Kakashi thinks he sees something akin to protectiveness in Sasuke's usual glare during their run-in with the Kiri-nin. As soon as Sakura steps in front of Tazuna, kunai raised, Sasuke's gaze is trained on her. When the two chuunins inevitably attack the bridge builder, and in the process head directly toward Sakura, Sasuke is in front of her within a heartbeat.
Kakashi smirks under his mask before capturing the two enemies before any of his team could get hurt. Sakura is blushing once she realizes that Sasuke-kun just protected her and Sasuke is back to acting as disinterested as ever. Then, Kakashi notices the wide gash on Naruto's hand and sighs tiredly.
He sees it again, more in his movements then his eyes now. He instinctively moves in a way that he's close enough to the girl if she needs to be protected. Kakashi wonders if it is because he sees her as his inferior, a weak being that needs protection, or because he is starting to care about his comrades more and more with each mission. He doesn't have long to ponder, as Zabuza launches a new attack on him and he has to lure him away from the old man and the children.
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When they enter the academy there is some sort of commotion – a fight! – happening. Naruto is about to urge his teammates to get closer to the action when he notices it. Sasuke is looking at Sakura with scrutiny. Naruto is used to seeing Sakura glance every so often at the raven-haired boy, only to be promptly ignored by him. He, however, has never noticed Sasuke looking at her. Sasuke averts his gaze without saying anything and Naruto decides to stay quiet as well – for now.
They approach what appears to be a smaller fight. Two guys don't want to let them through, saying that being a chuunin with all its responsibilities is not something they can handle. They say they are just trying to spare the weaklings, to weed out the losers. Naruto is about the give them a piece of his mind, when Sasuke speaks up first.
"That's nice and all…" he starts in a low tone, "but you still better let me through. And drop the genjutsu while you're at it." Naruto looks at his teammate with furrowed eyebrows and he listens as the small crowd around them starts murmuring. Many wonder what he is talking about, Naruto himself included.
One of the guys standing in front of the door smirked. "So you figured it out, huh?"
"It wasn't hard to, right, Sakura?" Naruto's eyes narrow into concentrated, suspicious slits. "With your analytical skills and knack for understanding and sensing genjutsu." Sasuke smirks ever so slightly and Naruto's lips purse as he wonders when Sasuke started handing out kind words, it surely was not like the teme to do so. Maybe this is part of the genjutsu, he thinks when Sakura speaks up.
"That's right!" A pale blush is gracing her cheeks and her smile is bright as she glances at Sasuke. A determined look takes over though, as she looks back at the gatekeepers. "We're quite obviously still on the second floor."
"Well," one of the guys says, "figuring it out isn't enough to get through." The other one dispels the genjutsu just as Sasuke gets ready to attack.
Naruto pays more attention to the looks Sasuke gives their female teammate from then on.
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They are in the Forest of Death when Ino first sees it. The icy glare of the Uchiha wavering for a miniscule moment. She is too terrified of the marks racing over, covering his skin to pay it too much mind, though. He glares at the altercation in front of him, eyes aflame even without the sharingan activated.
He looks at the Oto shinobi and Ino is really glad she is not one of them. His eyes dart over to Sakura's form, bruised and battered, hair chopped messily and Ino thinks that for a second, as his eyes focus on the details of her beaten up, shaken form, that the edges of his eyes soften. But just as soon as she sees it, it's gone and he asks in a threateningly low voice, "Sakura, who did this to you?"
Ino is too terrified of what transpires next and she has to tightly shut her eyes when Sasuke breaks both arms of one of the Oto-nin. She shudders at the sound of bones cracking and almost forgets about the look she thought she'd seen in his eyes. But it's there again, when Sakura finally gathers herself and runs to Sasuke, hugging him tightly from behind. Ino can see the rage slowly dissipate from his body, even the markings on his skin are starting to disappear as Sakura begs him to stop.
"Please, Sasuke-kun," she cries. Ino sees Sasuke close his eyes, and when he opens them and looks over his shoulder at his teammate, she sees the tenderness there again. Ino's crush on the boy ends that day, for more than one reason.
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Naruto doesn't know what exactly happened while he was unconscious in the Forest of Death, but he knows his teammates are keeping something from him. He sees it in Sasuke's pointed glares toward Sakura when it looks like she's about to say something. His gaze is always sharp, but never threatening toward the girl.
When Naruto sees Sasuke grab Sakura's wrist and hold it firmly as he harshly whispers something, he thinks that maybe he imagined that look before the chuunin exams started. But then he realizes he's still holding onto her arm long after Sakura stopped struggling against his grasp. He doesn't see the Uchiha's eyes but somehow, Naruto knows that the look was real and it's there again.
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Sakura doesn't get to participate in the final round of the Chuunin Exams but she is beyond proud of her boys. She hasn't seen much of them after the preliminaries, both of them busy training for the real thing. She sits down in her seat next to Ino, exited to see how her comrades will do against the other villages' shinobi in the final rounds.
