Daughter of Hate

by Blutus Mindpretzel

The war is over. Azula's motives remain unknowable as her child stands to shake the foundation of everything built since the fall of Fire Lord Ozai. For Toph, Mai, Aang, Katara and the rest, the world is an even more dangerous place than it was when they were children. And despite being long since gone, Sasuke's impact continues to shudder their world, perhaps more than they know.

21. Chapter 21

AN: I totally did forget to add Yue's height, wrote it down in my notes and everything, but didn't put it here, my bad, but she's standing at 5'10" and Kakashi is 5'11".

Anyways, been such a great week reading everybody's feedback, makes me feel even more excited to keep getting chapters out; hope you all are having a kickass week, and hope you all enjoy this week's chapter!

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Chapter 21: Not A Child

Feeling as though he had just risen from the depths of some deep lake, Sasuke sucked in a tremendous gasp of air as he woke, sitting up and trying to regulate his breathing as best he could as his consciousness tried to catch up with his situation with very sudden speed. He heard a brief cry of surprise beside him and a quick blur of motion that was only added to the list of things he was trying to rationalize.

The first thing he noticed was that he seemed to be in a makeshift two-pole tent, the tents being relatively straight and thin trees that must have been recently lumbered. He had to assume that the tarp as well as the folding cot he was resting on must have been recently set up as well.

The blur of motion he had seen turned out to be Aang, who must have been either dozing off beside him, immensely frightened by Sasuke's sudden movement and sound, or both. He had toppled off the stump he was using as a seat to rest beside Sasuke's cot and was scrambling to his feet as Sasuke laid eyes on him. Meeting his gaze for a moment, Aang practically dropped back onto the stump with a moan.

"Oh, thank heavens… he said you would be okay, but I…"

He shook his head and swallowed.

"I was so worried, Sasuke."

Sasuke could feel himself wanting to acknowledge this concern, but he found that he didn't feel he could be quite bothered with a single thing that Aang had said, instead flicking his head around, as though stupidly expecting to see a landmark or something within the small tent.

"Where am I?" he growled, his voice parched and strained. "What happened?"

Making to sit up, Aang reached out and put a hand gently on his shoulder, his face etched with worry.

"Don't try and move just yet, just—"

Growling, Sasuke tried to push him away.

"I need to get out of here. Don't tell me not to—"

He was struck by a great wave of feverish pain that rippled out from his core and shook even to the ends of his fingertips. Gasping and falling back on the cot, Aang leapt up from the stump, his expression ripening with sudden anger.

"Damn you, Sasuke, can't you just be still for one second?! We almost lost you for good, and now you're trying to just rush back out again?! You could have died, and I wouldn't have—"

He cut himself off and grit his teeth.

"…we wouldn't have known what to do. Please, Sasuke, just for a moment…"

Dropping back down onto the stump, he shook his head weakly.

"Just for a moment, can you just not try and die for us?"

The pure helplessness Sasuke heard in Aang's voice then was enough to give him pause. He wanted to try rising again, to start hammering Aang with questions about where he was, what had happened when he had lost consciousness, questions that he felt needed an answer that very moment. But as he looked at Aang's pained and exhausted face, he forced down this urgency with tremendous difficulty as he focused on the one thing that allowed him to do so: if Aang was sitting here with him, not acting in any great urgency himself, then things must have been, at least for the moment, alright.

"I'm sorry," he said quietly and Aang gave a very short chuckle that sounded more like crying than anything.

"Do you know what it is you do to us when you run off like that? Whether it's twelve years or twelve minutes… I wish you could understand how much that scares us."

Feeling slightly put off, Sasuke shifted where he lay.

"It's not that I don't understand—"

"Oh, you think you do?" Aang asked sharply and Sasuke blew out a frustrated sigh as he felt a fight coming on that he knew he wasn't going to win.

"Well, don't generalize at least," he growled. "I'm sure Ursa wasn't scared, nothing can frighten her."

Aang didn't reply for several long seconds before he replied in a hollow voice.

"She practically had a breakdown when your sphere disappeared. She didn't say a word the whole way to our camp until she and Katara almost tore each other's throats out, and then, when she saw you, she ran up to your body and hugged you for fifteen minutes before she would let us move you into a tent."

Sasuke mulled this over, feeling a warm numbness in his fingers.

She really was frightened. I thought… when I left, I thought she looked worried, but I didn't think that… I never wanted her to hurt like that over me.

He put the back of his wrist on his forehead and stared up at the roof of the canvas with a self-loathing bitterness swelling inside him.

And if I did that to her… what about Yue? Or Mai? Or… Soza?

Grunting, he pushed himself up again; Aang snapped his head up and reached out with his hands before Sasuke waved him down.

"I'm just sitting up," he growled and Aang reluctantly pulled his arms back.

Gently rotating his muscles to see what the damage might be, Sasuke was surprised to find that he wasn't in hardly any pain, mostly just some soreness here and there. He didn't know still what Kyoshi had hit him with, but it seemed that it had just been some blast, perhaps targeting his eyes to cause his body to lose consciousness. The thought of her having access to some kind of ability that could knock him so cleanly out like that was enough to make his insides crawl.

