Deep, purple crinkles decorated the pale skin under Hinata's eyes the next morning. Her stomach shrunk into a tiny ball of anxiety, sending waves of nausea all over her body.
She prepared breakfast for the kids, but it felt as though she was watching the movements of her hand from outside of her own body. Even the sloppy kiss she received from Himawari before she left with Boruto to spend the day in the Hyuuga compound brushed the skin of her cheeks with cold unfamiliarity.
Glancing at the wrinkles etched between two perfectly shaped blond eyebrows, it seemed like she wasn't the only tense one this morning.
Walking toward the interrogation building, heavy silence stretched between the two of them. The absence of sound whirled around the duo as though they were walking in a timeless void. Occasionally, the bubble of stillness burst when villagers greeted them with wide smiles and enthusiastic good mornings. They both politely smiled back accompanied by a nod of their head but otherwise, they focused their mind on the dreadful task they were heading toward.
The procedure of the examination wasn't scaring Hinata, nor was she afraid of the possibility that her memories were indeed fabricated as Naruto and Sakura assumed. What really frightened her was the minuscule possibility that the procedure might erase her memories. Imagining losing her husband and children all at once drove a dagger through her already breaking heart.
An evil little voice whispered to her ear that she had already lost Sasuke—in this reality, he wasn't hers. And he most probably was an entirely different person himself.
The tall building built with white bricks loomed over Hinata as if it was warning her to turn around and run as far as she could. She halted in her tracks, the muscles in her legs stiffening as though they had turned into stone.
"Hinata?" Naruto looked back at her curiously from inside, holding the door open for her.
"I'm sorry," she breathed out.
"Are you nervous?" Naruto's tone sounded kind, but the way his irises narrowed couldn't be missed. The spark of distrust cut deeper than any blade could have.
Her chest rising high as she filled her lungs with air, Hinata pinched the skin on her forearm, driving her fingernails deep into her skin. The time wasn't right to get consumed by worry—she was finally about to leave behind all the suspicion and wariness she had faced during the last few days.
Following Naruto closely behind as they climbed stairs that felt as though they were leading up to the sky, Hinata's doubts slowly evaporated. She knew she wasn't insane, and this was her chance to prove it.
Although when she stepped into the interrogation room and the all too familiar scent of pine and sage floated through her system to wrap itself around her heart, Hinata couldn't help but pin her gaze to the ground.
The air stilled in the tiny room with sterile white walls and shiny linoleum and Hinata shuddered under the quizzical glares of the familiar yet unfamiliar acquaintances.
"Naruto, you ordered me home to solve a critical matter," a cold, reprimanding tone cut into the silence, turning Hinata's stomach. Goosebumps ran up her arms as she failed to recognize the person she had grown so attached to behind the stern voice. "The last thing I expected is your wife tagging along. If this is—"
"We're examining her memories," Naruto cut Sasuke off before he could finish.
"What?" the high-pitched yell of a woman was accompanied by a scratching sound as a chair's legs slid on the floor. Despite the deafening screech, Hinata recognized the wavy melody of Ino's voice. "Why didn't you tell me it would be Hinata?"
Biting off the dry skin of her chapped lips, Hinata slowly raised her head. Her pale eyes immediately found Sasuke's mismatched ones, and she almost choked on the sharp inhale she took as suspicious irises observed her.
The gaze she remembered was full of tender love, but these eyes mirrored nothing but disinterest.
As unapproachable as this version of her husband was, Hinata still internally fought tooth and nail to suppress the urge to run into his arms—or rather, arm. As she tore her gaze away from the austere features, her eyes settled on the deflated left sleeve of Sasuke's shirt. Her heart palpitating in her chest, Hinata pressed her lips together to hinder her agony from distorting her features.
An image of Kosuke, sitting on his father's lap in their living room, inspecting Sasuke's arms thoroughly blinded Hinata for a moment.
"You should spend more time in the sun, Father," Kosuke mumbled as his small hands gripped onto Sasuke's left hand, turning it around several times. "Your skin is so white."
Hinata giggled as she rolled the ball toward Aiko who was sitting on the floor with her legs spread, impatiently waiting for her mother to continue playing with her. Hiroki looked up from his book and stared at his father. The man slid his hand out of Kosuke's hold to roll up the long sleeve of his shirt that covered his right arm.
He straightened both his arms, showing them to his son. "I can't do much about it."
Kosuke tilted his head to the side as he pushed his index finger between his lips—it was a usual motion for him when it came to thinking hard about something. "Your other arm isn't that white."
