It's logical that Sakura has sparring partners for when Tsunade doesn't have time to head out to the training grounds; she's just never mentioned who she's training with. Lee is a taijutsu specialist; given that she's a close combat fighter, it's a logical matchup.

Sasuke has sparred with her himself. He knows from painful experience that she is a powerful taijutsu fighter, leagues ahead of where she was when he first left the village. The first time Kakashi had suggested it, he'd almost turned her down. But the fierce look of determination on her face had convinced him to indulge her.

And then she'd promptly laid him out flat.

Of course, that was because he'd been underestimating her. He hadn't expected her speed or her power, not having witnessed any of her training for the months previous. On the second round, and every spar since, he'd taken her seriously. She has yet to beat him again.

"I have!" Lee clenches his fist, his eyes misting over. "She is like a blossoming flower! Her skills have grown wonderfully! We have become good friends!"

Sasuke fights the urge to take a step back, brow furrowing into a scowl. "Alright, already." He might respect Lee's strength, but he's clearly still a freak who makes overly flowery speeches. "I'll fight you." If he wants to fight with the disadvantage of being tired, that's his fault. Sasuke just wants to get moving.

"Yes!" Lee's fist punches the air with a cheer. "And if I win, Sakura-san will go on a date with me!"

Sasuke's mild annoyance leeches into a deep irritation as he shifts into a fighting stance. Lee is already moving to the other side of the field.

"No, she won't." Sasuke mutters to himself.

Sakura loves him, after all. She'd told him so.

It soon becomes apparent that his improvement since the chūnin exams is enough to put him above Lee's level. Not that the win is easy, but Sasuke is fairly confident that he can still beat the other boy even without being tired.

As the two of them lay in the grass after their spar, each sporting a few more bruises than they'd begun with and breathing heavily, Sasuke fights the urge to set Lee on fire. If he doesn't stop moaning about how Sakura will never like him at this rate, Sasuke might actually barbeque him.

"She's not going to like you anyway." He snaps, sitting up.

Lee looks at him with wide, tragic eyes. "Perhaps." He heaves a deep, dramatic sigh. "I am not the kind of man that beautiful girls like Sakura-san fall in love with. A lovely spring flower like herself is destined for someone better than me." He looks back toward the sky, arms stretched along the ground. "She is destined for someone like Neji-kun, or yourself. Someone strong and handsome, who she can stand beside without being ashamed."

Sasuke's face burns even as his eye begins to twitch in irritation. The boy is worse than Naruto was at the height of his crush on Sakura.

"You're ridiculous." Sasuke tells him waspishly, climbing to his feet. "I'm going home."

"Good night, Sasuke-kun!" Lee calls after him. If he notices how red Sasuke's ears are, he doesn't comment.

Chapter Text

Sasuke hasn't forgotten the time that Sakura came to his apartment with an adult's handprint glowing red on her face, even though she tried to distract him from asking about it. It's not until a month into his never-ending list of chores—the D-ranks—that he finally discovers who it was that struck her.

He's at one of the grocer's stalls in the market when he sees her, using a henge to avoid being overcharged while he does his grocery shopping. This specific vendor is especially nasty, marking his produce up between three to four hundred percent, despite the fact that Sasuke has been coming to this stall since he was eight years old.

She's carrying a bunch of bags for an older blonde woman who can only be her mother, looking bored as she casts her eyes around. Her mother is chatting to another older lady, completely ignoring her as she looks around the market. He's slightly amused when her gaze slides right over him, not recognising his disguise.

He pays for his purchase and shifts the bags in his hands, holding the henge as he approaches. She sees him coming—she glances over her shoulder to see if he's actually watching someone behind her—but it isn't until he's within shouting distance that he drops the disguise.

Her eyes widen in alarm, shooting her mother a worried glance. Upon seeing that she's still distracted, Sakura meets his eyes and shakes her head rapidly. Her hair flies every which way, hitting her in the face.

Sasuke stops dead in the middle of the street, brows furrowed. He glances at her mother. She still hasn't seen him.

A sensation like ice blooms in his gut, a premonition of impending disaster. He's just about to take the hint—Sakura can explain later—when her mother's conversation partner notices him.

Part of the burden of being the sole survivor of a tragedy like the massacre of an entire great shinobi clan is that people recognise you; Sasuke's face is as well known as Naruto's is. The other woman's face clouds over with disdain, causing Sakura's mother to turn around to see what she's looking at.

Sasuke's first thought is that her eyes are as green as Sakura's. His second is that Sakura has never looked at him with so much hate in hers.

If Sakura's mother were a shinobi, Sasuke has little doubt that she'd be radiating killing intent as she stalks toward him. She's scowling fiercely, ignoring Sakura calling out to her and rushing to intercept her path.

"Okaa-san, please! Stop!"

She ignores her.

Sasuke finds himself blinking up at the woman as she looms over him. "You."

"Okaa-san!"

Sasuke doesn't speak. He doesn't know what to say. He's never met her before; Sakura has always kept her home and professional lives separate, probably out of consideration for the fact that neither he nor Naruto have parents. He can't even recall more than a handful of times that she ever even mentioned them—and none of those have been since his return.

