a/n

summary: Sasuke's recent fight with a bingo book criminal leaves him weak and injured. He's concealed himself in one of his hideouts to heal his wounds. While he rests to nurse his wounds, memories of Sarada floods his subconscious. Some memories are ever entangled with silent desires and gut-wrenching nightmares...

angsts* This one-shot will be constant back and forth of flashbacks, I hope I don't give you headaches. ^^

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto

Pain: Sasuke has felt the worst of it but he'd never been the type to writhe in its discomfort or let it slow down his mission. His usual tactic, when met with an unfortunate injury, was to will the crippling effect away by pushing his body passed its natural abilities. Broken arm? He'd pop the luxate bone in place with only a shadow of grimace on his face. Gashing wound? A tourniquet would do the trick. Any wound, despite its severity, could be remedied by him; never a hindrance in his mission.

While it often worked for him, without any posed issues, his unsettling methods would often incur the wrath of his expert medical-nin wife, Sakura.

There had been many noted instances he'd return home less than able: twisted ankle, unattended wounds that had begun to fester, fractured arm, dislocated shoulder, concussion, or all of the above. The injuries were only shy of fatal.

He was no stranger to the dizzying effect of a stab wound as it never stopped him from leaping from high sequoias to high sequoias.

Whenever the Uchiha would return home from a grueling mission, eyes fending off the lethargy earned from unrest and infected wounds, his wife would rush to meet him at the door. Concern layered with poorly suppressed anger claimed her youthful face while she'd serve as his literal crutch. As it was, many of the times he'd returned home, he was on the precipice of consciousness, ready to collapse.

Once aiding him inside, she would properly nurse him back to good health. She always did so with unwavering focus, Sasuke thought. Her brows would knit, lips quirked to the side as she threaded the wire through his flesh to close off his poorly bandaged open wounds. Her anger would show most when she switched her mending utensils. She would slap them against the table hoping that her obvious fluster registered to him.

He had always caught on to her fluster without her telling him, but Sasuke never challenged her while she worked her magic on him. He had always wondered what kept her languid in her practice. Certainly, tending to a man who lacked a basic understanding of the frailty of men's flesh was more deserving of rougher treatment. But no, despite her frustration, she'd remained objective. Of course, a drawn out lecture and scolding nudges to the head would come suit after nursing him.

"Shannaro, Sasuke-kun. You're going to get yourself killed out there. Would it kill you to properly wrap a tourniquet?" She had said once after clearing him up of his severe injuries. Usually, he'd remained tightlipped, fearing that his snarky tongue would land him in deeper waters.

Though, now as he rested, slipping in and out of his blurred and shaky reality, drugged by the sharp pain of the inch deep wound below his sternum, back pressed against the cold and uneven surface of the cave wall, Sasuke wished for the skillful hands of his medical-nin wife. He'd take her disapproving looks and lectures any day over this searing pain.

A short grunt escaped the Uchiha as he adjusted his back against the wall. No matter what position he tried, comfort and relief could not be attained. His hand pressed hard against the bandaged wound hoping to limit the pain's expansion to other areas of his torso. Blood blossomed unremittingly against the white bandage, staining his hand. His zetsu arm was limp at his side. The pain was so great it had paralyzed the entire right half of his body.

He couldn't slant forward to grab his kit that held his pain relieving tablets. In the last hour, he'd taken three. Again, yet another example of his unorthodox methods of easing pain: taking medication at poorly timed intervals. If his wife was here now, she'd blow his head off with her words alone.

In yet another effort, Sasuke lifted his back from the wall, his entire torso trembling from the over exertion. His mouth had opened and his breathing had quickened hoping to ward off the dizzying pain. With his will alone, Sasuke forced his zetsu arm up, reaching forward for the kit; his long fingers twitched as it tried to catch on to the strap of the kit a few feet away.

A pang of pain shot through him, forcing him back to neutral position. Beads of sweat collected on his face, his eyes shut and brows furrowed from the now fading pang. If only he'd taken the sleeping pill then he would have been out cold, blissfully unaware of this crippling pain.

Sasuke was impaled by the enemy's shuriken two days ago. It was a missing-nin from the sound village; he was ranked number four in the bingo books. This nin was somehow associated with Shin. Sasuke suspected him to be Shin's right hand man.

He confronted the rogue ninja a few miles off the border of the Leaf. Sasuke had hoped for a cordial confrontation; to interrogate the ninja without inflicting actual wounds, but that sound ninja proved hostile.

