This is a direct continuation of chapter 14.

Alright... This is it. For better or worse, I am returning to this story. I will finish it, if it's the last thing I do. Whether it take me two months, or another five years. I feel rusty and awkward picking this up after so long. It's a little...unnatural to me...but I'm not giving up this time.

Special thank you to Key, who has been so incredibly kind and generous with their reviews. None of you owe me anything. I am simply happy to share in the fun that I have writing what I write. Everything from the trash, up to the best that I can offer. It's all yours, for free. But thank you, Key. I can honestly say that this chapter and every one destined to follow exists partly because of you. You gave me motivation.

What lies ahead: Uhh...drama. Lots of drama. And questions. Probably more questions than drama.


The chattering voices blended into indistinguishable vowels and the occasional laughter around her. White noise that should have been too loud and close for it to fade into the background the way it did. She was oblivious to how long she'd been spacing out, but the pile of food in front of her while the adjacent plates and bowls were nearly empty spoke for itself.

The steam had wisped away from the fish long ago. The small mountain of rice was pockmarked by a few scoops she took. A single, bite-sized piece of vegetable was gone. That was all.

"Sakura?"

The sound of her name was like a firecracker in the dark, snapping her back to reality. The only thing to take shape within the steady droning for several minutes.

Her vacant eyes sparked to life as she glanced up, meeting her mother.

"Are you feeling well? You haven't eaten anything."

Dumbfounded, she glanced around the dinner table. Sure enough, her parents' were already finished, and she looked like she had just sat down. How much time had passed? It felt like seconds.

"Oh, ah… I'm not that hungry, I guess." She gave an apologetic smile. Her hands slid off the table and disappeared to her lap. The chair creaked as she leaned back.

"Hmm…" The way her mother's eyes narrowed skeptically with those sharp gold bangs cutting between them made her look particularly harsh, but it was nothing she wasn't used to.

Her father's chopsticks clacked down against his bowl as he looked to them both with a cheek full of food.

"Let me guess, you found some dango on the way home," he muffled through a mouthful of rice, his tall spiky hair shaking with his shoulders as he chuckled. After swallowing, he leaned slightly towards her and whispered, as if her mother wasn't seated within earshot, "It's okay, I would've done the same thing."

"Kizashi! If my cooking is so bad, why do you ask for seconds half the time?!" A glare shot to him as his wife thumped her elbow on the table and set her chin in her palm. Glowering as if he'd thrown her the worst insult. Kizashi put his hands up in mock surrender, laughing some more.

"Heh, sorry mom. I did have a late snack when I was out." A lie, but they didn't need to know that. She hadn't eaten since breakfast. The thought of anything sitting in her stomach right now made her nauseated. It was easier to just sheepishly laugh along with her father, and so she did.

"That's right! You had a busy day, didn't you? Tell us about that assignment!" Kizashi perked up, remembering the brief comment his daughter made when she got home. He hadn't heard a single detail about it yet.

And he wouldn't. She wasn't supposed to speak to anyone.

The fake smile lingered. Convincing enough to fool both her parents. It was times like this she was grateful they weren't nearly as observant as the Uchihas. Even Fugaku and Mikoto made her feel like they already knew everything that was going through her head just by glancing at her, and she barely spent any time around them. It was unnerving. That probably wasn't the case at all, but that didn't change the effect they had.

"Oh…it's nothing that interesting. It's basically an advanced training exercise to help expand my chakra reservoir, so I can heal more people before needing to rest." Another blatant lie, with only the barest sprinkle of truth. The ease in which it came out of her mouth should have made her feel guilty, but strangely it didn't. The only thing she did feel was pain, and it had nothing to do with them.

"You mean so you don't pass out the next time you bring someone back from the dead?" Her mother asked rhetorically. The words were cutting, though Sakura sensed she didn't mean them to be. It was spoken in ignorance, and meant to be funny. She'd give the jab a zero out of ten, but explaining the events of that night in full was much more trouble than it was worth. They wouldn't understand. Neither of them were even jonin level.

"Yeah… Something like that." Her smile faltered for a second, but went unnoticed.

