"...love is not determined by the one being loved but rather by the one choosing to love."
— Stephen Kendrick
Even in the safety of the shadows, Reika knew Sasuke's expression hardened when Naruto left him alone with her. "Your mother is back, I suggest you get your act together." His voice was savage, pulsating with a fury that sent a frisson of unease through her body. "Let's go."
No non-sense and curt as always.
Her father wasn't a smooth talker. Except maybe when threatened with the prospect of having to sleep on the couch. And even then he didn't do much of a good job convincing her mother to let him back into the room. He was a failure at words.
She frowned and shook her head slowly—her back turned to him. "I'm not going anywhere with you."
Silence descended behind her, a thick anticipatory silence that throbbed like a silent heartbeat. It could be felt, but it couldn't be heard with anything more than the internal senses.
"It isn't up for a discussion," Sasuke raked his fingers through his hair, his voice was quiet and careful but rough with fury. "I don't like repeating myself."
That must've angered her because she slowly turned around—until she was blindly facing him. He saw hard purpose on her face. "Well neither do I," Reika snarled.
Bitterness filled him with a wave of pain so intense, he nearly drowned beneath it. The brat was furious, and she had no right to be. She could've broken her brother's neck and Tenten was home with her heart pounding against her chest. Sasuke himself felt trepidation rising inside him.
He'd already begun to suspect the truth—that her antics had more to do with him than herself—and the certainty of it now filled him with dread. With a resolute sigh he stepped from the shadows and watched her brown eyes widen, saw her blink, as though trying to make him disappear.
"Go away daddy," her voice sizzled.
He faced his daughter—the mirror of his past—now as he never had before. Nightmares, remorse and broken trust fragmented around him, drawing his soul into a bleak, dark void he had once feared that he could never escape.
"Reika," he said her name with an edge of pain and exasperation. "What is this about?"
Her expression went slack with shock, her eyes gleaming beneath the moonlight with at first something resembling hope then with fury. She stood there before him, shrouded in darkness, her eyes glittering with hatred.
Hatred.
He swallowed past the emotion clogging his throat, the regret lancing his chest and the disbelief he couldn't seem to shake. As though the world had shifted on its axis, pitching him into a world that was as different as it was the same the day before.
"What's wrong? Tell me so I can fix it," he could barely force the words past his lips. He wasn't used to being reduced to this—to groveling at anyone's feet, especially not a child. Only Tenten had the luxury of that.
"Fix it?" she sneered. A cold curve to her lips that twisted in his soul as he watched her.
Tiny fingers, as slender and graceful as life itself, reached beside her to pluck a rose from the thick bush at her side. She tore at the petals, ripping them casually from their delicate mooring—one by one—leaving them to drift in wounded splendor to the ground.
Staring at her was tearing his soul to pieces. Realizing that his child ran away because of the same thing he had always resented his own father for, was destroying the last thread of sanity Sasuke thought he had held onto all these years.
His past.
He didn't wish to be reminded of any element of it—good or bad, beautiful or ugly. He had locked any recollection—prior to his marriage—away in the furthest recesses of his mind and mentally smelted the keys.
That was baggage he could do without. He was a product of his past yes, but he refused to be a prisoner to it. It was partly why he couldn't return Sakura's affection—why he still resented it—it was a representation of love for something he hated. His former self. He didn't appreciate it. It was a constant reminder of the past.
One he wanted to bury.
And yet it beats inside him like a second heart.
The past beats in the image of his daughter.
He saw it in the dismissive way she treated Uchito and in the way she threw tantrums when he tried to teach her something and she couldn't get it right. Reika may not have a family in mind to avenge but there was a need welling inside her—a need for power—like a dark, hungry cloud.
It frightened him.
It was probably the most formidable opponent he had ever come across in all his life as a leaf shinobi, a missing-nin and now Anbu Captain.
"This little stunt of yours isn't cute anymore," he snarled, fury surging inside him, so hot, so deep it blistered the open wounds he had thought to be closed. "Tenten is worried sick out of her mind."
He had to clench his fingers into fists to keep from dragging her back to the village. The haze at the edge of his vision rippled and burned, turning the soft fall of the moonlights into a bloody aura.
Her gaze flickered over him, cold, unemotional, filled with victorious triumph at his disquiet.
"You say that like you actually care about her," she bared her teeth, her hatred crisp, clear, lining the beauty of her expression with remorseless hatred. "Let me worry about my mother. At least when I do it, it's genuine."