I was so ready for her… and she took me out faster than I could blink. What the fuck did she do to me?

"Is everyone safe?" he asked, as he suddenly realized that he didn't know the state of much of anything just then. His question seemed to soften Aang's expression a touch as he replied.

"They're all fine. I think you gave every single one of us a heart attack in our own ways, but no one was hurt in the escape or landing."

Sasuke processed this and he couldn't help but picture the expressions of everyone he had been traveling with as his sphere had faded out of existence and he cursed violently, jamming his knuckles into his forehead in frustration.

Why did I tell Ursa and them that it would only be banished if I willed it so or died? Why did I even suggest that? Was I that stupidly confident?

He imagined Ursa holding his body, unsure likely if he would even wake up, and it was only for Aang's sake that he didn't leap to his feet and try and find her. If the Avatar said that she was alright, he needed to believe that.

Still…

He owed everyone more of an apology than he could muster, and Sasuke hated apologies. But despite that, he still wanted to rush to Ursa and see just how furious she was with him, and say whatever he needed to just to feel her holding him again. A terrifying thought passed through him then.

Will she even want to see me? Will she ever want to so much as talk to me, let alone touch me, again?

Anxiety hit him in a seriously damning wave then; the idea of losing the one person who he had felt truly comfortable being vulnerable with was not something he found himself even willing to consider.

"Sasuke?"

Aang's voice caused him to leave his nervous musings and look to the Avatar, who he saw still looking at him with that sadness and weariness, but there was a pleading note to his voice that Sasuke couldn't miss.

"I can't imagine what you've gone through the past twenty four hours. I can sit here and say that I'm devastated that the spirits with whom I put all my faith have attacked the world I swore to protect, but I would be a fool to consider that trumps your feelings right now. I didn't find out that I had been raped and had conceived a daughter I didn't even know existed until eleven years after her birth. I didn't just have the weight of this entire invasion put on my shoulders when Kyoshi said that you and Soza needed to die for there to be peace, and I didn't just get forced to accept all of this, on top of being a father, in one night."

He gave the smallest of sad smiles.

"And yet, you still rushed out to meet the enemy head on, to fight for us, to protect us."

Sasuke hated hearing this kind of indirect praise. He didn't want it, and he definitely didn't deserve it.

"Fighting for the people I care about will never be a burden, nor should it be something worthy of that praise."

He felt disgust for himself curling his lower lip.

"No man should ever be celebrated for doing what's right."

Aang let his response sit before he surprised Sasuke and got up to sit on the cot directly beside him.

"Maybe you're right," he said, that pleading edge in his voice still present. "But… I need you to know that I'm so, so sorry for what this world, and it's people, have done to you. You say that this isn't a burden, but I know it is, Sasuke, how could it not be? I can see it just by the look in your eyes how much weight is on your shoulders."

Reaching over, he put a hand on Sasuke's thigh.

"And I can't speak for everyone else, even if I would be comfortable betting my life that many people out there would agree, but no matter what comes of this, no matter what the outcome, I'm going to do everything in my power to make things right for you too. I'll fight by your side, I'll follow you to hell and back, but the day I stop being there for you, Sasuke, is the day I die, and I need you to know that."

Sasuke couldn't deny that Aang's words spoken with a very deliberate edge didn't catch him off guard and he didn't need to look at the glowing resolve in Aang's eyes to know that they were true. He found himself thinking back to a starry night after he had chosen to leave the group once before and Aang had found him out in that endless expanse of a field. A kid, barely a teenager, had approached this dangerous, unknown and powerful older boy and completely opened up to him. Sasuke had learned a great deal about Aang that night, and felt a considerable amount of disdain for the expectations being forced on someone that young and pure. He felt the same way now; Aang might have been downplaying his own distraught and hurting position, but he couldn't have hidden it from Sasuke any worse.

And as Sasuke looked into his eyes, he knew that he still needed to make something very clear.

"Aang, I need you to listen to me," he said, surprised that he was feeling the gumption to even say this.

"I know I've hurt every single one of you in ways that I can never amend."

Aang opened his mouth, no doubt to try and play this off, but Sasuke spoke over him.

"Let me finish. I know that what I've done during my time in your world has ultimately done nothing but cause chaos and pain. Not a single one of you would be as damaged if I had never walked into your lives. I could spend a hundred lifetimes and never truly atone for what I've done to you guys."

He paused on his last few words; being open and genuine like this still was something that didn't come naturally to him, but somehow, with Aang, it was a little easier.

"When I left you all twelve years ago, I told you all and myself that I was doing it for your own good and your benefit. And even if a part of me hurt to abandon you guys more than I would have ever admitted then, I would be lying if I said that leaving wasn't what I wanted."

Making sure to look deep into Aang's eyes, he finished,

"You owe me nothing, Aang."

They looked at one another for a while before Sasuke broke eye contact and looked blankly towards the ground. Even as much as he had felt so suddenly invigorated after waking up, Sasuke couldn't shake how tired he was feeling. He wanted to lie down and just sleep, for as long as his body let him.

He blinked in surprise as Aang leaned over and rested his head on Sasuke's shoulder. The intimacy of it might have uncomfortable, but somehow, Sasuke didn't feel that as Aang pressed against him, slowly releasing a deep sigh.

