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Chapter Text

1.25.XX

Days Until Coronation: 87

There was a tree in their front yard now. 

It was a big, sturdy oak, just a handful of feet back from the edge of Hokage Mountain, and the first thing out of Naruto's mouth after Yamato had pulled his hands from the dirt was “we HAVE to put a swing on that.” 

So they put a swing on it. 

A bench, more accurately, just big enough for the two of them to fit comfortably on it. There was a pillow on Sasuke's side, because years of getting hurled across the dirt was taking its toll on him finally, and his tailbone couldn't tolerate hard surfaces like it used to. There was a grumpy gray cat stitched into it, courtesy of Granny Kudou who had sent it as a housewarming gift a few years ago. 

It was Naruto's favorite place on their entire property. 

So, when the air shifts and Sasuke's eyes flutter open, the first place he glances is out the window. His blond hair is pale in the moonlight, and it fits into the scenery unobtrusively, which is a word Sasuke never thought he would use for Naruto. He checks the clock next: just shy of 3AM. 

Sasuke slides out of bed, tucking his feet into a pair of slippers before feeling his way down the stairs. He stops in the kitchen to make two cups of tea --one with three scoops of sugar and almost more milk than tea-- and then heads outside, shivering a little as the bite of autumn cuts right through his sweater. 

The swing creaks as Naruto slowly pushes himself back and forth, only going still when Sasuke sets the cup of tea on top of his head precariously.

“Hokage school running late?” Sasuke asks. Naruto snorts, shrugging and removing the tea from his head before it can topple.

“Something like that.” 

He falls quiet again, almost eerily so, but still opens his arm easily when Sasuke rounds the swing and sits down, pulling up his legs and resting his head on Naruto's shoulder. Cloth-wrapped fingers brush up and down Sasuke's arm and he pushes off again, sending them gently rocking. 

There's something on his mind, but Sasuke doesn't prod. He just waits. Naruto sips his tea.

“Gaara and Darui are finally heading home tomorrow. Construction on the new trade roads are going smoothly. They've all sent in the proper paperwork for chunin exams, so that's finally getting underway-- Suna will be hosting it next year.” Naruto talks aimlessly for a few minutes about this and that, about politics and Kakashi and Sakura. The whole time, his arm stays tight around Sasuke's shoulders and when he finishes his tea, he sets it on the armrest of the bench. He finally pauses and turns slightly so he can curl both arms around Sasuke, cheek pressed into his hair. He sighs, and it feels like there's a thousand years of exhaustion in it.

“I miss you,” he mumbles. Sasuke’s lips quirk into a little half-smile.

“I'm right here.”

“Yeah, but I miss you. I hate being gone all the time. I hate you being gone all the time.” 

“It's what has to be done.” 

Naruto makes a very odd, but incredibly specific noise in the back of his throat. 

“I just hope it won't always be like this,” he says. 

Sasuke hums but leaves the conversation to fade. It's heavier than either of them can handle at 3AM and will more than likely end in the same weary argument they've been having for the past year and a half. Naruto sighs and stands, gathering up both his and Sasuke’s cups before offering a hand. 

“Let's get to bed. I'm tired.”

Sasuke takes his hand and allows himself to be pulled to his feet. 

“Let's.” 

---

1.26.XX

Days Until Coronation: 86

Naruto is always awake before the sun. Whether he's shadowing Kakashi through Hokage duties, preparing for yet another journey to Suna or Ame or Kumo, or getting a head start on his responsibilities for the day, he's always crawling out of bed after his alarm, leaving Sasuke cold in the sheets, Egg the cat mrrp ing irritably as his sleeping spot is disturbed. He showers, and Sasuke lays face down in the bed for a while more, shifting and debating until he inevitably realizes he can't lounge around all day, no matter how much he might want to. There was a point in time where he woke at the crack of dawn with militant precision no matter when he went to bed, but those bitter edges have worn smooth and they spent too much money on these sheets to just neglect them.

Naruto comes out of the shower, toweling off his hair as he pokes around in the nude for his clothes for the day. Sasuke tucks his arm under his head and watches quietly, resisting the urge to nod off again for a few more precious minutes. 

Sometimes, if he's in the mood, Naruto will grin and flex and comment on how he's still got it, even at the “ripe old age” of twenty-nine. 

(To be fair, twenty-nine feels incredibly old to Sasuke, who was skeptical about his chances of seeing 18.)

But today isn't one of those mornings. 

Naruto hitches up his pants and picks up the length of plain beige fabric on the dresser that's replaced the bandages he used to use to cover up the mottled white of his prosthetic. It slides on like a glove, with a clasp that goes over his opposite arm to keep it from slipping. He keeps his back to Sasuke the whole time, which is weird, and he's almost silent, which is even weirder.

Sasuke sits up and leaves the bed, touching the small of Naruto's back as a warning before curling it around his waist and resting his chin on his shoulder. 

“You're quiet this morning,” he hums. Naruto sighs through his nose and tips his head so that their temples bump together. 

“Yeah, ‘m just tired.” 

Sasuke raises an eyebrow. Even though his eyes are closed, Naruto chuckles. 

“You're so pushy,” he pokes, but he turns around so that he can curl both arms around Sasuke, nuzzling into his neck, kissing the base of his throat before just resting there, breathing. Thud... thud... thud... goes his heart, like it's trying to count the things that Naruto is trying to say. He's thoughtfully quiet for a long moment, which is how Sasuke knows his head truly is scrambled.

“God, the more I learn about what Konoha does in the dark... the scope of the things I have to fix, it's just-- fucked. Everything is just fucked up.” Sasuke hums and presses his cheek against him. 

“Well, I could have told you that.” 

There's a snigger and Naruto lifts his head. Sasuke looks at his tired blue eyes, at the lines that have creeped around them, and runs his fingers through Naruto's hair. 

“Since when has Naruto Uzumaki ever been daunted by the odds? You literally punched Kaguya in the face, remember?” He says, pinching Naruto's cheek. He winces, but smiles, tugging away. 

“Yeah, but I can't exactly punch the daimyo.” Sasuke bobs his head with a shrugging motion. 

“Oh, I dunno...” 

“ Hell, don't tempt me.” 

But that gets a laugh out of Naruto, a real one, so that when Sasuke kisses him, it tastes like sunlight. And mint toothpaste. He chases it, but Naruto pinches Sasuke's cheeks into a fish face as he pulls away. Expected, but still disappointing. 

“ Please do not give me a boner before work, love.” 

“I mean, I could take care of--” 

“Don't even finish that sentence! I'm already running late!” 

Sasuke grins but relinquishes his hold so that Naruto can finish getting dressed and Sasuke can stake his claim on the shower. As far as mornings went, it wasn't bad. Wasn't as good as when Sasuke would be drawn from sleep by Naruto fooling around under the sheets, but was definitely better than the long stretches of time where they would be miles and miles away from each other. So Sasuke showered and got out just in time to kiss Naruto goodbye as he pulled on his cloak and rushed out the door. He dressed and ate a few of the leftover dumplings from last night before ducking out the door as well, locking it behind him and activating the surveillance seal. 

