Naruto's thoughts have caught on fire.

Kakashi's expression, his light distracted voice, never changes. "I don't mean that I was peripherally involved like Sasuke. Ah, he never really explained, did he? No, I see he didn't. But when he says he was involved, he means he obeyed orders to kill some guards while she was kidnapped. He'd done the same thing a hundred times, he had no idea who the victim was."

"What did you do?" He'd expected Kyuubi, but Kyuubi doesn't come. This is Naruto's rage, Naruto's desolation, Naruto's denial.

"I slit her throat."

Sasuke's hand lands on Naruto's shoulder, heavy as the hand of God, keeping Naruto still.

"Why did you do that?" Naruto says, and still it's his own voice.

"I suppose I must have wanted to."

Sasuke's fingers tighten, locking Naruto into place. "I always assumed Tsunade arranged for her to die."

"She overlooked the kidnapping," Kakashi agrees. "And eventually she asked me to finish the job."

"That makes sense," Sasuke says, in a pleasant measured voice. "Kushina couldn't have done it without Minato knowing, and Jiraiya's a useless drunkard. I figured it didn't turn out as she'd hoped and she cut her losses."

"Maa, probably."

"And the efficient way to get someone in and discreetly tie up the loose ends was to have an exorcist do it."

"That was my conclusion."

Sasuke's thumb curls inside the hollow of Naruto's clavicle. "Orochimaru showed me some photos. There wasn't much left of her, towards the end. He said she asked to be put out of her misery."

"She did," Kakashi agrees.

"That's not an excuse," Naruto snaps.

"No," Kakashi says. "Tsunade told me to do it, Yui told me to do it. That wasn't why I did it. They didn't make me."

"Orochimaru with his fucking pictures, he was – he was deep in this."

"Yes," Sasuke says, as if he'd expected Naruto had always known that, as if Naruto could bear thinking of it. "He didn't lend me out lightly."

Naruto starts to cry. He swallows and sniffles but he can't stop, the tears keep coming, and the snot, he draws in great hulking breaths. Collapses in on himself, ends up with his face pressed into Sasuke's chest, crying like a little kid. That whole-hearted, desperate crying that knows no end, that you have to give yourself up. He's been so angry, at Kyuubi, at Sasuke, at himself, but he has no anger for his.

"You're such an idiot," Sasuke mumbles, rubbing Naruto's head and neck. "Such a worthless little weakling."

Naruto nods, crying too hard to speak. Maybe Sasuke too had thought there'd be rage: not just grief, just breakdown desolation.

He cries until he can't get air and throws up all over Sasuke.

"Che." Sasuke holds his sodden shirt away from his body, leaning forward to press his mouth against the nape of Naruto's neck, half kiss, half bite.

Naruto's just hulking now, tears leaking like rain.

Sasuke tugs at the neckline of Naruto's shirt. "Up." He keeps hold as Naruto gets up and stumbles after him into the nearest full bath. Sasuke turns on the taps, pulling off his vomit-splattered clothes.

"Get over yourself, you worthless little shit," he tells Naruto rather gruffly, wiping the traces of vomit off his body before stepping into the tub. When Naruto makes to follow him, he puts a hand on his chest, nodding towards the puke clinging to Naruto's jeans. Naruto undoes the button with shaking fingers, kicking them off, and is finally allowed in the water, in Sasuke's arms. This is – Sasuke trying to take care of him, maybe.

But Sasuke kicks him away quickly, making him sit at the opposite end of the tub, albeit with their legs intertwined.

"Don't get snot in the water."

And Naruto can laugh then, finally, a stupid broken little laugh. He wipes his nose with the back of his hand, reassured by Sasuke kicking lightly at him. "You'd be all…"

"I'd have found out a long time ago."

"Yeah," Naruto says on a sigh. Sasuke chose not to find this out, as did Naruto himself. If it had been Sasuke's mother, Sasuke would have chosen differently. "And you'd be all avenger about it."

Sasuke leans back, eyes half closed: showing off his long lashes and the killer eyes underneath. "We can kill Tsunade if you like." Nobody could doubt that he means it.

"Not Kakashi?"

"No."

Naruto breathes out, sinking deeper into the water. Sasuke turns off the tap just before it starts spilling over the edge of the tub. "That's not what I want."

Sasuke nods. His head tilts minimally, lips open and throat exposed: an unsubtle offer. Naruto squeezes his ankle in affection and gratitude, but doesn't take him up on it.

"I just…they're my family. And it'd be so hypocritical, when they did it because – it's disgusting and wrong but they think they did it for the greater good. Like how they – when they handed you over to Orochimaru. And they were still my family after they did that to you. So how can I denounce them now? And how can I not?"

