Ricochet by Strix 4

A/N: I...have no idea where this came from. I sat down a week ago to work on things I SHOULD be updating (Damn it, Dailies Muse!) and then this story idea mauled me from out of nowhere. It has a plot and everything! Sigh. Someday I will finish things in a timely manner. I just know it.

So, this is not the AU you think it is. I won't say much more than that, for fear of revealing the story, but don't harpoon me with questions, pretty please? I know right now it looks like I've belly-flopped all over canon. But rest assured that I've read it all, seen it all, know the story. I promise there's a reason for everything (i.e., the presence of some characters and not others, cell phones). I LOVE YOU ALL AND WISH TO GIVE YOU GOOD STORY!

I do not own Naruto, and am making zero money off of this work.

Chapter One:

Strange Places

Naruto

He woke to the sound of his mother's voice, bellowing its way up the stairs and through his tightly shut door.

"Rise and shine, baby boy! Roll that ass out of bed. I want to take pictures of it before the upperclassmen decorate it with footprints!"

"You've always been my favorite parent!" Naruto shouted back, and flapped his hands until the thick quilt slid off of his face.

As he fumbled around for his school outfit (and rapped into the dresser while doing so, ouch, fuck) he heard his dad contribute something that sounded a little like, "Weeping on the inside".

"Mornings suck forever," he announced as he barreled his way down the stairs. "That dresser hates my guts. It wants to kill my insides."

At the table, blonde hair barely visible behind the morning paper, Minato offered a mild, "Is it sentient? I'm tripping your mother and leaving the house."

"Love you forever, sweets," Kushina sang out from her spot at the kitchen sink, where she was rinsing coffee cups with her long red hair pulled into a tight tail. "Forever and always. Aw," she added, upon seeing her son enter the kitchen. "Look at my baby. All grown up and getting strangled by his necktie."

Naruto glanced down at the messy knot around his throat and puffed his cheeks out in annoyance.

"Why does it hate me?" he asked piteously of the room. "Why does it hate me and want me to suffer?"

He flopped dramatically into his chair, in order to properly emphasize his pain.

"The ballad of manhood," Minato said. "Welcome to its ranks, Son. You can have a cigar after school."

"That's so sweet," Kushina said, as she slid a stack of pancakes across the table. "Just really adorable, the way you're trying to off my kid with cancer sticks. I'm falling for you all over again. Hold me."

"We've discussed this. Sexy times make the child uncomfortable. Therefore we wait to have them until he is out of the house."

"Wow. Remember when you used to be all bendy and fun? Remember that? Now you're just this swirling black hole of boredom that I happen to share offspring with."

"I love it when you talk dirty to me."

"Not enough therapy in the world," Naruto lamented to his forkful of pancake, which dripped syrup in its sympathy.

Kushina laughed, and popped her fist against her son's shoulder blade.

Later, after pancakes had been eaten and the table cleared, Minato and Kushina watched their son search for his backpack and slip into his shoes.

"He looks like you," Kushina sighed, as she snapped her pictures. Naruto zipping his bag shut. Naruto straightening his tie. Naruto batting at his knotted shoelaces like a pissed off kitten-seriously, we're sending this kid off to higher education? "Little Minato clone. But he talks like me. God, you're so lucky."

"Sometimes your words make me sad inside," Minato informed her fondly, and kissed her hair.

"Ready!" Naruto announced, bouncing to his feet, backpack tucked rakishly across one shoulder.

Kushina snapped another picture.

"Now, remember Naruto," Minato said seriously. "It's high school. Prison rules apply. Be sure to assert your dominance right away."

"Shank someone in the schoolyard," Kushina added earnestly. "Only, not really, because I hear they're all about learning and less about violence these days. Use a book, maybe? Shank them with knowledge?"

"You guys are horrible people," Naruto laughed, and stepped forward to receive his family hug.

For a moment, everything was warm arms and familiar smells and the silent sound of be safe, have fun, we're proud of you. And then, Naruto was pushing back, secure in the knowledge that there'd be another group hug waiting for him upon his return, and grinned his way out into the warm sunlight.

He wasn't nervous. Not really, and not just because his Mom was a fearsome bitch-warrior who would go after anyone who tried to screw with his special day (this was fact, Naruto had seen her talk an obnoxious parent pretty much into the fetal position at the arcade on his twelfth birthday, and then cut cake all serene-like while her husband laughed himself sick in the background). He liked people, and people seemed to like him, so. Not nervous. A little bouncy, maybe. Sitting still for eight periods was going to be all sorts of suck.

And uniforms. Really. That was also kind of balls. The pants were all itchy, and they sat way too high up on his ass for his comfort level.

But, all necessary evils according to the parents. Only four years, and then he could choose his own adventure. Because his mom and dad were awesome, and wouldn't push college at him unless he wanted it to be pushed. They drew the line at selling drugs and prostitution (well, his dad drew the line…his mom kind of shrugged and went 'blah' with her hands), but other than that, Naruto's after-high-school life was up to him. So, he'd suck it up for a few years, and then maybe start making ramen at the shop down the street. Because ramen made all things good in the world and Naruto could get behind that kind of charity work.

Naruto wandered the four blocks to school, floating on happy noodle dreams. He saw some familiar faces once he reached the sun-baked brick building, but not many, because his dad had insisted upon sending Naruto to his and Kushina's old alma mater, even though it was outside of their district.

They'd gotten a letter, shortly after Naruto had been enrolled, from the school principal. It was a reminder that school policies were, indeed, to be followed, no matter what 'that terrifying redheaded girl and her enabling, obviously brainwashed accomplice' seemed to otherwise believe. He'd attached a list of crimes committed by Naruto's parents during their academic years, to support his claims. Naruto had caught his mother sitting at the kitchen table, laughing until tears rolled down her cheeks, the list crumpled in her fist. The next day, he'd found it taped to the refrigerator door and covered in little heart stickers.

So, no. Not a lot of familiar faces as he climbed the steps to the school's entrance. But he saw plenty of teachers, the older ones who looked like they'd been here a while, make 'oh shit' faces as he strolled past. Any other kid might have slumped his shoulders in embarrassment, or tossed out reassuring smiles to try and silently inform the faculty that no really, my parents don't define me, I promise I won't light the banisters on fire.

Except that Naruto's parents were made of awesome, and he really kind of wanted everyone to know that they'd raised him right. So his toothy grins instead implied fuck yes my parents define me, fire is so my favorite thing, your banisters will be funeral pyres.

Naruto's first hour class was on the second level, tucked into the building's back corner (blah stairs). But the room had some really great windows, and Naruto's first reaction upon entering the room was maybe to flop around in the sunshine until class actually started. The other kids were a lot more interesting than a potential nap, however, so instead he slipped on his most winning smile and tried to decide if drop-kicking the door shut would accomplish the optimal first impression.

The room was almost full (everyone showed up early to make sure they weren't late to their first day of high school, so precious Naruto wanted to purr), and his grin got some tentative responses. A few others went red in the face and tried to stare holes through the surface of their desks (We will be friends, Naruto promised them silently. You will love me, and we will light fires together). And one girl who stared back impassively, tapping short fingernails against her desk.

Naruto was across the room in a hot second, throwing himself in the desk next to hers, because fuck yes he was going to date the shit out of her.

"So. We need to discuss you bearing my children. Like, what kind you want and how many we should shoot for."

The girl blinked unimpressed green eyes in his direction.

"Oh, wow," she said. "That's a thing, then. That people say. Really."

Naruto popped his elbows on the desk and settled his chin in his hands. Batted his eyes for all he was worth, because gender roles were stupid, and she could emotionally dominate him all she wanted.

"How do you feel about brood-sized? I'm comfortable with brood-sized. We could start a gang. Or a circus."

The girl smiled, and Naruto's heart fluttered. So meant to be. So, so meant to be.

"I will actually punch you in the face," she said sweetly, and wrapped dainty fingers around a strand of short-trimmed, cotton candy hair.

"They'll write songs about our love," Naruto cooed, and squished his own cheeks. "Ballads. We'll probably die horribly together, and children will study us in history class."

She made some sort of noise, a cross between wounded gazelle and bear-poked-with-stick, and Naruto chose to interpret it as positive progress.

He was about to ask her name, so as to inform her how much better it would sound with 'Uzumaki' tagged on at the end, when the door opened, and another student walked in.

He was all pale skin and dark eyes and manfully sculpted hairdo. His tie was perfect, but he'd left the top button undone, like the little neck-slut he clearly was. He eyeballed the room and managed to convey the inferiority of every single occupant using only his eyebrows.

The girls swooned. Naruto's green-eyed goddess tilted her head (perhaps in invitation, but more likely to try and scope out man-slut's ass). The other boys shrank in their seats.

So, obviously, Naruto was going to have to kick him in the teeth. Like, this had to happen. And soon, before he stole Naruto's woman away with his dark eyes and inevitable angsty back-story.

"Hmph," the boy said, just to make sure that his status as class asshole was locked in place, and ignored Naruto's dagger-glare in order to settle into a seat by the door.

Naruto really, really hated being ignored.

His eyes started to squint as he calculated the number of desks he'd have to hurdle (only four…he could totally do this shit) in order to reach angst-boy's seat. And then hit him with it. But the bell rang before his master plan could be executed, and the sound startled him back into his chair.

"I don't actually want to sit by you, and all of your crazy," his dream woman informed him cheerfully. "I'm afraid it may be infectious. Feel free to move away before I beat your face in."

"You're sexy when you're murderous."

Her hands balled into fists on the desk. He beamed. Their kids were going to be such winners.

Five minutes past, filled with Naruto's continued romantic overtures and counted by the steady ticks in dream girl's temple. But no teacher arrived, and the students began to squirm in their seats.

"Five more minutes," some of them whispered. "Five more minutes and then we can leave. Um. Just go. I think?"

Naruto heard neck-slut mutter "Idiots" from his desk and felt the hair on the back of his neck bristle. He was about to suggest a manly bout of arm-wrestling (with an added kick to the face, courtesy of Uzumaki Providers) when the door opened, and a man walked in, dressed in a shaggy suit and wearing a grey face mask.

What.

No, seriously.

What?

"Why is he wearing that?" dream girl asked, obviously forgetting her vow to hate Naruto for all eternity in the wake of her newfound confusion.

"I want to rip it off," Naruto whispered, fingers curling desperately on the desk. "I have to rip it off. And possibly eat it."

Dream Girl remembered her vow very abruptly, and scooted her desk away.

The teacher, apparently oblivious to the hissing whispers of his class, dropped a single orange book on his desk (Naruto narrowed his eyes at it, because it looked an awful lot like the smut novels his mom waved around sometimes when she wanted her husband to make those funny choking noises). He picked up a sheet of paper, and made happy crescent eyes at the gaping students.

"Good morning, class!" he greeted. "My name is Professor Kakashi Hatake. Sorry I was late. My alarm clock got eaten by rabid hyenas. Tragic."

No one moved. No one moved, because that was obviously such beautiful bullshit, and what the fuck was the protocol for calling bullshit on a teacher anyway?

"We won't do much in this class. I know it's only Homeroom, but. I don't really enjoy academics. I actually don't care about any of you, either," the teacher continued cheerfully. "In fact, I hate most of you already. But the school requires that I take roll call. So. Shall we?"

By this point, very few people were breathing, either. The first girl who got called on by Kakashi-sensei looked like she was going to puke all over her desk. But Naruto couldn't be bothered. He'd become fascinated by Kakashi-sensei's form. Guy was long, and scraggly. All arms and legs, with a seriously amazing afro of grey hair. Naruto kind of wanted to poke him to see if he'd fall over, but was simultaneously terrified to do so, for fear that his new Sensei would break in half.

About halfway through roll call, dream girl got a name. Sakura Haruno. Huh.

Uzumaki totally sounded better.

I-listen-to-sad-music-but-don't-admit-it boy got a name too. Sasuke. Sasuke Uchiha.

"I bet you write poetry in your spare time," Naruto hissed out between his teeth as several girls seized lovingly in their seats. "Poetry and song lyrics."

"Naruto Uzumaki," Kakashi-sensei called out, and Naruto tore his attention away.

"Sensei, are they feeding you?" he blurted, honestly concerned. "And what's with the mask? Is there some horrible disease eating your face? Should we be running?"

"That's charming," Kakashi-sensei replied, his happy eye curves curling even further upward. "You're a special snowflake, I can tell."

"I can call someone," Naruto continued solemnly. "I have all of the numbers. My mom gave them to me, because she said if I ever go radioactive, she doesn't want to deal with that shit."

Naruto heard the faint thwack of Sakura's face hitting the surface of her desk. Around him, kids either laughed nervously, because they thought he was kidding, or shifted helplessly in their seats, because maybe they'd heard about his mom and knew that he totally wasn't.

"Adorable," Kakashi-sensei said, and Naruto squawked a little, because that was sarcasm in his voice. That shit was easy to recognize when you'd lived with it since birth. "So, you should all read, or something. Do educational stuff."

He waved his hands encouragingly, and then dropped down to his desk chair and buried his face behind his orange novel. And there was even more nervous shifting, because they all had the appropriate textbooks (well, most of them, Naruto was pretty sure; although, he might have thrown his math book out the window, because one look inside made his soul die a little) but no one had thought to bring anything actually fun to do.

Well, except Sakura, apparently. After sparing their teacher a brief, scandalized glare, she pulled a thick novel out of her bag and flipped it open. And Sasuke-Angstchiha had folded his fingers together and appeared to be gearing up the annual survey and review of gently weeping guitar memories.

So, Naruto whipped out his phone, because meh. Kakashi-sensei was ignoring them anyway.

Just offered marriage to your future daughter-in-law, Naruto typed out to his parents. My teacher is wearing a mask and reading porn. Also, I'm about to beat this kid's teeth in for wearing SUCH. BITCHFACE.

His dad sent back, You can't hit someone for bitchface. YOU have a bitchface.

His mom replied with, What kind of porn?

Naruto grinned and sent them both a row of hearts.

After a few minutes of staring blankly at the ceiling, Naruto gave up on the entire institution of being still and leaned back over into Sakura's space, ignoring the look she sent him that said, 'Am reading. Will hit'.

"So, you're reading," he offered in a loud whisper. "Which means our babies will be smart and sexy. Thoughts?"

"Filter," Sakura responded. "Between mouth and brain. You have none."

From across the room, a barely audible snicker hit the air. Naruto whipped his head around hard enough to get whiplash, and narrowed his eyes.

Yep. That was definitely a smirk on Sasuke Uchiha's face.

"Got something to share, Bastard?" Naruto asked, not even bothering to lower his voice this time.

"Not particularly," the boy responded, and he sounded like he could care less about Naruto's entire existence. But that damn smirk was still curling his lips, waving itself like a red flag in front of Naruto's eyes.

"Really?" he countered. "Are you sure? Because your bird's ass hairdo seems like it has so many things to say. Like, how much it hates you for forcing it into that position every day. And how eventually it will rebel and swallow your face."

A few of the boys started snickering. The girls looked scandalized. Sakura reached over and pinched him.

"Stop being such a jerk," she hissed.

"Moron," Sasuke added for good measure.

Naruto planted his hands on the desk, ready to get up and over, but Kakashi-sensei chose that exact moment to actually care.

"Now, now children," he said mildly, still buried behind his book. "Play nice."

"But Sensei," Naruto whined.

"Reading," Kakashi sang out. "Reading and therefore not listening!"

Naruto scowled, and then flopped down on his desk for a manly pout.

By the time the bell rang, Naruto was already bored out of his skull and contemplating the merits of nap time in his next class. He yawned as he got to his feet, intent on walking Sakura to her next class (although he was fairly certain the safety of his manly bits wouldn't be assured once there was no longer a teacher in immediate view), only to notice that she had already skated by him, and was chatting quietly with Sasuke-Bastard by the door.

Naruto made a face. She looked so…soft under his attention. Sweet and girly and wrong. Claws retracted. Naruto liked her better flushed and angry and ready to kick some ass if she had to. She should never look so breakable.

So Naruto bounced, past a group of girls silently giving Sakura the evil eye for getting to Sasuke first, and straight up to Sakura's side.

"Sakura!" he sang out. "Want me to walk you to class?"

The look she gave him should have melted his face off like acid, and Naruto beamed. So much better.

But then Sasuke made that sound again. Halfway between a snicker and snort (the vocal equivalent of an eye-roll). And he turned toward the door, obviously intent on leaving Naruto and his stupidity behind. He socked his shoulder into Naruto's as he passed, hard enough to knock Naruto off balance, and for a moment all Naruto could see was Sasuke's retreating back, and then things got just a little bit confusing.

Fury red-washed Naruto's vision and something that tasted weirdly like panic coated the back of his throat. And before he could really process his own reactions, he was pouncing on Sasuke's back, and tackling him to the floor.

They went down hard, the combined weight of two fifteen year old boys cracking Sasuke's elbow and Naruto's knees against the linoleum. Sasuke twisted around, and Naruto was momentarily staggered by the fury on his face (because he'd looked so dead inside before), which gave Sasuke the opportunity to hiss "What the hell is wrong with you?" and drive his fist into Naruto's chest to push him off.

And, okay. Naruto was aware of his own latent abandonment issues (his mom liked to wait until he had friends over and then tell them tales of Naruto's pissed off toddler self, who they'd caught trying to pretzel his way into his Dad's briefcase on work days), and even he knew this was perhaps not the best arena to display them in. But that still didn't stop him from returning Sasuke's punch, because he didn't let that shit go unanswered.

"Naruto! Knock it off!" Sakura shouted, but he wasn't listening, because he was busy taking Sasuke's return punch to the jaw.

Pain snapped bright and yellow behind his eyes, and the baffling fear on the back of his tongue vanished under a rolling wave of must rip out frou-frou haircut. As he and Sasuke rolled across the floor, knocking into desks and trying their best to play whack-a-mole with each other's insides, Naruto caught the sound of Sakura and Sensei's voices from above.

"Sensei! Sensei, please. Aren't you going to stop them?"

"Meh. I'm pretty sure they don't pay me for that."

"….Are you reading porn?"

Naruto's resulting snicker cost him a bloody lip.

"Fine. Just…fine!"

And then slender fingers were grabbing at the back of Naruto's head, and smashing his skull against Sasuke's hard enough to send stars wheeling above his eyes.

He yelped and rolled to the side, flailing indignantly as he scrabbled at his head. Sasuke lay still amongst the ravaged desks, one hand pressed over his face.

"WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH YOU TWO?" Sakura bellowed above them. "Are you FIVE?"

"Owwww!" Naruto whined. "Sakura, my head!"

"Shut. Up. Idiot," Sasuke muttered from underneath his hand.

For a moment, something like confusion crossed Sakura's face. She stared at her hands, then at their heads, and squinched her brown up tight.

Then, the confusion cleared as quickly as it had come, and some of the murder faded from Sakura's eyes, to be replaced with a kind of mortified stillness.

"Oh. Oh! Sasuke! I'm so sorry…I don't know what I was thinking!"

Sasuke spread his fingers a little and fixed her with a dark glare. For a moment, Sakura wilted, and Naruto thought she might cry (and he balled his fist up again in preparation). But then her spine snapped straight and she tossed her head.

"You were the one who let him antagonize you," she reminded him primly, and Naruto let out a rollicking laugh, fist relaxing at his side.

As Naruto climbed unsteadily to his feet (everything hurt, fuck damn it), trading glares with Sasuke all the while, a hand reached out and patted at Sakura's head. Kakashi-sensei.

"Well done, Sakura," he said cheerfully, and he was still reading that damn book. "Boys, as entertaining and manly as that was, I believe a trip to the principal's office is in order."

He finally snapped his novel closed, tucking it into his back pocket, and snagged Naruto and Sasuke's necks in surprisingly strong hands. Naruto yowled and twisted, and mortified color stained Sasuke's pale face.

"My father will-," he managed.

But Kakashi-sensei cut him off with a loud and gleeful, "Want to hear about your adventures, I'm sure!" before frog-marching them out of the room and through the crowd of gaping students gathered by the door.

"Idiots," Naruto heard Sakura mutter as the door shut behind them. "Such idiots."

Kakashi walked them all the way down the principal's office, and eventually Naruto stopped struggling, because cataloguing all of Sasuke's injuries was so much more satisfying (and because even though Sensei let them go once they reached the stairwell, perhaps because Sasuke looked ready to panic himself into oblivion over being touched by another human being, the man was radiating a disappointment under those happy eyes that seemed really deep and sort of familiar).

Naruto pulled out his phone once they'd been seated outside the office, because Kakashi-sensei took off after rapping his knuckles against the glass wall and tossing 'Have fun!' at the principal's secretary.

Bitchface eliminated, he typed out to his parents. You should be getting a phone call soon.

His dad responded with, It's been less than two hours. Seriously?

His mom typed back, I told you to shank them WITH KNOWLEDGE.

Your first day included fire, Naruto reminded them.

Your argument is invalid, his mother messaged back. I waited until the final bell had rung.

Naruto rolled his eyes, and stuffed his phone back in his pocket. He kicked his feet against the bottom of the chair for a while, and then stopped when his swollen ankle (where Sasuke had kicked him, the jerk) told him to knock it the fuck off. After a while, he popped his chin against his palm and stared a little bit at Sasuke. The other boy was attempting to set the wall on fire with the power of his fury, although his glare looked a little less badass and a little more cuddles due to the black eye starting to swell.

Naruto hummed a little bit as he considered both his buzzy contentment at the sight of Sasuke sitting next to him and his mind informing him that He looks the same as me under all that skin.

Well. Probably that was the endorphins talking. That, and the Boy Code written deep into his blood. The way Naruto saw it, they'd attempted to punch each other's faces off. Best friends was obviously where they were headed. Comfortable hatred was the starting point.

Sasuke probably didn't know that yet. He didn't look like he spent a lot of time communing with the Boy Code.

"Hey, Bastard," Naruto said, after sitting a while in silence.

"What, Moron?" Sasuke asked, his voice all nice and empty once again. Naruto already hated that like poison; Sasuke was much more fun when he was spitting flames.

Naruto hummed a little bit more, staring at the ceiling, before responding in a thoughtful voice.

"Do you believe in déjà vu?"

...

A/N: Oh God, it takes place in a high school *is crying inside* I hope you enjoyed it anyway. Next Chapter: Sasuke POV. Opinions on the Great, Blonde Idiot. Stay tuned. Happy Reading!

A/N: I desire someone to come and finish my job training for me, because the love for this story has been AMAZING and I desire to do nothing else but give you fabulous people more chapters. But, real life. Woe and tragedy.

Thank you guys, so much, for giving this story a try! I know it's weird (I promise the characters are a little strange FOR REASONS), and the plot seems nonexistent right now, but I promise that it is, in fact, real. But I'm glad you guys are enjoying it, and I hope you continue to do so!

I do not own Naruto, and am making no money off of this work.

Chapter Two:

Familiar Faces

Sasuke

So, Sasuke liked to plan. He liked steps and stages and knowing outcomes, and the satisfaction that came with reaching an endpoint due to his own careful machinations. He knew his intelligence was well above average for a boy his age, and took great pleasure in cultivating that which caused his father to look on him with quiet pride.

He was careful. He was controlled. He was one step ahead of everyone else, always.

Except now, he was sitting outside the principal's office on his first day of school. Next to a bright blonde moron who kept swinging his feet and smiling like the two of them had traded friendship bracelets instead of swinging fists.

So, okay. Sasuke was willing to admit to some general confusion about how all of this had gone down.

For someone who prided himself on following such clear cut road maps, Sasuke found himself very (secretly, because like hell that idiot got to see anything other than his default 'the world is stupid' face) bewildered by how royally fucked up the line between point A and point B had gotten.

It was just really, really comfortable to blame the idiot for everything. And so Sasuke did, with every fiber of his being.

"I think you bruised my kidneys," the idiot in question said. "Like, there may be blood the next time I piss."

Sasuke cocked an eyebrow. Because the moron sounded so happy about it, and Sasuke didn't actually have a giant, flashing sign that said REALLY. WHAT THE FUCK? to hold up. Hence, the eyebrow.

"Also, I think they called our parents," Naruto continued. "Because the principal's secretary just put her head down on the desk, and she might actually be crying, and my mom sort of makes people feel that way inside. So."

"I don't actually want to talk to you," Sasuke said. "You know that, right?"

Naruto gave him a very patient look.

"Of course you do," he said. "Or else you wouldn't have hit me, Sasuke."

And Sasuke wasn't normally talkative, and especially not with people he hated so much, but he also had to know.

"Why," he said, a bit desperately, because he was pretty sure that this was what drowning felt like. "Why."

But his quest for understanding (this was how it started, Sasuke knew that, and yet he still couldn't stop himself) was interrupted by the addition of another voice.

"Bitchcakes," a woman said, red hair falling like a flag, grin on her face, staring at them with Naruto's eyes and Sasuke was so doomed. "You are grounded forever."

"Lies," Naruto fired back. "You're totally proud of me. Pretty sure I'm about to get suspended, and I didn't even need fire to do it."

"That right there," the woman said, eyes narrowed. "What you just said. That was a challenge."

Naruto shrugged. Sasuke ignored them both and focused very hard on becoming one with the wall behind him. Not because he was afraid, but because he kind of needed to laugh, a bit hysterically and for a really long time, and Uchihas just didn't do that sort of thing.

"You're already here," Naruto reminded her. "I mean, the effort would be minimal. Just saying."

For a moment, there was silence, and not because the redheaded woman had joined Sasuke in horrified contemplation. She was considering it, Sasuke realized, and felt something die a little inside his brain.

"No," the woman finally sighed sorrowfully. "Age of majority, or whatever. Pretty sure they could arrest me now."

"Sucks," Naruto agreed, all sympathy.

