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anerdinallherglory · 5 months ago

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Approaching Sun (40)

Author’s Note: It may not seem like it, but I promise this story is “approaching” its end. I’m excited to write the last several chapters, so you won’t have to wait as long for the next one hopefully. Sorry for the wait!

Songs: 1) Butterflies by Tom Odell ft. AURORA, 2) Ghosts by James Vincent McMorrow, 3) Meet Me at Our Spot by THE ANXIETY, WILLOW, Tyler Cole.

Pairing: SasuSaku

Previous Chapters: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39

Chapter 40: Selfishness

It was hours before dawn, the darkness still a shield that protected them from tomorrow, when Sasuke felt Sakura shift under his encircling arm. He inwardly groaned as she made to move away from him, because it meant that she was cutting this short, choosing to break into the soft sleepy realm of togetherness that the dark sky promised them. It had been a night unlike any other, a night of peace and safety as they slept in their bed, in their home, in their village. Sakura’s decision to try to sneak away was as abrasive as the sunrise would have been in that moment. Sasuke tightened his hold, pulling her back into his chest where he curled his body around her as if he could protect the peace of now just by holding her to him. He gave a grunt of protest as she froze.

Sasuke was usually the one who was up all hours of the night, hardly sleeping at times while he traveled across foreign territories. Typically haunted by nightmares and the past when his eyes closed, Sasuke was usually the one beyond eager to greet the next day, the sunrise the only interruption able to halt the endless torment of his mind. It wasn’t until this very moment as Sakura woke first beside him, that Sasuke realized he hadn’t been plagued by dreams of any kind for the last month at least, and he didn’t need to wonder as to why. The why slept beside him, trying to pull away from him and begin the day at an ungodly hour.

“Are you always going to have this annoying habit?” he whispered into her shoulder, not even allowing the strength of a solid voice to interrupt this stillness.

“What habit,” she answered back, just as quietly, but the mirthful faux exasperation still made its way through with her sharp exhalation of breath.

“The one where you sneak away when you think I’m asleep,” Sasuke chided. “This makes at least four times now, I believe.”

“I have to go and see—” she began, but Sasuke just pulled her in tighter, shaking his head against her shoulder. No. He simply wouldn’t let her go just yet.

“Whatever it is, it can wait until morning. Just stay with me.”

And his own words fully woke him like an ironic nightmare. ‘So please. Just stay with me, Sasuke. And if you can’t, then take me with you.”’ He dug his nose deeper into her shoulder blades, shaking free from those lingering words that had never stopped ricocheting through the echoing chambers of his heart. But he was here now. They were together. And she had agreed to come with him. Sasuke Uchiha was determined to rewrite the story of them from the moment he had made his vows in an underground cave.

“I can’t stay in this bed for much longer if you want to depart the village by sunrise,” she informed him, and Sasuke wanted to say it didn’t matter, but that would be a lie, and she knew the Uchiha well enough to infer that he wanted to leave in the quiet as he always chose to do. “I have to talk to Kakashi…” she sighed, and then added more softly, as if the truth of it was fragile: “… before I leave with you.”

Sasuke stared into her back as she said it, and his heart climbed while his stomach sank with his guilt. Despite his initial resolve to make Sakura stay behind for the sake of her goals, her safety, and the village, Sasuke had asked her to come with him.

“Come with me, Sakura,” he had requested—a moment of weakness truly, the voice of the starved, desert man—and she had stared at him for a long minute after, as if waiting for him to take the words away again. Sasuke hated that it was in his nature to overthink everything, fail expectations, and create this pattern in Sakura of expecting the floor to be ripped out from beneath her. He hated it, but it didn’t change the fact that she was right to believe it of him.

“What?” she had voiced, expressing that uncertainty. “You’re asking me to come on your mission with you?”

“Yes,” he had doubled down, convincing both of them of what his heart had decided. “Come with me, Sakura.”

“Why the change in heart?” she had asked. “You said—”

“I know. I just—I’m selfish, too, Sakura. I shouldn’t be asking you this. It’s dangerous. But I—just don’t want it to be over yet. I need to find Kaguya, and I want you safe, and I shouldn’t—”

God, he had been a bumbling idiot. Had he ever rambled incoherently in front of anyone before? All of that usually took place in his mind, but this time, he struggled audibly, trying to make her understand with words that never came naturally to the Uchiha. He was only ever eloquent when he was being snarky or vindictive.

“Stop talking yourself out of it,” she smiled, shuffling closer toward him on the bed and pulling that green cotton comforter that smelled like her up and over their bare skin. “I’ll come with you.”

“I wish you would say no. I’m having a hard time doing what’s best for the both of us right now.”

“I’ve only ever dreamed of hearing you ask me that,” she had said in response. “Of course I am not saying no.”

But afterward, his thoughts had predictably raced throughout the night as Sasuke over-analyzed his request, the decision to bring his new wife with him, and what that would mean for her and the village. What it would mean for his mission. Was he really allowed such selfishness? What would Itachi think if he knew that Sasuke had committed himself to a similar life of sacrifice, but that his younger brother had faltered. Sasuke had put it on pause, hadn’t he? The moment he had chosen to meet her lips with his own back in Suna.

“Am I allowed this,” Sasuke voiced the words he had harbored to himself in the quiet after of sex and Sakura’s sleep-induced cadence of breathing, “Maybe I cannot be like Itachi, after all. Maybe I’m still too weak to live a life of sacrifice.”

The back of her head rested back against his shoulder, until their faces became parallel silhouettes. “You’re choices now are not going to interrupt your mission Sasuke,” she whispered, hitting straight to the concerns in his heart. “I’m going to help you, not become a hinderance to you like Shikamaru believes. The four of us—Team 7—we are going to protect this peace together. We all have roles to play.”

And that’s why it was selfish of him, Sasuke wanted to say, but, again, couldn’t find the words to explain it. Because he had juxtaposed her mission with being with him, while Sasuke planned to do both: execute his mission while she followed him. Sakura was so much more than his wife, especially to the Leaf, but Sasuke just wanted his wife to be with him a little longer. The problem was that it would be to her own sacrifice. Sasuke would be forgoing nothing, which felt counterintuitive to his entire goal. He knew no matter what he said, Sakura wouldn’t see it as Sasuke did.

“And I am taking you away from your role,” he tried to explain, but she shook her head.

“I choose my own role.”

Sensing the unspoken monologue of his mind, she turned under his clinging arm to face him. “You’re allowed to be selfish for once—” she began, but Sasuke’s sigh of despondency cut her short.

“I’ve allowed myself a lifetime of selfishness in a short few years, remember? I only thought of myself and my own goals and caused a lot of pain in the process. Being selfless is a part of my journey of atonement. You were never supposed to be a part of that—”

And Sakura interrupted him this time, stopping his self-critical speech before he could spiral further. Her left palm reached up to the plane of his cheek, staring at him through the dark. “Your future is going to be nothing but sacrifice, remember? Mine too, now. I’m going to be selfish this time, too, because we have nothing but a future of sacrifice ahead of us. The universe will be paid its due of sacrifice in full, I promise you.”

He tried to say more, something about how his past was not hers to atone for, how he wished he could spare her from this life altogether, but she kissed him before he could give voice to any more of his concerns. Concerns even about her safety despite everything she had proven to him recently. Like a persistent gnat, that dread that he would be the reason Sakura was pulled back into danger again now that she was safely in Konoha—it would always be there. But Sasuke was going to eradicate the threat that remained and ease his anxieties a bit by doing so.

“You can’t take it back,” she whispered. “I’ll continue my work wherever it takes me and I’ll help you with your goals. Just as before. We deserve this.”

She slipped from under his braced arm then, her inhuman strength always catching Sasuke by surprise no matter how many times she had reminded him of her abilities. He tried to blame it on her taking advantage of his lack of an appendage.

Sasuke heard the shower as she retreated into the bathroom down the hall, and he face-planted back onto the pillow in exhaustion. That is until he heard her tentatively call out, “want to join me?”

Sasuke shot straight up, all fatigue suddenly gone and that gentle undisturbed night gave way to the immediate, panicky present. He blushed furiously at that question, staring wide-eyed down the hall. Did she just invite him into the shower with her? Sasuke chided himself for his reaction immediately. He had just done unspeakable things with that woman not five hours ago, but here he was acting like a shy first-year genin at the suggestion that he shower with her.

He didn’t answer, reminding himself that she likely wore a blushing face to match his, even if she was the one brave enough to ask him. Sasuke Uchiha would be damned if he skipped the opportunity. He was still a man, even if his desires for her were kept strictly in the privacy between them. But beyond that, he was more tempted to accept her offer because there was something remarkably intimate about being with someone in such an exposed way that it went beyond comfortability. Sasuke didn’t want to miss out on the normalcy that developed between two people living their mundane lives beside one another, where acts such as showering together were almost as normal as showering alone. He wanted to participate in the mutual lifestyle, even if it wasn’t the sort of routine Sasuke would get to hold on to in the future. The fact that he was even getting the chance to be with someone in such a way, reminded Sasuke of how far he had come and the small miracles he was going to be getting despite that vow of complete selflessness he had made to himself.

Climbing into the shower, Sasuke had guessed right. Sakura’s face was the same rosy shade as her hair, which was just as lovely all lathered and molded into a crown atop her head. He even noticed how the blush spread down to the back of her neck and kissed the tops of her shoulders. They both locked eyes and immediately dropped their gazes to their feet, pointedly ignoring eachothers’ nakedness as if it they hadn’t just been intimate hours earlier. Their eyes locked again as they looked back up, and Sakura smiled at him reassuringly before she traded positions with him under the showerhead. She was pretending to be unaffected, continuing to massage her scalp and newly-short hair, the soap bubbles running in rivulets along the paths of the loose hair along her nape drawing Sasuke’s attention, and he desperately wanted to run his fingers through it. And to Sasuke’s surprise, Sakura must have been thinking similarly, because she reached up to his own wet black locks immediately and did just that. He closed his eyes as she stood on her tiptoes and began massaging soap into his scalp with two hands. Gods, that felt fucking amazing.

“Showers were such a great invention,” he announced, to which Sakura agreed, going into detail about how the homes were built with modern plumbing after Pain’s demolition of the Leaf, among other modifications and technological advancements.

The hot water was blissful, a luxury Sasuke did not often receive on the road, unless he was lucky enough to stumble upon a hot spring. Even a daily bath was often a rarity, and so Sasuke was determined to enjoy every second of it. He would enjoy it a lot more though, if she would let him bathe her in return. Boldly, but growing in the increasing confidence and comfortability he was finding with her these days, Sasuke turned Sakura so that she faced the stream of the shower head.

He moved his hand to her hair, mimicking her washing efforts single-handedly, fingering those pink, bubble woven strands.

“Do you like girls with short hair or long hair?” she suddenly inquired, and Sasuke halted for a moment at the question. Why did she suddenly want to know that? It immediately felt like the sort of question with no right answer, and his internal alarms were going off.

“Irrelevant, considering you’re the only girl I have, or will ever like.” Surely that was the right answer. It was the truth of it, anyway. Sasuke hoped it would be enough of a response to satisfy her, but Sakura pushed on as his single-handed massaging continued.

“This is going to sound silly, but all of us girls at the academy grew our hair out on purpose because we had all heard the rumor that you liked girls with long hair.”

Sasuke raised a curious brow, trying desperately, but failing to recall any sort of youthful declaration of preference. If Sasuke were to guess, he had probably said all kinds of things to ward off silly girl advances. If someone with a schoolgirl crush on him wore glasses, he would have told her he hated girls with glasses. If another girl was short, he would have said he liked taller girls. And so on and so forth. Anything to spurn them and send them on their way. Sasuke had never had a preference for such things. A preference would be admitting he liked anyone for anything at all. And to be honest, Sasuke hadn’t even paid attention to a girl’s hair until one specific day in the Forest of Death.

“I like your hair,” he admitted candidly. “Especially when you go and cut it off like it’s some declaration of war.”

He could tell she was smiling simply from the way she ducked her head slightly. “I guess in a way, it is,” she admitted.

Sasuke pulled his fingers away from her hair, curling them in hesitation, before deciding to trace a path in the soap at her shoulder blades, once again creating that symbol on her back. It had begun as a sort of declarative mark, a way to tell the world who she was to him; then that mark had become his hope for the future of his—their—clan; but more recently, tracing that symbol into her back was like a therapeutic reminder to them both. Of the choice he had made. When he did so now, Sakura laughed, but Sasuke was telling himself in his head: it’s real. This is real. This is happening. I can have this. I want this. She wants this. WE will make it work one way or another and no one is going to take it from me. Fuck complete selflessness. Just like this shared experience of showering with another person, the Uchiha symbol on Sakura’s back was proof of how far he had come from the man of three years ago, the one who would have killed her and Naruto for simply existing and being liabilities to him.

“So it was just a rumor then,” Sakura stated, refusing to drop her chosen subject even though Sasuke was now miles away from it in his head. It felt like whiplash, coming back to it. “All that time believing such a silly thing would make you like me, when it was power you only ever truly respected.”

Something in Sasuke’s stomach soured at those words and he called upon his years of practiced indifference to refrain himself from flinching. There was truth to her statement, they both knew, and Sasuke hated that he had been that type of person. Looking back on how Sasuke had treated those with power versus how he had acted towards others he believed to be weaker than himself. Had he not sought out Team Taka based on their abilities alone? Suddenly, the Uchiha sort of wished he had been the type of person to have a preference for one’s hair instead of one’s power and ninja ability.

Sasuke wanted to remedy his actions to her, explain it away, but like always, was going to fail miserably, he knew. He settled with trying to emphasize who he was now. “I don’t see people that way anymore. I think you’re the most powerful kunoichi in the world, but I loved you before any of that.” Sasuke wasn’t going to voice that it definitely eased his concerns knowing she was a sanin-level kunoichi who had proved to him countlessly now that she didn’t need others to protect herself. It wouldn’t be beneficial to bring that up again right now.

She turned back to face him then, once again moving to switch spots with him under the running water. Even though their conversation had taken a downward turn, Sasuke couldn’t help himself from trailing her body with his eyes as they pivoted, and her lower back brushed against his legs. It surprised himself how much of an affected man he actually was, even though he would convince the world he was impervious to such things. Just as Sasuke had admitted to the both of them last night, he would be alone in the near future and was eager to store as many visuals of her naked as he could before they parted. He wouldn’t ask her for anything more substantial now, though. Sakura was coming with him, and he could go back to allowing things to naturally transpire between them, instead of rushing into them like that starved desert man in his mind that Sasuke was having a hard time fighting against and reasoning with. He turned his own back to her when the evidence of his affectedness traveled south, and he disguised the concealing of it with the act of letting the water stream down into his face and over his chest. It was his ninja instinct that told him her eyes appraised him similarly while his back was turned.

It was obvious she didn’t notice his own elation, because she immediately asked with a bashful smile and redirected gaze, “So you’ve admitted twice now that you cared for me when we were genin. When exactly did that start?”

