Set Post Naruto Gaiden.

Previous Chapter Summary: Sarada returns back to Konoha at last. The first person to greet her is Boruto, and the two of them have a nice little chat before he urges her to return home where her parents are waiting. Sarada attempts to sneak around her mother, but explicitly fails. The two of them talk over making onigiri, until finally, Sasuke comes home to greet his daughter after a long time. Now.. It's time to talk.

A/N: It feels weird that this is the last chapter T_T. Unlike my other stories, I actually didn't know how I'd want this to end, but over time, I think it just managed to unravel itself. Enjoy!

Disclaimer: Contents of this chapter are controversial, but again is based on my own thoughts and interpretation as well as facts from the series. Do keep that in mind. This is fanfiction, after all.

Naruto © Masashi Kishimoto

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Journey Back In Time

The Love of the Uchiha

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The Uchiha patriarch and his daughter walked side-by-side down a path where he would take his usual morning strolls whenever he got the chance. The spring breeze lulled against their skin, making a tiny whooshing sound that made up for the silence embodying the air between them.

Oh, but it wasn't an awkward type of silence. If anything, the two of them simply took the time to enjoy the regained accompaniment of eachothers' presence. Sasuke clutched a medium-sized bag in his hand, its contents containing a few boxes of onigiri that his wife and daughter had prepared earlier on. Sakura figured it would've been better to bring them along. After all, who knows how long they were going to be out for.

Sarada paused in her tracks after noticing that her father had suddenly stopped walking. To her surprise, she looked ahead to see that they were facing an open riverbank, one that seemed awfully similar to the one Itachi took her to, though it wasn't the same.

She watched as the raven-haired man lowered himself down onto the clean-cut grass, using the tree behind him as a backrest. Without prompt, Sarada knelt down on her knees beside him, waiting for him to initiate the start of their conversation.

"Okay." Sasuke eventually says in a neutral tone. "Where do you want to begin?"

Sarada took a moment for herself before setting out on an answer. Now that she had actually met her uncle, part of her couldn't help but notice that the two of them exhibited similar demeanors. However, she had to agree with herself on the fact that Sasuke definitely won the poker face game.

In a few seconds, she let out a sigh and turned to face her father, her eyes sparking in all seriousness. "When did you leave Konoha, and why?"

She stared at her father, searching his overly content face for an answer. She pretty much already knew most of it after hearing Itachi out, but this was something she wanted to personally hear from his own mouth.

"I left the village some time after the Chuunin exams." He started, pausing before he continued, as if he didn't know where to go from there. "I wasn't like everybody else. My sole motivation over my Genin years was to exact revenge on my brother for what he did to the clan, and it was something that required an immense amount of power."

Sarada watched her father with furrowed eyebrows.

".. So I sought out strength from Orochimaru. He was the only person at the time who could ensure my growth, and it didn't matter if he needed me for his own merits. Nothing good was coming out of staying in the Leaf Village, especially not when people around me were getting much stronger than myself." The raven-haired man thought back to his blonde best-friend, remembering all too well the time where they nearly killed eachother on the hospital rooftop.

"I had only one goal in mind. My-"

"Did you love them, Dad?"

Sasuke flicked his orbs to meet the ones of his daughters.

"Mom and Uncle Naruto." She finished, letting the words explicitly run out of her mouth.

He continued his gaze for a few more seconds, until finally, his eyes closed as he understood what she was trying to say.

"That was a foreign word to me, Sarada." He says in a low tone. At this, the Uchiha heiress felt her heart sink. She remembered her father during the first time-point of when he was a Genin. When she asked him if he had any dreams.. He only said he wanted to get stronger. "I'd be lying if I said I loved them. In the beginning, I had no interest in them. Friendship, bonds.. It wasn't necessary. Naruto was loud and stupid, Sakura was a burden. But over time.."

She watched as he slowly began to peer his eyes open. "They just came to be people I found myself wanting to protect. They became important."