"And who is this strapping young man, wearing what I assume are the imprints of your knuckles and knees?"

"This is Sasuke!" Naruto said, all smiles, like they were best friends forever and ever, and Sasuke really wanted to know what he had done in another life to deserve two sets of bitch-crazy blue eyes lasered in his direction.

"Aw," Kushina said, taking in Sasuke's dark hair and purple and blue mottled pale skin. "He's so sad on the inside. Like a panda. Naruto, you punched an infant panda."

"No, I didn't!" Naruto said, and he sounded so offended for reasons Sasuke never, ever wanted to explore. "He's not a panda. He hit me back! Sasuke, tell her you're not a panda!"

"Shut up, idiot," Sasuke said, because he wasn't going to deny being a panda, not when crazy mom was still staring at him.

"Naruto, leave him alone," Kushina said sternly. "Can't you see that he's all sensitive and shit? He's not Bitchface, he's just crying on the inside."

"He's totally Bitchface," Naruto assured her. "But you're right; he's got a gooey center underneath."

"Like a candy bar," Kushina said, with a head nod made of wisdom.

"Sasuke," Naruto said, blue eyes big and earnest and so fucking ridiculous with their ring of bruises. "Sasuke, it's okay. Weep your manly panda tears. I'm here for you."

And Sasuke put his head in his hands, because it was either start laughing until said panda tears made an appearance, or scream himself into an insanity-fueled fury.

"How'd you get here so fast?" Naruto asked, ignoring Sasuke's imminent breakdown entirely.

"I got in the car right after you sent that text," his mom answered. "Got the phone call from the principal's secretary on the way over. Sweet lady."

"Mom, she's been crying on her desk ever since she talked to you."

"Yeah, well, she's been around since my time. I'm sure she remembers me fondly."

"Excuse me," a new voice said, and Sasuke whipped his head back up, because this was the worst thing ever. "Can anyone explain why my son appears to be weeping into his hands?"

"You must be Mommy Panda!" Kushina said, crazy eyes alight.

Sasuke wanted to die.

Naruto, who was squinting at his mother, small and dark with pale skin and fine bones, said with tremendous concentration and reverence, "That's what you would look like as a girl."

Sasuke wanted to die harder.

"Mom," he said, with an impressive amount of calm.

"Sasuke," she said, taking in his puffy face with a faint line of worry between her brows. "Baby, are you all right?"

"Baby," Naruto mouthed, and collapsed in a silent fit of laughter.

"Your mom calls you Bitchcakes," Sasuke hissed back.

"Wait. Mommy Panda, you have to understand," Kushina said, all seriousness, grabbing earnestly at the other mother's hands. "It wasn't their fault. Our boys were lost to a biological imperative. It's been around since the dawn of time. They beat each other out of love."

"I…see," Sasuke's mother said, and there was a worrying sheen of quiet amusement underneath the concern in her eyes.

"Stop letting your mom infect my mom with her crazy," Sasuke demanded, nudging Naruto's ribs none too gently with his elbow.

The look Naruto gave him was made of pity.

"What, you can't see it?" he asked. "Oh, Sasuke."

"So, should we make them hug it out?" Sasuke's mother suggested, because apparently Sasuke's entire life had been a lie up until this point, and his mom actually wanted him to suffer.

Sasuke shot her a look brimming with betrayal and pain. His mom returned it with a serene smile.

Okay, yeah. He could see it now.

"I'm Kushina," Naruto's mother added, and she still hadn't released Sasuke's mother's hands.

"Mikoto."

Naruto watched them with a bright smile. Sasuke stared at the three of them like maybe there was an open window around that he could utilize.

"I believe the principal's secretary is ready to see us now," Mikoto said. "Although, she appears to be waving us in with a tear-stained handkerchief."

Naruto laughed, loud and long, and Kushina finally released Mikoto's hands so that she could storm the office doors and throw them open.

"Ms. Seto!" Sasuke heard her shout. "Love of my life, apple of my eye! Tell me how much you missed me!"

Sasuke watched his mother follow Kushina with a sweet, tiny smile made of perfectly fake innocence, listened as Naruto laughed warm and solid at his side, and absolutely refused to acknowledge that he was smiling too.

…

So, no suspension.

The principal had wanted it, Sasuke had seen it in the way he'd looked at Naruto with great despair, like the kid was personally responsible for every grey hair and nervous twitch he possessed. But, he'd also seemed just very appropriately terrified of Naruto's mom, and Sasuke's own mother had sat at her side and agreed with everything Kushina demanded via crazy eyes, and so the principal had squeaked out a three day sentence of detention and then promptly kicked them all out of his office.

Sasuke completely sympathized with the nervous breakdown he was pretty sure he heard once the office doors were shut behind them.

After that, the boys were gathered up by their respective mothers, and Sasuke all but sprinted out of the building, spooked, because Naruto looked like he was seriously considering that hugging thing.

"See you tomorrow, Sasuke!" Naruto called, all good cheer, and Mikoto smiled all the way home like she knew a secret, and this was Sasuke's life.

He waited in his room once they got home, stomach hot and tight, because he knew his dad would be back eventually. His mother let him sprint up the stairs with a smile and a soft brush to the back of his head, and Sasuke knew that his dad wouldn't be angry, not really, but the thought of disappointing him made Sasuke want to curl up in a ball of unhappiness.

He was paging through his text books, brain on miserable autopilot, when he heard his bedroom door squeak open. He tensed, ready to start spilling apologies, only to sigh when he felt the tug of a tiny hand at his sleeve.

"Misami," he said.

The four year old stood by his desk, staring solemnly out of wide grey eyes.

"Mommy says you can't play with me right now, because you're sad," she announced, and then tilted her head. "Why are you sad?"

Sasuke hauled himself out his chair and scooped his sister up into his arms, because she should never look so upset, and he considered it his personal mission to make sure she never did.

"I'm not sad," he said. "See? Playing with you right now."

He gave her a bounce, but she didn't smile, just continued to stare at him out of those long grey eyes that seemed so familiar to him, had spawned prickles of fierce love and protection and recognition since the second his mom had placed her in his arms. He'd been eleven when she was born, and she'd felt like his reason for everything, and Sasuke hadn't known how much he'd needed one. She'd been tiny, barely above six pounds, wrapped in warm blankets, and she'd opened up those impossible eyes the instant he started holding her, and in that moment he'd never doubted that he had to do better by her, had to protect her from anything and everything, and always let her know how much she mattered.

Sometimes Sasuke wondered just who he was trying so hard to do better than.

"I'm okay, Misami," Sasuke said. "Promise."

She kicked her little feet a bit, eyeing him contemplatively, before putting her head on his shoulder, and her arms around his neck. It was an old move with them, familiar, and Sasuke rocked her a little, grateful for the weight of her against his chest. She was a princess, and a brat most of the time, but she also had her quiet moments, just like this, and Sasuke treasured them.

A throat being cleared interrupted Sasuke's gentle swaying, and his cheeks flushed a furious red. His father was standing in the doorway, looking just as uncomfortable with his son's display of vulnerability as Sasuke did. Not that he was any better; Misami owned the both of them, a fact she proved by opening her eyes and stating, "Daddy, I want some cookies."

Fugaku cleared his throat.

"It's almost dinner time, Misami," he said, which was really obviously not a 'no'. "And I need a minute with your brother."

Misami sighed, and then obliged with a final squeeze to Sasuke's neck, and a look in her father's direction that very clearly communicated, Yeah, I'm totally going to get those cookies.

"So," Fugaku said, once Misami had scooted out the door. "Your mother tells me that you've been making friends."

Shame snaked its way up Sasuke's spine, and he felt his shoulders droop.

"I'm sorry," he said, barely audible, because the back of his throat felt thick and swollen.

Fugaku fidgeted, and Sasuke had an acute, clarifying moment of just how awkward this conversation was going to be (although nothing would ever be as bad as the time his dad had tried to give him 'The Talk', and they'd ended up sputtering helplessly at each other for a while, until his mother had come in, given her husband a pitying look, handed him a baby Misami, shooed him out of the room, and proceeded to explain things with great detail and a serene smile until Sasuke had actually wondered if it was possible to die of emotional pain and started eyeing his third story window as a viable escape route). He and his dad just didn't do outward expressions of emotion. Apparently, it was an Uchiha thing.

Family reunions were legendary levels of awkward.

"Sasuke," his father said slowly, like he knew it was already going to be impossible to get the words out, and so he had to pick them with care. "Sometimes I wonder who's shadow you're trying to live up to."

Sasuke blinked, confused. Fugaku sighed, apparently saddened that Sasuke hadn't gotten the entire thesis of this conversation from that one sentence, and so he would have to speak more.

"You're my son," he said. "My only son. You've done so much already, so many wonderful things. I've been…very proud of you. But you still have these expectations of yourself, Sasuke."

Sasuke flushed even redder, and ducked his head. Praise from his father, communicated in more than small smiles and subtle actions, was shooting-star levels of rare.

"I hope," his father concluded softly. "That I am not the one who has put them there."

"No," Sasuke said.

"All right," Fugaku said, and something like humor warmed his face. "Just…promise me that this won't become a thing. You beating up a different child every day."

Sasuke kind of wanted to melt into his tastefully patterned carpet.

"No, Sir," he said again.

"Good," his father said, and then, because he had apparently reached his quota of outward emotion, added. "Dinner time."

"COOKIES," they heard Misami screech from the first floor.

Fugaku winced with a perfectly straight face, a special talent of his. Sasuke would never, ever own to how much he was laughing on the inside.

"Okay," he said, and headed for the door, and then smiled a little on the outside, because his father brushed his shoulder as he passed.

…

That night, Sasuke dreamed of bodies. Of silent rooms where there should have been sound, and wooden floorboards stained and swollen with blood. He dreamed of blank, lifeless faces, and a little girl walking out of the carnage with quiet grace and a blood spattered party dress.

She took Sasuke's hand, limp with horror and helplessness, in her little one and tugged him down to her level. He heard her satisfied sigh over the screams he hadn't even realized he'd been emitting.

"Brother," she said softly, using those familiar eyes to blink at him, and touched his forehead with her tiny fingers.

Sasuke came to, drenched in sweat and tangled in his sheets. And it was horrible, really horrible, because he didn't feel like he'd woken up.

"Sasuke," his mother said, from where she was sitting on the side of his bed, and she looked blurry, transparent.

"You're not real," he gasped.

He watched her face crease with concern, and he wanted to scream, because he could see through it.

"You're having a nightmare," she said softly. "I heard you. It's okay, Sasuke. I'm here, I promise."

He wanted to ask her if she believed in parallels. If people could be different things based on different circumstances, or if self was something constant. He wanted to ask her where Misami was.

But her fingers were carding through his hair, soft and sweet and real, and Sasuke fell back asleep with a grateful sigh.

….

They didn't talk about it the next day. His mother tried, reminded him that he'd had nightmares ever since he was little, and they were nothing to be ashamed of, but Sasuke just scooped Misami off the floor and held her out face-first in his mother's direction, whispering the word cookies until Misami let out an ear-splitting squeal of demand.

Okay, so not his best or brightest maneuver. But he was a desperate teenager who really didn't want to talk to his mom about his problems.

The other kids at school whispered. They pointed at his bruises, and murmured behind their hands, and Sasuke gave them all his very best fuck off and die by fire eyes until he could escape to his first period classroom.

Only to have a small and silent aneurism upon opening the door and realizing that the only people inside the room were the pink-haired girl from yesterday, the teacher with the mask and the porn addiction, and the blonde idiot who beamed and bounced in his direction right away.

"Sasuke!" he shouted, because he was apparently incapable of speaking at a volume lower than 'deafen thy neighbors'. "You look like shit!"

"Good morning, Sasuke," Sakura added, seated on the windowsill and swinging her feet.

The teacher, Kakashi-sensei, didn't say anything. Just raised an absent hand and stayed buried in his book.

"So, I didn't piss blood last night!" Naruto crowed triumphantly. "I thought for sure I would!"

"That's so great, Naruto," Sakura said gently. "Because everyone here wanted to be updated on your bodily functions. Just really wonderful."

"My mom said that every time you're all mean, you're really just tugging my pigtails," Naruto informed her with a wide grin. "Because secretly you want to jump my sexy fifteen-year-old self." Naruto spread his arms wide. "Hate me. Hate me all over."

"She's never allowed to meet your mom," Sasuke said in spite of himself, because he might not have wanted to speak to any of them, but he could also imagine the possibilities, and that shit could not be permitted to occur.

"But Sasuke," Naruto said. "Someone has to give me away at the wedding."

"Oh, my God."

"I'll be wearing white," Naruto promised her. "Just for you."

Sasuke scrubbed the mental image from his eyes and considered the fact that technically he wouldn't be breaking his promise to his dad if he kicked the ass of the same student every day.

"How did you sleep, Sasuke?" Kakashi-sensei asked, into the silence, as Naruto beamed at everyone and Sasuke seriously considered tossing him over the nearest desk.

"What?" Sasuke asked. "Um. Fine."

"Why do you ask, Sensei?" Sakura said, with a little laugh. "That's a weird thing to say to your student."

Sasuke narrowed his eyes, because he wasn't stupid, and Sakura wasn't as good at hiding the anger in her voice as she thought she was.

"Just wondering after the well-being of my precious ones," Kakashi-sensei said, pulling his face away from his book long enough to give Sakura a pleasant smile with his eyes.

Sakura smiled again. Sasuke wondered why it looked so brittle.

"You creep me out, Sensei," she said sweetly, and Naruto laughed.

"I'm wounded," Kakashi-sensei said, eyes back on his book, voice a million miles away. "Crushed. Buckling under the weight of my despair because your words and opinions are so hurtful and obviously matter so much to my life-"

"Why do his bruises look so manly?" Naruto interrupted, poking mournfully at his own bruises in his window reflection. "Like, tragic and romantic, and I look like those pissed off cats with swollen cheeks, I looked in the mirror this morning, I know this to be true."

"It's the hair," Kakashi-sensei answered. He paused, squinted his eyes at Sasuke for a second. "Yep. The hair."

"But I don't want a duck-butt hairdo!" Naruto wailed.

Sakura threw a book at his head.

Sasuke slid into his seat and called upon every awkward-making, stone wall Uchiha superpower passed to him by his ancestors of angsty bastards. He could do this. He could ignore them.

"By the way," Kakashi-sensei added. "Your detention this week is with me. After school. And Sakura's volunteered to help."

Motherfucker.

"Bonding!" Naruto shouted, like it was his favorite thing. "I'm bringing snacks. We can share our innermost feelings over cheese crackers."

"You're all idiots," Sasuke muttered, from where his face was now getting to know his desk.

"Ignore him," Naruto advised, in the loudest fucking whisper known to humanity. "My dad explained it to me last night. He insults us because he can't admit his affection out loud. His penis is getting in the way. We have to be sensitive to his manly, penis-inspired turmoil."

Sasuke laughed.

With his head against the desk, Sasuke laughed, ignoring Sakura's warm smile, Kakashi-sensei's considering look, and the idiot's answering grin.

Sasuke laughed, and refused to wonder why it only felt okay because it was the four of them together.

...

A/N: Um. Yeah. I promise that there's a reason for Sasuke being...like this *hides from potential projectiles* Next chapter: Kakashi POV. I am a man of mystery because I damn well say so. Stay tuned. Happy Reading!

A/N: Wow, I promise I haven't died! I'm so sorry that my RL takes up so much of my time. Stupid RL...go sit in a corner and feel shame. But please believe that every time I got a notification about this story, I grinned like an idiot, because this is kind of a pet project for me, and it holds a special place in my heart. The response you guys have given it has made me dance-worthy levels of gleeful...I love you all so hard.

Hitting the emotions of all of our Team Seven members this time around, reaching out past our boys a little, because I have so much love for the whole team, and that shit needs to be documented. Also, a wild plot appears! Hopefully it keeps you all interested.

I do not own Naruto, and am making no money off of this story.

Chapter Three

Chamber

Kakashi

"So, I don't understand you."

Kakashi blinked his one available eye in an upward direction, and then at the stack of papers on his desk, and refused to admit to himself that he was a little bit pissed to be caught actually grading shit. He had a reputation to maintain. A reputation made of lazy asshole, and he'd worked so hard to cultivate it, too.

"None ever do," he answered solemnly, and refused to reach for his orange book, because that would obviously be a cover at this point, and he wasn't going to let this asshat win. "Accept it. Embrace it. I am anti-understandable."

The man standing across from him, a math teacher from the lower level, made a face. It was a face that Kakashi inspired in all who knew him. An expression that communicated emotional pain without words, a work of art that Kakashi always took time to savor. Because he was a fucking connoisseur, had a Master's degree in English Literature and also How to Be a Mysterious Dickhead, and that meant it was an art form for him.

"I mean," the man continued, rather bravely really, considering that Kakashi's blank face was the stuff of legends, and that's what he was looking at now. "You pretend like you don't care. Like being a teacher is…offensive to you? But then your test scores. Are off the charts."

"Hmmm," Kakashi hummed non-committedly, and turned his attention back to grading.

Sakura had answered her questions neatly, thoroughly, and with the ease of someone who understood exactly what a teacher was looking for in textbook answers.

Sasuke had answered his questions in a way that managed to communicate both I am an actual genius and But also, fuck you and your quizzes, Kakashi-Sensei. It was actually rather impressive. Kakashi's heart was positively swollen with pride.

Naruto had answered exactly half of his questions correctly, before apparently becoming bored with the entire institution of education. The bottom half of his paper was decorated instead with an extremely detailed picture of a cat, and the words Boom. Kittyface. Scribbled into the margins.

Kakashi fucking loved that child.

He gave Sakura the 'A' she deserved, because she'd probably actually try to kill him if he didn't. He gave Sasuke a 'B', because watching annoyance and borderline murderous rage darken his face made Kakashi's day considerably brighter. And on top of Naruto's paper, he scribbled a bright, red '100%' and after a moment of serious thought, added the words 'You're a fucking moron' underneath, using a cheerful smiley face as his ending punctuation.

"Aren't…aren't you going to grade the rest of them, Kakashi-Sensei?" the math teacher asked, a bit desperately now, because he so clearly didn't understand why Kakashi was opening his orange book, when he'd only graded three papers.

"Meh. These three are my favorites. The rest of them suck, and shall receive no feedback from me."

The math teacher staggered a little.

"I…you…wow, that's against all kinds of rules."

Kakashi gave him a one-eyed smile. The kind that communicated, 'How fucking cute are you, that you think I care, come here and let me snuggle you with my scorn and bad habits'. The math teacher began to look just a little bit desperate.

"Kakashi-sensei!" sang out a new voice. "Light of my life, bane of my existence, I need to swaddle myself in your presence!"

"Holy shit," the math teacher added, spooked, and then escaped out the door by ducking around the new body.

"And I'll never see him again," Kakashi concluded happily.

Hiro, the science teacher from Kakashi's grade, and also Kakashi's closest friend/confidante/future hospital bed buddy when their livers finally surrendered this bullshit battle against their totally righteous alcohol consumption, grinned wide and bright and a little maniacal and boosted himself up to sit cross-legged on Kakashi's desk.

"I thought we agreed not to frighten the fluffy duckling-type teachers," he pointed out. "Because they so obviously can't handle the sheer weight of our awesome."

"I am innocent. I am blameless. He initiated contact, and I am never responsible for what comes out of my mouth."

"Accurate," Hiro said with a seasoned nod. He pulled Naruto's assignment out from underneath his leg, and studied it. "I love this child. Love him. He lit a whole set of beakers on fire during our last class experiment."

"That…completely defies the laws of physics."

"I know," Hiro said, and grinned at Naruto's cat picture like it was his first-born child. "He's going places. I mean, potentially to juvie or maybe the bottom of a muddy river. But still. Places."

"This right here? Is why our fearless leader has an ulcer. Another one. Multiple ulcers caused by us."

"He loves us," Hiro agreed cheerfully. "He just expresses it by growing holes in his stomach lining."

"Hiro. I…you remind me. Of someone."

Hiro tilted his head a little, mouth caught in his ever-present grin, looking ready to cause trouble, always.

"Yeah? Who's that?"

"I don't know."

"Okay. Well, while you're pondering that, want to go and rearrange the principal's office, and then act like it always looked that way, no really sir, I don't understand what the problem is?"

"Yeah." Kakashi shook his head, shook away the puzzling sensation of seeing a different person under someone's skin, the curious sound of falling rocks, where was that coming from? "Yeah, let's do that."

"Awesome." Hiro put down Naruto's assignment gingerly, like it was made of precious gemstones. "I'm thinking desk upside down and in the corner?"

"Yeah," Kakashi said, and shook himself a little harder, cleared the lingering cobwebs away, committed himself to this endeavor. "And his rolling chair on top."

….

After school detention was just the best. Best thing ever. Better even than the time he and Hiro had woken up after a night of many adult beverages in their boxers, covered in glitter and something that looked like baking soda, with the entire contents of Hiro's lab and the neighbor's cat inside the living room.

They still weren't one hundred percent clear on what exactly had gone down that night, but obviously it had been awesome, and mutually agreed upon that it was actually even better for the uncertainty.

But, this. This. Sasuke dragged himself in after the final bell like there was a firing squad awaiting him inside Kakashi's classroom. Naruto fell through the doors five minutes later, face-first and clutching armfuls of various snack bags. Sakura followed directly behind him, satisfied smile on her face suggesting that she had been the one to help Naruto enter the room.

"I don't think we're supposed to have food," Sasuke said, just a little bit desperately, and seriously, how was he even still fighting this? "This is detention. Aren't we supposed to just…sit? Silently?"

"Kakashi-Sensei doesn't care," Naruto said, bounding to his feet and arranging the snack bags in an intricate pyramid. "Right, Kakashi-Sensei?"

"Oh, are you still here?"

"See!" Naruto beamed, a smile so bright it bordered on blinding. "Sasuke. We have so much time. To talk. To bond." Naruto stepped forward, face completely serious. "Sing me the songs of your people."

"I hate," Sasuke informed the inside of his elbow, mouth muffled by his sleeve.

"Hate what, Sasuke?" Sakura asked, settling herself comfortably on the sill beneath the window.

"Everything."

The next hour passed in a whirlwind of cheese crackers, Naruto's howling laughter every time Sasuke attempted to death-threat him into submission, Sakura smiling soft and sweet and then egging Naruto on in a voice like spun sugar. If Kakashi were a little less cool, he would have started snapping pictures seven minutes in. He could have labeled the photos a collection, and called it "The Progression of Sasuke's Baby Panda Pain". Could have included a couple of shots of Naruto attempting to stick pretzel sticks in Sasuke's ears as he fought desperately to maintain stony silence, of Naruto attempting to demonstrate exactly how he would have won that fight between the two of them by performing increasingly bizarre and borderline pornographic acrobatics while Sasuke and Sakura looked on in bewildered horror, of Sakura suggesting so nice and gentle that Sasuke's hair might be long enough to braid, of Naruto actually attempting to braid it.

Kakashi wasn't even embarrassed to admit that he was using his orange book to mask legitimate tears of laughter by the end of the hour.

Sasuke ran from the room like a scalded cat as soon as Kakashi waved them away (he didn't speak, because he didn't trust himself not to giggle things at Sasuke that would probably get him sued), but they'd all seen his grin, towards the end, when he'd elbowed Naruto to floor (because Naruto had been descending upon Sasuke's hair with a gleam in his eyes and a truly terrifying level of concentration). And so it was understandable that Naruto's, "Night, Crazy Teacher" was filled with a soft sort of contentment.

There was one little mouse left standing in the inevitable vortex of absent sound that accompanied Naruto's departure. Kakashi wasn't even surprised, not really at all.

"Sakura, shouldn't you be scampering on home before Naruto decides that the three blocks to your house are an unacceptable sexual harassment risk and comes back to escort you?"

"Kakashi-sensei."

He waited. Because he knew she wasn't done.

"Kakashi-sensei. Please. Don't."

"I'm sure I don't know what you mean, Sakura."

"Please. Just…please. Okay?"

Kakashi didn't answer. After a while, Sakura walked out the door.

….

The next day, Naruto brought board games. He and Sasuke fought ferociously across the chosen battlefield, slinging insults and denouncing entire family ancestries, while Sakura quietly dominated them both in the background, and Kakashi pinched his game piece between his fingers and never actually allowed it to touch the board.

"What the fuck, Kakashi-sensei," Naruto said fondly, after Kakashi ducked out on rolling the dice again by claiming an allergic reaction to numbers represented by dots.

Kakashi just gifted him with a sleepy eye-smile and kept all of his attention fixed on a different student.

Sasuke's face had been growing darker and darker as the game progressed, sleep-bruised eyes fluttering to the walls around him, shoulders twisting tight and restless. Maybe from getting his ass kicked so badly, but probably from something else, and Kakashi wasn't even surprised when he hissed out a frustrated, "Fuck this," and pushed back from the table they'd been playing at.

Naruto was up and on him instantly, hands cupping Sasuke's elbows and arms, because Naruto would never be okay with Sasuke leaving. Sakura watched with quiet eyes, her game piece curled against her palm, waiting and watching instead of immediate action.

"Let go," Sasuke said, and Naruto made a soft sound of discontent, because he hated it when Sasuke's voice went empty like that. "Just…Idiot…Kakashi-sensei, I'll come make up my detention another time, okay? I can't…I need to go."

Sakura stayed silent, but Kakashi watched her open palms curl into fists and knew that she would give exactly zero fucks about throwing punches to keep Sasuke stationary.

"Kakashi-sensei," Sasuke said again, and he didn't say please, but they could all hear it trembling on the air.

"Don't go," Naruto said. "C'mon Bastard. Stay."