He fell back a step, feeling the blow to the pit of his soul. Tenten was the reason he had even fought in that damn war. The reason he had wanted peace. He had bled for her. Had nearly died for her. For this. Hatred from the product of his love for one woman.
"Don't meddle in things that you don't understand." His voice was hoarse, and he disliked her for that—abhorred the emotion tearing his heart to pieces as she watched him with the glimmer of amusement in her eyes.
"I understand perfectly daddy."
"Understand what?" he hissed.
Reika grunted, the sound filled with irony. "That you had no real interest in mommy other than to domesticate her for the production of heirs."
The words slammed into his chest. Sasuke's eyes narrowed to pinpoints of red anger. "What?"
She shrugged carelessly, "I also understand that the moment you came to learn that I wouldn't possess the Sharingan, my worth to you significantly fell."
Emotion filled her voice, but there were no tears, only stoicism and a sense of—reluctant resignation? So there was hope of convincing her otherwise, after all?
"Nothing you become will disappoint me," Sasuke said thoughtfully.
Glacial—Reika thought—his voice went with the cold look in his eyes and the straight line that his mouth was compressed into. It did nothing to cool or reassure her.
"I have no preconception that I'd like to see you be or do," he continued, a touch too desperately for his own liking, but it needed to be said. "I have no desire to foresee you, only to discover you, Reika. You can't disappoint me."
Those words.
He saw her wrestle with them.
It was the most profound thing she had ever heard left her father's mouth. He must've heard it somewhere before, Reika thought dryly. Still—those words—they felt like having a knife being plunged into her heart, each as painful as that first wound inflicted when those kids wrecked the illusion she had of her father.
She gave him a long, hard look.
"Tell me what your problem is—" he was frowning now. Irritation thickened his voice as the three black dots in his eyes swirled and swiftly pooled together in the form of a pinwheel amidst the crimson. When silence answered that question, he added, "—before I decide to find out for myself."
Mangekyo.
Reika stared at him, wide-eyed, terror whitening her face, though only a cold, hard look filled her gaze. Her throat was so tight with fear she could barely swallow.
"You wouldn't dare," she turned her gaze challengingly up to him.
But he had made his move before she could blink.
OoOoOoOo
The light drained away, leaving barely enough for shadows. The darkness came and settled over everything in the forest like a thick blanket. Panic flared inside her. Even the stars and moon cowered behind a dense layer of cloud, giving the air that tincture commonly associated with the world before a storm. The sense of sudden weightlessness, of flight, was almost terrifying. Her mind seemed to grow more paranoid—her ears sharper—every snap of a twig suddenly a predator. Every rustle of the leaves foretold of danger.
"Daddy?" Reika whispered, trying to see through the pitch-blackness.
Her stomach clenched when she heard in respond—rather than her father's voice—the sound of chains. They made quiet squeaking sounds as if they were being swung back and forth.
Then before her eyes the darkness transformed into a playground which looked to have been replaced with something sinister. The swings like gallows. Orange spots of rust peppered the long chains, the smooth wooden seats were rough, split and warped—quite unlike they were back in the village. They each hung heavily from sagging wooden frames and swung gently in the breeze, creaking. The faded paints were peeling off in curls probably from soaking in icy droplets. The relentless freeze-thaw tended to eventually take a toll.
When it suddenly dawned on her exactly what Sasuke was doing, razor-sharp pain and fear streaked through her. He was in her head and it felt as if her lungs were slowly filling with water, as if there was just less space in them for the air. Inflating them felt like pushing up a lead weight on her chest.
"This isn't funny daddy," she breathed roughly. "I'm telling mommy."
Her muscles were frozen in place but filled with such a tingling pressure she wanted to run until her body was empty. Her heart could beat all it wanted however, her body wouldn't move.
"Your mother is a traitor!" mirthless laughter rang through the air.
She flinched as the memory echoed through her mind. She couldn't stop her small hands from curling into fists by her sides. "Get out of my head, daddy!"
"And she married a traitor whose only use for her is an incubator!"
Reika wanted to throw her hands over her ears and block out the voices. But she couldn't move even an iota. She wanted to run, but something held her where she was—held her while everything inside her mind rejected the memories and the emotions that were being stirred up.
"Your father has terrible taste in women. If it wasn't for his genes you probably would've looked like an oversized mouse. Like your mother."