The minute Sasuke discovered him hiding in a thicket, the ninja had lunged at him—three kunais ready to aim. One tucked expertly between his indexes and middle fingers and one held by his mouth. Sasuke had dodged all the kunai's with his own and pulled out his katana to exact a blow capable of limiting the ninja's movements.

But the nin was skillful enough to evade the blade's advancements. With his sound related ninjutsu, he had whistled three notes and that had some effect on Sasuke. The third note was a few octaves above a dog whistle, and it had been enough to impair Sasuke's senses.

The world flipped on its axis—everything was upside down and reversed. When the ninja came from the right, his attack was made to look like it came from the opposite direction. When the kunais were thrown, they appeared to be flying at him from the right, but really they were coming at him from the left. Sasuke, an expert fighter, had caught on to the trick quick before any actual harm had been done. With the aid of his sharingan, he could detect every single movement the nin made in the inverted world and dodged them accordingly. He even maneuvered well enough to inflict his own wounds on the ninja.

It was not genjutsu. If it were, he would have had broken it easily with his mind. No, this was the power of this ninja's ninjutsu. It was crafty; but not so much that his sharingan couldn't dissect and find a weakness in. Within the first ten minutes, after their exchange of Kunais, Sasuke noted a flaw. A kunai meant for Sasuke, before he dodged it, bent at a rippling point in the inverted world, exposing a blemish in the fabric of the ninja's illusion.

Between two trees, a wrinkle pulsed rhythmically. Like a pebble breaking the surface of a pond to offset tiny expanding rings. The wrinkle only became apparent when the kunai bent around it in the heat of battle, prodding it to pulse in disturbance.

This ripple was smaller than a button, but his eyes had caught it—caught its disturbance in time for him to deduce that this wrinkle was an unnatural spectacle in the twisted reality.

Sasuke's plan was to exploit that point of distortion. The area where the inversion occurred had to have been limited; only able to expand with chakra reserves which the nin was losing. The more chakra wasted the weaker the inversion and more apparent the ripple. Sasuke had noted that the ripple itself had its own uses. It was used as a benchmark for the nin; he used it to determine where the inversion's effect stopped expanding.

With this newfound upper hand and Intel, Sasuke remained pokerfaced, never once giving away indication of his acquired knowledge.

When the nin lunged at him with two large shurikens, Sasuke took the chance to drive his katana into the fabric of distortion and, in turn, dismantled the nin's defenses and benchmark point, confusing him altogether.

But something unexpected had occurred. The ripple swallowed up half of his katana and the sharp end had reappeared out of another ripple. Before Sasuke could retrieve the sword, the nin had already thrown the shurikens. During that point, the skilled Uchiha had one of two options: abandon his katana then use his rinnegan to materialize elsewhere without any damage or accept the damages but have his katana to deliver his final blow, ending this once and for all. Sasuke had only one second to make his choice, but that was all the time needed to make his split decision.

The nin halted when Sasuke disappeared, but his shuriken had already been thrown and swallowed by the void. In that short second of the nin's missing offense, Sasuke flash stepped to where he'd left his katana, pulled it out and drove it into the nin's shoulder. The sound of slicing flesh and tearing muscle entwined with the mortifying sound of bones grinding filled the air. Soon after, the inverted reality flickered from its distortion to normal a few times before the world fell back on its rightful axis.

When all was done and the nin had been immobilized, Sasuke went for his interrogation. But all too soon was his victory for when he bent over to question the nin, a shuriken came out of nowhere with impeccable speed, piercing his abdomen with a crunch.

Sasuke fell back into a seated position, astounded by the turn of events. Unbelieving, his head went down to where the weapon had dug. His vision shook, the shock of pain eliciting his ability to discern colors to waver, flickering from sharp grainy colors to negative and back to normal.

"Wha-"

The nin chortled, his head hung back in his sadistic laughter. "That was my shuriken from earlier. When the ripple swallowed it, it had actually just reappeared somewhere else."

He kicked himself back until his back pressed against a tree. He used it to lever himself up until he was half standing half sitting: "And that shuriken is laced with powdered poison. When remnants enter your bloodstream it will cause intolerable pain. And—" a chuckle escaped him, interrupting his informative gloat to Sasuke. "It takes forever to heal. If not healed or extracted properly from your blood stream, you will die."

Sasuke's right eye twitched as the pain increased. At this point, he could barely keep one eye open. His strength was waning fast and so was his vision. This unfortunate circumstance did not strip his determination. He knew if he let this ninja escape, it was only giving Shin allowance to have his task carried out without ever leaving the shadows. So the thing to do now was to destroy Shin's servants and force him out of the shadows.