He turns back around and Kakashi is lounging on the railing of their porch where he hadn't been a moment before. He has one of his damned Icha Icha novels out, but Sasuke can tell he's not really reading it. His foot swings back and forth idly, and he waits for Sasuke to start the conversation first. As always.

Something uncomfortably close to nervousness crawls up his throat and it takes him a moment to speak.

"... Is it done?" He asks quietly. 

"Yup. They finished yesterday, actually, but you had other things to do." 

Sasuke feels... something well up in his chest. It's a confusing ball of grief, resignation, anger, and relief, and they're too tangled together for him to ever really be able to pull them apart. It was something that had settled itself somewhere near his left lung after the war and he doubted it would ever leave. Always perched on every breath, tasting it on the exhale but never really expelling it. 

There's a quiet snap as Kakashi closes his book. 

"Would you like to see it?" 

"... Yes." That ball of confusing feelings grows sharp for a moment but then melts back into its usual formless shape. "I think I do." 

"Well, you know where it is. Unless you'd like me to tag along?" 

Sasuke found that he did. Somehow, without even indicating anything, Kakashi rises to his feet and starts following as Sasuke makes his way down the porch steps, feet crunching across the first few casualties of the coming autumn. 

They didn't speak, but they didn't really have to. Even over a decade later, their relationship still held echoes of their teacher-student dynamic, even though Kakashi had little to offer nowadays other than cryptically worded advice that more often than not came from some dime store self help book. Kakashi found it absolutely hilarious. Something about supposedly being the wise leader of the village and absolutely sucking at the wise part.

The village was already awake and beginning their daily activities, whether it was shinobi preparing to pick up their latest mission or shopkeepers sweeping the fronts of their stores. Kakashi was dogged everywhere by waves or bows or greetings, and where once he avoided it like the plague he seemed to have developed a thicker skin for it nowadays. Especially now that his days as Hokage were dwindling, one could almost call him peppy. 

They follow a trail through the outer edge of the center of the village, out past the home and apartments, towards the gated off area that was Konohagakure's cemetery. 

Sasuke pauses at the entrance. And he would insist it was just a pause, not hesitation. 

"I can wait here, if you'd like," Kakashi offers. Sasuke shakes his head and steps inside with purpose. 

"I'm fine." 

In the aftermath of the war, the cemetery had gotten a considerable expansion. Two smaller stones had been added near the Memorial Stone to make a trio and were already almost filled with names. The ones with bodies to bury did so, and unclaimed, unknown shinobi were cremated, their ashes added to a large urn near the front of the cemetery. 

The Uchiha Clan had a separate plot of land for the victims of the massacre. It was gated off, and through his life Sasuke had cycled from confusion to anger to bitter resignation and back again. Yet another insult to his family, not even burying them with the other villagers, like they were quarantined. There were times when he wanted to rip that gate up with his bare hands, and he disliked feeling so out of control. 

It's why he didn't visit here often.

They were grouped by families, children's headstones slightly smaller and sitting nestled between their parents', as if protecting them in death where they couldn't in life. As heads of the clan, Sasuke's parents had headstones slightly larger than the rest, in the front row, dead center. There were old, wilted flowers on his mother's tombstone, though Sasuke couldn't even begin to place who might have put them there. 

He glances off to the left, eyes seeking out the new headstone that had apparently been placed yesterday.

Itachi's body had never been recovered. At the time of... Well, back then, Sasuke hadn't cared if vultures or enemy nin picked it clean-- when he learned the truth, by the time he returned, there wasn't even a bloodstain to denote what he had lost. And the reanimated facsimile of him was just paper and chakra cemented together. 

Even if they had something to bury, Sasuke wasn't sure if he ever would have wanted to, didn't want to have a solid representation of everything that had been taken from him. But when Kakashi had approached him weeks ago and made his offer, he'd made a... convincing argument.

Itachi's tombstone is unobtrusive, resting under the shade of a massive oak. Easy to miss if you weren't looking for it. Sasuke approaches, but Kakashi hangs back to allow him a private moment. 

The tombstone looks similar to the many, many others in the Uchiha plot, apart from the small sculpture; a beautifully crafted raven that perches delicately on top. It's chest is puffed out proudly, head tilted slightly as it seems to inspect Sasuke.

It's so well made that for a moment, Sasuke holds his breath, afraid that the wrong move would send it flapping away. He crouches to take a closer look and picks out individual feathers, the ridges on its feet. 

The kanji on the tombstone caught his eye. 

Itachi Uchiha 

Beloved son and brother, failed by his village.

And then, in traditional script below that:

Apologies will never be enough.

Those words were familiar, something he heard echoed from Naruto's lips frequently, whenever the touchy subject of Konoha's more despicable acts came to light. 

There just seemed to be no end. Sasuke could understand where the exhaustion came from-- he was not only bearing the burden of their village’s sins, but making active attempts to rectify and repent for them, even as members of the old guard fought him bitterly. 

Leaves crunch as Kakashi approaches from behind. 

"What do you think?" 

Sasuke gently touches the carving of the crow, trailing it down the point of its beak. 

"I like it. It... feels like he fits here." 

Kakashi hums in approval, and Sasuke hears his weight shift. 

"I know it's not enough. Nothing ever will be." 

Something aches in Sasuke's chest, and he realizes with a pang that he wishes Naruto were here. He stands, idly rubbing a dull ache away from his stump. 

"It's progress." 

"Is it?" 

Sasuke glances over his shoulder at Kakashi, who is giving him a strangely knowing look, hands buried in his pockets. Sasuke returns his gaze to the tombstone, watching as dapples of sunlight shift over it. 

It’s not like a couple of pounds of stone and some characters engraved into it could fix generations of bloodshed and hate, but... there was something about its presence that eased an itch in his brain that had been there since That Night all those years ago.

"I think so." 

A brisk wind pushes over them both and Sasuke's empty sleeve is caught, tossed around. Kakashi clears his throat. 

"Well, I am obscenely late for a meeting." 

Sasuke huffs. 

"Of course you are. Well, don't let me keep you." 

"Nonsense, I always have time for my most troubling student." 

Sasuke rolls his eyes. 

"I think you’ve long since beaten that horse to death." 

"Ah, but it's still fun to tease you." 

Sasuke turns to lecture Kakashi about his meeting, but by the time he does so, Kakashi has vanished, leaving only a vaguely irritating chuckle drifting on the breeze. No one will notice when Kakashi inevitably goes senile because he already acts like he’s two-thirds of the way there. 

Sasuke starts when he hears the gate to Uchiha's burial plot open, and turns, expecting... 

Well, he didn't really know. He wasn't expecting Hinata Hyuuga, holding an armful of individually wrapped gladiolus flowers. He finds himself pleasantly surprised. 

"Lady Hinata," he greets politely, inclining his head. Hinata's expression sours and Sasuke can't help but grin as she approaches him. 

"Oh, not you too. It's bad enough I can't escape it at the compound." 

"My apologies. Congratulations, by the way, on becoming head of the clan." 