Sasuke's fight is coming up with the scary Suna-nin with the gourd and forehead tattoo and Sakura can't help but swallow nervously. She heard that he went through the Forest of Death without a scratch – and in record time! She knows Sasuke is strong, smart and talented, but she still feels nervous beads of sweat forming in her palms and on the back of her neck.
The fight quickly escalates and Sakura has the feeling that there is something larger at work here and her suspicions prove to be true when all of a sudden Sasuke's match leaves the arena. She can feel her skin tingling and dispels the genjutsu, looking around, completely alert.
Soon she finds herself rushing after Sasuke and Gaara with Pakkun, Naruto and Shikamaru.
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They can see trees swaying, some falling, and huge clouds of dust as they near the fight. As they approach, they can hear the sound of a thousand birds chirping, loud thuds and cracking of branches. Naruto glances at Sakura and he can see the anxiety clearly reflected in her clean, green orbs.
They can hear the clashing and when they arrive, Sasuke is lying on a branch, a weird sand creature is on another, getting ready to attack. Naruto is quick to jump into action, kicking the sand guy far away from Sasuke, while Sakura lands next to Sasuke's trembling body. Naruto notes the weird marks covering Sasuke's left side but doesn't have time to dwell on it. Sakura is there to take care of him, Naruto has to stop the creature first and protect his friends, his village.
"Um, Sakura-chan?" he asks as the sand monster slowly gathers himself. "Who is that?"
"He may appear different but," Pakkun grumbles, "that's still the guy Sasuke was fighting in the arena."
"What?!" Naruto's jaw drops. He looks back just in time to see Gaara rushing toward them.
It is the fight of Naruto's life. He's never had to fight like this to protect the people precious to him, his teammates. Sakura gets captured in a sand trap early in the fight and Sasuke exhausted most of his chakra already in the arena fight and then chasing after Gaara.
"You have to," Sasuke heaves, "protect her, Naruto." There it was, that look in his eyes as they focused on Sakura's unconscious form, just for a second. By the time he looks back at Naruto, it's gone. "Promise me you'll protect her."
Naruto gulps and nods. "I'll protect both of you," he vows. I'll protect everyone.
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Sasuke leaves the village and Naruto fails to bring him back. There are no traces of the softness in his eyes when Naruto fights him at the Valley of the End.
When he wakes in the hospital and Sakura is there by his side, his heart clenches. She doesn't notice him come to right away, so he has a few moments to observe her. Her eyes are glassy and the green isn't as lively as it used to be not long ago. They are puffy and red all around and her skin is pale, almost ashen.
She notices that he's awake and plasters a smile on her face, that almost reaches her eyes. But Naruto has seen her smile a thousand times now and he knows that she's hurting. He knows it because her dimples aren't showing and her eyes aren't creasing ever so slightly in the corners and her bottom teeth are not showing like they do when she can't contain her happiness. He knows it because he's hurting too.
"I'm sorry I couldn't bring him back," he rasps. "But next time, I will."
Sakura's eyes glaze over and she looks out the window. A new kind of haze settles over her gaze as it focuses on something. Naruto follows her line of sight out the window and sees the village gates.
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Naruto's back in the village and Sakura almost crushes him when she hugs him upon his arrival.
"Naruto!" she beams at him brightly, dimples and bottom teeth showing, eyes creasing. Naruto thinks that she's most beautiful like this.
"Wow, Sakura-chan! Careful!" he warns. "You're going to snap me in two," he says, rubbing his side.
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Team Kakashi is on their way to one of Orochimaru's hideouts. Sakura's eyes are determined, hard around the edges and Naruto realizes just how much she's changed, how much she's grown. She looks straight ahead, eyes never wavering, the only giveaway that she's nervous are her cracked lips from all the biting. Her dimples are none existent and the only time her eyes crease is when she squints to see what's ahead.
Naruto thinks he always loves Sakura but he'll always prefer the happy gleam in her eyes to the firm haze that's in them right now.
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They find Sasuke. He is gazing down at them from above the ruins of the underground hideout. He looks at Sakura only for a moment but Naruto sees it all the same. The brief change in his eyes. The dilation of his pupils for a split second, how the blacks of his irises almost seem dark charcoal. But it's gone as soon as it came and his eyes harden, darken as they settle over Naruto and their new teammate, Sai.
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Karin may be blindly in love but she is not blind. She also pays closer attention to Sasuke than most things. She knows the way he carries himself, proudly – almost smugly, really. She knows that his eyes are unreadable most of the time, and even if you can detect any emotion in them, it is anger, fury, rage. She knows the way he walks, the way he inhales and exhales, the way his fingers twitch before he reaches for his katana and the way they twitch before he readies his fist to throw a punch. She knows the way he lands on his feet and the way he raises – gracefully, magnificently. She knows the way he laughs menacingly as he spirals into insanity upon losing his brother, and she knows the way the last embers of fire die out in his gaze after he loses everything.
Karin, however, does not know the look that's in his eyes right now. His old teammate, a loud girl with annoyingly pink hair and unbelievably green eyes stands in front of them. Karin sees Sasuke's eyes change. She's used to seeing it flash from their usual onyx to a searing vermilion but she's never seen them go from… a blank, bottomless black to a deep charcoal. She's never seen Sasuke's pupil dilate, in fact, his eyes have never seemed light enough to tell where his pupils ended and his irises began.