"Didn't your mother believe in sacrificing for the greater good?"

"Kind of. Yeah."

Sasuke looks thoughtful. "Would it have been better if he didn't kill her?"

"What the fuck do you mean?"

"She was minced meat. There would've been no recovery."

"I could've – "

"Tch. Even with the best anti-rejection meds, you know shifter/human donations always end in rejection. Otherwise the lot of you would be living in hospital cages."

"You'd come break me out," Naruto says. Sasuke raises an eyebrow, and Naruto shrugs. "Not keen on other people stealing your property, are you?"

"Mmh." The seal on Naruto's stomach throbs with the force of Sasuke's possession. Sasuke's voice comes neutral, perhaps searching, "You miss her."

"Mmh. Yeah."

Even this is foreign to Sasuke: the people Sasuke's lost, he's lost in ways that don't allow for them to be missed. Everything about them that could've been missed, after all, were only lies. And if Sasuke had believed them, more fool him.

They're still in the bath, the water cooling, when Tsunade enters the room. Naruto feels himself freeze, animal in headlights, fight or flight pounding through him.

She's never been one to beat around the bush. "I understood from Kakashi that you're under the impression I had Yui assassinated."

The world slows down. "Are you saying you – didn't?"

Tsunade sighs, rubbing at her forehead. The powder gives under her fingers, revealing a wrinkle, two. "I'm saying I'm surprised you were so quick to believe it." She slants a look towards Sasuke. "Though perhaps I shouldn't be."

"Just, enough," Naruto says. "Did you or didn't you?"

Tsunade looks sad, and she looks tired, but she doesn't hesitate. "I did."

And Naruto already knew that, he did know, so why is his stomach knotting up now? But his innards are waging war on each other, bowels crawling like snakes.

"I see," he says. "I can't trust you anymore."

"I'm sorry to hear that."

"You wouldn't have done it," Naruto starts, fumbling his way towards certainty, "if she'd been a shifter?"

"No, I wouldn't." Tsunade agrees. "She wasn't one of us."

"I don't accept that," Naruto says. His hand fists around the edge of the tub, still human so the metal doesn't bend under it. "That kind of racist bullshit – I will never accept that." A world where the humans turned on Mum because she didn't scorn shifters, and the shifters let them because after all she was only human.

"I wish the world was different," Tsunade says. "But it's not. I wish I could say I regret it, maybe I even do regret it, but regret is a pointless emotion. It doesn't get you anywhere."

It's horrifying that this is possibly the first time Sasuke's been entirely in agreement with her.

"How does Dad not know this?"

Tsunade makes a face like a shrug. "He would if he let himself."

"I see," Naruto says again. It's a Sasuke thing to say, but Naruto can't be himself right now. He feels like he's drowning.

He can't doubt that Sasuke's contemplating letting Kyuubi out again – locking Naruto in the cage until Kyuubi's trashed out the worst of his dark feelings – but in the end he kicks lightly at Naruto's knee and tells Tsunade she should leave.

Naruto's very glad of that, pathetically glad, because he couldn't stomach anther betrayal, right now. Doesn't have the emotional resources to forgive Sasuke for another Stonehall.

Sasuke nudges his knee again, commanding his attention. "Start drawing power. Time you learnt to exorcise properly."

"Now?"

Sasuke shrugs. "If you start burning, we're already in the water."

Naruto manages a bit of a grin. It sits hurt and wobbly on his face. "Okay. Okay." He sinks back, reaching towards Uriel.

"No," Sasuke cuts him off. "Start off softer."

Naruto kicks him in retaliation. "Fine. Ave Maria, gratia plena…"

xxxxx

Naruto's asleep. The emotional overwhelm has cut tired lines into his face, swollen into bags under his eyes.

He did all right with Virgin Mary. All right for a lowly exorcist without crusader potential.

He should be better.

Sasuke will make him better.

The first sacred sword tailored for Naruto is well on its way. Sasuke eventually surrendered his gaming controller to Gaara in order to focus on it, after Naruto had calmed down enough that Sasuke could leave him be.

He sinks the blade into the back of the stuffed chair, next to Naruto's face, so they can get used to each other.

Gaara gives him a sceptical look. Sasuke raises an eyebrow, but Gaara doesn't challenge him. He seems to have accepted that Sasuke's at least better for Naruto than the absence of Sasuke would be.

In view of Naruto's upset, Sasuke warns Kiba, whose fingers are sticky like those of a child, "If you touch it, you'll lose your hand."