"How dare you show your face in public?" Her voice is low and seething.

"Okaa-san, leave him alone!" Sakura imposes herself between them, bags hanging from her fists as she plants them on her hips. "Tsunade-shishō—"

"Get out of the way, Sakura." The woman's voice is a dangerous hiss. "You can't keep a cool head around this boy and it's clouding your judgement. He should be rotting in prison!" She jabs a finger in his direction.

It's not a sentiment that Sasuke is a stranger to; several people have said as much to his face in the last seven months. Only this time, Sakura is caught in the middle.

But Sakura merely glowers right back. It's an expression that he's startled to realise he recognises—because he's worn it more than a few times himself. "Tsunade-shishō has already sentenced him, and he's abiding by it. What more do you want?" She demands.

"At least you admit he was in the wrong." The tone is dry and scathing. "Sakura, how can you stand there and defend him after what he did to you? To Naruto?"

That's new. Not many people seem to care what he did to the other boy.

"Because he's my friend."

The woman's face, already clouded with anger, becomes thunderous. "Have you been going to see him? We told you to stay away from him."

Sasuke has the distinct impression that he needs to intervene—but he would probably only make things worse at this juncture. They're already attracting an audience.

Sakura stands up straighter, chin jutting out defiantly in a fair imitation of Naruto. "We were put back on the same team." She says without flinching.

Her mother's eyes flash. She reaches out and grabs Sakura's wrist, not sparing Sasuke a look. "We are going home." She says dangerously. "Tomorrow, you are going to resign from that team. And then we're going to have a little chat about your choice in 'friends'."

Sakura refuses to be moved. She might only be a genin, but she's a trained shinobi with perfect chakra control; no civilian is moving her once she's attached herself to a spot, not even one twice her size. Her mother tries to yank her, but the girl doesn't budge. "Sakura!"

"I'm not resigning." She says boldly. "And you can't make me."

The woman's grip becomes white-knuckled. "Sakura—"

"You're hurting me, Okaa-san." Sakura's voice is softer with this.

For a moment, Sasuke thinks that the woman doesn't care. He's well acquainted with how anger can cloud one's judgement and make them hurt the people they care about; it's how he got into this mess in the first place.

It's only when the woman's other hand twitches that it clicks in Sasuke's mind.

"You're the one who hit her." He accuses quietly, the first words he's said since the altercation began. No wonder Sakura hadn't told him.

The woman lets go of her daughter, wild eyes swinging to him again. "That's none of your business. Besides, you've got no right to talk." She doesn't even question what he means. The woman is lucky, Sasuke thinks in the back of his mind, somewhere under the roaring of his blood in his ears, that he's got better control of the curse mark now. He's almost as angry as he was in the Forest of Death. "You're the one who left her unconscious on a bench in the middle of the night!"

"I did that so she wouldn't get herself hurt trying to follow me." He says dangerously, eyes flickering red and narrowing at the woman. He doesn't want to hurt Sakura's mother—not really, anyway—but if she doesn't back the fuck off, Sasuke might do something violent. "I didn't hit her out of anger."

It's a concept that he has difficultly wrapping his head around. His parents had never resorted to striking their children outside of the sparring fields. Granted, Sasuke had never disobeyed his parents in the way that Sakura apparently has been since his return—he ignores the strange, airy feeling that elicits, that she's been defying her parents for him—but even when Itachi had started to fall out of favour with the clan, his father had never hit him.

He wonders how often it happens. Is it common? Sakura always seems so cheerful when they spend time together—it's difficult to gauge.

"It's fine Sasuke-kun." Sakura must read his thoughts in his face, because she drops the bags in her left hand and grips his elbow to make him look at her. "It was just one time. It never happened again."

"You little—"

Mebuki is cut off by a whirl of wind and leaves that materialises into a solid form behind Sasuke's back. Sakura gapes up at him as Gai plants a hand on Sasuke's shoulder. "Good afternoon, Haruno-san." He greets pleasantly, face uncharacteristically serious. "A fine evening, is it not?"

The woman sputters, gaping up at the jōnin with red cheeks. Gai smiles, looking down at the genin. Sasuke can almost see the sparkle in his teeth. "I'm afraid I'll have to steal these two for a little bit. Kakashi's been looking for them. They've been granted a mission."

That's a lie. They'd agreed to take four missions a month—a truly brutal pace, with their training stacked on top of that—in order to speed up Sasuke's punishment. They'd just completed their fourth two days ago. Besides, if Kakashi was looking for them, he'd most certainly find them without help.

"Sakura isn't—"

Gai's posture doesn't change; he's still smiling. However, there's a note of—completely feigned, Sasuke is sure—shock his voice as he cuts her off. "I do hope you're not trying to interfere with a shinobi's duties, Haruno-san. The Hokage doesn't look kindly on that sort of thing!"

She sputters again. Then, with one last murderous glare in Sasuke's direction, she snatches the bags from Sakura, scooping up the ones on the ground and stalking away with her friend.

"Come." Gai puts a little pressure on Sasuke's shoulder to steer him down the street. "People are staring."

Sasuke lets himself be steered out of the busy street and into an alley, his vision darkening in the lengthy afternoon shadows. Sakura frets beside him as they stop walking and Gai releases him. "Are the two of you alright? That seemed mighty unpleasant."

