Minato remembers the first time he saw her. The memory has attained the patina of an antique, incessant mental fingering wearing down anything vulnerable until only the core, diamond hard and constitutive, remains.

The first thing he noticed was the polka dot pattern of her dress, which stood out and not in a good way: a young girl's dress, worn by a small, reserved woman moving with the birdlike uncertainty of old age. The next thing he noticed was her face, which was striking but not pretty: broad forehead, sharp cheekbones, uppity nose.

By the time he was looking at her face, it was hours after he'd seen and dismissed the dress. He'd ended up next to her, going up a staircase she was coming down. She held an empty glass, but the drink had made her quieter, jerkier, instead of relaxing her.

Minato didn't recognise her, didn't know her name or who'd invited her. He just saw the glitter of her nails drumming against that empty glass, saw her gaze slide past him to fasten on, suddenly caught out by, a painting behind him. An early Vanessa Bell still life, one of the set pieces of his childhood. And so he'd stopped there in the middle of the stairs, touched her elbow and caught her eye.

Two hours later he was in love. It was inexplicable, but then that's the nature of love.

Kakashi never asked. Kakashi would have never asked. But Kakashi watched with hungry eyes, his silence a demand and a reprimand, when Minato's mother asked, some months after he'd first met Yui, What is it about her?

I don't know, Minato admitted, carelessly rather because the admittance signalled the opposite of defeat. If I started pointing out specific features to justify my affection – that would mean it was over, you know?

Kakashi looked down then, in understanding, though Tsunade didn't.

Later, outside, waiting for Yui, Minato confirmed, You know.

Yes, Kakashi said, looking out over the lake, which was artificial and unlovely. It's like they say. If you asked me to say why I loved him, I could say no more than, Because it was he, because it was I.

Minato can't remember anymore if he answered, because the next frame shows Yui walking towards him over the grass. Her figure in memory is limned by august light, transfigured into an icon, a symbol of summer romance.

It's not a spectacular love story, he never pretends it is. Boy meets girl, talks to girl, sleeps with girl, falls in love with girl. It's happened to millions of people, it happens all the time.

It was never one of those great loves, it was never the kind of love that you might get lost in, never the kind of love that people write songs about. He could see it reflected in Kakashi's wary, judgemental eyes, the knowledge that it was all just ordinary, finite and mundane. He might be politic about it, he might call it an adult, a mature, a reasonable love. The sort of love that lends itself to a saddening but amicable divorce, the sort of love that lets you stay friends afterwards.

In contrast, he's never managed to remember the first time he met Kushina. This is to be expected, since they've always been part of each other's lives, long before memory began.

He'd have to be blind not to see that she's better suited for him. He thinks he even admitted it, one of the few shameful times he was drunk around Kakashi: that if this was a movie he was watching, he'd be exasperated by his own character, his inability to see sense and respond to it. Stupid Romeo refusing to leave Rosaline behind for Juliet. He can see it, he's always been able to see it, Kushina understands him and is good for him and he needs Kushina to live, he even loves Kushina, but he's never been in love with Kushina, and understanding that he ought to be can't change that. In the end, love is not a choice.

"I can't understand it," he says in the present. "Not really. Naruto's – life or death intensity about it all."

"Well," Kushina says, fairly lightly. "To be fair to him, it was rather a life or death situation."

"You know what I mean. Even after, he was still…"

"I know." She says it softer than she might have. Of course she knows. She always knows.

She leans over, red curls against his cheek and the smell of jasmine and sweat filling his nose, and kisses his face.

Afterwards she stops by the kitchen, where Konohamaru's leaning over Tsunade's shoulder, trying to mimic her energy manipulation. Kushina sneaks up to ruffle his hair, and he's still young enough, just barely, to lean into her touch. Naruto too had trouble with this, she remembers, though unfortunately for different reasons: Konohamaru, more's the pity, has never been the child with so much excess power that even an adult might have trouble controlling it.

"Is Dad coming soon?" Konohamaru asks.

"He'd better," Kushina says. "Or I suspect he might find a certain little wildling invading his office, hmm?"

It's funny – she's decided it's funny, so that it doesn't have to be anything else – that Minato's guilt over finding himself unable to love Konohamaru in quite the reckless, senseless way he loves Naruto has lead him to overcompensate to the point that both boys are quietly, unquestioningly convinced that he loves Konohamaru more.