Sasuke staggered closer to where the ninja had his back pressed up against the tree. He would have let this man live since he had changed his ways—atoned for his murderous past; this nin's punishment would have been going to prison, but he had pissed Sasuke off and delayed him. This man deserved death.

Sasuke's eyes gleamed red with murder and with one quick move, so quick the naked eye could not detect, he impaled the man through the heart with his katana.

The nin had died with startled—widened eyes. His expression remained unbelieving until the last thud of his heart.

He had killed the man then and yet felt no remorse for his actions. If not for the searing pain in his abdomen as he sat in his hideout hanging on to his slipping consciousness Sasuke would have questioned his slipping humanity. Was he slipping back to his old ways? Was the sadism he'd worked so hard to chase away, the redemption he'd fought hard for, were they all lost to him? Surely, that wasn't it. He had a daughter now. Letting the darkness taint him was not an option anymore.

Sarada. The name echoed in Sasuke's mind with powerful resonance. A transparent shot of her smiling face appeared before him. He knew he was out of it, but still he could not help but reach out to touch the image of his daughter. When his hands went to make contact, the smile that was on his little girl's face flit to a teary eyed grimace.

"Sarada," he managed, his voice breaking from both pain and distraught emotions. When Sasuke closed his eyes he knew he had escaped the conscious world. Was he dreaming? He couldn't tell since everything felt so vivid.

He was home. His house loomed from afar, beyond the slight slope. Sakura was running towards him with a smile and her arms spread wide. His face dropped at the sight of his very enthused wife running to squeeze the breath out of him with her 'hugs.' If you could even call them that.

Sasuke's eyes shut passively as he braced for her bone-crushing hugs.

"Darling!" Sakura went on her tippy toes to give her more height to rope both arms around his neck. She hugged him for a long time before pushing back to see his face. She still had her arms around him when she pressed a kiss on his cheeks, one more on the bone of his brow.

Sasuke welcomed her affection but made no effort in returning it. He was sore, a dull pain pulsing from nearly every area in his body that possessed nerves, all he could manage at this point was a very weak sigh.

"Sakura," Sasuke said after he noticed she wasn't going to release him anytime soon. She didn't. It took him having to manually unclasp her tight grip which proved to be more difficult than expected.

She let him go, but not without planting a delicate kiss on his nose. "How was your mission?"

"Fine," he replied. His eyes scanned their land for a special little someone he had been eager to see since his foot touched the village. "Where's Sarada?"

Sakura smiled. "She's inside pulling Naruto's head off."

Great. He would have to bare through yet another greeting. With Sakura, they were suffocating hugs. With Naruto—when he paid them visits—it was his glass shattering voice that welcomed him. The only greeting Sasuke could tolerate and enjoyed was the one from his daughter.

She knew just how to approach him. The prospect of having one of her hugs made him want to go in even if it meant dealing with Naruto first.

When he entered the house with Sakura in tow, he noticed both Naruto's and Sarada's back faced away from him. The two of them were too busy interacting to notice his presence. He remained at the door a moment longer, watching them interact.

Sarada had grown slightly since he'd last seen her. She was still small, and in contrast to Naruto's taller frame, she looked much smaller. Even more precious.

"Okay, Sarada. Repeat after me: 'Uncle Naruto is bet-ter, come on say it, bet-ter than..." Naruto reached out to pinch Sarada's tiny cheeks to encourage her to mimic him. "...better than daddy-Sasuke."

Sarada's eyes narrowed suspiciously. "Daddy's better."

Naruto's shoulders slumped. "Come on, kid. He's not here, you can say it."

Sasuke took that as his cue to make his presence known. With a purposeful cough meant to grab the other party's attention, he entered the room. Naruto's neck turned slowly to meet Sasuke's deadpan expression.

"Sa-suke." The name came out in two syllables layered with slight nervousness.

"What are you teaching my daughter Naruto?" Sasuke crossed his arms, waiting for his friend to reply.

Naruto laughed, rubbing his hand behind his head innocently. "Nothing."

"Hm."

"I swear!" Naruto defended, but his words proved meaningless when Sarada pointed an accusatory index finger at him. Naruto's thick blond brows drew together, upset that he was easily ratted out by a 4-year-old.

Sarada smiled, her expression went to Sasuke. For a moment, their eyes locked. Where she looked at him with brimming joy, he looked at her with composed expectance; The sort of expectance found in a father's eyes when he hadn't seen his daughter in weeks.

This was it. Sasuke waited patiently as he watched his daughter's large eyes drink in the moment.

"Daddy!" Sasuke smiled at his daughter's burst of enthusiasm. He knelt down so he didn't tower over her.

