Spoilers for the end of the manga. Read at your own risk
"Okay now make a fist...good. Now touch your thumb to each finger...good."
Sasuke was wrapping up the examination for his new hand. He got his new arm a couple of weeks after Naruto got his repaired, so he still had to get checked up every few days to make sure it was developing properly.
He's been mostly outside of the village redeeming as many mistakes as he could from before he decided to protect the village. Sasuke got back to Konoha earlier this day, and he decided to stay here for the time being. There were still mistakes he had to fix inside the village. Speaking of which...
"Sasuke! I didn't know you were back yet," Sakura yelped happily, busting into his exam room.
She worked in the hospital most of the time so it was no wonder she heard people whispering about the final Uchiha being here.
"Hn, got back this morning."
"How long are you staying?"
"Well actually, I thought I'd stay for at least a few months."
Sakura smiled so sweetly that Sasuke knew she forgave him completely, which was something not everyone in the village did.
His nurse spoke up: "We're all done here. You should be able to get the bandages taken off in 3 days and you'll be as good as new." She exited the room.
After they were left alone, Sakura waited a few moments before throwing her arms around Sasuke's neck to hug him tightly.
"...I'm really glad you're back..."
For the first time ever, Sasuke hugged back.
4 Months Later
Sasuke made good on his promise to stay in the village. He only left on missions Kakashi allowed him to go on, which happened sooner than anyone thought. Although he hid it well, the sixth hokage trusted him again.
Team 7: Naruto, Sasuke, Sakura and Sai, were on a mission not too far away from the village. The war eneded with the world entering a time of peace, but there were still routine patrol missions like this to keep order.
Sakura and Sasuke were walking ahead of the other two, holding hands.
"Psst Naruto," Sai whispered, "what are you getting Sakura for her birthday?"
"I dunno. She already has what she wants most."
"Limited edition pen quills?"
"What? No. I was talking about Sasuke."
"Oh yeah sometimes I forget they're dating."
"He doesn't like public displays of affection."
"That's an understatment. Anyway, would a painting of her and Sasuke be a weird gift?"
"No that's a great idea. Why would she think that'd be weird?"
"Well obviously it'd be of them making love."
"What the hell?! Yeah, that'd be a very weird gift," Naruto said just a little too loud.
"Then I'm out of ideas."
"Just draw them together with clothes. That might be the only way to show him smiling."
Ahead of them, Sasuke pretended like he couldn't hear them. He was enjoying the walk with his girlfriend, but this was still a mission and he was listening for threats. As far as he was concerned this time of peace was temporary.
"Hey Sasuke, I heard there's a really good market in the next village. When we're done with the mission do you wanna check it out? They have tomatoes..." Sakura implored.
"Hn, sure. We'll be done soon."
"Also, since you know my birthday's coming up soon, I was thinking after the party we could go to-"
"Wait."
"What?"
Sasuke stopped and the other three followed his lead and listened intently to the forest around them. Sakura looked up and saw her boyfriend had his sharingan activated, so she knew something serious was about to happen.
"Show yourself," Sasuke yelled, extending his hand in front of Sakura in a protective manner.
Sakura stood in a fighting stance at Sasuke's body movement.
"Even with masking our chakra you were still able to sense us. How perceptive..." a man's voice was heard from the dark treetop shadows.
After a few seconds 4 men appeared around the four Konoha shinobi. The one who spoke appeared a few yards in front of Sasuke wearing a black outfit with a red vest. The rest wore black clothing underneath a dark blue vest. They all had masks on to hide their faces. The leader had on a rabbit mask while the other three had Monkey masks.
"It's about time you guys showed yourself. I was getting tired of waiting," Naruto taunted.
"You showed no signs of noticing their presence at all," Sai whispered.
"Well yeah, I didn't want to scare you guys," Naruto said rubbing the back of his head.
Sasuke ignored Naruto's false claim and continued to glare at the man that appeared several feet before him.
"More of us will be coming. What will you do?" the man asked.
"Hn," Sasuke smirked.
"I'll wipe that smug look of your face, Uchiha."
