Third Arc: II

Sakura left after lunch, so it was just Naruto and I heading to the clothes shop. He needed a couple more undershirts, apparently - because some people grew, imagine that, just randomly gaining extra inches of height and they didn't even have to do anything to get them, where please were my gangly Uchiha genes and why weren't they working - and I needed a jacket. My enthusiasm for a dramatic outfit changing montage had been somewhat nuked by failing to clean the house out this morning, but I did try.

Mostly.

The jacket I got was blue instead of black. Blue-grey. Dark blue-grey. It counted. It was also from the kunoichi section, I think; I'd aimed for the clothes that looked best for flexibility rather than providing armour protection, though the leather-like material and obligatory high collar should at least deflect a glancing blow.

I grabbed a random packet of brighter blue tops on the way to the counter. Most shinobi wore the same outfit all the time; bulk buying made sense. No, I didn't want to try them on. Naruto was waiting. That was the only reason. I wasn't going to lose my nerve and decide to stay in Itachi's hand-me-downs for the rest of eternity if I had to go to the changing room, don't be ridiculous.

Me and my wardrobe were fine.

"Uzumaki-kun," the guy behind the counter greeted with a nod, pushing himself off his stool. "Did you want the bargain bin? There's a spandex set marked down. Apparently it's the wrong shade of green."

Well at least me and my wardrobe were better than that. Also, what, the right gear could literally save Naruto's life - and he was only allowed to shop from the bargain bin? Was that why he ended up in orange? I didn't have my weapon pouch on me but I had a whole shopping bag of shiny new shuriken, these paper-wrapped purchases and I were ready to throw hands -

"Oh my god, stop," Naruto hissed, elbowing me hard enough in the ribs to make me take a step back. "Not today, Suisei-san!" he said brightly to the cashier. "We just got back from a big mission, I'm shopping full price." He deposited his set of white shirts on the counter and grinned, hands hanging loose by his side and entire posture relaxed.

I squinted at him suspiciously. Then at Suisei. He looked a few years older than us, not as old as Kakashi, and his polite expression was a sharp contrast to the wild tangle of his hair. He'd also made the bold fashion choice of matching his purple haori to his purple nail polish and adding a bright red trim round the hem just for the hell of it. He didn't look like a dickbag. Maybe. He rang up Naruto's shirts with the edge of a smile threatening to break his polite facade and didn't seem to overcharge him, so. Maybe. I would reserve judgement.

"That's an intense look," he said when he turned to me. He ran a hand through his hair, flattening it self consciously, and raised an eyebrow at me. "Do I have something on my face?"

I looked away to avoid answering, suddenly realising how rude I was being. Not that I really cared, but if this guy was friendly to Naruto I should probably not be quite so hostile to him. I deposited the jacket and tops on his desk instead and waited for him to tell me how much.

"So," he said once he'd done so, apparently deciding to maintain polite friendliness despite my reticence. "You're Naruto's teammate? I don't think I've seen you in here before."

I nodded warily and counted out ryo faster. This was rapidly turning awkward, and Naruto was by the door and therefore not around to save me. I didn't small talk. It wasn't a ninja skill. The academy didn't teach it, I couldn't do it, oh thank fuck there's the bag thank you kindly give.

"Lucky Naruto," Suisei said, handing me the bag and definitely too much change with a smile and what I swear was a wink. "Enjoy your purchases, Shinobi-chan."

I froze, deer-in-headlights style, then squeaked out an embarrassed, "You too, Shop-san," flushed bright red in mortification and fled. And, proving that I was completely justified in wanting to fight him earlier, Suisei failed to suppress his laugh-cough as I did so.

"Hey bastard - hey, wait!"

"Walk faster," I hissed at Naruto. "We need to get food and go home."

"Yeah, but why do we need to hurry? Why are you blushing? Bastard slow down damnit - what happened?"

We were drawing attention. I slowed to a walk and tugged my collar higher around my neck, hoping it would hide how red my ears were. "I think the guy in the shop was flirting with me."