Sasuke has other things to take care of.

Kakashi's room is just as he left it. Rendered dusky by the old window glass, smelling faintly of copper and innards.

He barely notices Kakashi himself, because there's Itachi.

As always he's untouchable, fundamentally out of Sasuke's reach.

It's a good computer, Itachi's face moving smoothly and uninterrupted by pixels at the other end of the video call. "Ah, Sasuke."

His face dies, sculpts itself into a death mask like Itachi's. Always a step behind. "What."

"Articulate as always," Itachi says, mild as warm milk. He did that sometimes, when they were little, warmed milk for Sasuke at night. Sasuke got sick – their mother said later that he was lactose intolerant, that they both were. But Itachi's never let his body have any say in what he does, and determined that Sasuke too would overcome this weakness of the flesh. Sasuke had been glad. He hadn't wanted the ritual to stop, or for Itachi to find him weak.

"If there's something you want to say to me, say it."

Itachi smiles thinly. "Isn't it rather that you want to hear things from me?"

"Chigau."

"Sou ka na." But there's scorn now, more evident. Like Orochimaru, Itachi will interpret the Japanese as a failure. "What is it you would like to hear from me, Sasuke? Mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa?"

"I'm touched you're prepared to break the ninth commandment for me."

"You disappoint me." Itachi sighs. "I'm only surprised you're not disappointed in yourself."

"You disappointed me too. What's your point?"

"The truth, then?"

"The truth."

"Well. It was a matter of Matthew 18:9."

And if thine eye offend thee, pluck it out, and cast it from thee: it is better for thee to enter into life with one eye, rather than having two eyes to be cast into hell fire.

"I don't understand."

He remembers something Sakura read once, one of those texts she returned to: but he was only young and stunned at how much the world could hurt him.

"You were an impurity," Itachi tells him. "Mother and Father always knew."

"That's enough, Itachi," Kakashi says.

Sasuke says, "And yet you acted like you loved me once."

"That was unclean," Itachi says. "I did love you, that is the great shame of my life. It brought me perilously close to sin. I couldn't let it infect me as well, this – lowness. This filth."

"So you gave me to Orochimaru. Where I belonged?"

Itachi smiles thinly again. "Can you say I was wrong? Have you not thrived in that nest of inequity? At least this way you could be useful, without tempting anyone else into sin." He slants a look at Kakashi. "Well, perhaps that was too much to hope for."

"One would imagine," Sasuke says, in a curiously bloodless voice, "that if I was such a sinner, Uriel would have abandoned me."

"The Lord works in mysterious ways. One day we shall all be burned clean of our human failings."

"You could've just killed me."

"And let you stain my hands? No, I acted for the greater good. You should be grateful to be chosen as an instrument for the Lord's will."

Sasuke laughs, the laughter that came to him when he unlearnt crying. "You couldn't do it. This impure human love that stains your soul, you couldn't kill it. Brush up on your Isaiah."

Hell from beneath is moved for thee to meet thee at thy coming: it stirreth up the dead for thee, even all the chief ones of the earth; it hath raised up from their thrones all the kings of the nations.All they shall speak and say unto thee, Art thou also become weak as we? art thou become like unto us?Thy pomp is brought down to the grave, and the noise of thy viols: the worm is spread under thee, and the worms cover thee.How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning! how art thou cut down to the ground, which didst weaken the nations!

It made Itachi go pale once, that verse. He'd stiffened, and pushed Sasuke off his lap.

"Even Pharisees may quote scripture," Itachi says in the present, "but they shall not enter into Heaven unless they are cleansed and redeemed."

Sasuke sinks to the floor. It surprises him, in a distant way: his knees give out. He feels absolutely nothing, but his legs will not carry him.

"Enough," Kakashi says again. "Bloody hell, Itachi. Read the room."

That's the thing with electronic communication. A press of a button can prevent Itachi getting the last word.

Kakashi hauls him up, deposits him on the edge of the bed. Touches his face, until Sasuke looks at him, and he lets his hand fall. "That's the worst he's been in a while," Kakashi says. "Even the Council's talking about deprogramming."

"If by the Council you mean Hanabi Hyuuga."

"Maa, I think Fugaku would quite agree. Orochimaru would no doubt be amused."

"Stop."

"Hmm?"

"This – stop."

"Sasuke…"

"You lied to me."

"No," Kakashi insists, lifting Sasuke's chin until he meets his eyes. "I betrayed you, yes. I never lied to you."

Sasuke feels his death mask face move, converging into the grin of a skull. "You lied to me every second you looked at me."

But Kakashi too can be relentless. "You chose to believe me."