The Uchiha heiress widened her eyes at this, and suddenly she couldn't help but smile as she found a bit of relief in her heart.

"Despite that," His tone quickly shifted, "Nothing was on par with my goal. There was no way I'd put the two of them on the same caliber. My hate for Itachi was stronger than my friendship with Team 7."

"You didn't feel anything at all? You had no regrets for leaving Konoha?" Sarada asked with a pained expression.

Sasuke took some time to collect his thoughts, millions of images racing through his head. "I did." He started, "Your mother came to stop me that night. And when I looked at her.. That's when I knew I had created a bond with my comrades that caused my intention to waver. But nevertheless, my decision was absolute. I wasn't going to let secondary emotions hinder my revenge."

"But they fought for you, right?" She urged.

"They did. There were countless times where I'd run into them, with the hopes of being able to bring me back on their part." His eyes became sullen, and she could see the pain and regret in his dark orbs. "But at that point, I had already fallen beyond saving."

That was one thing Sarada couldn't bring herself to wholeheartedly accept. How it was so easy for her father to leave everybody, to leave those he finally wanted to protect.

However, in the end, she understood his reason. To him, there was nothing more important than avenging his family, the people he truly loved the most.

"Under Orochimaru, I was getting stronger and stronger." Sasuke continued. "Until finally, it was enough to pose a threat to Itachi. I ended up forming a team of my own- Hebi, with the objective of locating my brother."

"Hebi?" Sarada questioned.

"You've seen our photo before. The one where you believed Karin was your mother." Sasuke said nonchalantly, earning a widened-eye look from his daughter.

"So she was with you on your revenge?" She asked, a bit shocked at the relation.

"I recruited her into Hebi along with two others. She was also the person who helped deliver you, and gave you your glasses."

As if on cue, the Uchiha heiress touched her red frames in awe. A few years back, she had become aware of the fact that this woman was an acquaintance of her father, in which she once confused as to be her real mother. But she never thought that she could have had a direct connection to her father's rogue activity.

Suddenly, Sarada remembered a specific scene in her head. Back at one of the time-points, she noted a red-haired girl on the ground during her father's attempt to kill her mother and herself. Though she had failed to see her face, there was no doubt that it had to be Karin.

At this, the Uchiha heiress found herself unable to comment further, as she didn't want to remind herself of the gruesome scene that subsequently occurred. Sasuke watched her expression carefully, and finally, she managed to force something out in a whisper. "Continue."

The raven-haired man didn't need to ask to know why she had suddenly fallen silent. He knew.

"There was no going back for me, Sarada." He started with insistence, "I did things for the best of my own interests and for what I thought was necessary in order for my revenge to succeed.."

Sasuke forced the lump down his throat.

"That includes getting rid of anybody who wanted to get in my way."

An uncontrollable shake started to muster in Sarada's hands as she had her palms harshly pressed down onto either of her thighs. She clutched them into fists, biting her lip in an attempt to control her emotions.

"I bore the entire clan's hatred onto myself. As a result, I became so submerged into the darkness that nothing else seemed to have mattered." Sasuke didn't stop. "I know what I did in that time-point, Sarada.. And I'm sorry."

The following moment of silence seemed to have lasted an eternity. Sasuke's words rung in the air, and a pained expression of anguish spread across his face as he watched the tears roll down his daughter's cheeks beyond all her strength of control.

The sparrows resting on the branches above them chirped in unison, contrary to the sullen atmosphere that seemed to have instantaneously engulfed the two Uchihas below.

"I couldn't even recognize you, dad." Sarada said in almost a whisper.

Sasuke failed to respond, to which she decided to continue.

"I'm sorry, it's just.. It's hard to believe that the you in front of me was once capable of doing something like that." She explained, "I'm not saying I truly believed you were a bad person, dad, it's just.. Everything.. Everything was so unfair for us. I'm angry at what Uncle Itachi had to do, but I think overall he was an amazing person. He loved you more than anyone else. He didn't deserve for things to end this way. In the end, everyone including Konoha and our clan were only thinking of what was best for their own people. So why does it have to end in such a cruel way?"