Naruto missed a step. "He was what?"

Nope. No collar is going to hide these ears. Time to hunch shoulders instead. "He winked at me. And called me chan." He was probably just being friendly. Right? Like you'd joke with a toddler that they're a heartbreaker. And the change was... a mistake. Yeah. Numbers are hard.

Naruto's sharp tug on my bangs pulled my attention back to him. "I told you you looked like a girl," he said. "When did you last cut your hair? It's all long. And girly."

"It's not long!" I pushed him off. "Why does -" Oh. Oh. He'd called me Shinobi-chan but I wasn't a girl. Or a little kid. I hadn't even realised that. Boy body. Remember the boy body. Flat chest. Penis. Obligatory ugh. "And even if it was long, that wouldn't have to make it girly."

"It would on you, bastard. Even when it's short you make it go girly-short." He poked at the fluff at the back of my head for emphasis and I ducked away, batting his hand out the air.

"My hair's fine. Stop messing with it or I'm getting tofu for dinner."

"Why would you put tofu in ramen though? I mean you could, but why?"

"Who said we were having ramen? I want curry."

"But bastard -"

"My house, my dinner. Curry."

.

"You're the only person who lives here?" Naruto asked, craning his neck to look round the Uchiha district. "But it's huge. It's like a whole other part of the village."

"It was," I said uncomfortably. "Konoha was built on Uchiha lands. Hashirama grew the trees and marked out the rest of Konoha for the other clans to claim parts of, but this was the old land that we lived in before the treaty." At least, that's what clan history said. The history we'd been taught in the academy glossed over most of the Uchiha's involvement in favour of the Hokages - and, through them, the Senju. I was fairly certain both versions were at least partly suspect, but it was true at least that the Uchiha district was built in a different style to the rest of Konoha.

Older. Stuffier. Resistant to change. The fire that burns on the last day is as bright and as hot as the fire that burnt on the first, and all that.

"Huh. I didn't know that. Is that why no one's allowed in?"

"I - no, it's because it's clan land. The Hyuuga and the Nara and all the other clans are just as protective of their parts."

Thankfully, Naruto didn't point out how inefficient it was to keep upwards of two hundred houses empty and unused when there were space issues in the rest of the village. Not many space issues, because Konoha made a lot of use of apartment blocks, but the traditional houses and particularly the large gardens that I was used to were rare outside clan lands.

… Maybe I should have looked into it more. As a genin I was technically an adult and therefore technically a full clan head. Politics had already killed the clan once, it would be stupid to let it happen again because I didn't file my taxes or something equally banal.

"Over the fence," I instructed, reaching the side of my house. I kept looking forward. I didn't want to see Naruto's reaction to the fact that I'd never put in a gate. It was fine.

Shit, I hadn't got round to cleaning the sozu fountain. It had algae growing up the sides. Why had I spent so long staring at the fish this morning.

"Here. There's, um, sorry I don't have slippers - I can lend you socks? Or, um, whatever you prefer."

"Socks is fine," he said, kicking his sandals off and leaving them surprisingly neatly by the door. He was fidgeting, looking around while trying not to look like he was looking around and clearly not sure what he was meant to do - I doubted he'd been round to many people's houses. I'd never had someone round to mine. I mean no, people had been around before the massacre, but I hadn't been hosting, and obviously I'd had people round in my old life but there were different social rules and I wasn't sure they applied?

Fuckit. I didn't know. Naruto didn't know. My instincts said to make tea. I put the kettle on.

"Socks," I said, throwing him a clean pair. "Do you want tea tea or barley tea? I have orange juice."

"Just normal tea. Uh, tea tea, please."

I frowned, and considered throwing another pair of socks at him. "Stop being so polite. It's rude."

He huffed at me, but some of the tenseness left his shoulders. "Sakura-chan did all this bowing stuff when we met Tsunami-san. She made it seem like a big thing."