She ran to his arms and hugged him, her small face burrowing into the collar of his cloak. She softly spoke a few words into his ear that he only and no one else heard.

"I missed you too," he whispered back to her and their hug tightened. Sarada's tight hugs were the only hugs he could tolerate. Not only were they snug and non-restraining, they also didn't break his ribs.

When Sarada's soft black tresses brushed against his cheeks, it reminded him of the days he'd hold her infant-sized head close to his face as her gossamer black hair stroked it. The moment was imbued with so much nostalgic peel that Sasuke forgot he and Sarada were not the only two in the room.

Naruto and Sakura looked on happily—silent so not to disturb this precious reunion. Sakura was happy to see her daughter melt in her father's protective arms. Although there was a small part of her that longed to have received the same affectionate greeting from Sasuke, she didn't show any indication in her posture and expression.

Sarada broke their embrace, pulling away so she could meet his eyes. Sasuke picked up on the curious look in her onyx eyes. He knew she had a bunch of questions about where he's been or what he's brought for her.

His hands ruffled her hair into a disheveled mess, provoking Sarada to break away from him. She left her father's arms, but a smile remained plastered on her small face. Sasuke noted that since he's been gone, she lost one of her teeth. He observed those changes with a keen father's eye; an eye he realized was far more perceptive than his sharingan.

"Daddy," the tiny Uchiha said, her vernacular only slightly affected by her newly acquired gap.

Sasuke's head quirked up, waiting for her to finish her sentence. She was so precious to him that he couldn't even tell her that his head was throbbing and he needed a nap. He'd ignore any level of pain for her.

Pain...there it was again; a shooting pain that was so acute it rendered him unable to focus on her words. He couldn't pinpoint where the pain came from. It just hurt as hell. Her childish voice became distant with thick reverb. The small body that stood before him was becoming ghostlike.

This specific moment that was occurring where his four-year-old daughter spoke with such fondness was disappearing. She was fading from both his visual and auditory senses. A sinking feeling formed in the pit of his stomach, one often felt when bad news catapulted itself at you. The sinking feeling transformed into a subtle panic as his heart cadence picked up and his breathing becoming shallow.

Then all of sudden, he was no longer knelt beside four-year-old Sarada. A new scene materialized before him. This time, Sarada was further from him—much older and spoke to him with less fondness.

"Will you teach me a new Jutsu?" Sarada's voice held little care; she barely kept eye contact. She was older now.

Still disoriented from what seemed to him like a time jump, Sasuke looked at her with cow eyes. He hadn't really grasped her question because he was too focus at how much her voice had deepened from its previous pitch.

Umm. He was lost, but Sarada didn't seem at all lost. She acted as if this moment hadn't just been a random moment stapled in time's fabric.

His brain was still working on processing her question.

Sarada's eyes flew to his with silent question when he didn't respond. She wasn't smiling, her features were hardened by what he perceived to be resentment.

Where did this resentment come from? Was this hatred he was detecting from her stare? He couldn't tell. Why would it be? Just a moment ago she was staring at him with admiration, her grin wide and inviting. Now when he looked into her eyes he saw himself from 15 years ago. The sad avenger who never smiled because life never warranted him to.

Was he the cause of her hardened features? What crime did he commit in this reality? He wanted to ask her all this, but then he realized he still hadn't answered her question.

"Of course." Sarada seemed unimpressed with his promise. Seriously, this version of his daughter— cold and too much like his old self—worried him. He feared that if he asked the wrong questions, he'd trigger more resentment.

Still detached, Sarada looked up at him. "Will you show me now?" Even her tone was harsh.

Sasuke wondered if he could pierce through that abrasive shell. "Sarada?"

She responded with an indifferent glare, one of her brows arching up.

"Are you...are you mad at me for something?"

"Nope," she clipped. She was mad him, no 'nope' could ever be said with that amount of sourness and not be a sign of anger. But he didn't push her; if she was mad at him, it was probably because he was gone for too long and the feeling of abandonment had consumed her heart.

The best way to correct this was by showing her a few new jutsus and spend some time with her, get to know her.

"Hey, hon." Sasuke turned at the waist to see his wife approaching him with a warm smile. Well, one thing hadn't changed. Sakura still loved him.

"Hey," he said with relief. Relieved that at least one member of his family hadn't cut him off. But it was Sakura; she was the most forgiving and accepting person he knew. Even when he'd tried to kill her (twice) she still loved him. Thinking about that now made some of his residual guilt resurface.