The raven-haired man winced, feeling his chest ache at seeing his daughter muster all her strength to fend off her tears. "We wanted the world to be at peace too, Sarada. If it meant endless fights and dirty hands, the Uchiha were willing to embrace it. That's how far they were willing to go for their own ideology of world peace."

He looked to her for a reaction, but to his dismay, her pained expression did not waver in the slightest.

"Sarada, if this is too much for you, then-"

"No, I'm okay." The Uchiha heiress wiped off the remaining tears in her eyes with the back of her hand. "I already know so much. I did go back in time, after all. Just continue, please? I want to know what you thought about all of this."

The look she had in her eyes convinced him that she was definitely going to see this through. But of course. She had come such a long way.

"Alright." He continued.

"It wasn't until Itachi and I had our last battle that I found out the truth about why he did what he did. I was skeptical of it at first, that's why I sought out more information from the reincarnated Kage."

Sarada looked at him with intensity, and she watched as her father closed his eyes in thought.

"There was no way I could understand the love he had towards the village. He was caught between two corrupted systems, and if it weren't for Konoha's officials, he wouldn't have had to live the rest of his life as a criminal. The village wasn't something I wanted to protect. Not after everything they did to my family and I. Itachi's sudden confession also managed to greatly waver my decision. So, that's what brought me towards my second resolve.. To destroy the Leaf."

"But Itachi did everything for the village, for you."

"It's not particularly the village that I despised, Sarada. It's who it was ran by." Sasuke continued, asserting a dominant tone in his voice. "The Kage, the way they did things, it's what killed my family. It's also the one thing I had set in my mind to change. Itachi chose the village because he loved it, but I chose to destroy it for what it did to him. I wasn't going to restrain myself to the loyalty of something that destroyed its own people."

"You wanted to create a new world, one that Itachi wanted." Sarada said in confirmation.

"Yeah." Sasuke gave a single nod.

"So then, what made you change your mind?"

"Like you said, Itachi did things for me and for the future of the village. I realized that if I followed through with my actions, it would contradict what he sacrificed his life for. There was no way I'd let my brother die in vain. He carried out the massacre knowing it would inevitably change the way I saw him, but he understood that it had to be done for the village as a whole, not just for what I felt."

At this moment, Sarada felt something different about her father. She could tell it probably took him years to be truly at peace.

"I never understood what Itachi felt because I lacked something that he had, something that was essential to him as he carried out such a heavy task."

"The Will of Fire." Sarada said instantaneously.

Sasuke nodded. "Naruto is the one who made me fully understand the Will of Fire. The reason for my brother's loyalty- his resolve that turned our clan into inevitable turmoil.. I've come to truly see the meaning of it."

"And Uncle Naruto never gave up on you, either."

"Yeah, he didn't." Sasuke managed a smile mixed with happiness and regret. "I may have caused everybody a lot of pain, but it was true that Team 7 meant a lot to me. And as the Hokage's right-hand man, my goal for the rest of my life is to protect Konoha at all costs."

At this, Sarada couldn't help but grin. "And you're doing great at it, dad."

"Good to hear." The raven-haired man said neutrally.

Sasuke stared at the Uchiha heiress during a few seconds of silence, noting the look on her face that gave strong indication of a burning question. "What is it? It's okay to ask me things, you know."

Sarada opened her mouth to speak, though her words lagged behind. "I think Uncle Itachi is probably one of the greatest people I've ever met. But.. Were.. Were you guys happy as kids? Did you have fun together?" She searched her father's eyes for an answer, but continued on. ".. Grandma and grandpa loved you two, right?"

She could feel her fingers trembling as she fidgeted them uncomfortably in her lap. Her father was wary of the uncertainty and anxiety in her voice.