He has trouble even sitting upright now. His bones don't work right. They cramp and melt around a searing light that cauterises him from the inside out. "It didn't feel like a choice."

Kakashi touches his face again, in that way he's had since Sasuke was little.

Sasuke falls back on the bed. It's only partly a conscious decision. His spine gives out, like his legs gave out: the only choice is which direction to fall.

Kakashi leans over him, fingers stroking through his hair.

"Is that it, then?" Sasuke sneers. His voice comes powerless. "You want to indulge in some sins of the flesh?"

Kakashi's fingertips burn against his neck. "Not like this."

Sasuke stares dully up at the ceiling. Uriel rages under his skin, burning away anything vulnerable, incinerating all the hurt parts of him. It's like he can feel his soul turn to ash inside his body.

Kakashi snatches his hand away, his fingers red with burn damage. "You're using too much. Calm down."

But Sasuke is calm, now. There's nothing left that can be upset.

He sits up, lays a finger against the bandages covering Kakashi's left eye. He contemplates pushing his finger deeper, spearing the eyeball, letting it boil in the foreign socket.

Kakashi sighs. "Sasuke. We've all let you down so hard, haven't we?" He leans forward, fearless of the finger against his eye, until their foreheads connect.

"I let you," Sasuke admits.

"I don't think that's how betrayal works."

"We were two people involved in everything we did."

Kakashi makes a noncommittal sound, stroking his hair again. Sasuke removes his hand.

"Things have been unfairly difficult for you," Kakashi starts, and then stops.

"Not really."

"Hmm?"

"The common denominator is me. All these people are upstanding citizens otherwise. It's only I who make them be otherwise."

"That's not true."

"You fucking other kids behind my back? Selling them? No, funny, I didn't think so. We got – involved, because I went up to your room and started blowing you." He leans back, disconnecting their foreheads. "Mother and Father were good parents to Itachi. Itachi is stainless." He smiles the skull smile again. "Even Orochimaru – I made him do things."

"You were eight years old," Kakashi tells him rather sharply.

"Eight years old and already corrupting crusaders left and right. Satan must be so proud."

"Sasuke." Kakashi catches his face again, holds it trapped between his hands. "Everything I did with you, I did of my own volition. That's my responsibility, not yours."

Sasuke hisses at him, letting his face burn the trapping hands until they release him. "I'm not choosing to believe you anymore. Fuck off."

xxxxx

Naruto wakes up feeling rather empty, which he decides is at least partly hunger: at least partly something he can immediately fix.

In the hallways adjoining the kitchen, Sasuke's accepting a takeout bag of what smells like sushi. "Pay him," he tells Naruto.

"Hmm?"

"I don't have any money." He says this with the carelessness of someone who's always been provided for, who's never needed money.

The delivery boy becomes visibly distressed, but calms down when Naruto scrounges up some notes. "Keep the change. Thanks for coming out here."

Sasuke inspects the bag, toying with a dainty piece of salmon.

"Why," Naruto starts.

"I felt like sushi," Sasuke cuts him off, his voice blank and his face too. "So I ordered it."

"I meant why don't you have any money?"

Sasuke shrugs, licking stray rice off his fingers. "They took my wallet when they locked me in that princess tower for you. I never got it back."

"Fucking Genma." He finds an appropriate credit card and hands it over, gives Sasuke the pin code.

Sasuke looks at it as though he doesn't understand what it is. "Am I taking handouts from you now?"

Give me strength, Naruto thinks. What's your deal now? "If we'd paid indulgences for all the demons you've exorcised since we bonded. How much would that have been? Millions, right?"

"Yeah."

"Yeah, so."

Sasuke's phone rings. He answers it without looking at it and his face goes white as crematorium ash. Pain explodes in his – in his metal foot, which is impossible.

Naruto rips the phone out of his hand, hears Orochimaru's heavy, dragging voice whispering in gleeful, tender Japanese. "Fuck off forever!" He breaks the phone in his hand, which Sasuke will maybe be angry about, but – Sasuke grabs for him, breathing with difficulty. One hand locks around Naruto's shoulder, the other fists his face. Naruto steps forward quickly, taking Sasuke's weight, because he can't stand on that foot.

Phantom pain, it has to be phantom pain, because there's nothing else it could be.

Sasuke's pupils are blown and desperate. "Tell me you need me." It's a ragged order, the order of someone stumbling out of the desert after forty days demanding water.

"I need you."

"Tell me you'll never – " He breaks off, almost gagging on air. "Tell me – tell me…"

"I'd die before I let you go. I love you."