"Fine." Sasuke bites. He's still seething.

"I'm okay." Sakura's voice is tremulous. Then, she grimaces. "I'm not exactly looking forward to going home later though."

Gai frowns down at her. "Sakura, is everything… alright at home?"

She fidgets, wringing her hands. "Usually, yeah. They just… don't like Sasuke-kun. That's all." Then she looks up, face set and determined. "But they don't get to say who my friends are. I'm not gonna resign from the team or anything because of them."

If Sasuke were any other boy, he would suggest that Sakura abide by her parents' wishes; the thought crosses his mind that he's not the type of person that someone should alienate their family for. But he's a selfish boy, and considering the past year of his life, he's unwilling to let go of the only friend he currently has residing in the village. He says nothing.

Gai grins again, teeth shining in a stray beam of sunlight. "That's the spirit, little flower!" He cries with his usual exuberance. "Do not let anyone dictate the years of your youth! But I really must be going; I merely happened to catch sight of you on my way to a meeting."

Sakura bows low. "We'll see you later then, Gai-sensei. Thank you."

The man slaps them both on the shoulders before disappearing with a shushin. They shift awkwardly in silence. Sasuke is still angry.

Sakura chuckles a little. "He's actually really nice, even if he's a little weird." She grins at him. "He and Lee help me with my taijutsu when Tsunade-shishō is too busy, sometimes."

Sasuke nods. He's aware of that. Or, at least, he was aware Lee is. It makes sense that Gai would be, too. Like weird master, like freakish student.

"Did you have much shopping left to do?" She asks, looking deliberately down at his bags. He flexes his fingers in the handles; he'd forgotten he was carrying them.

"No. I finished." He'd been planning to head home before he'd seen Sakura in the street.

She reaches over and pries them out of his right hand. "Then you should probably put them away before they spoil!" She says with forced cheerfulness, wrapping her free hand around his wrist and tugging him back into the street. People look at them, but not as many as before.

Sasuke lets himself be towed back to his apartment, staring at the back of Sakura's head. Her palm is sweaty against his skin. She hasn't made much of a habit of touching him since his return; he feels warm at the contact.

The walk isn't far; before long, Sakura is dropping his wrist so that he can fish his keys out of his pocket. The hallway is blessedly empty, meaning there's no one to witness Sakura follow him inside and close the door.

She toes off her shoes and slides into the slippers she keeps in his genkan. For so long, there had been only his, and only used in the colder months. It still jars him, sometimes, to see the pink lined up next to his blue. He hasn't lived anywhere with more than one set of slippers in… seven years.

He pads barefoot to his kitchen, the whisper of her slippers following him without a word. She hauls her burden onto his counter and he drops his on the floor.

"I'm really sorry, Sasuke-kun." She murmurs. When his eyes fix on her, she's wrapping her arms around herself and looking down, shoulders hunched.

"What are you sorry for?" He snaps.

"Just… Okaa-san—"

"It's not your fault."

"But—"

"It's not." Sakura has been one of the few people in the village that has accepted his return with no judgement or questions asked. It's not her fault her mother is a shrew. And she's hardly the only one who has confronted him in the street. "I'm used to it, anyway." She bites her lip, eyes filling with tears. Sasuke's widen. "Stop. Stop crying."

"I'm sorry." She sniffles, wiping her hand over her eyes. "It's just not fair. You made a mistake, but no one's willing to forgive you, even though you're trying to make up for it."

He looks away, bending to begin putting his groceries away so as to avoid looking at her. "Life's not fair."

If there's one thing Sasuke has ever learned, it is that.

Chapter Text

Sasuke lies awake on his couch, Sakura breathing evenly on a borrowed futon on the floor. She's started spending more time at his place now that her parents are aware of their continued friendship, which in turn is making things worse between she and her mother. Sometimes, she stays late, just to escape the argument waiting for her at home. One night a few weeks ago, Sasuke had simply announced that he was going to bed and dumped a futon at her feet.

She's slept over a few more times since then, and Sasuke—feeling weird about having someone else sleeping in his home—has taken to camping out on the couch when she stays.

Technically, being granted a hitai-ate means that genin are emancipated, even though most still live with their families, so her parents can't force her if she doesn't want to go home. But that hasn't stopped her mother from showing up at his apartment a few times over the past month to demand that her daughter return.

There's a knock at the door now. Sasuke considers ignoring it in the hopes that whoever it is will go away. It's one of two people: Kakashi, or Haruno Mebuki. If it's Kakashi, he'll come to the balcony and let himself in if Sasuke doesn't answer. If it's Mebuki, maybe she'll get loud enough that the neighbours will complain, and she'll be forced to leave.

The knocking doesn't stop, though. It's calm and measured, but loud enough to echo throughout the apartment. Sakura grumbles in her sleep after the fourth knock, and Sasuke huffs an irritated breath as he pushes off his blanket.

He's met with an unfamiliar man when he opens the door. Tall and burly, but lacking a certain grace that most shinobi possess, the man is clearly a civilian. The muted pink hair on the top of his head tells him that this can only be Sakura's father.

