This is a collection of companion stories for A Sign That You Were Here. That story is written solely concentrating on Hinata's point of view, but as many readers wanted to peek into other characters' heads, I decided to write a few POV chapters. Each chapter of this collection will explore one character's point of view, but the stories won't necessarily be in chronological order. And they won't necessarily discover the same parts of the storyline.
For those who aren't familiar with the main story: I think these stories can be understood without having prior knowledge of the storyline, but they might be confusing. And they might contain a few spoilers so I'd suggest trying out the main story first.
For those who are familiar with the main story: I hope you'll enjoy these chapters and that they will help you understand the characters more!
Sasuke's Mask
Sasuke's eyes narrowed at the messenger hawk circling above his head.
Stretching out his arm, he waited for the bird to descend. The hawk gracefully pushed its claws into his skin as it settled on the offered resting place. It was already familiar with the man—knowing that he had only one arm to use, the bird shook off the message fastened around its neck.
As the tiny, rolled-up paper fell onto the grass under Sasuke's legs, he swung his arm slightly upward and the hawk flew away with supple strikes of its wings.
Bending down, Sasuke gripped the letter that must've been sent by Naruto.
Furrowing his eyebrows, he rolled out the paper. The last time Naruto sent mission instructions was a week ago—the new message meant that his former teammate had broken their unspoken pact about no letters more frequent than a month.
Sasuke, there's a critical matter in the village which we can't solve without you. Put a pause to your mission and come back to Konoha as soon as you can. – Naruto
Sasuke read through the short letter twice more to search for hidden clues about the mentioned critical matter posing a possible danger to his family. Not finding any, he crumbled the paper and tucked it into the pocket of his cloak.
Deciding no matter could be more critical than finding clues about the Ootsutsuki, Sasuke set out to visit one more dimension before heading back to the village.
His own pace surprised him—it took only three days before he spotted the all too familiar walls around Konoha.
He hadn't been hurrying—he just happened to be close to the village and the last dimension he had visited turned out to be barren and uninteresting.
The messenger hawk was patiently waiting for him, resting on a thick branch of a tree. As Sasuke passed next to it, the bird flew off and sat on Sasuke's shoulder. Without as much as a flinch, he reached for the message around its neck.
It was written with rushed, barely legible handwriting that could only belong to one particular man. It didn't even matter that it wasn't signed.
Interrogation building. Search for Ino!
Sasuke let out a faint hum. Without the message, he would've headed straight to the Hokage Tower.
The hawk jumped off his shoulder, flying back to its post inside the village. Sasuke stared after it until it disappeared behind the high walls.
Thinking about the nature of a critical matter that needed to be solved in an interrogation room in the presence of a Yamanaka, Sasuke leaped to the top of the wall.
He shot a glance in the direction of his family's home before he let his legs guide him to the interrogation building.
"Sasuke-kun," Ino waved at him as soon as he set a foot in the main hall. She strolled toward him, her long blonde hair swinging behind her. "Naruto will arrive soon. Follow me, please," she said and turned around, marching up the stairs.
Walking closely behind her, Sasuke pondered on why exactly he was needed here. Ino's involvement suggested the critical matter came in the form of a person—someone whose mind could be examined by the Yamanaka. But Naruto wouldn't call a simple criminal a critical matter and definitely wouldn't order him home because of it.
This someone either had committed something grave or they had valuable intel.
As Ino settled on the chair across the closed door of the interrogation room, Sasuke leaned against the undecorated wall.
"Do you know who you will examine?"
Ino turned her head toward him, a curious glisten sparkling in her eyes. "No. Naruto only said I will have to look through some memories to determine if their owner is under a genjutsu or not."
"Genjutsu," Sasuke repeated, closing his eyes. "He expects it to be genjutsu if I'm here."
Ino nodded. "Probably."
The silence that followed did not bother Sasuke in the slightest—in fact, he enjoyed the calmness that surrounded him minutes before the storm. A hunch of his told him that whatever they would find out, it would be the start of a bumpy ride.