"Get off," Sasuke hissed, and shoved an elbow into Naruto's stomach. Naruto chose to see the action as an invitation and inched even closer to Sasuke's back. "Why do you even…why do you care, you don't even know me, not really, get the hell off you idiot."

"Meh," Naruto said, and Sasuke's tightened fists meant that he'd accurately interpreted the sound as 'Doesn't matter, you're so totally ours anyway, suck it up and sit your ass down, just try and mosey out that door, I will bite your ankle and everything'.

Mouth thinned to a tight line, grey eyes dark and desperate, Sasuke looked to Kakashi once again. For a moment, everyone just breathed, still and silent.

And then Kakashi smiled and said, "No redos, student-mine! Looks like you'll have to tough it out with your friends."

Sasuke's shoulders slumped, dark eyes bruised with exhaustion and something like relief, and Kakashi thought to himself that maybe this was always what Sasuke had needed to hear.

You're not leaving. We're not letting you.

And then Naruto laughed and punched Sasuke's shoulder, and Sakura added some comment about the fact that the boys weren't allowed to rage-quit the game just because they were getting their asses kicked, and Kakashi was able to settle back to watching them, watching out for them, as he always did.

His mouth stayed dry, so dry, and his heart continued to beat hard and fast beneath his jacket though, even after the kids had finished their game and gone home, sleepily content and strangely satisfied.

"Kid is made of bitch-fits," Hiro commented later, over chicken fingers and beer. "Like, ninety percent of his DNA. Dedicated to bitch-fits."

"So you don't think I should have let him leave? Make up detention by his solitary little self?"

Hiro hummed thoughtfully and sucked salt off of his fingertips.

"Nah," he said. "Sad panda needs some friends. And him being the way he is, he needs friends who will ninja-love him into submission." Hiro smiled and tipped his beer in Kakashi's direction. "Everyone needs friends. Even if they don't want them. Right?"

Kakashi smiled back. It felt like razorblades against his cheeks.

"I miss you," he said.

Hiro laughed, eyebrows barely curved in confusion.

"Aww, thanks snuggle-bunches. Good thing I'm right here then, isn't it?"

"Yeah." Kakashi brought his beer to his face, swallowed hard. "Yeah. Good thing."

…

On the third day, Naruto brought a bag of homemade treats, with notes written by his mom taped to the containers.

"She said that I need to get over my angst boner," Sasuke said with something like real anguish in his voice. "And she signed it with a lipstick kiss."

"She told me that I need to use my boner," Sakura said, and Kakashi feared the way she sounded so approving. "On Naruto."

Naruto just grinned and grinned and helped himself to some homemade banana bread.

Kakashi had a note as well. On cheerful pink paper, it said the following:

Hi Kakashi-Sensei!

Don't give Naruto your porn. Not because I care if he looks at porn or not, but it's a special joy for me to give him MY porn and watch him traumatize himself thinking about where it came from.

XOXOXOXO!

Kushina

Kakashi grinned so hard beneath his mask that he feared his face might break. Especially since, underneath Kushina's note, a different handwriting added:

Sorry about the XOXOXO. I already told her that a threesome was out, no matter what a 'sexy scarecrow-thing' you are.

Minato

Sasuke sat at his desk with his head buried in his arms.

"Your mom makes me sad inside," he said flatly, but the corners of his mouth were twitching in a smile as he stared at his plate full of stuffed tomatoes that Naruto's mom had stuck Sasuke's note to.

"That's her way," Naruto said wisely, with a nod. "Don't worry. Soon you'll start to interpret it as love."

"Really," Sakura said, eyes dancing but also darting in Sasuke's direction.

"Dad calls it Stockholm Syndrome Parenting!" Naruto chirped brightly.

Kakashi reached out and gave Sakura's back a gentle poke, disguising it as an accidental bump as he reached for the bag of cookies.

"What's wrong, Sasuke?" she asked, giving Kakashi a short glare that told him she hadn't needed his prompting.

Sasuke looked over, fingers freezing from where he'd been trying to ninja a tomato out of the bag while simultaneously maintaining his apparent belief that the entire institution of food was beneath his notice.

"Nothing," he said, with a frown.

"Your eyes look like someone punched them out," Naruto added helpfully, spraying crumbs all over the desk. "And I know it wasn't me this time."

Sasuke's frown deepened, but he also flushed a little.

"Just…whatever," he said. "Haven't been sleeping well. It's nothing."

"Nightmares?" Sakura asked.

Sasuke shot Sakura a glare that might have sent her crying, once upon a time. But now, she simply raised her eyebrow back at him, and Sasuke huffed, before turning his head away.

"Nothing," he repeated, firm but still gentler that he could have been.

Sakura nodded, face tense. Sasuke retreated to the corner, tomato clutched gently between his fingers. He didn't say anything for a long while, but he let Naruto poke at his ears all of three times before punching him in the face, so Kakashi figured he was okay for the moment.

….

After detention, once again.

"Sakura! Two special visits in one week. I'm touched, humbled, ready to burst into manly tears of joy-"

"Kakashi-sensei."

"Sakura."

"Please."

"You know this isn't up to me."

…

Sasuke fell asleep in Kakashi's class the next day. Kakashi left him to it, and shooed Naruto and Sakura out the door after the bell, dismissing Sakura's wordless worry and Naruto's babbles of, "Bah, Kakashi-sensei, he's my soft and sleepy bestie. Let me snuggle him."

He spent almost half of his planning period reading with the door firmly locked while Sasuke made soft, helpless sounds against his desk.

When Sasuke finally sat up, hair disheveled and eyes wide and strangely lost, he stared around at the empty room silently for a moment before locking his eyes on Kakashi.

Kakashi didn't say what he wanted to say. Sasuke didn't say anything at all.

What Kakashi said instead was, "Look at your sleep cheeks. All adorable and shit. Let me pinch them."

And it had made things a little more normal, a little more balanced, as Sasuke made his scandalized escape out the door.

That afternoon, in detention, Sakura had enough sense not to ask, and Kakashi hit Naruto in the face with a chalkboard eraser before he could ask, so they were okay.

But it didn't take away the slump of Sasuke's shoulders, or the way he stared at the walls around them like he was expecting them to disappear.

….

The last day of detention was awful. Really, really awful, because Naruto dragged himself in late, with an exhausted smile that seemed so, so wrong on his perpetually happy face.

"Naruto," Sakura said immediately, worry evident in her voice.

"Hey guys," he said. "Sorry I was late, Crazy Teacher."

Sasuke frowned and said, "You look like shit, idiot," in a way that almost managed to mask the concern underneath it.

"Yeah," Naruto scrubbed at his eyes with a tiny frown. "Yeah, just…bad dreams last night, I guess."

"Bad dreams," Sasuke repeated, and Sakura refused to look at him.

"Do you want to lie down?" she asked Naruto instead.

"No," he said. "No, c'mon, last detention, right? Let's do something!"

They played a game of towering bricks, stacking pieces together and then pulling them out one by one, hoping that their fingers wouldn't make it fall. And it felt wrong, despite Naruto's perfectly normal shouts of, "Stop cheating, you angsty bastard!" and Sasuke's deadpan answers of, "How. How do you cheat at this game, you idiot?" and Naruto's outraged, "Stop willing the tower to fall when I'm touching it, using your inner manpain for evil is against the rules."

"Hey, Kakashi-sensei," Naruto said at one point. "You can play, you know. I don't think the tower will fall down just because you touched it. I mean, obviously you're going to suck at games because you're all old and shit, but still I think you can try, right?"

"Old and shit," Kakashi repeated, with real suffering in his voice. "You're such a comfort to me. Just for that, I'm going to tell your mom I'm totally down for that threesome."

Naruto squawked, but didn't even look surprised, mostly just resigned, and that made the burn of victory all the sweeter.

He reached out with careful fingers, keeping one hand firmly on his book. The tower wobbled, but it didn't fall. Kakashi breathed a sigh of relief, and wondered why he felt guilty for it.

Sakura poked at the tower next. Her fingers were quick and nimble as she pushed a brick free, and for a moment, Kakashi thought it would hold, despite the wobbling. But then it crumpled inward, exploding across the desk and spinning to the floor with a crash that seemed very loud in the sudden silence of the room.

"Oh," Sakura said, and she didn't look surprised, but really horribly sad instead.

Naruto and Sasuke began to bicker about who had weakened the tower more (only, was that the beginnings of a question in Sasuke's eyes, a spark of understanding, not yet fully formed or comprehended, that twisted Kakashi's guts like snakes).

Sakura met Kakashi's eyes across the fallen tower. Gently, protectively, she cupped her hands over the scattered pieces, and the heartbreak in her eyes made his throat tight, his eyes stomach burn.

Kakashi put his book back over his face. But it wasn't tears of laughter he was hiding this time around.

...

A/N: Um. Welcome to the emotional roller coaster, where both angst and humor are bred like bunnies? Next Chapter: Sakura's POV, representing the feminine up in this bitch. Stay tuned and Happy Reading!

A/N: Um. So. This chapter. Longer than the others, which is a plus. But also, mad darker? Because that plot that I've been promising (the BIG MOMENT that sparked the creation of this entire story) finally gets its big, diva-like reveal. Big shoutout to those of you who tagged it in advance (like...a disturbing amount of you...stop...stop reading my brain). This chapter is how I want Sakura to be as a character, how I've always interpreted her. The one who keeps the lighthouse. The story does not end with her, though, and I promise that the humor you guys seem to be enjoying (your compliments and quoted lines are the BEST THING EVER) will always be the focus of this story. So, put up with my angst-coaster for one chapter, yeah?

Hugs and kisses to you all!

I do not own Naruto, and am making no money from this story.

Chapter Four

Reload

Sakura

She was not a horrible person. She wanted everyone aware of that.

She was practical. Always, infinitely practical. Naruto, bless his baby kitten soul, was a blunt instrument at the best of times. Kakashi was a master strategist, but couldn't muster any fucks to actually use his brilliance. And Sasuke might have had the genius brain, but she was the one who had enough actual patience and perseverance to use her smarts.

So, when Naruto bounced his way up to her desk on Monday morning, eyes bruised dark enough to make her stomach seize, Sakura forced her smile a little brighter, a little bit wider.

"Sit down before you fall over, idiot," she offered as a greeting. "You look like ten kinds of crap."

"My heart is whispering filthy, dirty things in your direction," Naruto assured her, and slumped into his seat.

"Nightmares again?" Sakura asked, and stuck her trembling hands beneath her desk.

She would ride this out.

"Weird ones," Naruto confirmed. "My hands went through my mom's back when I tried to hug her. Like a ghost."

"Did you tell her? What'd she say?"

"She smacked me upside the head. Told me, "We snuggled you plenty when you were a baby, knock it off with the goddamn tiny violin". Then she hugged me, and made sure I could feel it."

Sakura laughed.

"I really want to meet your mom," she said.

Naruto grinned at her, and dropped his chin down on the desk.

"Sasuke says you're not allowed," he reminded her. "I think he, like, fears the apocalypse or some shit."

"I have so many reasons," Sasuke said, as he dropped down into the seat on Sakura's other side. "So many reasons for wanting that not to happen, Idiot."

"Sakura, look! It's not even lunchtime, and Sasuke is using his words already!"

Sasuke squinted one annoyed eyeball in Naruto's general direction.

"It is far, far too early in the morning for your special brand of stupid," he decided, and buried his head inside his arms.

"Aww," Naruto said. "Sasuke used all of his words already. All done."

"Your fault," Sakura said with a smile. "You brought it up. You spooked him."

"Like a nervous little panda baby!" Naruto sang triumphantly, and Sasuke snarled from inside the cavern of his elbows.

The classroom door clicked open, and Kakashi meandered in, hands shoved deep inside his pockets.

"Sensei," Naruto said blankly. "We have fifteen minutes until class starts. And then ten minutes until you're supposed to show up. Why…I can't…," he turned to Sakura. "I feel like I'm looking at a unicorn."

Even Sasuke was peeking over his arms, brow furrowed at the sight of their timely teacher.

"You're early, Sensei," Sakura said.

"Didn't want to sleep anymore," Kakashi-sensei said, and underneath his eye-smile, the dark shadows dragged all the way underneath his mask.

Underneath the desk, Sakura's hands tightened into fists.

She would ride this out.

Naruto blinked, and said, "Man, nightmares must be contagious or some shit."

But Sasuke eased up straight in his chair, and fixed too-smart eyes on their teacher.

"Nightmares," he said, voice flat.

Kakashi-sensei's eye smile curved even brighter.

"Strangest thing," he said, and there was a laugh in his voice, but wow, it wasn't funny at all.

Sasuke's eyes narrowed.

"Must be a boy thing," Sakura said, light and easy. "I've slept great."

Naruto snorted, Sasuke stared with those narrowed eyes, and Kakashi-sensei shook his head, like maybe he was disappointed.

This time, it was Sakura who had zero fucks to give.

She would ride this out.

…

"I know what you're doing," Sasuke said later, as they sat around the lunch table. Naruto was still in line, arguing with the lunch lady about the proper ways to cook ramen.

She thought a pork and soy base was preferable. Naruto insisted (loudly, always loudly) that miso was so much better. Naruto was now attempting to show her the wrongness of her ways with every fiber of his being.

Sakura tapped her fingers against the lunch tray.

"Do you?" she asked. "I mean, are you sure, Sasuke?"

"I'm sure," Sasuke said, and absolutely did not smile as Naruto pumped a fist in the air and howled his outrage to the world. "He's going to change her mind."

"Are you going to tell him?" Sakura asked, watching with soft eyes as the lunch lady shoved her nose against Naruto's and snarled.

"I don't know," Sasuke said. "I mean, he's never going to see it on his own. He never could."

"No," Sakura agreed, and smiled gently. The lunch lady was laughing now, and tapping her finger against Naruto's nose while Naruto grinned bright and wide. "He's good at other things."

"I understand," Sasuke said. "But Sakura, these nightmares. Are you really not having them?"

"I have them. I'm better at ignoring them, I think."

Sasuke sighed.

"We're totally having miso the next time they serve ramen," Naruto announced as he dropped into his seat. "That lunch lady loves me forever and ever."

"She tried to hit you with her ladle," Sakura pointed out. "We witnessed this."

"Meh," Naruto said and attacked his food.

Sasuke watched with mild revulsion as bits of food decorated the table around Naruto's tray.

"You're disgusting," Sasuke observed.

Naruto grinned around cheeks bulging with food.

"Are you going to hit me with a ladle too?" he asked, spraying even more food on the table as he spoke.

Sasuke rolled his eyes. Sakura laughed and started in on her own food.

….

Naruto invited Sakura over to study for Kakashi-sensei's English test ("Sakura, he winked at me when he gave the study guide. Winked. There is something horrible and awful on this test."). Sakura agreed, mostly because after everyone telling her that she couldn't meet Mama Uzumaki, she really kind of had to.

Sasuke overheard Naruto's plans, folded his arms to express his displeasure, and had a completely silent panic attack until Naruto laughed and invited him along as well. Kakashi caught them just before the final bell, gave Naruto a happy-eyed smile, and requested that he 'give my love to your mother, Naruto'.

They left school that day to the accompanying soundtrack of Naruto shrieking, "YOU ARE NOT ALLOWED TO OUT-PERVERT MY MOM, SENSEI."

"I'm sure Kakashi-sensei was just kidding, Naruto," Sakura said as they walked down the sun-soaked streets.

"He wasn't," Naruto said. "But seriously, he should stop trying. Mom always wins."

Sasuke didn't say much on the walk over, but he started to look more and more like someone marching towards a firing squad rather than strolling through suburbia.

"She can't be that bad," Sakura muttered as Naruto turned onto a neatly clipped lawn.

Bright yellow house. Small and cheerful-looking. Where was the bad here?

"You don't even know," Sasuke said back, and his voice sounded heavy and haunted.

"Home!" Naruto shouted, as they stepped through the door. "Hey, Womb of Awesome! Brought some people for you!"

"You did not," Sakura said flatly. "You did not just reference your mother's womb, I can't even Naruto, what the hell?"

"Her womb is totally awesome, though," Naruto said reassuringly. "I mean, it carted me around, right?"

"I hate you," Sasuke said earnestly. "So much."

There was the patter of soft feet on the floor, and then a pretty redheaded woman was stepping through the doorway. Sakura had half a second to think, Huh, she's pretty, what the hell was Sasuke going on about before Naruto's mom caught sight of the boy in question and pretty much KO'd every ear bud in the vicinity by howling, "Baby Panda! LET ME LOVE YOU!"

She lunged past Sakura and her own son in order to scoop Sasuke into a straight-backed hug. Sasuke made a noise that suggested he might have been experiencing severe internal suffering, Naruto leaned against the wall and laughed himself sick, and Sakura blinked at the speed with which things had occurred.

"Aww," Kushina said as she released a red-faced Sasuke. "Your manpain is just as adorable as I remember."

Sasuke shut his eyes like maybe he could wish himself somewhere else.

"Mom, this is Sakura," Naruto said, once he'd managed to transform his hysterical laughter into semi-hysterical snickers of, 'Ha, oh my God, his face' and 'best, best day of my life, just, best ever'.

"Future mother of my grand-babies," Kushina recognized with a nod, abandoning a scandalized Sasuke to clutch at Sakura's hands instead.

"Yet to be determined," Sakura said back, charmed and entertained and not even trying to hide it. "Way, way yet to be determined."

Kushina nodded.

"I understand," she said solemnly. "There has not been nearly enough pining up in this bitch for him to have won you yet."

"Did you just call me a bitch?" Naruto demanded over her shoulder. "I mean, normal, that's normal, but I just want to be sure."

"Here to study?" Kushina asked Sakura. Sakura nodded. "Okay." She touched Naruto's cheek. "Go. Learn. Let them pump up your brain. But no threesome sex, that shit is noisy, and I could get a migraine."

"Wow, Mom," Naruto said, while Sakura choked on her own laugh and Sasuke froze like a hunted animal.

"Kakashi-sensei sends his love," Sakura said, pausing on their way up the stairs, because why the hell not.

"OH MY GOD, SAKURA," Naruto's voice bellowed from the landing.

Sasuke didn't laugh, not loud enough to hear anyway, but Sakura could feel his smug satisfaction from all the way upstairs.

Kushina nodded, her smile small and normal.

"You'll do," she said. "Yeah, you will. Make him work his little blonde booty for it."

"STOP PLOTTING. I REGRET EVER SAYING YOUR WOMB WAS AWESOME."

…..

Sakura nodded off over their English textbooks. She hadn't meant to, but she really hadn't been sleeping well, and Naruto had been busy trying to cop a Sasuke snuggle.

("If you touch me again, I will bruise your kidneys."

"But Sasuke! Bro Code says it's perfectly acceptable for us to snuggle!")

In her dreams, Sakura didn't leave Naruto's house. Instead, she wandered her way downstairs, and into the kitchen, where Kushina was busy at the stove.

Sakura could see right through her. The stove, the clock, and Naruto sticking his tongue out in the family picture on the wall. All as clear as a bell, because Kushina was no more tangible than a ghost.

"This is going to be so much worse for him," Sakura whispered. "God. Really, really bad."

"Sakura?" Kushina said. "Oh, did the boys send you for snacks? Because he's my son, but I'll totally help you feed him your fist instead."

Kushina spun to face her.

Her face was gone. Missing. A blank slate of smooth, featureless skin.

Sakura didn't scream. But something, some sound, left her throat and she reeled back hard enough to hit the wall.

"Something wrong?" Kushina asked, and the sound was coming from her, but there was no mouth to make it.

Sakura felt the sharp sting of vomit claw the back of her throat.

"Sakura? Sweetheart? You're so pale. What's wrong?"

Sakura squeezed her eyes shut tight.

When she opened them again, she was staring at Naruto's worried face.

Oh. Guess she had screamed after all.

"Sakura?" Naruto said, and his voice was stretched and strained with fear. "Sakura, Sakura, please be okay."

On the bed, Sasuke watched with eyes gone wide and solemn.

"Do you need a pillow?" Naruto babbled on. "A bucket? A hug?"

"Wow, yeah, okay," said a new voice, and then Naruto was being shoved to the side. "I blame all of that on your father, seriously child. Sakura?" Kushina asked, eyes warm and concerned. "Are you all right? Want me to smack him? It might make you feel better."

In the background, Naruto squawked.

Sakura smiled, smiled so wide, like she couldn't still see through Kushina's skin.

"Fine," Sakura said, and stared at the wall behind Kushina's forehead. "Thanks. Just fine."

….

Sakura was waiting by the classroom window, early the next morning, before the boys arrived. She watched the sun creep silver over the horizon, and smiled to herself when she heard the classroom door creak open.

"This is a thing," she said into the softened air. "That you do, isn't it? You get here early, and then leave again. So you can be late on purpose."

"Actually, my animal totem told me to rise early today. So, nothing to do with what you said at all."

Sakura laughed.

"I call bullshit, Sensei."

Kakashi loped over, to lean against the wall at her side.

"You look terrible," Sakura said. "Really awful, Sensei."

Kakashi scrubbed a hand over the exposed bits of his skin, which showed pale cheeks and eyes bruised almost black.

"The sound of falling rocks," he said, with a small smile. "Apparently, not so conducive to my sleep patterns."

Sakura leaned her forehead against the slowly warming window panes.

"Your friend?" she asked. "Hiro-Sensei?"

"He reminds me of someone."

There was a long silence. Kakashi stayed quiet and at her side as cars began to roll across the parking lot, dropping the early bird students by the front doors.

They both watched as Sasuke's pretty, smiling mother stopped at the curb. As a small, sweet-looking girl fought her way through the car doors and launched herself into Sasuke's arms.

The little girl cupped his face, smile wide and bright. Sasuke gave her a well-practiced bounce. And then she tapped tiny fingers over his forehead, and Sasuke froze like she'd slapped him instead.

Sakura closed her eyes.

"When?" Kakashi asked.

"Today, I think. Depending on how Naruto looks when he comes in."

"All right. So, which are you hoping for, Sakura?"

"Sensei?"

Kakashi eye-smiled in her direction. Sakura was really starting to hate that smile.

"I mean, do you want him to look bad? Or are we still stretching out the finish line."

The door opened again, and Sasuke eased his way inside. He looked pale, exhausted, and a little like someone had taken a knife to his insides.

Sakura crinkled up her nose, and offered Kakashi a fake-smile of her own.

"Don't know what you mean, Sensei," she sang, and hopped off of the window ledge to greet Sasuke.

…

"You," Naruto bellowed, as he drop-kicked the door in. "You are hiding something from me!"

Bland faces were truly heroic when represented in triplicate unison.

Naruto gave exactly zero shits, and whipped an accusatory finger in his friends' direction.

"You have been hanging out without me!" he said. "Violating the Bonding Bro Code. Not cool, you guys."

"Aw," Kakashi said, like he found Naruto adorable, but also pretty tragically stupid.

"Of course you would think that," Sakura said sweetly. "Of course you would."

Sasuke looked too confused for a snarky comment.

"Sakura isn't a Bro," he pointed out.

"Sakura is totally a Bro, Sasuke, where the hell have you been?" Naruto demanded.

Sasuke flipped a wary look in Sakura's direction. She smiled at him, with all of her teeth.

"But back to the point," Naruto said. "Which is that you all suck forever, and need to include me in your secret club meetings. Before I, like, burst into manly tears and compose sonnets to the lost wonder of our beautiful Bro Bonds."

"Is that a thing?" Sasuke wondered aloud. "I mean, is that what we've been building?"

Kakashi didn't say anything, but he tapped the fist Naruto held out to him with solemn solidarity.

"Wow," Sakura said, with great affection.

"Listen, I know you guys are keeping something from me," Naruto said, still grinning through his suspicion. Because he trusted them that much. "Secret meetings, and your smiles are full of shit, come on guys, I may be dumb sometimes but I'm not stupid."

Kakashi said, "Hmmm," and got out his book, which Sakura took to mean he was actively not participating in this conversation. And Sasuke was staring at the floor, fists clenched, so Sakura figured it was all on her.

Again.

"How'd you sleep last night, Naruto?" she asked, nice and sweet.

He tilted his head at her.

"Like shit," he said. "Nightmares, again. But Sakura, what…"

"You're right, you know," she interrupted. "You're not stupid. I mean, you fail at recognizing them, still, and that is actually a little sad, Naruto, but you're not stupid."

Naruto's smile dimmed, disappeared. Watching it vanish felt like razor blades sliding across skin.

"Something's wrong," he said. "Something…something isn't right."

"None of it is right," Sasuke corrected softly. "You've always been the best at this, Sakura. At recognizing them, anyway. When did you know?"

"The first day. When I cracked yours and Naruto's skulls together after the fight." Sakura smiled, soft and warm. "Guess it triggered the familiar."

Kakashi made a soft sound, and Sakura knew he was remembering how she'd frozen. After smacking their heads together, how she'd paused. Evaluated. Readjusted.

"I don't get it," Naruto said, but he sounded shaky now. Unsure of his footing.

"Something," Sasuke said. "I…can't remember what it's called, that's part of it, I think. But something created this. All of this."

"It's not…"

"Real," Kakashi provided helpfully, never looking away from his book. "Not real." He paused. Considered. "Sorry."

"I…" Naruto blinked, a lot. "You're telling me my house, my parents, not real? Wow, fuck you guys, not funny at all."

"It's really not," Kakashi agreed equably, and turned the page.

"The nightmares," Sasuke said. "Things started clicking together once I started having them. It's all a little fuzzy still, but I take that my life is…not so pretty? Not so nice? In the other place, that is."

He was looking at her. So Sakura nodded.

"I don't…" Naruto shook his head. He looked lost, halfway destroyed. Torn between his desire for this to be real and his instinct to trust his friends. "My parents? If they're not real in my nightmares, does that mean…" Sakura watched him, green eyes calm but not unkind. Naruto laughed, a jagged sound that hurt the ears, and slapped his forehead with an open palm. "So, who do I have? In this other place."