Oh, shit. Sasuke supposed he had alluded to that twice now—more like confessed it outright. He had angrily disclosed to Sakura in the heat of last night that his growing feelings for her was the reason for his inexcusable behavior towards her. Sasuke had told Sakura that he knew who she would become to him, which is why he had done everything to make her hate him and permanently cut his bond with her in every way possible. He chastised himself silently for admitting that. The truth to her question was that Sasuke couldn’t pinpoint when he had begun to care for her in more ways than a friend. Not exactly, anyway. At first, Sakura annoyed him. Like all the others. Naruto, of course, at the top of his list—but she wasn’t far behind, claiming she was in love with him when she didn’t even know him. He would say he had begun to care about her around the same time he had begun to care for the rest of Team 7. But when did he know that he would come to care for Sakura in a way that was more? The Chuunin exams? When he had woken from the effects of the Curse Mark to find her beaten and at the mercy of three sound ninja, and realized he would mangle and kill them for it? Or was it before then? Maybe as far back as The Land of Waves, when she thought he was dying and clung desperately to him as if doing so would keep him tethered to this world. Sasuke didn’t know exactly when it had begun for him, and so he avoided her eyes, scrambling to escape answering that question, afraid to not have the answer she hoped for. He reached back to turn off the tap before reaching for the towels beyond the curtain.

His wife’s persistent silence told Sasuke she’d wait the answer out.

“Hmm,” he stalled, then decided on an answer that sounded more like his usual self: “does it really matter?”

She immediately frowned, and Sasuke smirked as he began to towel his hair. It was getting too long and was longer than Sakura’s now when wet. Damn he wished he had two hands so he could dry off faster and leave the washroom that much quicker.

But Sakura was as relentless as usual, deciding to take a guess at it herself.

“In the Forest of Death? During the Chunnin Exams?” She gasped, as if suddenly realizing something and covered her face with her hands. “When I tried to kiss you on the bench? No, that can’t be right. You were so angry that day, calling me annoying for the first time.”

Sasuke halted his efforts of toweling his head. “What are you talking about?”

“You’re still going to pretend that you don’t remember that day?! You tried this the night you left, too!” Sakura reproached his forgetfulness. “I’ll never forget when you called me annoying because I was being harsh about Naruto’s upbringing…I thought you were angry because I had tried to kiss you, but I also sort of said some stupid things—” she confessed in a stutter, avoiding his confused stare

“No,” he clarified. “I remember that part. And calling you annoying. I lied that night and said I didn’t remember that day, but I do. But that’s not the part I’m talking about.”

She narrowed her eyes at his blatant provocation.

“I don’t ever remember you trying to kiss me,” he deadpanned.

“Seriously? You asked me what I thought about Naruto, and I gave an obnoxiously embarrassing speech about how I only wanted your acceptance.” She ducked her head in defeat, grabbing her own towels and wrapping them delicately around herself. “I learned my lesson after that day, and I never said anything like that again. Or tried to kiss you.”

Sasuke listened with roaming, blinking eyes as he tried to make sense of what she was saying. “I don’t remember any of that. I do remember being very angry that day because Naruto had—” Sasuke stopped talking abruptly as the pieces suddenly put themselves together. That day had been like any other normal day, until Naruto ambushed him in his room with his shadow clones. They tied him up and Sasuke was forced to watch as Naruto transformed into him, a perfect Sasuke Uchiha double. That damn idiot.

“What?” she asked, already in the process of adorning her morning work clothes despite the pre-dawn hour.

“That wasn’t me,” Sasuke smirked to himself. “That was Naruto.”

Sakura straightened in disbelief. “Wait, what?”

“That idiot had transformed into me. Caught me by surprise and tied me up that day. I watched him transform into me and run off. And after all this time, now I know what he did as he pretended to be me.” Sasuke wanted to laugh as if he were a genin genuinely amused by the shenanigans of Team 7 once more. Naruto had pretended to be Sasuke that day because he had wanted to get closer to Sakura, who had almost kissed him because she had been so infatuated with her schoolgirl crush. The idea of it had the Uchiha suddenly grinning wildly. Like a treasure in a time capsule, the revelation came to him like a precious piece of the past. Like the cicada song of Konoha, it made Sasuke feel warm instead of exasperated at Naruto’s trickeries that day.

In contrast, Sakura shrieked as the realization of what Naruto had done dawned upon her, too. “HE DID WHAAAAAT?! That IDIOT!”

Sasuke grinned mischievously, not passing up the perfect opportunity of teasing her. “You almost kissed Naruto.”

Her mouth fell open. She stuttered before emphatically tossing down her towel on the floor and promising, “I’m seriously going to kill him for that.”

When Sasuke laughed again, Sakura pointed at him with her own devious smirk. “Well, one of us really did kiss Naruto, and it wasn’t me, unless mouth-to-mouth counts.”

Sasuke threw his own towel at her face, his laughter dying immediately as hers picked back up again. “Don’t ever bring that up again. And mouth-to-mouth counts.”

She laughed, peeking under the towel over her head. “Then I guess both of our first kisses were with Naruto. Can you believe that? And I’ve technically kissed several people before you then, as well.”

Sasuke frowned at the thought of Sakura performing that medically necessary practice and changed his answer. “Ok. It doesn’t count.”

“Then I win.”

“What was there to win?” he asked incredulously.

“Nothing. But there was something to lose. Your dignity. You lose because you kissed Naruto.”

“His wife, the Hyuga girl, begs to differ.”

“You’re right. Kissing the world’s savior is not a bad way to live your life. I guess that makes you a lucky man, then.”

Sasuke scowled pointedly and Sakura giggled, moving toward him in the dim steamy bathroom, fully clothed now while he was still dripping naked. She splayed her fingertips across his abdomen, and he immediately wiped his face clean of emotion. She took the towel in her other hand and wrapped it around his waist to bring him closer to her. “Not as lucky I feel getting to kiss you, the savior in the shadows.”

“I guess that’s true,” he murmured with a smug tilt of his chin. She went in for the kiss and Sasuke reached up to secure her neck, guiding her the rest of the way. Their lips touched briefly, a promise for that natural substantiality, after all. That starvation for connection flared to life inside him like that black, pulsating eternal sun of Amaterasu he had become for her.

And then a knock sounded through Sakura’s home. They both immediately stilled as Sasuke’s vision morphed into red and purple. Another knock. His gaze flashed in the direction of the doorway down the hall from them, and he quickly identified the two people, their two outlines of chakra concentrations flickering like flames just outside Sakura’s front door. At first, Sasuke was assuming it might be someone from the hospital again, coming to request her presence. One mass was impressive and flickering erratically, a figure dangling on the other as if supported. Sasuke sighed and deactivated his visual prowess, an unnecessary drain on his chakra now that he had a guess at who was at the door.

Before Sasuke could relay this conjecture to Sakura, the two individuals knocked again and announced their identities themselves. “Sakura?! You in there? Sorry to bother you at this hour, but Lee got a bit carried away drinking again! I heard you were back in the village, are you in there?”

“How often does this sort of thing happen?” Sasuke asked, instantly annoyed for several different reasons: 1) Sakura’s offered kiss had just been interrupted and he had been quite looking forward to that, 2) who in their right mind, because of drunkenness, would casually interrupt her sleep at this hour anyway, and 3) for some reason he would never confess aloud, Sasuke didn’t quite care that Rock Lee was one of the people on the other side of the door.

“Not often,” Sakura relayed, making to step around him. Sasuke scowled. “But when Lee gets like this, I told him to come to me without guilt or reservation.”

Sasuke couldn’t help but scoff distinctly at that.

“I owe him this much, remember?” she declared, making for the couch to grab her father’s old set of clothes from the spot on the arm where Sasuke had left them the last time he had stayed over. She tossed it to him as he continued to pointedly display his annoyed expression. “He fought for me in the Forest of Death and has helped me more since. Even without that between us, he is still a Konoha citizen and my patient.”

Sasuke almost asked ‘how exactly has he helped since’ simply because he wanted to know the specifics, but clamped his mouth shut. Do not be an irrational dick, he told himself. He technically owed Lee too, in a sense, for helping her. Sasuke shut the bathroom door as he heard Sakura receive them, Lee greeting her enthusiastically despite his supposed drunkenness, while Sasuke stood close enough to the bathroom door to eavesdrop while he dressed.

“Sakuraaa?” Lee stuttered, and Sasuke could hear him stumble his way into the small space, knocking his knee ungracefully into the doorframe.

“Leeee,” sighed an exasperated feminine voice that Sasuke recognized, placing it as the female member of Team Guy whom Sasuke couldn’t even recall having ever had a conversation with before. “Get off her! Sorry Sakura, he always gets like this when he’s had too much to drink, but you know that.”

“It’s fine!” Sakura assured them. “Here Lee, let’s get you to the couch.”

It most certainly was not fine, and Sasuke finished dressing, quite done eavesdropping. He had thought he might sit it out in the bathroom, but not after that exchange.

Opening the door, Sasuke casually strode into the kitchen as if he couldn’t be bothered by any of them. He heard the room fall silent as he pointedly ignored them, heading straight to the kitchen in search of that cabinet where he had once retrieved some medication for Sakura’s hangover not several months ago.

Sakura didn’t miss a beat, pretending to be unphased by Sasuke’s sudden unexpected passing, as if this was just as normal as Lee showing up to her house, apparently. “What happened exactly?” she inquired.

“It was an accident,” Tenten explained from the other room, stuttering as she recovered from the shock of randomly seeing Sasuke here after so many years of absence. “We were eating with Choji and Shikamaru, and Lee somehow got his drink mixed up with Shikamaru’s. Next thing we knew, he was hanging from the rafters.”

Sasuke clutched the container with the yellow label marked “Cys/Potas,” the same one that Sakura had indicated had been especially made for Lee’s drunken fist. Next, Sasuke grabbed a glass from a nearby shelf and rotated it in his hand as he thought about that particular information Tenten just divulged. Mixed up drinks? With Shikamaru, of all people? Sasuke pursed his lips as he considered that in the context of recent events. Maybe the shinobi world and his latest interactions concerning the spikey-haired ninja had made him paranoid, but Sasuke scowled down at the reflective glass, overthinking the likelihood of that happening with the Hokage’s right-hand assistant. Shikamaru was a genius, and to put it bluntly, didn’t like the Uchiha (Sasuke didn’t really care, because he didn’t like him all that much either), but would he really go as far as to purposefully get Lee drunk, knowing it was a habit for Lee and his companions to seek Sakura’s assistance? What would be the point of such a calculated move? To spy? To interrupt them? To wake Sakura so she would report to Kakashi? To remind her of her critical function in the Leaf and her other male options? Hn. Sasuke wasn’t going to assume any of that, but he wasn’t going to entirely discredit it as paranoia either.

Sakura didn’t hesitate a second at Tenten’s statement, saying, “Yes, this isn’t the first time this sort of thing has happened. Has he eaten anything?”

“Yes,” Tenten replied immediately. “He ate two plates before—” she halted when Sasuke came back into the room.

“This is what you need, correct?” Sasuke ignored them altogether, placing the glass of water and medication he held with one hand onto the table in front of the sofa.

“Yes,” Sakura answered him, not entirely sure whom Sasuke was addressing, but assuming it must have been her, since Sasuke paced to take up his usual shut-eyed spot against one of the walls, making no effort to talk to either of her guests. Sasuke wanted to tell them that they had gotten what they needed so they could leave now, but Sasuke was reminding himself to hold his tongue because he was trying to not come off as the asshole Shikamaru and the rest of Konoha 13 thought him to be. He may not be doing a very good job at it by blatantly ignoring them, but it was better than the annoyed words on his tongue.

Tenten didn’t seem to be too bothered by his predictable stony silence, because she said boldly, “So the rumors are true then. You’re back, Sasuke.”

Sasuke opened an eye to acknowledge her, giving her a polite but not out of character, “Not for long.” He could have remained silent completely, but Sasuke supposed he didn’t want to give the rest of Konoha any more reasons to hate him than they already had, especially those connected to Sakura.

The medicine seemed to be working as Lee began to come out of his drunken haze slowly but surely. “Sakuraaaaa,” he whined again, slumping forward on the couch her general direction. “I know--*hic* that you love Sasuke and all, but *hic*--” he didn’t get further before Tenten slapped a hand over his mouth.

“Don’t say anything more,” she chastised him, then turned to Sakura. “Sorry, he gets emotional and confrontational when he’s like this. He doesn’t mean half of what he says. Thank you for the medication, Sakura. I’ll take him home now.”

Sasuke raised an eyebrow at the words that had come from Lee’s mouth, and the challenging glare framed by those bushy brows of his. Confrontational when drunk, indeed; Lee had acted completely different towards him several months back when he had met up with the caravan Lee had been escorting into the village. He had been full of the ‘spirit of youth’ back then, and very enthusiastic to see Sasuke well. And for the first time since all those years ago, Sasuke remembered Lee’s crush on Sakura. And with that memory, Sasuke suddenly had his answer to Sakura’s question from earlier, too. The first time Sasuke had felt something other than comradery toward Sakura had to have been when Lee boldly—still was bold, apparently—confessed his love for her on that first day of the Chuunin exams.

And now that Sasuke held Lee’s gaze, the Uchiha remembered that he had felt a deep annoyance for the ninja’s admiration for Sakura, but it had all been eclipsed once Lee brought up the Uchiha clan and proceeded to challenge Sasuke to a fight. Sasuke had also overlooked his annoyance when Lee had stood up for Sakura in the Forest of Death at a time when Sasuke and Naruto had been incapacitated. It was for those same reasons, that Sasuke chose to not say anything more now. He had always respected Lee, even if the bushy browed ninja did still harbor affection for his wife. A couple months ago, Sasuke would have conceded to Lee for Sakura’s attention, even going as far to push her in the other man’s direction, knowing in his heart that Lee deserved her, would be good to her, and might even make her happy someday through his consistent presence—be Sakura’s doting husband and the father of her children.

Not now though. Whatever Lee had wanted to say to her tonight, it would have been three months too late anyway. Even Lee knew it, because the drunken man sighed as he made to stand, picking up the medication to take with him. Lee was removing the excuse to visit her himself and they all recognized that intentional act. “I’m sorry Sakura. For bothering you again, especially at this hour. I’ll try to be more careful in the future.”

“You’re no trouble, Lee. You can always come to me for help. You know that. Tell Shikamaru to be more careful with his drink placement, next time.”

Sasuke glanced at Sakura at that statement. He supposed that he wasn’t the only one who squinted their eyes a bit at the circumstances of tonight.

And even though Sakura had offered Lee her continued assistance, Lee had still taken the medication with him. And Sakura didn’t insist he leave it behind.