The muffled sound of quick, but unsure footsteps reached his ears and Sasuke opened his gaze just in time to see Naruto opening the door of the interrogation room. His posture was tenser than Sasuke had ever seen, and the trembling of his irises immediately caught his gaze.
Pushing himself away from the wall, he was about to make a remark on the sudden change of instructions when Naruto's broad shoulders moved, revealing a tiny figure behind them. Her eyes were fixated on the ground and she emanated unsettling waves of nervousness.
The presence of Naruto's wife between the white walls of the interrogation room felt out of place.
"Naruto, you ordered me home to solve a critical matter," Sasuke spoke up. His tone was cold and reprimanding as he failed to suppress the annoyance flaring up inside of him. "The last thing I expected is your wife tagging along. If this is—"
"We're examining her memories," the vehemence Naruto cut him off with caught Sasuke off guard.
Before he could comprehend the meaning behind Naruto's words, Ino jumped to her feet as she yelled, "What? Why didn't you tell me it was Hinata?"
Hinata slowly raised her head, her pale eyes locking with Sasuke's. He had never paid much attention to the former heiress—all he knew about her was from the stories Sakura and Naruto told him.
Even though Sasuke couldn't say he knew the woman at all, the longing swirling in the opalescent gaze made it clear that something was wrong with her.
The lavender eyes slid off to Sasuke's missing arm. Her irises dilating, she pushed her lips together with a tense twitch of its corners. Sasuke was accustomed to the baffled glares he constantly received, but the way Hinata stared at the sleeve of his shirt that was hanging without any limb rubbed him the wrong way.
Ino moved to hold Hinata's hand and Sasuke pinned his gaze on their interlocking fingers.
"You have to search through my mind. You're the only one who can find the key in my memories." Hinata's voice was low and she clearly talked to Ino, but it caught Sasuke's attention.
Knitting his brows together, he asked, "The key for what?"
Blond hair moved and Sasuke shifted his eyes at Naruto. "Everything you see or hear in this room must be treated as an SS-rank secret."
Sasuke nodded and turned his head toward Ino, waiting for her affirmation. A shadow passed through her face as she nibbled on her lower lip for a few seconds before she slowly bobbed her head.
"She's not Hinata."
Sasuke suppressed a snort that was threatening to bubble up from his throat. Although, when his eyes met the unusually serious gaze of Naruto, he narrowed his irises at the woman in front of her.
Raking his eyes through her, he couldn't spot any discrepancies. "I'm not sure I understand."
Hinata folded her arms but she kept her head high. "That's not exactly true. I am Hinata. Just not the Hinata you know."
His intuition whispered danger and Sasuke tapped on the hilt of his katana that was attached to his waist. His fingers curled around it, ready to attack or defend at any moment. He suddenly understood the nature of the critical matter Naruto had been so vague about—someone had targeted the Hokage through his family.
Scrunching up his face, Sasuke inwardly cursed the faceless enemy.
Hinata's arms tensed as she rushed out the words, "I mean no harm. I just want to return home."
"Which is where precisely?" Sasuke questioned, squinting his eyes at Hinata as though it would help him notice even the faintest sign of lying.
Her voice was weirdly calm as she uttered, "In an alternate dimension, I suppose."
"We're here to find out what exactly happened to Hinata," Naruto quickly added and Sasuke's head turned toward him.
He and Naruto had worked together for so long that they could understand each other without words now. The way the blueness gleamed in his eyes told a whole story of worry and distrust, and they begged with a wordless plea for help. Sasuke blinked at him, and the corner of Naruto's lips twitched up for a fraction of a second.
"I will do whatever is necessary."
"I know."
Sasuke's mind shut out the short conversation happening between Ino and Hinata—his fingers gripped the hilt of his katana tighter as he inspected the familiarly unfamiliar woman sitting down on the chair.
Sasuke meant what he had reassured Naruto with. He would do anything that he deemed necessary. If it meant driving his katana through the heart of his best friend's wife, he wouldn't hesitate. Sasuke protected the village, its Hokage, and his own family from the shadows.
But one couldn't be a shadow without the necessary darkness.