She needed to know whether or not, among all the gruesome events that fell into the Uchiha family, the four of them still managed to be happy together at one point.

Thankfully, in a time before the immense pressure and expectations, Sasuke knew he still cherished the genuine laughter of his mother and father, as well as the brother he looked up to as the most perfect Shinobi in the world.

So, with this in mind, he couldn't help but smile. "We were a happy family."

Sarada gave a benevolent grin at her father's answer. She felt her eyes starting to become wet with tears once more, but she bit her lip to force them back.

To the Uchiha patriarch's surprise, the next thing he knew was that his daughter had thrown her arms around him into a tight hug, her face burying into his chest with her head turned to the side.

The raven-haired man glanced down at the top of his daughter's head, instinctively placing a comforting arm on her back.

"What are you doing?"

"I don't know, I just want to hug you right now." She says in a quiet tone, her voice muffling against the sleeve of his arm. "I just wish someone else could've done this to you a long time ago."

"Sarada."

The Uchiha heiress peered back up at her father with the prompt of his arm, curious as to why he suddenly needed her attention. "Yeah?"

"You once asked when I fell in love with your mother."

She blinked and waited for him to continue.

"I couldn't accept her feelings because it hindered my goal. But I knew if anyone were to give me the love I had lacked for almost my entire life, it'd be her. Do you know what I said when I proposed?"

He watched as his daughter gave a light shake of her head.

"Instead of giving her a ring, I told her I wanted her to wear something even more meaningful and important."

"What's that?"

At this moment, Sasuke clutched the back of Sarada's clothing, and she knew. The raven-haired man pulled the corners of his mouth into a grin as he remembered his exact words. "I want you to wear the Uchiha clan's crest on your back for the rest of your life."

The Uchiha heiress felt her heart skip a beat, her face turning slightly red as she imagined how happy her mother must've been.

"My point is, there's nothing more important to me than family- always was and always will be. I knew that when I chose your mother to be my wife, and now I have you as well." He declared, "You and I are living proof that the Curse of Hatred is now gone."

Sarada couldn't help the smile that began to tug at her cheeks, which quickly formed into a huge, silly grin. "I love you, dad."

Sasuke responded with a single "Hn", to which she knew he felt the same.

"But, will you and I ever be able to enter the white space again?" She furrowed her eyebrows. "Can we ever go see Uncle Itachi?"

"The scroll is inactive by now. It was meant for a one time use by Madara."

The raven-haired man watched as an overly disappointed look spread across his daughter's face. At this, he let out a sigh and closed his eyes. "But.. I'll take you to our family grave one day."

"I didn't know we had one." Sarada blinked. On second thought, of course she didn't know. Otherwise, there wouldn't have been a need for this entire conversation. "Do you visit it often?"

"From time to time, when I have things to say."

"Okay." Sarada nods in approval of her father's suggestion. "But you know something, dad? I think Uncle Itachi might be cooler than you."

Sasuke scowled.

"Sarada! Sasuke-kun!"

A familiar voice rung out to the two of them from behind. The father-daughter turned themselves towards the owner of the voice who had appeared within the abundance of trees, revealing a bright pink blob of hair.

"Mom?" Sarada watched as the Uchiha matriarch shuffled herself out of the tightly-packed branches, running her fingers through her hair to fix the tousled strands. She walked further up to them, a slightly annoyed expression present on her face.

"Shannaro.."

Sasuke watched his wife as she continued to mutter annoying things under her breath, but then started to speak.

"I told that idiot that you two were talking, but he insisted that I come find you to make sure that everything was alright."

"Uncle Naruto?" Sarada questioned. Somehow, she knew it had to be him by the way her mother complained.

"Yeah," Sakura sighed, placing a defeated hand on her hip. "He said he'd come see you later, Sarada."

"She's alright, Naruto."

"She is!?" The blonde bursted at his old teammate, peering through the mountainous stack of papers on his Hokage's desk. "That's a relief."