They didn’t talk about Lee, or much of anything after the two ninja left, really. Sakura had felt uncomfortable, but firm in her practices whenever the two members of Team Guy had arrived at her door. She had to admit she was a little surprised that Sasuke had retrieved Lee’s medication from her cabinet like he was as familiar with Lee’s drunken care as she was, placing it down on the table for him in her stead. But then again, the Uchiha had done stranger, bolder things in the last couple months that had surprised her more. Sakura knew Sasuke well enough to know why he had done it, doing his best to casually, but firmly reveal their relationship to Tenten and Lee (he didn’t have to come out of that bathroom, and Sakura hadn’t expected him to.)

She raced against the growing hour, throwing things randomly into a travel sack, already determined to leave with him. Sasuke watched her stonily with pursed, tense lips. She ignored him, knowing the Uchiha was still having second thoughts about asking her to continue their traveling together even in this moment. She wasn’t going to give him another out.

“I want to check in with Kakashi once more before we leave,” she announced for a second time, moving through the motions of packing, just as she had done several months prior, and not really paying that much attention to what she was throwing in the bag.

“Sakura..” Sasuke tried, but Sakura anticipated his words and cut him off instantly.

“I don’t want to hear it.”

“The Otsusuki—” he began again, refusing not to try one last time to emphasize the primary threat they’d be facing together from this point on.

“Can go to hell,” she finished, handing him her rucksack before boldly fisting her hands behind his neck, her palms sliding to the forefront of his cheekbones. In the dim pre-dawn, lantern-lit hour, Sakura searched both of his eyes. “We get to be selfish.” The window that they had left open all night long, gifted them one last Konoha breeze, the cicadas of the previous evening now silent. Not even they wanted to disturb this quiet solitude, but Sakura had to be the one to set things into motion. For the second time this year, she would tell Kakashi that she was leaving.

Sasuke closed the space between them, taking that kiss that had been interrupted earlier, and Sakura knew this was his way of saying, ‘Okay. Let’s do this, then.’ His mouth was warm and Sakura wanted desperately to climb back into that bed, kiss him into the dawn, and listen to the night give way to birdsong. But Sakura wanted to follow him the rest of the way toward accomplishing his mission more.

To her surprise, Sasuke broke the kiss, he too preparing for the imminent future. She knew he was eager to be gone from Konoha and to resume the hunt for the Otsutsuki.

“Meet me at the gates?” she asked, already gasping, but holding her breath like she could cling to the quiet present shared between them if she did so.

“I’ll meet you there.”

And Sakura assumed he had simply agreed. Donning her white doctor’s coat, she sprinted off into the night, heading toward the spot Sakura knew Kakashi would be.

The pink-haired Kunoichi once again, left her home with a silent farewell, the residence a loyal and waiting fortitude that would forever preserve the short Konoha chapters of their lifelong story together.

Kakashi was a worldclass ninja, and being a ninja, was not in the habit of being snuck up upon, especially here. It was common for the Hokage to upgrade into more secure housing once they became officially titled as the head of the village, but Kakashi had reallocated the Hokage’s quarters for other purposes recently, taking up residence in his old apartment instead. He had meant what he had said this morning about running out of space to house all the individuals flooding into the Leaf Village. He had given up the Hokage quarters to shocked refugees a month ago, preferring to keep his old discreet lodgings for himself. To everyone else’s knowledge but a select few, he had simply upgraded to something more private.

He sat up at the knock, wondering which of those select few had decided to interrupt his sleep, and then shot out of bed as he registered the night out his window. Because if the Hokage was being sought out at this hour, it must be an emergency.

But when he opened the door, Kakashi’s anxiety skyrocketed for an entirely different reason. It was Sakura on the other side of it. He looked down at her, her determined expression as she stared into his chest was all he needed to see to know exactly why she was here. He sighed and rubbed the back of his neck.

“I’m leaving,” his pink-haired student blurted out, like it had taken her significant courage to do so. And in a smaller guilty sort-of voice, added, “again.”

“I guessed as much,” Kakashi admitted, opening the door for her to come inside. The action gave her pause and Kakashi knew she was thinking he was inviting her inside because his goal would be to talk her out of it. She met his eyes to try to read his face and her emerald irises widened.

Kakashi sleepily raised a curious brow when her hand went to cover her mouth. “Your mask—it’s OFF?!”

Remembering suddenly that he had chosen to forego the mask while he slept, Kakashi clutched Sakura’s wrist and pulled her the rest of the way inside. When the door was shut behind her, he released her and rubbed the back of his neck awkwardly. “I typically sleep with it off, in the privacy of my own home.”

“Um,” Sakura stumbled over her words, her eyes the size of full moons and mouth hung open like the door he had just slammed to avoid prying eyes. “Why do you even wear that mask when you have a face like that, Sensei?”

He turned his back on her in search of said mask, cringing internally that she had seen him without it. “It doesn’t fit me, this face,” he admitted finding the cowl and pulling it down over his chin and nose. “It’s my father’s face. The face of the White Fang.”

“You don’t want to see it?” she asked, moving more fully into the room. It was a labyrinth of books, paperwork, and gifts from the citizens of Konoha. He hadn’t known what to do with such items, but didn’t want to throw them out either, feeling it to be highly disrespectful to do so. So, it had become his surrounding, the insulation of his small apartment.

“No,” he confessed, as unaffected by emotion as possible.

“Then avoid reflective surfaces, but don’t do the rest of the world the disservice.”

He laughed then, enjoying his young student’s playful humor. He would never live this down; she’d never see him the same. Which is precisely why he would wear it to the grave. Kakashi had initially worn it for the reasons he had confessed to Sakura, but it had also just become a part of his persona. Like a pair of glasses or an Anbu mask, Kakashi had grown accustomed to the pressure on his face and now preferred the comfort of something so consistent. It didn’t hurt his shinobi reputation, either, to wear an elusive, intimidating mask. It separated him from his father, distinctly characterizing him as his own person to others. It was quite literally stitched into his identity.

“But seriously,” Sakura continued, “find someone to show yourself to, Sensei. Just because you’re the Hokage doesn’t mean you need to be alone.”

Kakashi sighed again, rubbing the back of his neck. Is this what it felt like when he interfered in his student’s love lives? “Not really interested in anything of the sort,” he confessed. “Living vicariously through my students is quite enough—”

Sakura wasn’t backing down it seemed, pointing a finger in his direction, “Don’t act like you’re not just as bad as Jiraiya, Kakashi Sensei. You read nothing but Makeout Tactics for years.”

He coughed loudly, suddenly confronted with a behavior that had never been a secret. Everyone knew how much he enjoyed that book series. “A healthy outlet,” he excused, “for a loveless life.”

Before she could say anything more, Kakashi turned the tables on her. “It seems you and Sasuke, however, have chosen to continue traveling together. When do you leave?”

She went from teasing back to serious as she came forward and stood a little straighter. “Sunrise.”

In just a couple hours, then. That soon? Kakashi supposed that this was going to be his last chance alone with Sakura to express his concerns before she inevitably followed the Uchiha back into the wilderness.

“Sakura,” he began, and he saw her physically brace herself as she searched his eyes for the words he had yet to speak. “I have wished for nothing more than you and Sasuke to be happy. Seeing you both choose each other was the highlight of my year, I promise you. But,”

She ducked her head. “I was afraid there might be a but this time.”

“Recently, there has been some tension where Sasuke is concerned—” Kakashi stated, but Sakura interrupted him.

“I already know,” she confessed. “Shikamaru told me.”

Kakashi squinted his eyes as he considered that, knowing that his assistant would have not been soft in his delivery of their mutual concerns. He sighed, wishing Shikamaru would have let Kakashi be the one to do so first as the leader of Team 7. He supposed Shikamaru had little faith Kakashi would address it at all for that very reason.

“But it’s not like that Kakashi. Naruto and I—” she began, but Kakashi waved her panicking declarations away.

“I know what you’re going to say,” he came forward and placed a hand on her shoulder groundingly. “And I still extend my congratulations to you both. I am happy for you, Sakura. But this time, I’m going to also extend a word of caution.”

She waited for it, and Kakashi could hear her breath catching, her chest tightening as if waiting for impact.

“I came to the conclusion that Sasuke’s threat wasn’t ingenuine like Naruto claims it to be,” he said and Sakura’s wide eyes jumped to his. “I think Sasuke will always struggle with his nature, and there is always the possibility of his relapse.”

She shook her head, attempting to resume Sasuke’s defense, but Kakashi finished his speech with, “However, I am choosing to have faith—just as Sasuke is, himself—that you and Naruto are enough security in the instance that one of Team 7 may eventually—heaven forbid—be lost.”

“I think that, too, Kakashi. But it will never come to that. Sasuke vowed to me last night that he would never become that way again, even if Team 7–.”

“But it’s not only Team 7 that I am concerned about, Sakura,” Kakashi confessed, stealing himself to admit to her what he had silently worried about ever since the Uchiha’s declarations in Sunagakure. As much as he didn’t want to, Kakashi was going to bring it up. He wanted her prepared. He wanted Sasuke prepared.

“I don’t understand—”

“A child, Sakura.”

In the eclipsing mist-lurking darkness, Sasuke traced his fingers along the Uchiha memorial, finding Itachi’s name carved into the plaque at the bottom. Sasuke hadn’t understood until now that whoever had created the memorial had listed each member of the Uchiha clan massacre and saw it fit to add UCHIHA ITACHI despite his role in their deaths. Sasuke was surprised to find it there, knowing that those who had died by his hand deserved their own plaque apart from their murderer. But whoever had designed it had added Itachi, and Sasuke couldn’t think of any other reason other than that, at the end of the day, it had been determined Itachi was a victim of the Uchiha massacre, too. There weren’t many people who knew about Itachi’s secret, which led Sasuke to conclude once again that Kakashi was responsible for this memorial. Sasuke had missed it the first time he had visited several months ago, but seeing it now made a flicker of guilt spark inside him about his behavior towards Kakashi the past few days. He was still angry with him about his recent actions regarding Sakura, but he appreciated him all the same for his efforts to maintain and honor their rocky back and forth relationship.

Sasuke sighed as he traced his older brother’s name, feeling like he was visiting his grave for the first time despite the fact that Itachi’s body didn’t lay beneath his feet. How incredible it was that a simple name engraved on stone suddenly became like an open conduit to one’s lost soul where there hadn’t been one before. Like an unexpected winter wind that whipped around you, the ghosts of the past arrived to surround Sasuke, the one from their clan who had survived, the one who had tried to avenge them. They stared back at him now, shadows of their former selves with hollow eyes pacing around Sasuke to survey just what kind of the man the last living Uchiha became. He fixated on the silhouettes of his imagination that felt like home as his fingers found his mother’s and father’s name placed beside one another on the monument just as they had left this world side-by-side.

“Mother,” he whispered, “Father,” uttering those words for the first time since the night they had left his throat in screams. “I don’t feel so alone anymore. I’m going to be my own man from now on. I’m going to make my own choices for myself, now. Wherever you are right now, I hope you’re together.”

Sasuke suddenly looked up into the eyes of a grim funeral bird, a crow landing to perch on the top of the memorial, a figment in the darkness that cocked its head in evaluative listening. Sasuke stilled, imagining his brother in its place, perched on top of that gravestone and looking down at him with a bone chilling, “Sasuke.”

“And you, Itachi,” Sasuke whispered among those pacing shadows, acknowledging the ghost above him. “I hope wherever you are, you’re finally free, and that your sacrifice paid for an afterlife of happiness. In the end, I don’t think I want to be like you, Itachi. You gave up all the things you wanted and dreamed about and for what? You were manipulated Itachi. Your sacrifice was for the benefit of a crazed man. I killed him for what he did to you.”

The crow tilted its head as it listened. It cawed loudly whenever Sasuke fell silent.

Sasuke continued, saying, “Instead of living a life of complete sacrifice, I think I want to simply live my life by doing what’s right. I want some of that happiness now, in the present.”

The cawing turned to words of warning that Sasuke heard in the chambers of his heart. “The Uchiha cannot determine what is right. Their emotions cloud their judgement. The Uchiha have always brought about destruction by conceding to their selfish desires. Selfishness will be your downfall.”

Sasuke scowled at the talking bird, shaking his head in denial at the very words that haunted his heart like his brother’s ghost did now. “I have Naruto and Sakura to live by. I’ll stand by their sides to protect the village. I’ll choose what theychoose. I won’t become what I was. Never again. I’ll spend the rest of my life proving you wrong. Proving everyone else wrong.”

The bird did not speak, but its black beady eye surveyed him carefully as mist curled around them, as if the creature before him possessed a sight beyond the abilities of the Rinnegan. Sasuke suddenly felt exposed as it sized him with otherworldly measure, as if it could discern the very colors of the sins that stained his soul. As if it could scry into the various futures that could manifest according to Sasuke’s life-altering decisions.

Sasuke doubled down, convincing his brother and vowing to himself. “I’ll hunt the Otsusuki because I want to protect my loved ones and the Leaf, not because I want to live up to your legacy of martyrdom. I don’t want to live in the name of vengeance, in the name of sacrifice, or in the name of losses anymore. I think I want to live for me. I want to live for the ones who remain. Is that so terrible?”

And the crow tilted its head in contemplation, before croaking, “Maybe you’re different. Maybe your ties will save you, Sasuke. Maybe you can be selfish if your selfishness means living for others. Maybe it is love that will keep you from falling after all. It was my love for you that sustained me.” And then Sasuke imagined that the crow bowed its royal head, a show of the black plumage crown of the grim, before it cawed in finality, flapping its magnificent wings and bursting from its haunting roost in a loud cacophony that startled the souls of the grave back into the mist of the morning. Sasuke wasn’t sure what sort of answer he was given, or if he had imagined the entire conversation altogether, but he felt lighter. He felt righted in his downward spiral.

That feeling of lightness continued as the stripe of sun began its rise on the horizon, the warmth of the sun casting out the chill of shadows in his mind as Sasuke headed to that spot. It was its own kind of haunting, that expanse of cobblestone parallel the stone bench on the only road out of the village. The very place where he and Sakura’s first real confrontation took place and the spot where they had met multiple times since. Just a few months ago, it was the exact same location that Sakura had pretty much told Sasuke he wasn’t leaving her behind again. She had chosen to follow without his initial permission. But this time was different. This time, Sasuke wanted to face the ghost of it as he had his brother’s, the painful memory he had created there. This time he would rewrite his wrongs and their history.

Except that lightness won from earlier was replaced with unease when Sasuke got there as the sunrise fully cast its violet banner in the sky, and Sakura wasn’t there waiting for him. Activating his visual prowess, he looked down the path back toward the heart of the village, but did not even see the essence of her.

Was this how Sakura had felt that night? Waiting for Sasuke to arrive and fearing that something was wrong? Just as she had done for him all those years ago, Sasuke would wait for her because he knew she would come. And he realized suddenly how easy it had been to tell Naruto yesterday that Sakura would be staying behind in the Leaf where she belonged, but how impossible it now seemed to face such a reality. The Uchiha wasn’t leaving without her.

Sakura had carried Kakashi’s words like weight in her chest as she had clamored into the medical labs at five in the morning with a newfound vigor.