"I can bring one of you with me," Ino's voice cut into Sasuke's thoughts. Her hand rested on Hinata's temples but her blue, pupilless eyes darted between him and Naruto.
Sasuke finally let go of his katana and leaned against the wall, voicing his unquestionable order, "Go, Naruto."
The way Naruto downcast his eyes prompted Sasuke to cock an eyebrow.
"I think you should go, Sasuke."
This time, Sasuke couldn't stop the snort that tore from his throat upon hearing such nonsense. "You're the Hokage. And she's your wife."
"You know more about both genjutsu and alternate dimensions than me. You should go," Naruto's words sounded more like a command than an offer. Sasuke stared into the defiant glare, trying to read out the reason behind the stubbornness.
Was it fear? No, Naruto did not fear anything. But somehow, at this time, Sasuke sensed an underlying fear of something in his friend that he could not pinpoint.
He pushed himself away from the wall and lowered himself on the empty chair next to Hinata. "I will go," he declared.
His eyes locked with hers for a short moment before he sensed Ino's fingertips sliding over the skin of his temples. Before Ino pulled him into Hinata's mindscape with a nauseating force, a thought flashed through his mind about the way Hinata looked at him.
Before, that look was reserved solely for Naruto.
As they arrived in the mindscape, Sasuke had to grab onto the first thing he could reach so he wouldn't topple over his own feet. The hard surface under his palm had a cold, wet touch—removing his hand, he left a handprint in the moss on the trunk of a tree.
Ino was next to him, squatting down and inspecting the ground.
"Do you see something interesting?" Sasuke asked and leaned against the trunk of the tree to give himself some support.
"It's a forest mindscape," Ino stated as though the declaration could answer every question. "And do you feel this breeze?" she asked as she dived her fingers into the dust under their feet.
The breeze swayed Sasuke's hair in front of his face at the exact same moment. "I do. Can it be a genjutsu?"
"I don't know yet. We will have to watch some of her memories to figure it out."
Hinata appeared in front of them with a deep bow. "Welcome to my mind." She waited until Ino straightened up and she continued, "In my world, we've already done this once, so I'm familiar with the process. My memories are represented by leaves, and each of them holds a recollection."
Sasuke crinkled his nose upon the mention of her world. He had no idea what was the purpose of a genjutsu that made her believe she was from somewhere else, but he was determined to find it out—for Naruto's sake.
However, Hinata did not lie—countless leaves swirled around them in the breeze and many more were attached to the branches of the trees surrounding them. On each of them, calligraphic words glowed.
A particular leaf attached to the thick branch next to his head—with fan ceremony written on it—grabbed Sasuke's attention and didn't let it go. He stretched out his hand with the intention of ripping it off when thin fingers closed around his wrist.
A scowl taking over his features, he glanced at Ino. She let go of his hand as she stated, "Let her choose."
Sasuke nodded, but the words fan ceremony danced around his mind, sending an unpleasant wave of unfamiliar curiosity into his stomach.
The fan ceremony was a wedding custom of the Uchiha. A custom that did not happen in front of the guests.
Nonsense, he told himself and blinked to clear his mind of all the theories gushing into it.
Ripping off a leaf, Hinata started showing them her chosen memories. Sasuke was rather uninterested in the memories themselves—the only reason he was here was to determine if Hinata was under a genjutsu or not.
At least until the forest around them distorted into a crowd of weeping people dressed in black from head to toe. His eyes found the younger version of Hinata who let out an agonizing scream, falling onto her knees. The sound of it hurt Sasuke's ears.
Inspecting the scene, he tried to figure out where they could possibly be. Looking behind the ocean of villagers, he spotted Konoha's gates in the distance. There was no doubt about it—they were standing on top of the Hokage Tower.
The atmosphere was unmistakable—it was a funeral. The last time Sasuke had seen a shared grief this intense was at the funeral of the Third Hokage many years ago. And the Hinata pushing her forehead against the dirty floor definitely was way older than she was supposed to be if it was the Third's funeral.