She didn't want to remember. She closed her eyes, trying to hold back the tears as the memories began to rip through her. Violent, filled with her screams and mocking laughter.
"It's only a matter of time before your father abandons the whole lot of you."
"Stop it daddy," she pled and realized then that tears wet her cheeks, dripped off her chin. Sobs were ripping inside her chest as she fought to hold them back.
"How can you truly be an Uchiha without the Sharingan?"
"Get out of my head," she screamed with rage and fear, until her voice cracked.
Her heart pounded with hard, driving beats within her chest. It was her worst nightmare come to life. Again.
The taunts, they haunted her in her sleep, in her consciousness and the sub-universe between. They shadowed what she knew to be true and coloured it with skepticism and uncertainty.
"Don't let it get to you," she ordered herself fiercely. "This isn't real."
She couldn't let him break her, couldn't let him see what had been bothering her all this while—what she had to endure every day.
Reika knew envy was the main reason behind the teasing—she was the top of her class and highly favoured—but she couldn't ignore them; she couldn't pretend as if some of the things said weren't coming into fruition.
"I bet he intends to kill you and your mother and leave your younger brother—the one true Uchiha—to avenge your pitiful lives."
"Get out—" she was shuddering with her sobs now, fighting to hold them back, to keep the pain inside, buried, where it could never hurt her again. "—get out of my head daddy."
"Uchihas have an obsession with repeating history, you know? It's only a matter of time."
"Please," she whimpered, shuddering as the tears fell faster.
"Your mother is useless anyway; I suppose restoring your abominable clan is putting her to good use."
"Daddy—" her breath hitched.
"Your father is a psychopath who only ever loved his brother and he slaughtered him so just imagine what he'll do to you. Someone he doesn't even value."
"—make it stop," she shook her head, weariness filling her voice.
"Your family has caused this village enough pain. Do us all a favour and kill off each other. You know it's bound to happen."
For the first time in her life, Uchiha Reika was terrified. It wasn't fear. It was soul destroying, mind-numbing, screaming terror.
"Get out of my head. Stop it daddy!" a blood-curdling shriek tore from her chest along with a sudden burst of energy.
It exploded around her and she felt the ground beneath her thinned—almost as if it wasn't there at all and she was floating in mid-air.
Blessedly she felt the hold on her body ease—as if the invisible hands that had been pinning her down finally relented—and she staggered forward, her mind spiralling.
She was on his knees when her eyes flew open—the irises had darkened further, the colour swirling, burning—and choked on the tears that clogged her throat as she fought to get her bearings and to clear her head.
Through the haze that was her vision she recognized the presence of a pair of black boots before her. The sight that greeted Reika when she raised her head cut the air from her lungs.
"Daddy?"
Her stomach cramped with pain, both from the blow she seemed to have sustained from that strange collision of chakra and the look her father was pinning her with.
"What the hell was that?" Sasuke demanded. The growl in his voice was a horrible thing to hear.
But even more horrible was having to see the blood that trickled from his nose and the eerie black eyes flashing with living rage at her.
"You kicked me out of your head and deactivated my Sharingan in the process of doing so. Where did you learn to do that?"
She blinked and felt herself shake from inside out.
Confused.
Frightened.
"Never mind what just happened," his eyes raked over her, his expression turning savage as he reached out, a single finger whispering over her cheek. "Is that what has been bothering you all this while?" his tone was harsher, colder and if possible, more sympathetic. "A couple snide remarks from some snot nose, little brats?"
"Do not touch me," she snarled, her fingers gripping his arm, nails biting into the black sleeves of the coat he wore. "You wouldn't understand."
He retracted his hand and straightened himself. "If you want something to fear that badly, fear your mother's wrath when she finds out about this."
He heard the tiny mewls, little squeaks of sound as her fists clenched and released. She wanted to cry, but she didn't have the strength. Perhaps he went a little overboard using genjutsu on her. But he knew her well enough to know what he wouldn't get anything out of her unless he forced her. She really was his personality clone.
"Please don't tell mommy," her voice was reed thin, hoarse. "I don't want her to know what's being said about her because it isn't true. I don't want to hurt—"
She heard the sudden angry hiss of indrawn breath a mere millisecond before his hard hands clamped down on her tiny shoulders, forcing her to look up at him as he grated blackly, "If you believed it wasn't true you wouldn't have felt the need to try and validate it with Naruto."