"Don't start using words like 'owe' as though debts or anything like that play into how I feel," Aang said quietly. "I don't want to be at your side because of something stupid like that."

Despite the fact that he didn't clarify beyond that, Sasuke somehow felt he didn't need to hear more than that. He sat there for a little while, feeling Aang breathe as he rested against him.

Eventually, he felt the pressing weight of reality spur his words.

"What happened? How did I come to be here?"

Aang shifted slightly against him before he responded.

"Your sphere disappeared when we were probably three minutes or so from where we touched down. Everyone was really shocked I think over it, and it wasn't until we trekked a ways in that I think we all kind of started to realize what was happening. Katara and Ursa, and Azula and Mai were about ready to kill each other when—"

"Wait," Sasuke interrupted. "When you say that, you just mean that they were arguing, right?"

When Aang didn't answer, Sasuke took Aang by the shoulder and pushed him gently away to where he could look into the Avatar's eyes which were still swimming with fear and sadness, perhaps more so now than before.

"Right?" he repeated and Aang swallowed before replying in a strained voice.

"When I say that, I mean that Katara was being nastier than I've ever heard her be with anyone, and that Ursa, who was already seeming really broken up, looked about ready to strangle her for what she said. And then after Azula intervened and tried making this whole thing about how you belonged to her, Mai got in her face and said some terrible things too. Azula was about ready to pounce and Mai had drawn her knives, but—"

Sasuke felt his heart hammer and his entire body stiffened.

"What?!" he shouted and Aang put a hand on his chest as though trying to keep him from standing.

"But it's alright, nothing happened! After you and Kakashi got here, everyone calmed down enough to…"

The look that Aang must have seen in Sasuke's eyes then cowed him into immediate silence.

"What did you just say?"

Aang didn't add more than a few more words to try and clarify before Sasuke realized he didn't care what explanation he was going to receive. Ignoring Aang's pleas to stay calm, he burst from the canvas of the tent, the beat of his heart a rhythmic thudding in his ears. Blood rushed to his head with how quickly he had stood and moved, but he blinked away the feeling of faintness. He saw that the tent had been around the side of a sizeable boulder, about the size of that flying bison that he had ridden on quite some time ago; around the side of it, he saw an orange glow lighting up the area and voices accompanied the light. Feeling as though he were moving in some kind of trance, Sasuke marched forward to move around the large rock, his wide eyes refusing to blink.

In the center of what seemed to be a clearing surrounded by the dense foliage of an island forest, Sasuke saw a group of people surrounding a large, healthy campfire. In the peripheral of his mind, he knew who they all were, but he couldn't be asked to look at even a single one of them just then, all of their faces becoming blurs in his head as he locked eyes on the one person whose existence before him just then shouldn't have been possible.

Kakashi Hatake sat near the fire and from the looks of it, he had been more or less grouped around by everyone else there, as though he were some wise old ancient recounting never before heard tales of times long since passed. From Katara, to Soza, to Ursa, to Azula, everyone was either sitting or kneeling in a closely knit circle around him, but just as with Sasuke, Kakashi seemed to have his one visible eye trained on Sasuke.

He looked the exact fucking same as he had in Sasuke's memories. Same getup, same mask, same headband pulled over one eye, and that damned relaxed look in the eye that wasn't obscured. For a moment, he looked at Sasuke, and Sasuke looked at him.

He's going to sigh, and say some stupid shit about 'oh, what happened to you?', something to try and emphasize how disappointed in me he is.

Sasuke couldn't bring himself to say anything, or even really move; his mind was buzzing uselessly, with only these thoughts passing through him, these sudden expectations of his old sensei, the man he knew for sure was about to let his disappointment wash over him in a judgmental wave of—

Kakashi got to his feet and dusted off his knees before looking at Sasuke, closing his eye, and even with the mask, Sasuke could tell he was smiling.

"Been a while, Sasuke."

His hands felt detached from his body as they quivered at his side, but Sasuke still couldn't quite bring himself to move, or even reply. A very distinct possibility had just entered his mind, and he wasn't about to throw caution to the winds as he had before.

Around where Kakashi had been sitting, everyone else had started to stand and Sasuke allowed himself to take some note of them, though he kept his focus locked on Kakashi. He was nearly shaken from this focus as he took stock of the faces of those he had been so recently reunited with however.

Their eyes were not full of the usual trepidation and fear that usually came when he had gotten all intense and worked up this way in the past. Sasuke was more than used to feeling these sorts of emotions directed his way through gazes alone, just the same with resentment, judgement and disdain, but he felt nothing like this from anyone just then.

It took him a moment to realize there was nothing in the eyes of his friends but sadness and pity.

Not a single person there didn't have their eyes awash with some level of this. Katara, Suki, Yue, Sokka, Jin, Ursa, Mai and Toph all looked like they wanted to walk up and hug him, even though Toph's face captured something deeper than just that, a deep pain etched into her expression that went beyond pity. Even Zuko and Ty Lee, who Sasuke had expected nothing but resentment from, looked like they were trying to hold back at least some level of sadness for him, even though he could make out still a deep ire pitted in Zuko's eyes. His daughter too looked like she was struggling with a great deal just then as she looked at him, her small hands bunched into fists over her chest as her lower lip trembled; seeing her like that caused Sasuke to feel anger of his own swelling up.