"Yeah. Sasuke-kun is talking with her right now."

"I see." He said, letting out a sigh and closing his eyes. "It was my fault that she must've had to go through a lot unnecessary pain. As Hokage, I should've stuck with her at all times in that storage room. I knew there were forbidden materials and that anything could have happened."

He looked towards the pink-haired girl once again.

"Tell her I'll come see her after, alright?"

".. But was it really unnecessary, though?"

The Uchiha patriarch and matriarch looked to their daughter, who displayed a very determined expression.

"Even though I've seen hurtful scenes, I feel like everything was necessary in order to fully understand our clan, including you and dad. Besides, not only did I learn our history, but after hearing all of this, it really helped solidify my goal of becoming Hokage." Sarada added, "I mean, I still have a ways to go, and I want to discover the Will of Fire in my own ninja way. And it may be late, but I really do think that having a Uchiha become the most powerful ninja in the village would represent a major milestone in its reconciliation with the Leaf."

The raven-haired man simply closed his eyes and gave a single nod of his head, to which his wife rejoiced with a grin.

"You know what, Sarada." Sakura says, taking a few steps in before crouching down and leaning forward into her daughter for a hug. "We're so proud of you."

Sarada grinned, throwing her arms around her mother in return. The two of them stayed this way for a few seconds, that is, until a loud gurgling noise interrupted the atmosphere which appeared to be coming from the Uchiha heiress's stomach.

The pink-haired girl chuckled because she could feel it against her own body. "Say, I think it's time for lunch now, isn't it? You must be hungry after all that." Sakura pulled herself away from her daughter.

"I am." Sarada blushed. She was completely famished.

Her mother reached towards the bag containing the onigiri they had made together earlier on in the day, pulling it into her lap and fiddling around with its contents.

"Which ones do you guys want? We made all sorts."

Sasuke watched from the corner of his eye as his daughter leaned towards her mother's side, immediately reaching a hand inside the bag and picking out a perfectly-shaped onigiri, the puffiness of the white rice molding into the grip of her fingers.

She turned towards the raven-haired man, holding the item out at him. "Here, dad."

"Thanks." The Uchiha patriarch took it from her hands nonchalantly.

The pink-haired girl grabbed one from the container for herself before giving another one to her daughter. Sarada accepted it with eagerness, delighted that she could finally satisfy her hunger. The three of them exchanged glances at eachother with a smile before returning their gaze towards the wonderful food in their hands.

"Itadakimasu!" Sakura and Sakura bellowed out in unison before going in for their first bite, to which Sasuke subsequently followed.

The next few moments were spent chewing in silence, taking the sweet time to fully appreciate the gloried taste of the rice balls.

"Do you like it, Sarada?" The pink-haired girl turned to her daughter, who seemed to be chewing cautiously with a wandering eye. "I made sure to include all of your favorite ingredients, salmon roe, seaweed, pic-"

Suddenly, a quiet muffling noise embodied the air, one that soon turned into wretched gags.

"Sasuke-kun!?" Sakura placed her food down before instantaneously rushing to her husbands side and placing a hand on his back, rubbing it up and down. Sasuke held his hand on his mouth in an attempt to keep the food from coming out the wrong way.

"What's wrong, dad? Can't handle a little natto?"

The raven-haired man flicked his eyes over towards his daughter, who continued to chew casually without a care in the world. She wore an all-knowing smirk on her face that triggered her father into giving her a sharp, malicious glare. So that's what was going on.

Sakura raised an eyebrow as her eyes travelled towards the onigiri in her husband's hand, and she widened her eyes in surprise. "Natto..?"

It was then that Sarada found herself beginning to release bouts of giggles, to which she raised a hand over her mouth in an attempt to silence herself after receiving another cold stare from the Uchiha patriarch.

"Even Sakura doesn't know I hate natto." Sasuke says in suspicion while still maintaining a cool tone in his speech. "There's only one person.."