"Yeah, well, Tsunami was a client. If you bow to me I'll assume you've been replaced by an imposter and give you to ANBU for interrogation."

He cracked a smile at that that quickly morphed into a teasing grin, though I think he must still have been feeling off-kilter because it didn't sit quite right. "But Hime-chan," he started, and dipped himself into not only a ridiculously low bow but also completely the wrong type. Naturally, I scowled at him and used his lack of balance to dump him on the floor. The chokehold I pinned him in was maybe more wrestling than taijutsu but still effective, at least until he popped out in a cloud of bunshin smoke.

"Don't use clones in my kitchen, dumbass!" I flared out my kawarimi sense to find him. Nothing around me, unless he'd henged - oh. Up. "Get off my ceiling. And drink your tea. And stop grinning."

"I thought it was rude to be polite," he said, but he did at least drop to an obedient crouch in front of me and take his tea. I stuck my tongue out at him. Maturely, because adult, but also he was being weird and he deserved it.

"Tea. Photo. Find."

"Yeah yeah. Where would your mum have kept it?" He downed the tea in one like a heathen then looked round the kitchen as though expecting the photo to be on one of the walls, and my stomach sank.

"Her room, probably. It's down the hall." I swallowed. I hadn't - the bathroom was just to the side of the kitchen. The one I used, at least, and Itachi's bedroom had a window that I'd learnt early on how to open from the outside. My old room did too, though other than fetching my stuff when I'd first moved to the kitchen I hadn't been in. To get to either from the inside, or to get to my parent's room, you had to go past the main room.

I'd never made it past the main room.

"This one?" Naruto asked, pushing open the kitchen door. It wasn't late, there was still some sun coming in, but it wasn't the brightest. He flicked on the light, hesitated at the clearly neglected status of the rest of the house, then started walking forward.

"Yeah," I managed around a dry mouth. I followed him up to the doorway, hovering there with my toes just on the edge of where the flooring changed. I looked at the back of his head. Just at the back of his head. I took the step. I didn't look to the right.

"Your house is huge! How come you don't use the - bastard?"

He turned to face me and I flicked my gaze down so I was looking at the collar of his jacket instead of staring him straight in the eyes. I still didn't look right. "It's a bit dusty," I apologised. "Sorry. Their room is at the end of the hall."

"Hey, are you -"

Annoyance flared, at him, at me, at Itachi; I grit my teeth and pushed past him. I was right - it was dusty. My feet left footprints. I could practically see it collecting on my socks from where I was disturbing it. "C'mon," I said. "Did you want to find this damn thing or -" I made the mistake of looking back at him and the words died in my throat.

He was standing in front of the tatami mats. The space where the tatami mats used to be. He was - that's where I'd been standing. Itachi stabbed me, before I became me, when I was still just old-me and Sasuke-me was a separate person and Naruto was standing where I'd been standing and the tatami mats were behind him except they weren't because they'd been ruined by so much blood and I couldn't do this.

I couldn't do this.

"-tard!"

"I can't do this," I choked out, staring fixedly at the tatami mats. The space where - "Aniki, I can't do this." I could see every piece of dust on the floor. The grain of the wood. The marks where it had been scrubbed clean but not polished after, the outline of the patches that were darker, they hadn't done a good enough job scrubbing it clean because I could see it.

"Look at me," Itachi said. I slammed my eyes shut, instinct driving me to avoid his mangekyou, but everything was still playing out behind my eyelids. "Look at me, damnit."

He was going to tell me I wasn't worth killing. I knew I wasn't. I didn't want to hear it again. I shook my head. When you have the same eyes as I do...

"Sasuke!" He grabbed me, hands on my shoulders and my eyes flew open with a gasp even as I hunched protectively over my chest as if that would stop him from stabbing me -

He was blond. He was blond? Itachi wasn't blond. His eyes were blue. He had whisker scars. I blinked, and the hyperfocus faded enough for the features to resolve themselves into a person. He was Naruto. He was Naruto.