"—don't want to hurt her," she finished feebly. Her heart was beating with a heavy, sickly, guilty, rhythm. When his grip merely tightened she ground out quickly. "I was having a private discussion with the Hokage. How dare you eavesdrop?"
OoOoOoOo
His mouth went hard, "I could care less what you think of me. But those thoughts that you harbor about your mother, you need to get rid of them."
There was a kind of tightness in that deep raspy voice and had Reika not known better she would have imagined it to be pain. But she did know better, she reminded herself scornfully. He might not love her mother but he obviously thought she deserved respect simply because she was his wife.
Arrogant.
"Have I made myself clear?" his teeth closed with a snap.
She glared up at Sasuke. He tended to raise more questions than he provided answers. It would be pointless to expect anything from him besides more confusion.
His dropped his hands again, bunched them against his trousers. He looked as if he would like to shake her until her head dropped off, and she pushed the word "no" past her dry lips and saw his mouth go tight, the skin growing taut across his aggressively set jaw.
"I've come to terms with your feelings towards me," Reika exploded hotly.
He asked drily, "And what might that be?"
"Resentment," she said simply, shivering as she stepped back, feeling the cold wind that whipped around her, but knew the chill inside her came from much more than the weather. "—but my mother deserves better."
He stared back at her, shock winding through his system first before pure rage took over. "When I've given you reasons to doubt my relationship with your mother, only then will I try to redeem myself in your eyes—in that regard."
"You're using her."
"I'm what?" There was a note of surprise in his voice though his expression became more brooding. "If that was the case, I'd have far more spoilt brats like you to deal with."
She gave a small, sarcastic snort, "Far more spoilt brats to murder. The more the merrier, right? Uchihas like to kill in numbers, don't they?"
He lifted one straight black brow cynically. "So they say."
Reika's voice knotted with frustration as she raised her voice, "Can't you give a straight answer?"
His own voice was curtly precise when he responded, "Try asking a sane question and I might consider it."
She stomped her feet and growled low in her throat, "Daddy!"
"Reika," he returned tartly.
When her eyes locked with his narrowed gaze she turned her head quickly because what she had seen was compassion, pity. She couldn't handle that, couldn't handle being ridiculed.
The silence was long and burdened with tension.
"Have I been so demonized by your friends that you believe I would murder you and your mother in cold blood, simply for the sake of repeating history?"
She compressed her lips.
"Was that why you decided to leave the village?" as serious as his tone had been, Reika could swear she heard derisive laughter ringing inside her head as he spoke. "And if you were so concerned about Tenten's safety, why did you leave her behind?"
"Because mommy loves you too much," she howled. "She would never believe me. I thought that if I left and sought my own strength I could return and defeat you before you put your plan into motion."
"My plan?" he demanded rawly.
"You idolize uncle Itachi, don't you?"
Sasuke knew right away what she was implying. That he would butcher his entire family for the sake of following in his brother's footstep. Knowing her it was safe to assume Reika thought Sasuke would wait until Uchito was at an age where he understood what was going on, enough to want to seek revenge. So in her mind, it would buy her some time to gain enough power to come back and stop him before he massacred their family...?
He disregarded her throaty question—it had probably hit too closely to home—and his voice was terse with a still, devastating command as he bit out, "I've heard enough of this nonsense. Let's go home."
His statement hung in air, suspended by sheer disbelief, and Reika grated out, her nerves at screaming pitch, "I'm not going anywhere with you."
"Then who will protect your mother from me?" Sasuke queried contemptuously, and then went on to tell her, his narrowed eyes never moving from her anguished features. "I'm a psychopath aren't I? And according to you I only value your brother," his hard mouth curled cruelly. "So what's to stop me from snapping Tenten's neck now that she has produced an heir who can grow to become formidable enough to carry out my apparent death wish?"
And a death wish it had to be, because after Itachi he vowed to never bring harm to any family member ever—especially not a child. They would've to kill him first.
Shaking inside, Reika made the effort to gather herself together, stay calm. Now that she had heard it from her father himself, the notion seemed terribly ridiculous. "Do you find this funny?"
"No I don't," his voice had been so soft, so whisper-thin she had barely heard him. "I find it stupid."
She bit down on her lip for a moment before hurling, "The idea isn't so far-fetched when you think about it."
"It is," he retorted darkly.
"Taking your past into consideration, it really isn't," she told him crisply.
