The mist tasted of metal. Naruto waved an arm to clear the tainted vapor, but it stubbornly stuck and foggged his vision. The damp sunk itself past his clothes into his skin, he could feel its rivets seep to the bone. His hands twitched from the trickle. Naruto held them up to investigate the sensation, and gasped when a smear of blood shone inexplicably bright through the mist.

He shut his eyes to avoid its glare, and when he opened them he saw the mists parted to reveal his own body outside himself. He was fighting, roaring and clawing and lunging like a wild beast. Naruto watched the copy tear flesh apart, blood showering him in a halo of red. Behind the monster, a heap of corpses sunk into each other. Naruto's mouth dried when a disembodied arm shot past him and flopped onto the bridge.

"W-"

His monstrous mirror took no notice of him, and Naruto tried to take a breath without choking on it.

"What are you doing?" he whispered, wheezy and shaking.

The mirror tilted his head, but did not turn around. Naruto glared, anger taking precedence over any fear.

"Hey! I'm talking to you!"

"Me?" His own voice echoed back at him.

Naruto took a step back, unnerved by the uncanny sensation of hearing himself outside his head.

"Shouldn't I be asking you?" the doppelganger jeered.

The apparition finally turned around, still holding the head of his victim, the viscera plopping onto the bridge loudly against the soft crash of the waves below. His crimson glare forced Naruto into a sharp inhale.

The world spun around them both. The mists returned and engulfed them both in an unforgiving miasma. He had to resist the mounting urge to heave until it stopped.

"What's that supposed to mean?" Naruto asked just as everything steadied.

"Well, just look," the mirror said, nodding to what Naruto was holding.

Slowly, slowly, Naruto turned from his twin to the weight that occupied his hands.

Staring back at him were the dull eyes of the disembodied samurai.

"No," Naruto choked, the head slipped from his grasp, and he took a shaky step away. Taking no heed of his rejection, it rolled away until the demon stopped its course with a careless stomp, causing a deluge of gore to gush out. Naruto's eyes stung.

As his mirror bent down to pick it up, Naruto took another step away, his heel colliding into the fleshy tower of sinew and curdling blood.

Naruto tried not to look, but his eyes locked on the mountain of eviscerated corpses.

"That wasn't me," he whimpered. "I didn't do any of this."

The mirror chuckled, turning the samurai's head in his hands and leaning down towards it as if to whisper a secret.

"Don't you understand?"

Naruto blinked, and found the head staring up at him once more.

"You do, don't you?" The voice was close to his ear. Naruto shrieked, dropping the head again. He could feel his chest shake in the failed effort to control his breathing. The samurai still blankly stared up at him from the stained pink of the concrete.

The voice next to him had come from nothing, but the sound of screeching metal tore his ears as the demon laughed and laughed.

Naruto clutched his head and tried to run away from the sound, and tripped over a limb lazily languishing out from the bottom of the flesh pile, vaulting him into the opaque ocean below. He felt himself sink, endlessly buffeted by an unyielding riptide. The laughter grew louder and louder, stretching for hours. When Naruto was finally able to shove though to the surface, he recognized the bricked walls around him as the tunnel leading to Wave.

The tunnel ran for a scant few seconds before spitting him out of Hokage mountain. A scream bubbled in his throat, but for some reason Naruto couldn't force any sound from his lips. Seawater tingled his lips, and it felt as though he couldn't open his mouth even if he wanted to. The wide branches of the trees that encircled his village snagged at his body as he fell.

He landed on stone, sharp jagged points piercing his skin.

He barely felt it. He was suffocated under an immense, formless pressure. Naruto had thought that the entire weight of the water channel was pressing on his back, but the chamber was dry save for the drip drip drip drip drip from somewhere to his right. Naruto could barely move, but he forced himself to crane his neck higher where he met a pair of malicious, pulsing eyes. He hacked wetly and scurried away from their familiar fury, slamming his head into the crumbling wall behind him. He tried escaping sideways, but was rooted by a manacle chaining his leg to the middle of the chamber, just in front of the bars of the cell before him.

BOY.

Naruto suddenly felt too hot, the water which still clung to him was freezing. He shut his eyes and dug his chin into his shoulder.

DO NOT LOOK AWAY, BOY. SEE CLEARLY THE CONSEQUENCE OF YOUR EXISTENCE.