“It’s not my place to pry like this,” he had begun when Sakura’s shock had left her speechless. “But as your sensei who knows all three of you best, would you or Naruto be enough insurance for Sasuke, or even you for that matter, if for some reason, a child—your child—was lost to the both of you?”

“You’re right, Kakashi Sensei. That really isn’t anyone’s business,” she had responded steadily and formally. “No one else is being asked what you’re about to ask me to do—or rather, do without.”

Kakashi had begun a long stream of consciousness in an attempt to clarify. “I don’t want to make you promise such a thing, Sakura. There’s nothing I want more for you than that. But I just want you to consider the answer to that question first. You’re not responsible for the path Sasuke takes from now on, so don’t mistake my words for that or let Shikamaru convince you that you are. I wholeheartedly support your choice to pursue this ‘newfound happiness’—as Naruto put it. We can leave the future in the future. I don’t intend to burden you with my worries, but I want you to be informed of the steaks at hand, to protect yourself. Sasuke’s reaction was intense, to say the least. And I know you Sakura. You’d throw away your life to protect him, side with him, or even stop him. Despite what you are to him now, know your worth to the rest of your loved ones. The entire shinobi world of medicine has advanced from your contributions alone. You are so much more than Sasuke Uchiha’s lover or his children’s mother.”

Sakura’s eyes had watered at that, her steely resolve softening at her sensei’s uplifting articulation. “I know Kakashi. I know what you’re trying to say, but you don’t have to worry. I’m being careful. I’m not taking any chances right now either. But I can’t help myself, Kakashi. I can’t walk away from him indefinitely.”

Her sensei had nodded, accepting her answer before his expression had turned a different sort of heavy. The speech concerning Sasuke had been fatherly. This sort of look on his face morphed into a sadness of regret. He had proceeded to apologize to her, for allowing her to go after the Zenshin organization alone back in Suna, saying, “I shouldn’t have allowed you to put yourself in any situation where you might have compromised yourself or felt pressured to—you know—for the sake of the village.”

Sakura had blushed embarrassingly at his apology. “Oh Kakashi, I didn’t.”

“That’s not what Uchiha Sasuke said to me.”

Sakura had waved his concerns away. “You know how dramatic he is. I had it under control. I didn’t do anything extreme.”

“Sasuke wouldn’t be angry without cause. He has a right to be angry with me about it. I should have never agreed to let anyone use such a disguise, especially one of my own.”

She had left shortly after, but not before the Zenshin organization, and those that continued to hunt her at a distance, were discussed in full. She had tried to listen to the Hokage’s concerns, plans, and questions carefully, but Sakura’s brain was planning for the now. Her time had been ticking and honestly, she was sick of caring about the organization known as Zenshin. They had come at her carelessly, unprepared, and with an underestimation of Sakura. She would deal with them when they came to find her again despite how proactive the Hokage was being on her behalf. To Kakashi’s chagrin, Sakura had expressed as much before parting with a tight hug around her sensei’s waist, a special request to keep an affectionate eye on Isao in her absence, and running toward the hospital.

Sakura didn’t know where they were headed next or for how long, but she wanted to have everything in order. She made more chakra pills even though she had made a batch before leaving Suna, medical supplies for injuries, capsulized more of the antidepressant, H. Perforatum, for further study, and yes, even more contraceptives for both Sasuke and herself. The Kunoichi hadn’t lied to Kakashi when she said she was being careful. Sakura had started her doses before leaving Suna and had consistently taken them, and now Sasuke was, too. She hadn’t chosen to do so for the sake of fearing Sasuke’s future, or because she was under the sick impression that they should sacrifice their happiness in order to protect any part of the shinobi world from Sasuke. She just wanted them both to be ready, and she knew that Sasuke clearly wasn’t any sort of ready from their conversations in the cave alone. She’d cross any other bridges when she came to them.

Taking a note from Sasuke’s handbook, Sakura began sealing all of her items within a concealment scroll for easier transport. She had just finished finalizing another canvas bundle of medicines and placing it in the scrolls, when she heard the birdsong. Glancing over at the window, Sakura was greeted with the flush of dawn. Stripping her Leaf medical attire and abandoning it in her office, Sakura clutched the scroll and ran.

It was such an odd sensation, racing the fuschia sunrise, pounding your feet down a stone path you had walked countless times, but now it miraculously felt different. It felt like the path to him. Before, it had been the path Sasuke had chosen to use to walk away from her that night and had done so several times since. She hadn’t been able to walk it a single time in his absence without remembering the pain of that night. But suddenly, it was like it had thawed from time, as if it were beginning at the sunrise after that night, picking up where it had left off and resuming what it always should have been. It should have always been a path they took together.

Sakura didn’t realize just how nervous she was that he might not have waited for her, until she saw him. Cloaked in black, traveling poncho once again adorned, and Sakura’s pack on his shoulder, a relieved sort of expression passing his features as he saw her. To be honest, Sakura hadn’t expected to see him there, standing exactly where she had all those years ago and where they had rendezvoused once more a few months ago. It clicked for her then, what Sasuke had meant by “I’ll meet you there.” Not at the gates as she had requested. But here. This spot. Before she could stop herself, tears pricked her eyes at the significance.

She wiped them away as she came to a stop before him, panting from the run. He sighed with a raised eyebrow and Sakura laughed slightly, assuming that he was annoyed at her tardiness. She didn’t care. She was high on the exhilaration of now and immediately chirped an old nostalgic excuse that also happened to be the truth. “Sorry I’m late. Got lost on the path of life.”

There was a mischievous poke to her forehead and Sakura rubbed it with a smile. “Never took you for picking up on Kakashi’s bad habits. I thought something must have happened. You did say sunrise, didn’t you?”

“Yeah, I know. I was prepping some

medical supplies,” she smiled. She felt stupid for how much she was smiling. “We can go, now. I’m ready!” She made to walk past him, giddy with the love she felt for this man and the excitement of their continued journey, however long or short it would be. How different this scenario was playing out from the past. But Sasuke grabbed her fingers lightly with his own.

“Wait,” he breathed, a whisper on the birdsong dawn that no one would be able to hear but herself. “I wanted to tell you something.”

She turned, that elation coming down like the fall of adrenaline.

“I wanted to tell you that if I could make the choice over that night—”

Sakura shook her head immediately, wind-blown hair brushing her cheeks as she did so. “I would have you make the same choices,” she confessed. “Because it led us to here and now. I do not wish you would have chosen differently Sasuke, even though it was painful.”

He smiled sadly, before adding. “I’ve decided something, today. My reason for living is not revenge this time. After all these years, I think I am finally like you and Naruto. Our paths will still be different, but maybe we can walk together sometimes, share them along the way. Like our orbits.”

And Sakura knew he was referring to the words of that painful night. The words were written into the memory of her soul.

“My words from that night have not changed,” she smiled. “I still think that I can make you happy. I know that you won’t be able to stay in Konoha with me like I had begged you to. And I can’t promise you that every day will be fun and happy, but our sometimes is better than nothing.”

“I’m attempting to rewrite one of my most shameful moments,” he continued, confidence increasing with her adoring words. “This time, I’m asking you to come with me.”

“What if you regret it?” She teased, squeezing his fingers with her own. “I’ve been told quite often that I can be annoying.”

“I don’t see that ever changing,” he deadpanned, grunting as he received an elbow to the ribs.

“I’m not sticking my nose into your business?”

“You most definitely are,” he dodged her next jab, grabbing her wrist and bringing her closer to him. “But I want you to.”

After a moment of staring into one another’s mirthful eyes, flushed with daybreak. Sasuke released her and Sakura nodded down the path to the gates. “Then let’s go.”

“Hn,” he agreed, shouldering her pack just as he did months ago.

Kakashi wasn’t a snoop, but he wanted—had to— see it for himself. He hadn’t been exaggerating when he had told Sakura he was vicariously living through his students. That moment where Sasuke had reached for her fingers with his own had been a breakthrough in Kakashi’s mind about Sasuke’s character. His words had been too hushed, and Kakashi was now without the sharingan to make out what they were saying, but he knew his students well enough to see it for himself: the tenderness, the regret, and the love they had for one another. Not to mention the degree of playfulness between them that Kakashi hadn’t even witnessed between their genin-selves.

And, Kakashi couldn’t believe his eyes as they made to walk away. Was that the Uchiha crest on Sakura’s back? He blinked, even going as far as to rub his old, now sharingan-less, eyes. It sure as hell was. Those two sneaks, Kakashi laughed to himself. Well, he now sort of felt like his speech earlier had been a bit pointless. It wasn’t a matter of if they had a family together, but a matter of when. If Sasuke’s feelings had grown enough where the Uchiha had actually gone as far as to marry her despite his resolution of independent atonement, then he would probably do pretty much anything for that woman. And Kakashi knew Sakura and the dreams she had for herself. Kakashi both sighed and smiled as he shook his head in disbelief and awe.

It wasn’t only Kakashi who had been a silent spectator. Eight anbu landed beside him, the very anbu Kakashi had detailed to follow Sakura while she was in the village. His concern for her safety rivaled the boys’ at this point. The Zenshin who wanted her life was still out there. The Anbu were silent witnesses to the pair’s exchange as well, as they stood beside Kakashi, waiting for their new orders now that Sakura was leaving the village with Sasuke.

Once his students were out of sight behind the Leaf Village gates, Kakashi performed the summoning seal. There was the telltale poof of materialization, a cloud of white revealing Kakashi’s eight ninja hounds. Pakkun, perched upon Bull’s massive head, looked up at Kakashi past his graying muzzle and misty eyes.

“Aren’t we a little too old to be summoned for work?” Pakkun complained. “When’s your retirement again?”

“Not getting here fast enough,” Kakashi answered before saying, “I hate to ask for your help. But this has gotten personal.”

Kakashi divided the hounds amongst the anbu present, giving precise orders for each four-cell team. Two dogs per two anbu was the goal, creating four teams total with the ability to move discreetly but have enough support within the squad, operating just as a leaf village shinobi team.

One orange-haired Anbu remained after the others received their orders and dispersed, Pakkun quickly attaching himself to the ninja’s shoulder.

“I want to hunt the Zenshin who remain,” Kakashi informed him. “Even if it takes us outside of the village. We will have to be discreet as a whole. Can I count on you to lead this mission and report on these four teams?”

“It would be my honor, Lord Hokage. I would do almost anything for Sakura-san.”

Kakashi raised an eyebrow at that, marking the distinct fox shape anbu mask and orange hair. There were several ninja sporting that color of hair, but Kakashi had a hunch as to who it might be. A ninja with the surname Mizuno. Kakashi knew him to be one of Chino’s exploding human bomb burn victims, and assumed his filial sentiments toward Sakura were due to her recent treatment of his burns.

“Give any remaining members you discover the same options she gave the others,” the Hokage ordered. “They can spend imprisonment here or be transported to Sunagakure to the Kazekage. There is no third option.”

“Yes, Lord Hokage.”

“Where to now?” Sakura asked Sasuke once they were at the crossroads out of the village and Sasuke came to an abrupt stop. She took the opportunity to tuck the scroll she had been carrying into the side pocket of her bag that Sasuke had refused to relinquish over to her twice now. He had ‘plans to store it in his own scrolls soon’ and it ‘wasn’t a burden,’ he had claimed when she tried to take it.

Sasuke didn’t miss a beat, saying his next words as if it were the most normal conclusion. “Orochimaru’s hideout.”

Sakura, however, tripped over her own feet and came to a stumbling halt. Did she just hear him correctly? “Wait, what? WHY?”

The Uchiha kept walking down the forest path, seemingly unbothered by her obvious worry, but Sakura quickly caught up to him and grabbed his right arm, gently guiding his body back around to face her. She searched his eyes before identifying the resolution in them. Her shoulders sank at finding it there. This meant that Sasuke knew she would object, but he had a plan in place and was set on it.

“Is this for your mission?” she inquired, mentally preparing to see that slimy snake of a devil who had taken Sasuke from her all those years ago if it meant furthering Sasuke’s goal to find the Otsusuki. What could Orochimaru possibly have to add to the search?

Sasuke removed the emotion from his mask, slipping into the Uchiha persona she knew as the shinobi elite that could and would help save the world. “No. I meant what I said about finding the remaining members of Zenshin who are after you. There’s someone there that can help me do that.”

“Wait,” Sakura raised a hand to stop his explanation, a specific red-haired ninja who could identify someone by their chakra coming to the forefront of her mind. He couldn’t mean that woman, could he? “Just wait a second.”

“You can’t talk me out of it, Sakura.”

“Listen,” she began, sighing as this topic was brought up yet again. “Kakashi’s on it. He plans to hunt them down himself.”

Sasuke turned to continue walking, unphased by this knowledge. “He won’t get far, because I’ll beat him to it.”

She stumbled in front of him, blocking his path with an awkward rub to her neck. “Can we not do this,” she implored. “Please?”

He sighed in exasperation. “You want me to just forget about those still after you? Not do anything about it at all?”

“Yes?”

“What kind of man—and partner for that matter—do you take me for?”

“The kind of man who has already put off his own goals for my sake for a month and a half now. Come on. Let’s leave it to Kakashi, and if Zenshin shows up, we can deal with them at that point.”

He glared at her as her hands found his waist, reaching up under his poncho and tangling her fingers at his back, bringing their bodies close together. It was a method of entreating him that she had used a couple times now.

“That’s not going to work,” he hissed, an embarrassed blush staining his cheeks despite his harsh words.

“I’m not worried about them, and you shouldn’t take on that burden either. You have a different burden, and as long as I am with you, I’ll be out of harm’s way. Let’s just leave it all behind, remove ourselves from the equation while Kakashi and his team handle the rest.” It was her turn to blush when the fabric of Sasuke’s poncho came down over her head, entrapping her like a child under a blanket. His smirking face was peaking down into the neck of the fabric as she looked up at him with a crumbling glower of her own. Her smile spread free at her success. This was definitely working.

“Kakashi’s got hounds tracking them,” she said again. “They’re better at that sort of thing than anyone you have in mind anyway. So, let’s just forget them, yeah?” Sakura did not want Sasuke going anywhere near Orochimaru or Karin. She knew that both of the rogue ninja had helped at the end of the war, but Orochimaru was still suspicious enough of a character that the Leaf kept twenty-four-hour surveillance on him and his activity. Not to mention, how absolutely traumatized she was of him. And Karin, well—Sakura knew how the woman had felt about Sasuke at one point in time and didn’t really feel like facing that awkwardness anytime soon.

“So where to next?” she practically pleaded as Sasuke searched her eyes and raised a suspicious brow. Did he know where her thoughts had gone to?

After a moment, the Uchiha sighed, and Sakura immediately felt ten times lighter. “The plan after that was to head north, to the Land of Snow.”

Sakura tiptoed, popping her head through the neck of his poncho like a curious mole sticking its nose above ground. “The Land of Snow?”