"It's because Father lost his left arm in battle and he got a new one made of the First Hokage's cells. His arm is white because it's not his real arm," Hiroki commented as he buried himself in his book again. He only looked up again when he noticed the stares of his parents not faltering.
"How do you know this, Hiroki?" Sasuke questioned as he let Kosuke brush the skin on his arms with his short fingers, searching for a difference in texture.
Hiroki let his long hair fall forward to cover his eyes. "I asked Uncle Shino about it the last time he visited."
Hinata and Sasuke exchanged knowing looks—it was the first time that their son clearly lied.
As Ino moved into Hinata's line of vision and reached out to hold her hand, the memory dissipated and Hinata gawked into troubled light blue eyes. The last time she had seen these exact same pupils they were clouded with tears. At that time, instead of the pleasant aroma of vanilla, the sour, iron smell of blood emanated from the blonde woman.
"Ino," Hinata's voice trembled as she squeezed Ino's hand, the motion giving her a sense of safety. "You have to search through my mind. You're the only one who can find the key in my memories."
Sasuke's eyebrows knitted together. "The key for what?"
Naruto took a step forward, drawing everyone's attention to him. "Everything you see or hear in this room must be treated as an SS-rank secret."
Sasuke nodded without hesitation, but Ino's grip around Hinata's hand turned tighter, feeling as though she could break a bone or two of the delicate hand. Swallowing a hiss, Hinata endured the strong clutch.
Under the three impatient gazes, Ino slowly bobbed her head with a motion that looked more like obeying an order than a sincere will.
"She's not Hinata."
Naruto's declaration was followed by uncomfortable silence.
Abruptly, Ino let go of Hinata's hand as though her palm had been burnt by a blazing fire. The hasty motion prickled Hinata's heart.
"I'm not sure I understand," Sasuke noted, raking his analytical gaze through Hinata.
Folding her arms to protect herself from the doubtful glare, Hinata cleared her throat. "That's not exactly true. I am Hinata. Just not the Hinata you know."
Ino took a few unsure steps back until her hips collided against the backrest of a chair and she crumbled on it, her lips slightly parted. Her pale blue eyes desperately searched for brighter blue ones while Sasuke's face scrunched up in alarming apprehension. The way he discreetly placed his only remaining hand on the hilt of his katana sent a chill down Hinata's spine.
"I mean no harm," Hinata rushed out the words. "I just want to return home."
Sasuke's eyes narrowed. "Which is where precisely?"
"In an alternate dimension, I suppose."
"We're here to find out what exactly happened to Hinata," Naruto quickly added. The emphasis he put on the word 'exactly' boiled the blood in Hinata's veins—she was sick and tired of being suspected as an impostor, a liar, someone who cannot be trusted. Someone who had lost her mind.
The sharp, resolute looks Naruto and Sasuke exchanged prompted Hinata to tense her muscles. For some reason, she felt as though they had just made a silent pact with each other to do whatever would be necessary.
Ino's somber voice bounced from wall to wall in the small room as she stared into Hinata's eyes. "Where's the real Hinata then?"
Swallowing the sharp remark about her being real as well, Hinata answered in an unfaltering tone. "I don't know, but I wish for her to be unharmed."
Shooing away the grizzly mental picture of blood, dead bodies, and deathly jutsus being thrown, Hinata hardened her features.
"This is crazy," Ino mumbled, massaging her temple.
A long, painful moan escaping her lips, Ino pushed herself up from the chair and gestured Hinata to take her place. Hinata slid on the uncomfortable wooden chair, her stomach churning from anxiety. Ino's cold fingertips on her temples sent a wave of shivers through her body, but the dragging sensation of someone stepping into her mind didn't come.
Hesitantly, Ino glanced at the two men in the room. "I can bring one of you with me."
"You can?" Naruto mused.
"Yes, but only one of you. I'm still experimenting with this technique. I can't promise I would be able to bring both of you with me without issues."
Sasuke leaned against the wall and made an urging motion with his head. "Go, Naruto."
Carefully avoiding the mismatched gaze, Naruto uttered, "I think you should go, Sasuke."
The unamused snort that tore from Sasuke's throat echoed in the small space, leaving a sore twinging in Hinata's heart. "You're the Hokage. And she's your wife."
Ocean blue eyes locked with darker ones as Naruto crossed his arms in front of his chest, furrowing his eyebrows. "You know more about both genjutsu and alternate dimensions than me. You should go."