Hinata sighs and her lips purse as she runs her hand gently over the flower buds in her arms. 

"It isn't quite official yet. Clan laws dictate that I don't inherit my full powers until I'm wedded." 

Sasuke's face pinches in sympathy. 

"But let me guess, it's--" 

"--Not a requirement for male heirs, no," she finishes for him. Her pearlescent eyes roll to the sky as if all her answers would be located there. "At this rate, I'd be willing to marry Kiba just to get the Elders to shut up." 

That startles a laugh out of Sasuke, and Hinata flushes to the tips of her ears. 

"I-- I didn't mean anything against Kiba, he's great and all, but--" 

"I'm definitely not someone you need to explain yourself to," Sasuke says, still trying to school his expression into something less... unprofessional. It comes easier when Hinata's eyes catch on Itachi's tombstone. Her face sobers and her eyes flicker to Sasuke's as if asking for permission. 

Sasuke silently steps to the side. 

Hinata approaches the tombstone, and there's something tight and visceral in Sasuke's throat as she does. It was different, watching somebody like her approach something so deeply personal. 

It was the first physical symbol of Konoha recognizing Itachi not as a traitor, but as a victim. As a symptom of a deeper disease that ran generations deep.

It was weird, people knowing about Itachi. It was a slow trickle, mostly to members of Naruto's inner circle. Sakura knew, as did Shikamaru and Shino, but Hinata was something of a surprise. 

Though, she was a clan head now. That was a position that carried a lot of responsibility, as well as a lot of secrets.

He watches as she picks one of the gladiolus flowers from her arms and lays it across his memorial. 

She returns to his side, and they both stare at the headstone, the exquisitely carved crow, the red gladiolus that rustled slightly in the breeze. 

"It means strength of character." 

"What?" 

"The flower-- a gladiolus. It means an admirable strength of character." 

Sasuke hums.

"Naruto talks with me about things sometimes. I'm not privy to the whole story but... I find myself understanding you a lot more than I used to." 

Sasuke huffs dryly. 

"Am I not an honest, transparent person already?" 

"As clear as mud." 

Sasuke gives Hinata an appraising look. Even years later, he was still sometimes surprised at what the stuttering, teary-eyed little girl he barely even noticed in the academy had turned into. Still quiet, still easily flustered, but there was something sharper beneath that-- something that gave her the strength to take generations of clan traditions head on and tear them apart with her bare hands. 

He finds himself terribly fond of her and her sharp tongue. 

"Did you leave the flowers on the, ah..." He nods towards his mother's grave. "On hers, too?" 

Hinata looks at them and her expression gently pinches into confusion.

"No, I haven't been able to make a trip here in awhile. I couldn't say who did, I’m sorry." 

"It's fine. I was just... curious." 

There's a pause that drifts into the awkward territory before he clears his throat. 

"Thank you for your company, Ms. Hyuuga. I wish you luck in your endeavors with the clan." 

Hinata nods, and then surprises Sasuke by touching her hand, briefly, to his shoulder. 

"You too, Sasuke. Tell Naruto I said hello next time you see him." 

"Of course." 

She leaves him then, exiting the Uchiha plot and proceeding through the cemetery, pausing every once in a while to lay another gladiolus on a headstone. Sasuke looks back down to Itachi's headstone, the crow with the tilted head, the lifelike eyes. 

They almost seem to flash before Sasuke turns and leaves the cemetery entirely. 

---

An hour later, Sasuke finds himself summoned into the Hokage's office, fully dressed and armed for a mission. Kakashi is spinning the hat through his hands, rocking back and forth in the chair and looking out the wide windows. A nin in foreign garb is standing near the desk, rifling through an armful of paper. 

"Sasuke, this is Mastuoka, an ambassador from Amegakure," Kakashi says airily, gesturing to the woman to his left, and she nods respectfully. Her skin is waxy and pale, shadows smeared under her dark eyes like bruises-- she looks like she hasn't slept in a year.

"Uchiha." 

Sasuke nods before returning his gaze to Kakashi, waiting for him to elaborate on what this "highly sensitive mission" was about. Kakashi sets the hat down on the table.

"You're familiar with the Akatsuki wannabe groups that have been cropping up after the war." 

Sasuke's nose wrinkles.

"Very." 

"Well, we've got another one, this one a bit more irritating than the rest. Matsuoka is more familiar with the situation than I am, so I'll let her explain the details." 

Matsuoka thumbs a page out from the stack in her arm and sets it on top, flicking dark hair from her eyes.

"So far, the group appears to have no clear motive or pattern, and no declarations of intent have been made. They’re small, estimated between ten and twenty strong, but their strengths lie in subterfuge and speed-- they hit a village and are gone before anything can be done, and they're very good at covering their trails. It's not helping that every village they've hit has had absolutely no shinobi presence, leaving them very susceptible to even the most basic of genjutsu tricks." She pulls another sheet from the stack, and Sasuke notes idly that she hasn't made eye contact with him once. "They're causing civil unrest in smaller villages, particularly along the borders where tensions are already high. Their goal is most likely to instigate a conflict between the Land of Fire and the Land of Rain that will break the war treaty." 

She tucks the papers under her arm and ducks her head, waiting quietly for Kakashi to follow her up. It takes him a moment to realize she's finished; he clears his throat awkwardly and sits back, steepling his fingers. 

"Well, that's the gist of it. We’re not quite sure how they’re pulling it off, but my best guess is that they’re using genjutsu to keep people off the trail until it goes cold. And I’d think that our own personal prodigy should be able to sniff these guys out.”

"Understood. I assume I'm to expose the truth and eliminate the targets?" 

"Not quite," Matsuoka interrupts. "The suspects should be taken alive if at all possible. Their border hopping has caused an international issue, and it must be solved through open judgement-- transparency to avoid complications and all that." 

She thumbs the papers again, almost nervously. 

"Neutralize and bring them... where?" 

"Ame," Kakashi and Mastuoka say in unison. Matsuoka flushes and mutters an apology. 

"Konoha has agreed to cede judgement to Amegakure on this matter. A show of good faith," Kakashi said. Sasuke nodded. 

"Understood." 

"Matsuoka here will give you the info on the areas they've attacked, in what order, and possible predictions for where they'll hit next. For now, I want you to head to a village called Tomari. The group hit them last night, so you might be able to track them from there." 

"Right." 

"Oh, um-- one other thing," Matsuoka pipes up. She unbuckles the satchel over her shoulder and reaches in, pulling out some sort of... device. A small canister, with tiny gears, the top painted bright red. She offers it to Sasuke and he takes it with some confusion. 

"That's an Amegakure beacon-- if you twist it and press it down, it sends a signal that alerts a special task force of Ame nin. Once you've apprehended the group, activate it and we'll arrive shortly to bring them in."

Sasuke gives it a long look, and upon closer inspection, there's incredibly tiny markings etched into the side of the canister. A glance with his sharingan finds wisps of chakra woven intricately around the gears. 

"Interesting," he says finally. Matsuoka smiles for the first time, lifting her head in a gentle show of pride. 