"I'm fine," I said roughly, trying to push him off and take a step back. His grip on my shoulders only tightened, and his face was pinched and unhappy.

"You're not," he disagreed, and my temper flared.

"Did I ask for a fucking critique -"

"My clone dispelled," he interrupted, and it was such a non sequitur that I stopped in confusion.

"Your… what clone? In the kitchen?"

"The one I had on Kakashi-sensei. Porn-book clone."

"O...kay?" He shifted his weight back to be less in my face, but not far - my fingers were still tangled in the front of his jacket from where I'd tried to shove him off and his hands were still on my shoulders. It was grounding; Itachi had been behind me when I'd been old-me, and he hadn't touched me as Sasuke-me. Naruto wasn't Itachi. The subject change was odd, but just right then I was willing to roll with odd. "Did it find out where Kakashi was while we were at the hospital?"

"Yeah," he said, watching me cautiously. I could see him trying to work out how to word it before he growled in frustration and just said it. "He was at the hospital too, except he was asking about you. What happened when your clan died."

"What." What. No. My heart had literally just started to calm down, and now it was racing again. He didn't know. He couldn't know. Who would - no.

"He wanted to know if you'd had anyone to help you, or if you'd been alone." Itachi, was he trying to see if Itachi had been in contact or not, did he think past-me was someone outside Konoha trying to influence Sasuke-me? How, how could he know. "He was really mad when he found out you were alone."

Naruto was still watching, cautious, something in his expression that I couldn't place. I took a breath and tried to be rational; Kakashi didn't know Itachi was innocent. He couldn't. And he didn't know about past-me. If he did, he'd've done something, surely. Besides, how could he? I'd been careful. Itachi had been careful. He was just following up the drowning problems, right? Or the thing about chunin relying on themselves too young. That's all he was doing. It was fine. I took another breath and held onto my calm like a lifeline.

"Yeah, well," I said, shrugging it off with an exaggeratedly blase attitude. "It happened."

"And then after," Naruto continued doggedly, "He took the porn out, told it that Pakkun was right and puppies go wonky if they're allowed to get too far from the pack, and dispelled my clone."

Ok? It had been a very long day. I'd had two panic attacks and used up all my zen communing with the fish. I did not have the mental or spiritual energy left for decrypting Kakashi speech. "That's all he said?"

"Well, and that if he caught me spying again he'd set Bisuke on me." He shook his head and shifted imperceptibly to inspirational pose number one, with shoulders squared and eyes bright with determination.

I stiffened on reflex.

"He's right though, Sasuke. You shouldn't have been alone. And you shouldn't be alone now."

"I'm not a child," I hissed, bristling defensively.

His eyebrows lowered and he lifted his chin. "You're my precious person," he said. "And I promised I'd protect you and that means not abandoning you when you need someone."

"Because you'd know all about being abandoned, right?" I felt like a dick as soon as I said it, but the guilt only made me angrier and I pushed roughly past him to hide in the safety of the kitchen. "And I don't need anyone! I'm fine!"

"You can't even go in your own house -"

"My house," I repeated, whirling on him. "My house, my brother, my life. So piss off out of it and leave me alone." He'd followed me through the door but I could still see the fucking space behind him where Itachi had ruined everything because he had to go and be such a damn hero instead of being there when I needed him. I glared and flung a spike of water chakra at the door, slamming it shut and no doubt sending a cloud of dust flying up in the corridor. Good. I hoped it broke something.

Naruto jumped when the door slammed, but turned back to me quickly and now his stupid hero face had started to twist up in frustration. "No," he snarled. "Damnit bastard, I'm not going anywhere! I'm trying to help!"

"Do I look like I fucking want your help?"

"Why not?" He ran a hand through his hair in a jerky movement, and the frustration bled away as suddenly as it'd come. "Why not, though?" he repeated, shoulders slumping, and I paused at the hurt in his voice. "You're my friend," he continued, quieter. "What's wrong with me helping you? It's what friends do."