"You have me," Sakura said. "You have me, and you have Kakashi-sensei. And you're important. Naruto, you're so important. People need you."

"You, and Kakashi-Sensei. But not…"Naruto said, furrowed his brow in Sasuke's direction.

"Not so pretty," Sasuke repeated softly. "Not so nice."

Sakura closed her eyes, because she could hear the waterfalls in his head, the waterfalls and the words and his hand through Naruto's chest.

"There were signs," Kakashi added. "You might not have noticed them, Naruto, but they were there. The nightmares, obviously, but other things. You beating Sasuke's face in every time he tried to leave, for example."

"Shit," Naruto said, and fisted his hands into his hair.

Into the silence that followed, a cell phone rang. The song was loud, and obnoxiously bright.

"It's my mom," Naruto said softly.

"Don't," Sasuke said, as Naruto's fingers ghosted at the pockets of his pants.

Naruto's eyes were wide, so wide and blue and haunted. He shook his head, once, and then pulled the cell phone from his pocket.

"Mom," he said, and spun around to face the wall.

Sakura couldn't hear the other side of the conversation, but Naruto's hoarse, heavy laughter was loud in the quiet room.

"Yes, Mom, I made it to school. What? What the hell, I do not wander…Oh, my God that was one time and there were factors, ramen-shaped factors, not my fault at all."

Naruto laughed again, and then froze. His shoulders went sharp and tight, and he sucked in a short breath.

"…What? No, yeah Mom, I'm fine. I have to go, if the teacher's see me on my phone, they'll take it, and I don't want you texting inappropriate things to the secretary again. No, I don't care how much she secretly adores you, she couldn't look me in the eyes for weeks, Mom. Ha. Yeah, I guess. Okay, I'll see you later." Naruto paused, then hung his head. "Hey…Mom? I love you. You and all your crazy, you know that right? No, I'm fine, I'm fine. Just…tell dad the same, yeah? Okay. Bye."

Naruto hung up the phone. Rested his forehead against the wall.

"Her voice kept cutting out," he said softly. "Echoing, kind of. Like it was coming from a long ways away."

Sasuke closed his eyes.

"I'm not sorry," Sakura said, because really, it was time she laid her cards on the table. "For not telling you sooner. I know this…is horrible, Naruto, and it's going to hurt you the worst. But I'm not sorry. I knew this wasn't real. But. I wanted this for us."

"You wanted…"Sasuke repeated incredulously.

"Not this," Sakura countered, and turned calm eyes on the face of his growing anger. "Not the nightmares, or the pain. But…Sasuke is here. And Kakashi-sensei, your friend, and your smiles aren't so broken. And Naruto, you're loved, you're so loved, and nobody here ever rejected you because of who you are."

Naruto spun around. His eyes were wide, so wide, like he didn't recognize her, like she was the ghost.

"I didn't tell you," she said. "Because we were happy. Because I thought it might last. And I didn't care what I was seeing, because Sasuke was smiling, and Naruto's mom kicked ass, and you weren't looking at us like replacements for something else, Sensei."

"You knew, though. You saw from the beginning. That it wasn't real."

"That's okay," Sakura said, and smiled at Kakashi. "Really, it was, Sensei, because I'm always on the outside aren't I, just a little bit?"

"Sakura."

"It's fine. Sasuke, it's fine. I know where I fit, and I'm still a part of this, I still belong, but never as much as the rest of you." She shrugged. "I mean, there's a reason why I have the least to lose when we go back."

Kakashi laughed. Like he was proud, and wasn't that strange?

"A lot of special eyes where we come from," he said. "But you're the one that sees things, I guess."

"Naruto's a hero," Sakura agreed. "And Sasuke, he has a mission. And Sensei, you don't actually give a fuck, you just want to be where your important people are. But I'm normal. I haven't lost a lot yet. And I didn't tell you at first because I thought you might run away from something potentially good."

"Practical, Sakura," Kakashi said.

She smiled.

Always. Infinitely.

"It's the power of her uterus," Naruto said, softly, and he was starting to adjust, because he really was a hero, but he was still holding his phone like a lifeline. "That's what my mom would say."

"Representing the feminine up in this bitch," Sakura agreed, and reached out to squeeze his hands, to take away his cell phone with gentle fingers.

"I won't…Sakura, will we remember?" Sasuke asked. "What happened here?"

"I don't know."

"I should know this," Sasuke said, and shook his head slowly. "I know I should. But it's unclear, still, for me. Sakura, will I remember? My parents, and my sister, and not being so angry?"

"I think so," Sakura said. "But Sasuke, I don't think it's going to matter. Not for you. Not once you remember everything."

"Probably," Sasuke said softly. "But still I…I think I want to remember."

Naruto stared at Sasuke like he was losing more than just his parents. Bright and blue and burning.

"You can say that here," he said, almost helplessly.

There was a soft knock on the door, a knock and a student asking, "Um, Kakashi-sensei? Are you, like, creeping in there or something? Because I can wait in the cafeteria."

"We should move this along," Kakashi suggested, with a happy-eyed smile at the classroom door.

Sakura nodded.

Because she was practical, and it didn't make sense to drag this out anymore.

Naruto furrowed his brow, and then marched over to stand at Sasuke's side. He grabbed on to Sasuke's arm, ignoring Sasuke's eye roll and Sakura's smile because of course, of course he would try.

Sakura took a moment to survey the room, to smile at the leftover treats and scattered game pieces from detention. And then she locked her hands together.

"Kai."

As the world fell away, creeping black and silence, Sakura could have sworn she felt Naruto's cell phone, buzzing away in her palm, playing his mother's song.

…...

She woke up on the ground. Sore and stiff like she'd taken a beating, with a splitting headache, and a stomach rolling like ocean waves.

She could feel the dirt beneath her arms, heavy and damp. It smelled like Fire Country. Like the familiar. Her knuckles were covered by black leather, and she could feel the sweat building behind her forehead protector.

Home.

She stayed absolutely still, focused on the pain splitting up and down her sides, and the memories crowding her head, the old (Fire Country, bruised and bloody knuckles, fighting soft and subtle) and the new (high schools, harmless skirts, sweet cotton candy smiles) bleeding together, trying to find a way to fit.

In the corner, she could hear Kakashi-sensei, vomiting quietly against the stone floor.

But then she saw. Sasuke, on his feet, even though Sakura could see the headache, the confusion and the hurting on his face. Of course he was up, for him the physical had always paled in the face of his flight instinct.

And there was Naruto. Trying to struggle to his feet, scrabbling at the stones with fingers already gone bloody. Trying to stand, and failing, but still. Trying.

And that, that made sense too.

"Sasuke," Naruto croaked, horrible and helpless and desperate. "Sasuke, please, don't…"

But Sasuke just shook his head. Once, twice, eyes wide and dark in his pale and sweat-soaked face. And then he was gone, vanishing out the entrance of whatever land formation they were tucked inside (cave, maybe?)

Sakura closed her eyes against Naruto's tear-thickened cussing, against the sound of Kakashi's miserable heaving against the stones. She closed her eyes, and tipped her head back, because she was unsurprised.

Unsurprised, and always, infinitely practical.

...

A/N: Next Chapter, back to Naruto's POV: How to the Play the Hero and Still Rage-Quit Existence. Stay tuned, and Happy Reading!

A/N: So, I really thought I had the timeline figured out. But then I read through this chapter, and found myself going 'Oh hey, look how much that DOESN'T FIT'. So just...pretend that this is one of the movies, okay? One of the ones that ejaculates all over canon? Itachi is dead, Sasuke is with Madara, and Naruto knows who his father is, but everything else is a little loopy. Just keep that in mind before you blast me with screams of, 'NOT CANON, NOT CANON, YOU SUCK FOREVER'.

Seriously, guys. I'm having so much fun with this. Thanks so much for continuing to read and making the crazy ride with me.

I do not own Naruto and am making no money off of this work.

Chapter Five

Trigger

"Ow. Hey, Sakura, ow!"

"Moron. Stop moving, you're already healed. Just let me fix the rest."

Sakura traced warm fingers across Naruto's ribs, easing the rest of the ache, and the feeling like maybe Naruto was going to spray his guts all over the walls of the cave, like Kakashi-sensei had done. Any other time, he'd totally be getting his leer on, what with Sakura's fingers all up and down his sides. But he felt….raw, maybe? Scraped up and beat down inside, where his hurts didn't heal as easily. His fox had fixed the physical wounds, the bleeding and the scrapes, but the nausea lingered like the total bitch that it was.

Sakura finished with his sides, and traced thoughtful fingers against Naruto's forehead. For maybe the first time ever, Naruto jerked away from her hands, back against the wall.

"Hey," Sakura said, startled. "Hey. I was just going to…don't you have a headache?"

He did, in fact. A total monster of an ache behind his eyes, like tiny fucking trolls tap-dancing against his skull.

"Just," he said. "Just, it's a little crowded in here right now. You know?"

Sakura's eyes gentled.

"The fox?" she asked.

Naruto shrugged. Because, yeah, the fox was back, swollen beneath his skin and taking up far too much fucking space, and whispering horrible dirty dark things through his skull. But that, that he was used to ignoring, to shoving it down until the fox's howls faded into background noise.

But his mother's voice.

What the shit, baby boy? Next time I need, like, a hug or a courtesy text before you skip out of my dimension. Grounded, so grounded, grounded forever and ever.

Yeah, he wasn't used to the memory of that, floating across his mind.

"Just leave it, Sakura. It'll go away eventually."

"It's been four days," Kakashi-sensei added, calm and cheerful and not at all sounding like a guy who'd just emptied his stomach lining across the rocks. "We've missed two check-ins."

"Which means Lady Tsunade will have sent a retrieval team," Sakura said, rocking back on her heels.

Naruto waved their concerns away with hands that went 'blah'.

"Yeah, great," he said. "Leave them a note, they can find it when they get here. We need to get our asses up and out and on the road already!"

"For what?" Kakashi asked, and his eye-smile was so fake it made Naruto want to punch it away.

"To go get Sasuke! We can't leave him alone with his boatloads of manpain, Sensei. It might ruin his perfect haircut, and then he won't be able to angst attractively anymore, and I'm pretty sure that'll like, trigger him into selling his body so he can feel loved, and Sensei, do you want to be responsible for that?"

"Naruto," Sakura said, and she sounded so, so tired.

"We have to go after him," he said. "We can't just…roll over and belly up now. He's so close; he hasn't been this close in a long time. He was here with us, Sakura, for days."

"Inside a genjutsu," Kakashi pointed out helpfully. "Where all the tragedies of his past had never happened."

"But did you see his face?" Naruto countered. "That wasn't normal Sasuke face. There was very little crazy-making, tragic-poetry spouting, 'Listen to the ballad of my angst, Naruto, it totally justifies the hand-wings and also my fist inside your chest' and that's pretty much his default expression these days, so anything else is a sign of improvement, true?"

Damn straight, baby boy. You slap on some make-up, put on those high heels, and fight for your man!

Naruto closed his eyes and took a second, because laughing in this situation would be so, so inappropriate. He knew that now. Granny Tsunade had dragged him into her office once and made the line very clear. With charts and visual aids and shit.

"He doesn't want us to follow him," Sakura said, and Naruto could see the reflection of that night, the night he'd left, filling up her eyes. "He never wants us to follow him."

Naruto furrowed his brow, honestly confused.

"And that's…stopped us before?"

Sakura laughed (it was kind of horrible, all soft and exhausted) and dropped her forehead against her hand.

"We have a mission," Kakashi pointed out. "Remember? That thing from the Hokage that we are now late for?"

"Recon in Earth Country," Sakura murmured against her palm.

"Sensei," Naruto said earnestly, blue eyes wide and innocent. "Sensei, lean close, and let me tell you how many fucks I give about a mission when Sasuke's idiot-ass is frolicking just outside the door somewhere."

"Frolicking," Kakashi-sensei repeated, voice flat like one of Naruto's frogs had squashed it.

"Frolicking," Naruto said, with relish. "You know he would. With the hair. And the slut shirts. With the neck cleavage."

"Wow," Kakashi said, and shut his eyes, probably in self-defense.

Look at you, annoying people into defensive comas. My pride is legendary.

"Naruto, going off mission is like going rogue," Sakura said. "It could be seen as treason, against the Leaf Village."

"Bah," Naruto said, and waved his hands again. "Granny Tsunade loves me."

"She threw her sake bottle at you, the last time we were in her office. You were annoying her, and she just. Threw the bottle. It dented the wall behind your head."

"It's a special, aggressive love," Naruto said proudly. "And she's not…yeah. She's not going to punish me for going after a teammate. Not her."

Silence.

And then Sakura lifted her head, and offered him a smile. A much nicer one this time.

"I should have guessed," she said. "Nothing stops you. Not for long."

This time, Naruto muscled up the leer.

"That's right, I can go forever and ever, Sakura."

She punched him in the head.

"And what about the mission, Sakura?" Kakashi asked, while Naruto lay on the cave floor and counted the stars suddenly sparkling above his skull. "Are you saying we should abandon it?"

"No, Kakashi-sensei. Naruto's right; leave a note for the retrieval team. They can pick up where we left off. We have to go after Sasuke."

Get up, Naruto. Because your boy has no business angsting his way through anywhere without his teammates.

"Too many people talking," Naruto decided, sitting up with his fingers tight against his head, because it really did feel over-crowded, too full and throbbing with it. "Too much talking, we need to stop dicking around, and get going after our bastard. Kakashi-sensei, Sakura and I will come back for you if you want to wait here. But we need to go."

Kakashi eye-smiled at him, and it looked a little more normal this time.

"Oh, I was always going to go," he said. "He's our bastard, like you said."

Naruto huffed out a helpless laugh. Because of course he would play the devil's advocate just for kicks.

"You're such a dick, Sensei," he said affectionately, and then dragged himself to his feet.

…

The thing was, Sakura said that he was fine. She smiled at him with her tired eyes, like he was a rock that she could always lean against, because he wouldn't budge an inch. And that was true, he'd always subscribed to the idea that something would fall the fuck down, if you threw yourself at it long enough.

But. That didn't mean that he didn't struggle. And listening to the sound of his mother's voice? Aching in whole new ways because he'd never had that before? A whole new level of suck that he was not yet accustomed to.

"You're distracted," Kakashi said, as Sakura traced letters into the cave wall for the retrieval team to find.

"Always," Naruto agreed. "By everything. Birds, bugs, big bowls of ramen…"

"I can still hear him, too. Hiro-sensei. He's laughing, and telling me to find the alcohol."

Naruto crumpled, shoulders curving inward.

"D'you think…they'll go away?"

"Do you want them to?" Kakashi asked.

"I…shit. Yeah, I don't know," Naruto said.

"They're not real, Naruto. You need to remember that."

"They were though," Naruto said, as softly as his voice ever got. "Once, they were real. Hiro-sensei, he was…your old teammate, right?"

"An almost exact copy, yes."

Naruto scrubbed at his eyes.

"That's all I've ever," he said. "I mean, that's the most I've ever had. Of my parents."

We're here. Naruto, we love you.

Kakashi laughed. It wasn't a happy sound.

"You've always been terrible at genjutsu," he said, with great affection. "It's not an always kind of thing, but some ninja, skilled genjutsu casters, they can create a sort of after-image. An echo. It's meant to act as a distraction. To keep the victim occupied by what they were experiencing inside the illusion."

"Who…I mean, Sasuke's bastard brother is dead, right? Sasuke killed him. So who's strong enough to pull that kind of genjutsu on us?"

Kakashi furrowed his brow at him.

"Do you not remember who we were fighting?"

"Um. Sasuke-bastard?"

"Seriously."

"Sensei," Naruto said, and damn straight it was a whine. A manly whine. "My head is full. And it feels all fuzzy."

"He was there," Kakashi said. "You picked up on Sasuke's chakra signals on our way to Earth Country and took off like the great big moron you are sometimes."

"Boom," Sakura added from over by the wall. "You were gone. One track mind, Naruto, really."

"Whatever, you love me. Then what happened, Sensei?"

Kakashi sighed and leaned against the wall.

"We followed him to the cave. You drop-kicked your way inside, started screeching your usual beat about friendship and bonds and brotherhood…"

"I think you actually tried to flash-back him into submission," Sakura inputted. "It was inspiring."

"And Sasuke looked about ready to use your face for Chidori practice. But right when you boys started to rumble, Sasuke's new keeper showed up. Didn't seem to like the idea of us talking to his newest team member."

"He had the coat on," Naruto said slowly. "Sasuke. The one with the clouds. And so did…"

"Madara. Remember? His name is Madara Uchiha."

"Right. Okay. So, I'm starting to think that being a total dick-bag is like, an Uchiha family trait. Seriously."

"My question is," Sakura said, standing from her crouch and brushing off her palms. "Why would he leave Sasuke here? Inside the genjutsu, with us? Why didn't he break it and take him along?"

Kakashi shrugged.

"To remind him of what he had, maybe?" he said. "Fuel his anger? I mean, his murdered family and Itachi. Those have always been Sasuke's triggers."

"Yeah, I don't really care why he left Sasuke with us," Naruto blurted, bouncing impatiently on his toes. "He's old, right? So probably crazy, whatever. All that matters is that Sasuke is out there, right now, and he can't have gotten very far because he doesn't have a Sakura to heal him."

"He would have had a Sakura to heal him," Kakashi pointed out fairly. "If he would have parked his ass like the rest of us."

"Would is such a strong word," Sakura muttered to the wall. "He might have had a Sakura to heal him. He also might have had a Sakura to punch his face in. Fifty fifty."

Please. Please make babies with her.

Naruto pressed his hands over his eyes.

"Not real," Kakashi reminded him, not unkindly. "And you need to keep it together. Because if we're hearing things, then that means that Sasuke is too. And how do you think he's going to react to the voice of his dead mother inside his mind? Or that sweet little sister that he never got to meet?"

"Oh. Oh, shit. The crazy…it must be everywhere. Hey Sakura, how's that wall coming?"

"Done," Sakura said. "Kakashi-sensei, your turn."

As Kakashi began to weave the seals that would reveal their letter only to Leaf ninja who knew what they were looking for, Sakura came to stand by Naruto's side.

"Sasuke's hearing voices," Naruto announced.

"Oh, again?"

"Yeah, I know." Naruto paused for a moment. "Hey Sakura? Who are you hearing? What voice did you bring with you?"

"I didn't bring a voice with me, Naruto. My mind is quiet."

"What? Mah, Sakura, no fair! How come you don't have a voice?"

Sakura shrugged. Her green eyes were sharp like glass.

"I knew it wasn't real, almost from the beginning," she reminded him. "Made it hard to get attached. All of the people I cared about I carried through the genjutsu with me."

And Naruto closed his eyes, because suddenly Sakura's voice was crowding in alongside his mother's, hurting and somehow swollen.

That's okay. Really, it was, Sensei, because I'm always on the outside aren't I, just a little bit?

….

They didn't stop to sleep that night. Because Sasuke sure as shit wasn't sleeping, was actually probably busy spreading his crazy already, and they had to catch up if they wanted to contain it. And it was good, because the bite of tree bark beneath Naruto's hands and feet made him feel like he was going somewhere, like he was working toward something.

But running didn't leave much room for talking, which meant there was nothing to distract Naruto from the chatter inside his skull.

Look at you, all athletic and shit. Remember that time in fifth grade when you tripped over your own shoelaces and face-planted right into your teacher's cleavage at your Elementary graduation? Just. Moments like those. The reason you were worth fifteen hours of labor.

Naruto squeezed his eyes shut. Because he did remember it. Remembered falling back out of his teacher's rather ample chest to the sound of his mother bruising her own kidneys with laughter, and snapping pictures like a madwoman through eyes that streamed with mirth, while his father face-palmed in the background. His mom had hung a copy on the fridge, in a hand-made frame that read 'Baby's First Fuck-Up' and had refused to let Naruto take it down

The memory felt…shimmery. Thin and shiny and slippery like that dress that Sakura had worn that one time. But it felt real, too, layered over his memories of ninja training and lonely apartments like frosting between cake pieces.

A distraction, Kakashi-Sensei had said. Something meant to throw him off his game. He should ignore it, shove it down deep like he did with the fox.

But if he focused, like really went squinty-eyed and shit, he could still smell his mother's perfume. Sharp and clean and sweet like oranges. And he could pretend it was the wind ripping tears into his eyes all he wanted, but he was betting there was a reason Kakashi-Sensei was politely ignoring him.

He didn't want to wish his mother's voice away. Holding on to fake memories probably wasn't the healthiest of life decisions, true, but it was also all he was ever going to get of her. He knew things about his father, now that the secret had been spilled. Could find his father in the pages of history books, or the back of the Hokage's quarters where Granny Tsunade totally pretended she couldn't see him hiding sometimes. There were pictures he could trace, actual pieces of clothing he could touch, in order to feel close.

He had nothing of his mother, except for stories passed down second-hand.

I loved you there. I'm sure I did. Baby boy, how could I not?

Naruto wasn't ashamed of his tears, had never been ashamed of crying. He wasn't Sasuke, who viewed every visible emotion as some sort of invitation toward a kidney punch. He damn well had a right to cry over his mother's memory. She'd been a wish in the back of his head, a constant ache from the moment his mandatory caretaker had abandoned him at his first solo apartment, him six years old and her running out the door like she couldn't get away from him fast enough.

There had been a thunderstorm that night. A big bitch of a storm, with screaming wind and thunder that shook the roof. And he'd cried then too, because no one had come to comfort him, to shush away his fears. He'd clung to a pillow instead, a pillow that smelled stale and unfamiliar, and pretended it was arms around him.

I'd have clawed her eyes out. For serious. I'd have introduced her face to my fist for even thinking about leaving you alone.

He had that now, sure. People who were protective of him. Sakura bitch-slapped anyone who spoke about him badly because only she had that right, and Iruka had once gone rage-monster on a group of his students who had recoiled from him when he'd shown up to visit. Kakashi-Sensei had once kicked a Jounin's ass for referring to Naruto as 'that monster', and for all that Jiraya gave him a hard time, he sure as shit didn't tolerate anyone bad-mouthing his student.

But for years. For years and years, people had pushed Naruto away. Had crossed away from the streets he'd been walking on, and refused to sell him things in the market place. Had paled with fear at his presence, and pulled their children away from him at the playground. Like a six-year-old who couldn't even brush his hair properly was capable of some serious shit.

He had overcome it. Had pushed and shoved until people fell away, one by one. Had rebuilt his own reputation out of sweat and what Kakashi called 'a truly charming way of fucking with everyone's expectations'. He could smile now, and mean it, not like the bitter, broke things he used to offer instead. And he would overcome this, too. Would find a way to continue forward, even with the knowledge of what he could have had beating away inside his skull.

But knowing that? Didn't stop what he now recognized as anger snapping away inside his blood.

And the fox was purring beneath his skin, running his anger between its paws like a swatch of silk. And he could feel it, his nails sharpening into claws, his vision going bright and clear, which meant that his eyes were changing-

There's a tree branch in his face.

Naruto squawked and fell, with absolutely zero grace, out of the tree he'd just landed on.

"What the hell?" he snapped, because Kakashi-Sensei was already on the ground, leaning against the tree and looking way, way to innocent.

"Knock it off," Kakashi said pleasantly, with a happy-eyed smile that promised murder. "I could feel you angsting from four trees away. Sasuke-levels of angst."

Naruto gaped at him.

"I…fuck you!" he said. "I wasn't…I just…"

"Naruto," Sakura said, as she landed lightly beside him. "Naruto, we could see you changing. The fox taking control."

Naruto shook his head.

"It wasn't like that," he said. "He wasn't…coming out. I was just…"

"Throwing yourself a pity party?" Kakashi suggested, examining his fingernails like they were far more fascinating than his furious student.

"I'm angry," Naruto snapped. "It's allowed."

"Not for you. Not like that."

Naruto snarled. Sakura quickly stepped forward, shielding Kakashi from sight.

"You have to understand," she said. "We're not telling you that you can't be upset, Naruto. We're not. But you…you just need more control, that's all."

"So, what? I'm supposed to be okay with knowing now what a normal childhood would have felt like? What it would have meant to have two parents who loved me, instead of an entire village running away from my fucking face?"

"No. No, of course not. But Naruto, you've always been able to get above it before. Always been able to love the village, in spite of everything."

"I know that, Sakura. Doesn't mean that I'm a superhuman with zero bad feelings. I have to…I have to go through the bad to find the good."

"Okay," Sakura said, and she knelt down beside him. "Okay, that's good. That's actually more impressive, you have no idea. But Naruto…you can't. Let it control you. Not right now, not with the fox so close."

"I'm angry, Sakura," he said, softly this time, like it was a secret. "Because she's there."

"It's a distraction," Sakura said. "An echo, we already told you. It will fade."

"I know. That's why. Because it's the most I've ever had, and soon I won't have it anymore."

"So, so terrible at genjutsu," Kakashi said over Sakura's shoulder, but it was gentle now. "You had to know, Naruto. That someone would figure it out eventually. Family is a weakness for you. You think they didn't plan this, your frustration?"

"I know they did," Naruto said helplessly. "I know, but I still can't…"

"So don't be angry," Sakura said. "Be grateful that you had her at all. Go through the bad, like you said. Go through the anger, and find grateful instead. You had her voice, Naruto. If this hadn't happened, you might never have had even that. So find grateful."

She's right, baby boy. I'm here. I love you. That's what you always wanted, right? So, you heard it. Hold on to that echo. But put me away now.

"I…" and there were the tears again. Thank shit that this was his team, and they'd seen his tears before. "Okay, Sakura. Okay."