Hasn't she been through enough tonight?

Azula, as might have been expected, remained the only outlier as she stood and stared longingly at him, placing her palm over his chest as though just completely mesmerized by the mere sight of him. But it was the tear tracks on her cheeks that stifled him as he realized that, as he looked, Mai, Yue and Jin also had tears shimmering in their eyes.

Still, the overall state of everyone there was enough to paralyze him all the more and he could only draw his eyes back to Kakashi, his voice finally releasing as a snarl.

"What did you tell them?"

Kakashi didn't seem at all put off by the emotions he had elicited around him, and shrugged with a casual air that only served to infuriate Sasuke further.

"We figured it would be most polite to wait until you were up before we discussed the situation at present. I just was regaling them of your past escapades and experiences that I thought might serve as informative or entertaining."

Sasuke could damn well tell that Kakashi knew perfectly fine just what his stories had induced in his friends, and he could only imagine what might have passed over their ears to put these looks of pity on their faces and to do as much as summon tears.

"It sounds rather like you've had your hands full even here," Kakashi continued. "I don't know why when I found where you had been tucked away for the past twelve years that I didn't expect you to create even more chaos than you did back in Konoha, but you still manage to surprise even me, it would seem."

"You can thank Madara for that," Sasuke snapped and he saw the casual and relaxed edge of Kakashi's eye to flicker. When his former teacher spoke again, Sasuke could hear the deliberateness that was necessary in keeping his voice mellow and light.

"Ah, yes, your friends mentioned something about that… I was rather hoping we could talk about him as well."

"And how do I know I'm not talking to him?" Sasuke retorted and Kakashi didn't reply immediately to this, prompting Sasuke to dig into his stored frustration and bring it to bear.

"When everything first came to a head here, Madara disguised himself as my brother. My own fucking brother, and I didn't even think for a second that it was fraudulent. I was so… relieved to see Itachi again that I didn't even think to question it. And then, just this past evening, I found out that some fucking demon had been impersonating me, in order to confirm who I was and maybe for even more than that then I understand. So, you'll forgive me if I'm doubting you, Kakashi, but I haven't been exactly eased into an overly trusting nature, especially not with people from my past."

Again, he didn't receive a reply. Instead, Kakashi slid his hands into his pockets and paced a dozen steps away from the group, standing alone with his back to the fire and taking his time getting there. When he spoke, his voice was a strange combination of fond and wistful as he talked quietly towards the night sky.

"I'd be disappointed if you hadn't learned your lesson in that regard. As to proving myself… I suppose I could talk about how the first day I met you, you and your teammates dropped a chalk eraser on my head. I could tell you how when I asked you about your goals, you told me the only things you cared about was the resurrection of your clan and that you intended to kill a certain man. I could tell you that you were one of the first students I passed because you showed a care for your teammates I wasn't sure you had in you. I could tell you how you grew to lose that caring and how the last time we spoke, you tried to kill myself, Sakura and—"

Though his mouth had gone dry, Sasuke found he was still able to speak.

"Shut up!" he roared, in a voice loud enough to make Soza, Jin and Aang, who had come up behind Sasuke, to jump. Kakashi seemed to take this in stride as though he had expected it; he cocked his head and glanced over at Sasuke, his glinting mischievously with mock curiosity.

"Oh? Didn't want to hear that name, did you?"

Sasuke didn't know why the thought of hearing it had caused him to react so badly, not when everything else Kakashi said dredged up terrible memories, reminders of being a useless, blind and arrogant child. Why would a name have been able to do that?

Because of who it is.

Ursa spoke up then, her voice almost sounding foreign when it mingled in the air after Kakashi's. Sasuke would never have imagined someone from his past standing within his field of view with the people from his present.

"Sasuke, please, it's alright. Just come and sit down, and we can talk this over."

Allowing himself just a moment to look over at Ursa, Sasuke looked at her and he saw the emotion in her eyes as she gently reached out a hand for him. Just then, he found that he very much wanted to just walk over and do just that, paying no mind to how anyone reacted when he nestled up against Ursa and let her put her arms around him. He didn't want this, but when he looked back at Kakashi, the matter had already been settled.

"I'm sorry, Ursa," Kakashi said. "But I'm afraid there's only one way we can settle this."

"How?" Azula practically shouted, her voice coming out in a blurted sound, like she had been waiting to say something. Kakashi raised his arms to bend behind his head, pulling at his elbows to stretch them out.

"Sasuke's Sharingan grants him a great many abilities, and I would imagine he now bolsters even more than I remember him having. But perhaps at its core, it possesses the power to replicate the memories of any fight Sasuke has partaken in, so that he might take those memories and harness them for his own advantages."

Kicking his legs one after the other, Kakashi flexed out his fingers.

"How many times would you say we've fought, Sasuke? How many thousands of mental images do you have of our encounters? I suppose we wouldn't even have to whale on one another too long before you're able to come to a reasonable conclusion about me."