Hinata winced at the blatantly open declaration of Naruto's suspicion about her being under a genjutsu. She itched to tell Ino that she should bring Naruto, but Sasuke pushing himself away from the wall and walking next to them made her gulp.
For a moment, dizziness took over her mind, realizing Sasuke was at an arm's length now.
"I will go," he stated and lowered himself on the empty chair next to Hinata.
Their eyes locked for a short moment before Ino placed her hands on their heads and they entered Hinata's mindscape with a nauseating pull around their brains.
Fighting off the stubborn retching of her stomach, Hinata let out a deep breath. Pushing her abdomen with one hand, she focused her gaze on one point of the dusty ground to stop the world from spinning.
Once the threat of throwing up disappeared, she lifted her head to look around. She had been in her own mindscape once—a few years ago, Ino had to look through her memories to find an important clue about an enemy ninja Hinata had laid eyes upon with her Byakugan.
Her mindscape hadn't changed much since then. She was in the middle of a forest, sunbeams shining through the leaves of the trees. As she admired the green leaves, a cold breeze brushed her skin, decorating her arms with small bumps. This breeze hadn't been part of her mindscape before.
She spotted Ino and Sasuke a few feet away—Sasuke leaning against the thick trunk of a tree and Ino squatting down, diving her fingers into the dusty ground. Her lips were moving, but they were too far away for Hinata to be able to hear the words being spoken.
Taking a deep breath, Hinata dashed forward.
"Welcome to my mind." She bowed her head to the two visitors when she reached them and kept her head low until Ino straightened. "In my world, we've already done this once, so I'm familiar with the process. My memories are represented by leaves, and each of them holds a recollection."
Ino and Sasuke followed Hinata's gaze which was fixated on the myriad of leaves all around them. On each leaf, a word was engraved with the fine lines of calligraphy.
Sasuke shifted his eyes at the thick branch next to his head. It was full of leaves in every shade of the color green. Without a word, he stretched out his hand to rip one of them off. Suddenly thin, lean fingers clasped around his wrist, successfully hindering him from going through with the motion. Scowling, he glared into the reprimanding eyes.
"Let her choose," Ino declared as she let go of Sasuke's wrist. His head moving in a small nod, Sasuke pulled back his arm.
The expectant postures urging her to hurry, Hinata dived her hands into the dense foliage. Otherworldly instincts lead her searching fingers through the abundance of leaves until her fingertips brushed the exact leaf she had been looking for.
"Let's start with this one," she said as she detached the weak stem from the bough.
As soon as the connection between leaf and branch ceased to exist, the surroundings started swiveling around them and the tall trees meshed into greenish walls of a stadium. Hinata silently pointed toward two figures, their hands clashing against each other repeatedly with buzzing sparks of chakra.
"That's you and Neji," Ino stated as she tore her gaze from the youngsters of the memory to look up to the gallery. "This is the first chuunin exam we took."
"Yes, it is. I'm showing this to you so you can trust me when I say I'm truly Hinata."
The corner of Sasuke's eyes twitched. "Is it a real memory?"
With two clenched fingers raised, Ino closed her eyes in concentration. Her posture became stiff for long moments before her muscles relaxed and she opened her eyes again. "Yes, it is."
As Ino's words lingered in the air, the memory ended with the hilt of Neji's hand diving deep into Hinata's chest.
The breeze of the forest of her mindscape swayed Hinata's hair in front of her face, but without tucking it back behind her ears, she just let the leaf in her hand fall onto the ground.
The next chosen memory brought them to the middle of a destroyed Konoha. They listened as a younger version of Hinata confessed her love for Naruto while the boy was restricted with black rods. Laying eyes upon the orange-haired man wearing the unmistakable Akatsuki robe still sent chills down Hinata's spine.
The only reaction Sasuke gave was a single twitch of his eyebrows. "Is it real?" he turned to Ino, unamused.
"I will tell you when it's fake," Ino grumbled under her breath.
Sasuke crinkled his nose and turned back to the scene just in time to see the Hinata of the memory getting stabbed in the abdomen as the scene dissipated.
"I will show you a memory of the time where our realities must've parted," Hinata uttered as she pinched a new leaf between her fingers. A rupture caused by her fingernails ran through it before she balled her fist around the leaf and ripped it off the twig it was attached to.
Upon finding themselves in front of an ocean of weeping villagers dressed in pitch black, Ino visibly winced, but as dutiful as she was, she quickly screened the memory for clues of falsity.
