Hello! I said in chapter one that (since this story is heavily OC focused) that if I got 5 reviews, this story would be a success. Whoo hoo! Major victory. That being said, this chapter takes us to Konoha. Yay for Naruto characters!

Notes:

Thank you very very VERY much to everyone who reviewed, especially those of you who were so detailed and speculative. If you show you are thinking about the story, it makes me excited about writing it.

I would like to answer some questions:

Where is Lucia's family from? Some people who asked this question seemed to be equating Naruto's country to Japan. I see Naruto as taking place in a different world (that just resembles Japan in some respects), so it's hard to explain where Lucia's family is from. The name Van Alstyne is Dutch, but that shouldn't really help. I wouldn't worry about it.

I'm ignoring the problem of communication hurdles like language barriers!

I'm also not worrying about anachronisms in technology, mostly because Kishimoto doesn't either. So don't put too much weight on what technology is available. If you want, you can assume whatever telephone system exists in Lucia's homeland is only available to rich people, and not available in Konoha, but I don't really think it matters.

About the manga: I'm aware that I'm taking a risk writing a story like this in the middle of the manga when everything can change in a chapter! Ka-pow: My whole premise could be shattered. It'll become clear what my premise is as it moves along, but here's the shakedown:

Naruto has become Hokage sometime in the last ten years. Sasuke was reconciled to Konoha somehow at some point. The story starts off SasuSaku, bearing in mind the characters are around 24 and a lot could have happened since the manga and still could happen in the future. If any of this changes in the canon, I will either adapt this story as I go or ignore the canon. Explanations that are relevant will be integrated in the story.

Manga reveals for Itachi's character are not a problem (so far). This will make sense with more development.

So anyway, here we go!

White Rain

Chapter 2

By Zapenstap

"Rina?"

Itachi stopped walking and looked back at his sister. She stood in the middle of the road, her pack dangling from limp fingers, free hand rubbing her eyes.

"You want me to carry you?"

They'd been walking along the same dirt road for hours. Trees lined both sides of the path: huge trees, with branches so thick a person could walk across them. The trees here were strange to Itachi. They had an air like living giants. Their lower boughs curved like arms and the upper branches sprouted leaves that competed for sunlight in rounded knobs like bushels of grapes rather than the pointed cones he was used to. The forest stretched seemingly forever in all directions, the trees angling out of rock or shooting up from the dirt in a rolling terrain just shy of being mountainous.

Although the scenery distracted Itachi with its beauty, he was too tired to fully appreciate it. All he wanted to do was lie down and sleep for a week. Still, he'd carry Rina if she couldn't walk anymore. She wasn't that heavy.

"I'm okay," Rina said. She shuffled forward to grab his hand and whispered, "Don't leave me behind."

He clasped her hand firmly and shook her arm with a smile. "I'm not going to leave you behind."

They followed the road to where their mother was refilling their water supply. She unscrewed the cap of the leather thermos and held the container under a stream that trickled down the corner of a rock ledge just off the path. The water spilled across the inside of her wrists as she tilted the thermos, but she didn't seem to notice the cold.

Itachi had thought his mother would look starkly out of place in the country, especially in the middle of the forest, accustomed as he was to seeing her decked out in the latest fashions—almost always dresses—with jewels in her ears and bracelets on her wrists and her nights filled as they often were with theatre, art, wine, and parties.

But she didn't look out of place. She looked natural.

In the humidity, her dark hair had become wavy, with the ends curling around her face and shoulders. Her expression was the essence of ease. She tilted her face to the blue sky, absorbing the warmth and heat from the sun, and handed the bottle to Rina, who drank thirstily. If Itachi hadn't known better, he would have thought his mother grew up in the forest.

But he knew she hadn't. He suspected it was the freedom that made her look so peaceful. Out here, she was away from Gehard, away from everyone, on the road with her children close by her side—safe. Out here with no one to entertain, no one to manipulate, his mother seemed cleansed of the layers of cunning he was used to seeing in her smiles, her movements, the soft, playful glitter of her eyes.

"How far is it?" he asked as she handed him the refilled thermos.