He regains control of his emotions, if there's any left in him other than rage and grief, and a deep, deep desire for revenge and the look is gone. Karin isn't sure if she really saw it or just imagined it because of chakra depletion and blood loss. When Sasuke tells the pinkette that she can replace Karin if she kills her, Karin is sure that she must have imagined it, that it was just her brain playing sick games with her in her last moments.
She passes out and when she wakes, she is imprisoned in Konoha. She wonders if the girl went with Sasuke or if maybe he killed her. She's sure she didn't kill Sasuke, not with the tremble in her otherwise determined voice, not with the clear love written across her bright eyes, not with the heartbreak evident in her broken smile.
Karin wonders… if perhaps the look in Sasuke's eye was real… if maybe it will be this girl that finally reaches him, that manages to pull him out of the bottomless pit of despair and grief he fell into, if maybe she'll be able to stop him before he destroys himself and everything around him.
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Everyone with eyes can see it. Sakura crushes half the White Zetsu army to dust and the earth opens up underneath her fist, swallowing the other half of the amry. Uchiha Sasuke smirks. He tries to hide it with an arm, but he's a second too late. Kakashi sees it and thinks that there may be hope still for his former student. For the boy who lost too much at too young an age. Naruto sees it too and all he can think about is that he might just get his best friend back.
He looks at Sakura, and she doesn't seem to have noticed the smug pride that graced the Uchiha's lips, but Naruto beams in her direction as she kicks an enemy so hard, they split in half. She doesn't know it yet, but maybe she will have what she's always dreamed about, they might save Sasuke yet. They might bring him home.
Naruto looks back at Sasuke and he's still watching as Sakura demolishes any and all enemy forces coming their way. He thinks he sees that same look on Sasuke's face that he saw all those years ago at the beginning of the Chuunin Exams. Team 7 is back in action! Finally!
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Kakashi sees it clear as day now. The boy might have lost an arm in the process, but along with it disappeared all the rage and fury and grief bottled up in that tattered heart of his. It is clearer now than it ever has been before. As he looks up at the girl who is trying tirelessly to save his life.
"I'm sorry," he says quietly, "for everything up until now."
He is fighting to stay conscious, just so he may look at her longer. Her cheeks may be strained with the dirt of the battle field, streaked with old tears as new ones form in her eyes. Her clothes may be ripped and her hair may be a mess but… Oh, yes, Kakashi can see it clearly in Sasuke's eyes.
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He doesn't say it but Sakura knows. When she wakes up, she always finds charcoal eyes tracing the lines of her face. Every once in a while, there's a hint of fiery red in them. When she comes home from a mission those same eyes wait for her at the gates and she swears they shine brighter than the morning sun as two calloused fingers touch her forehead. They are the same eyes that snap open when Sasuke's had a nightmare and look for her own irises for comfort, always softening and glazing over when their owner realizes that she is there.
She knows it from the amused crinkle at the corners of his eyes when she's made a fool of herself. She knows it from the worried mist when he scrutinizes her after she's been injured. She knows it from the way the right one glows red in the dark when they are making love.
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"Papa?" Sasuke hears his daughter speak. His gaze has been focused on Sakura for a while now. She's been going from stall to stall, chatting with the vendors, laughing and buying this and that. Sasuke stands with Sarada to the side, holding an already full basket in his hand, while Sarada clutches his empty sleeve on his other side.
"Yes?" he asks, eyes still trailing after his wife.
"Why do you always look at Mama like that?"
Sasuke furrows his brows and finally, slowly averts his gaze from Sakura to look down at his daughter. "Like what?"
"Not like this. But like you were a second ago," Sarada responds. "Like," she struggles to find the right words.
"Like?" Sasuke prompts.
"Like her patients' families look at her when they saved their lives and like when Boruto looks at Naruto-oji-chan when he sees him use the Kyuubi's powers flawlessly and like Baba looks at Jiji when he cleans up the whole house when she has to stay late at work and like Ino-oba-chan looks at Sai-oji-chan right before they slam the door behind Inojin and like Mikoto-obaa-chan looks at Fugaku-ojii-san in that photo in our living room? But like all of these looks combinated all together?"
Sasuke has never been a man of many words but he finds it especially hard to come up with the right words now. So he opts to correct his daughter's grammar instead. "Combined. Combinated in not a word."
"Papa," Sarada sighs, exasperated, in a way only a five-year-old can be. "Why do you look at Mama like you never want to look away?"
Sasuke's eyes focus on his wife again as he sees her heading towards them. He knows what Sarada was talking about, of course. Even he can feel the hard edges and wrinkles around his eyes smoothing out as his gaze fixes on Sakura's blinding smile, all teeth and dimples and crinkles eyes.
"Because she is precious to me," he finally says.
Sarada may not have awakened her sharingan yet but even she can see that no man looks at a woman quite the way her Papa looks at her Mama.