Well, Konohamaru has two parents who love him. Naruto, with only Minato left, and more importantly with Sasuke simmering and uncooperative, perhaps needs someone to love him best.

"Bye, Maru," she says in her best motherly voice, pressing a kiss to his underwashed hair. She always makes sure to see Konohamaru before meeting Mikoto, to summon up the appropriate moral outrage. She's never considered herself a particularly maternal woman – honestly Konohamaru was an accident, and if they hadn't needed to establish a dynasty she would have aborted him – but to hand him over to anyone, much less to Orochimaru, oh never, never…

It's only a ten minute walk to the restaurant where Mikoto, always compulsively punctual, is already waiting. Her appearance, Kushina's reminded, is very much Sasuke's. There's nothing of Fugaku in the littlest Uchiha, who has his mother's face and features, his mother's hands and hair, only he wears them so differently that the similarity is obscured, hidden away.

"I'm not late, am I," she says, slipping onto her chair.

Mikoto smiles politely, that perennial close-lipped smile that means absolutely nothing. "I'm happy you could make it." It's easy to forget – Mikoto takes care that it's easy to forget – that she's the true Uchiha heiress. Fugaku's the distant cousin, adopted into the main family because of their marriage: Mikoto's the real deal.

They've spent so many hours together, through years of being faction queens, and yet there's this impenetrable wall. Sasuke might be difficult, but he's difficult in a way that Kushina can get a handle on: Mikoto remains enigmatic, incomprehensible and untouchable.

"I assume you must be busy," Mikoto says while Kushina signals for coffee.

"Hmm?"

"I understand you must be engaged in negotiations with Orochimaru."

"Well, no," Kushina says, because she's been feeling sorry, in a theoretical way, for Sasuke, but now suddenly at this unsubtle prodding she's sorry for Mikoto. "There's nothing to negotiate, really. Sasuke's family now. We don't give up family."

"Right," Mikoto says faintly, and pity leaves as abruptly as it came.

"Jesus, Mikoto. You and Fugaku won't protect him, fine – you could at least be grateful someone else does. He's your child."

"He's not ours," Mikoto says blankly. "He's Orochimaru's."

"And now he's ours."

Mikoto offers a movement that would be a shrug, if she were the kind of person who shrugged. "That's between you and Orochimaru."

"Could you stop? I realise this is your public stance, but –"

"Sasuke," Mikoto says, any emotion iced out of her voice, "allowed himself to be defiled by a beast. If he'd still been part of our family when this occurred – well, he would not have been anymore. This sort of moral failure is simply…it cannot be countenanced."

Kushina lifts her eyebrows, stirring sugar and more sugar into her coffee. She's long past the point of personal insult. "You're suggesting a physically human child should have overpowered Kyuubi? I must say, you have a great deal of faith in him."

Mikoto, who never talks with her hands, makes an impatient gesture. "If he'd fought to the last and been overpowered, that would have been a weakness of the body. He chose not to. That is a weakness of the soul." She lifts her tea cup, on the clear impulse to gag the flow of words, but ultimately puts it down without drinking. "He could have easily pushed Kyuubi to the point where self defence kicked in, then he could have obliterated him."

Kushina isn't honestly sure whether it was a case of Minato underestimating the self defence release, or of Minato never truly doubting that Sasuke would ultimately comply, which can only mean that Minato himself isn't honestly sure. It had better not be a case of Minato risking them all just so that Naruto could be killed by Sasuke rather than by the matesickness, so he must have been at least reasonably certain that things would go Naruto's way.

"That's a small, sad world you're living in," Kushina remarks. She says it around a mouthful of coffee, with honesty certainly but without rancour.

Over the years she's said much worse to Mikoto, who called Kushina's adoptive son a defiling beast not five minutes ago – it's a startling thing when Mikoto snaps, "And your life, then? All this sanctimonious talk of family – you've never loved anyone. You were forced into bondage with a man who didn't want you."

"I love Konohamaru," Kushina says, and everything has shifted and changed, she's the one speaking mildly to Mikoto's faintly flushed cheeks. "In fact, if that's the criteria we're using, I love a great deal of people too much to hand them over to a lifetime of enslavement and torture at the hands of a psychopath."