"You're Uchiha Sasuke?"

"Yes."

"My name is Haruno Kizashi."

Sasuke simply watches him, waiting. He doesn't seem hostile.

"Is Sakura here?"

"Yes." He doesn't see the need to lie. It's not like she'd be anywhere else, if she isn't at home at this time of the night.

"May I come in?"

Sasuke narrows his eyes at the man. "No."

Kizashi sighs. "I'm not here to cause a scene. I just want to see her."

"She's asleep."

"No, I'm awake." Sakura's voice calls from the living room, thick with sleep. Their voices probably woke her up; most shinobi sleep light, after all. "It's okay, Sasuke-kun."

Sasuke stares hard at the man as he steps aside to let him in. He flicks the light on, causing Sakura to flinch as her eyes are assaulted.

Kizashi kicks off his shoes in the genkan and sits on the couch Sasuke had been using as a bed with a deep sigh. "Hello, sweetheart."

Sakura merely sits on her futon, rubbing her eyes. "What is it, Otou-san?"

"I just wanted to check on you." Her father's voice rumbles. Sasuke feels distinctly uncomfortable watching them. "Make sure you're okay. You didn't come home tonight."

"I'm fine." She yawns.

Sasuke drifts around the counter and into the kitchen area, flicking that light on too. He stares into one of his cupboards, trying to decide if he should make tea or not. His mother had always made tea for even the most trying of guests. He'd made tea for Sakura earlier, when she'd turned up with a defeated expression and silent tongue.

Does Kizashi count as a guest? He feels more like an intruder, even though Sasuke had let him come in.

"Will you come home?" He hears Kizashi's voice drift over from the couch.

"Are you and Okaa-san going to stop trying to tell me who I can and can't be friends with?" Sakura's voice is petulant, a tone she used to use with Naruto. Sasuke realises, more and more as time goes on, that she speaks to him differently than anyone else; even when she disagrees with him on something, her voice is calming. The edge that laces it when she speaks to others—Naruto, Ino, her parents, apparently—isn't there.

"Sakura, you know your mother just worries—"

"She's awful to me, Otou-san!" Sakura spits. "You're not always home, you know. Every day, all I hear is that she wants me to quit being a shinobi, ever since the invasion!" Sasuke starts at that new information, spinning on his heel to look across the room at her. She's glaring daggers at her father, though, and doesn't notice him. "And then when my team left me, all she said was that maybe it was a sign that I should quit! That I wasn't strong enough and should just retire and help out in the shop like you guys wanted me to."

"Sakura—"

"And then when I started getting stronger," Sakura's cheeks are darkening in her distress, her voice becoming shrill, "she started telling me that it was hopeless, because Sasuke-kun was never coming home! And now that he's back, she keeps trying to tell me that I'm not allowed to see him! Even when she knows how important he is to me!"

Sasuke's cheeks burn as Kizashi glances up at him from across the room. Sakura freezes, as if remembering for the first time that he's still there. Her face doesn't turn to him, but he can see her cheeks nearly glowing.

Kizashi clears his throat. Sasuke quickly spins on his heel again, blindly reaching for his tea leaves. He bangs about in the kitchen rather than face either of them.

"Your mother is just scared for you." Kizashi says quietly, but Sasuke hears him. "She doesn't want to see you get hurt again. Everyone knows that being a shinobi is dangerous."

"But it's my choice." Sakura's voice is small now. "I knew what I was signing up for when I applied for the graduation exam. I chose to keep going after the invasion, and when the guys left. Why can't she just support me, instead of criticising me all the time?" Her voice starts to waver. "I already knew I wasn't strong enough before I started my apprenticeship. That's why I asked Tsunade-shishō to train me. And now that I'm stronger, I'm still not good enough for her."

Sasuke realises with horror that Sakura is about to start crying.

"She always compares me to Kagami-nee-chan." Sakura sniffles. "It's like no matter what I do, she'll never be proud of me."

Sasuke is hit with a wave of pain so familiar that it takes him a second to remember to breathe. He remembers that feeling—of being in Itachi's shadow, of wishing his father would just look at him and be proud.

"Your mother is proud of you." Kizashi insists. "She just… doesn't like to see you hurt. You're so smart, Sakura—you could do so much better than just being a shinobi."

Sasuke freezes, knowing immediately that that was the wrong thing to say.

"But I want to be a shinobi!" He hears Sakura push herself to her feet, but doesn't dare turn. "Why can't either of you be happy that I'm doing what I want to do? Why isn't that enough?"

"We want better for you, Sakura." Kizashi's voice is firmer now, less agreeable. "We don't understand why you're so set on a career that can get you killed. Why can't you just become a doctor, without all the shinobi training?"

Sasuke drops the cup he's holding onto the counter and flash-steps around to stand by the couch. "I think it's time for you to leave." He says coldly to his friend's father, staring him down. Sakura, mouth still open from her cut off reply, gapes at him.

Kizashi blinks up at him, looking between his daughter's tears and Sasuke's scowl. "But—"

"Now." Sasuke lets the sharingan bleed into his irises and is gratified when he sees Kizashi flinch. Even seven years on, and it appears that people still remember the power of the sharingan.