"Come on," Kakashi said, and he was closer now, dropping a warm hand on Naruto's shoulder. "We've got someone else to find."

You're not alone without me here, sweetheart. Not like before. So put me away.

Naruto laughed a little, scrubbed at his nose with his sleeve. He let Sakura tug him to his feet, and only wobbled a little bit.

"Yeah," he said. "Yeah, alright. Emo Bastard Retrieval, Part Two."

"This is not Part Two," Sakura said mournfully. "This is Part…I don't know, Forty-Seven or something. Because this is like one of those really horrible epics that is never going to end."

"Aw, there's that adorable optimism," Kakashi said, and then launched himself back into the higher branches.

Naruto followed.

And this time, he kept one echo for himself. Just one, tucked warm against his heart.

The rest, he pushed away. Gently, but still he pushed until his head was as quiet as the trees around them.

...

A/N: Because Naruto has issues like whoa, no matter how much they try to paint him as the Ninja Jesus. Next Chapter: Sasuke's POV, making with the Emo'Splosions. Kaboom.

A/N: THIS IS SO LATE, AND I AM SO SORRY! Seriously, I suck. Many apologies for my absence; life has been a crazy thing. But thank you for your patience, and your continued love. The response to this story has been more than I could ever have hoped for, and you guys continue to rock my socks right off my feet (my toes are cold).

Also, I feel bad that you guys send so many awesome reviews/ask so many great questions and that I never have the time to sit and go through all of them. So I set up a Tumblr account with an open ask box, which I think means we can talk to each other if you're so inclined? I'll be on there as much as I can, and knowing me, it will end up as a glory-shrine for the nerd-powers, so if that's your thing, feel free to wander over. I go by Strix4 there as well; the link is in my profile because FFNet ate it when I tried to put it here.

I do not own Naruto, and am making no money from this story.

Chapter Six

Rebound

Sasuke

He knew better than to think that running would make the voice inside his skull disappear. He wasn't an idiot, he wasn't Naruto. Genjutsu had been his family's talent, and he recognized an echo when he heard it.

But, Naruto had also once scrunched his eyes at him when they were twelve and said with great wonder, "Wow Sasuke, emotions make you crazy-baskets, huh?" and Sasuke would never, ever, ever admit it out loud, but he hadn't been wrong.

Brother? Why are you running?

Sasuke gritted his teeth, tried to push the voice away. But a sound still leaked from between his clenched jaw, something high-pitched and broken and unacceptable.

You're hurt. You're bleeding. You're scaring me, Brother, please stop.

He was hurt. Everything ached and screamed at him to stop running, to sit and rest. His bones felt broken, his skull felt thick and crowded, and his fingers and feet were clumsy. Sasuke was never clumsy, always in control. But he still tripped, got tangled, and it made the snarl of anger and confusion and pain even blacker inside his head.

"Not real," he panted, and hated that he had to remind himself. "Not real, not real."

That's mean. Mommy says I was real in both worlds. You just didn't know it there.

Sasuke stumbled, came to a stop. He rested his forehead against damp tree bark and forced himself to breathe, because it was a distraction, it had to be. He would have known if his mother had been pregnant before the massacre.

But then, would anyone have told him? If the pregnancy was new, and Sasuke had been eight and terrified and so terribly breakable after. And his mother, she'd used to cup his face in her hands and laugh and say that she loved her boys but she liked pretty dresses too.

Itachi would have known, Sasuke thought, and fought down the bile at the back of his throat through sheer force of will. He couldn't ask Itachi, would never know the answer now. Itachi was dead, Sasuke had killed him, and he had to keep going now because he was one-hundred percent sure that there was a blonde idiot chasing him through the trees.

Sasuke rubbed his face against the tree trunk, and it felt like fingers against his forehead. And for a second, just a second, he couldn't tell if the imaginary fingers were Itachi's, or something smaller and so much more fragile.

I wish I could meet him. Bigger Brother. He would have loved me too.

Sasuke gagged, and emptied his stomach over the side of the tree. He'd been fighting it since the cave, since he woke up with new memories; memories that made his actual life seem like a nightmare world, and Misami's voice inside his head.

He retched and retched and slumped against the tree, the bark biting into his skin. It hadn't been smart, maybe, to leave before Sakura healed him. He was pretty sure he could have talked her into it, preyed on recently rekindled affection. Sakura had always buckled under his attention.

But, then. Her eyes inside the genjutsu had been flat and green and calm. Her voice, as she'd refused to apologize, had been firm. A fresh wave of discomfort and confusion rolled his stomach as Sasuke admitted that he'd recognized very little of the Sakura he'd known in the Sakura he'd seen inside the genjutsu.

To his left, still a good distance into the trees, Sasuke heard a loud crash, and Naruto's voice bellowing through the leaves.

"I DON'T HAVE TIME FOR YOUR SHIT, SASUKE!"

"How are you a fucking ninja?" Sasuke rasped to his tree branch, because the question really needed to be asked.

He rocked himself back to his feet. It took time, far too much time. He made it a mile, maybe two, further into the trees before his body failed him once again. His knees and elbows cracked against the trunk, and the taste of blood filled his mouth.

But I like him, Sasuke. The loud one. He has hair like sunshine. Let him help you?

"Stop."

Once upon a time, shoving the echo away would have been easy. Twelve year old Sasuke wouldn't have had time for it, would have severed it clean and simple and merciless. But sixteen year old Sasuke was alone and without his brother. And the echo was filling his head with soft voices and the smell of his mother's perfume and it was so hard to fight against that much want.

Pain lanced through his head like his katana, and Sasuke felt himself fall, losing his grip on the tree. The impact with the ground beneath him jarred his already aching bones, forced a small sound from between his teeth. His arm snapped underneath the weight of his body, went limp and useless.

His vision went fuzzy and out of focus. He was pretty sure he'd be throwing up again if his stomach wasn't empty. But he gritted his teeth and tried to drag himself out of the clearing he'd landed in with his one good arm. And it was hard, it was so hard, because there was still a part of his head (a part that sounded like Misami) that recognized the approaching noise as friend and didn't understand why he had to get away.

"Yeah, okay, this is where I have an actual problem," Naruto announced, crashing next to him on the forest floor. "Literal crawling to get away from us, what the fuck Sasuke, we were never that bad."

"Go away," Sasuke hissed, and then winced and snapped, "Shut up," because Misami was crying, she was crying so soft and sad. "Stop, I'm sorry, please stop."

"Wow," Naruto said, and knelt down by Sasuke's side. "Just what we expected, then. SAKURA! KAKASHI-SENSEI! HURRY UP, SASUKE'S GETTING HIS CRAZY EVERYWHERE!"

"I hate you."

"Nope!" Naruto said cheerfully. "I totally reject that sentence. Witness me, rejecting it."

"Stop," Sasuke's bones were on fire, his head was one loud scream. He felt weak and wrecked and he hated it, wanted to scream until his throat was raw. "Stop following me, we're not friends."

"I reject that, too!" Naruto sang out, and Sasuke's good hand clenched into a useless fist.

Inside his head, Misami continued to sob. Helpless, frightened tears, like her world was ending with Sasuke's pain. Sasuke felt answering tears burn his throat, felt his breathing get short and fast.

"Hey." Naruto's hand was suddenly there, dragging Sasuke's head up. He crouched even lower, until he and Sasuke were eye to eye. "Come on, Bastard. It's not real."

"I know that," Sasuke said through gritted teeth. "Fucking idiot, I know that, let me go."

"I get that you know," Naruto said, unbothered by the venom in Sasuke's voice. "Trust me, Bastard, you spent all of our Team 7 years smug and superior and sparkling on the inside because you rocked Genjutsu and I didn't. Stop glaring at me like that, Sasuke, you totally sparkled, don't lie to yourself, we all saw it." Naruto's eyes were so blue and so sorry and Sasuke really was going to scream. "But you're so good at it, Bastard, nobody's been able to Genjutsu you since…" Sasuke watched him choke on the name, stumble. "So, I think you forgot, maybe. How hard it is to sparkle."

"I don't sparkle."

"Emo sparkles," Naruto assured him. "Manly, I promise."

"Oh my God, Naruto," Sakura said, landing lightly beside him. "He's going to bite you. Really hard, and I'm not going to blame him."

"Sakura," Naruto said. "You've got to fix him. So that I can kick his ass all over again once we get back to the Village."

"Can't fix him here," Kakashi said from Sakura's other side. Sasuke had seen him land, but not heard it. Which meant he'd improved from childhood, but obviously not enough. "Sorry Sasuke, but you'll run the second your legs are back in working order."

"Hurts," Sasuke said, and looked to Sakura. But she just leveled him with an unimpressed eyebrow cock.

"Ha!" Naruto said. "Nope." He scratched his fingers through Sasuke's hair, weirdly comforting, and then tucked his hands under Sasuke's arms. "Come on, Bastard. Let's get you secure so Sakura can heal your shit."

Sasuke didn't want any of it. Didn't want Naruto's careful hands and wide smiles.

"Get off," he snapped, and shoved Naruto with his good arm.

Naruto dropped him with a surprised yelp. Sasuke hit the ground on his crooked arm, and everything burst red and yellow behind his eyes. His vision whited out, and the last thing he heard before it faded to black was Misami, sobbing and sobbing in his ear.

….

He woke up weak. Sick and sore and like someone had just stuck an ice cream scoop in his stomach and pulled out the most important part of him. Like they'd left a hole behind, gaping and ragged and raw.

He was still bound, thick ropes wrapping around his wrists and ankles. That was a compliment, probably. But even he could feel how unnecessary it was now.

"We bound your chakra," Sakura said quietly. They were in another clearing, a different one. She was kneeling by his side. A little ways away, Kakashi was reclining against a tree. "We used pressure points. It's temporary."

"But effective," Kakashi added from his tree.

Sasuke curled his fists and tried his hardest to pretend that missing his chakra didn't make him shake. Didn't make him feel like a hollowed out shell of nothing.

"Where's Naruto?" he asked quietly.

"Getting firewood." Kakashi cocked his head, like he was listening and Sasuke couldn't hear it, wanted to scream to fill the sudden silence of his chakra. "Or possibly fighting a bear. It's hard to tell, he makes so much noise."

"Worst ninja," Sakura agreed, but it was fond instead of frustrated.

"Is this…is there a point to this?"

"This is your shovel talk," Kakashi said cheerfully.

Sakura rolled her eyes. Sasuke felt his brow furrow.

"Sensei, he doesn't know what that is," Sakura said, long-suffering.

"Of course he doesn't," Kakashi agreed, just as cheerful. "That would require Sasuke to care about sticky things like dating and touching and other actual members of the human species."

Sasuke eased himself upward. He didn't get very far; his muscles bent and wobbled like weak blades of grass. One arm moved stiff and uncomfortable and he realized that it was trapped within a splint.

Sakura caught him with soft hands and helped him struggle into a sitting position. Sasuke felt his cheeks burn with shame and refused to meet her eyes.

"Naruto is our most special snowflake," Kakashi continued. "You knew that before you left the village. There are a lot of rainbows in his world, and sparkly bits of glitter, and what I suspect are deep and abiding fantasies of the four of us crying our pain into each other's shoulders and then going to get ramen."

Sakura snorted.

"And because Naruto is a snowflake, Sakura and I have let him have his little snowflake daydreams. But we're not snowflakes. And neither are you, Sasuke. So I think we need to reach an understanding about what is going to happen once Naruto drags you back through the village gates."

Sasuke turned his face away. Refused to answer.

"Let me be very clear," Kakashi said, and Sasuke gritted his teeth and felt like he was twelve and hated it. "You are a criminal. You betrayed the Leaf Village and defected to join with the man who killed the Third Hokage. For years you worked in opposition to Leaf Village interests. And that won't change just because Naruto manages to get you back inside the walls."

"Naruto doesn't understand the ramifications," Sakura said, very softly. "To him, it's very simple. Because he's already forgiven you. But there are others who haven't forgotten," Sakura's eyes are cold, so cold, that they deliver a quick one-two punch of surprise to Sasuke's gut, "that you punched a hand through his heart and left him for dead."

"You're not going to get the chance to hurt him again," Kakashi finished. "Is the general idea. Hope you picked up on that."

It was crystal clear. At some point during his absence, Sakura and Kakashi had closed ranks around the idiot because his naiveté was painfully obvious. It was understandable. But Sasuke still wasn't going to answer.

"I may have started a forest fire," Naruto announced, stamping his way back into the clearing with feet so loud even Sasuke's deadened senses could hear him. "I mean, I totally didn't. But hypothetically that's a thing you should be aware of."

"How," Sakura said, and it really wasn't a question.

"Well, there was this squirrel," Naruto said, and then ducked when Sakura threw a kunai at his head. "Judgment, so much judgment, see if I tell you the rest of that story. Hey, Sasuke!"

Naruto dropped the firewood in a loud clattering pile in the middle of the clearing (birds were startled out of trees overhead and Kakashi closed his eyes like maybe he couldn't believe his life) and bounded in Sasuke's direction.

"Hey, you're awake! How are you feeling? Not murderous?"

"Don't," Sasuke snapped, and hated that his jerk away felt sloppy, slow.

"Moderately murderous," Naruto amended. "Murderous with a side of emotional baggage. C'mon Sasuke. At least your head is clear!"

Sasuke blinked wide, realized that in the ringing silence of his chakra stores Misami's voice was missing too.

"Disabling your chakra disrupted the genjutsu echo," Sakura said quietly. He hadn't asked, wouldn't ask, but she'd answered anyway. And Sasuke didn't know how to mourn that, didn't even know if he should.

"Sorry about your chakra," Naruto said, eyes wide and earnest. "I mean, no not really because you're kind of a raging dickbag with it. But sorry because now I have to wait for those dickbag powers to come back before I can beat your face in."

Sasuke gritted his teeth.

"A bro beating," Naruto assured him. "Totally different than a normal beating."

"I'm going to build a fire," Kakashi announced. "And then stick my face in it, maybe."

"Sensei, that's a horrible idea," Naruto said with a frown. "I mean, where are you going to find a mask that covers your whole face?"

This time, Sakura launched half of her weapons pouch at Naruto's head.

Sasuke sat very still and very quiet and tried not to feel to the warmth and the laughter next to him.

….

"I'm not stupid, you know," Naruto said, much later and in much softer a voice.

The fire was banked, barely glowing embers. Kakashi and Sakura were sprawled out on the edge of the clearing, because Naruto had first watch (although Sasuke suspected that Kakashi had actually tucked his book up underneath his mask and was reading with his eyes covered). Naruto was spread out at Sasuke's side, taking up an obnoxious amount of space, arms folded behind his head.

Sasuke silently considered his statement.

"Put your eyebrows back down," Naruto said. "I can't see them, but I can feel them mocking me, I swear."

Sasuke smoothed his forehead back out. He shouldn't be responding, should be cold and blank and stone-faced like he was before Itachi, but the situation felt so familiar and his reactions almost instinctive. Especially without his chakra to whisper power and possibility beneath his skin.

"I'm not stupid," Naruto repeated. "I know what you and Sakura and Sensei were talking about when you sent me off into the woods. They think that I don't get it. That there's going to be bad stuff when we get you back. I know it's going to be bad; you were way more of a dumbass than usual and Granny Tsunade's maybe going to throw her pig at your head."

"I don't care."

"Yeah, you do," Naruto countered easily. "Granny Tsunade's bitching crazy. And it's going to be bad, probably for a while. But it won't be forever, either."

Sasuke made a noise. Soft and disgusted.

"It won't," Naruto said. "Everyone will be really pissed and they'll ignore you and Lee might try to duel you for Sakura's honor or something, but that'll fade. Once you stay, Sasuke, it'll stop. And then one day I'll be sitting at the Hokage's desk, and you'll be standing behind it. My best guard. And no one will even be worried because they'll know you have my back."

"You are stupid if you think that anyone wants that but you."

"Oh, why?" Naruto scratched lazily at his upper arm. "Because Sakura and Kakashi-Sensei said mean and scary things while I was off totally not teaching squirrels how to use fire jutsu?"

Across the clearing, Sakura made a noise like a dying gazelle into her sleeping bag.

"You know that Sakura kicked Neji's ass for saying that you weren't coming back?" Naruto said. "And not, like, years ago, this was two weeks, tops. And not in the way that everyone kinda wants to kick Neji's ass, this was a special ass kicking. And she still has our team picture; it's up on the wall in her bedroom."

Sasuke closed his eyes.

"And Kakashi-Sensei, he stops by the Uchiha compound like once a week. I guess the Council-Bastards wanted to rip it down? To clear out the compound and fill it with something else. But Granny Tsunade said that Kakashi-Sensei showed up while they were voting and smiled them into submission, or some shit. And now Sensei visits once a week, to keep candles burning for your family. And he lit one for Itachi, too, after we heard."

"Kakashi hated Itachi," Sasuke said, because he couldn't help it, because it was either that or scream.

Naruto snorted and kicked his ankle.

"He didn't light it for himself, dumbass." Naruto yawned, wide and loud. "And he cleans, too. Makes sure that the house you were staying in is dust-free and shit." Naruto paused, hummed a bit at the stars. "I'm not actually supposed to know that, I think."

It was Kakashi's turn to make dying animal noises across the clearing.

"So, they say mean things," Naruto continued. "They're allowed. I mean, you've been a total dick. But Sasuke? They're still here, trying to bring you home."

"You're pathetic," Sasuke said, quiet and controlled, because his control was all he had left. "We're not twelve years old anymore. This isn't some ridiculous competition about who can climb a tree faster. That boy is dead, and you don't know who I am now."

Naruto kicked his toes at the sky for a bit.

"I don't want twelve year old Sasuke," he finally said. "Twelve year old Sasuke was still a dick, and actually kind of way crazier than you are now. I want the you-shaped Sasuke. The Sasuke who laughed inside the genjutsu and wrestled with me because he was shit at board games and always an asshole about losing."

"That Sasuke never even existed," Sasuke said and breathed deep to banish soft voices and warm smells and feeling so light, like his worries hadn't been that important.

"Sure he does," Naruto said. "That Sasuke is sitting right next to me. I mean, he's buried under way too many layers of angst-bitchery and family issues that I'm not even going to try and magic out of you. But he's there. And he's still a dick about losing at board games, by the way."

Sasuke rolled onto his side, carefully avoiding his cast. Naruto nattered on, because audience participation was never actually a thing he considered important to a conversation.

"You could laugh there because you weren't sad anymore. And you wanted to stay, Sasuke, I know you did. You wanted to stay with us, and you didn't want to forget when we had to leave." Naruto's hands were spinning as he spoke, because he was incapable of being still. "And I know you're just really, really pissed about everything. Everything, Sasuke, your hate-fire is kind of terrifying. But you're…you're different. After Itachi. You're not as dead behind the eyes as you were when we saw you with Orochimaru."

Sasuke was not going to relive that. Itachi's voice and his fingers on his forehead and the warmth in his eyes as he smiled and apologized for finally buckling. He was too weak, too wrecked right now and he was not going to relive it.

"I did what I had to do. That's all."

Naruto's snort was incredulous.

"Yeah, by joining you dead brother's evil ninja boy band? Exactly what you had to do, sure. And Sakura, I know you're awake and I know what a boy band is and I blame you."

Sasuke stayed very still. Because Naruto's words, the words 'dead brother' reverberated through his bones like a thunderclap.

"Shit," Naruto shuffled closer, ignored how Sasuke's stiff shoulders radiated GO AWAY AND ALSO GO FUCK YOURSELF pretty clearly. "Shit, I didn't mean that. Just. You make really bad decisions, you know that right? Like, your crown in bad decision making is unchallenged and will reign victorious forever and ever."

"Then why do you want me back so badly," Sasuke said and he hated it but the question was there.

"Because of the big, bastard-sized hole in my life," Naruto said. "I mean, it's cool. You can make bad decisions and I'll just egg you on or make shit worse or something and then Kakashi can show up and make his happy murder eyebrows at us and then Sakura can come and save the day. And it will be fine. And I'm never going to stop believing that."

"I didn't want to stay."

"Sure you did," Naruto said. "Your family was there. Of course you wanted to stay, Sasuke, that's all right."

"I'm not coming back. Not to the village."

"You are," Naruto said softly. "You always were going to, eventually. Because I was never going to stop chasing your idiot-ass. Across the entire Ninja nation if I have to, Sasuke, we'll be one of the fairy tales? The two ninja who ran forever; one forward and one away. Children will read about us in school and cry ugly tears."

"Stop talking," Sasuke said, and for once, Naruto listened.

He stayed quiet, but he stayed there, as Sasuke closed his eyes and shook and shook against the grass.

...

A/N: The genjutsu fallout is speeding down the tracks, because Team 7 can't actually stay in one place for longer than fifteen minutes without getting feels all over the place. Next Chapter, Kakashi's POV: Fuck You, Teenage Hormones, I don't have time for your shit. Stay tuned and Happy Reading!

A/N: I feel like my whole fandom life is one big apology for my spectacular lateness. Sorry, guys! I'm trying to do better, I promise, but Real Life is the most heartless of things and it demands all of my time.

On a side note, I really have to thank TrisakAminawn for calling me on my timeline bullshit. I've been flailing under the weight of my gaping plot holes in relation to Naruto canon. But thanks to Trisak I think I've finally figured it out! This takes place in a kind of canon AU where Team 7 got to Sasuke shortly after Itachi was killed, before the Invasion of Pein arc. So Sasuke is still pretty much a giant ball of pain and emotion and has exactly zero trust for Madara. And still hellbent of destroying the Village, which will become important to this story a little later.

Also, a big thanks to everyone who came and found me on Tumblr. I had a lot of fun answering questions and killing you all with chapter teasers. You guys rock!

I do not own Naruto and no money is being made from this story.

Chapter Seven

Kakashi

They were quiet, his kids.

They never used to be.

Sakura had been shrill and Naruto never actually closed his mouth (Kakashi had studied this, there were notebooks, endless notebooks, with research notes and hypotheses and doodles of Naruto's face with the words What the fuck written underneath in bright purple ink) and Sasuke, even Sasuke had taken the time to snark his superiority to the world.

But now. They were quiet. Well. Comparatively, in Naruto's case. The kid still spoke like he was afraid someone might snatch that away from him, too. But after he'd returned from his years with Jiraya, he'd stayed quiet for so long (three minutes, it had been three minutes, but in Naruto time that was like half a billion centuries of silence) that Kakashi had actually spun around and sputtered things like what's wrong and was there a zombie, are zombie bites a thing and your voice is the anchor that I use to ignore all things, can't quit on me now.

The Hokage had laughed so hard she'd fallen out of her fancy Hokage chair. It had not been Kakashi's proudest moment.

But Naruto was quiet now, his mouth closed and pursed with concern. And Sakura never screamed, not anymore, not unless it was directed at an enemy and filled with rage. And Sasuke.

Sasuke's silence went deeper now than stoicism. Edged past depression and displayed broken in the black of his eyes. He'd only spoken once since sunrise. Only once, and as the sun crept closer and closer to setting in the West, Naruto's mouth curled tighter, Sakura's quiet became a little less serene.

"If you ask about my brother, I will kill you when my chakra unbinds."

Kakashi sighed and leaned against the wall of the brand new cave they'd found to camp in overnight (with Sasuke's chakra bound, he couldn't travel as far or as fast as the rest of them). He gently shoved away the laughter in his head that sounded like Obito, because Naruto was going to ask. He hadn't yet, and his whiskered face was a truly hilarious caricature of painful restraint, but of course he was going to. Naruto lived to poke into places where he wasn't wanted.

He made it all the way through an awkward dinner of field rations and some edible roots Sakura had found. An awkward dinner in which Sakura made a truly heroic attempt at conversation, Sasuke pretended everyone around him didn't actually exist, Naruto alternated between squirming and clawing at the dirt, and Kakashi outwardly eye-smiled and inwardly calculated the odds of the Hokage asking him to slit Sasuke's neck once they brought him to her office.

"I can't," Naruto finally bellowed and Sakura rolled her eyes upward like maybe she could find the answer to her teammate's stupidity on the ceiling. "Your man pain is suffocating. It is actually trying to force its way down my throat and choke me, Sasuke."

Sasuke's eyes were empty, so empty that they sent chills down even Kakashi's spine. But the tiny quirk of his eyebrow suggested that he would very much appreciate if Naruto would actually suffocate, please and thank you.

"Talk to us," Naruto demanded, because he would be the one to insist. Sakura would wait in silence until Sasuke felt like sharing and Kakashi would never actually expect him to speak but Naruto would pull it out of him with his fingernails if he had to. "Tell us what you're thinking. Tell us about your brother."

Sasuke said nothing. But the tiny, blade-sharp smile that curved his lips had Naruto jerking back a little in alarm.

It was the kind of smile you found on a corpse. The kind of smile that everyone wore beneath their skin because skeletons had smiles fixed and frozen on their bony faces. Naruto recoiled from it and Sakura looked sick to see it but Kakashi just tilted his head because he'd seen that smile on his own face before, safely hidden beneath his mask.

He wondered sometimes, also behind the mask where no one could see, if Naruto understood just how similar he was to Sasuke. If Naruto knew that he was actually running after both of them; Sasuke was just more obvious about it.

But, then. Sasuke always had been just a little bit desperate for attention. Naruto wasn't wrong about those shirts and the neck cleavage.

"Sasuke," Naruto said. "Come on. You talked to us there, in the genjutsu, you said that you didn't want to forget-,"

"You want to remember?" Sasuke said and Kakashi went very still because his voice was too sweet, his smile still too sharp. "No, you're right Naruto, let's remember. Let's talk about your parents."

Naruto shuddered like a piece of wood suddenly cracked in half by an arrow.