I… didn't answer. I felt brittle and sharp, and there were too many things I couldn't say. He thought I was someone I wasn't. I was an imposter. It was fine for canon-Sasuke to have been fucked up by what Itachi did, but I knew better. I knew he loved me. I was an adult, even if I didn't feel like one. I didn't want help because I didn't want to need help because I shouldn't need help.

But I did. And I hated it. And apparently I'd learnt nothing from the stupid everything that happened at Wave, because here I was, scared, lashing out at someone who cared as though I were expecting them to stick a sword through my chest if I let them get any closer.

Dumbass. Naruto wasn't an Uchiha. We were the fuckups that ruined people we loved, not Naruto.

"I'm sorry," I said, arms crossed protectively and shoulders hunched forward. I kept my eyes closed, head tilted down, and didn't look at him. I heard him take a step forward though, and had to tense every muscle I had to avoid flinching. That would hurt him. I'd already done that enough for one day.

"I'm not Sakura," he said, still keeping his voice low. "I don't know how to do things like this. I just… I used to be really jealous of you, you know? You had all these people fawning over you and the teachers loved you and you were good at everything and I thought you lived in this amazing place. I'd've given anything to have half of what you had, but you were just annoyed all the time."

"I'm not always grumpy," I protested weakly.

"You were in the academy. But I get it now. Everyone saw you as the last Uchiha, this amazing prodigy child, but no one saw Sasuke. You were alone." He took another step and I stayed frozen in place. "I know what that's like. It sucks. It really, really sucks and it messes with your head and it's awful, but you're not alone now. I promise, bastard. I'm not going to abandon you, because you're my friend, and I don't give up on my precious people."

I snorted at that. No, he didn't, did he. I could betray the village and put my fist through his lungs and he'd still come after me. Damn heroes. What the hell were we normal fuck-ups meant to do in the face of a declaration like that?

He took the last step, standing close enough that I could feel his body heat radiating off him. "Sasuke-bastard?"

I let myself lean forward until my forehead was resting against his chest. "Who gave you the right," I mumbled into his jacket. "If you grew up lonely like me then how come you turned out such a good person, huh. You cheated. Bitch."

He laughed, shaky and relieved, and his arms came up round me in a tentative hug that squeezed tighter when I didn't shrug him off. "Blame Iruka-sensei," he said. "He bribed me with ramen."

.

I hadn't bought any mochi, but I had got a tub of ice cream, and though we didn't look for the photo that evening we did follow up the tofu curry I'd made for dinner with a truly unreasonable quantity of matcha sundae. At some point we started planning the flavours we'd sell when Naruto became Hokage and I opened a mochi and ice cream shop at the bottom of his tower, and while his suggestions were ridiculous - a naruto flavour, who wanted fish cake ice cream even if the swirl would be pretty - mine were heavily nostalgic and almost impossible to describe.

"Fish food is worse than fish cakes! That's not even real food, bastard."

"No, it's just called fish food. It's actually chocolate, with, um, you cook butter with sugar until it goes brown and hard. And you cut it into fish shapes. I think? Or maybe the fish were made out of cake? It's good though."

"Tonkatsu ice cream. That would be good."

"I am never ever letting you cook."

And after that… it was late. This whole thing had started with Naruto saying he wanted a sleepover. I was exhausted and full and, if I was honest, didn't want him to go.

I also didn't want him taking up three quarters of my futon, but I didn't have a spare.

"Would you stop wriggling."

"I'm not wriggling! I'm just trying to get under the blanket."

"Uchiha are fire. We need warmth. You're a fucking furnace and you don't feel the cold. My blanket."

"Just - I'm not going to take it all bastard, I just want a corner."

"My blanket."

And, once we'd worked out a compromise, I didn't want to admit how much easier I slept with him there. Maybe he and Sakura were right - we'd just got used to the way things were in Wave. Maybe I had less going on in my head after dumping it all in an argument and being blasted with a dose of therapy no jutsu. Maybe I just… slept better with Naruto there.