Bu that's no real denial, because of course Mikoto's right, for all the good it does her. For Minato there was Yui, and they're both aware that his lasting obsession is linked to the manner of her death, but knowing it doesn't change it. If Yui's life had been lost to a traffic accident, to an illness, it wouldn't have broken him. Perhaps he could, eventually, have loved someone else.

For Minato in any event there was Yui. Kushina for her part has never been in love with someone else. Nor with Minato either, truly. She didn't let herself be.

It would, she's aware, not have been difficult. She's loved him most of her life, and their bond is balanced and was welcome: it would've been easy, then, to fall in love with him. But it would've been a fool's game, when consummating the bond seemed to him an act of unfaithfulness, when he loved a girl who'd born him a son.

So there hasn't been him and there hasn't been anyone else. Maybe it's better that way. Maybe it's worse.

"I'm surprised," Mikoto says at last, poise regained and ruthless, "that nothing was done earlier. It seems so accepted now, this idea that it must be Sasuke."

"Well," Kushina says, on the far side of it becoming obvious and unable to backtrack into a time when it was not. "Forming mate bonds with exorcists is exceptionally rare."

"Indeed," Mikoto agrees.

"Mmh. Haku and Zabuza and – well, Haku and Zabuza."

"You will – keep him, then," Mikoto says abruptly.

"For better or for worse."

xxxxx

They've finally arrived and are getting out of the cars when Temari stops him, hands him her phone. "It's Hayate. I've put him on speaker."

"Hayate, hi," Naruto says. "What's up?"

"We've got a situation," Hayate tells him. "Speaker might not be the best idea for this."

Sasuke lifts a pointed eyebrow.

"It's fine," Naruto says.

"All right. We've got somewhere in the region of 50-100 supposedly anti-shifter humans in the southeast woods. Armed, but not professionally. More troublingly, we've had credible reports that they're bringing two or three beastmads. Who helped them get those under control, we don't know at this point. Unit 1 through 3 have received their marching orders."

Beastmads – shifters who have lost their humanity, have become containers for their inners beasts, all predator instinct and berserker strength. No, an ordinary band of humans could never control them.

"Cancel those," Naruto tells him. He meets Sasuke's eyes. "Keep the units here. We'll go."

"Naruto," Hayate starts. "This needs to be contained."

"We'll take care of it," Naruto says.

Temari makes an impatient sound. "For fuck's sake."

"It'll be great," Naruto insists. "It'll be a bonding experience."

Sasuke snorts. "I think I've had enough bonding with you."

"Oh yeah? You'd rather stay here and hang out with the gang than hunt down some hostiles?"

"Che. Fine."

Naruto's heart flutters, because Sasuke grins. His real grin, the one forbidden first by Mikoto and then by Orochimaru. It looks strokey, the left side of his mouth curving upwards but the right remaining flat: half a smile. It's an incredibly ugly expression even on Sasuke's very pretty face.

"I'm not sure about this," Hayate says.

"If things really go south, I'll let Kyuubi out to clean house."

"All right," Hayate sighs. "It's your decision."

"Why don't you just do that?" Sasuke asks. "Let Kyuubi clean house."

Naruto shrugs. "I don't like to do that. If I'm gonna hurt people, I should take responsibility for it. Make sure it's no worse than it has to be." He jumps out of the car. "Let's get kitted up."

He must be smiling like a besotted fool, because it's only two metres before Sasuke says, "What?"

"I just – see, I know you. Nothing like a little carnage to turn that frown upside down."

"Like you're any different."

"Eh, I'd be happy just hanging out here holding your hand like a ninny." He says this quickly, continuing before Sasuke has time to shut him down, "But yeah, it'll be good to get to do something."

Sasuke stays by his side as he sorts out the situation – who goes where, who's in charge of what. They're in the supply rooms by the time Sasuke's expression forces him to voice a, "What?" of his own.

Sasuke smirks, "You're finally treating your minions as minions."

Temari audibly swallows a laugh.

Naruto bites his lip, on a grin that hurts. Sasuke never lets him get away with anything, Sasuke always, always calls him on it, and god, he's missed that.