The man ran towards Sasuke with a kunai readily in his hand. Sasuke brought a kunai of his own to block against the opponent's sharp object.
The other three followed the man's lead and pounced on the rest of the team. Naruto and Sai lunged forward to face their opponent. Sakura's opponent lurched forward to begin hand to hand combat but she quickly did a backflip to avoid his attack he soon caught up with her. She and her opponent moved quickly responding to each others attack exchanging and catching blows. The attacker raised his left leg to kick Sakura in the gut but Sakura quickly caught his foot and with her super strength slammed her opponent's body onto the floor. The man laid on the floor with a smile on his face, he began to laugh.
"Back up," she mumbled and sensed four more chakras a few feet away from them.
They appeared in her sight jumping out of the trees and towards her she quickly jumped up to avoid all four of their attacks and sent green chakra to her fist. Her fist then made contact with the ground and the ground beneath her feet began to crack and break apart underneath her. Sakura then jumped up to avoid the shockwave. The others on Team Seven knew how to avoid the impact of her attack and jumped up as well.
Sasuke stole a quick glance at Sakura and saw that she was doing fine but saw that there were more enemies now and they were all going for Sakura. Sakura had a fighting stance. She didn't plan to fight against this many enemies but she thought of a way to take them all on. She readied chakra in fist once more. Before she could even move Sasuke appeared in front of her, a purple aura began to appear around him. Sasuke had thought of keeping the Susanoo out of this fight since he thought his enemies were nothing but a bunch of weak ninja. He did still think that, but now there were more and he thought of the best possible way to get rid of them quick. He also needed to bring it out to jump in front of Sakura to protect her.
A giant purple arm extended and knocked all of the approaching enemies with much force. They flew a couple of yards away.
The leader that was Sasuke's opponent saw how the raven haired Uchiha ran to protect the pink kunoichi:
Hmmm… I should tell him about this. This information is enough for now.
The man with the rabbit mask appeared next to his fallen men. Sai and Naruto appeared next to Sasuke and Sakura; they had defeated their opponent.
"We'll see each other soon Uchiha," the leader with the rabbit mask said.
Leaf circled around the group of rogue ninjas and they all disappeared. Sasuke tried to sense if they were nearby but they must've used a transportation jutsu.
Sasuke's purple aura diminished and he turned around to face Sakura.
"Are you okay?" he asked.
"I'm fine," she walked past him and stood facing forward. "Let's get going," she said in a serious tone.
Sakura didn't talk much to Sasuke the rest of the mission or on the way back. They all walked through the village gates; the sun had just set a few moments ago and now the sky was swallowed up in darkness. Naruto knocked on the Hokage's door.
"Come in," the silver haired man called out from the other side of the door.
Naruto and the rest of them walked in and paled at what they saw. They saw their Sensei/Hokage leaning back in his chair reading his IchaIcha book.
"What's wrong?" Kakashi asked.
"Aeh," Naruto's face twitched. "What do you mean what's wrong? You're the Hokage now. You can't be reading that smut in public anymore you pervert."
"I finished my paperwork." Kakashi said gesturing to his clear desk.
"THAT'S NOT THE POINT!" Naruto and Sakura said simultaneously.
Kakashi sighed and put his book away and looked up at the four.
Sasuke, knowing that he was waiting for their information, began to speak. Sasuke spoke few words but with those few words he had told Kakashi what he needed to hear.
"Rabbit mask..." Kakashi repeated Sasuke's words after he had spoken them.
"Okay. You guys can go and rest up now," Kakashi said to his subordinates.
All of them made for the door and walked out of the Hokage's room. Sasuke was the last to leave and saw an ANBU holding the door open with his partner next to him. They walked in to talk to Kakashi after Team 7 exited.
The two ANBU kneeled, and then stood up straight.
"Hokage-sama, we bring back news of a potential threat to the village."
"What is it?"
"These group of masked ninjas had attacked us while we patrolled the west of the village. The leader had a mask of a rabbit." The first ANBU spoke.