Naruto could barely fathom the words, and later would not remember that he was spoken to at all. When he did try to remember, all he felt was a scorching scar that stung when prodded at.

YOU WOULD COWER AWAY?

The voice became louder, deeper, until it seized his whole body. Naruto's breath came out in short pants, and against his will a keening sound slipped through his teeth.

LOOK UPON THAT WHICH YOU ARE SO AFRAID OF, BOY. WOULD THAT YOU RUE IT EVERMORE. WOULD THAT YOU BECOME ONE WITH YOUR HATRED AND FEAR. WOULD THAT YOU FIND STRENGTH IN YOUR FEEBLE BODY. WOULD THAT YOU FINALLY BECOME WORTHY OF MY POWER.

Naruto felt shooting pains arc up his backside. He shook his head vehemently, cradling his temples in a feeble effort to escape Its enormity.

HEED ME, BOY!

Against his will, Naruto lowered his shaking hands, craning his neck upwards bit by bit. Eventually, after an aching eternity his eyes met the shrieking glare of another. Molten enough that the space between his bones and skin became liquid. Glacial enough that he felt the air in his throat become rigid.

In his stupor, he felt himself sinking deeper and deeper but could do nothing to stop it. Just under the infernal vortexes he could see a great maw unhinge, it was all he could to scramble backwards, but was met with the dampened concrete that lined this place. He tried still to jostle away, knocking his head against the wall instead. He retched, chest about to burst,

Naruto shot up, gasping for air. The dark around him had softened considerably, and it took a moment for him to orient himself. He clutched his chest and took great gulps of air.

He heard the cry of something small and high pitched to his left, and the babbling drip of a nearby brook to his right. Across the fire, Sakura sat, staring at the fire intently.

Naruto noticed a small rock near his bedroll that was definitely not there before he went to sleep. He looked up at his teammate, but she would not look away from the dwindling flames.

"Get ready," she said with a poor facade of neutrality. Naruto found his mind too sleep-muddled to parse what it was masking.

He blinked hard enough to make his nose tickle. The sky was suddenly so bright. The morning sun didn't even break the horizon yet.

"Are you listening?"

Naruto was not.

"We need to move soon, so get ready," she repeated.

Naruto squinted at the sky, where stars were still barely shining through a veil of powder blue. Surely not that soon? Seeing Sakura shift uncomfortably on the rock she was sitting on halted his protest.

"Gonna go take a leak," he growled, his throat catching on itself as it worked to clear the sleep out of it.

Sakura jolted when he spoke, relaxing minutely as he trudged further away to where he could hear the sound of moving water. She clamped down on her panicked visage and twisted it into a far more recognizable expression of disgust.

"Would it kill you to mind your words?" she scoffed.

He flaps a hand at her halfheartedly.

Naruto couldn't place why, but he felt unease creep up his spine the more he stared into the placid stream where he relieved himself.

By the time he returned, Sakura had already packed up her side of camp, and was idly poking at ground with the stick she had been using to tend the fire. She jumped as his sandal scraped against the ground behind her.

"Gimme a second, Sakura-chan."

He hurriedly stuffed his mat into his pack and tried to ignore the sting of silence.

His headset cracked to life while he was rolling up his mat.

"All units, check-in." Kurenai's voice sounded from the piece.

"Present," Sakura said.

"Start moving to the rendezvous point for debrief."

"Roger."

Sakura hefted her pack and started down the path.

"Wait up!"

Naruto tugged at a stubborn zipper. As she waited, Sakura restlessly shifted her weight from one foot to the other.

Without looking away from the horizon she was monitoring, Sakura nodded when he caught up, then jumped up into a nearby tree. Naruto sighed and followed after her.

While they were leaping from branch to branch, Naruto's foot snagged on a gnarled twist of bark, sending him hurtling to the ground.

Thankfully, Sakura's arm thrust out just in time to catch him.

"Phew," said Naruto after he found his bearings. "Thanks, Sakura-chan."

Sakura still wouldn't look at him, even though she just saved him.

Inexplicably, Naruto felt irritation shoot up his throat. He could accept it if Sakura outright hated him. He kind of always assumed it to be the case as they were growing up, but he couldn't stand her attitude now. She acted like she didn't pay him any mind, but it was clear that she was constantly watching his every movement. Every twitch, every step, every word. Naruto couldn't stand to be under her microscope anymore.

"That's it!" he exclaimed.