"Shut up," he says, instead of you're the best part of my life, you're what I was always missing, throwing a bullet proof vest at him.

Sasuke snorts, but focuses on picking out his arsenal while Naruto sorts out the last of the administrative issues with Temari. Sasuke still favours sniper rifles and devastator bullets, and is far more conscientious about protective gear than Naruto's ever been.

"Are you taking the rocket launcher?" he asks Naruto with what sounds like genuine, if mild, curiosity.

"Never hurts."

In the jeep, equipment stashed and Sasuke in the passenger seat beside him, Naruto says, "I'm taking lead on this one."

Sasuke nods.

"You're not…fighting me on that?"

"It's your turf."

"Yeah," Naruto agrees, rather more softly. For this, Sasuke trusts him, and will work with him.

"What?"

"You're all – well, trusting me with your life, actually. Which would be a greater sentiment if you, you know, valued it a bit more, but still."

"I can take care of myself."

"Well, yeah, I know you can, but…I'm gonna have your back."

Sasuke breathes out deeply. "I know."

"Good. And you've got my back, too. I know. You don't need to say it."

Sasuke's never believed in much, but he has always believed that Naruto will protect him to the best of his ability. He's just never believed that ability to be particularly impressive.

Sasuke leans back in his seat, curling up a little. It figures that he'd be able to relax now, en route to what promises to be a bloody and violent search and destroy mission. "What's your status now?"

Naruto almost lands them in a ditch, distracted by Sasuke's softening face. "Hmm?"

"You were in the war. I'm assuming you've improved since you were eleven."

Naruto stares out through the window shield. "Uh, yeah. There's not much I won't heal from now."

"You don't like to talk about it," Sasuke says, perfectly neutral.

"I can talk about it. I'm just – gonna choke up, and stuff. It was bad. Not end of the world bad or traumatised for life bad but – it was war, you know? It was this tension, all the time this tension, it never stopped, and people died all the time. Their people, our people. I did – I did things I didn't want to. I had to. I felt like I had to. Some of them I had to do but I couldn't, so – so Kyuubi did. And maybe I wanted to stop, but I – if I did, it just got worse. It was just a cheap, a coward's way out, stopping, it didn't make anything better for anyone. It would've just been about keeping my own hands clean at the expense of other people." He swallows, looks at Sasuke now because there's nowhere else he wants to look ever, and Sasuke's face is still neutral and relaxed. "And then I got so matesick I was useless, and they sent me back."

"Okay," Sasuke says. "God, you're such a wimp."

Naruto laughs, as an alternative to crying. Touches Sasuke's hand briefly, so briefly there's no time for it to be snatched away from him. "Yeah well, you're about the least wimpy person I know, so I guess that'll sort itself out now."

"Hn."

"So anyway, the beastmads. I'm gonna try and keep them alive if I can. I don't expect that from you."

"You think I'm too weak to take them alive?"

"I think they're not your people, so you don't feel obligated to try." He changes gears. "Look, if you had free access to your magic, obviously you could do whatever with them, but like this – I'm gonna ask you not to barbecue my soul, so."

"Hn." For a moment Sasuke looks absolutely petulant and frustrated that Naruto's not giving him the opportunity to pick a fight. Then there's a hint, just a tiny hint, of that misshapen strokey smile, and he relaxes further into the seat, dozing off.

Naruto swallows around the knowledge that he shouldn't, but half a kilometre ahead he does it anyway: sneaks a careful arm around Sasuke's shoulders, tugging him over to lean against Naruto's side.

It's like Naruto's whole body just erupts at the contact.

He has slow down, drive granny speed, with Sasuke's light breaths, Sasuke's warm weight resting on him.

Fumbling, clumsy, he strokes Sasuke's neck, which at least in his sleep Sasuke likes. He makes this little sound, pressing closer.

Naruto's heart is beating so hard, it's a wonder it doesn't wake Sasuke.

Even at granny speed, they've arrived within a few hours. Putting Sasuke back in his seat before waking him would be dishonest, but Naruto does stop stroking his neck before he leans forward and kisses him loudly on the top of his head.

Sasuke mutters, steadying himself on Naruto's thigh.