Sasuke reached for Sakura. She looked at him, her head cocking to the side as her brows knit with puzzlement, but her lips still held a smile. He knew it was out of character for him to initiate any kind of hand holding in front of their daughter, but he couldn't help it. He was relieved to have her on his side. She was always on his side. Granted, she was never so weak minded as to advocate for him when he was in the wrong, but when it counted, she was always there for him. He appreciated it more now when Sarada was glowering at him.

Sakura welcomed Sasuke's touch despite it being uncharacteristic. She twirled herself with her grip still on his hand. She tucked closer to him, his hands now on her shoulders as she lovingly held it in place, her fingers stroking it in circles absently.

Sarada watched this with piqued interest. She'd never seen her parents stand in close proximity, let alone show this much affection.

Sakura noticed her daughter's bemused stare. "Sarada, what's wrong?"

"Nothing." Sarada shook her head. Her eyes then swept up, landing on her father. Sasuke's lip pulled to form a subtle smile.

When Sarada didn't smile back, he let his fall. The tension wasn't going away. Not in a matter of minutes. Maybe after he taught her a few jutsus, she'd warm up to the idea of accepting him back into her orbit.

Sarada's demeanor towards him felt strange. He wanted to see her smile again, to see her smile at him—because of him. He wanted this tension buried so they could move on...

"Mom, dad's going to show me some new jutsu."

Sakura looked up at Sasuke and smiled. Her smile said: "she's warming up to you keep it up."

"That's fantastic. You should show her the clan's favored jutsu: fireball," Sakura beamed.

Sarada's eyes widened with excitement. Sasuke sighed. He hadn't hoped to teach her that yet, not now while she resented him this much. It was a jutsu that commemorated coming of age for an Uchiha; there was a lot of pressure in mastering it. He didn't want to be the source of pressure for Sarada. Not now when he was the target of her anger.

But the look in her eyes pushed him to reconsider. This was the first time she'd regarded him with a look other than resentment.

"Meet me at the docks later." He scheduled for later because a dull pain he could not pinpoint rose. It was present from the beginning but was easily ignored. But now, now it was more noticeable. Dull but escalating.

Maybe shutting his eyes for a few hours would alleviate it? It didn't matter, anyway. If in two hours, the pain hadn't subsided he would hold true to his words and meet Sarada for her training. He'd brave through the sharpest of pains for her.

Though no pain felt quite as crippling and sudden as this. It went from a dull pain to sharp razor blades slicing his skin.

Sasuke doubled over, the pain so great it seized his sight once more and he found himself back in the cave, with the wound that had rendered him unconscious still throbbing.

Sasuke feared if he let his eyes shut for one second he'd fall victim to yet another lucid dream. The one he'd just woken up from was the most unnerving.

The pain hadn't subsided since losing consciousness; it was more forceful.

If this pain had a taste, it would be the astringent flavor of battery acid. And if pain could be made into a visual entity, it would be flashes of colors altered by a negative filter. The visceral effects of this deep flesh wound proved to be far more than just a hindrance for Sasuke. It was becoming an emotional journey, a cognitive experience exposing him to an inner turmoil.

The flashes of distorted memories intertwined with subconsciously contrived nightmares had woken up an inherent drive to repair the imperfect bond between him and his daughter. His brief yet lucid escapes from reality had given him perspective—or rather a change of perspective.

In his plight, he was taken on an existential excursion occurring exclusively in his psyche. While having poison laced in his blood had its hand in this impromptu conscious awakening, it still was not overlooked by the Uchiha.

Poison-laced blood or not he still had a daughter that needed his presence. Sarada was combating with far greater rivals than he was. He was fighting corporeal enemies while she fought incorporeal enemies; she was battling with perceived abandonment, disappointment, and confusion. All three real and ruthless enemies in life. Relentless they were in their efforts to shatter spirits and inoculate the mind with disillusioned thoughts.

But Sasuke found himself unable to find a healthy medium. He couldn't keep to his mission and be there for Sarada's existential dilemma. But imbued with the principles of what it took to be a great shinobi, Sasuke has learned that the complexities that were the shinobi world always had a counterbalance.

There was a way to fulfill his duties as a shinobi and as a father. There was. He'd sooner find this counterbalance than let his daughter fight her battle alone. For one thing was certain, Sasuke would brave through anything, any dol of pain—obstacles for his little girl.

a/n:

This was long, I know. I did consider splitting it into three parts, but then I was afraid that cutting it would disturb the flow. Plot and structure wise this one-shot was complex. It went from one flashback to the next with "pain" as the driving catalyst.

Theme: Counterbalance playing a significant role in a father and his daughter's relationship...

Don't be afraid to review; let me know your thoughts on this one-shot. Criticism is welcomed. I appreciate the feedback.

Thanks for reading!