After she bobbed her head toward Sasuke, the man followed Hinata's gaze. His eyes were captured by the scene of a younger Hinata in the front row, crumbling to her knees. The shriek that left her parted lips had the power of tearing an eardrum, but nobody seemed to be concerned with her open display of anguish. Instead, people were buried in their own misery.
Hanabi crouched down next to the pitiable figure of Hinata, raking her fingers through her sister's long hair with soothing motions. On her other side, Kurenai was hooking an arm under her student's shoulder, nudging her to get back to her feet, but Hinata only screamed, pushing her forehead against the dirty ground.
Dozens of white roses she had dropped when she fell on her knees were scattered all around her, their petals flying away with the wind.
"Where are we?" Ino whispered, her faint voice sounding hoarse.
Wiping away the tears threatening to stream down her cheeks, Hinata answered, "At a funeral."
The sound of her own agonizing screech that dominated the memory pushed the air out of Hinata's lungs. This memory was one she never wanted to remember—and yet, it was one that haunted her every day ever since she had lived through it.
Not being able to watch her own suffering anymore, Hinata turned around to finally face the dreaded mental image that had been her silent companion for long years.
Ino gasped and covered her mouth with her hands when she followed Hinata's motion. Sasuke only turned his head toward the direction his companions were staring. His eyes widened for no more than a second, but slowly, he turned toward the scene with his whole body.
The two photos placed on the podium showed an eerie contrast with the crowd of the grieving. The smiling faces and the colorful tufts of hair—sunshine blond and cherry pink—vibrated in the gloomy greyness.
Hinata couldn't help but notice how Sasuke's chest rose high as he took a deep breath. "What happened to them?"
"Assassination." The simple answer bounced between the three of them, weighing on their chests as though they had been buried under tons of rock.
"How can they be killed?" Ino's whisper was hardly audible. "The Byakugou seal… Kurama…"
A shadow ran through Hinata's face. "It takes wicked genius, but anybody can be killed." Pregnant silence settled between the three of them, the shriek of Hinata of the memory blending into the background. "Their death triggered the fifth war."
"The fifth war?" Ino yelped. "But when was this?"
Hinata looked up, quickly counting all the years that had passed while their surroundings started swirling back into the familiar forest. "Thirteen years ago."
Sasuke's eyes were pinned to the place where the crowd used to be, his tightly pressed lips slightly trembling—whether from anger or disbelief.
"You returned only after the funeral," Hinata commented, answering his silent question. The shrunk, mismatched irises shifted at her with curiosity whirling in them, but before a sound could leave Sasuke's mouth, Hinata ripped of leaf coated in vital green. "I will show you one more memory before we move on to the last one."
Ino's and Sasuke's postures stiffened, most probably they were expecting yet another crying crowd. Instead, they found themselves in a peaceful scene.
The living room they were standing in smelled of the sweet fragrance of lavender and plum and the boisterous laughter of children filled the scene. The source of the joyful chuckles was seated around a wide dinner table in the form of a little boy and a girl. As they whispered into each other's ears, the third child only folded his arms and stared in the direction of the closed door.
"Will Father get here in time?" he asked, and the woman in the kitchen with waist-length blueish hair turned around.
As Hinata caught sight of herself, she unconsciously lifted her hand to stroke her hair—her physical reminder that she was in the wrong dimension.
A gentle smile curled Hinata's lips as she observed the memory of herself grabbing a bowl full of food, moving to put it in the middle of the table. "He's never late. Enjoy the food."
"But Father is—" the boy started again, but a voice coming from the hallway interrupted him.
"I'm home."
The sharp breath that Sasuke took in prompted Hinata to glance at him from the corner of her eyes. She knew what the tensed shoulders meant—she had massaged uneasiness out of them at least a thousand times.
The door revealed a way too familiar figure—Sasuke himself stood there, looking exactly the same as the Sasuke that stood between Hinata and Ino, apart from the fact that he had two hands.
"Papa!" the two younger kids jumped into his arms with joyful yells. The unexpected weight of two children prompted his knees to bend slightly, but he managed to stay on his feet as four small hands wrapped around his neck.
"I'm home," he whispered into the black and indigo hair before the memory faded.
Swinging herself back and forth on her legs, Hinata waited for either Ino or Sasuke to say something. Neither of them addressed the reality they had just witnessed though. Articulating words must've been much harder than impaling Hinata with an enigmatic glare.