It comes to Naruto that Sasuke's actually been very comfortable with his body all along, has kept touching him. Mostly in violence, but still – he could've hurt Naruto without touching him if he'd wanted to.

He sits up and now and looks mostly sleepy but also serious. "Do I need to worry about you trying to fuck me in my sleep?"

"No." He infuses the word with all the conviction he has, and he means it. "I wouldn't do that. That's not what I want."

It remains unclear whether Sasuke believes him. "Time to go," he says, stepping out of the car.

They suit up quickly. Naruto always used to have trouble with multi-carrying, got the straps confused and tangled, but his fingers know now. The war ground the routine into them like calluses.

Finally he falls on his knees to tighten a strap on Sasuke's protective gear, and for a frozen moment Sasuke looks down at him with his eyes all pupil. Kyuubi stirs to murderous, possessive intent.

"Before we go," Sasuke says. "I'll try it out. Don't burn."

Naruto sits back as Sasuke steps into the air, one careful step at a time. There's a tight feeling inside him, a pressure that threatens to erupt, but he doesn't burn.

Sasuke gives him a considering look, and light gathers in his hands.

Naruto swallows, has to steady himself against the ground. The white-on-white strain of exorcist magic stings and sizzles along his veins.

"Right," Sasuke says. "So I'm piggybacking Kyuubi for now."

"Yeah," Naruto says. "He can feel them already. You could too, just leech his senses."

"They know where're here as well?"

"The shifters do, but I doubt if they've told. Um, if they have told, though. They'll be able to smell what you are."

Sasuke shrugs, descending to the ground and hefting the last of his guns. "Good. Nobody wants to kill an exorcist."

Naruto snorts. "Tell that to Kiba. Or to Jiraiya."

"Tch. There's hardly a place in the world they'd be welcome after that. Let's go."

xxxxx

There turns out to be closer to seventy than a hundred hostiles, which is kind of too bad.

They come in from above, Sasuke in the air and Naruto in the trees, and have taken out at least twenty people before the humans realise there's a threat.

And finally there are no more misunderstandings, no more uncertainties. Sasuke is exactly where Naruto needs him to be, with him every step of the way.

And Sasuke's vicious, brilliant, absolutely merciless. There's never a second of hesitation, just bloodshed and killer instinct.

Kyuubi has never wanted him more.

The woods turn into a slaughterhouse.

And like he told Sasuke after they'd killed Mami, he doesn't like that he enjoys this, but he does. He's stronger, better, utterly dominant to these humans.

There's very, very little now that can hurt him, the bond feeding Kyuubi with previously unimagined energy.

One of the beastmads is down, after Sasuke shot her in the head seven times and she couldn't regenerate anymore: Naruto focuses on the other two while Sasuke turns to hunt down the fleeing remains of the human forces.

His grins splits into Kyuubi's, his jaw dislodging to fit their fangs.

By the time Sasuke returns, Naruto's perched on the shoulders of a massive, beastmad man, using his legs to cut off the man's airflow.

His other opponent has fallen, blood and brain matter a halo in the grass.

Sasuke drops three prisoners on the ground and stalks over. For a moment, again, his eyes have that full-pupil look.

Naruto's mouth falls open. Horrified, embarrassed, he hears himself actually growling.

"Get rid of him," Sasuke says. "There's no coming back from this."

He's right. Once a beast has taken over, has been left in charge for an extended period of time with the human consciousness essentially dead, there's no return.

And Naruto would like to keep this man on principle, bring him home, but they'd have to maim him into just a piece of meat to get him safely in the car.

So he clings as the man bucks, kicks through his rib cage to prevent him pulling off Naruto's leg, and forces his hand through the man's skull. His fingers sift through the brain, he keeps them there until the man stops trying to heal, until all the life has run out.

Sasuke steps closer, studying the dead face. "Kabuto worked on this one."

"Really?" Naruto bends his own bones back into place, letting Kyuubi's healing rush over him. It's heady, headstrong, he wants Sasuke down in the grass with him. "You think he donated him to them?"

"It makes sense."

"Was Kabuto – that'd be who gave them the means to control the beastmads. We should've heard about them, though."

"He wasn't beastmad when Kabuto brought him in."

"That fucker."

Sasuke shrugs. "A few weeks with Kabuto could drive anyone mad. At least now we know where they got them."

