A/N: I do not own Naruto. This story was written as a different interpretation to the original series' ending, and it will be in three parts. Enjoy.
Prologue
Uzumaki Naruto is happy.
He finally marries the girl of his dreams and has two children with her. He finally becomes the Hokage of Konoha, and is loved and acknowledged by all. He is currently working his way to achieve peace in the shinobi world.
For once, everything in his life is going according to plan.
Years pass by like a dream in his idyllic, quotidian village. It's as if all the battles between clans never happened. Those violent memories of war and death are dissolved into the abyss. Even the textbooks that his son Boruto is currently studying at school glosses over the Fourth Shinobi War and its gruesome history.
He hears the high-fluted voices of children outside of his office window. A blue bird is singing on the cherry blossom tree that he and Sakura had planted in front of his office years ago.
There is no merciless bloodshed, no screams of anguish, and no broken homes and dreams in his world.
Yes, everything is perfect, he persuades himself.
Chapter 1: The Concrete Walls
"I've been thinking a lot lately."
"About what?" she asks him. Haruno Sakura knows a lot about Uzumaki Naruto, enough to at least quickly detect his shift in mood.
"About my marriage. About the system. About everything."
Naruto and Sakura are both on the roof of the Hokage office. They hardly ever meet each other since they are both married and uphold various duties as responsible leaders of Konoha.
At least, that's what they both conceive, more or less, to be the absolute, ultimate truth.
He finally mustered up enough courage to invite her out for afternoon tea and dango last week, even though he never had a penchant for such pastime. It's been a while since they both saw each other, but despite the slight awkwardness in the beginning, they find comfort in each other's presence.
Sakura takes a sip of tea, and then slowly draws her pink lips away from the cup. As if in a trance, Naruto tentatively watch her every move.
"Do tell," she finally speaks.
Her feminine elegance, even after all these years, still burns him inside.
She stares at him, perplexed over his strange silence. Uzumaki Naruto is infamously known for a lot of things, but silence was not one of them.
Realizing the long-drawn awkward pause, he laughs. "I'm sorry," he apologizes to her, smacking his head lightly with his palm. "I just lost my train of thought. I'm so sleep deprived these days from work. I guess this is why we're having tea now. I need a little caffeine boost."
Sakura sighs. "Think about your health first before work, Naruto. You don't want to become the first Hokage to die from sleep deprivation."
"Wow, Sakura-chan. You still love to nag at me after all these years," Naruto jests, which earn him a kick in the shins from her. He winces.
"Stop dawdling around in circles and just spit out your problems," Sakura retorts. "You're not the only one with full plates."
His eyes widen with interest. "Oh? And what are your plates full of right now?"
"Sarada. I never knew how raising one teenaged girl could be such a handful until now."
Naruto chuckles while directly looking at her. "The apple doesn't fall far from the tree, huh?"
"Oh, shut up," Sakura retaliates hotly, but then lets out another sigh. "Really, I can only do so much as a mother. I wish that she just stopped talking about her father and whatever fantasies she's having nowadays."
Naruto listens quietly. He thinks about Boruto for a moment, and takes a sip of tea.
After a while, he puts down his cup and speaks.
"Guilty is charged. I'm not the poster boy for fatherhood either. Boruto is right — I am a shitty old man," Naruto tells her, adding in few chuckles. Sakura notes how increasingly bitter his tone of voice became over the years.
"Don't say that," she tells him gently. "You're not a shitty old man. You've saved the whole shinobi world once, which makes you the greatest hero of our nation. Not only that, you're also a wonderful father, husband, and an amazing Hokage."
"Well, that's the thing. I'm thinking of stepping down from my position."
Sakura's hand stops reaching for a dango.
"Why?" She asks him, as if someone had struck her. "Why would you quit being the Hokage? It was your life dream, your everything—"
"Like I said, I've been doing a lot of thinking lately," Naruto sharply cuts her off, though he doesn't mean to be rude. He wants to explain in detail before Sakura starts panicking. "And I think that this is where my dream ends. Actually, I'm not even sure if my dream ever was to become the Hokage. I thought that what I did was right all this time, but I've only been fooling myself…. I'm such a fool.
"Heh, well, I was always a bit dense."
"You're only a fool for thinking this way, you fool," Sakura responds back. She briefly takes a pause, and then she adds, "But yeah, you always were a bit dense."
He smiles as both he and Sakura recall their memories of a certain rambunctious, unpredictable 13-year-old ninja they both used to know.
"I wonder what happened to him…?" Naruto whispered to no one in particular as he ruffles his hair a bit. Sakura listened while staring down blankly at her half-full cup of tea.
"He's still here," she said. Her eyes rise to see the sturdy, handsome man before her. "I see him in front of me. And I've noticed how he's become a brilliant person."
For a moment, Naruto smiles at her comment. Sakura smiles back, feeling relieved that she brightened him up. But the contentment only lasts for few seconds as Sakura sees his smile falter a bit.
His eyes become cloudy.
"If I step down," he tells her. She swears that she saw his hands slightly trembling on the table. "If I step down, Sakura-chan, things will get worse. Much worse."
She stares at him quizzically. "What do you mean by that?"