Not that he's planning on using it. But if Kizashi makes him forcibly eject him from his home, Sasuke is willing to do it.

Kizashi huffs. "Fine. Please come home in the morning, Sakura." He says dolefully to his daughter before allowing Sasuke to march him out of the apartment.

Sasuke locks the door behind him with a scowl. He can hear Sakura sobbing in the living room and dreads turning around. He doesn't know how to comfort a crying girl—it's always been Naruto or Kakashi's job.

The tea is finished steeping by the time he rounds her form where she's sunk onto the couch, and he pours it into two cups. He puts the third away with finality. He scoops a teaspoon of honey into Sakura's and stirs, thinking hard.

"Here." He holds it in front of her face when he moves back into the living room, feeling awkward.

She blinks up at him before wiping her face with her hands and accepting the drink. "Thanks."

Sasuke sits on the other end of the couch, as far away as possible. Sakura sips at her tea and smiles slightly. "You put honey in it." She says with wonder.

Sasuke shifts, hiding behind his own cup as he looks away. "You like it." She always puts honey in her green tea; always has. He'd noticed at some point when they were on a mission, like how he'd noticed that Kakashi was often only pretending to read, or that Naruto's sunny smile would dip when he thought no one was watching.

"Thank you."

"Hn."

They sip their tea in silence. It's almost one in the morning—Sasuke is tired. They'd been up early for a mission and then had afternoon training on top of it before parting ways to go home. He hadn't expected Sakura to knock on his door after dinner.

"I didn't know you had a sister." He finds himself saying. He's realising, not for the first time, that he doesn't know anything about Sakura's home life.

"Huh?" He can hear the confusion in her voice.

"You mentioned someone called Kagami…?"

"Oh!" Sakura chuckles a little. "She's not my sister. She's my cousin. She and her mother lived with us before I started at the Academy, so we used to be really close." She reaches forward to put her half-empty cup on the table. It steams in the cool air. "She's this really smart medical student or something now. I haven't seen her in months."

Sasuke nods.

Sakura sighs, leaning back against the backrest. "My parents want me to be just like her. It doesn't matter that I'm going to be a field medic. They think I should just go into civilian medicine. Every time I do something wrong it's 'Kagami-chan' this and 'Kagami-chan' that." Then, she freezes. "Sorry. I shouldn't complain about this stuff to you, considering…"

Considering his parents are dead.

It doesn't even occur to him that, a year ago, he would have bitten her head off. Instead, he clears his throat. "It's fine."

They're quiet for a little while longer. Sasuke can't help but remember handing his first report card to his father when he was five: He'd worked his butt off and had achieved nearly perfect marks, top of the class, only to be told "If you keep this up, you'll be just like your brother."

He'd probably meant it as a compliment, but Sasuke had wanted his father to acknowledge him, not his brother.

He's not sure where it comes from, but he feels compelled to speak.

"…Tou-san always compared me to Itachi." He hears Sakura's indrawn breath. It's the first time he's mentioned his family to her. "Kaa-san told me once that he talked about me all the time when I wasn't around, but…"

"I'm sorry." She whispers, edging closer to him. They're silent again, until she asks, so quietly he almost doesn't hear it, "Did he ever praise you properly?"

"Once." After Itachi had fallen out of favour. But that hadn't mattered at the time. All he'd been able to feel was the pride of finally having earned the words That's my boy, after hearing them aimed at his elder brother his whole life.

Less than a month later, his family had been gone.

He feels Sakura's warmth at his side before her head comes to rest on his shoulder. He doesn't shrug her off.

He doesn't know why Inori smiles so much when he tells her of the incident later that week.

"I'm proud of you." She says simply when he asks her. "When we first met, I couldn't so much as mention your family without you getting angry. So to know that you're starting to be able to talk about them with other people means that you're making progress."

Sasuke ducks his head to hide how embarrassed he is that her words please him so much. He hasn't had an adult express pride in him since his parents died—even Kakashi treats his accomplishments as a matter of course.

"It's also a sign that you're starting to open up and let people in again." She continues. "After having your trust broken so badly, it takes incredible bravery to begin to extend that trust to new people."

"I've trusted Naruto and Sakura for ages." Sasuke points out.

"With your life, maybe." Inori nods. "But it takes a lot more to trust someone with ourselves. For instance, you might trust Naruto-kun to clean the east bank of the river when you're on a mission—" Sasuke snorts. Inori smiles. She's heard enough about Naruto now to know exactly what he thinks of that. "Alright, Sakura-chan then. You'd trust Sakura-chan to clean the bank while you were on the other side. But trusting her with your secrets is something else entirely. One is simply trusting that she's going to do her job. The other means trusting her not to hurt you."

Sasuke nods quietly, absorbing the information.

"You've held your team at arms' length for a long time." She says. As always, her tone is simply matter of fact, no judgement to be heard. "Most personal things they've learned about you have been because circumstances revealed them. This is the first time you've told one of them something really personal about your past, isn't it?"

Sasuke nods. "Yeah."

"Learning to love again after loss is always hard." Her voice is soft. "And I don't just mean 'love' in the romantic sense. It takes incredible strength to open ourselves up again after someone hurts us, because letting people in can sometimes feel like an invitation for more pain. We become scared that they might leave or be taken from us, too. Is that why you've held yourself apart from them for so long?"