Though he could feel nothing short of a deeply ill feeling rolling in his gut, Sasuke knew that Kakashi was right. While the memories that Kakashi had dredged up should have been more than enough, in the back of his head, Sasuke still knew that he would never be able to make peace with the reality of this man being in his life again somehow if he didn't engage this final confirmation first.

Seeming as though she was fed up with this exchange, Mai stepped forward firmly.

"Alright, enough! I don't know quite what you're talking about, but I do know that we're not getting anywhere jabbing like this! Ursa's right; let's just everyone sit down and—"

When Sasuke's calve met Kakashi's forearm as they both collided with a swing of respective leg and arm, the resounding impact of their movement caused something like a small shockwave to blast its way through the clearing, rippling the foliage on the edges of the camp as it passed.

"—talk this over," Mai finished in a dull mutter as she took several steps back.

The both of them remained in place a moment, staring unblinkingly at one another as the lower half of Sasuke's leg pressed rigidly against the area between Kakashi's elbow and wrist. The spell was broken when Kakashi's voice sounded gently against Sasuke's ears.

"You've gotten slower, Sasuke."

Shouting, Sasuke spun on his free foot, whipping around with a kick and punch combo that his former teacher had to first avoid and then deflect. Skidding away at the force of his previous student's blow, Kakashi stopped a moment as he dug his heels into the dirt and the pair stared intensely at one another before moving as one.

It may as well have been a dance; in a whirlwind of arced and slashed movements, the two wove their way about, their feet never being in the same spot for more than the blink of an eye, though they maintained their footing within only about a ten foot circle, keeping the fight tight and close. If it hadn't been such a rush of nostalgia and emotion for Sasuke, he might very well have found himself bored; when it came to taijutsu, Kakashi was right: they knew one another's fighting styles backwards and forwards, and it was certainly showing.

In his heart, Sasuke realized that he had already pieced together Kakashi's authenticity. He had done nothing while Sasuke had been unconscious like make off with him were he really someone like a disguised Madara. He had instead brought him back to his friends, let him rest, and to Sasuke's anger, apparently had spilled his entire story to the group, judging from the pitying and teary eyes he had seen.

Though, that would just be the most passive aggressive thing Kakashi might do, further instigating that he was who he appeared to be. And that didn't even account for the fact that he had deliberately distanced himself from the group when Sasuke had challenged who he was, and had stood with his back to Sasuke with his hands in his pockets. Even in the encounter that Sasuke last remembered, wherein he had indeed tried to kill his former teacher and fellow teammates, Kakashi had shown him his back that night and Sasuke had never forgotten that lesson from only a few weeks after being designated under team seven.

"Never show your back to a person you don't have the utmost trust in."

Sasuke grit his teeth as Kakashi's knuckles buzzed past his ear.

And yet, even after I tried to kill him the last time we met, he was willing to show me that trust.

It had been a very long time since Sasuke had thought about his and his team's last encounter; for all Kakashi knew, Sasuke was just as eager to kill him still, still wrapped up in this cloaked visage of revenge. But there was no resentment in his eyes, no caution, not even any anger. It was just the same old Kakashi, tired and relaxed look in his eye as they whirled and flashed around one another, not a single movement wasted.

I tried to kill him.

Sasuke overextended as his mind surged with a sting of self-hate, putting too much speed into slinging the side of hand just past his opponent's ribs. As he braced himself, digging his foot into the ground to keep from moving too much forward, Kakashi stepped onto his thigh just above his knee, bent at an angle as his leg was, and used Sasuke as a propellant to leap into the air, somersault once, and use the force of the spin to bring his elbow down over the back of Sasuke's head.

If Sasuke needed any more proof that this wasn't someone like Madara out to kill him, the fact that Kakashi's strike didn't full on break his neck was evidence enough. Still, his entire body was smashed into the earth as a result of the hit as his world spun. He heard someone cry his name as he jammed his eyes shut to release the blurry state of his world. When he opened them, he saw Azula leaning over him, her hair cascading in a gorgeous waterfall as her eyes looked at him with deep fear. She must have been kneeling at his side, for Kakashi seemed further away than her, indicating that he was standing.

"Don't get to try that move very often," he remarked as Sasuke struggled to get to his feet, Azula both trying to help him and clutch onto him at the same time. She glared at him furiously.

"If you go near him again, I'll—"

Sasuke swatted Azula's hand from him, causing her to cut off as he looked at Kakashi. The white-haired man said nothing in response to his gaze and Sasuke could tell he was allowing for as much time as was necessary for Sasuke to make his conclusion.

"I guess it is you," Sasuke finally said bluntly. Kakashi seemed to consider this for a long moment before letting out a long, slow and quiet sigh. There could have been any number of emotions in that one sound, relief, sadness, disappointment, regret. But he didn't voice any of these things as he gestured.

"I think we need to talk, Sasuke," he said and Sasuke nodded. He started to walk towards the campfire, shouldering past Azula's tentatively reaching arms, and then looked back as Kakashi didn't follow him.

"I don't imagine all of this is going to be less than personal," was all his old teacher said by way of warning and Sasuke shook his head tiredly.

"I have nothing to hide," he said. "Anything to be said to me, I'd rather they all hear as well."