“The environmental conditions of the Sunagakure desert helped connect me to Kaguya’s desert realm,” Sasuke explained, staring down into her face as he did so. “It made bypassing the central dimension altogether possible with the help of your chakra pills. In theory, bypassing the center dimension for Kaguya’s Ice realm would be achievable if I could find a similar environment; the Land of Snow is the coldest place in the shinobi world.”

“Excellent,” she piped, already dreaming of snowy landscapes and sub-degree temperatures. She recalled their time in the Land of Snow as Genin fondly, remembering that the land had a seasonal spring now that rivaled the beauty of its frosty contrast. She teased Sasuke by pretending to go in for a kiss, before retreating from his poncho and tossing it over his head just as he had done to her. “To the Land of Snow it is, then.”

Clutching the fabric with one hand, he dragged the material back down his face, mussing his wrapped head of hair as he did so, and revealing another smirking scowl. She heard him mumble something about her being the death of him as she turned and marched north before he could begin walking toward Orochimaru’s hideout.

#ssfanfiction #sasusaku #sasusakufanfiction #narutofanfiction #sakurahiden #sasukeshinden #canoncompliantsasusaku #sasusakublankperiod #approachingsun #anerdinallherglory

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anerdinallherglory · 2 days ago

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Approaching Sun (41)

Author’s Note: Somewhat of a cannon-compliance note, but I don’t really consider filler arcs and some movies canon, but for sake of the story’s plot, I’m briefly referencing material from Naruto the Movie: Ninja Clash in the Land of Snow. The Shibuki name drop comes from Naruto episode 198. P.S., if you like this chapter, please go watch my favorite filler of all time “Gotta See, Gotta Know, Kakashi’s True Face.” Buckle up, this chapter hits the ground at a sprint. My official A.S. spotify playlist is linked on my linktree and my most recent post. Sorry for the delayed update. Sickness likes to knock my feet out from under me somewhat consistently. Stay healthy out there!

Songs: Maybe October by Dekker, Everything Matters – AURORA/Pomme, Alcatraz by Oliver Riot, When it’s Cold Outside by 228k, and Alps by Novo Amor

Pairing: SasuSaku

Previous Chapters: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40

Chapter 41: The Power to Destroy Us

Sasuke’s plan had originally been to head northeast, travel through the land of Sound and Otogakure where Orochimaru’s base was located along the way, recruit some help to track and kill the remaining members of Zenshin, and then head to the Land of Snow. However, upon learning about that, Sakura had rerouted his plans, making a stark preference for the northwest route toward Takigakure, the Village Hidden by Waterfalls, bypassing Orochimaru’s hideout altogether.

Sakura was convinced that she would be fine if they didn’t hunt down the leader of Zenshin and had assured the Uchiha as much to persuade him to skip forward to hunting the Otsusuki instead, but Sasuke had written three letters as they camped just outside the border of Takigakure. First, he wrote to Kakashi to confirm the Hokage’s plans, not because he didn’t believe Sakura’s detailed explanation of their sensei’s interference, but because he wanted to assess the process for himself and compare it to his own. He had to be sure, before stealing Sakura away across the sea to the Land of Snow. His second letter was addressed to Takigakure’s current leader, Shibuki, requesting permission to pass through and seek safe seafaring passage from Takigakure’s northern harbor. It was the same route Team 7 had taken when they were assigned to guard the actress “Yukie,”—an alias for the Land of Snow’s princess, Koyuki, that Team 7 had been unaware of at the time of accepting the mission—which is why Sakura was familiar with the road that would take them through. Which brought him to his third and final letter, addressed to said Princess Koyuki, informing her of their intentions to arrive in her land. Sasuke hated to leave a paper trail of their activities considering Sakura still had people after her, but considering his past and his travels recently, it was always better to inform and request permission from those in charge.

As they waited on Sasuke’s letters to reach their destinations via messenger hawk, they set up camp lounged by a fire, sitting close to the flames that warded off the northern air that sought to chill their skin even in August. Sasuke eyed Sakura’s gooseflesh as she wrapped her arms around herself, determined to suffer in silence rather than admit she had hastily packed an unprepared bag. To his credit, Sasuke had repacked for her after her hasty exit, trying to discern which of her clothing might be the warmest, but found her wardrobe entirely lacking for winter climates. He thought they had more time before heading to the Land of Snow, so had packed her bag accordingly, refolding and organizing the bag in order to fit more in. Sakura had noticed as soon as she opened it for the first time, and immediately made to thank him, but Sasuke felt awkward as usual and chose that precise moment to flee in the name of firewood.

Seeing her shiver and wipe away the prickling flesh along her upper arms made Sasuke feel inattentive, and so the Uchiha pushed back his reserved nature once more and reached for her, taking hold of her by the waist with his right arm. She jumped in initial surprise but smiled complacently when Sasuke pulled her between his legs to settle her back against his chest. The poncho, once again, came down over her head as Sasuke positioned them to sleep in a reclined position together to share their newfound warmth. He quite liked it, the excuse to bundle her into the fabric of his person like she was an extension of his body (she was as far as he was concerned, that valve in his heart he’d decided she was the last time they had found themselves at a fire on the road at the beginning of a journey. He remembered moving away from her that first time, deciding the distance alone would be enough to keep their lives from entangling further. He had never been more wrong. And now they had come full circle, no amount of distance preventing the inevitable.

“We need to stop in Takigakure to get you some suitable outerwear,” he stated, her body shivering one last time as the caress of warmth greeted her.

She burrowed against him, fitting in all of Sasuke’s angles as if she had been designed to be the missing pieces of him all along. She sighed and leaned her head back into the bend of his shoulder, and Sasuke intimately tucked his nose into her hair as they drifted to the crackling melody of the firelight humming heat.

Until Sakura spoke with a small content laugh, saying the very last thing that Sasuke would ever imagine in that moment. “I saw Kakashi’s face.”

Sasuke couldn’t help himself. He practically jolted as if he had been shocked with his own lightning blade. The elusiveness of Kakashi’s face had been one of those Genin curiosities that had never really left the realm of Sasuke’s curiosity, and the Uchiha had privately theorized with Naruto that the ninja had something to hide with that mask. “And?” he immediately investigated, eager to know what she was withholding.

“And what?”

“Don’t ‘and what?’ You know exactly what. Tell me what he’s hiding under there.”

She snickered against his chest, a pleasant shifting motion against Sasuke’s sternum, as if her laughter could reach into his own body via vibration and demonstrate just how one could lose oneself in something funny.

“Not hiding much, other than the fact that he’s a complete and total hottie.”

Sasuke could have choked on the air in his lungs alone. “That’s it? Nothing out of the ordinary? No big secret? Sort of anti-climactic, if you ask me.”

“Oh trust me,” she sighed. “Nothing anti-climactic about it—”

“Stop talking,” Sasuke shushed into her hair, immediately covering her mouth with his right hand to completely cut-off her crude direction of speech. Since when had his shy genin teammate become so unreserved? They’d had sex twice, for peat sakes, and weren’t in the habit of making these types of jokes. It was even worse that she was making a go about Kakashi, their old, decrepit, retiring sensei. Or at least, that’s how Sasuke would forever regard him. “You have spent too much time with that Yamanaka girl,” he chided.

“That’s all from Tsunade, actually.” Sakura admitted with a small laugh at his innocence.

Sasuke grunted, and Sakura picked up the conversation again. “Do you think Kakashi is alone by choice? Because he’s the Hokage? I feel bad for him, always to himself when he isn’t working.”

Sasuke knew the answer immediately. He suddenly recalled several of Kakashi’s lectures whenever Sasuke found himself angry about being alone. “Kakashi was alone a long time before he was the Hokage and even our sensei. He lost many of his loved ones, everyone who was ever close to him. I imagine that he’s afraid to form a bond that intimate being who he is and the role he has to play.”

“Sort of like you, then.” Sakura acknowledged.

“Hn,” Sasuke affirmed, but added, “He’s right to guard his heart so. I tried, but someone’s chakra-enhanced strength punched through my rib cage.”

Sakura laughed before interjecting with, “You know, I always sort of theorized it might be because Kakashi sensei’s preferences leaned more towards men.”

Sasuke’s brows shot straight into his hairline, the first real emotion to present itself upon his carefully constructed face tonight. He thought about it, truly. And as he thought about it, he wondered. Truly wondered. “Hn,” he said again with a tilt to his head, “who knows.” He could honestly see his sensei having no particular preference at all. As he reflected on his genin days, Sasuke would say with confidence that he was definitely the sort to appeal to both. Everyone they encountered always had some weird obsession with him.

“I hope one day, whatever the case may be, he chooses to be selfish, too.”

“I think he’s more excited about retirement than anything else. I think he’s just ready to choose himself for once.” And he’s dog obsessed, Sasuke thought privately. And sometimes, maybe pets were all you needed for companionship. Back when Sasuke imagined a lonely life without anyone else in it, he pictured a pet or two in his future. A hawk. Maybe a cat, even. That sort of life had once appealed to him, but he was choosing one of attachment, instead. He was choosing her, even if it was half-lived and intermittent.

“Definitely,” she chimed, before stilling and growing quiet against him. Was she falling asleep?

But then, she said something else that rennervated Sasuke, and he was thoroughly trapped of his own making, the shared overgarment preventing him from fleeing from the question. “You helped Toka, didn’t you? Back in the Shikkotsu Forest.”

Sasuke didn’t answer. He didn’t breathe. Because how was he going to explain his actions of that night? He had thought it had completely escaped her notice, the hand he had played in Toka’s chances in escaping that night.

“It’s okay if you did,” Sakura rested back against him more firmly, seeking to give him comfort. “I just want to know why.”

Sasuke still couldn’t breathe as he thought of the truth. The truth was rather simple in his head. Sasuke envied the choice the man had been given. Sakura had given Toka an out, a condition. If he made it through the Shikkotsu Forest on his own, he could leave and not return to a life of imprisonment for his crimes. It would certainly mean his death, to risk the snare that was Shikkotsu Forest for the 1% chance only a soon-to-be-father would take in order to possibly have a life with his family on the other side. Sasuke had heard Sakura break the news to Toka about his impending paternity, and had felt it like a stab to his soul, because Sakura was giving the man a choice to risk it all for a chance at a life with his woman and unborn child. Sasuke still remembered that tiny little throb of light that woman had concealed within her, and he had made a choice that night, too. The choice to help Toka, even if he less than deserved it for the part he had played in Zenshin.

“He made the right choice,” Sasuke admitted to the back of her head, recalling how at the first sign of Toka’s departure, Sasuke had performed his own silent summoning, a winding camouflaged python ascending the monstrous trunk to greet him.

“Lord Sasuke,” it had hissed in an inaudible tongue only Sasuke could hear. “You have become like a stranger to us. A mere rumor of existence. We wondered if you were even still alive.”

“Let’s catch up another time, Sutsuma,” Sasuke had greeted cooly in the formal way of snakes. “Follow that man. Assist him out of this jungle. You’re familiar, aren’t you?”

“Katsuyu’s forest? Of coursssse we are,” hissed the python, turning its yellow eyes this way and that. “Not like the Ryuchi Cave, but we have brethren here all the same.”

He had watched the snake make its way toward the retreating man, and Toka had glanced back at Sasuke, when the snake revealed its good intentions by not eating him and waiting for the man to follow.

Sasuke hadn’t known if Toka had made it out, until Sutsuma found him once again in the morning, having slithered the miles back to him. “He livesssss. Barely, but he survivesssss.”

“Appreciated, Sutsuma,” Sasuke had amended, already prepared to reverse the summoning.

“Lord Orochimaru extends his greetingssss,” the snake informed, sending a small chill down Sasuke’s spine at the mention of the Snake Sannin. “And Aoda remains unbound despite Lord Orochimaru’s great displeasure, pledging his fealty to you only Sssasuke Uchihaaa. Do NOT forget such kindnesssss from ssssnakes. We do not do kindnessss freely.”

Sasuke simply nodded before the snake had dissolved into nothingness. Sasuke had felt a pang of guilt toward Aoda, a loyal friend from the past. When the situation had called for it, Sasuke had relied on his other summons after the war, the two hawks he had formed close connections with of recent days. He hadn’t realized that Aoda might have taken the Uchiha’s absence personally.

Sakura shifted against him, asking in finality, “So Toka made it out, then?”

Sasuke only nodded, saying “unfortunately,” but then added to assure her he hadn’t made the choice at the risk of her life, “and if he ever shows his face again, I’ll personally drop him back in the Shikkotsu and watch as the forest claims the life I took from her. He only got to live for the sake of his unborn child.”

Sakura didn’t respond, as if there was so much she wanted to say, but couldn’t. What was she thinking silently to herself at learning this information? Sasuke was suddenly worried, an uncomfortable ice replacing the burn of his annoyance. “What’s wrong? Are you angry that I interfered?”

“No, of course not,” she assured him, the curve of her skull moving back and forth against his sternum, but he heard the emotion in her voice. As if she were fighting back tears.

He suddenly stiffened. “Then why are you crying?”

She swallowed before saying, “I’m not.” The pause alone before answering gave her away.

“You are. Tell me what’s wrong.” He moved so he could see her profile in the dim light. Sakura’s tears now affected him in ways he couldn’t explain. Because he had always been the reason for them, and even though Sasuke had changed, chosen her, she still ended up crying for some reason connected to him. And cursed heavens, he hated it.

“Nothing,” she confessed, “Just, I’m happy you did. I am happy for them.”

And Sasuke’s stomach dropped, because he had been right to fear those tears. So much that was unsaid, was verbalized with those words. Sakura was pleased that Toka had chosen his pregnant lover despite the risk to himself. Happy that they would be together, and delighted for their baby and the family that tiny throbbing light within the woman’s womb would make them.

He had said this before, but he felt the need to try to explain this again.

“Sakura, if things were different—” he tried, but she interrupted him.

“I’m not pressuring you,” she defended. “I meant what I said back in the glowworm cave. You can’t make that choice right now, Sasuke. I’m not going to ask you to.”

“You’re right, Sakura. I can’t. Not until the Otsusuki are handled. I know that they’re out there.” But it wasn’t because he didn’t want to make that choice. In fact, it was such a temptation for him, which is why he downed that contraceptive in her presence. Did she even know that? He hadn’t technically been entirely transparent with her about his feelings about their future, his secret desires, and jealous fits about the choice he wasn’t able to make but others were. They had briefly discussed it after their first uniting in the cave, and he’d kept the rest of his thoughts about the matter private. For some reason, Sasuke felt like telling her all this would disappoint her if, for some reason, it never came to be. Gods forbid it, but if Sasuke’s search continued on for years and years, stuck on his isolatory orbit away from Sakura, what then? The devastation on her face when she had asked him if he never wanted kids had made Sasuke confess that he didn’t not want that when and if the time came. But—“I have to make sure the world is a safe one for the next generation.” Because that was the Uchiha’s promise to himself, and to Naruto, and the rest of the world—not because he wanted to live Itachi’s life of sacrifice or redeem himself—but because it was the right thing to do and it was still going to be his role to play, no matter what.