"Not so far now, I don't think," she said. "I believe we're quite close."

"You don't have a map?" Rina asked.

Their mother smiled at them both, and there the cunning was again, secrets upon secrets cloaked as he always remembered with layers of elegance. She looked so reasonable, he wondered if he shouldn't trust her.

"There is no map to this place," she replied. "But don't worry. I know where we are going."

Travel suited her, Itachi decided. They seemed to have money enough to sustain them—cash always, from what his mother was able to haggle for her jewelry along the way—and although their days were long, both he and Rina were well-fed, generally pretty well rested, and physically toughened up after the initial first days of sore muscles and crankiness. Why shouldn't his mother feel good about her situation? They had escaped.

It was harder for Itachi to relax.

There was too much to think about: What they had left behind, why they had come here, what business his mother had with this place, and the origins of his existence.

Along the way, Itachi asked all kinds of questions about this village they were going to, probing about his biological father and other relatives—all murdered by his father, as he found out, except for his uncle. Rina's eyes seemed to have grown permanently larger since his mother told them what she knew of that story. Itachi avoided anxiety with curiosity. He asked endless questions, but most of the answers he got were evasive, or full of holes.

So in hushed whispers in the dead of night, he and Rina fabricated the details. They imagined all kinds of ways the murders could have happened, embellished a great deal by what little Itachi knew about ninjas, but his father's character eluded them both. Given his mother's history with Gehard, Itachi wasn't sure he wanted to know what her lover had been like, however short the union. His mother gave the impression that she had planned to have a son by this man, but was evasive on the reason, and silent on the personal details.

She also didn't explain what she intended by bringing them to his father's birthplace. As far as Itachi could figure, they had no place here, and might not even be welcome. When he ventured to ask about this, though, his mother waved away his concern with such confidence that he trusted her judgment.

"How do ninjas get any work if no one can find them?" Itachi asked as they started moving again. He had kept himself occupied for hours on the boat trying to puzzle out how a village of ninjas achieved economic sustainability. "They operate on a basis of work for hire, right?"

"There is a bidding process conducted through correspondence by post and billboard and through the Feudal Lords, who rule this country. Clients who need to enter the village proper are escorted in and out. Any that travel close are picked up and brought directly to the Hokage—that's the leader of the village—under guard." When Rina made a little sound, she added, "The guard is for their protection, more like an escort. If we are as close as I suspect, we should get noticed soon ourselves. Don't be scared. They wouldn't have any reason to see us as a threat."

"You seem to know a lot about it."

"I told you. I've been to this country before."

"Yeah, but…" He struggled with the words, not sure how to get to his question without referencing that he had been conceived somewhere in these lands by a murderer—an idea that refused to lodge permanently as fact in his head—and that such an encounter couldn't possibly have taken all that much time. What else had she been doing here to know so much? How long had she stayed to learn it all? How planned had his conception been? Why had she done it and why did she choose someone like that?

As he was thinking about the best way of framing these questions, Rina squeaked and pulled hard on his arm.

"What?"

But he knew as soon as he spoke. The branches of the trees along the road swayed, tiny green leaves shaped like triangles jiggling like noiseless bells on either side of them. Rina rolled her eyes and Itachi followed her gaze. A man had appeared in the center of the path in front of them, rising from a crouch to impede their way. He didn't make a sound.

Itachi had only a moment to take in the sight before they were surrounded by more human figures on all sides. He took them to be ninjas, men with faces covered, some with arms and legs wrapped in what looked like an assortment of cloth bandages, though no one appeared injured. Weapons were clearly visible on some of their persons, though none were held threateningly.

Itachi took measured, calming breaths as the ninja that appeared before them first stepped forward. He approached Itachi's mother and pulled a cloth mask down to speak to her face to face. Itachi took the gesture to mean that the guards—or whatever they were—didn't intend to murder them on the road. His heart was beating hard in his chest, but he tried his best to stay both calm and alert, keeping an arm in front of Rina. She had tucked her lips in between her teeth and was staring singularly at the man who approached them with equal amounts of alarm and curiosity.