It was too soon. Kushina's voice couldn't be completely gone yet. Shadowed, maybe and pushed away because Naruto had practice with shutting out unwanted voices (and not just the Fox but an entire Village full of hateful whispers). But the memory of it would still be so clear and Naruto was a hero, even Sasuke couldn't argue that, but this genjutsu had been designed to hit him in his weakest spot.

And hero or not, ninja or not, Naruto was still just a fifteen year old boy in the end. One who'd grown up sad and terribly lonely.

"I don't want to talk about me," Naruto said, and tried for a grin. It was a weak and wobbling thing, a piss-poor shadow of his usual sunbeam smile. "For once, one time only offer, so jump that shit while you can, yes?"

"No," Sasuke said, still so pleasant, still so polite. Kakashi felt his skin crawl and was almost proud. "No, let's talk about you. I'm you friend, aren't I? That's what you've always said. So why don't you open up to your friend, Naruto, and tell me all about how it was to have a mommy and daddy for once."

Sakura's face went tight and pale and furious. She moved like maybe she was going to do something, shut Sasuke up. Kakashi stopped her with a gentle hand around her wrist.

She gave him a look, sharp as broken glass. I don't understand, that look said and Kakashi shrugged because she never really had.

"Why do you care?" Naruto asked, hurt and honestly baffled. "About my feelings? Because yours are really loud, Sasuke. They're always really loud, even though you never actually talk about them. It's all about your eyebrows. Your eyebrows express angst better than anything."

"But you have feelings," Sasuke said.

"Well, sure," Naruto agreed, still so confused. "But we never talk about mine."

Next to him, Sakura winced. Kakashi felt Naruto's words all the way down to his bones. The boy was always careless with honesty that should have been a big deal.

"Today I do," Sasuke said. "Tell me about her hugs, Naruto. Your mom gave great hugs. Can you still feel them, is that a part of the echo? Or is it just her voice, getting quieter and quieter? Leaving you all over again?"

Naruto stared, face curiously blank. Sasuke's smile never wavered.

"Don't," Sakura said, shaking off Kakashi's restraining fingers. "Leave him alone, Sasuke."

"You don't get to participate in this conversation, I think," Sasuke said without turning away from Naruto. It was deliberate, Kakashi knew, because Sakura had spent so much time making sure she was a person worth noticing. "You didn't carry anything out of the genjutsu, right? I can see it, in the way your eyes never go distant like you're listening to someone else. Keep your perfect little life out of this discussion, Sakura. Only people who have experienced loss allowed."

"I know loss," Sakura whispered and Sasuke's smile stretched a little. But he still wouldn't look at her, refused her that regard.

"I don't count," he said. "How long did you know me? Really know me, Sakura, and not the schoolgirl crush you invented. A few months, maybe. I was hardly even a real person to you; you don't get to mourn my absence."

As Kakashi snuck his fingers around Sakura's wrist once again (she was shaking) he realized that this was not going to be typical Team Seven scene (in which Naruto yelled and Sasuke was silently scathing and Sakura was determined and he watched and waited for an opportunity). This was Sasuke fighting back, as best he could with his chakra bound. This was him using words to hit the soft and vulnerable places that he usually targeted with fists and fire.

And that meant that Kakashi needed to brace himself because this was going to be like releasing a river with nothing to stop the flood.

"Poor little Sakura, with parents to love her and perfect grades in school and a spot on the strongest team in the Leaf Village. You can sit and talk about struggle in a room with people like us?"

"Shut up, Sasuke," Naruto said, because he would always defend her, always. "Not everyone needs to have a fucked up life like you or me to be a great ninja. It's okay that Sakura has nice things."

"Has she ever shared those nice things with you, Naruto?" Sasuke asked sweetly. "She's your friend, you say. But has she ever invited you over to dinner with her family? Or come to check in on you in that lonely little apartment of yours? Maybe she'll defend you from the others but she's certainly not going to let your fucked up life dirty her stable existence."

Kakashi watched Sakura open her mouth. But then she shut it again and her cheeks flushed red with shame.

"As entertaining a distraction this is," Kakashi said mildly, speaking up for the first time since dinner. Sasuke tensed against the other wall and Kakashi found that strangely gratifying. That Sasuke still reacted to his voice. "I think it's time to get back on topic. Which is your brother, Sasuke. If we're going to talk about fucked up lives, let's start with the most obvious in the room, shall we?"

"Sure that isn't you, Kakashi?" Sasuke asked. "Is the genjutsu echo inside your head an actual voice or just the sound of falling rocks?"

Kakashi smiled with his eyes and ignored the way his stomach rolled. Ignored not only the sound, but the smell of blood and broken skin.

"Why wasn't he there, Sasuke?" Kakashi asked back. "Why wasn't Itachi a part of your family inside the genjutsu?"

Sasuke would never be so obvious as to jerk in confusion or alarm. But the way he went still, so still, was telling enough.

"Hey, that's right," Naruto said, brow furrowed all over again. "Why wasn't he there, Sasuke?"

"I have a theory," Sakura said and her voice was cold. Because Sasuke might have treated her like the girl he knew once but Kakashi and Naruto both knew that she wasn't. "Everything in your life that hurts revolves around your brother, right Sasuke? Every bad and terrible thing can trace its roots back to him. Your family, your time with Orochimaru, and now his blood on your hands. Itachi is everything wrong with your life. So, he didn't have a place in your perfect little family inside the genjutsu."

"You don't know anything," Sasuke said, and all the sugar was gone from his voice. It was empty again.

"Neither do you," Sakura said, with a kind of calm that finally assured Kakashi that he could release her wrist. "Not about me. But it never stopped you from thinking you did."

Sasuke turned to look at her. Finally turned to look. It was a huge thing, a big moment, and even Naruto gave it about fifteen seconds of respectful silence before ruining it with his mouth.

"I know he was your brother," he said earnestly, all but falling over himself to understand Sasuke's pain, to take it away with speeches and maybe some bro hugs. "And that you still loved him. But Sasuke, remember what a dick he was? Your brother was the biggest of dicks. And now that giant dick is no longer in your life. So, from that perspective, it's a happy thing, right?"

Next to him, Kakashi could feel Sakura mouthing the words 'giant dick' with something like disbelief.

"You don't know anything," Sasuke repeated.

"But Sasuke, the dicks!" Naruto cried. "Giant, evil dick! We never talked about it when we were kids because the stick up your ass was really more of a log at that point, but if we did, I'm sure there would have been a dicks conversation!"

"Naruto," Sakura hissed.

"I want to hug you but also maybe cry about your stupid," Kakashi added.

"My brother wasn't evil," Sasuke said, and everything in the cave ground to a screeching halt.

"What?" Naruto asked, eyes impossibly wide. "Sasuke, what?"

Sasuke's face was pale, so pale, like he had never actually meant to say that out loud. Like he couldn't figure out why he had.

"As much as it pains me, deep down in my soul," Kakashi said. "I have to agree with Naruto's giant dick analogy. In which everybody knows that your brother fit the description."

Sasuke's head whipped around again and Kakashi breathed deep. Just because Kakashi never expected Sasuke to talk didn't mean that he didn't know how to make him if the situation called for it.

"Everybody is wrong," Sasuke hissed. "So fucking stupid and wrong. It was orders, it was all orders. Because the Hokage felt threatened by my family's power. And he knew Itachi was loyal, was the most loyal, and would do it if he asked. But he couldn't kill me, could only protect me as best he could." The words were tripping over Sasuke's tongue, spilling out so fast, the result of being bottled up and held back by force. Kakashi's felt something inside his chest go cold and startled, felt Sakura catch her breath next to him. "So he made me hate him, because he knew it would make me strong. And he still protected me, even though I hated him, even though he knew I would kill him in the end. It was all for me, and none of it was his fault."

Naruto's face was white, completely washed of its usual sun-warmed glow. His blue eyes were huge and bruised and horrified.

"Sasuke," he said.

"And now he's gone," Sasuke said and he was shaking hard enough to rattle the ropes around his wrists. "He's gone and I sent him away and I don't want to talk about it."

There were tears on Sakura's cheeks. Kakashi knew because one of them dropped onto his hands, cold and wet.

"Sasuke," Naruto repeated and then lunged forward to wrap his hands around Sasuke's wrists, to steady his shakes with his own hands.

"Don't," Sasuke hissed and shoved at Naruto with his shoulders, his feet, and his trapped wrists. Naruto held firm. "I…just…get the fuck off of me."

"He loved you," Naruto whispered. "Sasuke, he loved you so much."

"Don't."

But Naruto held on. Naruto would always hold on, and Kakashi thought that Sasuke really should have realized that by now.

He felt something grip his arm and stared down rather dumbly at Sakura's hand.

"It's okay, Kakashi-sensei," she said and he wondered how she knew, just when he had become so transparent to the kids he was supposed to protect.

Sometime after he'd failed them, probably.

"He wasn't there," Sasuke said into the silence. He appeared to have retreated completely back into himself, no longer aware of Naruto's hands. The genjutsu and the stripping of his chakra had weakened him, made him so vulnerable; it almost felt wrong to look at him like this. "He wasn't inside the genjutsu."

"It's okay," Naruto said. "We're here, Sasuke."

It was silent inside the cave after that. Because none of them knew exactly what else to say.

….

Afterward, Kakashi did his job. It was a mockery at this point, because he needed his kids far more than they would ever need him again. But it made him feel like less of a failure to try.

He started with Sakura. She was by the river they'd found, aggressively washing bloodstains out of Sasuke's coat. Her palms were reddened, already stained from the work.

"It's a practical coat," Kakashi remarked. "Hard to tell the difference between bloodstains and those red clouds."

"I can get them out," she said.

"And whose blood are you so focused on washing away?"

Sakura closed her eyes.

"He said terrible things," she said, after a while. "He always says terrible things."

"Yes."

"But that doesn't make them wrong. More right than we want to hear, maybe."

"Do you want any help? With the coat?"

Sakura shook her head.

"I can do it," she insisted. "It won't hurt me to get a little blood on my hands for once."

"Nothing wrong with cleaner hands, Sakura."

She smiled at him over her shoulder. It was not a pleasant smile.

"I think maybe there is, on this team." She turned her attention back to the coat. "I'm okay, Kakashi-sensei. Really."

"Okay," he said.

But he sat for a little while as she washed. And she kept going because she knew he would never say anything about the tears she rolled into the river.

….

He went to Sasuke next. Sasuke, who was alone in the cave. He hadn't been, when Sakura had left, and Kakashi made a mental note that he needed to find Naruto next.

"Go away," Sasuke croaked and tucked himself into the wall.

He looked weak. And wrecked.

Kakashi had no idea how to have this conversation.

"I didn't know," he tried. "About Itachi."

"You hated him more than anyone," Sasuke said lifelessly to the wall.

"True. I lit those candles for you. But I can light them for him now, I guess."

"Why did you light candles at all?" Sasuke asked, and Kakashi forgot sometimes, that they were all just teenagers underneath all the pain and rage and baggage. Still just kids.

"I figured you couldn't. Traveling like you were. But I thought you might have wanted to, if you'd been in one place long enough."

"Oh," Sasuke said, and then went quiet. And Kakashi let him, because what else was there to say?

But he stayed for a while with Sasuke, too. And Sasuke never turned away from the wall, because one heartfelt conversation didn't make a team whole again. But he didn't tell Kakashi to leave, either, and he was going to count that as some kind of progress.

….

He found Naruto up a tree, about a mile from the cave. His legs were dangling over the branch he was sitting on, hanging over one hundred feet of empty air.

"You're not going to jump, are you? Because I'm maybe the worst possible person to talk someone down from a suicide attempt and Sakura will just be so pissed at the both of us."

Naruto smiled a little.

"Nah, Sasuke would be worse," he said. "He'd get bored with my feelings and push me off of the branch, probably."

Kakashi crouched next to him, spreading his weight across the wood beneath his feet.

"I'm pretty terrible, I think," Naruto announced, almost casually. "For being sad about the wrong things."

"Oh? What are you sad about?"

"I should be sad about Sasuke's brother," he said. "Should be pissed at Granny Tsunade and all those ancient bastards on the Council, maybe. But mostly, Kakashi-sensei, I just keep thinking about how things would be so much better if we'd stayed inside the genjutsu."

"You're allowed an adjustment period, Naruto."

The boy's eyes were amused, almost, when he turned them on Kakashi's face. It was an adult kind of amusement, and Kakashi hated himself for it.

"You're a big fat liar," Naruto said fondly. "That's not what you said earlier."

"Well, you're not currently trying to turn into a fox and rip the forest apart, so."

Naruto laughed.

"It's selfish, right?" he asked, after a while. "To want to be where I was happy, even though Sasuke's brother wasn't there?"

"Only if you try to act on it," Kakashi said. "Selfish would be trying to bring it back. Missing it is human, just human, Naruto. Not bad."

Naruto hummed a little and rested his cheek against the tree trunk.

"I'm still going to drag him home," he said. "Because I made a promise. And I can't give that up even though we really should change our name to Team Fucked Up From Every Angle."

"I know," Kakashi said and didn't say this is why you're better than the rest of us, not because of your power, but because of this.

"At least we can be fucked up together," Naruto offered. "Did old man Hokage do that on purpose, Sensei?"

"Slap all the broken ones together?"

Naruto stuck his tongue out and gave Kakashi a little shove.

"We're only broken if we can't fix each other, Sensei," Naruto scolded. "And there's ramen. I have so much ramen planned to heal us, Sensei, you have no idea."

"Touch me again and I'll push you out of this tree," Kakashi said sweetly. "Sakura will get over it, eventually."

"Whatever, Sensei, you'd be so lost without me."

Kakashi didn't agree out loud. Didn't say Wow, you have no idea how true that is, do you?

But that was okay because his silence said it all anyway.

...

A/N: Now that the angst-bomb has gone off, get ready for the nuclear winter that follows. Next Chapter, Sakura's POV: Bitches, I will crush you with my double X chromosomes.

A/N: There is no apology big enough for how long I've let this story fester. It will be finished, no matter how long it takes, I promise you all that.

Please know that your amazing words of love and encouragement mean the world to me. They kept me writing, when every word of this new chapter seemed like a struggle.

I do not own Naruto, and am making no money from this story.

Chapter Eight

Recoil

Sakura

Everything was awkward.

Save for Naruto's inescapable babbling, Team Seven had never been terribly chatty. But the frigid silence that filled the cave after Sasuke's revelation was as thick as the ice in Snow Country. Everyone stayed in their respective corners and avoided eye contact. Even Naruto, though he was obviously just gearing up his next attempt to love Sasuke's pain away.

"Give this to him," Sakura said, after Naruto had left the cave and returned again. She held out Sasuke's coat, smelling of river water and the sunshine she'd dried it in.

Naruto took the coat and asked, "For swaddling purposes? Bet I could make a bitching Uchiha sushi-roll."

"If you try to make any kind of Uchiha foodstuff, he will actually use your intestines as a scarf to cover up his neck cleavage. And I will not help you. I will compliment his lovely new organ-scarf, Naruto."

Across the cave, Kakashi snorted quietly behind his book.

"Mah," Naruto protested. "Making me the Bastard-Nanny and then insulting me. So mean, Sakura."

"You were going to go outside eventually. You were doing your potty dance in the corner," Sakura explained. "And the fact that I know what your potty dance looks like means you owe me so many more favors than a little babysitting, Naruto, OK?"

"I'll dance for you anytime," Naruto leered.

Sakura punched his knees out from under him.

After he was finished wailing Sakura's cruel injustice into the dirt, Naruto sulked his way back across the cave. Sakura tugged a few kunai out of her pouch to sharpen and watched Naruto approach Sasuke from underneath her lashes.

"Hey," Naruto said, because he was the soul of sensitivity. "Sakura cleaned your coat. So, come out of your Bastard ball a little, yeah?"

From his corner, Kakashi made a sound of actual despair.

Sasuke didn't move. If anything, his spine and shoulders tightened, projecting an even stronger sense of 'Kindly fuck off and die'.

"C'mon, Bastard," Naruto wheedled, crouching down to dangle the coat over Sasuke's head. "At least sit up and insult Sakura's cleaning skills or something. How else are we supposed to know that the Sasuke hate-fire is still burning strong?"

Sakura briefly considered lobotomizing herself with the kunai instead of sharpening them.

"Yeah," Naruto said, as if Sasuke had spoken. Maybe he had-after all, Naruto had made an art form out of communicating with the clues in Sasuke's eyebrows and shoulders and facial tics. Naruto spoke fluent Sasuke and even after all these years, Sakura still considered herself barely proficient. Of course, she'd never tell Naruto that he'd surpassed her in any intelligence-related area. He'd scream his victory from the Leaf Village rooftops and then Sakura would be forced to actually murder him and Lady Tsunade would be sad or something.

Naruto added, "Totally understand not wanting to insult Sakura's cleaning. You know I'd feed you your own butt-rope and then Sakura would hurt me and Kakashi-Sensei would lurk in his corner and disapprove. Or some shit." Naruto's brow furrowed and he glanced across the cave. "Is that a thing that you do, Sensei? Behind your porn?"

"Butt-rope," Kakashi repeated flatly, and turned a page.

Naruto turned back to Sasuke with a grin and said, "I'm not allowed to roll you up like a Sasuke-noodle. Sakura said. But here's your coat anyway, Bastard. You look cold."

Sakura watched as Naruto dropped the coat along Sasuke's back, cheerfully ignoring the rigid warning of Sasuke's spine. Despite her instructions against any culinary-based swaddling, Naruto did take the time to tuck the fabric around Sasuke's ribs and shoulders.

"Didn't want to take credit for your cleaning service?" Kakashi asked over her shoulder. "And you got all those pesky bloodstains out, too."

"Stop creeping up on twitchy ninjas, Sensei," Sakura said, without looking away from the boys. "You'll get a kunai to the face someday."

"Not from you. Too polite. Naruto, maybe. If I took his ramen or insulted the color orange or something."

"The cave is cold and I could see him shaking from over here," Sakura said. "But he wouldn't take the coat from me."

"And Sasuke's been trying to stab me in the face for years, no sneakiness needed," Kakashi agreed. "So send the ninja-bulldozer. Practical, Sakura. And it doesn't sting?"

Sakura watched as Naruto finished his fussing. Softly, so softly she almost missed it, she heard Sasuke mutter, "I wasn't cold. Moron."

She smiled a little and said, "Naruto's been throwing himself at Sasuke's special wall of stupid for years, now. Longer than all of us-it wouldn't be right to try and step in front of him now. Naruto will be the one to bring him back, just like he promised, and I can help with what comes after."

Kakashi gave her a warm, crescent-eyed smile and said, "Look at you, all mature and shit."

Sakura leveled her Sensei with a flat look and said, "I believe in Naruto. I owe him that much."

"Don't you give me that look I could ROCK THE BUTT-ROPE IF I WANTED TO, SASUKE," Naruto bellowed across the cave.

Sakura stared at the ceiling for a moment and then put the kunai back in her pouch before she was tempted to toss them at Naruto's head.

They left at first light the next morning, but even then their progress was slow and struggling. Naruto took the lead, rioting his way through the trees, while Sakura took the rear. She kept a careful eye on Sasuke, who was red-faced and ready to explode from embarrassment. And on Kakashi, who was carrying Sasuke on his back and had a tendency to let him get slapped in the face with tree branches when he looked especially bitchy.

Eventually, Sasuke was going to stop caring that his Chakra was bound and try to strangle Kakashi with his hostage-ropes regardless. Sakura had a kunai handy for when it happened-although she might pretend to be interested in the foliage for a bit before intervening because fair was fair and Sasuke had eaten a lot of tree branches today.

But Sakura's grip on the kunai tightened and changed as up ahead, Naruto let out a startled squawk and plummeted off his tree branch.

"Worst ninja," Kakashi said, even as his fingers inched towards his forehead protector.

Something rustled in the trees and Sasuke kicked at Kakashi's hip a little bit.

"Put me down," he demanded.

"You can be like the mermaid on the front of my pirate ship!" Kakashi said back and Sakura could hear Sasuke's teeth grind together all the way across the trees.

They fell into a standard flanking pattern, with Sasuke between them, no matter how much it pissed him off. Sakura scanned the trees for enemies and for Naruto, because it would take more than a forty foot drop to crack that particular skull.

Naruto reached them first, scrambling up Kakashi's tree with leaves in his hair, and gasped, "Wait. Stop. Don't give Sasuke a kunai."

"He's busy," Kakashi said. "He's a mermaid."

Sakura watched Naruto's brain smack into his skull and stutter to a stop.

"I hate all of you," Sasuke hissed, soft and venomous.

"Why are we waiting?" Sakura asked, because she loved her boys but she'd also seen them banter through bleeding before and they didn't have that time.

"Not an enemy," Naruto said. "Just a dickface who likes to knock me out of trees."

"Still focused on dicks then, Naruto," Sai said, soaring into view on a wave of black ink. "How typical."

Naruto made a strangled hamster noise deep within his throat.

"Did I hear something about a mermaid?" Sai continued, and Sasuke released a dying rodent sound of his own.

"Motherfuck," Sakura sighed.

"The Hokage sent me," Sai explained, after they'd taken themselves out of the trees and back on the ground. "You missed three check-ins, so she sent me after you."

"To help us complete the mission?" Kakashi asked. He'd eased Sasuke off of his back and the boy had immediately staggered away, glaring hatefully at everything in general.

"Lady Tsunade's exact orders were, 'Godamnit Sai, go get your idiot teammates from whatever bit of shiny caught their focus. The other Kage already informed me that twelve international incidents linked to one team in a single year is an unacceptable amount, no matter how much the blonde one reminds them of a woodland creature'."

"Woodland creature," Naruto repeated, mystified.

"You prance," Sakura said helpfully.

"In my defense," Kakashi added. "I actively opposed five of those incidents."

Sakura rolled her eyes in Kakashi's direction and asked, "Sensei, you disappeared into the forest. We found you in a cave with two bags of chocolate and Jiraya-Sensei's newest book."

"That is active opposition. For me."

"I'm supposed to return you to the village," Sai finished, rolling right over Sakura's disbelieving snort. "So the Lady Tsunade can throw her pig at Naruto, I think."

"This is why the pig will always like me better," Naruto agreed.

"Sorry, Sai," Sakura said. "We were-unexpectedly detained."

"So I see. Collecting strays again, Naruto?"

Sasuke's shoulders snapped tight and straight.

"We've met before," Sai continued, stepping toward Sasuke. Sakura, who'd spent years observing Sasuke's tells, found this a supremely bad idea. Sasuke's eyes only fluttered so delicately right before he started burning faces off.

With that gentle, empty smile of his, Sai added, "You tried to kill me."

"He tries to kill a lot of people," Naruto said. "It's how Sasuke does the feelings-thing. We're working on it."

"I remember you," Sasuke said, voice pitched low and almost pleasant. No screaming here-not like he'd done in the cave, not for Sai. Sasuke's screams belonged to two people only, and Itachi was no longer alive to hear them. "You're my replacement."

"I suppose," Sai said.

"Not suppose," Sasuke corrected, and Sakura saw Kakashi shift his feet at the tiny, blade-sharp smile that slipped across Sasuke's face. "You're a carbon copy. A peg squeezed into the hole I left behind. Right down to the physical appearance."

"Fucking fuck, Sasuke," Naruto said, and stepped in between the two bristling ninja. "It's not his fault that we found a new Emo Ninja to feed and water after you left. Ease off the Bastard throttle a bit, yeah?"

Sasuke fixed Naruto with the blankest of stares. Naruto, being well-versed in such looks, smiled back with all of his teeth.

"Intriguing," Sai murmured. "To see it up close."

"Eh?" Naruto asked, turning to give Sai a squinty-eyed look of confusion.

"Your bond," Sai explained. "The one you're always howling about." Tilting his head to peer over Naruto's shoulder, Sai asked Sasuke, "Do you mind if I study you for hints of homoerotic context?"

Naruto let out the shrill, strangled screech of a bubbling teapot. Out of the corner of her eye, Sakura caught sight of Kakashi's laughter in his trembling shoulders, even though he'd hastily stuffed his book in front of his face.

"Are you serious," Sasuke said, voice flat enough to completely eliminate the question mark. It was unclear who exactly he was speaking to.

"Naruto likes dicks," Sai said. "Starting with that knowledge, it's a natural enough assumption."

"YOU NEED SO MUCH HELP," Naruto yowled. "SO MUCH HELP AND GUIDANCE. YOU NEED A FLOWCHART, SAI."

Sai's brow wrinkled the barest bit and he asked, "Do you not like Sasuke's dick, then?"

Sakura leapt in then, if only because Sasuke's face was getting red, Naruto looked one testicular mention away from an aneurism, and Kakashi was too busy laughing himself sick behind the nearest tree to help.

"Sai needs help understanding relationships between people, sometimes," she explained.

"I have a book," Sai added helpfully.

"So we're going to do the intelligent thing and ignore everything he says," Sakura finished. "No more talking about Naruto's dick, Sai."

"Sasuke's dick?"

"No. Zero mentions of Naruto's dick, Sasuke's dick, and your theories as to their relationship allowed."

Sai pouted for a moment-a miniscule pursing of his lips but he was Sakura's teammate and that meant that she knew the workings of his face-and said, "No mentions at all?"

"You may talk about my dick," Sakura said graciously.

"It is the biggest one here," Sai said, visibly brightening.

"I hate everything," Naruto informed Sasuke.

Sasuke couldn't vocalize his agreement due to the massive stick up his ass, but Sakura read it anyway in the sharp tic of his eyebrow.

When they stopped for the night, Sai sent a paper bird to the Hokage, informing her of their imminent return.

"You didn't mention Sasuke," Sakura said, watching the bird vanish between the trees in a flash of bone white and black ink.

