Seeing Naruto and Sakura restores something in me. This whole time, they still thought of me. They still searched for me. This whole time, they still wanted me to come home.
It's like when Rei found me. A feeling stirred up in my chest then, and it returns now after our encounter with Naruto and Sakura. The weight of the note Rei had given me grows heavy in my hip pouch.
As we go to bed that night, I stop Sasuke at the door to his room. "When?" I demand. "When can we finally leave? Sasuke—" I grab his sleeve as he turns away from me. "Sasuke, we don't belong down here. When will this end?"
Sasuke's eyes survey the corridor. It's reckless to have this conversation out in the open, but we're alone, as always, and Orochimaru and Kabuto know not to bother Sasuke when he's resting. "Soon," he says.
A hope grows in me. Together, we subdue Kabuto and kill Orochimaru. We get away, gathering Karin and Suigetsu and Juugo, another one or Orochimaru's subordinates. Together, we fight the Akatsuki and gather intel on Itachi. Sasuke saves me from the fire. He protects me.
Sasuke's motley crew irritates me. They make me miss even more the friends I had left behind. But I cling to Sasuke, knowing soon – soon. This will all end soon.
At long last, it happens: Sasuke finds Itachi. He kills him. He weeps for him as the rain comes. I weep for Sasuke, for us.
We can go home. It's over, the pain has been treated at is source, and all the residual pain is gone, too.
Or so I think. Another Akatsuki member appears, his face hidden behind a spiral mask. I recognize him from another encounter we had, just before finding Itachi.
"You can come with Sasuke," he says, "or I can leave you here. It's your choice."
There's no choosing: I'm in this deep now. I can't leave. What will these three years have been for?
I go with Sasuke. I tend to his wounds, and I'm with him when this man reveals himself as Uchiha Madara, one of the men who founded our village. A part of me, the part of me that is bound to the Uchiha and their legacy, knows it can't be Madara. I, of all people, would recognize if the brother of my beloved Izuna was in front of me. This man is an Uchiha, but I can't say for certain who he truly is.
He tells us – stories. About Konoha's founding, about the Uchiha's history, about how Itachi became wrapped up in the eternal conflict between the village and his family. About how Itachi was a double agent, about how he loved his village and chose his village over a civil war. About how Itachi loved his brother and spared his brother. About how Itachi loved me too and spared me because I'm me.
I hold onto Sasuke as I hear this. I hold onto Sasuke and I cry, gripping Sasuke's hands. His brother loved him. This whole time, he was loved. This whole time, I was protected. I was saved because I was worth saving.
I help Sasuke get dressed. I smooth his shirt down over his shoulders. "Sasuke," I say, taking his face in my hands. He closes his eyes and leans into my palms. "What's next? What are you thinking?"
Sasuke takes my wrists. He pulls away. "Let's go to the surface," he says.
He stands at the edge of the precipice, looking out as the sunlight glitters against the waves. Sasuke looks out at the water crashing against the stone cliffs and, finally, he cries. I take Sasuke's sleeve, clinging to him as I've done for these past three years.
Sasuke wipes his cheeks with his free hand. "We will no longer be known as Hebi," Sasuke says, discarding the name we had adopted after we had all come together. "From here on out, we are Taka."
A new name. A fresh start. A return. I take a deep breath, waiting to hear him say it. We're going home, finally, to the shadows of the trees and the deer parks. We're going to protect the village.
"Taka has one goal," Sasuke goes on. "We will destroy the Leaf."
I let out a strangled cry that I press my hands over my mouth to muffle. No. This isn't what I had planned. A few hours ago Sasuke promised me that we would return home to Konoha. Now, our return is predicated on destroying the village.
"Sasuke," I say. I grip his sleeve, pulling on it so hard that his shirt comes half-off his shoulder. "You can't – you're not serious. Your brother – Itachi loved the village. Destroying Konoha is the last thing—"
"I can't see things the way Itachi did," Sasuke says. "I can't love a village that destroyed my family and my relationship with my brother, the one person who loved me more than any village."
"Sasuke," I say, but Sasuke shrugs out of my grip.
When he turns, his Sharingan are bright red, morphed into a series of circles that overlap diagonally around his iris, like the pathway of planets orbiting the sun. "If you're not with us," he says, "you're against us. Choose."
As if I have a choice. I have to go with Sasuke. I have to continue down this path and see it through.
But I'm in too deep. I'm waving my hands over my head for help, and people are waving back, believing that I'm showing off how far in the depths I am. But, in truth, I'm drowning.
I can't do this anymore, but I can't stop either, or else I really will drown, and no one will be around to save me.