"Mebuki! She resurrected someone! How many people do you know who can do that?" It was her father's turn to chide her mother.

Sakura watched them bicker lightly, attention slipping further and further away the longer they kept their focus on each other. The voices slowly melted back into meaningless white noise, and as they did, the fake smile thinned into nothing. Her eyes stared vacantly in the space between her parents, and her mind sank back into the heavy darkness it was roused from. Like an ocean of black swallowing her, wave by wave, in its inescapable rising tide.

Knock, knock!

The chattering ceased, and all eyes turned in the direction of the front door. Before her parents had a chance to voice their curiosity over who could be showing up unannounced so late in the evening, Sakura bolted upright with the legs of the chair screeching along the floor at the sudden movement.

"I'll get it!" Feet pattering quickly around the table, she was gone before her wobbling chair even fell backwards and hit the floor.

Her parents glanced at one another, and Kizashi shrugged.

The front door slid open without hesitation. It didn't matter who was on the other side. There was a reasonable chance it was Kakashi–one of the last people she wanted to see–but even that thought didn't stop her. The knock was the perfect opportunity for her to excuse herself without generating any more questions or comments. All she wanted was to get away.

The dark eyes staring at her in surprise by the swift response had her instantly second-guessing her decision. Sasuke stood about a foot away. Close enough that he had to glance down to her when the door opened.

No, she didn't know who would be on the other side, but she never thought it would be him.

Their equally startled gazes locked. Behind him, the clear night sky twinkled full of stars, and the street was calm and quiet. A nice change from the breeze that almost knocked her off her feet earlier.

"Uhm–"

"Ah–?!"

His hum collided with her squeak, and then the silence returned.

A single, cautious step backwards pulled him away from her, giving her space. His eyes glanced downward and away, as if he wasn't in the least prepared for her to actually come to the door. She heard him take a deep breath.

"Hi…Sakura."

The small, deceitfully delicate-looking hands gripping the door frame slid down with a soft hiss, and dropped to hang limp at her sides. Behind her, Kizashi's head poked sideways through another doorway as he teetered back in his chair.

"Oh, hi Sasuke!" He called from the dining room, unwittingly responding for his own daughter, with a casual wave of his hand.

Sasuke glanced above her shoulder, returning the awkward greeting with a raised hand of his own.

The look on his face wasn't so difficult to read, for once. Unbeknownst to him, it worked in his favor. Discomfort, uncertainty, remorse. Sakura could feel it all. Could see it in his body language. It was about time the tables had turned. If only she was in the right place mentally to savor the moment.

That didn't make his presence any less shocking, but it did make it much easier for her to step through the door and into the shadows with him.

Instinctively, Sasuke backed up even further. Almost as if he had been expecting her to respond with a fist the moment she laid eyes on him.

"I'm going out for a bit!" Sakura announced loudly enough for her parents to hear. Hand already on the door, ready to slide it shut.

"...Ah, okay dear! It's kind of late tho–" Her father called back after a short pause. Intending to say more, but she purposefully closed any inquiring dialogue before it could keep them any longer. The door shut abruptly, leaving Kizashi to blink curiously at the hasty exit, with so many unanswered questions.

"Sakura…?" Sasuke asked hesitantly, eyes wide and full of just as many questions, if not more.

"I know, I know… You're expecting me to freak out, right?" She answered quickly, as if her mind was running on overdrive now. He opened his mouth to speak, but she continued, "Listen. Can we just…go for a walk?"

The stare he leveled on her was openly suspicious and distrusting. His gaze flit to the right, the left, and then back down to her.

"I… Okay… Sure." He spoke cautiously, as if she was a living, breathing riddle he couldn't comprehend that might spontaneously lead to his demise if he didn't solve her soon.

With that, she walked away. His eyes trailed after her red shirt melting into the dark for a few seconds. Convinced that if he failed to follow, she wouldn't even stop to look back. Something was incredibly off, and he didn't have a clue what angle to use right now.

There were a handful of different scenarios he had been mulling over in his head for several days, and this matched none of them.