"Amegakure is known for its mechanical innovation." 

He's seen Ame once-- that towering, rain-soaked village of metal and neon. Bizarre and a little alien, if he's honest. It gives a little clarity to Matsuoka's odd mannerism and dialect-- maybe everyone there was just blunt and uncomfortable with eye contact.

"I've heard."

She also gives Sasuke a small pile of papers that Sasuke gives a cursory glance before rolling them up and pocketing them. 

"I need to get a few things from home and take a look at these, then I'll head out." 

"That’s fine. Good luck." Kakashi gives him a small salute which Sasuke acknowledges with a slight nod before excusing himself from the room. He shoves the papers in his pocket before hurrying up Hokage mountain, back home. 

The house was empty when he got there, but he wasn’t really expecting anything otherwise. He heads up to his bedroom, opening their walk-in closet and pulling one of Naruto’s spare storage scrolls from a shelf. He had bunches of them lying around, and they’ve pretty much replaced any need for backpacks in the Uchiha/Uzumaki household. They even had belts with snap straps to accommodate them now. 

Sasuke rolls one out on the mattress and begins shuffling about the house, grabbing things he’ll need on a whim; extra shuriken, Sakura’s disgusting but highly effective medicine balls, clean clothing, his favorite whetstone. They disappear item by item into the scroll with small plumes of smoke. He’s almost finished when he hears the door downstairs bang open, the thud thud thud of someone taking the stairs two at a time. 

The bedroom door bangs open and Naruto is standing there, slightly out of breath, his clothes ruffled.

“I caught you!” He exclaims. Sasuke looks down at what he’s holding, mildly befuddled. 

“Yes, you’ve caught me red handed with... boxers.”

He seals them into the scroll with a pop . Naruto straightens himself out, fixing his jacket, and crosses the room, hands seeking out their usual space on Sasuke’s hips. His weariness from this morning has seemingly disappeared, his usual incomprehensible exuberance back with a vengeance.

“No, I heard from Kakashi that you were going on another mission. I was on a lunch break, so I wanted to catch you before you left. So I could say goodbye.” His eyes are bright, an eager smile on his lips. Apparently his meetings have gone well today. He looks so impossibly puppyish, so much like a beam of sunlight, Sasuke can’t help but snort softly, shaking his head a little. So many years of this, and he was still weak to the same tricks.

“I'll only be gone four days, maybe five.” 

“Yes, but I will miss you,” Naruto whines petulantly. His arms tighten around Sasuke, pulling him closer so that Naruto can place light, affectionate kisses along his cheek, a smattering of love that eventually finds its way to Sasuke’s mouth. 

He tastes, like so many other times, like ramen and the overly sweet tea he drinks through the day, and it’s not hard to chase it, licking into his mouth, arm drawing over his shoulders and pressing Naruto even closer, even though there was practically no space left. 

“Hey, when...” Naruto attempts, “when do you gotta... uh, leave. Mm.” He mouths over Sasuke’s throat, finding his pulse point and nipping it gently.

“Kakashi only said ‘as soon as possible.’ Possible is probably like... thirty minutes from now. Roughly.” 

“Roughly?” 

“Thirty-five, if you keep talking.”

Naruto laughs, then yelps as Sasuke hooks a leg behind his knee and spins them around so that Naruto drops onto the mattress with a hearty oomph. 

“Ouch,” Naruto winces and yanks the unrolled scroll out from under him, giving it a mean squint before tossing it off the side of the bed. Hands freed, he clasps either side of Sasuke's face and draws him back down into another kiss. Sasuke's fingers scratch gently across Naruto's scalp and he hums when Naruto's fingers find the tie in his hair and tug it loose. Sasuke's long hair tumbles over his shoulders and Naruto makes a mild squawk of irritation as it lands smack in his eyes. Sasuke snickers, mouthing his way over Naruto's jaw and down the side of his neck, unzipping his jacket as he goes.

"You're gonna put my hair back up before you leave," he says firmly. 

"Sure, yeah, what-- oh... whatever you say." Naruto's hips lift, trying to find pressure or friction but Sasuke pins him down, gripping Naruto's hair a bit more firmly. A quiet breath leaves him, but then his eyes pop open as if he just remembered something. 

"Hey! Hinata taught me a new braid, I could do that before you-- mmph." 

"Naruto?" Sasuke says in a breathy laugh, his hand covering Naruto's mouth. "Please, focus." 

Naruto nods fervently, and when Sasuke slowly rocks against his hips, feeling the length of him starting to swell, to push against the confines of his pants, Naruto's head drops back, eyes fluttering shut. Satisfied, Sasuke releases his mouth and yanks at Naruto's shirt, prompting him to pull it up and over his head, tossing it off somewhere onto the floor. 

This was the last time he'd be able to be with Naruto for the better part of a week-- he has to make it count. 

"Pants off ," Sasuke says, voice low. Naruto snickers a little. 

"Sir, yes sir." 

---

It's almost an hour before Sasuke is able to leave. 

Naruto was meticulous in combing and braiding Sasuke's hair back, and he had to admit he was getting better at it-- Hinata had apparently found a dedicated student in Naruto. 

The presence of the ANBU that perpetually guard the house flickers on the edge of his awareness for the barest of seconds before vanishing. He has no doubt that that was on purpose, to inform him they were there, but it makes his mood sour slightly anyways. 

Having his home watched nearly constantly by armed guards was something he and Naruto had argued over, multiple times, but now he was reluctantly resigned to it. Not many were able to get all the way up the mountain undetected, but the ones that did were always a pain in the ass. There was still a big white splotch on the west wall from the last time someone had crashed through it that they had yet to paint over.

Sasuke makes a hasty exit from the village, trying to make up for lost time. He could probably get to the last village that was attacked before sundown; he’d interview a few of the villagers, maybe lay down a few seals to monitor the area, and then find somewhere to lay his head. 

The rest of the day passes in the monotony of foot travel. Blurring tree branches and the occasional rest stop for a drink and something to eat. Despite the lateness of the year, the day is unseasonably warm for this early in the year, and by the time he approaches the winking lights of the village, he’s blinking sweat out of his eyes and itching for a shower. 

He enters the village and it’s worse than he thought it would be. 

Several buildings are little more than charred bones, the smell of ash and blood lingering in the air, the nearby cemetery full of fresh plots and empty holes alike. A weary, older man with a shovel in hand and dirt on his trousers points him in the direction of the Elder’s house; the man in question was one of the only ones to face the men head on and get out alive. 

Sasuke gets the distinct feeling of eyes on his back as he approaches the building, and not in a friendly way; it’s not surprising that they’re mistrustful of shinobi, considering the trouble they'd been getting from them. He sighs and knocks on the Elder’s door, keeping a hand on his sword beneath his cloak anyways. This rogue group was adept at illusions-- it was best to stay on his guard.

A girl of about thirteen answers. Sasuke clears his throat.

“Hello. I’m a shinobi sent from Konoha. I was hoping I’d be able to ask the Elder a few questions about the attacks,” he says. The girl worries her lip for a second before leaning in all conspiratorial-like. 