"The other Kages and I, we talk about peace a lot," Naruto explains. "We've built a nation run mainly by economy, instead of pointless warfare like our predecessors. I thought that giving what the people wanted was something that would make everyone happy, Sakura-chan. But it didn't."
"And you want to step down because...?"
"Because that's exactly what the people want right now. By stepping down, many clans who are against me would also step down… Do you understand what I'm saying?"
Sakura mentally thinks over what Naruto said. The peaceful state maintained by the five nations made the past wars seem like they were all trivial fairytales. But then, her mind rewinds back to the time when she helped Sarada with her history homework, and how all four great wars were glossed over in the textbook. The memories of all the random civilians in the streets who were discussing over the latest politics of Konoha flood back to her. She remembers the newspaper articles and their segments on various clans' agendas clashing with the Kages' new regulations. Due to the Kages' strict intervention and policies, segregation and protests are happening everywhere between clans who were forced to join the major nations. It's a never-ending cycle, Sakura thinks.
Her eyes then snap back to reality, where she sees a solemn Naruto. She's never seen him look so dispirited in her life.
"Naruto," she finally speaks. "You shouldn't fuss over making everyone happy. What's important right now is your well-being, not others."
"Sakura-chan, I just don't want to see the shinobi world essentially fall apart, or worse, see the clan conflicts escalate into a civil war— "
"Shush, you," she cuts him off gently. "For every problems, there are solutions. It takes time to find them, but eventually, you will. You'll find your way. You always have.
And just sit on the idea of quitting, you idiot! It's not like you to give up on your dreams since you've always been so stubborn as a mule about becoming the Hokage. The stress from work is probably just taking its toll on you, that's all."
Naruto listens to every word she says. She might have hurled her usual insults at him, albeit rather awkwardly, but her eyes say otherwise. They're pleading him to stay put, stay together.
His lips curl up into a smile again. This time, his smile stays a bit longer.
"Thank you, Sakura-chan," he tells her. Naturally, his hand reaches out to hold hers as a gesture of gratitude.
Sakura says nothing. She lets him hold her hand on the table for a while because she knows what he's trying to convey through his body language. She still knows him too well after all these years.
Regardless, Sakura tries to pull her hand away, but he firmly holds on.
A sudden electric jolt runs through his body from where their hands are joined, and streams of memories flash across his mind quickly like broken film strips. The memories aren't his, although he's constantly in them. He sees visions of broken lamps in the streets, corpses strewn around the wastelands, and the blood-tinged moon.
In a second, the electric current abruptly stops.
"Naruto, are you alright?" Sakura asks him, visibly worried over his anxious appearance.
"Ye-yeah," Naruto stutters. He wonders whether or not if he was hallucinating, or if what he just witnessed was real. He tries to control his vision, breathes in deeply, and recollects his calm disposition. "I'm fine. I think it's just that I didn't get enough sleep."
Sakura sighs in relief, and gives him a small pep talk about how he should watch over his health again. Her over-protectiveness causes him to laugh, and his laughter causes her to pout in return.
Their little gag routine doesn't last long, however.
He bluntly tells her that his marriage is on the rocks, and Sakura freezes.
She knows that there's nothing good to say to couples with complex marital issues. She knows the unspoken rule all too well.
"If it makes you feel any better, Sasuke-kun hasn't been home since Sarada was a baby. It feels like I've never had a husband in the first place," Sakura tells him to break the silence. It was an awkward attempt, but she tries to relate to his problems in hopes that he wouldn't feel too bad or left out.
Closing his eyes, Naruto shakes his head, as if he's in agony. He looks back to his childhood days, when a starry-eyed Sakura used to stare at Sasuke with awe and admiration. Her teen eyes full of fantasy and hopes still haunt him to this day.
He asks her an all too out-of-the-blue question.
"Sakura-chan, why did you never change your last name to Uchiha?"
She becomes rigid at first, but soon reminds herself that she is a ninja and that ninjas can evade any possible interrogation.
"Naruto… That's none of your business," she coolly tells him, her eyes avoiding his gaze.
"Then Sakura-chan, why did you choose Sasuke?" he asks her, his eyes still fixated upon her.
Sakura is pensive, hesitant. But she knows that she can't avoid his questions for too long. She directs her eyes to his.
She is quiet, still as a prey hiding from its hunter. Naruto knows that it's unusual for Sakura to withhold an answer, but finally, her lips move.
"Should you, of all people, be asking me that? I am free to do as I please. Besides, I have responsibilities to uphold," she sternly tells him.
A generic answer, he thinks. He knows that's the only answer she's willing to share for now. Naruto reluctantly lets her hand go.
There's an awkward silence between them, but not for long.
"Actually, Naruto, there is something that I've been meaning to tell you for so long," she says.
"What is it?" he asks her.
Again, she is slow at giving him an answer.
Instead, Sakura takes a glance at her watch. "I'm out of time. I have to go pick up Sarada from school. But we should have another afternoon tea session like this one. How about at my place next time?"
He knows that she's making excuses to dodge whatever she wants to spit out at him. Eventually, he agrees to her hasty invitation.
She says her good-byes with smiles, and adds that he should get more rest. He replies that he would, though he never takes precaution to her health advice seriously.
With her back turned, the distance gap grows between them as she walks away from him. While watching Sakura leave the roof, Naruto has sudden visions of concrete walls crumble before him.