Itachi took a closer look. The ninja standing before Itachi's mother had the strangest eyes Itachi had ever seen. They were pale and glassy, like milk, only pale purple. The pupil was indistinguishable from the cornea. For a moment, he thought the man was blind, but he did not act blind.

Itachi's mother spoke calmly. "My name is Lucia Van Alstyne. These are my children. We are unarmed."

Another of the ninjas removed his—Itachi blinked—her facial covering and moved to stand beside the man with the strange eyes. She had a pretty face, prettier than he would have expected for a warrior woman, brown hair gathered up neatly in knots on either side of her head and tied with scarlet ribbons. "This is pretty unusual, Neji" she said quietly, but loud enough to be heard. "What do they want?"

"I'm a client," Itachi's mother said smoothly. "I would like to state my business to the Hokage of the Hidden Leaf Village. In person if I may."

The ninja named Neji turned his head to look at him and Rina. Itachi was certain now that he could see. His brow furrowed slightly when he looked at Itachi, and the longer he stared, the more Itachi felt the heat of a piercing, but silent interrogation. Neji didn't say anything, but he glanced questioningly at the ninja woman who had spoken to him. She was looking at Itachi too, just as perplexedly. When Neji glanced at her, she just shook her head.

They can see it, Itachi thought, but they aren't sure. I must look familiar somehow, maybe like my father. Did they know him?

Rina tugged on his arm, but he shushed her with a gesture before she could say anything.

"I'm Tenten," the woman said. "This is Neji. Follow us. We'll take you to the Hokage."

Sakura sat behind the Hokage's desk, staring at the papers piling up and wondering how she had been suckered into doing all this work.

It wasn't her job. The only thing that kept her reading and signing off on these reports was the fear of trusting Naruto to do it unsupervised. When he was focused on a challenge, he might sign his name away without looking at any of it as likely as not.

She glared in Naruto's direction as she placed Iruka's suggestion for forming new Genin teams out of this year's Academy students in the "half done but waiting the Hokage's approval" pile. The new teams were one of the things Naruto would want to look at no matter what. It was duties like paying bills and ordering supplies that he "delegated" to others.

She really didn't mind helping most of the time. But today was different. Today she wasn't helping. She was being used. Today, right now, at this very moment, Naruto, the greatest Hokage, was sleeping on the job, not five feet away from her. It was infuriating.

He had summoned her to the office in a panic, begging for a consult, bemoaning that the ever-evil "they" (his staff and advisors) wouldn't let him leave. She had found him holed up in the Hokage's office as expected. As soon as she came in, he hung a sign on the outside of the door that they were having a "meeting" about official village business and were not to be disturbed, and shut the door. Then he had gestured to the piles and piles of paperwork, complaining bitterly about aching muscles and being sleep deprived from "training" and how lonely he was that Hinata was away on a mission, and would she mind giving him a hand? He had fallen asleep on the couch five minutes later.

That was two hours ago!

"Honestly!" Sakura fumed, throwing down the pen. "This is your own fault, Naruto! Staying up late hatching your strategy, always trying to best Sasuke. You're just like Gai. Actually, the pair of you are much worse! At least Kakashi doesn't encourage Gai. It's so stupid! Nobody but you two cares anymore about who is stronger! There is real work to be done!"

Naruto mumbled something at her in his sleep, which sounded vaguely like "Thanks, Sakura, you're the best" before he rolled to his side and started snoring.

"Oh! That's it!"

Sakura was halfway across the room, chakra charged and fist clenched to pummel the living daylights out of Konoha's greatest hero, when a knock sounded at the door.

Naruto sat up, back hunched forward and eyes blurry, half-holding out a hand to catch Sakura's fist, which she had stalled in mid-hurl to turn her attention toward the door.

"Can't you read the sign?" Naruto mumbled. "It says…" He yawned loudly, "that we're in the middle of serious official business."

"Come in!" Sakura snapped.

The door opened to admit Tenten's bright, cheerful face. "Everything okay in here? Sorry to disturb you." Looking at Naruto's drowsy expression, she grinned.

"What is it, Tenten?" Sakura asked.