Kakashi seemed briefly surprised by this but nodded and moved back to where he had been sitting. As Sasuke made to follow after him, Jin blocked his path; he looked at the tears glistening in her wide eyes before she pulled him into a tight hug.

"I'm so sorry," she whispered and as she released him, sniffing and wiping her cheeks before moving back towards her place around the fire, Sasuke tried not to feel his anger coming on again.

What did you tell them?

Deciding not to beat around the bush about something like that, Sasuke opted to make this his first order of business as he walked around the fire himself. There came a strange moment where he wasn't entirely sure where he should sit, but he found himself parking between Toph and Mai; he didn't fail to notice Toph scoot away slightly as he sat down, and tried to ignore yet another of those awful pangs.

"What exactly have you been telling them?" he asked Kakashi who sat opposite him. He waited for the jonin to give him some snide and noncommittal reply, but Kakashi was sure to make sure his single eye was looking Sasuke purposefully.

"Everything I know."

Sasuke paused as he tried to imagine what all that might be. In the back of his head, he already remembered having delivered the majority of his twisted past to light during their flight to Ba Sing Se all those years ago.

"Don't know what all that could have been," he remarked, doing his best to sound casual. "I thought I did at least something of a job doing that before."

He felt a hand on his thigh and he looked over to see Mai peering almost nervously at him, her eyes rich with emotion.

"Sasuke… you just told us about how your brother killed your family and how you spent years trying to find and kill him, just to learn after his death why he had done what he did."

Nodding slowly, Sasuke shrugged.

"Isn't that the main 'need to know' point?"

Clearly, this had been the wrong thing to say as Mai's demeanor completely changed into one of indignant anger as her fingers dug into his leg.

"Sasuke, there was so much more! We didn't know that you had grown up on your own, we didn't know that you were so isolated, we didn't know that you ran away from your friends in a pursuit of power, we didn't know you decided that the only way forward was to kill those same friends to achieve your goals, and we sure as shit didn't know that you tried to assassinate several village leaders and start a war! Do you have any idea even now the trouble you're in back where you came from?!"

Sasuke couldn't help but hear a scolding mother in Mai's voice as she took in deep breaths to calm herself; he of course remembered all of this, and how his most recent actions before he had woken up in this new world had been his attempted assassination of the Raikage, something he had come damn close to accomplishing. He remembered this just as well as everything else she or Kakashi had mentioned, and he had nothing to refute, nor did he really have a good idea on how he might defend these actions, at least to these people.

Choosing not to acknowledge Mai's outburst, he continued to look towards his old teacher as he spoke.

"Kakashi… since I've been gone, what's happened?"

It was genuinely a rather concerning topic, and Sasuke felt a slight swell of stress at the fact that he had even asked the question.

"Or have you already covered that?"

Kakashi shook his head.

"As I said, I only talked about your past, nothing to do with what happened after your disappearance, nor have I at all talked about the present situation here."

He inclined his head slightly.

"Are you certain you want to know?"

It was stupid, but Sasuke suddenly wished he had sat next to Ursa, perhaps the only person there he would have felt comfortable with grabbing their hand to calm himself. But as if by will of thought, he felt a hand on his shoulder, and he didn't need to look to recognize her touch.

"Yes."

Kakashi nodded slowly before taking a deep breath.

"Well, as you may or may not recall, the man known as Tobi declared war on the villages nearly within the time that you took on myself, Sakura and Naruto, shortly after your attempted assassination of the Kage."

He seemed to pay close attention to when he said Naruto's name, but Sasuke managed to keep a straight face, even as his insides flip-flopped at hearing it.

"After that, the villages united and we started scouring everywhere we could to try and uncover the Akatsuki's hiding places where we believed Tobi might be hiding and plotting, or as he then claimed himself to be, Madara. We never found him. What we did eventually find was a young ninja you perhaps remember: Kabuto."

Though it had been even longer since Sasuke had seen that particular face, he had spent enough time in Orochimaru's lair to remember that treacherous little lackey of his former Sannin master.

"He had been doing much research and preparation for Edo Tensei, which he unleashed when we uncovered him. We found out afterwards that he had been preparing for word from Tobi or Madara, but never received it. Nonetheless, he fled and used the Edo Tensei to resurrect just about every powerful ninja whose body he had been able to get his hands on. That alone was struggle enough, but we eventually made our way through his resurrected army and took him into custody. From there, the war seemed to almost anticlimactically end, save for a few rather significant details."

Sasuke leaned forward at this, very intent to know what these details might be, considering the nature of what he had experienced in this world as a result of Madara's meddling.

"Firstly, though he never would say no matter under how much pressure we put on him, an extensive examination of Kabuto's layer revealed that there was still one active seal. We found hundreds of used seals that had been destroyed when we defeated their respective resurrected ninja, but one remained active, indicating that there is someone still raised under the effect of Edo Tensei."

Sasuke had a pretty good idea of the answer to that mystery, but he let Kakashi continue.

"Secondly, you were never found. To the day I wound up here, you remain the most wanted person in all the villages. Manhunts still take place even over a decade later, trying to find the last living Uchiha. After all your crimes, and your connection to the war, there is still a tremendous price on your head."