Stubbornly, Hinata glared back into the familiar yet so different eyes.
"Was it a real memory?" Even though Sasuke's question was meant for Ino, he didn't turn his gaze away from Hinata even for a second.
"Y-Yes," Ino mumbled.
"I'm sure you have a lot of questions, but we can't discuss them now. I need to show you the last thing I remember of my own reality," Hinata said as she touched a leaf hanging alone, attached to a thin branch. "We have to pay attention to every single detail. We can't miss anything. Everything could be important," she declared as she detached the leaf and the scene shifted.
Shivers ran through Hinata's entire being as she found herself back at this dreadful place. She spent such a long time in the limbo dimension reliving this one particular memory that she felt like she could recite every single detail about it. Although, none of them seemed to give her a clue about how to go back to her own reality.
The place they were in was once a forest—right now, it was nothing but purged, hardened ground with the remains of several twisted out or burnt trees.
Ino crouched down to examine the burnt soil under her feet. "What happened here?"
"War," the word rolled of Hinata's tongue, leaving a sour aftertaste behind.
"You've never mentioned who you're in a war with," Sasuke noted, his eyebrows furrowing.
Letting the painfully suspicious tone pass her ear, Hinata made a motion with her head toward a group of people laying completely still on the ground. Abruptly, one of them that seemed to be a male jolted up into a sitting position. After he examined the female figure lying next to him, he rose to his feet, his movements careful and vigilant. Clutching the woman's hand in a tight grasp, he pulled her up.
Despite their torn clothes hanging on their bodies and their skin covered in muddy blood, their identities were unmistakable.
Hinata and Sasuke.
"Can you stand?" the Sasuke of the memory asked, supporting Hinata by her waist.
"I'm alright," she breathed out and gently pushed Sasuke's protecting arm away. "The others?"
She made a motion that suggested she was about to crouch down to examine the wounds of their unconscious comrades, but the violent shaking of the ground under their feet hindered her from doing so.
"Where are the children?" Sasuke yelled through the noise as he steadied himself.
"I left them at the hideout."
Sasuke's grunt could clearly be heard even from the fair distance the inspectors of the memory were standing. "It's too close."
"The village is under attack, I couldn't take them there," Hinata retorted.
Sasuke's lips opened in a response, but he was cut off by a bright beam of lightning approaching them fast. Instincts taking over, they both jumped back to dodge the attack—and now they were separated.
The attack caught all the people still lying on the ground with a deafening burst of energy. All the bodies lit up for a second before they burned to ash and Hinata's lips parted in a scream of grief.
Sasuke's Sharingan glowed up in crimson red as he dashed forward toward the source of the attack. Not to lose sight of him, Hinata shrugged off her shock and activated her Byakugan.
Spinning around, she blocked an incoming attack behind her.
An attack that came in the form of a snake.
"Orochimaru," the Sasuke observing Hinata's memories hissed. "Is he the one behind the war?"
"No, but he takes advantage of it," Hinata answered in a low tone as though talking would disturb her concentration.
The Hinata of the memory evaded all the attacks with blue bursts of chakra. Even though she was on the defense, she didn't hesitate when the opportunity to strike back arose. Her veiny eyes glistening, she swung her body forward, collecting chakra around her hands.
Yellowly glowing snaky eyes narrowed and the blue-haired enemy extended his arms in the form of snakes. Hinata's hands aimed at the white creatures, but her opponent caught her off guard when he let almost all of the snakes' heads get chopped off. Apart from one, which now twisted itself around Hinata's ankles, its sharp teeth leaving behind two deep, bloody wounds.
Muffling a yelp of pain, Hinata cut the head of the serpent off with the hilt of her hand and distanced herself from her attacker. Her breathing steadily became ragged as she lowered herself on one knee, pushing her palm against the bubbly crimson liquid streaming down her ankles. Panting, the veins of her Byakugan slowly receded.
Sasuke emerged from the scorched woods, followed by a pursuer strikingly similar to the foe Hinata had been fighting. Apart from the obvious age difference, they looked exactly the same, from the shade of their blue hair to their near-white skin.
"Hinata," the Sasuke of the memory called out, blocking an attack with his katana.
"I'm fine, don't mind me," she shouted back and staggered to her feet.
The noise of blade clashing against blade suddenly got replaced with the disgusting, stomach-twisting laugh of Orochimaru.
The eyes of Hinata and Sasuke of the memory locked for a moment before mismatched eyes grew large. Next to a twisted-out tree, there was someone who shouldn't have been there.