"Taking my past into consideration that is precisely why it is far-fetched," he had moved closer to her and the very forest trees seemed to hold their breath. Reika couldn't speak, her heart beating crazily, making her head spin. "Had I not valued or seen this family as a priority, I wouldn't have remained in a village that despised me—a village responsible for all that I've suffered and had to endure."
He had a point she agonized, looking up at him, the bones of his face tight with tension. "Then why did you stay back? Why not settle elsewhere with mommy? She would follow you to the depths of hell."
"Why?" he looked as if she had slapped him, and she didn't understand—her brain was too confused and tired to work anything out. "This is her home. I wouldn't dream of uprooting her from it because I was too cowardly to face my demons," he said with soft irony. "My sins are my own."
Reika summoned small smile, "I guess I should count myself lucky that my mother has more self-respect than to allow you to knock her up and abandon her for years without contact. For some reason it's not too hard imagining you doing something like that."
He flashed her a hard stare. "It's not simply a matter of your mother having self-respect—"
She blinked.
"—I respect her," He reached out and mussed the top of her hair a bit. His tone no longer tortured. "And that's not a word I use loosely."
The gesture didn't bring the usual smile from her.
"Do you love her daddy?" she asked softly. The question slipped past her lips, almost unbidden. "Do you love me?"
He tilted his head and stared back at her with a sense of understanding. Reika wanted to feel accepted—she wanted her mother to feel accepted—and sometimes, that was the last thing she felt. They both were members of the most resented Clan and without a Kekkei Genkai. Despised by many and thought to be talentless by some, more so in Reika's case, despite her prodigy status.
His expression hardened, became more stony than before.
She watched him now, trying to see beyond the calm expression. She should have questioned him more, she thought. But of all the pressing questions buzzing in her head, this was the most important—because this would solve everything. Reika didn't care for his past as long as he valued his present—their family.
"Of course I do," he said as though the words were torn from him, ripped from the very center of his being.
"Even though you're admitting to it, you aren't exactly saying it," she said painfully.
His lips tightened, the muscles at his jaw clenched furiously. "It makes very little difference," he stated.
"But it does, daddy."
He was such an enigma sometimes, and at others, she felt as though she had known him longer than she knew herself.
"You're my child and she is my wife," he growled. "A part of me and the other half of me. I don't lie to myself; I won't lie to you," he said. "So quit being stupid."
"You consider me a part of you even without the Sharingan?" she whispered then, staring up at him, her eyes dark, creased with pain.
"Reika," he knelt before her, his voice deepened as it speared through her heart. "You are me."
Emotion nearly overwhelmed her.
"Really daddy?" A tear dropped down her cheek, a silky track of pain that had his heart clenching. "Because all I've ever wanted was to be you."
He stilled, watching her quietly now, hearing the words, seeing the tears in her eyes as she blinked furiously. And hope and despair filled him in equal proportions. He wasn't someone he wanted his children to emulate but at the same time it was the most endearing sentiment—to know that despite everything his daughter still thought of him as a hero.
Her hero.
Her hands pressed against his chest, small fists thumping against it as rage flashed in her eyes. Rage directed at herself. "Oh daddy, it was that kid in the glasses, the one with the white hair—he got to me. He got inside my head. He showed me things—told me things. I didn't mean half of those things, daddy. I don't even know what I'm saying."
Kid with the glasses and white hair?
Suspicion and anger ripped through Sasuke as he stared back at her in disbelief. But he didn't give reign to it, he didn't want to frighten her. He would have to speak with Naruto and his wife when he got back. They needed to up Reika's security.
"Please forgive me daddy. I promise to be nicer to Uchito too."
Tears ran unchecked down her cheeks as he reached up slowly, his fingertips touching them hesitantly. She didn't flinch like she had in the recent weeks—as if he had repulsed her.
"It's okay," he whispered, lowering his lips to her forehead. "People could always get in my head when I was younger too. I guess it's partly why doing so to others comes so naturally to me."
Her eyes fluttered at the tinge of humour—she was so unused to it—as he smoothed the dampness away, her breath hitching as she stared back at him. Loved him. Understood him. "I'd prefer if you didn't mention any of this to mommy."
He studied her for at least half a minute before his frown turned into the first smile she'd seen on his face—and she had to admit. Her daddy had one hell of a warm smile.
"My thoughts exactly. I've been without a wife for almost a month now; if Tenten found out that I used Genjutsu on you, I'll continue to be without one for another month."