Whatever the reason, I was in a good enough mood to roll my eyes at but otherwise ignore Sakura's raised eyebrow when she noticed us arrive at training together the next morning.

"I take it the sleepover went well?" she asked dryly.

"The bastard's house is too big," was Naruto's far too cheerful answer. "Don't worry though Sakura-chan, we're working on it."

"What am I, an untrained house pet?"

"Wonky puppy," Naruto reminded me, pointing. I bared my teeth and pretended to bite his finger.

"We're all puppies," Sakura said firmly. "Stretch. I want to test my gloves, spar after?"

"Spar," I agreed, flipping over into a handstand. I'd already stretched at home that morning, but, you know. Being flexible was fun.

So was the spar - we'd been so focussed on practices and katas in Wave that, barring the obligatory running for our lives from the pack, we hadn't actually trained together for a while. The difference was stark; Naruto's taijutsu had improved to the point where his clones were a serious threat if you let them get close enough, and though I was still indisputably the fastest Sakura now had the speed and stamina to combine her hellish punches in unrelenting combinations that were, objectively, terrifying.

And then she twisted her wrists a fraction to the left and a pair of fucking chainsaws popped out her gloves.

"What the actual fucking fuck holy shit what the hell," I panted, clinging to the top of the tallest tree I could find to kawarimi to.

"Do you like them?" she yelled up to me, holding her arms out to admire them. "You said they looked good in the shop, but I didn't think you were paying attention."

"I thought they were for punching things!"

"Oh, they do that too," she said, and another precise twist replaced the spinning blades on her forearms with a set of narrow spikes coming out over her knuckles. "Not sure I'll use those so often, though. They're a bit thin."

I dropped cautiously to the ground, reaching for her hand to inspect them. They were thin, but they'd still do some serious damage if she landed a hit with them. "You could poison them," I suggested. "You could probably poison the others as well. How do they spin?"

"Just chakra - there's a seal that controls them. I hadn't thought about poison. Anticoagulant, maybe? I don't want a lethal one."

I hummed, thinking. There were plenty of reasons to need to leave someone alive, but bleeding out without clotting was a fairly slow-acting benefit. "Or paralytic? I'm pretty sure I've got the right plants." The spinning arm blades would do a lot of damage, and with the right paralytic so that even a glancing blow could cause someone to stumble - well, I wouldn't like to be on the receiving end. It wouldn't necessarily be lethal, but it wouldn't be easy to shake off either.

"Huh," Sakura said. She clenched her fist and the spikes retracted, then again to bring out the arm blades. I prudently kawarimid back to a safe distance again, because the spar was technically still going and I wasn't an idiot.

.

"Morning minions."

"Kakashi-sensei! What mission are we doing today? Where are we going? Is it another bridge? Are the dogs coming again?"

"Hm?" Kakashi asked, taking out his book and leafing through it. "You say something?"

"Dick-senseeeeeeeiiiiii," Naruto whined. "Mission!"

"Maa, I was thinking of doing some training actually. After all, you just came from a long mission! Training's important too, you know." He eye-smiled and Naruto and Sakura both slumped.

"We've been doing nothing but training," she complained quietly, though clearly not quietly enough as Kakashi zeroed in on her with terrifying focus.

"What was that, my sweet little munchkin? You can't possibly have said you've been training. After you worked so hard for your month long A-rank! Why, with all the patrolling you did, I'm surprised you found time to sleep."

We shared a dubious look, but fell in line easily enough. If Kakashi wanted to pretend he hadn't run the last week of the Wave mission solo and banned us from participating, who were we to disagree with him.

"What are we learning?" Sakura asked. "After all that patrolling over the river we've got water walking down, so we must be learning something new, right sensei?"

He raised an eyebrow at her blatant manipulation of the truth, but seemed amused by it. "Is that so? Maa, I suppose it must be. First though…" He threw us each a sash, covered in tiny strips of coloured paper: orange for Naruto, which made sense, then yellow for Sakura and purple for me, which made less sense, but ok.