“I don’t think right now is a good time,” she whispers. “My grandfather is in a lot of pain right now and he’s kind of--”

“NAKATA, WHERE THE HELL IS MY HOT TOWEL?!” A voice booms from inside. The girl winces, turning her head.

“Just one second Grandfather, someone is at the--”

“I DON’T CARE, TELL THEM TO FUCK OFF!" 

Nakata gives Sasuke a guilty, apologetic look. 

"I'm sorry. He's not, um... particularly sociable at the best of times." 

"I'll be quick. The sooner I know, the sooner I can get these men out of your hair." 

She hesitates before stepping aside. As soon as the door closes behind her, she scurries off, presumably to get the aforementioned towel. Sasuke follows the sounds of loud, pained moaning into a sitting room. An elderly man with a shock of white hair is propped up in an armchair, bandages wrapped around his torso and his broken foot propped up on an ottoman. He hasn't noticed Sasuke yet, eyes pinched shut, too busy bellyaching over himself.

Sasuke clears his throat and he flinches, nearly jumping out of the armchair. He aims a scathing look at Sasuke.

"Who the hell are you?" he grits. 

"I'm a shinobi sent from Konoba," he rattles off again, irritation crawling under his skin. "I was hoping to ask some questions about the attacks on your village--" 

"What fuckin' questions could there possibly be?!" He interrupts sharply. "They're stinking Ame nin, the whole lot of them! Their village is a giant eyesore thirty miles east of here-- instead of sitting with your thumbs up your ass, go make yourself useful!" He draws his thumb across his neck in a superfluous gesture. Sasuke resists the urge to pinch his brow.

"Sir, we have reason to believe that these are actually rogue nin unaffiliated with any village using illusions to--" 

The Elder's face goes nearly purple.

"Are you doubting what I saw with my own two eyes?!" 

"No, I'm simply saying that you might have been deceived." 

"Boy--!" 

"One hot towel, coming right up!"

Sasuke stiffens, stepping aside as Nakata suddenly scurries into the room, a bowl of steaming water in her hands. The Elder barks at her and grumbles as she fusses over him, but eventually lets go of Sasuke's bad attitude. Sasuke bows and excuses himself. 

So much for finding useful information from him. 

The rest of the villagers say much of the same thing. A bunch of ruthless, jeering Ame nin carelessly slaughtering dozens for fun. Some said there were only six or seven, some said as many as twenty. Some say they went east, back to Ame, some say they fled north and south. 

All of them were angry, on edge, and distrustful. 

Sasuke can taste violence in the air like the ash that coats the hem of his cloak-- one wrong move, one accidental slip, and these people were liable to snap and storm across the border in a half-assed war party to seek revenge. 

Whoever was orchestrating these events were somewhat clever, at least . Killing just enough people to inspire a dangerous amount of rage, but not killing enough to make them despair hopelessly. Injure a few, but leave the rest well enough to feel like they could take on the world. It made a bitter taste rise in the back of his mouth. 

The decade since the war ended has been plagued with skirmishes and threats of civil war that were just barely averted only by virtue of Naruto’s tireless diplomatic efforts. Always traveling, always building relationships and using his unending charisma and good will to smooth over the rough patches. They’ve been teetering on a lopsided bucket with the hangman’s rope around their neck for ten years. 

Sasuke humorlessly thinks that he will be long buried before he can ever truly rest . 

He smirks to himself. Ino would scold him if he’d made that joke out loud. Her and Sakura made a frightening duo when it came to maintaining both the mental and physical health of Konoha's populace.

His fingers brush through the ash on the broken door of the burnt down house he was investigating, leaving powdery black residue across his skin and he huffs to himself. 

“What are you doing?” 

He doesn’t jump, but it’s a close thing. 

He turns and sees Nakata standing a few paces back, leaning to the left to peer past him as if his body were hiding some fantastic secret. She straightens, bouncing restlessly on the balls of her feet. Sasuke watches her for a moment before turning away. 

“Looking for clues.”

“Clues?" 

"Traces of chakra. Something that can tell me how many of them there were, what kind of jutsu they use. If I can find something strong enough, I might be able to track them back to their hideout." 

"What's chakra?" 

Sasuke looks back at her again, unexpectedly stunned. She's freckled and scrawny, wearing pants that are too big for her, held in place by a torn bit of fabric in place of a belt. What’s chakra? The question makes his head spin despite its simplicity.

Sasuke was her age when he decided to throw his chips in with Orochimaru. When he knew a dozen different ways to kill a man before they knew they were dead. When he was taught how to cauterize his own wounds in an emergency, was taught that the pain would likely cause him to go into shock, and was taught how to deal with that too. 

She doesn't know what chakra is, but Sasuke can tell from the weary, haunted tension in her eyes that she knows how a man sounds when he dies. 

"It's an energy of sorts," he says eventually. "Everything has chakra-- it's what gives things life and spirit. Ninjas train themselves to use it as a weapon." Feeling indulgent, he summons a curl of it into his palm, relaxes his control so that it flickers wildly into the visible spectrum. Nakata flinches back for a moment, before nervously drawing closer.

" Woah," she breathes. "It's like fire. Can I touch it?" 

Sasuke extends his palm flat, and she hesitantly sticks her finger in it. Once she realizes it won't hurt her, she grows more confident and lays her smaller hand over his, allowing it to be completely engulfed. She laughs, voice still riding that line between fear and excitement. 

"This is so weird. How much chakra do you have?" 

Sasuke snorts and pulls away, folding the chakra neatly back into his system, making it wink out like a snuffed candle. 

"A lot." 

"Is that what the men who were attacking us were using? Chakra?”

“Yes.”

“Can it make you breathe fire?” 

Sasuke pauses. 

“Among other things.”

“Oh. That makes more sense now-- I thought it was weird they said they were part dragon. They didn’t even have scales or tails or whiskers or anything.”

“They were calling themselves dragons?”

“Yeah, something like the, um... something about eating tails? Oro-- borbus...”

“Ouroboros?” 

“Yeah, that.”

Sasuke’s eyes nearly roll to the back of his skull. How utterly pretentious. Every god damned band of thugs nowadays insisted on having a tasteless, overly ambitious name trying to chase even a fraction of the fear of the Akatsuki. Fucking wannabes. 

Sasuke turns back to the rubble, blinking a few times to activate his Sharingan. There's a familiar dull twinge of pain at the back of his skull that is no less unpleasant for its regularity as the world fades to negatives, darks and lights trading places and making the sunny day look like the blackest of nights. The lingering traces of chakra look electric blue like this, revealing the echoes of the fight that happened here just a day ago, finding hints that would tell him who did this.  

His family's greatest treasure, but just like everything else, he suffered for it.

His vision remains as sharp as a hawk's but when he uses his eyes, his head hurts now. That's the way life is for him at this point and he accepts it with a weary resignation that he feels doesn't belong in a body that hasn't even hit thirty yet. 

The pain fades to a dull throb and he focuses back on the ruined house. 