Naruto blinked slowly into alertness. Tenten entered the room, holding the door half open behind her for Lee, who crept to the frame and leaned only halfway in to peer at Tenten with a frown on his face.

"We have a client," Tenten announced.

"Oh great," Naruto said. "Can't they wait? I'm so busy."

"Oh please!" Sakura exploded in exasperation. "You know we can use the income!"

Naruto's expression shifted to something more serious. He knew what a position the village was in. Everyone did. "You said last week that we have more offers than we can handle," he said.

"Another never hurts," Sakura mumbled. "There's a lot of debt to pay. Besides, it could be important." She turned to Tenten. "Did he say what it was about?"

"It's a woman," Tenten told her. "Her name is Lucia Van Alstyne. She wants to speak personally to Naruto."

"Tenten!" Lee burst through the door, squeezing past his old teammate and slamming the door shut with such bone-jarring force that the scrolls on the wall wobbled precariously. He pointed an accusing finger at Tenten. "You must not address the Hokage as anything other than Hokage! You must show the utmost respect to his position and authority to this village!"

Tenten held up both hands, palms outward. "Okay, okay. Relax, Lee."

"I will not relax! Hokage, sir!" He pointed at Naruto. "You are far too complacent with my old team and the Rookie Nine! None of us are rookies any longer! You must hold us to the same standard as every other Shinobi and civilian of the village!"

"Huh?" Naruto muttered. "What are you talking about? Sakura, what is he talking about?"

"Ah, Sakura!" Lee said, bringing his heels together and standing pencil straight at attention. "I did not see you there. You are looking as radiant as always."

"Yes. Thank you, Lee," Sakura interrupted. "For the compliment and the…um, etiquette lesson. What about our client?"

"Neji is with them in the waiting room," Tenten supplied, and at Sakura and Naruto's questioning glance at "them" added. "She has two children with her."

"Children?" Naruto asked. "What children?"

"Well," Tenten answered slowly. "That's the funny thing. They look… well, at least one of them looks…"

She exchanged glances with Lee.

"Like what?" Sakura asked.

"Like Sasuke," Tenten said helplessly.

For a moment, Sakura didn't think she heard Tenten correctly. Surely Tenten wasn't implying that Sasuke somehow had a child who had just appeared out of nowhere. She must have heard the name wrong. Until…

"Sasuke?" Naruto muttered. "How is that possible?" He said it as if he really didn't know, as if it had never occurred to him how a child could possibly resemble his friend and rival. Of course he knew better. Sakura knew he knew better.

As if the question had confirmed the answer, images blossomed in Sakura's head in a blurred collage of possibilities. Who knew what Sasuke had been up to all those years he was gone? Was it possible that somehow Sasuke had… She blushed, and tried to think of something else, something halfway sane, but wild speculation assaulted her imagination, accompanied by a feeling like nausea, as if someone had punctured her gut with a needle. The cramping, dizzying pain was so sudden, so unexpected, and so awful, that it startled her into silence.

"What do you think, Lee?" Tenten was saying. "The older one. Don't you think he looks like Sasuke?"

"No!" Lee said adamantly, almost contemptuously, his eyes sliding sideways in Sakura's direction. "He doesn't not look one bit like Sasuke. I do see the Uchiha resemblance, but I think the boy looks like Sasuke's brother Itachi. Even his hair is the same."

Sakura's logical side tried puzzling out the inherent contradiction in that statement, seeing as Itachi and Sasuke resembled each other in many respects, but the emotional side was hyperventilating. The result was fuzzy uncertainty.

Lee continued, chin up and hands still at his sides. "I would like it to be known that I am not saying this because of feelings I have about Sasuke or anyone else one way or another. I would not do such a thing. I am saying this because I think it is true. Sasuke would have been very young, and though it would not be impossible, I do not believe this child could be his."

"Well, of course not," Naruto said. "I mean, how would that happen?"

"Keep up, Naruto!" Sakura heard herself say in a strangled voice.

Naruto waved his hands defensively, flushing bright pink. "No no. You misunderstand me, Sakura! I don't mean "how" like how. I mean… It's Sasuke. I just can't see it."