Nevertheless, he pursued. Keeping a couple paces behind her. The way she guided them, he almost believed she had a destination in mind. She moved with purpose. Stricken by some restless energy that compelled her to get far away from her own home. Yet as the minutes ticked by, he became less convinced that she was even paying attention to their surroundings.

Door after door passed them. Shops that had closed down for the night, and homes filled with families getting ready for bed. The roads weren't completely deserted, but it was late enough that only a few restaurants and bars remained open.

The sudden grip on her wrist earned a sharp breath to suck in between her teeth. It made her stop though, and that was his goal.

The dirt scraped beneath her sandals as she turned sideways to look at him. She didn't try to rip her arm away, like he thought she might. There was no fear in her eyes. Not even anger. The only thing he could detect was sadness, layered under a mountain of distracted thoughts and undefined concern.

She merely stood there, waiting for him to speak.

"Sakura, I just…" The fingers loosened, and she felt him release her. His hand retreated back into a pocket, as if to hide from its own wrongdoing, "I came to say…I'm sorry…"

At first, it didn't seem like she was even listening. Her eyes were trained on him, but it was like gazing into a shell. Her mind and soul might as well have fled Konoha entirely. She did hear him, though. It took a second for her to react, but she blinked a couple times and then shook her head slowly.

"I know, Sasuke… It's okay."

He caught a glimpse. A swell of grief overwhelming her as she glanced away. Looking defeated, with some invisible burden weighing her down that he'd never seen before. She didn't want him to see it now, either–that much he could tell.

If he didn't know any better, he would assume it was his fault. Their last interaction was…anything but friendly, and that was putting it mildly. But if this was about him, why was she behaving like he was the least of her worries?

It's okay?

"No…it's not…" A skeptical murmur answered. The shock melted away, succeeded by a mixture of disbelief and concern.

He wouldn't deny it was difficult as hell to seek her out. Even more difficult to say the clumsy words that had been marinating in his brain. No combination ever seemed right, and so he kept stewing. Never finding a resolution. Admittedly, he would have procrastinated even longer, had his most recent conversation with Itachi not prodded him to simply dive in headfirst and get this over with.

He was here now. He would see it through.

"I've… I've been thinking…about things…" He continued, fighting through the constriction in his throat that bid him to clam up like he usually did.

There was no interruption. Her heavy gaze was cast down at the ground, but she was present. Shoulders tense with her muscles pulling between them at her back. The rest of her was limp in exhaustion, as if that singular tension was the only thing keeping her upright.

"I took a lot of things out on you that I shouldn't have." He swallowed thickly.

"I was…angry…because I felt like you lied to me, and kept things from me. It…uhm…compounded some things that I was already going through. So… I know you already know this, but you didn't deserve any of the things I did…or said. If I could take them back…"

The subtle nod of her head acknowledged him. He glanced over her from head to toe. Waiting for a rise of emotion. Any kind… He would take it. Absorb all of the abuse he earned from her, if that's what she wanted.

It never came.

"Sakura, are you okay?"

At that question, she finally lifted her eyes to look at him. A puppet being reeled to life against its will. She gave him a smile. A flimsy one that he didn't trust.

"Thank you, Sasuke… I know it's not easy for you to admit when you're wrong. I appreciate the effort."

The slight back-handed acceptance made him pause. His ego was bruised, but it was the least that he expected, and he had no grounds to complain. The injustice he had committed far outweighed the reaction she was giving him now. The fact that she avoided his question didn't slip past him, but he wasn't sure how to continue.

Communicating his own feelings was enough of a challenge. There was no way he was equipped to translate hers at this point in time.

Another scrape from her shoes signaled her return to their aimless walk. This time, at a slower pace.

"I forgave you the day it happened." The soft voice sounded like she was once more distracted by something other than the conversation at hand, but she was trying to remain present. He followed next to her now, rather than behind. Glancing curiously at her from the corner of his eye.

"It was…very surprising. I never thought you would react the way you did. But I… I also didn't mean for you to find out like that. It's not that I wanted to keep secrets from you. I just… None of it was planned, and I wasn't really sure what we were doing. Plus–" The laugh that interjected was frail and tired, "How do you bring up a conversation like that? There was never a good time."