Sakura jumps up in fright, just stopping herself from reaching into her pouch.

Naruto suddenly remembered the sensation of something in his hands. Much heavier than he ever would have expected. What was it? Something round. Something slippery. The thought escaped him before he could figure it out.

"What's going on, Sakura-chan?" he asked. "I can't take this weirdness anymore!"

Sakura swallowed and tugged at a loose hair.

"I don't know what you mean, Uzumaki-san."

"Oh come on," he groaned. "You know you've been weird ever since Wave."

Sakura's eyes sharpened, but still wouldn't meet him.

"The Wave?"

"Yeah, with the bridge."

Sakura stopped tugging at her hair.

"And what do you remember from the bridge?"

"Well," he mumbled, "you know, with Haku, and Sasuke, and the dome, and…"

Sakura's expression shifts into something more familiar: impatient disappointment.

"Gah!" Naruto furiously scratched at the back of his head, frustration boiling up again.

"Bits and pieces, right? Bits and pieces. And it doesn't really feel like I'm the one who…" He stopped short and studied his hands for a moment.

Sakura finally fully turned to him, surrendering the pretense she was scanning the proximity.

"Look, you're not the only one who's confused, alright?" Naruto scrambled desperately.

"I'm the one who has to live with it! I don't even know what happened! I just know that one day it happened and it-" Naruto choked on the dryness of his throat.

He didn't see Sakura's face twist with sympathy, just for a moment.

Naruto's shoulders tremored.

"All I've ever wanted to do was protect everyone, to prove I'm not a demon!"

Naruto looked up and was met with Sakura's open-faced look of shock. His heel kicked a rock as he stepped backward. He thought of the bridge. He thought of the fact he knew of no person who could do what he did. He thought of red.

"Maybe you're right to treat me like I'm a monster. You need to protect the team, right? You're the leader, after all."

Sakura screwed her brows in confusion. Kakashi never said as much, but Naruto wasn't born yesterday.

Naruto rolled his eyes to allay their moisture.

"Come on, everyone knows you're his favorite."

She concentrated on the ground in thought.

"That's not true," she said after a moment of thought.

Naruto shot her a sardonic look.

"I'm serious," she pouted.

"He only gives me more attention than you two when it pertains to leading the team. He just wants to make sure I'm ready to take care of you guys."

Sakura's eyes widened with something unreadable. She did not look away from Naruto's for a long, long moment.

"Uzumaki-san," she said. "Most of that was incomprehensible."

Naruto's chest stinged. They hadn't truly spoken for so long that he forgot that Sakura could be just as short and utterly impersonal as Sasuke some days.

"If you examine those feelings, perhaps you will find that they are unfounded."

Naruto leveled her with a dubious glare. Resentfully, he recalled how she had refused to meet his eyes for the past few weeks.

Sakura looked properly abashed, face simultaneously blotchy and white. She bit her lip.

"You were right about one thing, though," she said.

"I do need to protect the team."

Naruto braced himself. He tried to meet the rejection head-on. He tried to be strong. He cringed away anyway. He was too exhausted to hold his chin up high, his back ached from standing tall. He allowed himself this much.

Sakura was silent. Naruto cracked open an eyelid to investigate, and was met with the top of Sakura's head, bowing to him in a show of unprecedented respect.

"I'm sorry you felt unsafe, Uzumaki-san. I should have known that you would be distressed from that mission. I'm afraid I was too caught up in my own issues that-"

"Yeah, when are you not?" Naruto didn't mean for her to hear that, or for her to stop talking.

The following silence grew too loud. An unwelcome heaviness in his chest crushed his ribs.

"After I killed Zabuza, I felt like I could barely stand to be in my own skin," Sakura said. "And then I saw you on the bridge and you were…"

She shuddered.

"I couldn't imagine how I could live with myself after taking one life the way I did. But you and all those people…"

She brought a hand to her head.

"I should have known," she said.

"Geez, don't be so serious all the time. There's no way you could have known," Naruto sighed and tried to escape Sakura's pleading, burning gaze.

"But-!" she started.

"Enough already! The others are waiting." Naruto hated being the voice of reason. "It's not like we've stopped being teammates, right? So there's nothing to talk about. It's fine."

Sakura frowned.

"Uzumaki-san…"

She clutched a section of her braid in a fist. She didn't mention how he was the one who stopped their approach to the meeting point.