Sakura swallowed. "Right." She felt suddenly stupid. But at least her head was clearing. She was able to think. With what she knew of Sasuke, of course this child—whoever he was—couldn't be his. She knew it intimately, as intimately as she knew Sasuke.

It had to be a coincidence. There was no way that Sasuke would have a kid. It wasn't just that he would have told her, and definitely would have told Naruto, it was that she didn't think—even during those years that he was gone—that he would have gotten that close to anybody. He struggled so much with trust, even now. Naruto was right. No way. Then why did she feel this way? Did Naruto understand Sasuke better than she did? It should have been immediately obvious to her as well. It was obvious. So why did she react with such…fear? It didn't make sense.

Even if Sasuke somehow did have a child, she thought, I wouldn't…or I shouldn't... But there was that feeling.

It wasn't a reaction to impropriety, she decided. And it wasn't jealousy. It was something else, a feeling she couldn't qualify. It took her a moment to realize she had felt it before now, had felt it and pushed it down, and that the broached possibility of Sasuke having a kid, however ludicrous, had simply caused it to bubble up.

The feeling was a shock.

Am I unhappy?

"Wait a minute!" Naruto was saying, sounding alert and curious now, his eyes alight with interest. "Tenten, are you saying there might be an Uchiha child in the next room that could be related to Sasuke?"

There was a moment of silence.

Tenten shrugged. "Well, maybe. Yeah. That's what it looks like to me."

"But that's great!" Naruto exclaimed. He jumped to his feet, fully awake now, blue eyes blazing with excitement. "Don't you see? Sasuke has relatives he doesn't know about! Isn't that good news, Sakura? Won't he be excited?"

Sakura bit her lip and studied the floorboards between her feet. Her right hand caressed the knuckles on her left. Her arms felt cold. "I'm not sure. I mean… maybe, but…maybe not."

Naruto opened his mouth, paused, thought better of whatever he was going to say, and closed it. He began pacing in the middle of the room, arms folded behind his back. "Well, maybe we should meet them first and see what they want then."

"Neji is watching them," Lee declared. "I will inform him that you are ready to see them now."

Lee marched out of the room. Tenten strolled out behind him.

"Great," Naruto said to the closed door. He turned around slowly. "Hey, Sakura."

She looked up. "Huh?"

"Can I have my desk back? Otherwise they might think you're Hokage."

"Imagine that." Looking at all the papers she had spent the last two hours reading and organizing, it was an effort not to punch him, but she moved so that Naruto could take the desk.

He settled in like it was home. Resplendent in his ninja gear and the Fourth Hokage's old cloak, 24-year old Naruto really did look impressive. He grinned at her. Fighting down a return smile, Sakura crossed her arms and leaned against the wall.

The door opened to admit their client and her children. Sakura dropped her arms at the sight of them, trying not to gape.

The woman, Lucia Van Alstyne, was the kind of woman other women loathed at first sight. Even with signs of wear from travel and sun exposure, her beauty was the rare combination of natural good looks and polished style. Sakura could tell she knew it too, that she was as aware of it as her own skin. Her clothes—though simple in design—were made of rich fabrics custom tailored to her build. She looked…expensive.

But it was her children that caused Sakura to swallow a gasp. The little girl—eight or nine, Sakura guessed—looked like her mother, only with straighter, darker hair. She looked around the room with dark, inquisitive eyes that inspected every nook and cranny, her cherub face open to examination, but her expression difficult to read.

But the boy…

"That's just… uncanny," Naruto said. He pointed at the boy. "You look just like Itachi."

Sakura nodded.

The boy blinked. He looked confused.

Lee was right. The boy, around eleven or twelve years old, looked just like Sasuke's brother Itachi, right down to the hair style, absent only of the facial creases characteristic of both Itachi Uchiha and his father. She couldn't stop staring at the boy's eyes—pretty eyes, black and almond shaped, with lashes just like Sasuke's. They were also open eyes, clear as windows, devoid of the walls that Sakura was used to seeing when she looked at Sasuke, the walls built to protect every inner thought, feeling, and impulse from discovery. This boy's eyes were uncensored—the first Uchiha eyes Sakura had ever seen that looked like that.