A sharp gasp coming from Ino's direction prompted Sasuke to turn his head back. As soon as he laid eyes upon two pictures on top of two coffins full of white carnations, his whole body turned toward the unbelievable scene.
Abrupt dizziness sent a chill down his spine, turning his stomach with the eerie realization that Ino had already affirmed the memory was real.
He whipped his head back to the crowd to search for tufts of pink and blond hair, but no matter what direction he looked, the only place he found them was on the two photos that were carefully placed on the podium.
A shrill breath setting his lungs on fire, Sasuke breathed out, "What happened to them?"
"Assassination," the answer sounded as though it came from underwater.
The words Ino and Hinata exchanged about a war lasting more than a decade reached Sasuke's ear, but not his mind. Jade and cerulean eyes smiled at him, swallowing him whole. His eyes darting between the two pictures as though he could make them disappear, Sasuke's breath hitched.
Tearing his eyes away from the harrowing scene, he turned back to the crowd. Instead of pink and yellow, he now searched for raven black. He found some, but neither of them had the face he was so desperately looking for.
The scene already distorted back into the forest mindscape, but Sasuke's gaze was still pinned on the now non-existing crowd.
"You returned only after the funeral," Hinata's comment bolted through Sasuke's entire being with a stinging vibration.
Tightening his jaw, he couldn't get rid of the thoughts that latched themselves onto his mind.
My photo should've been next to theirs.
Shifting his eyes at Hinata, a demanding question almost rolled off his tongue when the woman's fingers closed around a new leaf, removing it from its branch. "I will show you one more memory before we move on to the last one."
The mysterious glint in her eyes tensed Sasuke's muscles. As the forest of Hinata's mindscape slowly meshed into a scene of a memory, he prepared himself for what he possibly would witness—pain, suffering, and death.
With Sakura and Naruto dead, the world could only be a gloomy, lonely place.
As the pleasant smell of lavender and plum crawled into Sasuke's nose, his tense muscles slowly relaxed. Instead of the excruciating crying he had been expecting from the new memory, breathy laughter filled the air.
Sasuke's eyes gravitated toward the source of the last happiness that seemed to remain in the world which lived in Hinata's mind. Three children sat around a dinner table. Two of them—a boy and a girl—giggled and whispered into each other's ears while another boy that seemed to be the oldest sibling of the three sat across them, folding his arms.
Sasuke followed the stare of the boy, but he only found a closed door. His gaze wandering slightly to the left, he spotted a woman with long, blueish hair, preparing food.
The realization that it was Hinata came in the form of a pinch in his stomach.
"Will Father get here in time?" the oldest boy asked.
The Hinata of the memory turned around with a smile as she grabbed a bowl full of food and placed it in the middle of the dining table. "He's never late. Enjoy the food."
"But Father is—" the boy was about to protest when a voice coming from the hallway interrupted him.
"I'm home."
Blood drained from Sasuke's face—he knew who had arrived without even seeing the man. Even though he forced his features to remain emotionless, his lips slipped, and he took in a sharp breath. Feeling the muscles in his shoulders shrinking into painful lumps of anxiety, his stomach trembled with a faint hope that he had the wrong conclusion.
As the door revealed himself behind it, a drop of cold sweat streamed down Sasuke's back—seeing how different his life could've turned out to be sent his mind reeling.
The two younger kids jumped into his counterpart's arms, yelling Papa and throwing their arms around his neck, leaving Sasuke's heart clenched as a memory flooded his mind.
"Sakura."
The pink-haired woman turned in the bed, looking curiously at her husband lying next to her. "Sasuke-kun?"
Sasuke kept staring at the ceiling, taking a deep breath. Sakura snuggled up to him, but he pushed himself onto his elbows. "I like even numbers."
"Huh?" Sakura blinked before her jade irises widened. "Do you want another baby?"
Without answering, Sasuke cupped Sakura's face and placed a light kiss on her lips. Pushing her on her back, he positioned himself on top of her. Planting small kisses on the side of her neck, he found his way down to her collarbone and was about to slide the spaghetti straps of Sakura's top off when unsure fingers tapped on his shoulders.