"So, why aren't you capturing me?" Sasuke asked flatly and he could tell Kakashi was smiling under his mask.

"I don't imagine that, even in your state, I would be able to make it back to our world quickly enough before you are more than capable of destroying me again. And, at the moment, obeying a capture or kill directive from the Kage is not at the top of my to-do list."

Something stuck out in those words and Sasuke frowned.

"Wait, you said 'in my state.' What is that supposed to mean?"

Kakashi raised an eyebrow.

"Haven't you been wondering at all why it was that you woke up unconscious back on the ground when your last waking moment had been while within your Susanoo high above the planet?"

Feeling a chill run up his spine, Sasuke felt into himself, but all his chakra flows seemed entirely open and fine. His body didn't ache, and nothing seemed out of place.

"I have, but I feel fine. What's changed?"

Kakashi looked at him closely a moment before he drew to life a small sphere of weak Chidori energy in his palm. The blue ball of lightning crackled in his hand as he replied.

"Remember our training? On top of that rock formation all those years ago?"

A series of images flashed through Sasuke's head, of him as a child catching and throwing Chidori charges that Kakashi sent his way.

"Of course."

"Would you mind catching this one now?" Kakashi asked and Sasuke snorted. The Chidori that Kakashi was enough that he probably could have flicked a finger to deflect or absorb it. Still, he sensed there was a point to be made here and he shrugged.

"Go for it."

Kakashi snapped his wrist and the charge shot Sasuke's way. He only needed a moment to focus on the charge of it to try and tap into its chakra to absorb it before he realized something was deeply wrong. The burst kept coming and he reached out to catch it, but instead of it coalescing over his hand and being collected and taken back into the form of chakra, it spiderwebbed out and blasted Sasuke's entire body. He was fried briefly with pain before being tossed backwards a dozen feet onto his back. Gasping, he scrambled to his feet, trying to ignore the two separate feelings of numbness spreading through his body.

"What are you doing?!" Azula screamed at Kakashi, but he barely seemed to notice her as Sasuke hobbled back over.

"That's what I was afraid of," he said softly as Ursa and Yue both moved to Sasuke's side to steady him, but he snarled and knocked aside their comforting touches, his find focused and starting to panic.

"Again!" he barked at Kakashi who raised his eyebrow sadly.

"Sasuke, that's all we needed to see to know that—"

"Again!" Sasuke roared and Kakashi sighed before immediately directing another Chidori blast his way. Sasuke focused as hard on it as he could, reaching for the chakra as the blue glow swallowed his view.

There it is, I can feel it, and all I have to do is grab—

In a mirror image of what had just happened, he was knocked off his feet as the charge dispelled around his arm and struck his body. Crashing to the ground again, he growled in pain as he dug his fingers into the dirt, frustration and anxiety starting to build.

"Sasuke, please, you need to—"

He couldn't even bear to look at Ursa as she knelt beside him, her voice gently laying against his ears, instead shoving himself back to his feet unsteadily and marching back towards Kakashi.

"What are you doing?!" he shouted. "That's not Chidori! What technique is that where I can't deflect and absorb it?!"

Kakashi's eyes remained tired, something that only frustrated Sasuke all the more.

"This is the same Chidori technique I have used my whole life, and the same one that I taught you all those years ago."

"No, no, no!" Sasuke raged. He was starting to feel quite furious to the point of irrationality. "That's different, what are you trying to pull?!"

Spreading his arms, Kakashi gave the merest shake of his head.

"You may try to do the same to me, if you would like."

Yeah, I'll do that, I'll give you more Chidori than you could ever handle, you bastard, trying to trick me into…

Sasuke trailed off in his bitterly angry mental ramblings as he drew up his energy and tightened his hand into a claw like shape towards Kakashi.

A small blue spark fizzled from his palm, sputtered outwards and flickered out after a traveling only about a meter.

Silence fell over the camp save for the crackle of the fire as Sasuke brought his hand up shakily to hold in front of his face as he stared at the spot on his palm that the Chidori should have exploded outwards from, as he had done a thousand times before.

"The fact that you were able to manage even that is actually a very good sign," Kakashi said and Sasuke slowly looked back to his former sensei, his voice barely able to be grasped so angry that he was just then.

"How… is this possibly… good?"

Kakashi slowly began to pace back and forth around the fire.

"When I saw you just before I caught you when you were knocked unconscious, I saw the woman I have been told is named Kyoshi hammer you with some great and powerful light. You were summoned Chidori of your own at the time within your Susanoo, so when both of those things flickered out, I found that odd, even though you had been knocked out. The energy should have still persisted from your body at least briefly in that involuntary state and even stranger was when I could still sense all your chakra flows within your body operating normally."

He gestured to Aang, who seemed to stiffen with nervousness.

"Tell him what you told me."

Aang only looked further upset to be put on the spot, but it was clear that Kakashi wasn't taking time to put feelings into consideration. Sasuke wanted to tell Aang that it was alright, but he couldn't shake down his anger and found he could only glare in impatience; Aang looked at him and swallowed before talking quietly, barely audible over the snapping of the fire.

