Sasuke watched as Naruto offered his fist to his father, feeling more and more frustrated as the battle went on. Since the Juubi's jinchuuriki was only weak to nature chakra – which he had never even encountered before, and was therefore justifiably surprised that Naruto had mastered it – there was relatively little that he could do to aid Obito's defeat.
Pretty much everything about Naruto had been surprising him, much to his agitation. He didn't like surprises much, so to have them constantly coming at him was not something he took well. The blonde was – and there was no other way to put it – ridiculously strong; far stronger than Sasuke would have cared to imagine. As if being a jinchuuriki wasn't enough, he had gone even further and not only mastered control of the Kyuubi's chakra, but made friends with the beast itself. Further, he had apparently become a sage at some point down the line, and had lost the childish selfishness that he used to hold during missions. Instead of charging out recklessly, Naruto had become used to assessing the situation before acting. He had, essentially, grown up into a more mature, balanced person, and to Sasuke he seemed like someone you could rely on for anything.
While Sasuke was lost in his thoughts, the blonde father-son nine-tails duo had conjured up a plan to evacuate the battlefield. Naruto re-entered that mode of his that made him look like a walking bonfire, and turned to face the rest of their party.
"Okay!" he exclaimed with renewed purpose. "I'm going to give all of you some of my chakra now."
"What for?" Tobirama asked. "I assume that you two have come up with something."
"Yeah. A little while ago, I transferred some of Kurama's chakra to everyone on this battlefield. Since Dad and I both have some of the nine-tails' chakra, he can use that get everyone out with his jutsu instead of marking them. After that, I'll stop Obito from starting the Tsuki no Me, since I'm the only one who can use Senjutsu. Got it?" Naruto explained quickly.
"Can you really do it by yourself?" Sasuke asked, unable to stop the lingering worry for his – and he admitted this with no small amount of discomfort – friend.
The look that Naruto fixed him with was brimming with confidence – one certainly fit for a hero. "I don't have a choice. Besides, I can't forgive someone like him, no matter what, so I'll definitely stop him! And if I don't – well, sixteen years was a good run."
"Either way, we don't have much time," Tobirama interrupted. "You need to do it now!"
"Right!" Naruto exclaimed, and took a small step forward to breach the space between himself and the former Second Hokage. He clapped a hand on the dead man's shoulder, and sure enough, a thin layer of red-orange chakra engulfed his body. He did the same for Hashirama's clone, before getting to Sasuke.
"If you let him have his way, I won't forgive you," Sasuke stated quietly, his dark eyes boring into Naruto's. This was really his way of saying 'please come back to me', and something told him that Naruto understood that.
"Of course," the jinchuuriki returned. "I'll stop him, and then we'll go home together, right, Sasuke?"
Warmth spread through Sasuke's chest, and because his breath was knocked from him by the sheer sincerity in Naruto's eyes he could only nod dumbly.
A moment later, everything vanished.
An hour later, Minato went back to the battlefield to check on things only to find both Obito and Naruto collapsed on the ground. The only difference between them was that one was still breathing.
Naruto had been hospitalised the moment they returned to Konoha. His father had died – again – since Orochimaru released the jutsu as soon as he'd realised that it was over. Hashirama had made sure that Madara remained dead before he, too, had gone. It was over.
Every hidden village was going through mourning and celebration simultaneously. It made for an odd mix; people sobbed when they found out that people they loved had been killed at the same time that people had huge parties, rejoicing the end of the war.
The eve of Naruto's birthday, no one slept much. Sasuke himself felt like sleep was physically impossible, even though he was so weary that it reached his bones.
It was a little odd for him, being back in the village on peaceful terms. Of course, he'd returned not too long ago, in order to revive Orochimaru and the Hokage, but that had been brief and he'd had a purpose. Now, the streets were full of people who were laughing and celebrating, weeping and holding each other, meeting up with each other and eating together – it was all so familiar that it felt foreign. How long now had it been since Sasuke had participated in such behaviour himself? It seemed like far too long. After the fact, all of the time that he had spent denying himself such a basic pleasure felt like wasted time. He sighed; it was all a bit much, coming straight out of a war. With nothing better to do, he headed to the hospital.
Sasuke slid the white door open without hesitation, dully reflecting on what had happened the last time he and his blonde teammate had been in a hospital together. He hadn't anticipated, however, the very man that he was visiting to be opening the door from the other side at the exact same moment with Sakura yanking on his ear from behind.
"Just take the damn medicine!" she shrieked. Yeesh, and she wondered why Sasuke was never interested.