"Aiko!" Sasuke shouted, exchanging places with his opponent using his Rinnegan.
The blue-haired man effortlessly bypassed him, a giant, glowing ball forming in his hands. Sasuke spun around with a Chidori in hand, slicing through the torso of his opponent without much difficulty.
He was only one second late. The screaming ball of lightning had already left the palm of the now unmoving man, flying toward the wide-eyed little girl.
"It's too late," the Sasuke observing the scene hissed as he watched the flaring up Susanoo of his counterpart.
The Hinata of the memory jumped toward Aiko, stretching out her arms. His opponent, strangely, did not care for them—he extended his snaky arms toward the impaled figure, wrapping it into a tight clutch.
As Hinata watched herself closing her arms around Aiko's fragile body, hugging the girl tightly to her bosom and turning her back to the attack, dizziness spun her world around. Each breath she took felt like a burning stab through her lungs.
If only she knew whether Aiko had survived.
Sasuke's desperate calling out for her echoed in Hinata's ear as the burnt trunks and the smell of blood twirled into a green forest and the scent of damp moss.
"This is my last memory about my reality," she mumbled as she watched the leaf dance around in the air before it fell onto the ground.
"We should discuss this with Naruto," Sasuke suggested, his voice perfectly masked in nonchalant straightforwardness.
Hinata's eyes wandered over his fingers, tapping on the hilt of his katana attached to his waist—a motion so subtle it was only visible to someone who had spent more than a decade being at his side.
"Ino," Sasuke called out, hardening his voice to get a reaction from the blonde woman.
"Yes, sorry," she mumbled, shaking her head. "We will leave."
The strange discomfort in the back of her brain instantly dulled all of Hinata's senses as she was dragged out from her own mindscape.
Her eyes snapping open, she almost slid off the chair from the unexpected giddiness. The lucid white light coming from the lamp above their head hurt her irises, but she forced her eyelids to stay open.
Ino's thin fingers slipped off Hinata's head and her body pressed against the back of Hinata's chair. Turning her head to check on the mind-reading kunoichi, Hinata caught sight of a ghost-pale face and damp blonde locks. Instinctively, she rose from her seat and placed steady palms on Ino's shoulders to help her stay on her feet.
A calloused hand hardened under battle also reached out at the very same moment to provide support for the feeble body. As Sasuke deftly placed his hand over Hinata's to steady Ino, Hinata gulped a moan of longing. She had missed Sasuke's touch.
Even though her mind screamed at her that this version of Sasuke was not her husband, instincts curled Hinata's little finger upward, latching onto one of Sasuke's digits. The uncomfortable twitch of Sasuke's finger coursed through her as a pang and Hinata quickly hid her pinkie under Sasuke's palm.
In her reality, this motion provided comfort for Sasuke.
In this reality, the motion stirred uneasiness and confusion.
Shame burnt her cheeks.
"Thank you," Ino breathed out and Sasuke's hand quickly disappeared, tucking it into his pocket. "I'm alright now."
Taking a deep breath to collect her thoughts, Hinata's eyes found Naruto leaning against the wall with his eyes closed and his arms folded. The gentle furrowing of his eyebrows suggested he was having an inner conversation with Kurama.
Even though she had been telling the truth all along, worry balled Hinata's stomach. How Naruto would react to the news was a mystery, but the revelation barreled toward them. When the ocean blue gaze opened and shot a hopeful glance toward her, Hinata felt like throwing up.
"She has real memories," Ino stated.
Naruto's nod was painfully slow. The hope swirling in his azure eyes twisted into deep, shocked sorrow as his knuckles turned white, squeezing his own arm.
The weight of the moment trembled Hinata's legs. She parted her lips to provide some kind of comfort for the man she had never stopped admiring, but sharp eyes moved into her eyesight, staring down at her with determination.
"We have a lot to discuss."
I've never been more excited and more anxious about publishing a chapter. I know how much you all waited for Sasuke's appearance and he's finally here! I'm not entirely sure if this was how you all imagined their first encounter or I did something entirely different from what you had expected, but I hope I did not leave any of you disappointed.
Also, a kind reader pointed out that flashback scenes would be easier to distinguish if they were written in italics. I incorporated the suggestion in this chapter and I plan to do it this way from now on.
I would love to thank all of you for joining me on this journey! I read every single review I receive and you guys never fail to put a wide smile on my face. Thank you for your continuous support!