Sasuke nods. The fear he'd felt when he heard Itachi was after Naruto had almost been enough to paralyse him. It had also been what spurred him into action and lead to him getting hurt. He'd gotten angry in the hospital, because after everything, he'd been impotent—not even worth Itachi's time, after so much work. It had been Naruto he'd been after.

He hadn't been able to save Sakura from Gaara. Hadn't been able to save Naruto from Itachi. Both times, he'd ended up in the position of needing to be saved. His rage at his own incompetency had bubbled over and consumed him.

"You're afraid that Itachi might come back and target the people you care about—you told me that a few weeks ago. Not in so many words, but that's essentially what the desire to protect them from him boils down to, isn't it?"

He nods jerkily.

"Have you told them that?"

He shakes his head.

"Why not?"

He shrugs.

"Everything you've told me about them tells me that they love you very much." She smiles at him. "I think that, despite everything, you're lucky to have them. Don't you?"

Sasuke has to admit that he is. Despite everything.

Chapter Text

"So you've been doing D-ranks for six months now," Inori begins at the start of the session. "At the rate you're completing them, you'll be finished in under two months. How is it going?"

Sasuke shrugs. "They're D-ranks."

She smiles wryly. "Lots of chasing Shijimi-sama's cat, huh?"

"If the stupid woman didn't keep letting it out, it wouldn't keep running away."

Inori laughs. "Sometimes we can't see how we're our own worst enemies." She agrees. "Or how we inconvenience others in our negligence."

Sasuke rolls his eyes. "At least it's not cleaning trash out of the river." He hates getting that one. Unfortunately, it seems like it's assigned to him every other week—the one no one else wants. He and Sakura get stuck with the worst jobs.

He wants to complain, but he holds his tongue. He knows everyone will simply tell him it's his own fault.

"And what about your peers?" She asks. "How are things going with them?"

Sasuke shrugs. "Same as always."

Kakashi makes him train with the other teams regularly now, with or without Sakura. Some of them are gearing up for the chūnin exams in a few weeks, and Sasuke is being used to prepare them, since he's easily the most skilled of the genin except maybe Neji at this point. They seem to be standing at an even fifty-fifty win rate.

It means he's kept busy, even if he's not allowed to take the exams yet. And, as Kakashi points out, even training against inferior opponents exposes him to different fighting styles and helps him gain more flexibility as a shinobi. That will only help him achieve his vengeance.

Inori purses her lips when he expresses that thought. "Vengeance…? Is that still what you want?"

Sasuke stares at her like she's crazy. What does she expect? That forcing him to spend time with the living will make him forget the dead? He asks her as much.

"Well, no." She tilts her head, thinking. "It's only natural to want to see Itachi punished for what he did—but there's a difference between justice and vengeance."

Sasuke simply continues to stare at her. She taps her pen against her lip for a moment before speaking. "The desire for justice is when you want to see someone punished because they did something wrong. It's rooted in a desire for something to be made right. But vengeance is more about inflicting injury in retribution. It's essentially based on making someone hurt because they hurt you."

"So?"

"So," she says slowly, "consider why you want to punish Itachi. Is it because he did something wrong, or is it because you want to hurt him for causing you so much pain?"

Sasuke opens his mouth, but falters.

"I know Kakashi-san has tried to speak with you about this before." She continues when it becomes obvious that he's not going to speak. "But between you and I, I don't think he's the best equipped to lecture anyone about this sort of thing." Sasuke snorts. "But he was right about one thing: Vengeance doesn't bring anyone happiness."

Sasuke's expression darkens. "You don't—"

"Understand?" She raises her eyebrows. "It's true that I've never been through exactly what you have, but most shinobi have suffered the loss of loved ones. Sometimes, it feels like the grief is choking you. You get angry. Someone took them away from you, and you want that person to pay for what they did." Her voice becomes sad. "But watching that person suffer doesn't help in the long run. The only way to truly move forward is to work through your feelings, to come to understand and accept them. That's not to say that seeing them punished doesn't help—but it's not the solution that will fix everything. Nothing can bring back the dead." She looks him dead in the eye. He can't find it in him to refute her words. Kakashi and Sakura have both said as much to him before. "Think back to last year: When you made the decision to chase vengeance, you gave up everything good in your life."

Sasuke leaps to his feet, eyes narrowing. "You—"

"Please sit down." She doesn't look intimidated in the slightest, blinking up at him with calm, pale blue eyes. "Think about what I'm saying. Are you telling me that things haven't been better since you came home? I know you and Sakura-chan have become close." Sasuke freezes. "You're spending more time with others your age, and judging from what you've said, I believe there are times that you enjoy their company. It's not a clan, but you're a part of something larger than yourself again. Are you willing to give all that up, just to make Itachi hurt?"

He says nothing, looking down at his feet.

"Can you think of a time when you've hurt someone in retaliation for something? Even something small?"

The Forest of Death. He remembers waking up and seeing Sakura's face all bloody and bruised, and how it'd felt to break the arms of the fucker who'd hurt her. In the moment, it had felt like a rush.