"She would pass judgment, without anyone there to plead his case." Sai glanced across the clearing they'd stopped in for the night, where Naruto was attempting to bully Sasuke into eating. Going off of the steely clench of Sasuke's jaw, Sakura figured Naruto would shortly be wearing the dinner he was trying to force down Sasuke's throat. "It would cause trouble for Naruto."

"You're a good teammate, Sai."

He gave Sakura one of those pretty glass smiles-so empty of everything but a poor reflection that it made Sakura want to scream-and said, "Not according to my training. Or the training of the Leaf Village, actually."

"We've always done things a bit differently on Team Seven," Sakura agreed with a weary sigh. "You fit right in."

Sai kept silent. Sakura glanced down, and saw some of his paper crumpled between his fists.

Across the clearing, Naruto yelled, "Bastards need to eat, too! Open up for the ninja train, Sasuke!"

"You do, you know," Sakura said, into the appalled silence that followed Naruto's shout. "Fit."

"Like a peg in a hole?" Sai asked. "A placeholder until the real piece could be found?"

"Like someone I've wanted to punch the stupidity out of," Sakura corrected. "Like someone who's almost been smothered on away missions because he snores. Like someone who is probably slowly poisoning us because he serves food with ink-stained fingers. Like a teammate, Sai."

"Ninja teams are made of four," Sai recited, his voice perfectly flat in the way it only was when Root training was involved. "Three younger ninja and a more experienced leader. Made of four, always."

"We've always done things a bit differently on Team Seven," Sakura repeated.

"Chugga-chugga-choo-choo!" Naruto yelled.

"I will stick that fork through your eye socket," Sasuke said.

"Sometimes," Sakura continued, quietly. "Standing on the outside a little doesn't have to be a bad thing. It's so much in the middle, you know? Too loud, too hot. Not everyone can live there all the time. And the people that do-well. They need someone on the outside to help them when it burns too bright. Someone outside, but close enough to hear them if they need it."

"And who hears you? When you need it?"

Sakura's smile hurt a little but not as much as it had once. It was an old ache, and a familiar one by now.

"They do," she assured him. "Maybe not always, and that's something you learn to live with. But when you really need it? They hear you, always."

Sai studied the paper in his hands. His knuckles had eased off the folds of it, loosened so that the skin of his knuckles was no longer as pale as the parchment.

"And you don't resent it?" Sai asked. "Being there, on the outside."

Once, the question might have crumbled her. Might have broken her into tiny pieces of self-doubt and crippling failure. But she'd been in this circle of theirs long enough to understand her own proximity to the center. She'd spent years and sweat and effort creeping as close as she could to the burning in the middle without losing herself in the blaze of it. And once she'd found her place and built herself there she'd come to understand the importance of walls in containing a bonfire.

"It's a good place," she said. And because this was Sai, and he didn't understand things between people that weren't spelled out and offered, smiled and added, "A little lonely. Wouldn't mind some company."

"Maybe," Sai said, but he offered her a smile. A tiny one, and rusty still, but real.

"Good," Sakura said, and thought about touching his shoulder. But a loud squawk across the clearing caught her attention.

Over by the fire they'd built, Naruto was on his feet and executing some sort of flailing, stomping, jig of outrage. On his head was the bowl of food he'd been attempting to choo-choo train down Sasuke's throat.

And though he appeared entirely uninterested in Naruto's dance, but the air around Sasuke was all but radiating triumph.

Sai looked at Sakura.

"Do we…help?" he asked.

"No. The fork isn't actually in Naruto's eye socket like Sasuke said. Acceptable losses, Sai."

"I see," he said, and instead tilted his head like a curious bird and turned his attention to capturing the image of Naruto, bowl on his head and gyrating ferociously while Kakashi feigned an inability to hear and Sasuke almost-smirked in the background.

The next morning, as they were flitting through the trees with Sasuke strapped securely to Kakashi's back once more, Sai turned to Sasuke and offered a pleasant smile.

"I've read that giving someone a nickname fosters familiarity and friendship between the two parties. Is Manpain acceptable to you?"

Naruto ran into a tree. Face first, ran into it, and then slid all the way down like a bug on a glass door.

"What," Sasuke said, and again, it was really not a question.

"No? That's all right. I'll think of something better."

The faintest trace of horror crept across Sasuke's face at the concept of 'better'. From the ground, Naruto's braying laughter came up through the branches.

"GURK. HA. HIS FACE. SAI. YOU'RE THE GREATEST."

The barest hint of Sai's smile, the real one, curved his lips.

"You did just fine," Kakashi said, low and pleased in Sakura's ear.

"I really did, didn't I?" she agreed. Sai's smile was still as fragile as the shattered mirror it had come from, and Naruto still had the jagged look of someone holding things together by sheer force of will, and every step closer to the Leaf Village made Sasuke's eyes a little darker, a little deader.

But for now, the sun was on her face and Sakura could smile.

...

A/N: I really tried to introduce Sai in a way other than dick jokes but, well. Sai. Next Chapter: Naruto's POV-The Care and Feeding of Emo Ninjas. Happy Reading!

A/N: Spotted-a wild update appears! As always, apologies for the wait. My level of fail knows no bounds. Good news is, I've finally found some pockets of free time that I can dedicate to writing. So expect much more frequent updates!

THIS CHAPTER. When I first started planning this fic, it had three distinct arcs in my mind:

Arc 1: Fucking dream ninjas

Arc 2: Ninja feels in the fucking forest

Arc 3: Fallout every-fucking-where and not a drop to drink

I THOUGHT that this chapter would finally move us into the third arc. But then this boatload of unresolved feels cropped out of nowhere (not nowhere, the fault is Sai's, like so many things). So the next chapter should take move us forward.

Much love, again and again and again, for sticking with this story. It means more to me than you'll ever know.

I do not own Naruto, and am making zero profit from the writing of this story.

Chapter Nine:

Target

Naruto

He'd never been good at this balancing bullshit.

Just ask Iruka-Sensei, who'd spent the majority of Naruto's poise and precision lessons shouting so hard his ponytail came loose or making helplessly bewildered hand movements at the air, depending on the exact size and height of the object Naruto had managed to fall off of this time. Or Jiraya-Sensei, who'd made really great lemon-sour faces as he attempted to explain things like 'gravity doesn't work that way, Naruto' and 'you are a ninja how are you this bad at standing on one foot'.

The point was, Naruto was a champion battering ram-perfect for obliterating obstacles and throwing himself at shit until it exploded into tiny, tiny pieces. But toss him three differently shaped balls and tell him to hop on one foot (upside down, because this was a Kakashi-Sensei exercise, and Kakashi-Sensei didn't believe in doing normal things when he could do dickish things instead) and Sakura would laugh herself sick watching him execute what she called his 'floppy, flaily dance of failure'.

And so being stuck between two ninjas with stupid hair, a serious skin-flashing fetish, and enough emotional baggage to paint the entire Leaf Village emo-black was starting to make Naruto itch.

Sasuke wasn't talking. He'd never been the chatty kind of angsty ninja (Neji) but he'd never been the completely silent type either (Gaara, who'd gotten better in recent years, but still preferred to update Naruto on the depth of his emotional pain via uncomfortably wide-eyed staring). But for every mile they'd inched towards home, Sasuke had gotten quieter and quieter. And now, so close to the Village gates that this was the last campfire they would need to build, Sasuke had managed to shut off even the tiny tics that Naruto had learned to read like a language.

Which Naruto really fucking resented, because he'd spent years learning how to speak Sasuke and the bastard shouldn't be able to just shut off Naruto's one academic achievement like that.

But the more he pestered Sasuke, shouting and shaking and poking with his toes because it brought out Sasuke's happy-murder face, the more Sai's smiles emptied into those fake and fragile things that made Naruto want to fill them with his fist.

So he bitched at Sai until his smile softened. But then Sasuke's face went blank again, and so Naruto described in loving detail what a twat Sasuke was until the ice cracked a little. Only to turn around and find Sai fading back into his pictures, Sasuke's words about pegs and where they belonged lingering like ghosts in the air.

"JUST-LOVE YOURSELVES!" Naruto finally bellowed, startling several birds from the trees and Kakashi-Sensei's eyebrows straight up towards his ninja afro. "Stop with the quiet-sad, or I will make you two hug your shit out, see if I don't."

Sasuke didn't bother with a response. Sai's head tipped gracefully to one side. "Loving myself in public is frowned upon. The book said so."

Naruto made a sound like one of his frogs being squished and buried his head in the foliage.

"You're doing fine," Sakura assured him later, as the darkness around them deepened into night.

"Mah," Naruto grumped, and stared across the fire at Sai and Sasuke. Kakashi-Sensei was sitting between them, reading his porn with a happy eye-smile like the sheer amount of angst in the air wasn't enough to crush lesser ninjas into flattened Fire Nation pancakes. "Kakashi-Sensei should maybe move away from all of the manpain happening over there right now. He's like five seconds away from punching the nearest person and telling them it was in the name of vengeance. Or some shit."

"Sensei is immune to the manpain of others," Sakura reminded him. "Sensei has manpain of his very own."

Naruto puffed out his cheeks to properly display his outrage. "Hey-I'm immune to manpain too, Sakura!"

Sakura offered him a deeply pitying look and said, "Monologues. I have listened to so many of your monologues, Naruto, and none of them suggest immunity to any kind of emotional hurt."

Naruto hissed, but Sakura's stare informed him that she would destroy him with the power of her brain if he tried to argue with her.

"I'm used to Sasuke's manpain," Naruto said, and scratched lazily at his hair. Itchy, itchy-needed a bath. "I mean. We could fix every single problem in the world tomorrow and the Bastard would still find some way to bare his ninja-boobs and rage about betrayal." Across the fire, Kakashi-Sensei made a funny choking sound behind his book. With his chakra bound, Sasuke's senses weren't heightened enough to hear his and Sakura's whispered conversation, but his absolutely blank face had a super fun combination of fear and rage skittering up Naruto's throat. "And I know the genjutsu left him rattled because Sasuke's only ever that dead behind the eyes when there's a shitstorm of crazy happening inside his skull-"

"It's more than that," Sakura mused, green eyes sharp and considering. "I mean, yes. He has corpse-eyes, so there's definitely a shit storm. But it's more than that."

"I know." Naruto's throat was tight and sour. "I'll have to hit him about it, eventually. But that's normal, so normal. What's Sai's deal? I thought we group-hugged the angst out of him a while back."

Across the fire, Sai tipped his chin the barest bit and leveled the flattest of stares in Naruto's direction. "Whatever," Naruto said back to Sai's unimpressed face. "My hugs could fix your shit. My hugs are made of light and fucking rainbows, you know this to be true."

In the flickering firelight, Naruto saw Sai's lips curve into a tiny smile. But it was still weak and barely a whisper and Naruto was going to rip some trees apart all of the trees if that was what it took to start fixing things.

"It's hard. Feeling like an outsider." Sakura watched the boys across the fire, chin tucked against her palm. "It hurts because you're so aware of it, because you can't stop being aware of it whenever you're around the people you're apart from."

Naruto sputtered. "Sai isn't an outsider! We spar all the time. He drew that super amazing picture of Kakashi-Sensei's 'new porn' dance. I bought him ramen!"

"Sometimes it takes more than a few bowls of noodles to fix a person's hurts," Sakura said, and rolled right over Naruto's deeply wounded squawk of objection. "Shut up, you know that. You're smarter than that."

"Sakura. I fell asleep during Iruka-Sensei's final ninja exam. Just…drooled all over my desk and Iruka-Sensei threw forty seven chalkboard erasers at my face."

Sakura rapped her knuckles against Naruto's temple-not hard enough to hurt but just like Naruto needed noodle bowls to help people, Sakura needed the hands that Granny Tsunade had taught to heal.

"There are other kinds of smart," Sakura said. "Took me a few years to figure that out. But there are other kinds of smart and you have them. Dummy."

Naruto leaned into the knuckles a little, because he'd been Sakura's teammate long enough to know that when they weren't smashing his face in they were meant as affection. "You're really smart. The smartest."

Sakura's smile was a warm and cozy thing. "Your attraction to my brain is bizarre and morally upsetting. Kakashi-Sensei says."

"Whatever. Kakashi-Sensei reads Jiraya-porn. Kakashi-Sensei doesn't get any opinions, ever."

Across the fire, Sai folded his face into a polite smile and said, "I've been informed that another way to foster friendship is by physical contact. Sasuke, is the knee an acceptable place to touch you or is that too threatening to your latent homosexuality?"

A sound, high-pitched and hysterical, filled the clearing. Judging by the way Kakashi-Sensei turned the next page with extremely casual fingers, he was never going to acknowledge that it had come from his own throat.

Sasuke didn't react at all to Sai's question-not even the barest hint of crazy Chidori eyes to defend the masculinity of his frou-frou haircut.

"You'd better talk to them," Sakura urged. "I mean. We both know it won't do any good for Sasuke but it might stop him from murdering Sai with his bare hands and his super calm serial killer face."

"I just…I don't…talking," Naruto repeated, with deep mistrust. "I'm shit at the talking thing, Sakura."

Sakura's pretty pink eyebrows arched upward. "Yes, I'm aware. I meant the special kind of talking that you do-where you beat them up with love and affection and motivational speeches and then come to me afterward so I can heal your idiot asses while we all cry a little about our renewed friendships." She threw an elbow at his side. "Go do that thing."

"You are my Northern Star," Naruto said worshipfully. "My guiding light forever and ever."

"Your security blanket," Sakura corrected, but she was still smiling. "Go."

Naruto went-or started to. He paused halfway to his feet. "Hey. Hey, Sakura. You didn't-that thing you said before. About how much it hurts to be an outsider. You didn't-you know that you're not an outsider, right? You're Sakura. You're our Sakura and you should never hurt, at all, okay?"

"Seriously," Sakura said, with the warmest smile Naruto had ever seen. "Seriously, you are such a fucking moron."

Naruto knew that the answering grin stretching his face was some total sappy bullshit, but he didn't care. He'd never been afraid to let Sakura see, not her. Compared to others, it barely hurt to love her at all. "Pffft. You already called me smart. No take-backs!" Naruto crowed, and went to horse-collar one the emo ninjas he had a habit of collecting with a warmth around his heart.

###

In hindsight, opening a conversation with the words, "You know I totally want you, right?" may have been a mistake.

Especially when the person on the other end of the conversation was Sai. Who offered a heroically bland face and responded with, "Are you going to show me your penis?"

"WHY IS THAT THE FIRST THING YOU ASSUME!" Naruto wailed, as his brain fizzled and died inside his skull. "JUST-EVERY TIME, SAI!"

Sai moved his shoulders in a careless shrug. "The book had many things to say about private conversations in the woods."

"I hate the book. Just for the record, Sai? I really hate your fucking book."

"Fine. If you dragging me to the woods for a secret meeting wasn't phallicly motivated-," Naruto threw down an accusatory finger, realized he had no words, and settled for gibbering angrily in Sai's general direction instead. "-then why did you bring me out here?"

"I wanted to talk to you," Naruto said. "About things. Things that have nothing to do with penises, okay?"

Sai's shoulders actually drooped a little, like a penis-free conversation was an upsetting thing. Manfully, Naruto pretended not to notice.

He explained, "When I said 'I want you', I meant in a ninja Team-Bro kind of way. I want you on my team, Sai. You know that, right?"

Sai was too well-trained to stiffen his spine or jerk back a little or react basically at all. Even his voice was the mellowest of mellow things as he said, "Sakura already gave me a talk about feeling included."

"And that's good," Naruto agreed. "Because Sakura is crazy smart and you should listen to everything she says. But you've been acting like a super ninja-bitch since you found us in the woods and realized that we're bringing Sasuke home to stay. So I thought, maybe? You might want to hear it from me, too."

For a long moment, the only sound filling the thickened air between the trees was the whining hum of cicadas buzzing their big, drunken selves around. Naruto watched Sai's face, pale and still so perfectly poised in the heavy dark.

"It's not a ridiculous assumption to make," Sai said at last, and so pleasantly, too. "It's basic mathematics, really. If a completed team is the product, the answer to a number problem, then each individual ninja is a variable needed to create the equation. Your team was incomplete without the Sasuke variable-the equation was imbalanced and couldn't be solved. My addition to the problem helped create a workable result." Sai's eyes closed and curved into happy crescents. "But I'm not a part of the true answer to your equation, Naruto. I never was."

"First of all, fuck you muchly for making me do math. That's such a dick move and-no, we are still not talking about penises, I will hit you." Naruto sucked a deep breath inside his lungs. "And, don't-don't smile like that. Just because you think it's socially appropriate or some shit. Smiles should be happy and Kakashi-Sensei smiles like that sometimes and it's not happy, Sai, it just hurts."

Naruto watched as the fake smile drained out of Sai's face like tea from a cracked china cup. Wondered if it was worse, the absolute emptiness left behind.

"You piss me off," Naruto informed him helpfully. "Like, so much do you piss me off. All this time we've been carting you around as a part of our team and now you're not owning to the position?"

"I was trained to be temporary. To fill in for as long as I was useful and then move on when that usefulness expired."

"And, what? You never thought you could be useful long term?" The sudden ringing silence in the air was so loud and it made Naruto want to punch a tree, or the ground, or maybe the leaders of every ninja secret society ever created-because here was somebody, another somebody, who'd been made to feel like less. There was a reason Naruto could find them so easily-there were too many, too many victims of ninja politics, and survivors of awful shit always knew what to recognize in others, didn't they?

Except. It didn't have to be a game of just victims and the people who made them that way. Naruto had learned really early on that people could only make you feel like less if you never forced them to acknowledge the more. You could take back what they tried to scrape away by kicking and screaming and being what Granny Tsunade called 'a fucking political nightmare dressed in orange'.

So, Naruto said, "That's some bullshit. Total, total bullshit. Okay? You're ours. And not in a temporary way."

Sai's breath hitched. Just the barest bit and probably completely unnoticeable to people who didn't have Naruto's years of experience wading through the emotional constipation of tragedy-ninjas.

"Perhaps," Sai allowed. "But only to occupy a space already carved out by someone else. Now that the original placeholder has returned-,"

"I don't want you to be like Sasuke," Naruto blurted, because meh. Subtlety was lame and overrated. "Holy shit, Sai, please don't be like Sasuke. That would-wow, that would be a lot because his sad comes with crazy and yours not so much and I don't think I can actually handle that much crazy of that fucking variety at a single time, true?" That got a startled blink, which didn't look like much but had Naruto doing a victory dance inside his head. "I want you to be Sai. I want you to draw pictures of me doing stupid shit and give them to Granny Tsunade so she can put them on the Naruto Shame-Wall inside the tower. I want to watch Sakura beat your head in the next time you call her 'ugly'."

Sai winced, and touched the ribs Sakura had turned black and blue the last time he'd smilingly insulted her, which Naruto had watched from the sidelines. Watched with a large grin, because damn straight Sakura could defend her own honor.

"And Sai? I want you there to help us with the Bastard. I know it's going to be ugly, him being back, I'm not a total moron no matter what Kiba and his stupid fucking dog say. And I want you there to draw pictures of his manpain and ask questions about his penis, because I'm getting really sick of hearing about mine."

Sai's eyes had gotten progressively wider during Naruto's ramble. Not wide enough to make him look actually surprised. But almost enough for an actual expression and that was a big deal.

"I thought." Sai pressed his lips together for a moment, a bloodless line. "I thought-,"

"What, that our team is like a secret ninja tree house? Only one bitchy angst-ninja allowed?"

The fingers on Sai's right hand curled into a loose fist-not to hit anybody, Naruto knew. Sai's fingers always did that when they were itching for a pen, the one thing that kept him grounded.

"You're not Sasuke," Naruto continued. "I never thought you were-Sasuke never smiles, not even fake ones because showing his teeth in a non-murder grin is beneath him or some shit. You have a weird obsession with showing off your abs, and Sasuke's always been a tit-ninja. You both annoy the shit out of me in completely different ways." Naruto took a step forward, punched Sai's arm in a friendly fashion. "I'm not going to tell you to stop doing the creepy observation thing, because it's another thing that makes you Sai. But maybe take a second to stop studying the bonds between other people? And look at the ones you've managed to create."

"Would you come after me, Naruto? If I left."

"And kick your ass," Naruto said reassuringly. "Special chase-down and face-beating, just for you. I swear it."

Sai smiled at that, tiny and true. Which was maybe not the healthiest of responses but promises of 'together forever' enforced by physical violence was pretty tragically standard for Team Seven.

"Do we…hug now?" Sai wondered. "Hugging is an appropriate response to declarations of friendship."

Naruto grinned, big enough to fill his cheeks. "Mah-later. Later we can do the hugging thing, when Sakura is there to protect my virtue. Because you have ass-groping hands, Sai, I know this to be true, and I am not listening to you bitch about your drawings if I break your fingers for it."

Sai huffed out a soft sound-might have been a laugh and Naruto sure as shit wasn't going to call it a sob.

They didn't walk back to the campsite side by side-Naruto knew that his speeches were bitching awesome, but he also knew that some hurts needed more than words. So he left Sai in the little clearing to carefully reassemble his empty-face, because he knew that he'd need to spend some time now proving his words with actions.

But he also knew that Sai would follow him, would return to their fire and maybe feel a little more welcome around it. And that wasn't such a bad place to start from.

###

"You emo-ninjas are a lot of work," Naruto complained a little later, kicking his feet a little against the log he was sitting on.

Sasuke didn't have a response, even though he was the unquestioned King of emo-ninjas everywhere and maybe should have defended his people a little.

The campsite was suspiciously empty, because their teammates had conjured truly ridiculous excuses to be anywhere else in order to give Naruto a chance to pester Sasuke in private. Well, Sakura and Sai had conjured up excuses. Kakashi-Sensei had offered a cheerful, "Enjoy your talk of tears and emotion!" before fucking off to frolic in the forest, because seriously, he was such a dick.

"And I don't understand why I have so many of you," Naruto continued mournfully. "Why there are so many tragedy-planets orbiting my bright star of awesome. Because I recognize your obvious need for cuddles, maybe, and probably won't die when you knife me mid-Bro hug."

Still, nothing. Sasuke continued to stare at the fire like maybe he could put it out with the sheer force of his not-caring.

"You're not mad about Sai," Naruto said, because fine. If Sasuke wanted to shut down the face that Naruto had learned to understand, then Naruto would read his silences instead. Because there had been plenty of those throughout their friendship, and Naruto already knew how to keep breathing through the weight of them. "I mean, on some level you're mad about Sai because you're actually mad about everything really deep down. But he's not the reason why you're playing 'Guess my Bastard Emotions, because Talking is so much less fun that becoming a Bottle of Repressed Ninja-Feelings'."

"Why do we need to talk," Sasuke finally, finally said, his voice the flattest Naruto had ever heard it. "We'll be back in the Village tomorrow. That's fate, right? This was the way it was always going to end up, isn't that what you've been squawking at me for years now? So why talk about it."

Naruto hummed a little at the night sky. Kicked his feet a little more.

Eventually, he said, "Meh. I don't believe in fate. Kinda lame, the idea that nothing we do really matters because everything was already decided. That's some of your tragic thinking shit, not mine." Naruto's felt his mouth curve in a little smile. "But I do believe in meant. In knowing things are going to happen because you want it badly enough, because you know you're going to put the work in."

"So you wanted your ending more than I wanted mine," Sasuke said. Still so blankly, Naruto was going to kick him instead of the log pretty soon.

"I mean, I did want it pretty bad," Naruto agreed. "But not just me-Sakura wanted it, too. And Kakashi-Sensei, even though his favorite pastime is pretending he actually hates us all."

"You think I can't stand against the wants of others."

"Nah, I know you can," Naruto said. "Because you're such a bastard and doing the opposite of what people want gives you bastard-joy. But-Sasuke? It wasn't just the wants of others you were standing against."

"Really."

"Mmm," Naruto hummed.

"And what other wants am I fighting against, then?"

"Yours, I think." The stars were super bright tonight, and Naruto kept one eye fixed on them even as he watched Sasuke's shoulders tighten with the other. "Even though you'd rather Chidori yourself in the face than admit it. You want to come home, Sasuke. And that's harder to fight, true?"

There was a long, long silence. Naruto counted stars until his eyes blurred.

"You're such a fucking idiot," Sasuke said at last.

And Naruto grinned. Because the words were harsh. And pretty much anyone else wouldn't have heard it.

But Sasuke sounded like Sakura had before.

###

A/N: Maybe now the road can carry us home, without Team Seven tripping over stray emotions every five feet. Next Chapter: Sasuke's POV-All About that Rage, Bout that Rage, No Settle. Happy Reading!

A/N: Fucking hell, this chapter is so long. Longest I've written for this story, and also darker because, well. Sasuke. Not in a good place, now or ever TBH.

Things are happening here, folks. Shit is getting set into motion that will cause some pretty spectacular explosions in the near future. Because nothing involving Team 7 can ever be easy or, you know, any kind of sane. Just FYI that this chapter contains some invasive-type things done against Sasuke's wishes-if that is at all problematic for you just let me know and I will do my best to post a brief summary somewhere else so that you don't have to see the details. Please keep your own safety as first priority!

So much gratitude and love, as always, for those of you that continue to stick with this story. I received so many amazing notes, particularly for the last chapter, of understanding and respect in regards to my glacier-like updating speed. That means more to me than you will ever know, and please believe that I have many of your kind words literally taped up around my house so that I may cuddle up to your amazing encouragement when things get rough. I'm going to do my best to start answering some reviews, because you all deserve cookies and magic and love but words are the best I can give.

I do not own Naruto, and am making zero money off of this story.

Chapter Ten:

Blast Radius

Sasuke

Sasuke knew how to have a conversation.