The explanation she gave left him peering thoughtfully into the distance. Eyes wandering over dark window panes of empty buildings to the sporadic, brightly lit lanterns hanging above the entrances of open restaurants.

He couldn't begin to understand her perspective. He knew next to nothing of how she and Itachi became close enough to form an intimate relationship. For Sasuke, it was so far-fetched he was still grappling with the truth. One day, he might be bold enough to ask for the details, but it wouldn't be tonight.

"Do you…" He paused to clear his throat, still battling with himself to speak his own mind, "Do you actually have feelings for him, or is it just…" The sentence faded unfinished.

Sakura glanced at his pale face, nearly glowing in the dark. His eyes were creased in concentration. She studied him for the first time since she opened her front door. The muscles there looked about as taut as the ones between her own shoulder blades felt.

No, it wasn't easy for him to be here, or say the things he was saying. Regardless of what he'd done in the past, she admired the growth he was stumbling through now. That was the bane of unconditional love, though. Despite the unwarranted violations and insults she suffered from him, she couldn't hold a grudge for long. It could serve as a weakness in the worst scenarios, and she recognized that now, but it changed little.

The fact remained that even if she no longer wanted anything from him romantically, he would always be family.

"I do." She admitted simply. There was no sense beating around the bush.

Though now it was her turn to feel the constriction in her throat. It wound so tightly she nearly felt a rush of claustrophobia. A maelstrom of emotions raged unseen. It took an enormous amount of willpower to keep them from showing on her face, but she managed with little more than a sparkle of tears seeping along the curve of her eyelids. Enough to reflect in just the right light, but not enough to spill.

A tremendous feat for someone always wearing their heart on her sleeve.

To her relief, Sasuke was too distracted by his own introspection to notice. His feet planted abruptly, gaze wandering in halting sweeps to the ground.

A couple steps later, Sakura paused and looked back at him. She couldn't guess what his response would be, but she knew she wasn't afraid. In the recent past, she would have been…but not anymore.

He was wrong in his earlier assumption; he wasn't the least of her worries. The thing she feared had simply evolved from some interpersonal drama to something worse that could affect them all, but she didn't even have all the information. She was shown the tip of an iceberg whose depth and size she couldn't see below the surface, and by consequence it left her feeling more helpless than anything.

"He's alive because of you." Sasuke murmured so quietly she wondered if he was talking to himself. A reminder that helped him realign his own perspective.

"I've…never seen him with a girl before. Well–" His brows knit faintly, sifting through a flood of memories while he stared unfocused at the ground. "Not one he's looked at…like the way he looks at you."

The absence of wind made the silence sinking in that much more potent. She was grateful that his attention was elsewhere. Lost in his own thoughts while he processed what he wanted to say. Her internal struggle was beginning to fray through her remaining composure, and she feared he might see it reach the surface.

More than he already had, anyway. She knew she wasn't acting like herself, but she was already doing the best she could to keep it together.

Just looking at him was painful enough.

How cruel and unfair it was to have the burden of this relatively trivial secret lifted off her chest, only for an infinitely larger one to crush her down. One part of her bitterly resented Kakashi ever coming to her door…yet a much wiser part knew he was just another piece on a chess board she was beginning to realize they were all positioned on, whether they wanted to be or not. Whether they were even aware.

'Field work', Shisui? This couldn't be what you meant…

"If you care about each other, Sakura…then…that's all that matters. I won't get in the way."

The short strands of hair framing his face billowed in the small burst of wind as she collided into him. The sudden force lurched him back a step.

One minute he was watching the ground, wondering how everything was going to unfold in the future. The next, she was encasing him in a hug that caught him so off guard he lost his voice.

It wasn't the first time she had ever hugged him, but it had been a while…and he certainly never anticipated her touching him again so soon. This was the first time she gripped him this tightly, however. Fingers curled into the back of his shirt, bunching the fabric tighter around his chest as it pulled. Her cheek pressed into his shoulder, facing away from him.

He could feel her heart beating. Thudding rapid vibrations through her ribs and into his own. It should have been much slower and calmer. He never saw the eyes cringing shut, or the tears that managed to squeeze from each corner to streak down her cheeks.