Sasuke doesn't really know when he became a Rent-A-Detective, but he finds himself on tricky missions like these more often than not nowadays. Naruto's rather unorthodox policy of honesty and openness has been received about as well as one could expect in a world where secrets and subterfuge were practically ingrained into every culture. Naruto's been ripping out rotten flooring, trying to rebuild the world on a better foundation, so Sasuke has been left with hunting down the beatles and worms still trying to hide in the crevices of the stones he overturns. 

Naruto had promised him, years ago, that he'd change the world. As it turns out, most of the world didn't want to be changed. And as optimistic and diplomatic as Naruto tried to be, sometimes it was necessary to be intolerant of intolerance. 

That's where Sasuke came in. To peel back the lies and expose the truth.

There's traces of chakra in this house, spindly lines that run in sharp, chaotic arcs-- a clear marker of an elemental release technique, but too faint to be of any use for tracking. Upon closer examination, he's able to narrow the nature down to fire or lightning. The heat that destroyed this building is volatile and intense, like it was flashburned. 

There are sword marks in the few walls still standing, ragged and deep and haphazard. Mentally, he superimposes a katana, swings it-- 

No, too thin. Same for a wakizashi. A tanto maybe--? No, too short for these long, gaping wounds. A tachi, then. The depth and length matched, but didn't explain the way the plaster and woods practically exploded at the edges. 

Unless, he huffs darkly, the blade was already dull from hacking through bone and tendon and gristle. 

So big, dull swords, swung with force rather than finesse. These rogues aren't swordsmen, that's for sure. 

Careless swordplay and powerful, destructive ninjutsu. 

Definitely not Ame nin. Probably not any one village, either. A coalition of miserly war-mongering bastards, then. 

His sharingan slowly fades, the world bleeding back into its proper colors, the gates closing on that hidden world beneath this one. One house down-- dozens more to check.

There's a faint clatter and he looks over to see Nakata picking something up from under a pile of charred wood: the remains of a burnt wooden doll, its painted face rendered unreadable by soot and ash. Her face is pinched in a tight grief. 

"They didn't even spare the children," she says quietly and Sasuke feels his heart drop to his stomach. "My grandpa said it was dishonorable-- that wars had rules, and you're not supposed to hurt the women and children." 

Sasuke feels an acrid rage rise in the back of throat but he swallows it painfully.

"Wars are never honorable," he says tightly. "Lords only pretend they are so they don't feel bad about sending their citizens to die. But this isn't a war, and these aren't soldiers. They don't follow any rules but their own." 

Nakata looks at him for a long moment. 

"Are you going to kill them when you find them?" 

Sasuke looks at the doll. It looks like it had once been wearing a simple cloth dress, but all that's left are blackened fibers. 

If he had been given this mission before the war, he would have. He would have efficiently executed every single one and left no survivors, filing them away as another job completed and another evil expunged. He wouldn't have bothered to enter this village or talk to its people. He wouldn't know how bad they had it, wouldn't feel this low, bubbling anger in his gut. 

He wouldn't care and sometimes he wishes he didn't. Because it sucks -- this weight in his chest sucks and makes him think about that beaten handbook he had read in the academy, had been instructed to memorize and internalize until you can recite the rules in your sleep. He thinks of how the most important ones involve killing your emotions and not letting them cloud your judgment. 

But if he wants to see the world he dreams of come to fruition, he has to care. He has to care enough to make up for generations of men that didn't. 

"I wish I could," he confesses bluntly. "...But that would be too good for them. They'll rot with their consequences for a very long time." 

Nakata squeezes the doll until her knuckles go white and looks him dead in the eye, expression fierce. 

"Good." 

--- 

He thoroughly goes through the ruins of eight more houses with no luck. Nakata follows him through most of it, offering her scattered memories of the attacks, pointing out where the most fighting had happened, battering him with questions that he patiently answers. 

("Can you breathe fire too?" 

"Yes." 

"Can I see?" 

"No." 

"Aw, why not?" 

"It's dangerous and it wastes my energy." 

"What happened to your arm?" 

"I lost it in a fight." 

"With who?"

"My best friend." 

"... That doesn't sound like something a best friend should do." 

A laugh. 

"It's complicated." 

"How long have you been a ninja?" 

"Almost twenty years." 

"Can I be a ninja?" 

"Trust me, you don't want to."

"..." 

"..." 

"Will you breathe fire pleeeeeeease?!")

Sasuke evaporates half of a small pond with a very small fireball and Nakata practically loses her mind. It's both remarkable and unnerving how very little these people knew about shinobi. Sasuke is reminded uncomfortably of how very fragile regular people are.

The Elder calls her home as the sun sets and the sky quickly turns peach-lavender-inky-dark. Sasuke meets his eyes and is met with a dark sneer. He tweaks Nakata's ear with his good arm, muttering something Sasuke can't hear and slams the door shut. 

Sasuke sighs and goes searching for a decent tree. 

He makes sure to set alarm wards around the village before he does so, despite the unlikelihood of the rouge nins hitting the same place for a second time. He traces the corresponding seal in a dark red ink on his inner forearm, blowing gently on it to dry it. If any of the wards were tripped, his arm would get a gentle burning sensation and he'd know exactly which one it was. 

Naruto had been particularly proud of this one; something about tying multiple seals to the same mark remotely was incredibly difficult but again, Sasuke was content to let most of it go over his head. Konoha was certainly ecstatic enough to have a proper fuinjutsu master in its walls again, and he did not envy the endless requests, letters, and appeals for apprenticeship that Naruto got day in and day out. The whole world felt like it had some claim on Naruto, whether as the hero of the Fourth War, one of the world's only remaining Jinchuuriki, a master of sealing, the next in line for Hokage, or Konoha's diplomatic emissary. The days where he belonged to Sasuke alone were growing fewer and further between and he longs, not for the first time, for simpler times. For long roads and small villages and questionable ramen, traveling in blissful anonymity.

Sasuke settles himself in a nice, tall pine and lets all his gentle aches send him sweetly to sleep. 

--- 

1.27.XX

Days Until Coronation: 85

"This doesn't make any sense." 

Nakata looks up from where she's sat on the step in front of the well in the center of the village, peeling potatoes for her grandfather. 

"What doesn't?" 

"Any of this." Sasuke crosses his arms and turns in a slow circle, staring at the burned down houses, blinking sweat from his eyes. The heat wave was still firmly settled over this place, and it's making everyone's tempers run hot, and even Sasuke finds himself more irritated than usual. He ditched his usual cloak, rolled up the sleeves of his shirt, and even tied back his hair in an attempt to vent the heat from his body. Covering his Rinnegan with a transformation is muscle-memory by now.

There are fifteen destroyed houses in total, each of them bearing the distinctive chakra signatures of an extremely powerful but extremely simplistic elemental release. Some fire, some lightning, even some wind releases. But from his examination of the unburied corpses earlier that day, most had been crudely hacked to pieces. Some were dead before they burned. And most bizarrely of all, none of them had any traces of chakra on them at all. Which didn't make any damned sense because whether they were burned before or after death, they were burned by fire fueled primarily by chakra and that was supposed to leave traces. Even in charred flesh and bone. He gestures vaguely.