"Let's go, then."

Naruto felt lighter. The fact that Sakura actually spoke to him at all outside of being on the same genin team was enough for him to think he was still asleep. He thought it was the first time he ever got to hear an apology. He tried to recall, but could only think of, inexplicably, the face of the Hokage.

Sakura's candor made him feel like he could finally examine the bleeding scar that was Wave without drowning in the discharge. The affirmation was frightening in a way. It was a horrible confirmation that he did lose himself on the bridge. It was a witnessed atrocity, but now he knew he was not the only one. That had to count for something, right?

He studied his teammate. He wondered what the freshly graduated Sakura would think of herself bowing her head to him of all people. He wondered if it mattered.

When they reached the rendezvous point, the only pair yet to arrive was Kiba and Hinata. Sasuke straightened when he caught sight of them.

"Sakura! Did you sleep ok?" Sasuke fretted over the girl.

A nonsensical question. Nobody ever slept well on away missions.

"Sasuke-kun," Sakura breathed in response. "I haven't seen you in so long…"

"It's been eight hours!" Naruto yelped.

"Oh," Sasuke gave him a brisk once-over and a bare incline of the head, "Naruto."

"Yeah. Hey, Sasuke."

"Are they always this awkward?" Shino asked.

Kakashi sighed, beleaguered.

"Kid, you have no idea."

"Hey!" Kiba called as he skidded over.

"Sorry we're late, we were tracking a whole bunch of them."

"And?" Kurenai prompted.

"There's two teams coming in from the North, it looks like one is still marching down farther. I think they caught wind of us and are setting up a pincer," Kiba said.

Naruto supposed that seeing an old classmate being professionally competent shouldn't be so strange. Still, it was.

"We've also detected movement near the East," Hinata said, then squeaked when all eyes turned to her. "It's uhhhhhh, probably, the, the. Well, the ones who you said from before…"

Kurenai set a hand on the girl's shoulder.

"Well done, you two."

"Nobody else saw anything?" she asked the other four genin.

They all nodded.

Kakashi clapped his book shut, making Naruto jump. He kind of forgot his own instructor was there.

"This should be simple then," he said. "Kurenai-sensei and I will hold the east while one team each deals with the strike forces."

Kiba grinned with too many teeth. "Team 8 can take point. Wouldn't want these wimps to turn yellow and break our frontline."

Akamaru cheerfully barked in agreement. Effectively nullifying any semblance of arrogance, but was still a very cute sidekick.

"Say that again!" Naruto flared.

"Kiba," Kurenai warned.

The other boy receded, but Naruto's hackles were still raised.

"Focus, Naruto," Kakashi said to little effect.

"Inuzuka-san, while his logic is questionable and laughably juvenile, is correct. It would be better for Team 8 to be frontline," said Sakura to his surprise.

"We have more expertise fighting in both close and far range. In the interest of teamwork and cohesion, we should do our best to compensate for their shortcomings."

Naruto grinned at his teammate, sharp and just as canine as Kiba. She gave him a pleased grin in return.

"Positions!" Kurenai hollered from the far end of the field.

"Whatever," Kiba clicked his tongue. Shino and Hinata looked bored behind him. "I know you guys are all bark and no bite. So we'll show you what real ninja look like. Just watch."

"Has he always made so many dog puns?" Sasuke asked.

"He seems really aggressive," Sakura said in an agreeing murmur.

"Ugh, you guys, Kiba has always been like that," Naruto exasperated. "You just never noticed anything beyond yourselves."

The pair looked unconvinced.

A blaring warhorn sounded, interrupting the conversation.

"Attention, ninja of the Hidden Leaf!"

"Is he talking to us?" Naruto muttered.

"Who else would I be talking to?!" yelled a man surrounded by a legion of bandits, all armed and menacing.

"I thought bandits were supposed to be stealthy." The blond shrugged.

"That's ninja," Sasuke grunted.

"What does a shinobi in orange know about stealth anyway?" the bandit chief taunted.

"What would a bandit in poop brown know about memorable character design?" Naruto crowed back.

"I wonder if this is Hajime," Sakura wondered aloud.

"That's right!" Hajime acknowledged gleefully. "My reputation precedes me, as always!"

"So somebody always gets lost just before a raid," Naurto gathered.

"Sloppy," Sasuke said.

The marauder flushed in rage.