At this, the Uchiha heiress turned her head away and continued to muffle her giggle while her parents exchanged knowing glances.

"I've heard my brother has become quite the man of few words." Itachi said. "He was very active and talked way more as a kid."

"I can't ever imagine that!" Sarada replied, giving a small chuckle to herself. "Dad? Playful and cheery? He's too serious all the time!"

"I'll tell you a secret, Sarada." The elder Uchiha leaned over to his niece's ear and whispered something under his breath. After hearing it, Sarada widened her eyes in surprise and laughed. "I didn't know that! I'm going to try that next time-"

"-You don't think Itachi has been teaching her immature things to bully you, right?" Sakura said out loud, confirming her husband's suspicion.

The raven-haired man rolled his tongue around the insides of his mouth, wincing at the foul taste of slimy natto that was still present on his palate. At this, he placed a hand over his face in a defeated face-palm with utter disgust. Honestly, God knows what his brother had been really up to with his daughter.

"I've never seen you make that kind of face before, dad. You looked like a twisted chicken." Sarada retorted, unable to hold back her laughter.

"Hn." Sasuke answered nonchalantly, completely ignorant towards his daughter's antics. However, he did manage to crack a smile at the small gimmick.

The next few minutes were filled with Sarada bursting out unintelligible phrases, something along the lines of her father being a cold rock. To her dismay, the Uchiha patriarch had expertly managed to drown her out while he took his time in choosing an alternate rice ball that suited his tastes. The sound of the rushing waterbank accompanied her blabbering words while Sakura giggled at the back-and-forth drabbling of her husband and daughter.

However, it wasn't until Sarada was speaking mid-sentence that the corner of her eye had detected a weak, familiar presence from afar. In a quick motion, she stood up and withdrew herself from her parent's vicinity. Her feet took a few steps towards the large rocks that acted as a barrier between her and the adjacent water.

She looked wide-eyed towards the other side of the large riverbank, but soon felt a sinking feeling in her stomach as she blinked and the scene had changed.

"Sarada?"

Her mother called to her, though the Uchiha heiress kept her eyes forward.

For a mere second, she swore she caught sight of Itachi's smiling face as he appeared to have stood on the other side of the waters.

"Is everything okay?" Sakura continued, furrowing her eyebrows with worry as she stood behind at a short distance.

"Yeah," Sarada whispered in a mellow tone, quickly blinking thrice just to make sure. "I was just dreaming."

She turned her back around to face her parents, who now stood side by side and watched her with intent to try and figure out what she was thinking.

There was no denying that she still felt frustration over the events that happened to her clan.

If the Uchiha's weren't under suspicion, Itachi would have never been cornered.

If Itachi never went through with the massacre, her father could have had a happy childhood.

Likewise, if Sasuke had only decided to spend more time with her at home, maybe they could've had this conversation much earlier. If Sakura didn't try so hard to shield her from something that was completely inevitable, she would've been slightly more prepared to receive everything in one blow.

Just then, she began to shake her head rapidly, forcefully erasing all of the could've been's and should've been's. What happened in the past, already happened.

All that mattered now was that at this moment, she was happy because it genuinely felt like the three of them were a family. That's right. At this rate, her father could go on a million more journeys if he wanted to; her mother could be as annoying and over-protective as she pleased. In the end, this family exhibited nothing but perfection.

The corner of Sarada's eyes crinkled into a smile, one that resonated with the bittersweet feeling inside her chest.

After all, no clan loves harder than the Uchiha.

Fin.

A/N: It's finally over! Thank you to everybody who have been following along T u T. I read somewhere that this was how Sasuke eventually proposed to Sakura (be it canon or not), and I thought it was really cute and couldn't resist putting it in somewhere.

I will now be going through an editing process of this story before I move onto my next series.. If I don't end up getting too lazy about it. However, I'd also like to announce that this chapter will be followed by a short epilogue. So don't leave just yet~