"These people clearly have access to powerful ninjutsu, but instead relied on dull weapons and simple illusions to disguise their identities and whereabouts. Clumsily. They're clearly hiding somewhere to the west, because they've left very obvious trails in every direction but that one-- that's basic chunin tactics at best. I can't tell if they're actually as dangerous as they seem, or if I'm getting fooled by the biggest idiots known to man." 

It's almost embarrassing.

Nakata washes off her peeled potato and sets it with the others. 

"Mr. Uchiha, can you show me that fireball thing you did again?" she asks. Sasuke is less amused with her persistence right now. 

"No, and I mean it this time." 

She gets that set to her brow that Sasuke is beginning to recognize as her particular brand of dogged insistence.

"It's important. I have an idea, but I wasn't paying attention the first time." 

Sasuke gives her a long look, but there's something strangely intense in her expression. He sighs.

"Fine." 

He's in the middle of the damned village around some extraordinarily skittish people, so he approaches the edge of the well and stares down into it. 

It's taken him a while to get the hang of it, but doing one-handed seals has gotten easier over the years. It's like trying to sculpt water barehanded, but Sasuke Uchiha is a prodigy dammit, and a missing arm won't take that title from him. He makes two seals, but before he even starts building the chakra in his mouth, Nakata points at his hand and yells "aha!" 

"What?" 

"I was right! You have to move your hands to breathe fire!" 

"... Yes? Almost all techniques require hand seals." 

"Yeah, but the guys that stormed the village didn't use them at all." 

Sasuke blinks slowly. 

"Are you sure?" 

"I am absolutely positive. They were waving their swords around and shouting like a pack of coyotes, none of them were using those hand seal thingies. I'm sure of it." 

Well that changes things. A lot. 

Jutsu with no hand seals? Elemental releases at that. There were certainly techniques that didn't use them, or kekkei genkai, but it didn't seem possible for a group like this to be wielding power like that. They wouldn't be solely picking on defenseless civilian villages if they had access to those kinds of techniques. 

The key had to be on the houses somewhere. It had to be. 

He marches over to the closest one, his sharingan snapping to life. He ignored the chakra marks, the shapes and patterns of them and instead looked hard at their entire shapes. 

If they didn't have ninjutsu, there was only one type of object that could give them this kind of firepower.

Slowly, he finds the pattern in the seemingly random streaks of leftover chakra; when he finds the pattern, he finds the center. Dismissed at first as the location of initial contact, Sasuke crouches over a collapsed section of wall and pulls out a handkerchief, gently dusting away the ash and soot that's collected there. It takes a minute, but he finally sees something beginning to take shape.

It's a perfect little rectangle of blackened stone. In the corner, a very small scrap of paper lingers, wedged in a crack in the brick. 

Paper bombs. He fucking knew it. A type he's never seen before that can apparently mimic elemental release techniques closely enough to fool even him, but still-- a bomb. 

They weren't smart enough to be making explosives like that, and Sasuke feels an uneasy twisting in his stomach. 

That meant suppliers. 

That meant that this issue went far beyond a few burned up villages. He stands, a grim set to his brow.

I got you now, assholes. 

--- 

"You can go home now." 

"A little gratitude would not kill the young Masssster, you know." 

The snake on his shoulder slowly slides off and onto the ground, but instead of returning to his own realm, he coils around Sasuke’s legs like the attention seeking little brat he is. Sasuke sighs and nudges him away, and he immediately flops dramatically onto his back, writhing as if in his final death throes. 

"You kick Mochi! You kick Mochi like trasssh!" It wails. "Sssssee if I ever ressspond to your ssssummons again!" 

"Oh for the love of..." 

Sasuke pulls a strip of dried meat from his ration pouch and tosses it to the snake. He flips and snatches it with deadly precision, making a sound that Sasuke's assumes is the reptilian equivalent to a purr. 

"Ahhh, all issss forgiven. Masssster isss, of course, welcome to call upon Mochi whenever he pleasessss." 

And with that, he vanishes in a small plume of smoke and Sasuke is free to continue investigating the hideout. 

It’s well hidden, he’ll give it that-- the entrance to the cave is small and carefully hidden behind vines of ivy and creeping moss, making it just look like a blank rockface. Without Mochi's help tracking their signatures, it would have taken him the better part of the day.

That is all he’ll give them. 

There are three men standing watch-- were three men, to be precise. They’re all knocked out, tied up under a bush a couple dozen yards away, hallucinating that their flesh is bubbling off as they fail to escape from a burning house. 

It was no Tsukuyomi, but they’d be out for a while. 

He pulls a paper smoke bomb from his pouch, wraps it around the handle of a kunai, and hurls it past the ivy and into the cave proper. 

“What--?”

BOOM. 

White smoke curls around the leaves before four men come hacking and coughing out the entrance. Before they can even make sense of what’s happening, Sasuke rushes one of them and taps him lightly on the forehead. His eyes roll back and he collapses, his mind crumbling around the genjutsu. 

Two more fall the same way, but the last is slightly more clever. He keeps his eyes focused on Sasuke’s shoes and isn’t trapped as easily. It’s an issue for all of three seconds, because Sasuke is far from a one-trick pony. 

He grabs the space around the final rogue and yanks and then man is instantly flattened into the earth hard enough to leave a small crater with a garbled shout. Sharp, fiery splinters of pain immediately explode at the back of Sasuke's skull, but he pointedly ignores it as he approaches the man in the crater. 

He draws his sword and sits down on a nearby rock, laying the blade in his lap and waiting patiently as the man recovers from having the wind knocked out of him. Probably a few broken ribs, too. 

The man is old and grizzled, mostly bald, with a long scar making a significant divot in his scalp. 

“Your buddies here and the ones on watch-- is that everyone? Or do I have to go digging?” Sasuke drawls disinterestedly. The man spits a mouthful of blood and glares up at him. 

“Fuck you.” He lunges, but is promptly wrapped up in a twisted knot of space-time and punched back down. The crater gets a few inches deeper. Sasuke massages his scalp with his fingertips, trying to will away the migraine he knows is coming. 

“I can do this all day. Answer the question.”

Instead of answering his question, the man explodes into a rough, gritting peal of laughter, slowly struggling onto all fours again. 

“As if you care,” the man spits. “You’d love an excuse to just chase us down, picking us off one by one.”

“You’re drastically overestimating yourself if you think I care that much. Numbers. Positions. Intentions. Now. Or I promise you, your day is going to get a whole lot worse.” He flicks his hair from his eyes, and the man seems to notice them for the first time. He laughs again, this one even more unhinged than the last. 

“Every man I got was either in that cave or on watch.” He gets himself up onto his knees and spreads his arms, gesturing to the two unconscious men. “I don’t care either way. We did what we came here to do.”

“And what, exactly, was that?”

The man snickers again. 