Looking up, his hazy gaze locked with Sakura's puzzled one. "What's wrong?"
"I… Sasuke-kun, is it because Hinata is pregnant again?"
Sasuke furrowed his eyebrows. "What?"
"Do you want another baby because Naruto is going to become a father again?"
With a grunt, Sasuke rolled off his wife and turned his back to her. Sakura wrapped her arms around his body and pressed her chest against his shirtless back.
"I'm sorry, I didn't want to offend you." She kissed into his neckline. "It was just unexpected. I want another baby too, but I want to wait a bit. Is that alright?"
"How much do you want to wait?"
"I don't know. We can start trying when Sarada turns five. What do you say?"
Disappointment tightening itself around his heart, Sasuke breathed out, "Fine."
"Was it a real memory?" the question rolled off Sasuke's tongue as he blinked to chase away his own memory.
In that one second that Ino needed to collect herself, Sasuke's lungs pushed all the oxygen out of his system as he realized he wanted Ino to say yes.
"Y-Yes," a mumble left Ino's mouth, and a shameful warmness ran through Sasuke's entire being.
As though his mind was somewhere far away from his body, Sasuke watched as Hinata's lips moved before she ripped off another leaf, moving onto her last memory.
They found themselves in the middle of a war-torn forest and Sasuke opened his mouth to redirect his thoughts. "You've never mentioned who you're in a war with."
The answer never came.
Sasuke knew he needed to concentrate on the details of the memory to effectively help Naruto and his wife, but as he watched the memory unfolding in front of his eyes, he found himself pondering on how he could've ended up with a Hyuuga of all people.
That's not me, the sudden realization hit him in the head as his counterpart emerged from the woods. He looked just like him, but his two arms were a reminder of the fact that they were different. Once the same person, but at one point, their lives took different turns.
Distancing himself from the other Sasuke, he inspected the scene with a professional eye. When Orochimaru's laugh echoed in the open space, Sasuke couldn't help but scowl.
"Aiko!" his counterpart shouted when the little girl from the previous memory appeared next to a burnt trunk of a tree and Sasuke's face distorted with a grimace.
"It's too late," he hissed as the purple waves of chakra swirled around the other Sasuke's body.
The big, mismatched eyes of Aiko grasped Sasuke's attention, and he watched as the Hinata of the memory shielded her with her own body. Strangely, only one thought whirled in his mind—that Aiko looked just like his mother, Mikoto.
As the memory ended with a noisy, bright blast, Sasuke found himself gripping the hilt of his katana. Letting go of it, he let his fingertips subtly tap on it, reminding himself that the other Sasuke and he were not the same people.
The other Sasuke's children were not his own children.
"We should discuss this with Naruto," he suggested, masking his swiveling thoughts with straightforwardness. As the blonde woman didn't respond, Sasuke hardened his voice, "Ino."
"Yes, sorry. We will leave," she finally snapped out of her thoughts.
Soon enough, Sasuke felt the tugging in his temple that dragged him out of the mindscape.
As soon as his eyes fluttered open and the light reflecting from the white walls blinded him, he leaped onto his feet, not caring about the dizziness that spun his world around. He turned his head to address Ino, but the blonde kunoichi's legs shook, looking as though they were about to betray her by failing to support her weight.
Instinctively, Sasuke reached out to steady the weakened body, but instead of silky clothes, his palm touched warm skin. Hushing away the short moment of surprise, Sasuke deftly pushed his palm against the back of Hinata's hand to provide support for Ino.
Sasuke had to bite on his tongue to hinder a grunt from echoing in the room when Hinata's pinkie unexpectedly curled up and wrapped itself around one of his digits. The twitch of a muscle in his finger prompted her to quickly hide her little finger under his palm again, but an unpleasant jolt of uneasiness already coursed through Sasuke's system.
"Thank you," Ino breathed out and Sasuke quickly removed his hand, tucking it deep into the pocket of his trousers.
He rubbed his fingers together as if the motion could wash away the remnants of the warmth of Hinata's overly affectionate touch.
However, it could not.