Despite twelve-year-old Naruto's repeated insistence that Sasuke was actually a robot built to be good at ninja-stuff and terrible at people (and 'probably programmed by another Kage to infiltrate the Leaf and steal our women, Granny Tsunade, just think about it'), Sasuke had been raised by a clan steeped in tradition and ritual. Words were just as much a weapon for a clan-family as ninja tactics, and by the age of four, Sasuke had mastered using speech to spin pretty traps, to siphon information, to buy friendship.

Sasuke knew how to have a conversation. The fact that he rarely bothered anymore didn't mean that he thought anything was getting said, with so many different voices shouting inside the room.

"What," Tsunade was demanding, as she stared at the ninja standing on the rug inside her office. "Just-really, what the fuck, Naruto?"

"Mah," Naruto shot back. "What the hell's your problem, old lady?"

"Is he serious?" Kiba asked Sakura. He'd been inside the Tower for a debrief when Naruto had kicked the door in (literally, literally kicked it in).

"Why are you still here?" Sakura asked him back.

From his lazy slouch against the office wall, Shikamaru picked at his ear and wondered in Kakashi's general direction, "How'd you get all the crazy ones, huh?"

"It's a gift!" Kakashi proclaimed happily in a voice that actually meant 'I will cut off your fucking ponytail while you sleep'.

Tsunade thundered, "Don't you take that tone with me, you brat, you've got a goddamn rouge ninja standing on my carpet!"

"Whatever, I am the best present-giver, it's like you DON'T EVEN APPRECIATE MY EFFORT, OLD LADY."

All of the words inside the room-around him, about him-broke against Sasuke's skin like waves on rock, and rolled away. He was stone. Smooth, impenetrable, and only peripherally aware of Naruto writhing his outrage in Tsunade's general direction.

He was here-back inside the Leaf Village where he might have belonged once but absolutely didn't anymore. The familiar little streets they'd slipped through, the scent of wet earth and growing things, needled at Sasuke's skin, itchy and unwanted. Inside his mind, Sasuke pictured a snake trying to squeeze its way back inside a skin it had already shed.

And suffocating in the process.

"It's just a door, Sasuke," Naruto had said, because Sasuke hadn't meant to balk at the Village gates. To lock his knees and ground his heels like a child protesting bedtime. But his chakra was locked up tight and untouchable and he'd needed to do something to show how much he didn't want this.

"Some aren't meant to be walked through."

Naruto's face had scrunched. "I…okay? Like, if they're locked? Locked doors can't be walked through, sure. But Sasuke-that's what keys are for! To open shit up and bam. Walking happens. Easy, so easy."

Sakura had slapped both hands over her face and made garbled noises into her palms. That stupid fucking Sai had blinked at Naruto, long and slow, like he couldn't quite believe he was real. And Kakashi had grinned big with his eyes and congratulated Sasuke on his 'optimistic belief that Naruto possessed enough depth to understand things like metaphors'.

"I have depth-I am a fucking magic ninja ocean Kakashi-sensei, shut the hell up," Naruto had argued, and Sasuke had held very still and refused to let the memories overwhelm him. Of being smaller and snarky and warmer somehow, standing at these same gates as Naruto bitched and Kakashi smiled and Sakura fluttered between them, and feeling like coming home as he walked between them instead of forced.

"Fuck it," Tsunade decided, back in the present, and then came the sounds of a violently opened drawer and glass bottles clicking together.

Ah. The 'Naruto Survival Stash'. She'd expanded it to an entire drawer-full since Sasuke had left the Village.

"You disobeyed orders," Tsunade continued, bottle clenched tightly in her white-knuckled fist. "You disobeyed orders and went off-mission without approval. All to retrieve a missing-nin who is not actually slotted for retrieval because he is on the kill list, Naruto-meaning you are supposed to kill him on sight, not wrap him up like a birthday present and put him in the Hokage's office."

"Well, yeah," Naruto said, rocking back and forth on his heels. "I know that Sasuke's on the kill list, Granny-that's why I had to go after him. How was I supposed to bring him home if some other ninja killed him first?"

Tsunade threw the bottle in her hand at Naruto's head.

"She's going to kill him," Kiba was whispering, as Naruto ducked and glass shattered on the wall behind him. "Just-actually going to murder him, wow."

"Kiba, I will punch you in the face," Sakura said.

"So nice, having all the children back together," Kakashi beamed, and Shikamaru muttered, "You all need fucking treatment," at the ceiling.

Stone-Sasuke was stone. Unmoved and unbroken, and what did stone care about words anyway? Safe inside his rock-like casing (a jagged and broken thing once, with cracks big enough for the idiot to wiggle through, but smoother now and so much more dangerous after his time with Orochimaru) Sasuke thought of keys instead. Keys and the locks they opened.

"Why are you like this," Tsunade mourned in Naruto's general direction. "He has made so many bad decisions. He put his hand through your chest, Naruto-you know better than anyone how bad his decisions are."

"Meh. The only kinds of decisions Sasuke knows how to make are bad ones-you get used to it, so used to it Granny. That's why having a Sakura is so important!"

The sounds coming out of Tsunade's mouth shifted from mystified honking to murderous growls.

"This is such a beautiful disaster," Kiba whispered almost worshipfully, and Sasuke could feel the weight of his eyes burning the back of his neck.

"Your entire face Kiba," Sakura said.

"If they order his execution, will they ask you to do it?" Shikamaru asked Kakashi, and couldn't be bothered to flinch as Kakashi flooded the room with killing intent, despite the fact that his happy eye-smile never wavered.

"That's it-everybody out!" Tsunade roared. The others made immediately for the door, following orders even though the sideways look Shikamaru slid in Sasuke's direction promised that the entire Rookie Nine would know about his return approximately seven seconds after Shikamaru left the tower. But Naruto just stood, cheeks puffed mutinously in Tsunade's direction. She surged to her feet in response, desk rattling ominously, and stomped around to seize Naruto by the back of his jacket.

Naruto yowled and twisted like a scruffed kitten, yodeling a whole bunch of embarrassing nonsense, never mind the fact that Sasuke didn't need his chakra reawakened to know that Naruto had enough power to wipe out the entire tower if he felt so inclined.

But then, raw power had never been Naruto's problem. So many, many other things were.

"If you kill him I will PISS IN ALL OF YOUR BOOZE BOTTLES!" Naruto bellowed as Sakura filed out into the hallway after him and pinned him against the wall with a long-suffering sigh. "ALL OF THEM, GRANNY!"

"OH MY GOD!" Tsunade bellowed back, and then slammed the door in Naruto's face.

Keys and locks. As Tsunade returned to her desk and settled behind it, Sasuke thought of keys and locks, not dangerous at all except when they were. Some doors were meant to stay closed, to keep secrets back and darkness out. Some doors knew that things would be better if they were left to rust and rot and strain against the weight of the bad things they were holding back. Those doors probably resented the keys that could open them, those little bits of metal that believed so arrogantly in their right to twist inside and rip them open.

People could be keys, Sasuke mused, and thought that Naruto's hair always had been shinier than most metals.

"Fuck." Tsunade rooted through her desk drawer, glass clinking. "Fuck," she repeated wetly, around her chosen bottle. "Okay, kid. I need you to give me something."

Sasuke blinked at her.

Thought of stone. Keys and locks and doors made of impenetrable rock.

"Anything," Tsunade elaborated. "You-let's be clear. You walked away. You walked away when your team needed you most, and you never looked back. Teams are-they're a body, a pile of limbs and blood and bones working together and you ripped yourself away and left your team bleeding out behind you." The memory of Orochimaru was there in her voice, shaking it loose and jumbled. Sasuke wondered vaguely if she even saw him when she looked at him, or if the perception of too-pale skin and cut-glass smiles was too strong. "You did all of that, and it's not okay, and I do not regret putting your name on the kill list. Alright?" Her fingers started picking at the label on the bottle, peeling and peeling the paper away. "But…well. You've had a rough go of it, kid, no one can deny that. It's not an excuse, and I'm sure as shit not going to let you off the hook for it. But I'll listen. I will listen, if you have something to say."

Sasuke felt his head tip ever so slightly to one side.

"The Council will be here soon, Sai went to report as soon as your team hit the tower. Give me something I can use, something I can tell them, because Naruto will just never let me hear the end of it if that kill order is given." Tsunade sighed against the mouth of her bottle. "He will follow me forever and try to annoy me into righteousness until I punch his face in, and then Sakura will be sad. That will be my life. So, give me something, and we can avoid that all together, okay?"

Sasuke wasn't even bothering to blink anymore. He could tell by the lines between Tsunade's eyebrows that it unsettled her.

"Kid…Sasuke. Sasuke, please."

Sasuke sucked in a tiny breath, just enough to inflate his lungs, and asked, "Did Itachi know? When Danzo ordered him to kill our entire clan, did Itachi know that our mother was pregnant? Did the elder know, and send him to do it anyway?"

Every drop of blood drained from Tsunade's face, leaving it white and waxy in the absence.

Sasuke didn't care. Couldn't care. The genjutsu-created echo of Misami had faded with the disruption of his chakra flow but the memory of her still remained behind Sasuke's stone casing. Tucked carefully away and remembered as a warmth around his heart and the phantom brush of tiny fingertips against Sasuke's forehead.

Sasuke was already mourning the loss of one sibling (by his own hand and Sasuke's stone casing was so important, it was everything right now, because he was ripped raw underneath). He'd never, ever been prepared to do it twice, to feel that weight of grief doubled.

And so, Sasuke knew how to have a conversation. Because once, it had been the hallmark of his clan. But they were gone. They were gone, and Sasuke was more than content to let this silence stretch and echo with the weight of other voices that were no longer there to fill it.

#######

"I am going to eat his fucking head."

"Naruto, you cannot say shit like that in front of the village elders."

"But Sakura, he is staring at me, look at his stupid, smarmy face-his entire head, I swear I will do this thing."

"Shut up, shut the hell up, you literally cart-wheeled into the room and demanded that no one hurt your sad panda best friend. That is why they are staring, Naruto, stop giving them reasons."

Sasuke ignored the hissing whispers drifting not-at-all quietly from the corner of the Council room. Ignored Sai, standing slightly to the left of Danzo's chair and looking blankly sick to be there. Ignored everything, really, because behind his blank exterior, his vision was tunneling.

Danzo.

Danzo was there, sitting inside the room. So arrogant. So sure. Wearing the birthright of Sasuke's clan beneath his skin like he had a right to it, even though it had never belonged to him, should never have belonged to him.

And so Sasuke ignored everything and also kept very still, because the rage boiling and burning and scraping away skin inside his throat and stomach felt stronger than the chakra they'd locked away.

"Why are they here, Tsunade?" Danzo demanded, waving his good arm in the general direction of Team Seven.

"Oh, you know me," Kakashi answered breezily before Tsunade could open her mouth. "I always end up in places I don't belong. Irresponsible and all that, it's a flaw." Flanking Kakashi on either side, Sakura and Naruto stilled. Which made sense, because Kakashi only ever sounded so sweet when things were about to shit-storm. "But I do wonder why you're here, Elder Danzo? As such a responsible and respectable ninja yourself who is also no longer a part of the Council."

"Yeah, yeah, kick his ass Kakashi-Sensei," Naruto chanted under his breath, blue eyes narrowed into slits, and then yelped when Sakura kicked at his leg hard enough to dent it.

Danzo's face went purple, and a tiny quiet spot underneath Sasuke's rock and rage gave a happy hum.

"Enough," Tsunade barked, before Danzo could launch the insult obviously building on his tongue or Naruto could make everything worse just by opening his mouth. "Team Seven is here by my invitation, Danzo. This is their teammate, and they were the ones to bring him in, and so the issue concerns them twice as much. Naruto, people are staring because you are the loudest little shit. Knock it off."

Naruto offered several deeply offended bleating noises in Tsunade's direction before falling reluctantly quiet.

"What we need to do," Tsunade continued, "Is to decide together how to proceed, now that this situation has arrived."

"I rather think that's obvious," Danzo returned stiffly. "The boy is a traitor. He's actively worked against Leaf Village interests for years."

The boy. Danzo wouldn't even give him his name, wouldn't even honor the clan that he'd slaughtered by speaking of them, he would take that from Sasuke, too. Take his family and his brother and even his identity now-

Fingers-Kakashi's fingers-curled down tight on Sasuke's shoulder. Sasuke didn't want them, didn't need them, but that had never actually stopped Kakashi in the past.

"Kill orders are typically given with the expectation that they will be followed through with," Danzo finished. "I'm not sure why that would be different now."

"You—," Naruto blurted furiously. "You-!"

"Naruto," Tsunade snapped, and there was zero give in her voice. To the council, she said, "That may be, Danzo. But I think we can all agree that there are circumstances surrounding this situation might require a different kind of consideration."

The woman on Danzo's right, council member Utatane, wrinkled the thin and fragile skin of her forehead. "I dislike the idea of special treatment, Tsunade. Sasuke Uchiha's actions have been deserving of punishment since he left the Village. It sets a dangerous precedent should we choose to ignore that."

Tsunade shook her head. She was so different here, strong and sure, than she had been back in her office. "Deserving of punishment, absolutely. That can't be argued, Councilwoman Utatane. But not a kill order."

"Ridiculous," Danzo snapped. Out of the corner of his eye, Sasuke caught Naruto curling his hands into fists to hide the claws that were popping from the tips of his fingers. "The boy defected to join our most dangerous enemy. He spent years working with the man who killed the Third Hokage." Danzo's tipped his head in the air, offering Tsunade a disgusted look. "Of all people, you shouldn't need to be reminded of the harm Orochimaru has caused, Tsunade."

Tsunade's spine went stiff and straight, like Danzo had hit her with a whip instead of words. An enraged snarling sound came drifting from Naruto's direction, only to be strangled into silence by the elbow a stone-faced Sakura planted into his gut.

"No, I don't need to be reminded," Tsunade said, the words fragile and sharp like broken glass against her tongue. "But I am not asking for a laundry list of the wrong-doings of another man." She was still so careful, skirting around Orochimaru's name, and Sasuke wondered blankly if she ever said it even to herself. "I am asking you to approach the current situation with more than just the most recent years in mind."

"That wouldn't change my opinion, wouldn't change the truth of what needs to be done and what you have always been to gentle to do-,"

But the graying man on Danzo's left, Councilman Mitokado, was cutting across Danzo's words with a thoughtful hum. "While there should never be a good reason for defection, Sasuke Uchiha did not leave the Village in order to act against its interests. His primary motivation has always been stopping the man who murdered his family."

"Also an enemy of the Leaf," Danzo snapped, and Sasuke's vision snapped blindingly white with rage.

There were two hands on his shoulders now-Kakashi pinning him to his seat as Sasuke shook and shook from a place so deep and furious that it burned cold instead of hot. The flames of it licked at his insides, organs and tissue and muscles turning to ash and leaving a cracked and blackened shell behind.

Sorry, Sasuke. This is the end.

The end. And Itachi had never had a beginning, not really.

No-calm. Cool. Stone could withstand fire.

But. How dare he-how dare he.

"Don't," Sasuke heard Naruto shout, over the buzzing whine filling his ears. "Don't, you can't-,"

"Naruto!"

"Don't talk about Sasuke's brother!" Naruto roared, over Tsunade's warning. "He's-you don't get to talk about him."

"What-," Councilwoman Utatane began, halfway between offended and confused, and then Sakura's quiet voice somehow cut across everyone in the room.

"He's dead. Itachi Uchiha is dead."

The words were a different kind of rock that wrapped around Sasuke's neck and dragged him down, squeezing all the air from his lungs.

Naruto was gaping at Sakura, and that fucking Sai was blinking at her from across the room, and Sasuke couldn't see much right now, but the green of Sakura's eyes was somehow perfectly clear and sharp like shattered glass.

"Sasuke killed him," she added, and oh. Of course, she'd-she'd known the words would hurt but she'd used them anyway, because suddenly Utatane was looking thoughtful instead of condemning and Mitokado was nodding.

It was calculating. Clever. Almost cold in its practicality.

It was something Sasuke might have done himself, and had he ever known her really?

"An enemy of the Leaf," Tsunade was saying softly. Running with Sakura's cue in spite of the stab of it, and weren't mirror images amazing when they were separated by generations? "That Sasuke Uchiha eliminated at great personal risk and obvious stress. And now he's back inside the Village gates."

"By force," Danzo spat. His fury at being deprived of vital information was there in his voice, and although he was too dignified to glare outright at Sai, the delicate flutter of the boy's eyelashes suggested that he knew how much trouble he was in. "He wouldn't be here otherwise."

"He's still here. And that's a chance-if we give that kill order, there's no chance at all."

Sasuke didn't want a chance. He didn't want redemption from the Village that had taken everything from him.

He wanted to be stone. To fill up the burned-out hollows of his insides with solid weight until the hurt stopped. Until everything stopped.

"Let's take the vote," Tsunade said.

#######

They didn't give the kill order.

Naruto, the giant fucking moron, had leapt upwards like one of his giant fucking frogs almost before the council had finished sharing their decision.

But even through the haze he'd wrapped around himself, Sasuke noticed that Kakashi didn't move, that Sakura's eyes stayed dark and flat. They both waited and watched, eyes fixed on the lines creasing Tsunade's forehead, the torn and ragged skin around her thumbnail. Waited and watched and eventually Naruto came back to earth, frowning at his teammates and shifting uneasily from foot to foot.

They didn't give the kill order.

They decided to take Sasuke's eyes instead.

Not physically. Even Danzo wouldn't be so bold as to suggest that in a room full of Konoha's elite. But the end result was the same-Sasuke's gift, his legacy, was going to be stolen by Danzo's ambition.

"They're going to let you do it," Tsunade said, and Sasuke had the vacant thought that she looked exhausted, somehow older than both of her teammates had turned out. "I-it's not much, I know. But I thought, maybe-maybe that should be your right."

"You can't. Granny, it's-you can't."

Tsunade's eyes were ancient. "There were always going to be consequences to this, Naruto. You knew that."

"I am blonde and pretty but not actually as dumb as everyone thinks," Naruto snapped. "Yeah, I knew. But this is-you can't let them do this, not this."

"Sasuke's eyes are his biggest weapon," Sakura said softly. "It makes sense, from their point of view." Naruto shot her a furious look, and she repeated, "From their point of view."

"Amazing how the story changes depending on who's telling it," Kakashi agreed in the cheerful way that meant he was contemplating the best way to assassinate the council members.

"Granny. Granny, please-,"

Tsunade sighed, and tipped her head against the doorframe. "Get the fuck out of my tower, brat."

#######

Maybe it was supposed to be a kindness, Mitokado suggesting that they perform the ritual inside Sasuke's old house. Maybe he thought Sasuke might like to see it before they trapped him inside of it, reorient himself to the layout so that he could better adjust without his eyes.

Stupid. He shouldn't have bothered. Sasuke hadn't forgotten-could never forget. There was the kitchen, where Sasuke's mother had laughed and sliced him fresh tomatoes after catching the faces he'd made at his mid-afternoon snack. There was the library, where Sasuke's father had pulled down dusty scrolls that told the story of their clan. He'd let Sasuke touch them with careful fingers, and radiated quiet pride at the way Sasuke had lingered over the Uchiha symbol, tracing it with reverent awe.

There was the door Itachi had walked through after ANBU missions, looking pale and drawn but smiling, always smiling for Sasuke.

It was the same door he'd walked out of years later, leaving the bodies of his parents bloating the floorboards with blood and Sasuke shocked and shaking against the wall.

No. Sasuke didn't need any help remembering this house at all.

"It isn't permanent," Sakura was saying, face pale but eyes steady and firm. "It's-the seals will block the Sharingan completely, but only as long as the seals are in place."

It really was a pretty bit of jutsu. Sasuke could almost admire it from an intellectual standpoint. Kakashi had created the seals, smiling as he'd inked the designs and only stopping once to vomit in the bushes outside the house. Sakura, with her medical training, would apply the seals to Sasuke's eyes and stabilize the jutsu once Kakashi activated it.

Naruto would provide the chakra, pull the raw power from the well he possessed in order to power the seals. That was his job, and he was so very, very pissed about it.

"I am going to light the tower on fire," he announced, with an eerie amount of calm. "Use all of Granny's booze bottles as fuel and just torch the shit out of it."

"You'd feel bad about it later," Sakura said to him. Her fingers were shaking as she pressed the black ink around the hollows of Sasuke's eyes, down across his cheekbones. "The seals-they'll disrupt your chakra flow as well, Sasuke. There will be a rebound effect if you try to access it, so I wouldn't recommend that."

"My chakra is already blocked," Sasuke pointed out. He knew his voice was flat and lifeless, but he also didn't care. This house had been home to dead things for years, after all. "Why bother?"

Across the room, Kakashi gave him a happy-eyed smile even as his shoulders continued to tremble. "You figured out how to counteract Sakura's chakra-interrupting pressure points shortly after Sai arrived in the forest. You've been shaking them off a little faster every time she reapplies the technique."

"Nobody here has actually forgotten that you're a genius," Sakura said with a tiny, sickly smile. "Well. Naruto. Naruto probably forgot."

"I am the champion of beating down shiny brains with my fist," Naruto agreed, even as he hugged the wall to Sasuke's left. His hands were cupped carefully across his stomach and his eyes were just a little too wide and Sasuke registered dully that it probably made him angry all the way to his toes, being used as a power source by the people who had shunned him for being exactly that.

But not Naruto-explosion angry. The kind of angry that made him quiet because it made him afraid of his own insides.

"What would you have done?" Sasuke asked, and even he was a little bit startled by it. "If they'd given the kill order, what would you have done?"

Naruto blinked at him. Sakura's hands stuttered on Sasuke's face. "I-listen. I know I'm, like, just a little bit loud about the things that I want," Naruto said, and Kakashi snorted delicately from his corner. "Shut the fuck up, Sensei, I have reasons to be loud, you all are terrible listeners. And I'll still get those things, I know I will, because I believe that I can. But if couldn't." Naruto took a tiny breath. "If I couldn't have them all, it's-look, it's not like those bullshit pick-and-choose tests Iruka-Sensei used to give because secretly he enjoys watching students cry over his assignments. I want to be Hokage. I want you there with me, all of you. But if I couldn't…" Naruto's smile is small but still true and Sasuke marvels that it always is, somehow. "Well. What would be the point, because it would be a disaster, just a fucking mess we all know this to be true. Can you image, me as Hokage without Sakura there to actually tell me what to do? Without Kakashi there to smile the other council members into terror and shame, or without Sai there to keep the books and maybe create a special ops program that doesn't spit out crazy-eyed tragedy ninjas?"

Naruto's fingers were tight against his stomach, almost digging now. "Without you there to keep people from stabbing my face, Sasuke? Because people like to stab my face, it's a fucking mystery of the universe, and you've always been good at saving it. Not from other people but for yourself because someday? You will be the one to stab my face. I know you did not start carrying a katana by accident, Sasuke, and I have accepted this."

"I am not fixing you," Sakura said. There was laughter in her voice and wet in her eyes. "You will deserve it when he finally face-stabs you, Naruto, and I will not fix you."

"That's fine," Naruto said comfortably. "Sasuke will feel incomplete if he doesn't leave at least one visible scar on my person." Naruto stepped forward, away from the wall, because Sakura had finished painting the seals, was pulling ink-stained fingers away from Sasuke's face. Sasuke fought the urge to move, to get away, channeling the impulse into the tight curling of his fingers around the chair he was sitting on. Because where was there to go, really? "That's what I want, Bastard. All of it, not some of it. Couldn't have that if they'd given the kill order, you know?"

Kakashi made a soft humming sound. "They are nice houses by the water, on the edge of the Earth Country," he suggested idly. He was moving into place as well, and Sasuke hated that he couldn't stop his muscles from tensing. "I'm just saying. If there had been a kill order, Earth Country has nice houses."

"I could get a traveling ninja job. Hero for hire, or some shit." Naruto was still smiling, but it was a soft and kind of sad thing, because no, he couldn't. This was never an option, not for him, not really. "Sakura could be the boss of something, or everything maybe, and make lots of money. Support Kakashi-Sensei and his job as the porn-reading housewife."

"Mah, mah, why am I the housewife?"

"You are fucking terrible at people, why would we let you out in public?" Naruto's hand reached out, touched the ink on Sasuke's face. The other hand pressed against his own seal, where the well of power waited. "And Sasuke could sneak around and-I don't know, do whatever Bastard ninjas do during the day. Brood at walls, or some shit."

"Sounds nice," Sakura agreed, even as she took her spot at Sasuke's back. Her voice was thick, definitely tears now. Mourning the future that none of them could have.

It was too much. The wishes of the others and the death still lingering inside the house burning Sasuke's throat, like coffee laced with sugar, both bitter and sweet. He wanted to close his eyes but couldn't, because he wasn't going to give away these last few moments of color and shape.

"I would burn it down," he said, because it was better than the scream grinding against his vocal cords. "I would burn that fucking house down."

Naruto's smile stretched the tiniest bit. "Of course you would. But we'd rebuild it. Again and again, we'd rebuild it, because it doesn't have to be permanent, you know?" Naruto's eyes were very blue, and Kakashi's blade-thin smile was a pressed pink in the dark, and Sakura's hands on Sasuke's shoulders were mottled with tiny white scars and swirls of black ink. "A broken thing doesn't have to be broken forever. That's what fixing is for, Bastard."

Sasuke wanted to laugh. It was the weirdest impulse, and absolutely not one he was going to indulge, but the laugh was there, jittering hot and sharp in his chest. "Fuck you," he managed instead, and the last thing he saw before everything snapped dark was Naruto's eyes, the bright blue turning wet, turning liquid, and running down his cheeks.

#####

A/N: What to do, what to do, when going home is not a happy thing? Next Chapter: Kakashi's POV-All the King's horses, all the King's men, couldn't get their shit together at all, come the fuck on you guys