"I want to see how you're getting on," he explained. "Whoever has the most paper wins!" And, with that very rough set out of the rules, he shunshined off - presumably to a better perch in the trees to watch from.

We paused for a moment, Sakura glancing at both me and Naruto in turn as we all checked that we were on the same page. She wrapped her sash round her waist, Naruto threw his crossways over his shoulder, and though I debated stuffing mine down my shirt I decided to play fair and tied it at my hip instead. It was in the same position, though on the other side, as my weapon pouch and I figured it would be good practice in keeping people away from it.

"Ready?" Sakura asked. I nodded. Naruto did as well, though a beat slower, and he had the same odd look on his face that he'd had yesterday. I frowned at him, but I didn't have time to ask - or know how to - because Sakura dived at me the next second and I scrambled into a kawarimi to stay out her way.

As far as training exercises went it was a surprisingly fun one, and well suited to someone fast, sneaky, and able to throw sharp things with pinpoint accuracy. I even caught a few fluttering strips in my chakra and tugged them to safety without ever being in reach, which was a delightful thing to learn I could do. Maybe I'd misjudged water; fire would never have given me the solidity to pick something up with like this. It was still cold though. And wet. Being useful didn't make it good.

What was not delightful though was the growing suspicion I had that there was something wrong with Naruto. In the spar we'd been doing earlier his taijutsu was miles better than it was before, sharper and cleaner and each strike a decisive threat. Now… it was almost like he was pulling his punches, twitching them aside before they could land and weakening his blocks at the last minute to let me through. My sash was in danger of being more orange than purple.

I hung back, hiding myself in the leaves and squinting to watch him and Sakura fight. He didn't seem injured, not that I could see, and against her he was landing hits like I'd expect him to. I chanced darting in, throwing a shuriken in an easy arc and ducking low -

The shuriken caught his arm, and he was so slow in dodging me that I almost overcorrected trying not to seriously hurt him. I aborted, leaping back with eyes wide and heart racing. "What the fuck, Naruto?"

Sakura dropped out the tree next to me. "What happened?"

"Ah, nothing!" Naruto said with his cheerful, squinty-eyed fake smile. "The bastard got me. He's too fast!"

We both paused, staring at him in surprise.

"Did you poison it?" Sakura asked me, gesturing at the shuriken. I shook my head. I didn't even bring poisons to practice, they weren't the sort of thing you used on teammates.

"He doesn't need poison," Naruto said earnestly. "He's really good. His taijutsu's the best, you'd have to be really strong to beat him. Really strong. It's not a fair comparison if he loses against people like that."

"Naruto," I started, half-dropping out of my defensive crouch. I didn't know how to finish though, so I just trailed off with a confused, "What?"

"He got the most paper, see. He won!"

"Were you letting him win?" Sakura asked. Naruto's eyes widened and he shook his head frantically, but Sakura made an outraged sound of disbelief. "You were. Why were you letting him win?" She glanced at me for answers, but I shrugged helplessly in reply.

"I wasn't," Naruto began hotly, but when neither of us showed signs of believing him he let his shoulders slump. "Because he's really good," he said miserably. "He doesn't deserve to be sent away just 'cos he lost against Haku."

To be - oh.

Oh.

I took an uncertain step back.

"Naruto," Sakura said, turning so she could keep both of us in view. "That's not… He's not going to be sent away."

"But Kakashi -"

"That's not the problem," I blurted. "Losing against Haku's not the issue."

"Then what is? Because everything turned out fine, didn't it? No one got hurt, so I don't get why everyone was so mad at you." And he didn't, clearly, his confusion and distress liberally painted on his face. I opened my mouth, searching for something to say to reassure him, and came up blank. I was still still working through my own messes from the whole thing, how was I meant to sort out someone else?

"Sasuke-kun nearly died," Sakura told him, gentling her tone but not by much. Naruto scowled, shaking his head, and I privately thought that however I would've handled it that might not have been the route I chose.