But he also remembers the horror he'd felt afterward, when he'd been thinking clearly again.

Inori nods along when he describes the event to her. "That was vengeance." She agrees. "He hurt someone important to you, so you hurt him back. It's a cycle that never ends; we hurt the ones who hurt us, and their loved ones hurt us in turn. It creates a cycle of resentment and injury that we can't break free from. Of course, you were under the influence of the cursed seal," she allows, "but that's essentially what vengeance is. You say it didn't feel good?"

"No." Sasuke shakes his head. "It felt… wrong."

"Was there anything that made you feel better, afterwards?"

There was. He'd been terrified of himself, and the only thing that had soothed his frayed nerves had been making sure his team were all okay.

Inori smiles again. "And there you've hit on the important part." She says. "What you need to ask yourself is this: Do you want to be the person who breaks the arms of the man who hurt your friend? Or do you want to be the person who looks after his friend after they've been hurt to make sure they're alright?"

He kicks a rock down the street as he leaves Inori's office, head aching and throat hurting from talking. He should really run across the rooftops if he wants to make it to training on time.

Except Kakashi is never on time. It won't matter if he's ten minutes late.

He rotates the words vengeance and justice in his head as he kicks the rock. It skitters down the street and rolls off to the side.

It's only his shinobi awareness that alerts him to the fruit being hurled at his head; he raises his hand to catch the tomato, glaring at the man who threw it at him.

This sort of thing is rarer now, but there's still people who hate him. Apparently, in the eyes of some, Sasuke is just as bad as his brother is. Never mind that he hasn't killed anyone. That the Hokage appears to trust him, or that he's serving his punishment without complaint.

It will pass with time, everyone tells him—and it's true, to a degree, that people have generally stopped being as outwardly hostile to him as the months have gone on. But there's always someone who isn't willing to just let him fucking be.

He considers throwing the tomato back at the man as he cowers, pinned under the force of Sasuke's glare—but that would be a waste of a perfectly good tomato. Besides, people are staring at them.

Instead, without breaking eye contact, Sasuke brings it to his lips and takes a bite.

It's a good tomato, he thinks absently as he chews, enjoying a little vindictive pleasure as the man's eyes widen and he sputters in confusion. He turns away and begins walking down the path, only to stop when he hears familiar laughter ringing down the street.

Ino is a few feet away, a bouquet of flowers in her hand. She jogs up to him, grinning. "Okay, that was pretty funny." Her eyes search his face. "You okay, Sasuke-kun?"

"Fine." He grumbles, taking another bite of his 'gift'. "What are you doing here?" She seems to have gotten over her anger at him for leaving, but he can never be sure with Ino. She treats him the same as Shikamaru and Chōji—meaning, he never knows when she's going to find some kind of fault with him. She's shouted at him for a bunch of things over the last few months.

"My aunt works here." She points down the street, in the direction Sasuke has just come from. "It's her birthday, so I brought her flowers."

Sasuke has a mild shock of discomfort as he swallows. His mouthful feels like lead as it hits his stomach. He's only ever seen one Yamanaka in this street. "…Inori?"

Ino smiles. "Yeah! She's your doctor, right? I remember seeing your name on her calendar."

"…yeah."

She seems to realise that she's made him uncomfortable when he tosses the tomato into a nearby trashcan. "Hey, don't worry about it. Inori-oba-san is the best. She doesn't talk about her patients, ever. And I won't tell anyone. Sakura would kill me."

Outside of Hokage Tower, only Sakura and Kakashi know that he's seeing a therapist; there's a certain stigma, especially amongst shinobi, about being in therapy. And as much as Sasuke hates being looked down on by the village for his defection, he doesn't want them whispering about him being crazy behind his back.

Inori has told him time and again that he's not crazy—that his need to see her isn't due to some failing on his part. He just needs a little help sorting through some very complicated thoughts and emotions that even adults can have trouble managing.

Sometimes he believes her.

"Aren't you, like, late for training or something?" Ino snaps him out of his thoughts. "Sakura said you guys were working with Team Gai today."

"Ah, shit." Sasuke had forgotten. Kakashi arrives even later on days when Gai is around, but Lee will be insufferable if Sasuke doesn't get there on time. "I gotta go."

"See you later." Ino brushes past him as he prepares to launch onto the roof. "Tell Sakura I said 'hi'."

Sasuke will do no such thing.

He doesn't have time to consider Inori's words again until after everyone else has left the training grounds. He lays in the grass as the sky goes from blue to orange to pink before finally starting to darken.

He should go home. It's getting cold. The middle of winter is not the best time to sleep under the stars.

He just lays there and stares at the sky.

He hates Itachi. Hates him. He hates him as much as he'd once loved him. He wants Itachi to hurt as much as he does.

But he never wants to feel like he did in the Forest of Death again. That feeling of icy, sickening terror of what he'd just done haunts him every time he feels the curse mark throb on his neck.

Orochimaru had tried to get him to revel in the rush of power. And he had, at first. When he'd fought Naruto in the Valley of the End, it had felt incredible. But when the time came to deal the killing blow, he'd hesitated.