"Enough talk!" Hajime threw his arms in a commanding gesture.

"You're the one with the megaphone," Naruto said.

"I suggest you give up, shinobi. As you can see, you're surrounded."

Sure enough, two squadrons emerged from the foliage, just where Kiba and Hinata said they would.

"Bring it on, you bastards!" Kiba howled.

Hajime cackled menacingly.

"As you wish." He dropped his arms and his band followed.

Being surrounded by bandits was something that Naruto was rapidly getting used to. They weren't particularly vicious or fearsome fighters but they did have numbers. He shoved one right into the charge of another, only for three more fighters to take their place.

"We're kind of getting steamrolled here," Naruto called to Sakura, who deflected a kunai with wide eyes.

"I know!" she snapped.

"Well, what do we do?" Naruto asked impatiently, sweeping the leg of a man with a really weird looking sword. It looked like it was zigzagged. Maybe it got dented one too many times and he couldn't afford a smith? Bandits sure have it rough.

"Sasuke! Stop going in without the rest of us!" said Sakura.

"If I don't, we get overwhelmed!" retorted Sasuke with a huff.

"Wait for Naruto to engage, like in training!"

"Then give the order already!" Naruto groused.

"Not yet!"

"Should we wait while they figure this out?" Naruto heard a nearby thug question.

"I guess we are," another answered.

"I miss Hideo," a third sighed longingly, "he would have known what to do."

"No, he wouldn't have," the first said.

On the other side of the battle, the jonin were mostly silent as they fought, except when Kurenai piped up.

"Asuma was right, you guys are struggling," she said.

"You two deserve each other," Kakashi sniped in response.

Kiba guffawed.

"I knew it," he said. "Some aces of the academy these guys are."

Naruto resented that since, as he was so often reminded, he was ranked dead last on a consistent basis.

"Like I said, all talk." Kiba smirked to his team.

"You're telling me," Hinata said.

Shino nodded silently.

"Huh?" Kiba blinked in confusion. "Did I miss something?"

Hinata gasped. "There-!" She pointed to a rock formation just behind where Team 7 were fighting.

A volley of arrows soared over Naruto's head to Team 8's section of the skirmish.

Before the bolts could fall onto them, a mass of undulating insects exploded from Shino's body and formed a shield sturdy enough for them to bounce away harmlessly.

"This is bad!" Sakura fretted. "Inuzuka-san and Hyuuga-san can't do anything when they're pinned down like that. Aburame-san's insects won't hold forever- and they're up against the most numbers, and Kakashi-sensei is-"

"Sakura!" Sasuke pleaded.

"I know, I know!"Sakura's voice cracked. Naruto thought she might pull a muscle with how fast her eyes were darting all around her.

"I can't take this anymore!" Naruto erupted. He started sprinting, intending to go down swinging.

"Wait, Naruto!" he heard Sakura call.

"What a moron," said Sasuke.

"Let's go already!" Naruto bellowed impatiently.

"Fine!" Sakura shrieked right back. "Sasuke, flush out those archers with Great Fireball, Naruto, Kage Formation-Three!"

"Alright!" whooped Naruto.

Naruto shaped his fingers to summon a dozen shadow clones while Sasuke's hands flurried in forming a Great Fireball. The heat blasted at his back as he and a clone beat down a couple hapless bozos.

"Sasuke," Sakura barked, "go after the commander, I'll finish off the archers. Don't let them regroup!"

Sasuke nodded and sprinted past Naruto to where Hajime was watching the fight with a pale expression.

A few of the goons fighting Naruto caught on to what was happening and stumbled to catch the Uchiha.

"Naruto, on Sasuke's six!"

"Yeah, yeah, make me do all the work!"

Sakura didn't respond, she was too busy casting a genjutsu.

"I knew I should have sprung for the fireproof arrows!" a bandit wailed.

"A thousand foes, a thousand nightmares," Sakura said, holding the last hand sign and spreading her chakra to shroud the archers in a thin film of illusion.

"No, no, not the kappa!"

"It's not like that, baby! She's just a friend!"

"What do you mean renter's insurance went up?!"

Sakura faced the other end of the field.

"Inuzuka-san, you're in the clear!"

She turned back to her own team's battle, and gasped at what she saw.

One of the bandits, lying in wait near the chief, snuck up behind Sasuke with a sword raised to strike down. Too engrossed in battle, Sasuke did not notice the approaching blade.