“I know. And it’s okay,” Sakura turned to him under his loose-fitting poncho, grabbing his fingers between their chests. “We won’t take the risk. Just like I said to Kakashi, it won’t even come to that —”

Sasuke’s eyes grew wide before narrowing at the mention of his sensei about something so private. “What the fuck does Kakashi have to do with any of this?”

There was a silence as she realized her slip, and Sasuke felt an anger rise in him about secret conversations that the Uchiha hadn’t been included in because they were about him. He could already hear the words of others in his mind. Could already hear Kakashi and Shikamaru and whoever else approaching his wife and putting their noses in places they didn’t belong.

“What was said to you?” he seethed, pulling his hand away from her as he ducked free of his own outerwear until only she wore it.

“I didn’t mean—” she tried to recover, but Sasuke’s patience had suddenly collapsed in on itself.

“Tell me what he said to you. Why would he ask you about that?”

The excuses and stalling came to an end at that. “It’s nothing, really, so don’t be upset. He’s just worried about us. Just about what being together might mean for you. What a child might mean.”

Sasuke got very still at that. What a child might mean. What being together might mean for him. Not Sakura. Him. And with the context of the last forty-eight hours, Sasuke knew what those words were implying. Kakashi was worried Sasuke would develop a true weakness. Sasuke was suddenly recalling Sakura’s words of two nights ago: “Are you going to avenge me? Are you going to become an enemy of the world again if someone else is taken from you?” and “Shikamaru said I needed to cut ties with you. That being with you was a risk.” Sasuke let out a scoff and his upper lip curled. It wasn’t only Shikamaru who had talked privately to Sakura, apparently. The puzzle pieces were finally connecting, clearing away the confusion like an assaulting wind. This was about that damn threat Sasuke had made. They had told Sakura that she would be his undoing, and to Kakashi, apparently, his unborn future children would damn him even more so. Had Kakashi honestly asked her not to have children with him? Was this the Hokage’s attempt to control him as a threat? He made eye contact with Sakura as he deliberated this, and knew that his wife saw it in the dim fire light. The churning fury in his eyes. The absolute indignation that was coursing through him like the visual manifestation of the strongest of chakras. And she panicked.

“It’s not what you’re thinking. I had told him there wasn’t anything to worry about, anyway. That this was between us, and no one else.”

And Sasuke took a heavy breath. He was irate. Not with her, of course, but anger blurred the lines to others and Sasuke wouldn’t be able to explain those lines right this second. “I need a minute,” he admitted, already trying to pull away from her, but Sakura clutched at his hand.

“Please don’t leave. Take that minute here, with me. I won’t deny you space if you really need it, but I’m asking you to stay here. I’ll give you silence to think if you want it.” She said it with panic, and Sasuke was suddenly confronted once more with his habit of running away. She was afraid he’d leave and abandon her again despite his promise to always tell her before actually leaving from now on. “Please don’t go.”

And he sighed, letting out that breath, the most volatile of that anger leaving his body with it. Regret flooded in, and while it didn’t replace the anger, it gave him a clearer head. It pained him, deeply, to have such things said to her about him. Even more so because they weren’t far from the truth. They believed him capable of atrocities, and Sasuke knew that he was. But once again, he found himself thinking that he didn’t want to be.

“We don’t have to talk about this,” Sakura said, placing the neck hem of the poncho back around him before turning to lay back into his stiff body, urging him with her own to relax once more. “Because I already know what would happen in a worst-case scenario.”

“And what is that?” he sighed bitterly. He wasn’t ready to let his frustration go completely even if he forced himself to remain sitting and listening.

“You made a vow that the world will not pay. And it won’t. You won’t ever have to seek vengeance because I will do it for you.” Sasuke stilled at her words, eyes widening, and a sharp stab of fear coursed through his blood at her ever being in such a situation. It was like being dunked in cold water, hearing her say those words. “I didn’t tell Kakashi this part, because I didn’t know what he would say. But if someone were to go after my child, I’d take care of them myself however best I saw fit. So, you don’t have to worry, because I will do it for the both of us. No one will be able to get to them in the first place anyway, having the two of us as parents. And Naruto and Kakashi as weird, and likely too-involved, uncles.” It reminded him of Naruto’s statement back in Suna: “Her association with all of us keeps her protected. Who’s going to risk the wrath of us in order to get to her?” But just like then, Sasuke knew better; there would always be those who tested the boundaries, who believed they were superior, who thought the lot of them had exaggerated reputations.

But Sasuke thought about Sakura’s stance for a long moment. It was everyone’s habit to underestimate Sakura and she knew that, which is why Kakashi and Shikamaru did not fear the potential of her fallout. Sasuke’s actions, no matter what, would damn him to the world once more because of his past. It would be seen as his fall back into darkness. Sasuke didn’t know if Sakura would be ostracized or criticized for vengeance, but she was viewed as wholly good. Would allowances be made for her actions? If a child would tip the scales for Sakura, then maybe it would be more than enough for him to lose it, just as Kakashi feared. He already knew he would avenge any member of Team 7, especially Sakura. A child would be no question.

Sasuke was suddenly afraid of that possible future for the both of them, despite how much Sakura wanted children that he had sworn to himself to give her one day. But it had him asking himself why? Why would he ever allow something to transpire for either of them? And perhaps that was Kakashi’s reasoning, to get them to evaluate this. He had wished his old sensei would have left her out of it, had the courage to speak to him directly, even if Sasuke had an impossible-to-reason with sort of personality.

There was a moment of hesitation before Sasuke voiced this concern aloud to Sakura: “If something like a child has the power to destroy us, then why do we do it? Why do we bring our own weakness into the world?”

“The same reason you chose to let me in, to care for me,” she breathed, smiling in confidence. “Remember what Naruto has taught us? Love brings us unbelievable strength.”

“And unbearable pain.” Sasuke sighed, seeing the cost and reward of his choices. His heart was resolved to never go through it again. He was terrified of it. He thought that as long as he hunted down the Otsusuki, the future would remain a good place just as Naruto promised. He knew Sakura could take care of herself, but recent events alone made him evaluate the future with Kakashi’s lens. A child would be vulnerable. Sasuke was already practically throwing his heart to his enemies by loving her. If the world were safe from the Otsusuki, would he still choose to bring children into the world if random threats appeared while he was distracted with his own mission? He couldn’t keep Sakura with him forever. He felt as if he was already stealing time, bringing her along.

Sakura’s declaration interrupted his critical thoughts. “I’ll face all the pain in the world for the opportunity at such love.” She said it with her back to his chest, but Sasuke didn’t need to see her eyes to see the weight of those words and the meaning behind them. At his silence, she continued, “But like I said, we aren’t taking risks right now anyway. It’s not happening. So take a breath. I can practically feel your low oxygen levels. You’re breathing like a statue.”

Sasuke didn’t respond verbally, but he forced himself to inhale and coax himself back into rhythm. At some point, she had fallen into sleep, and Sasuke debated silently to himself the remainder of the night. Was Kakashi right? Would a child be the tipping point for him? Sasuke shook his head clear of all thoughts beside his one goal: he needed to rid the world of the Otsusuki, first and foremost. The rest would come later. He must have followed Sakura into sleep sometime later despite his heavy thinking, because it wasn’t Sakura moving away from him that had woken Sasuke up the next morning, but rather the small silhouette of his messenger hawk ruffling its feathers against a backdrop of tree-dividing, morning light.

Sakura shuffled in her warm parka, grateful for the scenic stop in Takigakure to purchase something to cover and replace her summer attire. She still wore the red Uchiha tunic Sasuke had had designed for her back in the Leaf, but she now paired it with long legging-style black breeches and a crimson knee-length overcoat that sported a thick lining of white fur along the hood. It had been one of the more expensive options, but she was grateful for the splurge now as the ship that her and Sasuke had boarded that morning lurched violently against winterized waters and winds as it headed toward the Land of Snow.

The movement below deck in their room had made her very motion sick, so Sakura had sought refuge at the edge of the ship’s deck, hoping the night sky would help ease her nausea. Unfortunately, the intense, horizonless darkness did nothing to alleviate her, and she had ended up seeking the railing to hurl over. Sasuke had followed her every step of the way, standing vigil with a concerned expression etched on his usual blank face. She could barely see him in this wind-whipping dark, but his presence was consistent and concentrated solely on her.

“Sorry,” she moaned, embarrassed to have him watching her motion sickness so closely. “I didn’t know that I could get seasick like this.” She certainly hadn’t the last time she’d made this journey, but she still cursed herself for not being more prepared medicinally for such occasions. She had encountered many sicknesses as a doctor and her immune system of steal usually was impervious to common illnesses. But her immunity was no match for seasickness apparently; she almost wished she had a cold. It was something she could treat nutritionally. The idea of trying to eat anything right now made her hurl a second time over the railing, her fingers digging into to the salt sprayed wood that was beginning to crystalize. It was very bitter up here, but the thought of going back down below made her stomach clench tightly.

“Don’t apologize for being sick,” Sasuke chided her, hand reaching up to clutch her arm, as if she weren’t currently channeling chakra to her feet and might careen over the side at any second. “We just have to get through the night; we’ll be there by morning.” He turned her away from the railing and she slid down the side, her head falling forward against his shoulder with a groan. He offered her water and Sakura was suddenly remembering months ago when she had gotten drunk and Sasuke had been there to take care of her then, too, a dark shadow in an alley forcing water into her mouth. “Try to drink something so you don’t get dehydrated. And hold on to me. I’ll steady you.”

Sakura didn’t know if his efforts could make that much of a difference, but she was feeling a small warmth in her chest for his offer and so in the dark starry night, where nothing but black careening sea surrounded them, she clung to him desperately, wrapping her arms weakly around his torso.

“I can use the Susanoo. We could fly and bypass the journey by boat completely,” he informed, chakra flowing to his feet to steady the both of them as a particularly violent waved crashed against the side and sprayed them with ice.

Sakura’s teeth chattered violently. “Save your chakra. You’re going to need it for the dimension jump.”

A couple of the ship’s sailors passed by at that moment, noticing her bent form clutching at her stomach, and they stopped to check on her. They eagerly made suggestions for various seasick remedies. One of them, a younger, less seasoned sailor returned a few moments later to offer her some peppermint leaves he admitted he still sometimes used himself or kept close for regular passengers, saying, “Ninja aren’t usually affected by the sea, so I’m surprised you’re this queasy,” to which Sasuke immediately scowled.

“Have anything more helpful to add?” came his derisive voice, colder than the lashing wind.

Sakura gave the Uchiha her best chiding stare in the dark—she was much too weak to elbow him or anything else of the like—before demonstrating an exhausted peace offering of a smile to the sailor. “First time for everything,” she sighed helplessly.

“You know,” he added, “you have a room in the guest corridors just below deck, but I’m sure the Captain wouldn’t mind you seeking refuge in the hold. It might not seem logical to you, but the lowest decks are the best place to be if you’re seasick. The swaying lessens the farther you go below.”

“Thank you,” she tried smiling again, breathing raggedly as she accepted the peppermint leaves, smelling their sharp twang to confirm the herb, before shoving them in her mouth as the kind seafarer wished her luck, gave her one last pitying smile, and walked away.

And when Sakura was certain she had nothing left to vomit, she took the man’s advice and allowed Sasuke to help her to the lowest level of the ship, the cargo hold. And the sailor had been right, the rocky back and forth evened out as she sought the inner-most spot of the ship amid boxes and hanging nets of supplies meant for the citizens of the Land of Snow. She tightened her hood around her, noting that while it may be a smoother ride, it was certainly colder down here. But Sakura could handle that, she couldn’t handle nausea. The floor was ice against her cheek as she curled straight into the fetal position around her stomach. Sasuke immediately came to sit beside her, tucking his thigh under cheek for head support. She clenched her eyes shut as she clung to his pant leg, too sick to even tell him she appreciated his uncharacteristic doting. When his hand came down on her hair, smoothing it back like she was a small child, she whispered one final thank you as the comfort of that gesture soothed her into sleep.

Sasuke was beyond concerned about Sakura’s condition. It had started with motion sickness, and he had been up to ask the captain twice of their journey’s time and progress. “Fourteen hours, lad. Can’t rush a storm into settling. Better settle; wishing brings terrible luck.” And then again, at pre-dawn, “Storm set us back, but we will be there before noon. If you’ll stop insisting we be there sooner, Lady Sea might do us a favor simply for being content.”

But Sasuke was not content. Sakura hadn’t eaten anything in hours, and Sasuke was regretting this part of their plans. Even as time passed onboard, she wasn’t getting better. Maybe he should have pushed away the peppermint leaves that sailor had given her. He almost had, Mako’s poison attempts still very fresh in his mind. But Sakura seemed to be desperate for anything, so he had let her shove it down her throat, already mentally prepared for another allergic reaction. Instead, it helped her fall asleep which was at least some improvement. When the sun calmed the waves the following morning, Sasuke had expected Sakura’s sickness to improve, but it didn’t. Instead, her vomiting returned with the sunrise.

“That’s it,” he let out an exasperated breath, standing rigidly over her doubled over form in helplessness. “I’ll use the Rinnegan and take some time to recover if needed. I’m not so weak that I need to let you suffer to conserve every last drop of chakra.”

“Wait,” she moaned. “Just wait. It can’t be more than a few more hours.”

“I don’t care,” he hissed, bending down to sling her arm over his shoulder. She didn’t complain as he marched them up several flights of stairs, practically mowing down anyone who happened to be in his way from reaching the sunlight bathed deck. Her silence was the biggest indication that she wasn’t well.

He’d activate the Rinnegan as soon as he had the space to allow his full-bodied Susanoo to transform. But just as their heads broke free of the levels below, the white, ice-camouflaged shoreline of the Land of Snow greeted them. Sasuke didn’t hesitate for a second, jumping down from the starboard side of the ship despite the shock and protests of the most useless sailors Sasuke had ever had the displeasure of knowing (well, most of them, anyway).

With Sakura’s weight fully supported, he landed on the water gently, his chakra an anchor the uneven surfaces, floating chunks of ice solidifying the closer they got to the coastline. The ship was faster than his careful gait, docking well-before Sasuke could be considered ashore, but Sakura seemed to improve somewhat just from finding her balance in Sasuke’s steadying hold. “Almost there,” he told her, shuffling her against his side as she made to move her arm from his shoulder.

“I already feel like I can catch my breath again. Like the ground isn’t going to flip me upside down.”

Even though the Uchiha was relieved to hear such words, Sasuke didn’t let up or relax his support until both her boot-clad feet landed firmly on snow. She pulled her arm free, kneeling into the snow. His arm reached down for her elbow, but she shrugged him off, rolling over onto her back. He immediately panicked before he realized she had begun waving her arms and swinging her legs until she created a celebratory snow angel. “Aww, dry land!”

If he wasn’t so concerned, Sasuke’s didn’t know if his eye would have twitched, or he would have smirked. “Snow doesn’t exactly constitute as dry,” he corrected sarcastically. Her persistent snow angel-ing loosened a bit of the worry in his stomach, but he still implored, “will you please get up before you catch your death and become the very thing you're making?”