In the moment, he hadn't wanted to do it purely because his brother had told him to. But as he's sorted through his thoughts in the past few months, he knows now that he would have regretted killing Naruto forever.

Itachi's death isn't worth his friends' lives. Because even if Itachi dies, what will be left for him if they're all gone?

He rolls onto his side, staring out over the grass.

But Itachi has to be punished. Sasuke doesn't think he will ever find peace if he isn't. He'll always be looking over his shoulder, waiting for the monster to appear again.

"Yo!"

He rolls back onto his back at the greeting. Kakashi is standing over him, peering down with his uncovered eye. "You planning on sleeping out here tonight? Or are you just really early for tomorrow's session?"

Sasuke ignores the question and pushes himself to his feet. "Why are you back?"

"Ah." Kakashi jerks his head to the memorial off to the side. Sasuke stares at it. "I come here to think."

"Oh."

He trails behind Kakashi as he moves to stand before the monument. They're silent for a few minutes. There are a few Uchiha names in the list of dead heroes, but no one that Sasuke knew personally. They'd all died long before he was born.

"Did I ever tell you who I got my sharingan from?" Kakashi asks, apropos of nothing.

Sasuke blinks at him. "No."

Kakashi reaches forward and taps a name, completely without hesitation. Sasuke realises that it's because he's memorised the placement. "His name was Obito."

"I've never heard of him."

"You wouldn't have. He died in the Third War." Kakashi agrees. "He awakened his sharingan much like you did, saving a teammate's life."

It isn't often that people talk about the Uchiha in Sasuke's hearing; to the rest of the village, it's like they never existed. To hear someone talking about one of them now makes Sasuke intensely curious. "What happened?"

"We were in the Academy together, but I graduated before him." Kakashi's voice is heavy. "I was in ANBU for a few years before he and our friend graduated, and I was taken out and put on the same team as them."

He looks up at the sky, to see the clouds beginning to roll in. It will probably rain tomorrow. "When the war broke out, we were sent on a mission to destroy a bridge. Our captain left me in charge, as the only other jōnin on the squad, while he went off on his own. Rin, our teammate, was captured."

Sasuke has heard war stories before; his father used to tell them at the table—mostly for Itachi's benefit, but Sasuke had been old enough to understand. Most of the stories Sasuke has heard have been about rousing successes, with little more than a faint acknowledgement of failure.

"My father once prioritised the lives of his squad over the mission, and a lot of people died as a result. He became despised by the village, and when I was five, he took his own life rather than live with the shame. Because of that, I was… reluctant to do the same. I wanted to continue the mission without her. Obito refused, and we separated."

"But—" Sasuke is confused. Kakashi is always the one who talks about valuing the lives of one's teammates.

"I was scared to break the rules, you see." Kakashi admits. "But Obito was the one who said the words to me first: Those who abandon their comrades are worse than trash. After a few minutes I realised that what I was doing was wrong. I went back for my team. My left eye was injured in the fight when I found him, and Obito protected me from an attack while I was incapacitated. That was when it manifested."

"How did you get it?" Sasuke's eyes linger on the eye covered by the hitai-ate. He's always wondered that.

"We found Rin and managed to free her, but we were attacked by the enemy. One of them triggered a cave-in. Obito threw me out of the way of a falling boulder, but didn't get out in time himself. He was crushed to death. Before he died, he told Rin to take his left eye and use it to replace the one I lost. It was his gift to me for making jōnin."

Sasuke stares at the name etched in stone. Uchiha Obito. "Did you save the girl?"

"We did. But she died not too long after, on a different mission." Kakashi reaches out again and taps a different name, in another part of the list. Nohara Rin. "She was turned into a living weapon by the enemy, but threw herself into the line of fire rather than be used against Konoha. A hero's death, in the eyes of the village."

"It sounds like a waste." Sasuke mutters.

"War is always a waste." Kakashi agrees. "My captain died in the kyūbi attack, and I went back into ANBU. I was there until the Sandaime took me out and tried to give me a genin team."

"The kyūbi attack?" Sasuke looks up at Kakashi. "Then why were you given Naruto as a student?" That seems cruel, even to Sasuke.

"Because of who his father was." Kakashi smiles down at him. "I'm told you know the truth about that. My captain was Namikaze Minato, the Yondaime. Naruto was given to me for a few reasons, but that was the one that mattered to me. In ANBU, squads are always rotating with promotions and deaths, so you never get too attached to anyone. You guys are the team I've had the longest in my whole career."

Sasuke looks back down at the monument, eyes unseeing. "Did… when you were in ANBU, did you…?"

"Did I ever work with Itachi?" Kakashi guesses. Sasuke nods. "Yes. He was placed on my squad when he first joined. When I tell you that I was shocked when I heard what happened…" He sighs and shakes his head. "No one he'd worked with saw it coming."

"Neither did I." Sasuke muttered, fists clenching.

Kakashi pats him on the shoulder. "You were only a kid, Sasuke. No one could blame you."

Sasuke falls silent, and wonders if he'll ever stop blaming himself.

"It gets easier, after a while." Kakashi says quietly.

"What does?"

"Surviving."

Sasuke doubts that. It's been seven years, and it's still no easier than it was on the night it happened.