"No!" Naruto replied petulantly. "It smells gross, Sakura-chan, and I already told you that I'm completely fine, so–"
"Shouldn't you be resting?" Sasuke asked flatly. Naruto, who had been facing away from the doorway in order to look at their third teammate, turned around in surprise.
"Sasuke! No, like I keep tellin' 'em, I'm completely totally fine! So let go of my ear, Sakura-chan."
"Dobe, you've just defeated a man with the power of a god. And your legs are shaking a little from the effort of standing up. Get back in bed and take whatever damn medicine they want you to," Sasuke borderline ordered him.
"Thank you, Sasuke-kun," Sakura said briskly, dragging Naruto over to the bed with ease, given that he'd stopped putting up so much resistance. He flopped down onto it, obviously spent, and Sakura tucked his legs under the sheets before sitting him up to take his medicine.
That done, with Sasuke lingering somewhat awkwardly in the doorway all the while, the pinkette asked the million dollar question.
"Why were you so desperate to get out, anyway? Even an idiot like you must know how much damage you've taken."
"Sakura-chan, you know you're just adding to my injuries, yeah? Except these are on my feelings, so you can't heal them, y'know." Naruto sniffed dramatically before sobering up. "I, uh, wanted to make sure Sasuke wasn't leaving again, okay? Are you satisfied now?" he asked, obviously embarrassed.
Sasuke scoffed and walked over to the bed. For all of the bravado that the blonde had put up on the battlefield, he was still really the same. Coming to a stop on the side opposite to the one Sakura had perched herself on, he stooped over to look Naruto dead in the eye. "Tadaima," he said quietly.
Naruto's deep blue eyes watered up considerably before he grinned hugely. "Okaeri," he whispered back.
Sakura had politely left the room, claiming to give them 'space to work things out.' In Sasuke's opinion, she was trying to spare herself from any arguments that were liable to occur with the two of them in such close proximity. However, the two reunited ninja were simply too tired to deal with that, and they settled for idle conversation which mostly consisted of Naruto filling him in on the village's goings-on in his absence.
Soon before midnight during a lull in conversation, Sasuke found that the rigid chairs were simultaneously the most uncomfortable piece of furniture to ever exist and so convenient that he was prepared to fall asleep in the one by Naruto's bed.
The sage himself seemed ready to drop off, but he still had something to say.
"Say, Sasuke… If the Tsuki no Me plan was really activated, what would your perfect world be like?"
Of course he would ask something like that. Sasuke wondered, though – for a start, his family would be alive and happy, but beyond that…
"I know what mine would be like," Naruto continued, not even waiting for Sasuke to answer. Maybe he didn't need one. "My parents would be alive, and we'd live together as a family. And Ero-sennin would still be alive, and you never would have left, and everything would be normal. I'd still be a jinchuuriki, though, except no one would hate me for it…"
Sasuke sunk down in his chair a little, resting his head on the back of it. "That sounds nice," he remarked quietly. "I wish…" he started hesitantly, unused to revealing so much about himself. "I wish Itachi had never received those orders. In my world… my clan would be alive. And I would be free from hatred, and I would go on missions with you and Sakura and Kakashi, and you'd force me to pay for your ramen…"
"Hey, Sasuke," Naruto called unnecessarily, rolling his head to the side to peer at his friend. "Are you still gonna revive your clan?"
It was a simple enough question, but the last Uchiha had mixed feelings about the answer. "I've always wanted to, but I'm not so sure anymore. The Sharingan is cursed. I don't know that I want to pass that on to anyone else for a matter as simple as pride. Besides," his cheeks turned vaguely red from slight embarrassment at actually voicing this concern, "Who would I even have children with?"
Predictably, Naruto snickered at his friend's dilemma. "Are you kidding me? Sasuke, the half of the village that doesn't want you dead would literally kill to get into your pants."
"Shut it," Sasuke snapped. "You know that's not what I meant. I'm saying that there's no girl I'm interested in."
Naruto just laughed again. "Sasuke, I'mma fall asleep real soon, so I gotta say this first. Tsunade-baachan visited me earlier and she said that you can stay at mine 'till she can work somethin' out for you. You can ask Sakura-chan for the address, I got a new place since the village got rebuilt."
Sasuke got the distinct feeling that the blonde was subtly pushing him into talking to Sakura. "Thanks, dobe. For… everything."
Naruto fell asleep with a smile on his face. Sasuke whispered 'happy birthday' as he left the room, the minute hand of the clock above the door just past the twelve.