“I’m a doctor, remember—”

“And look what good that has done you in the last twenty-four hours.”

“I’m ‘grounding.’ It’s healing me from the seasickness.”

The Uchiha sighed and cast his eyes dramatically to the side, before honing them on the trio of sailors crunching their way through snow toward them from the docked ship. Instinctively, Sasuke took a step around Sakura to block her shenanigans from them and he knew the sort of picture he presented: black figure with a rolling sea of ice behind him. It was a perfect metaphorical picture for how he felt and could make others feel in a matter of seconds. “Is the lass okay?” they hollered, and Sasuke bit his tongue before returning their question rudely. “From the looks of it, she’s keeled over and died!”

“I’m fine!” Sakura called from the ground, attempting to roll over and find her own feet before Sasuke turned back toward her to assist her further. She shooed his only good working hand away as if she didn’t need the help, the stubborn convalescent. What was she trying to prove?

“Do you know if there is a doctor nearby?” Sasuke intercepted the sailor’s soon-to-be attempts at an inquiry about Sakura’s health. “It’s been a long time since we’ve been to the Land of Snow. We are unfamiliar.”

“Not needed,” Sakura interrupted, faking a bounce to her step that had Sasuke scowling at the obvious lie. “Will you direct us to the Princess Koyuki?”

Despite Sakura’s insistence that her health had returned, Sasuke forced the both of them to stay overnight in the rainbow-inspired village homes of the new “Land of Spring,” the name for the colorful homes unaffected by the intense winter climate of the rest of country due to the Land of Snow’s ‘treasure’ winter-defying generator. Even though Koyuki had furnished them with a minka in the mountains where they could refuge in-between Sasuke’s interdimensional jumps, the Uchiha was firm in his resolve to stay overnight in town where they could at least remain “close” to a doctor should Sakura’s severe symptoms return.

“As long as I don’t step foot on a ship in the near future, I think I will be fine,” she had stated embarrassedly in front of the Princess Koyuki, whom hadn’t changed in the slightest. Maybe a little nicer, but she was more than accommodating, greeting them as old familiar friends, but inquiring the most about Naruto. She was surprised to learn a lot of the details about the post-war modernizations of Leaf Village and events leading up to the war. Sakura learned rather quickly that every time Koyuki would ask a question, she was really circling the conversation back around to Naruto and his involvement. Except for the one time when she smirked, glancing between them knowingly and said to Sasuke, “When you sent your letter, saying that you and your ‘wife’ would be passing through, somehow I knew it was the final member of your infamous Team 7 trio. I wonder what exactly that means, when you picture someone in your mind, and your thought becomes reality. I would call it coincidence, but I imagine Naruto would go on and on about Fate and the Will of Fire.”

Sakura had thought she had been blushing before from Sasuke’s mothering, but it was nothing compared to the scarlet that spread across her face at hearing how he’d addressed her in that letter. Wife. He was using that word freely, now. And it did all kinds of things to her.

Sasuke was completely unaffected by Koyuki’s words, ejecting that emotionless acknowledgement of ‘hn’ before moving them along.

As they said their final partings with Koyuki and the villagers the following morning to head toward the snowcapped mountains beyond the generator, Sakura made a mental note to remind Naruto to pay a visit to Koyuki and the Land of Snow soon—whenever fatherhood would allow him, that is.

“Are you sure you don’t want to stay in town?” Sasuke had asked her lowly in the hours of the previous night, taking up the small space between them. “What if your sickness returns?”

She had pinched his cheek to his immense annoyance, eliciting a hiss like a snake whose body had just been violated by reaching hands. “I’ll acquaint myself with the medical staff in your absence, just as I did in Suna. I’ll make weekly visits and pick up some supplies before we head out in the morning. Will that assuage your needless concern?”

“Fine,” he had grumbled, before reaching up and pinching her own cheek in return.

And during the long trek into the winter wilderness, Sakura soon realized that she had underestimated the length of the journey and wasn’t so confident about those weekly trips back and forth. Sasuke stopped several times to wait for her to catch up, each time starting to probe about her wellbeing before she finally shot him the annoyed glare for once. He arched an eyebrow, but didn’t ask again. Just when Sakura thought her feet would fall off as blocks of ice to join the snow around them, she found herself at the base of the mountain, the steepled, snow blanketed minka a beacon of relief sending smokey signals in greeting. She shivered in anticipatory warmth just looking at it. Koyuki must have sent someone in advance to prepare it for their arrival.

She had been correct in this assumption, because they weren’t alone when Sasuke pushed aside the screen doors. One of Koyuki’s men greeted them warmly, showing the two how to utilize the space during the harsh elements, along with unnecessary demonstrations of the open wood hearth and quilt bordered kotatsu in the center of the floor. Sakura had immediate plans for diving under it to warm her feet but was diverted by the elderly man as he pointed to the rising steam coming from the private onsen just on the eastern side of the house. “This is Princess Koyuki’s private mountain home,” the elder announced in pride, “the water is heated from magma deep beneath the surface. In other words, some of those mountains are volcanic. The mountains are home to the snow monkey population. You may see some stragglers, but they won’t bother you if you don’t bother them.”

“Please share our thanks to the princess for her hospitality,” was the last parting word Sakura had for the man as he outfitted himself for the return journey back to the Land of Spring, assuring her that he would return with supplies for the duration of their stay.

Sakura couldn’t help herself. As soon as the man departed, she snaked her arms around her husband who was already tending to the hearth. “This is amazing! This is beautiful! And to think you’d be experiencing this all alone without me if I hadn’t come with you.”

He answered immediately. “If you hadn’t come along, I imagine I would have received the same neutral greeting that I do everywhere else. I’d probably be taking refuge somewhere up along the mountain side, closer to the source of the hot springs, surviving as the monkeys do.”

“Having a wife has it’s perks, then,” she grinned, stripping her bulky outer layers to dive under the quilt of the kotatsu just as planned, the floors warmed naturally by the streams funneling below.

Sasuke bent over the stone-laid irori, placing more wood on top and checking the steaming kettle hung by bamboo from the ceiling. He spoke up from the other room. “The Kazekage was much more accommodating knowing that you would be in company, remember? And that was before you were my wife. It’s just you in general.”

Hearing him nonchalantly verbalize the word ‘wife’ for the third time made Sakura’s stomach swoop and toes curl in that dramatic teenage way that often plagued her as a Genin. She hadn’t been able to appreciate it when he’d dropped it during their argument before, but Sakura just realized that he wasn’t just writing it, he was saying it and doing so consistently! She hid a giddy smile to herself, her inner-Sakura absolutely rioting inside with glee. When he glanced her way at her suspicious silence, she rubbed the back of her neck with an embarrassed grin and tried to return herself to the present moment.

“I’m going to check the area,” he said seriously, breaking into Sakura’s daydreaming with reality. “Will you be okay alone for a bit?”

“Of course. I’ll start cook—” she began, but he shook his head.

“Just rest,” he interrupted, before ducking through the door and closing it to encase her fully in the warmth of her new surroundings.

She promptly curled around herself beneath the kotatsu and let the sound of snowfall lull her to sleep.

Kakashi’s response letter had come that morning, and Sasuke found it difficult to not let his thoughts return to it over and over throughout their journey.

Sasuke,

You are investigating my plans regarding the remaining Zenshin members who remain, despite telling me yourself that it would be you taking care of this, instead of an old man like myself. I am assuming this means that Sakura has convinced you to leave matters to me. No news as of yet, other than that the search is headed West toward the Hidden Rain and Hidden Grass villages, in the hopes of flushing the leader and any remaining members out. The hounds are on it. Burn this after reading. If I don’t receive a response, I’ll consider the information compromised.

They should be in the clear then, Sasuke assumed, if the pursuit for Zenshin members was heading South-West. Sasuke had responded quickly and decisively with no further information about their location or Sakura’s condition. It would be unwise to risk frequent communication in the instance that it might alert Zenshin to their whereabouts. This is the last message you’ll be receiving from me. If it’s crucial for me to know, alert me. Otherwise, I’ll trust you to handle it.

Even though he had been a little reassured at Kakashi’s efforts, Sasuke still took it upon himself to create a few shadow clones to check the immediate area. The suspended snow around and above him created a silence so deep and thorough, that all Sasuke could hear was the cracking of the white shrouded limbs of the forest trees encompassing the base of the mountain. It was so isolated, so off the beaten path, that Sasuke hoped the Land of Snow’s Princess kept the privacy of her mountain house a closely guarded secret from the rest of the population. But Sasuke wasn’t going to drop his guard completely, considering the staff she probably kept to maintain it. Sakura was going to have to be mindful if she was planning on making visits and supply runs back into town.

When his shadow clone jutsu released and he learned that there wasn’t a single living person within twenty-five kilometers in either direction, Sasuke returned to the house. Sakura had fallen asleep at some point in his absence, the fire crackling and tea-steamed air knocking her clean out. Sasuke watched her carefully for a few minutes, ensuring that she seemed well. Maybe it really was the sea that had made her so sick, and she would be better now that they were comfortable. He was anxious to make the first inter-dimensional jump but decided to wait until tomorrow morning. He was going to spend the day resting and ensuring that Sakura slept through the night without issue.

And that’s precisely what the Uchiha did, stretching out on the opposite end of the kotatsu and promptly knocking out. When they woke in the evening, they shared their first hearty meal in a long time—Sakura picked at it, really, something Sasuke didn’t miss—and despite his refusal, she dragged him out in the darkness toward the private onsen. The cold air was brutal against their skin, and Sakura slipped into the hot water in record time. He didn’t even get a second to appreciate her nakedness, while she openly watched him undress with a blush. When he raised an eyebrow at her obvious gawking, Sakura tried to make the excuse, “The heat is already getting to my head.” He smirked and snorted at her lie, if ejecting air out his nose could be called that, before wading into the steaming decalescent water.

They were wrapped in darkness, but the winter landscape outlined everything in white. The ground was patchy in some areas where the geothermal water flowed underground in a path directed toward them and beyond. Sakura sighed and rubbed her feet, claiming her toes had frostbite, and Sasuke assesssed them carefully to humor her, pulling at each small digit and admiring their dissimilarities from his own. Again, he was taken aback about how odd it was, being in love. It wasn’t the first time that Sasuke was noticing something about another individual that he never would have even bothered paying attention to in the past, but here he was admiring and evaluating the shapes of her feet. “You’re going to lose credibility as a physician if you claim those toes are even capable of developing frostbite,” he teased, releasing her perfectly pink and healthy foot back into the water. “The length of those nails should lift you five inches off the ground. They practically curl under.”

Her face reddened before she returned what Sasuke had given. “If you haven’t noticed, I’ve been travelling nonstop with you for months now. I don’t chew them off like you do apparently.”

“Mhm,” he responded, ignoring the jab altogether. He had been exaggerating good-naturedly just to get a rise out of her, and it had worked.

“Let’s see yours then,” she probed, snatching his foot from the water like she had just caught a fish in a Leaf Village summer pool. Before Sasuke even had a moment to defensively react to her words, his head submerged completely as his foot lead his body into reverse. He had quite literally never been yanked up by his foot before. He turned underwater and reached for her immediately, but she had already jolted from the bath, making a naked run toward the house. Sasuke didn’t run. He didn’t have to. He stalked after her with that slow sulking certainty of knowing your prey has nowhere to go, and Sakura knew it too, because her panicked laughter ricocheted throughout the mikan as she slammed the screen doors shut behind her and fled farther in.

Sasuke teleported—yes, it was a blatant waste of chakra, but the shock on her face and squeal of defeat when she collided into his dripping wet chest in the main room of the house, made it a worthy waste. He had her on her back next to the iori before she could even attempt to use that inhuman strength to free herself. Pinning her hands above her head, Sasuke smirked into her face with a victorious “hn.”

“I’m pretty sure running through the snow barefooted is how you actually get frostbite,” he chided, dipping his nose to her throat and trailing it tantalizingly down her collar bone. She stopped fighting at once but her facetiously laughter continued. “You’re going to pay for that stunt,” he rumbled in finality before ravishing her mouth, his hand slipping from her wrists to meet the back of her neck.

It wasn’t the sort of resting Sasuke had planned on doing, but their heavy breathing and mutual attention and indulgence of each other’s bodies once more brought the both of them an immense amount of respite and contentment. To Sasuke, it was still resting, in a way, because he knew that these moments were few and would one day be very far-between. Every second, every minute, every hour he got to be with Sakura in this way was collected eagerly as rest for his soul. And, god, it was a blessed sort of deliverance to break apart into a million pieces. Witnessing Sakura in peak performance and taking with full ferocity did things for his mental state, too. Sasuke’s anxiety about her health significantly improved as she varied their positions and he watched her rock above him in that desperate attempt to break into a million pieces, too. He was thankful the snow around them deafened everything.

“I’m going to travel to the ice dimension in the morning,” he had told her in the night, when their bodies stilled and their hearts leveled back out. “I’ll have to hike to the top of the mountain to get to the coldest point. In theory, that should make it easier.”

Sakura had immediately examined his plan, problem solving in her mind. “Won’t the height be an issue? Back at the inn in Tanigakure, we fell the distance of the top floor once we were through the portal.”

“It would be,” he admitted before clarifying, “but if I can skip the central dimension successfully again, the Ice Realm is full of mountains, remember? I’ll probably be stepping right out onto another one.”

Sakura nodded and pursed her lips as she considered.

“I’ll do everything I can to return before nightfall the same day, but if I can’t make it back immediately, don’t panic. You’ll be okay here alone until I get back?”

“Of course,’ she responded immediately, but he still eyed her carefully in that all-knowing way of his. “And if I get bored, I’ll head back to town and get supplies or find some work.”

“It goes without saying, but be cautious. Kakashi may be hunting the Zenshin, but their reach has been large so far and their numbers surprising. Who knows what connections they may have in all sorts of places.”

She bristled; she couldn’t help it. Sakura didn’t know why his concern was irritating her at the moment, but she just looked away and nodded. Sakura decided that it wasn’t just him—in the back of her mind, his concern overall was adorable, and she knew he wasn’t insinuating that she lacked mindfulness. Except for having too much faith in Mako, but Sakura wasn’t in the honest sort of mood to feel like counting that one. But it was more than his concern. It was this gnat-like dispute with Zenshin that just wouldn’t go away. She hadn’t said it aloud, but this was practically a honeymoon to her and here they were still having conversations about this group whom Sakura was practically sick of hearing about. She was done. Done with Zenshin. She didn’t care if they weren’t done with her, she was done with them. Sakura just wanted to hole up with her new husband, the man of her dreams, in this winter traditional home against a snow-capped mountain and do more of what they had already started.