“You see it, don’t you? We’re just a symptom of the disease. You’re out here, popping boils, while all the good little civilians fester under a contaminated bandage. That’s all you big villages are doing-- running around kissing booboos while ignoring the fact that you’ve got... what, another couple years of this alliance left in you? People are fucking tired of this-- there’s not a war anyone. No common enemy. And when there’s nothing left to consume, the only thing left to sink your teeth into is yourself. So kill me, just like you’ve killed everyone before and everyone that’ll come after. I don’t care-- there’s a hundred more just like me.”

Sasuke's mind flashes across burnt dolls and fresh graves and ash-streaked faces. Fury flares in his stomach, acrid on the back of his tongue, and he audibly grits his teeth.

“Funny that you think you’ll be dying.”

The smile slowly fades from his face as Sasuke stands, flourishing his sword. 

“By the joint authority of the Land of Fire and the Land of Rain, you are being taken into custody to await trial in Amegakure.”

“What kind of bullshit--” 

Before he can finish his protests, Sasuke cracks him across the temple with the hilt of his blade and he falls unconscious. 

---

He pulls the odd little device from Matsuoka from his pouch, turning it over a few times before twisting and pushing down the top like he’d been instructed. Immediately, it starts humming, a soft blue light emanating from between the gears. Sasuke wrinkles his nose a little. 

“Weird.” 

He tucks it into the pocket of one of the lackeys he’s tied to the tree before stalking off, dragging the scar-headed leader behind him. 

---

“There will be a squad of nin from Ame to collect the men coming soon. You have about an hour. Try not to kill him.” 

Sasuke kicks the leader into the center of the village square, where he collapses in an exhausted, boneless heap. The Elder’s eyes are bugging with disbelief, forehead beaded with sweat from the effort it’s taken to get his battered body all the way out here. 

“ This was the man that attacked us?”

“Their leader-- the rest have been taken care of.” 

The Elder looks up and meets Sasuke’s eyes, and for the first time there’s almost something like respect in them. The rest of the villagers are starting to gather around in shocked silence, looking at the man sprawled in the dirt. He’s starting to come to, and his eyes darting around as he realizes how much danger he's in. 

Sasuke takes a polite step back, gesturing. The villagers take a step closer. Hands are starting to find shovels and hammers and unused bricks from the repair effort. The man clutches his broken ribs, scrabbling weakly back a few feet. 

“Wait--” he coughs, blood speckling his chin. “Wait, wait, you can’t just--” His head whips towards Sasuke. “--You can’t just leave me here.”

Sasuke ignores him and finds a comfortable wall to lean up against in the shade. His head is still pounding, getting worse by the second, but at the very least his due diligence dictates he shouldn’t actually let the man get beat to death. 

Only close. 

One man suddenly explodes into action, raising a shovel over his head and bringing it down with violent force. It makes contact with his knee with a satisfying sort of ringing crack and the man howls. 

“That’s for my fucking wife you bastard!” 

The village 

descends.

 It's as if a madness has swept through them, rendering them temporarily rabid. Days of pent up fury and grief and frustration pour out in a font of barely restrained violence. The women on the edges are shouting, jeering, cheering on their wounded husbands and brothers and sons. Only two people are silent. 

The Elder, who watches with a look of grim vindication. 

And Nakata, who stands at the edge and watches, unblinking, as they tear this man apart. 

---

“What happened to this one?”

“I had to make sure I didn’t miss any stragglers.” 

Four Ame nin show up to take the men into custody a little more than an hour later, just as the sun is beginning to set. There’s one woman and she pulls her mask aside to wipe at the sweat on her brow as she looks down at the bloody pulped mess that was once the leader of this wannabe Ouroborus group. She glances up at him and Sasuke holds her gaze evenly. 

It’s a lie and they both know it. She flicks her mask back down. 

“Good work, sir. We can take it from here.”

“Great. Also, I found evidence of a paper bomb that mimics elemental releases. Have you ever heard of anything like that?”

"Not that I know of." 

"Hm. Well, I have reason to believe they have a supplier-- you should question them about it." 

"Understood." 

The six lackeys are cuffed and bound in chakra suppressors, the leader tied to a stretcher, head tilted to the side so his breath doesn't keep gurgling through his blood-soaked lips. Sasuke gives him one last look before turning and leaving. 

He gets a mile away before nearly missing a tree branch and deciding that he’s better off waiting for daylight again. 

He finds a creek and dunks a cloth into the cold water and presses it over his eyes seeking any kind of relief from this god damned migraine. Blindly, he pulls out a storage scroll and plucks out the small bottle of pills that’s been his most faithful companion for the past two years and pops one. He thinks about it and then takes a second.

Two long days of near constant use to hunt through the rubble, and then trapping six men in the nastiest genjutsus he could summon on short notice, plus an overzealous use of Almighty Pull. It was an idiot move, and an effort those incompetents didn’t even deserve, but a life sentence wasn’t enough for them. He wanted them to know the suffering they’d caused and know it intimately . That wasn’t something you’d get out of a god damned jury. 

Sasuke sighs out through his nose and sits back against the trunk of a tree, pulling the wet cloth from his eyes. 

The sun is mostly gone, with smears of lavender slowly chasing the last fading strip of orange from the horizon. Each star winked with perfect crystalline clarity, despite the pounding in his head and his eyes. 

Something was wrong-- he knew something was wrong. He just didn’t know what. 

---

The journey home is a blur, and he makes terrible time as the pain persists. The sun is gone again when he stumbles through his house and ends up collapsing half-dressed in bed, pressing a pillow over his head. 

Naruto returns eventually and his pleasant surprise at seeing Sasuke home is quickly smothered in concern. 

“Light, light,” Sasuke protests and Naruto quickly flicks it off. 

“Sorry,” he winces. “Migraine again?”

Sasuke only grumbles vaguely. 

“Did you take your meds?”

An affirmative grunt. 

“Need anything?”

A negative. 

“Do you want me to sleep on the couch?” 

Another negative.

“Alright. Sleep it off, I’ll let Kakashi know you’re taking the day off tomorrow.”

Sasuke would kiss him if his head didn’t hurt so fucking bad. 

He hears Naruto moving about the room, shucking his clothes and putting away the equipment that Sasuke tossed about the room in his hurry to just get in bed. He feels hands undoing his belt, gently freeing him from the rest of his clothes so that he’s far more comfortable in his underwear and his soft undershirt. Finally, he lifts the blanket and tucks himself up against Sasuke and he summons the strength to roll over and drape himself over Naruto’s chest. 

Naruto’s hand comes up and his fingers massage into the base of his scalp where he knows Sasuke likes it best. Sasuke lets out a long sigh that fans over Naruto’s skin, nosing up under his chin so that he can feel the steady thud of his pulse against his temple. 

The door creaks open gently and there's a small mrrp? as Egg neatly hops onto the bed. Sasuke feels his sandpaper tongue on his fingers and offers a halfhearted scritch, too weary for much more. Egg takes this in stride and steps over them both to curl up at Sasuke's back, rumbling softly. 

Sandwiched on each side by a warm, solid presence, Sasuke finally finds an uneasy rest.