Sasuke looked like before, she reminded herself with a swift pang, as a child, many years ago. Maybe Itachi once too…

"He is named after his father," Lucia Van Alstyne announced. "I trust that I don't have to explain."

"Mom?" Itachi Uchiha's child had a controlled and intelligent way of interjecting. Sakura guessed that he must be feeling extremely uncomfortable, but he carried himself without fidgeting, and he didn't retract from their gazes.

"Sorry for staring," Naruto said. "Don't be alarmed. It's not you. It's just…" Naruto shook his head. "Never mind. What can we do for you?"

"Yes," Sakura agreed, clearing her throat. "How can Konoha assist you?"

"My business is personal," Lucia told them. "As you may have guessed. I seek asylum for my children, and myself, here in Konoha."

"Asylum?" Naruto questioned.

"Are you in danger?" Sakura asked.

"Yes. From my husband, Gehard." She glanced at the boy. "Obviously not the father."

"Right," Sakura whispered. She had so many things she wanted to ask. "About that…"

"I will answer your questions," Lucia interrupted, "but if it's all right with you, I would like to excuse Itachi and Rina."

"It's okay," the boy—named Itachi! Sakura couldn't quite believe it—said. "I kind of want to hear it."

"I'd rather you didn't," his mother returned. Itachi accepted her ruling without argument.

"Sure," Naruto replied. "Maybe the two of you would like to see the village while we talk?"

"Tenten can show you around," Sakura suggested. She raised her voice. "Tenten?"

Itachi and Rina turned their heads in identical fashion as the door opened to readmit Tenten, who heard Sakura's call through the door.

"This is Itachi and Rina," Sakura said, trying to sound as natural as possible, though she was not oblivious to the way Tenten's eyebrows shot up. "Could you show them around the village?"

"Sure," Tenten replied. "How long?"

"Maybe an hour?" Sakura looked at Naruto for a nod of confirmation. "We'll send Neji to find you."

"All right," Tenten said. "Come along, you two. Ever seen a ninja village before, Rina?"

The little girl shook her head and followed Tenten out the door without the slightest hitch of hesitation. Her brother cast a glance over his shoulder at his mother, but said nothing further before tracing his sister's steps out the door.

"Please have a seat," Sakura gestured to Lucia as soon as they were alone. "Would you like anything? Tea? Water?"

The woman settled in the chair in front of the Hokage's desk, but shook her head against any additional offerings. "No. I'm all right. Thank you. Let's just get to it. I know there must be a million things you are wondering. Where should I begin?"

"How about with how you know Itachi Uchiha?" Naruto suggested.

"And why you came to Konoha," Sakura added. "And what you know of us."

"As for your village and the secret ways of Shinobi, I know little," Lucia told them, answering the last question first. "I knew about Shinobi as a child. I learned of them through my father as a result of business he conducted here years ago. He hired ninja as bodyguards. I came to this country on my own travels over ten years ago. As I am sure you are aware, the Uchiha are quite a famous clan, and their tragedy is likewise very famous. I knew who Itachi Uchiha was when I met him."

"You knew about Itachi's history then, before you…" Sakura couldn't finish. She had expected something quite different. "Did he talk about it? What specifically do you know?"

"He didn't talk about it." Lucia paused, gathering her thoughts it seemed, perhaps not knowing what was appropriate to say, or how to voice it. "I knew he killed his family," she said, "and that he left his younger brother alive. The reason I was with him was that I needed to have a child. I needed to have a child that would look enough like my husband that questions would not be asked. I was looking for someone with a reputation, someone with my husband's coloring-dark eyes, dark hair-someone with no reason or likelihood to have anything to do with me long term. The problems I faced were personal, and internal to my family; I knew they would remain so."

"You were married when…?" Sakura lost some of her composure at this point, blushing a little at the implications and wondering how she should proceed. It wasn't that she was embarrassed. She wasn't a little girl. Her entire body would attest to that, inside and out. She was a ninja, had seen death, fought pain, won victories at great prices, but of love affairs, at least of this sort, she felt almost innocent.