He might have sympathized, even if he didn't understand. It wasn't long ago he was doing the same, when Itachi trapped him in a hug against his will.

His arms hovered awkwardly in the air around her. Refusing to lower, as if touching her for any reason was forbidden. Such twisted irony, compared to the last time they were face to face.

Suspended for seconds without direction, he waited for her to end it. To let him go and resume walking. When she didn't break away, they would slowly sink. Inch by inch coiling down, until she felt him return the hug in a much looser hold than her own. His chin brushed the top of her head, but he wouldn't intentionally rest it there.

For as long as he knew her, she'd always been emotional. They were all emotional…but she expressed herself more readily than he or Naruto ever had, excluding anger. The hug itself wasn't so shocking. Maybe the timing wasn't, either. It must have been a relief to hear what he said, even if they both knew she didn't need his permission or approval to do anything.

There was more she wasn't telling him, though. It nagged at the forefront of his mind. Something was bothering her, and it bled into every gesture and every sentence. Whatever it was, he sensed its quality was caustic, and not something that could be safely ignored for long.

If anyone knew what that was like, it was him.

"I know I'm not the easiest person to talk to. I'm probably the last person you want to talk to, anyway. I haven't been…very nice…in a long time." His breath whispered through her hair while he watched a moth dance around a lantern hanging from a beam nearby. Beating its wings in vain against the paper-thin barrier that unwittingly kept it from its own incineration.

"But whatever is wrong…I'll listen. I won't yell. I won't do anything…you don't want me to do."

The arms squeezed tighter around him. It was the only response she gave. The heartbeat continued to hammer away, and if anything he felt each distinct thud more easily now, because she was holding her breath.

He didn't have a clue what that meant, but he said nothing more. Resigned to holding her until she was ready to let go.

It was hard to believe the words coming out of his mouth. He spoke with sincerity. She knew he meant them, no matter how unexpected they were. It seemed the rage he unleashed that day truly had been a transient thing, and was something he regretted.

It was everything she wanted to hear, yet its impact was stolen from her. Or at least tainted. Like being handed a gift she'd been waiting so long for, but the gift was sitting on the dock while she drifted out to sea with a horizon of storm clouds. It made the taste in her mouth all the more bitter.

When the emotions receded enough for her to trust her own throat not to crack, she took a shaky breath. The iron grip she hadn't realized she was permanently wrinkling into his shirt released, and she pulled away. Careful to keep her face angled from him as she turned toward the lonely path ahead.

He let her slip, arms opening with the barest movement.

"I'm fine, Sasuke… It…means a lot to hear you say that. I think right now I just…need to be alone. It's been a long day."

The silence spoke for him. She was lying through her teeth, but he didn't probe for more. There was no point.

"You want me to go?"

The question hovered unanswered for a minute. While he waited, his gaze found the moth fluttering away from the lantern. Giving up it's hopeless pursuit at reaching the source of light. The little blur of white snagged in the air before it could find the open sky. Wings struggling right into a spiderweb it never saw coming.

"Yes. I'm going to keep walking for a bit. I'll be okay."

His dark eyes drifted back to the pink hair she was using as a shield. As if it could keep her despair from filtering through. They were well beyond that now, but he would play along, if it's what made her comfortable.

"Alright.. Goodnight, Sakura."

She heard his feet shifting around, and the quiet steps that padded into the distance as he conceded to her request. There was a brief moment when he paused and considered her over his shoulder with a doubtful look, but he was in no hurry to repeat past mistakes. If what she wanted was space, he would give it.

She owed him nothing, while he owed her everything.


Note: I know it looks like I skipped over the entire meeting Sakura had with Tsunade and everyone else involved. The details are meant to start unfolding in the next chapter. The pieces will slowly come together.

By the way... It's been mentioned in the past, so maybe I'll put some minds to rest. No matter what you read from here on out, please keep in the back of your mind that this fic will remain non-mass. There will be no Uchiha clan slaughter. If we want to go relive that tragedy, we can just revisit the anime/manga. I'm not here to bring it back to life...I want to turn the tide.

Cheers, and thank you for your patience.