Sasuke crashes their mouths together with painful desperation, full frontal collision teeth and his tongue dragging over Naruto's.

"I love you," Naruto keeps telling him. "I'll always choose you first."

Sasuke's shaking badly, like his body is experiencing difficulty maintaining its integrity. Light burns through his skin here and there, turning flesh into ash.

Naruto attacks the blocks across the bondbridge, pushing at them to let in more of Kyuubi's healing, and more importantly more of Naruto's unhinged love.

Kyuubi's claws shred Sasuke's shirt, shreds the skin across his back too. Tries to cut away the suicidal hysteria, carve off the urge to self-immolate and disappear. Hot bloods spills over his hands. Sasuke's shaking abates a little.

"I want you with me always, do you get that? I've loved you since we were little kids."

"Yes," Sasuke says. His lashes descend, all distance and avoidance. Gradually he stills. "Before – you knew me before I was…dirty."

"What the fuck," Naruto hisses, grabbing Sasuke's face, lifting it, giving him another hard kiss, close-mouthed now. "You are not dirty."

Sasuke pushes him abruptly away, wiping his mouth with his sleeve. His fake foot still throbs, he has to catch himself on a sidetable not to topple over when he tries to put weight on it.

"Who the hell said that to you?" Naruto demands. "It's fucking absurd."

Sasuke leans his head back against the wall. The pulse in his throat pulsates violently. "Maybe I've corrupted you too."

"No," Naruto tells him, crouching on the floor so Sasuke will be able to sit down too. "I'm not corrupted."

Sasuke has a smile like Kakashi's, the smile like a wound. "The bonding, Stonehall – after Stonehall. You'd never have done that if it wasn't for me."

"If it wasn't for you – I can't even imagine my life without you. I don't want to. You're the best part of it. I –

it wouldn't even be my life, without you, because I wouldn't, you know, I wouldn't be me. I'd just be this – this hollow person, with something missing. I'd do other things. Maybe worse things. I just – I want you. I've wanted you since we were five years old. Uriel has too, and he's pretty particular about uncleanliness, so. Just – you're it. You're it for both of us."

"You want me," Sasuke repeats, in this low childish voice. He wipes at his mouth again, rubs his sleeve against it until his lips are red and sore. "If I didn't – I don't want…"

"Then you're still it for me." He crouches forward, touching Sasuke's closest leg. Bad call: metal under his fingers, and Sasuke screams. "Shit! Sorry!"

Sasuke leans back again, chest heaving, his face streaked with sweat so it looks like he's been crying.

"Sasuke. You have to get that I love you aside from wanting to fuck you?"

Sasuke draws in a deep breath. "So did Itachi, once. So he said. But maybe he didn't. He – to Orochimaru. I guess he knew what I was good for."

"You're good for anything you wanna be good for," Naruto says, moving until he's sitting beside Sasuke, on Sasuke's good side so he won't mess up the prosthesis again. "You're the best person I've ever known. I'll always know that, even when you don't."

Sasuke doesn't exactly believe him, but he doesn't exactly disbelieve him either: the bond doesn't allow for that.

Naruto reaches for the dropped sushi bag, putting it in their laps and rescuing a random roll. "I don't get why you always tell me to dip it in soy, that just makes it all salty."

Sasuke looks tired, but not desperate anymore. "Ramen's salty."

"Ramen's the good kind of salty."

Sasuke makes a weak gesture towards a piece of egg sticking to Naruto's chin: shorthand for not taking gourmet advice from someone who can't even chew with his mouth shut.

"I changed my mind about Kakashi," Sasuke finally says. "Kill him if you like."

Naruto blinks, nudges his face briefly against Sasuke's shoulder. "I never wanted that."

"You're so naïve sometimes."

"Mmh. I, um. I decided to be Hokage after all."

Sasuke reaches slowly for a piece of shrimp, shredding it with his nails until there's almost nothing left before he puts it in his mouth. He looks at Naruto sideways in a manner that means: continue.

"I always used to say I wanted it, you know, when we were little. I just – it was like shorthand for wanting people to pay attention, to mind about what I thought. Then when I grew older and I realised, all that administration and diplomacy and everything, it's not really my thing? And it's really for you to mind what I think that matters… So Konohamaru could be Hokage, and I could help him out and be, like, some sort of security person or whatever. But then, now. What I found out about Mum. I can't accept it. This we or them, this – this ingrained structural racism. And Kono's a sweetie but he won't be able to root this out. So I'm gonna do it. Okay?"

"I'm racist too, you know, according to your logic," Sasuke tells him, considering a piece of avocado. "But okay."