Lucia faced them both calmly, poised and contained, revealing nothing of her thoughts, implying perhaps that she thought little about it. Comparatively, Sakura's personal problems seemed so small. The dreams of girlhood unfulfilled, the romantic things Sakura still wanted, even when Sasuke's arm was wrapped around her—Lucia seemed to have stopped expecting them long ago, if she ever had.

"I was married," Lucia confessed, still in that cool, factual tone. "The particulars are time consuming to explain, but there is a good reason why I needed to have a child that was not my husband's. It has to do with my family's inheritance, you see, and the kind of man I married."

"Why did you marry him?" Sakura asked, guessing that whoever he was, this husband of Lucia's was no prize.

"The marriage was required." She took a deep breath. "I married Gehard when I was sixteen, at my mother's behest. I knew he wasn't a kind man, but he was not as awful as some others, so I thought I was lucky. However, recently the situation worsened. We couldn't remain there."

"So you came here?" Sakura asked. "All this way? Why here? I mean, it sounds like what you had with Itachi was …" She cleared her throat.

"It was brief," Lucia confirmed. "A tryst." For a moment, from her expression, Sakura thought she was holding something back, but she couldn't guess what. "When I came to this country ten years ago, it was a dangerous place, but I have heard it is safe now. More importantly, I have business interests here. I have money here, invested but attainable, money my husband doesn't know about, money I can use to pay Konoha to sanction us. I can only hope that you will agree."

"Hmm…" Naruto pondered aloud. "Yeah, okay. I see." He nodded in such a way that Sakura wondered if he understood at all. "What about the little girl?"

"I don't know," Lucia said. "Rina could be Itachi's as well, but the timing doesn't necessitate it."

Sakura blinked. "But…Wait. That means you came here again," she said, "and were with Itachi again, so… It was more than once?"

"That's correct," Lucia replied. "I came to this country twice. The second time was for the business interests I mentioned, a few years after having my first child. I saw Itachi Uchiha again. Rina was conceived sometime between the end of that trip and not long after I returned home. I don't know whose she is. My husband is fond of her. She may be his. She looks so much like me that it is hard to tell."

Sakura looked at Naruto, unsure what to say.

"Okay, maybe I don't get it," Naruto said. Then he added bluntly, "What's wrong with your husband?" Sakura almost bit her tongue on his behalf.

"He's sadistic and abusive." A hint of indefinable emotion crept into Lucia's tone at this, a conditioning of strength and endurance so tightly wound it transformed her face into a wall fit to break stone. "I can handle him myself, but when he threatened by children..." She shook her head. "He will be looking for us. He will enact vengeance if he can."

"Huh," Naruto said. "Mmm." He seemed to be concentrating, leaning back in his chair and crossing his arms, staring at his desk. "Well, I don't mind that you stay here then. Seems pretty simple to me."

"Naruto," Sakura hissed. "Shouldn't we talk about this? It's not usual to have outsiders stay in a Shinobi village. They will be living here, for who knows for so long. Even if they're paying us, there will be questions, perhaps dangers."

"Come on, Sakura. They aren't outsiders. Her kid is Sasuke's nephew."

Sakura froze, absorbing that statement, rolling it around inside her head. "Sasuke's…nephew."

Naruto nodded. "That decides it, right? We can't turn them away, no matter what anyone says. He's part of the Uchiha Clan, and every clan in Konoha is family, and every family is precious to me." He slammed his hand down on the table and grinned, showing teeth like a wolf. "Because I'm the Hokage!"

"Sasuke!"'

Sasuke stopped at the sound of Rock Lee's voice thundering across the street. He turned, waiting for the other ninja to catch up to him. Lee ran the entire distance at breakneck speed, and then had to stop two feet in front of Sasuke, hands on knees, panting and heaving to catch his breath before he could speak.

"Sasuke Uchiha!" he finally gasped. "The Hokage has summoned you."

That was strange. Sasuke's match with Naruto wasn't scheduled for another couple of days. Naruto didn't usually assign him any missions so close to the date, and he tried to avoid spending casual time with him in the interval between the challenge and the face off.