There's a keening moan from the right, where Sasuke dropped his prisoners. "Er, should you have just left them there?"

Sasuke smirks. It's wider than usual, and not just because the blood on his face obscures the line of his mouth, makes his thin lips look fuller. "Broke their necks. They're not going anywhere."

Naruto blinks. "You paralysed them."

"Easier than tying them up."

"Mmh." That's fucking horrifyingly stone cold, but he's reaching for Sasuke's arm. The sleeve has been torn along a long, deep cut.

Sasuke draws in a sharp breath when Naruto's fingers close around his wrist. Naruto watches Sasuke's chest heave as Naruto drags a finger along the injury, smearing Kyuubi's healing over it until it stops bleeding, and can't breathe himself.

He looks up at Sasuke in question, in disbelieving hope.

Sasuke looks away, mouth pinching in displeasure. "Bloody magic rohypnol."

Naruto laughs, still cradling Sasuke's arm in greedy hands. "I love the way you look at me." Like Naruto alone is in solid primary colour in a world of dusk and stark light. Like Naruto's all he needs to see.

"Idiot." Sasuke pulls his hand free and turns away, marching over to the paralysed humans. "Talk."

Some mumbled protests, until Sasuke steps on someone's hand. They might not be able to feel it, but they can certainly hear the crunching sound.

"You know who I am," Sasuke tells the man he stepped on, and the man talks.

They're Luthors, one of the splinter groups from BEAST. Out here planning some harebrained attack on the Namikaze stronghold, without even a clear idea of who supplied the beastmads.

Sasuke leans down with Kyuubi's claws protruding from his hands, clearly intending to dispose of them

Kyuubi purrs his approval, tensing inside Naruto to jump him, bring him down for a good hard –

Naruto cuts that thought off. "Wait! Hayate's gonna wanna have a go at them."

Sasuke gives him an annoyed look but straightens up. "Fine. Load them up."

"You could help me, you know!"

Sasuke shrugs. "You're the one who wants souvenirs." He looks through a dropped jacket, finds a packet of nuts in one of the pockets, and starts eating. Scavenger's habit.

"Souvenirs, really? Also gimme some, you greedy bastard."

He steps up close to appropriate some of the nuts, and gets a little dizzy from Sasuke smelling of sweat and blood and adrenaline, and of Kyuubi's power, which still glitters on his hands. The pulse in Sasuke's throat jumps. Naruto's fangs ache.

Entranced, he puts a careful, careful hand on the side of Sasuke's ribcage, where the protective gear has been ripped open and he can touch skin. It heats immediately under his touch.

Sasuke looks at him for a long moment. "Get them loaded."

Naruto licks his lips. "Okay."

He's not – this isn't Sasuke wanting him. This is Sasuke not actively hating the idea of being close to him, and so being drawn to him by the bond.

This is not okay.

Is it?

He picks up the paralysed Luthors and slings them over his shoulder, dumping them in the trunk while Sasuke retrieves any scattered weapons they brought.

Straightening up, he catches sight of himself in one of the car mirrors. He's an … okay looking guy, he supposes. Kind of scrawny, but Sakura's said nice things about his eyes. He's not really used to assessing the attractiveness of blokes: Sasuke's mindblowingly beautiful and has never needed any assessment, and Naruto's never been much interested in looking at anyone else.

He tries a smile, and then scrunches up his face in embarrassment.

The scars are kind of big. Considering that Sasuke's given him half of them, it'd be pretty unfair if Sasuke held them against him, but – the scars are kind of big. They're…ruggedly handsome, maybe.

Also Kakashi has a lot of facial scaring, and Sasuke always denied it but he did sort of maybe have a crush on Kakashi when they were kids. At least, once he'd got over being jealous of Itachi's attention.

Anyway Kakashi's more of the attractive older man stereotype, and Naruto's – being stupid, really.

It's silly to think something shallow like the shape of his face would matter, when Sasuke's etched his mark into Naruto's cheeks and Naruto's soul, when there's the bond, when Sasuke's spent years and years being sexually assaulted.

But he did say he'd slept with people because he wanted to, and he clearly doesn't hate sex or anything, and –

"Are you coming?"

"Yeah. Yeah, I'm coming."