In the dim firelight of the irori, Sasuke scowled at her lack of a response. He could sense her irritation and sighed. “I know you can take care of yourself, I wasn’t saying—”

“I know,” she cut him off with sharpness, that annoyance bleeding through despite her resolve to contain it. He stared at her for a second before looking away as if he didn’t know what to say or do about her sudden attitude. This type of behavior had only ever been directed at Naruto. “I’m sorry,” she sighed. What was wrong with her? She was hormonal, she deduced, due to start any day. That godawful week before her actual period must have snuck up on her in the form of sudden mood swings. “But I’ll be fine. So you don’t have to worry. You can stop worrying.”

“Do you stop worrying about me when I am gone, even though I can take care of myself?” he asked calmly when she tucked her chest against his side. She felt him pull the strands of her hair in his fingers, touching it lightly so that she wouldn’t feel him doing so. She immediately felt his words like a guilt-inducing punch.

She sighed. “Of course I do.”

“I can relate more so now, is all. Especially since you’ve been sick.”

“I’m not sick,” she sighed again, tossing a leg over his own suggestively. “Obviously.”

He didn’t fall for the distraction. “You’ve barely eaten anything this evening.”

“I said I’m fine,” she sighed, rolling back over onto her back. “Honest.”

But much to Sakura’s surprise, she was not fine. Sasuke had rolled over well before sunrise to tell her he was leaving, just as he had always promised he would from now on. No empty beds upon her waking. No surprise escapes or lack of goodbyes like the past. She sat up groggily, and her breath froze in the air before her face, but Sasuke pushed against her shoulder to encourage her to return under the quilted covers. “I’ve stoked the fire. I’ll try to be back before sunset. Leave a note if you leave.”

She nodded sleepily and grasped his hand in parting. “Be careful. I love you.”

“Hn,” he murmured in response. And in typical Sasuke Uchiha fashion, he chose a voiceless reply, reaching down to tap his fingertips against her forehead. She rubbed at her forehead fondly long after he walked out into the frigid pre-dawn of the Land of Snow.

And when the sunrise woke her a second time, Sakura shuffled on her knees to the irori and poked the coals to aerate the steady flames before adding more wood to an already dying fire. But the ground flipping nausea from the sea voyage returned with a vengeance and hit her hard in her stomach. She doubled over, hardly avoiding the hearth before she vomited the meager contents of her stomach. She clutched her head with a moan.

Drearily, and confused by the returning sickness, Sakura crawled on hands and knees back to the blankets, dry heaving along the way. She dove back into them, chasing the sleep that might rid her of the vertigo and nausea. If this persisted for long, she would definitely not be making that three-hour snowy trek back to the village. It was in her plans to consistently make chakra pills for Sasuke so his stash wouldn’t diminish, but a supply-run would have to wait for now. She couldn’t walk to visit a doctor even if she wanted to. And she was too prideful to not treat any of her ailments herself.

Thankfully, Sakura had thought to purchase some nausea aid back in town when Sasuke insisted she see a doctor. It was one of the ways she appeased him, gathering the herbs for the medication herself. But she didn’t have the energy to brew her ginger and peppermint concoction until well into the afternoon when she was finally able to move around without vertigo. If she were her own physician right now, Sakura would be telling her to write down her symptoms along with times in order to track and identify this random illness, but she was struggling for brain power. She was just tired. Sotired. She deduced it was probably a bad reaction to her new batch of contraceptives, since she took another one last night before falling asleep. She would study the ingredients again later. After downing the brewed nausea tea, she promptly fell back asleep with ragged breathing.

Sasuke found the ape population almost as soon as he took his first step up the mountain, the ice sloped surfaces and tree coverage a flurry of activity the higher up the mountain he travelled. They must have been well-acquainted with human occupants occasionally traversing this way because they ignored him, just as the mikan manager claimed. And Sasuke disregarded them in return, grateful for the indifferent species of monkey who acted as if they were almost bored by his presence. Their eyes barely roved over him before choosing to move along to whatever they had found to eat beneath the snow.

Despite the hot springs woven into the mountain, the weather was brutal, especially in the hours before sunrise, and only increased in ruthlessness as he hiked. Sasuke tried not to think about the easiest way to reach the top of this mountain was in the same suggestion he had made earlier: the full body Susanoo could simply fly him to the top. But he refused, because he needed the chakra reserves. He had to get back to her tonight, and even with the help of the chakra pills, he couldn’t waste a single drop of his own reserves if he hoped to return. He hadn’t pushed himself to teleport so far twice in the same day yet. In Suna, the chakra pill had simply allowed him to bypass the center dimension, and Sasuke was going to try to make the initial jump and return all in the same day, if it worked. The greeting fuchsia sunrise at Sasuke’s back, bleeding the white foot-print dotted landscape a rosy hue that reminded him of his wife—who he’d had to leave behind again—would be what Sasuke would use as a tether back to this realm when it fell again in sunset. He strengthened his resolve as the time was already slipping away and turned back to face the top of the mountain.

The sheets of snow turned into ice as he ascended, and with every cracking step and swirling vapor of heated breath frosting his eyelashes, Sasuke couldn’t help but confide his thoughts to the mountain. His own life had been seasons of winter, an ice spanning the years of his youth, and no matter the amount of sunshine the season of the present now granted him, the seasons of his past were like the unmelting snow that lingered in the shadows of warmer weather, reminding all who looked at Sasuke of his history of frigid darknesses. Just as recollecting citizens often reminisced to one another during the first drop in temperatures, “do you remember the storm of ten years ago? The snow was waist-high…” So too, were the rumors of Sasuke Uchiha and his crimes. The ice of his past would never melt. Maybe Kakashi was right about one thing. How would he ever be able to truly embrace this summer without causing worry? All anyone ever saw when they looked at him was the reminder that Sasuke Uchiha was of the winter, a dark, icy monster. They were right to fear his growing attachments. Revenge, in any form, would be a returning winter that everyone expected.

But then, there was Sakura. A literal walking sun that warmed the steps he left behind before catching up to him with her radiance. She blinded others of Sasuke’s transgressions just by standing by his side, persistently bleeding into that snow of his past like that sunrise. And the question that everyone wanted to know was who would win, the ice or the sun? Because if he had a child born to and taken from him, it was no longer a matter of if Sasuke would fall, but when in their minds. And they were counting on Sakura to keep him in check, not knowing that she would bring her burning, incinerating power down, herself. And Sasuke was no longer creating that ice. Alongside his wife, Sasuke was a black burning sun with his own Amaterasu flame, an Uchiha with a fixating love. Maybe they would burn the world together, and that’s why the others were begging them not to take the chance. And Sasuke couldn’t decide if they were hypocrites not holding themselves to the same standard, or if they were right.

But, just as if Naruto were matching his trek, walking beside him in this unbearable cold, he could hear his voice. “I won’t let you. Either of you.” It was a promise that burned in the distance. Maybe they were wrong; maybe they were only burning stars of variation and Naruto was the sun who kept them all in gravitational pull.

Reaching the top was an exhilarating feat and the sunrise peaked through the winter haze, sharpening into the round outline of the sun. He inhaled, and exhaled deeply, closing his eyes to memorialize this feeling as all his troubled thoughts left him. Sunrises and sunsets, he’d seen so many. But this one sanctified him, reminded him of the man he wanted to be, but he didn’t yet know just how memorable and marking this one would come to be to him. He would find that out later.

For now, he turned his back, activating the Rinnegan and fracturing time and space, refraining from relying on Sakura’s chakra pill just yet. Push, he demanded of himself, when the portal wavered as he sharpened his focus on the realm beyond the core dimension. He could do it. He could do it. The portal flared to life at the expense of his chakra, the icy mountains corporealizing before his eyes. He didn’t even hesitate long enough to take in a victorious moment before jumping through the portal. Preparing for a long fall, just as Sakura had pointed, the Uchiha braced himself as he plummeted. But just as he theorized, something precipitous rose up to greet him. But it was not a mountain as he first thought. It was a spire, tall and ethereal beneath his crouched form. And Sasuke’s eyes widened in shock. He couldn’t believe it. He was standing on top of an icy fortress. It was a castle.

Sakura woke mid-day to sounds coming from outside. She rose on her knees steadily, relieved that her sickness had gone, and her appetite returned. Her stomach growled angrily at its recent neglect, but she ignored it as she cautiously sidled up to one of the screen doors leading outside. Her ninja senses were suddenly on high alert as the soft crunching of snow met her ears and her hand inched down to her calf where a kunai was strategically hidden. She held her breath and took the risk to crack the door open to peer outside. What she saw was not what she had expected. The steaming onsen had attracted a few more guests from the mountain residents. A handful of monkeys, pale felted and red-faced, bobbed in the water with closed eyes. They groomed each other lazily, occasionally jumping out and back in. Sakura opened it wider to admire them with a smile. They noticed her, but paid no further attention, one monkey even going as far as to jump on the roof of the mikan to sit and dry.

Turning back to the iori, Sakura brewed her ginger tea and cooked a small meal for herself while she watched the monkeys soak up the heat of the onsen. For the first time in a long time, Sakura found herself at a complete rest. There was no demand for her help, no rush to her schedule, no one else to look after. It was just her now, in the middle of nowhere—Sasuke was in another dimension and was actually farther away than anyone else—and while she felt guilty about her continued absence in Konoha, Sakura took a greedy breath of winter solitude. She told herself not to feel the restlessness of the pressure to be productive and to just enjoy the winter landscape and the snow monkeys. Because it might be one of the few moments in her life of truly ever being alone and there was something special about facing the world by yourself and feeling yourself alive in a vastness that continued and continued regardless of your presence and your busy life. How otherworldly nature felt, when you stopped to witness it. She could see why Sasuke felt more at peace alone in nature than in a crowded village most of the time.

And besides, she had been ill of late and deserved this little respite. Sakura highly theorized that her unrelenting pace of recent months had caught up to her in the form of illness. Being a medic, she knew the challenges faced by an unrested body. It caught up to you eventually, but she had the habit of ignoring her own medical advice. Maybe if she modeled resting, Sasuke would catch on and rest too. She was proud of him for doing just that yesterday, choosing to stay with her and not jump at the first chance he got, which would have been the more Sasuke-like thing to do. It was the little things like that, that reminded Sakura of how much he actually had come to desire her presence. She tried to not think about the fact that the both of them might be trying to grab onto as many memories that they could before the inevitably of their lengthy separation prevented them from making more. She sighed dejectedly.

Sipping the ginger tea did her lots of good, and with the absence of her nausea, Sakura forgot just how sick she had been just hours ago, moving on with her day in the most mundane way possible. She read. And read. Underlining medical texts she’d picked up back in town, until her knee began to bounce from inactivity. After a while, Sakura explored the house more fully, admiring the various trinkets and belongings she encountered which probably once belonged to the princess. She cleaned and organized the space before going over to her supplies she’d brought with her to sort. Among her things, were ingredients for her burn solvent that she planned to pass along to the medical staff here just as she had in Sunagakure for the benefit of Gaara’s people. And now, she also brought along more of the anti-depressant plant H. Perforatum to capsulize for the Land of Snow as well. She would have to check in with Tsunade about the plant’s clinical trial progress back in Konoha before sharing it with anyone here, but it was on her list to do.

When she ran out of things to do, Sakura admitted to herself that she wasn’t the best at resting. She longed for Sasuke, and it hadn’t even been more than half a day since he’d left. She realized suddenly that she just might have to make a trip to town as early as tomorrow just to fill the time in his absence. As the sun nodded toward the horizon, Sakura watched the snow monkeys answer the call of home and retreat back up the mountain where they had come down from, while also yearning to see the mountain return her husband to her in the same way.

Sasuke had explored Kaguya’s ice castle for the entire day, but just like the red-sand mountain back in the core dimension, it was abandoned and full of deceptive architecture. It was designed to trick him in the same way as the last building he had found—Sakura had pointed this out back when she had teleported with him after they had been ambushed in Tanigakure. However, unlike it had been with the tower, Sasuke couldn’t find the entrance of the ice castle despite circling the building twice and combing all the terraces and the domed top for a way inside to the central building. Every crevice or hole he discovered was a dead end, which staggered him. According to the theory Sakura had developed in the core dimension, the tower was constructed to lure and distract instead of prevent entry, but it didn’t seem to entirely hold true in this case. Sasuke supposed he might be able to use the Amenotejikara of the Rinnegan to swap places with something inside, but that would require chakra he wasn’t quite willing to sacrifice because he still needed to return to Sakura tonight. His Rinnegan and Sharingan revealed no one inside the castle structure as far as he could tell, but wasn’t sure others from the Otsusuki race might be detectable with his visual prowess. Kaguya was his only example, but if any of the Otsuski were still alive and operating as Kaguya had, then they would come eventually. Which is why Sasuke desperately needed to find away through the walls at whatever cost. Even if he had to blow the roof in, he would. But he couldn’t at the moment, not with the hours waning and his chakra vanishing rapidly. They would be spending longer than he had expected in the Land of Snow if this was the rate of his progress after discovering something so critical.

With a plan to return, Sasuke turned South in the direction the base of the mountain would be if he weren’t in another dimension. He’d walk the distance here instead of down the mountain at this time of night. For some reason, it was cold, but tolerable to an extent here as the light of this dimension was in full effect. As Sasuke made the long trek back toward his wife, he wondered if it might be a good idea to ask her to return with him once he had recovered from the aftereffects of repetitive teleportation. He didn’t like the idea of bringing her with him, the threat of the Otsuski was always a risk he wasn’t ready to take with anyone else, but she was the smartest of all of them, impressing even Kakashi at times. Sasuke knew she would figure out the puzzle of deception in no time at all if she came. He thought about the pros and cons of her tagging along with him as the travel time passed.

When he came close to the spot Sasuke believed would be the mikan’s approximate location, he dove into his weapon’s pouch and produced one of Sakura’s chakra pills. He exhaled, swallowing it down, and inhaling as the rush of chakra flooded his system. It was going to work. He just knew it. He willed it because she was on the other side of it.

The portal spun and widened, and his head cracked from the pain of it and Sasuke clutched it, squinting through the pain. He stepped through the black and purple vortex before it could minimize and leave him trapped here in the cold overnight. Sasuke had miscalculated a bit about the precise location of the mikan’s entrance, practically stepping out onto the iori and stumbling to avoid stomping out the flames completely. When he raised his eyes to search the house, he saw her in the same place he’d left her, under the blankets of their shared pallet on the floor. She was staring wide eyed at his sudden appearance, and Sasuke could tell that she was obviously not expecting him to teleport almost directly on top of her.

“You’re here!” she beamed, standing from her place of warmth to run to embrace her. He reached out his hand for her instinctively to close the distance.

But when she got closer, Sasuke froze, his receptive hand falling limply to his side and eyes widening in petrified shock. Sakura faltered at the expression on his face, meeting his shaken stare with an apprehensive one of her own. “What’s wrong?” she questioned in a panicked rush, but Sasuke couldn’t hear her. His heart fell all the way to his feet because he was looking at his beautiful wife with the Rinnegan still activated, and centralized in the middle of her lower abdomen was a tiny, pulsing, throbbing sun.

#ssfanfiction #approachingsun #sasusaku #sakurauchiha #sasukeshinden

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