"No!" Sakura choked. "Uzumaki-san wasn't fast enough! If only I-!"

"Leaf Storm Punch!" Naruto roared, digging his heel into the face of the bandit.

"That was a kick, though!" his voice faded as he sailed away, into the maelstrom that was Kage Formation-Three.

"Sasuke, you good?" Naruto panted.

The bastard didn't even look up from tying Hajime up with metal wire.

"Didn't need your help," he said.

"You are so full of shit, you bastard." Naruto chortled.

Sakura jogged up to them.

"Uzumaki-san, you…how?"

"Sakura," Naruto said. "I'm not really good at thinking things through when we're in the heat of it. And…I don't know what will happen with…" Naruto trailed off, unsure if Sakura told Sasuke about Wave.

"The point is, I will always be right where you tell me to go, no matter what! I will never let you guys down, and I'll never give up. That's my ninja way, believe it!"

"I see," Sakura said bemused. She smiled after a moment.

"Thank you, Uzumaki-san, you're a better teammate than I."

Warm butterflies burst in Naruto's stomach. Sakura's eyes were so green. So, so green. And her nose was so cute, it scrunched a little whenever she smiled.

"Let's not go that far," Sasuke said.

"Butt out!" Naruto bit.

Naruto regarded his teammates slyly.

"Say, I guess this means we're even now," he said.

Sasuke raised a brow, and Sakura's cheeks appled.

"Pretty embarrassing, isn't it?" Naruto snickered.

"Obnoxious as always." Sakura sniffed and crossed her arms defensively.

"Hey!" a voice hooted from across the grass again. "You know, there's a fight going on! Maybe you should-OORGH!"

Kiba's badgering was cut short by a bludgeon to the back of the head, knocking him flat on the ground.

"Kiba!" Hinata cried.

Hinata and Shino were surrounded separately, the chaos of battle having separated the trio.

Sakura dashed to the Inuzuka heir.

"Let's go!"

She launched a round of shuriken, forcing the raider to jump back to where Sasuke had substituted himself with a fallen log. The brunet launched the bandit into the air with an uppercut, where Naruto swung a textbook axe kick right on his spine, smacking him down to the ground.

"Pathetic," Sasuke said.

Naruto thought he was referring to how quickly all these supposedly hardened criminals dropped like flies, but he was actually speaking to Kiba.

"Thank goodness we managed to help you, Inuzuka-san," mused Sakura.

"Rather unsightly to have to be rescued by a bunch of pansies, though." She giggled behind her hand.

"Your students are just as charming as you, Kakashi," Kurenai drawled, evidently unimpressed enough with Kiba's performance to bother with defending him. In the time that Team 7 were dealing with the bandit she dispatched the remaining raiders with a much larger and scarier form of genjutsu than Sakura had used.

Sakura smiled lovingly at her boyfriend."Isn't that right, Sasuke-kun?"

"What else could you expect from a mutt?" Sasuke sneered.

Kiba scowled, trying and unable to find the words to retort. He settled for dropping his head onto the grass.

At times like these, Naruto thought, these two are pretty cool.

omg heeeeeeeey. awkwaaad. yeah that took a while right? LOL. i would apologize but i doubt anyone is still HERE geez. life really kicked the shit out of me recently and would u believe i was not exactly motivated to write fic anymore so yea here you go. im probs gonna finish this at some point guys its just going to be slow-going. i first brainstormed this in 2015 ffs, i would like to get it done before the decade is out at least hahah.

btw trying to search up the sasusaku tag on literally any website is a minefield. I go to tumblr somebody is talking about anti anti anti sasusaku. ok. on twitter people are talking about gender roles in japan and how the west just doesnt understand. ok. instagram has historically been dogshit at regulating tags so its all just naruto posts from 2012. ok. this is hell. i could not give less of a shit abt ship discourse this is my comfort ship from childhood idc if it wasnt properly developed in part ii i literally didnt watch it LOL. i just miss normal online spaces ig yk. not to age myself or anything but fandom seemed so much more fun like twelve years ago. ah well.

if you made it this far thanks for reading all that 3 hope you enjoyed this one it did NOT want to come out. but now i do get why kishi had such a hard time developing sakuras character. its like really hard to write a trio. like was sasuke even here? has anyone seen him? did we forget him at home? sorry sweet emo prince im so sorry i did you dirty like this.