OoOoOoOo
In the dimly lit laboratory white coated scientists moved in choreographed silence as they drew pipettes of fluid from one tiny tube and transferred them to others. The rhythmic clattering machinery was like a soft whisper in the background. The scent was mostly of the setting agar plates but there was an undertone of bleach.
The sound of Kabuto's footsteps bounced off the black metallic roof above and the black metallic floor below—not loud enough to distract his peers who were transfixed by their experiments.
He passed by a couple tanks containing murky liquids and forms that were barely distinguishable. The glare from the fluorescent tube lighting suspended from steel rafters was nearly blinding. There were eight foot high steel cylinders of chemicals, mass spectrometers, particle accelerators, circuits boards and trays of assorted microchips a plenty about the place.
As he delved further into the high-tech facility, he came to a glass panel set in the wall and looked through it into the darkened room where a man with long dark hair sat in front of a machine that seemed to be sorting a set of test-tubes, rotating them, labeling them, counting them and finally delivering them into his hands.
Kabuto touched a button next to the panel and spoke, "I've collected the tissue samples from Uchiha Reika like you suggested."
"That won't be necessary Kabuto. We've already extracted cells from one of the clones we sent to Konoha," the voice was low and snarling almost. "My understanding is that they had a physical scuffle when he spoke ill of our dear Sasuke-kun. I see Reika has inherited his temper. I had to send the clone to repairs."
He adjusted his glasses on the bridge of his nose, "Permission to enter Orochimaru-sama? There has been some interesting development," he said in a controlled tone, deep down he was itching to get to work. To dissect her cell samples and know all that she was.
Uchiha Reika would make fine specimen.
"Why of course," the man looked up, golden eyes glinting ominously. "It's always a pleasure to hear how our new weapon is doing. She is growing rather lovely too," his unusually long tongue flicked across his lips. "Its ironic isn't it? The Weapon Mistress births the ultimate weapon."
A obnoxious buzzing sound filled the silence until a metal door to Kabuto's right reclined into the wall to allow him entrance into the room.
The temperature was significantly higher—roasting almost—but Kabuto supposed its hellish heat was fitting for the devil himself.
A few lights were on but like the stars in the night sky they did very little to lift the blackness, showing only the activity of the hardware—plasma screens of gigantic proportions with text that was too small to make sense of.
"I'm afraid that rare Sharingan you spoke of really does exist."
A sharp laugh left Orochimaru's lips but he was actually glaring. "Did you ever doubt me?"
Kabuto bowed his head in apology, "Of course not Orochimaru-sama. But without it having been fully activated as yet, she managed to kick Sasuke out of her head and forced his own Sharingan to recede."
"Interesting," he drawled, tapping a long finger against an empty beaker in deep thought. "Do they still think she is without the clan's Kekkei Genkai?"
He scratched his white head, "I think Sasuke is suspicious. He bled from the nose and was left a little winded after the altercation. The flare of chakra was immense. He may have brushed it aside but there is no way he wasn't the least bit curious."
Amber eyes watched him thoughtfully, thin lips quirked with a hint of knowing—sinister—amusement. "You know what this means don't you Kabuto-san?"
The man was quiet.
"We can't resort to playground tactics to try and lure the girl out of the village anymore."
Kabuto nodded.
"But we will need both siblings if we are to make a weapon out of the girl," he told him seriously. "It's a theory but her first kill could activate her Sharingan. Like I said, she has a more complicated kind that may require a little assistance." He laughed a cruel, inhuman and brutal sound. "But just imagine if that first kill was to be her precious younger brother? It would be like killing two birds with one stone. We could awaken the Mangekyo as well."
His companion's lips twitched.
"And who knows what else?" he grinned a grin that spoke of his soullessness and capability of nothing but survival and dark evil. "Perhaps the worst nightmare to have ever been unleashed on Konoha."
A/N: I'm so annoyed by the lack of SasuTen in this story so I might consider an epilogue (probably family fluff) but this was really supposed to be the last chapter, something to leave you wondering. Lmao no one figured out the relation of the kids names to Sasuke's and Tenten. It's pretty fucking dumb actually. R, S, T, U—their names all begin with sequenced letters of the alphabet. Anyways, I really have no idea what to think of this chapter lol. If you are interested in an epilogue feel free to leave me a review. They are always appreciated. Thanks for reading.