"He has the ability to take away your sight. I was separated from my partner and found him in trouble as the one with the rabbit mask was in the middle of performing some procedure. He quickly fled after seeing me and I went to assist him," the second ANBU said.
"He had temporarily taken away my eyesight," the first remarked.
Kakashi's eyes went wide.
"After a few hours I had gained it back. It seemed that he wasn't done with the procedure, so it didn't take away my eyesight permanently."
"What do we do Hokage-sama?" the second ANBU asked.
Kakashi was quiet for a few seconds.
"Leave me to my thoughts to think of the best course of action."
"Yes." Both anbu kneeled once again and left the room.
Kakashi turned in his chair and looked out onto the village streets down below.
What is his motive? Who are they after?
Sasuke and Sakura walked in silence. He had been used to it since it had been happening the past couple of days. He knew that Sakura wasn't happy with him for some reason. He wanted to bring it up but they were never alone on the mission and Sasuke wasn't the one to bring up relationship problems in front of anyone. Sakura opened the door to her apartment and stepped inside.
She had been holding in all her anger. Her trigger for all this stored anger? Sasuke thought she was too weak to defend herself in front of the enemy.
How can he think that I'm still weak? After all I have done. All the hard training I had with Tsunade, all the jutsu I learned since I was younger means nothing to him because he still sees that weak girl. I'll never be strong enough to fend for myself.
"Sakura," Sasuke said in a soft voice and he held onto her wrist as she walked towards her living room.
"What?" she said in rasp tone. Her tone towards her boyfriend even caught her off guard.
"Tell me what's wrong."
"Why does it matter, it won't change anything."
"Sakura please-"
"Please what, Sasuke?" she said in a harsh tone and turned around to make eye contact with him.
She saw how soft and warm his eyes looked.
"Please tell me what's wrong."
Sakura's fierce eyes now softened. She hated that he had this kind of impact on her.
"Why did you protect me?"
"When?"
"When we were battling the rogue ninja." Sakura's anger began to seep back into her voice.
"Because for were planning to attack you at once."
"And you thought that I couldn't take all of them on myself?"
"..."
"I knew it. You still think I'm that weak little girl from before."
"It's not that."
"Really? Because it sure seems like it Sasuke. I had a plan that would've taken down all four of them but you never gave me the chance to fight. You went back to thinking that I was the same weak girl that had to rely on you or Naruto to save me.
"It irritates me. It irritates me that you can't trust in my own abilities to save myself from danger. It's like all the training and hard work I put into making myself as strong doesn't even matter. I was there to help with Kaguya, I eliminated an Akatsuki member with the help of Chiyo. I had been able to save myself from danger several times before when you weren't there for me."
Sasuke felt his stomach churn listening to the last part.
Sasuke opened up his mouth to speak but no words came out.
"I just want to see that look on your face again," she commented.
Sasuke looked slightly confused. Sakura continued knowing that her statement was too broad.
"That look. The look of respect for me and how strong I was during the war. Even if you were hard to read I saw that look and it made all that I accomplished worth it. You finally acknowledged how strong I had become."
"Sakura. I'm sorry."
Sakura was taken back. She hadn't heard him apologize since the day she found him and Naruto clinging to life after their fight.
"I wanted to protect you because I don't want to lose you," he said out of the corner of his mouth, "When I was younger, I didn't have the strength to protect the ones I loved and lost them. I don't want…"
Their eyes locked and he finished his little speech with a soft, comforting voice: "I don't want to lose you too."
Sakura was happy hearing how he cared for her so much but she still had to think of herself on this.
"Sasuke," she moved closer to him, "I love you too, but I need you trust me."
Sasuke hesitantly nodded.
"Thank you." She smiled softly and placed her hands around his shoulders. She tippy toed and placed a kiss on his lips.
Sasuke placed his hands on her hips.
"You need to take a shower," Sasuke said with a smirk on his face.
"Oh is that sooooo?" She said teasingly.
"Yeah, you reek." He held his smirk.
"You should help me clean up."
"Hn." Sasuke's hands moved under her bottom and she jumped, wrapped her legs around him and he carried her off to the bathroom.
To be Continued very soon.