"It wasn't his fault -"

"He still would've died." She hesitated in the face of his refusal to accept it, then kept going. "Naruto, we were lucky. If Zabuza had been anyone else - if Kakashi-sensei hadn't been able to stop his jutsu… That wasn't a spar. Sasuke-kun put himself in danger, and if it had gone even fractionally different, he would've been killed."

He looked at me, angry, waiting for me to protest. I couldn't, because it was true, but I also couldn't think of anything to say, so I just shrugged. Again. Awkwardly. Apologetically. I didn't know what else to do.

"But he was saving Haku," Naruto said in a small voice. Then, "He'd really have died?"

Soft and squishy, I thought with a suddenly inappropriate surge of dark humour. You need to be this indestructible to ride the main character train. Go back to sidekick, shortarse. I pushed it away, annoyed at myself for being distracted.

Sakura must've nodded, because when Naruto turned back to me he just looked heartbrokenly confused. "Why?"

I bit my lip, trying to find an answer. Or enough of an answer to offer him. "Um, Kakashi said I think I'm invincible," I said. "Because I've always been the best and had to look after myself, so I'm reckless."

"Ah," Kakashi said, making all three of us startle. He was up in the trees with us, crouched to one side and scratching at the fabric of his mask. "Did he? It's not what he meant to say."

"I - what? No, it's." I faltered. "With the chunin? They were alone and couldn't rely on anyone and it made them invincible and over-confident?" That's what he'd said. Hadn't he? We'd bonded. Bull was there.

He closed his eye, a fraction too long to be a blink, then half-nodded half-shook his head. "Some of them thought they were," he said, stressing the first word. "And others thought they had to be. If failing means you die, then you do anything to avoid failing, even if it's too risky." He paused, then added, "You're the second one."

I tried to run what I remembered of the conversation back through my head, frowning in confusion.

"But you had all these things I'd survived," I said. "You listed them. You said I knew I was better than other genin."

"I did," he said, an edge of helplessness in his tone. "Because you are. And you do. And. Therefore your standards are too high?"

"My standards are too high?"

"You're not over confident. You're under confident." He winced, not happy with his word choice, but kept going. "You're good, but you think you're not good enough because you think you have to be invincible. Because… A lot of bad things have happened and you had to deal with them and now you're afraid?"

I just kept looking at him blankly. Yes? I was? The village wanted my eyes. Of course I was afraid. He didn't need to make that bit sound like a question, that was obvious. I shot an unsure glance at Sakura and Naruto, but they looked just as confused as me.

"Ah." Kakashi's shoulders dropped. "I'm not good at this."

"If the bastard's afraid," Naruto began hesitantly, "then me an' Sakura-chan just have to stick closer to him to keep him safe, right? So he has to stay on the team, otherwise he'd be doing everything by himself again."

"That's not -" I started, then stopped myself, trying to sort through why it wasn't. I had a reason, beyond just my gut instinct that it was wrong. I had lots of reasons, somewhere. "You shouldn't have to always look out for me, though. I should be able to do things."

"We don't," Sakura said. Naruto frowned, but she cut him off: "We don't have to. We want to. I'm the team leader, I said you stay, so." She took a breath, and visibly drew herself up to stand taller. "So, you stay. Do things with us, not for us. And Naruto, stop letting him win. Ok?" She darted a glance at Kakashi, as if checking if she was allowed to be so authoritative; he inclined his head to her with an odd half-smile that was barely visible through his mask.

"Ok," Naruto agreed. Then again, stronger: "Ok! Kakashi-dick-sensei, you best have more sashes. I'm going to get all the paper this time, believe it!"

"Ok, Sasuke-kun?" Sakura insisted.

"Yeah," I said. Maybe? I wasn't sure. "Ok."

Kakashi who has had several days to rehearse what he wants to say and run it past Pakkun: eloquent, calm, doesn't get his point across.
Kakashi who discovers on the spot that he messed up and desperately wants to fix it: disjointed, confusing, maybe gets his point across? Regret.