"What's this about? Did he damage himself training again?"

"No. It is nothing like that. I have been ordered to say nothing about the particulars, but you must go directly."

"Is Naruto assigning me a mission?"

"The Hokage."

"What?"

"Even you, Sasuke, should refer to him as Lord Hokage."

Sasuke wanted to laugh. "Is that what he said? Well we'll see about that."

Lee turned red in the face and clenched his fists, fuming indignation and punching the air in eight directions. "Upon my life, you will pay for your rudeness one day, Sasuke Uchiha! I do not have the power now, but one day I will best you in a match, just like all those years ago! You will see! You have my word on it! Even a genius like you will recognize a genius of hard work like me! One day you will admit that I am a splendid ninja."

"I already do."

Lee, who seemed about to respond in another tirade, stopped with his mouth open, clearly flummoxed. "You do?"

"What is this all about?"

"I can not say! You must come with me."

Resigned that he would not know until he met with Naruto, Sasuke agreed to walk with Lee to the Hokage's office. Sasuke said nothing when the conversation died, merely stared at the road and at the clouds drifting lazily overhead.

Sasuke had never bonded with the others he had grown up with. As a child, he hadn't seen them as compatriots or friends. He hadn't really even seen them as people. Of course, he hadn't really wanted anyone to see him as one either. When they saw him, he imagined that only saw him for what he had lost. And if he did somehow let them in, it seemed inevitable that he would someday lose them. So he hadn't attempted to make friends. There were only mentors, rivals and losers, people he needed to best to become stronger, and people by which to measure his strength, all for his goal, his reason for surviving, for what his life had been before Naruto.

But even now, after everything, it wasn't easy to fill the void. It was hard to relate and to interact. It was harder to trust. Bonds were necessary—he admitted that now—but it was difficult. He knew it frustrated Sakura the most. Sometimes, thinking of how she twisted the sheets in her sleep, wondering if she would sleep more peacefully alone, he felt so guilty. At times, he wished they had never fallen in together, that those first hesitant, unplanned, startled, surprising kisses hadn't led to so much muddled passion and confusion.

He didn't want to block her out, or push her away, but he couldn't stop, even knowing that it chafed her when he did it, despite that she always said she was fine. That she knew he was doing it, and why he was doing it, and loved him in spite of it, only added to the guilt. He thought they were both happy most of the time, especially when he was able to forget himself, when things were busy, but in the quiet hours, it was just hard.

Everyday he just had to keep reminding himself that it would get easier, that it wasn't the same world; the past was in the past. It would never be like it was, but maybe that was okay. He had to keep working at it, trusting that he could change, that maybe some day he would be able to forget…

He had forgotten Lee as he was thinking these things, and came to awareness with a start. He wondered if maybe he shouldn't try a new conversation, or stop somewhere to buy Sakura a gift of some sort, to make up for everything else, when his eye drifted to his left, toward one of the training grounds scattered throughout Konoha.

There was a boy sitting on a rock, one knee bent, watching a little girl investigate the Academy-training shuriken targets with Tenten. The way the boy's black hair was gathered behind his head at the nape of the neck made Sasuke start in surprise. It was shorter and thinner than…. but…. His thoughts fled, streaming from his grasp in intangible wisps. Sasuke's arms trembled, a slight shake no one would see, but which he could feel all throughout his body. It made him dizzy.

The boy turned his head slightly at the sound of Lee's voice reverberating down the quiet streets.

"I have been thinking, Sasuke, and I believe the Hokage had the right of it…"

The boy's profile was plainly visible against the sky, the faces of all of Konoha's Hokages framing it in the backdrop. Sasuke knew that face. His world turned sideways. For a moment, in a whirl of vertigo, Sasuke saw the mountains behind Konoha tilt dangerously on their sides.

Was this real? Was he seeing things? He had to know.

"Itachi?" he said, calling out against his better judgment. It was a croak spoken to ghosts, ghosts he knew from countless experimentation never responded.

But at the sound of his name, the face of his brother, the youthful face he remembered from distant days, turned and looked right at him.

And then the apparition spoke. "Are you all right?"

TBC

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