"When I called out to you, trying to warn you… something was happening to me. I think Kyoshi was in the Avatar State because I could feel her thoughts. Well, not entirely, it was more like in all that pain, I could sense her feelings and her intentions. And in her mind, she had come to the conclusion that if your abilities were enough like bending, then they'd be subject to the same limitations that bending has, regardless of how those are imposed."

"Get to the point," Sasuke snapped, not paying any mind to the flash of hurt that passed over Aang's face.

"I never would have thought an ability like this possible… but Kyoshi was trying to use a technique where she can take away a person's bending. And she tried to use it on you."

"It would appear that the ability at least had something of a temporary effect," Kakashi said. "Though for how long your abilities to use elemental based jutsu will be hindered, I cannot say. You can still use your chakra to employ taijutsu as we just tested and perhaps genjutsu as well, but when it comes to—"

Ignoring the rest of his words, Sasuke spun around towards the dead of night and dug deep with his eyes. Surely whatever Kyoshi had done wouldn't be enough to restrict the power of his Amaterasu. Focusing on a single patch of earth, he gathered all his willpower and screamed the word in his head.

A small flicker of black flame spurted forth, wavered a moment, and then winked out of existence.

Sasuke could feel something very much akin to panic starting to spread through his body, a tingling almost as he tried not to imagine the reality wherein he was without any of his ninjutsu, no Chidori, no Amaterasu, no Susanoo, no anything. Not willing to accept defeat, he refocused his energy on that same patch of earth and began tearing through hand seals, mustering up any kind of ninjutsu he could muster.

"Sasuke…" Kakashi started to try and intervene, but he ignored the would-be interruption and kept trying.

Nothing worked, no Air Style, or Fire Style, none of his personalized moves, not a single limb of his Susanoo, all that he could manage were things like a short breeze, or a flicker of purple energy. Kyoshi had somehow neutered him beyond what he ever thought would have been possible.

Still, he kept trying, his back to the group as he felt the heat of shame on the back of his neck and behind his ears as he imagined them all looking at him with even more pity than before.

I'm weak now, she made me weak. The only thing I had to offer was my power, and now, that's all but gone.

Taijutsu and genjutsu be damned, they wouldn't be enough to stop Kyoshi and her army of spirits. He kept at his fruitless efforts, punctuating every attempt with a shout or snarl, even as his body started to burn from the effort he was putting on it. The chakra made to bend to his will again and again, but there was nothing for it to trigger to. Sasuke wanted to scream and rage, to fall to his knees and punch the earth until his knuckles bled to the bone; this couldn't be happening, this was impossible, how could he be reduced to something so pathetic and helpless and—

He heard someone coming up behind him, and he turned to bark at them to leave him alone, but Toph must have been moving faster than he had guessed, because by the time he turned around, he had only a brief moment to recognize her before she slugged him in the gut.

Sasuke could very well remember being punched by Toph before. She had done it both in anger and in affection, softer hits to show the latter and harder hits to show how upset he had made her, doing whatever it was that she had deemed as stupid or unnecessary or risky. Then, however, she had been a child, barely a teenager, and while her blows hadn't been anything to scoff at back then, she was a full grown woman now and as he felt the force of her fist come to a head against his torso, he knew that she had only gotten stronger in the years he had been absent.

He tried to think that anyway; the pain that blossomed outwards from the point where she had struck him caused him to curl slightly around her fist, and he felt an involuntary retch leave his throat as his eyes widened. Toph hadn't pulled her punch in the slightest, and his unprepared body recognized that.

"Would you just shut up?!" Toph screamed at him and punched again in the same spot. Sasuke felt his knees nearly buckle at that and it was all he could do to stagger backwards a couple paces and try and regain his breath. Over her shoulder, he could see Jin and Ty Lee with their hands over their mouths, Soza looking like she wanted to run forward but was paralyzed, Ursa with her teeth bared and eyes livid, and Azula with her fingers splayed like talons as though she were about to rip Toph limb from limb with her bare hands. Everyone else looked both terrified and shocked, save for Kakashi who had his eyebrow raised, looking rather impressed.

"You can be such a bitch!" Toph continued to scream, stomping her foot almost akin to a child. "You mean to tell me after all these years, you still have this fucking façade in your head that you have to be all powerful, that you have to be in complete control?! You finally are stripped of some of that, and instead of realizing that you're not in this alone, that you have people who love you and will do anything to help you, you start freaking out and acting like you're all by yourself! You run off for so long only to come back and act like nothing's changed! Why won't you grow up?!"

She pulled in short, deep breaths as she glowered at him and when he didn't say anything back, she released a shout against gritted teeth as she turned and stormed off, roaring as she did.

"I wish you had never come back!"

Within seconds, she had marched to the edge of the clearing and disappeared into the foliage. Ty Lee made to follow after her, but Jin put a hand on her shoulder, shaking her head miserably as her friend looked back at her. They both then turned to look at the place where Toph had disappeared, the looks on their faces speaking of nothing but hurt.

An awkward silence fell then as no one seemed to have an idea of quite what to say before Zuko spoke up quietly.

"I'll get started on that something of a proper dinner, while everyone… hopefully cools down. Suki, would you…?"

"Of course," she said firmly and the both of them got to work with the meager supplies they had, followed by Katara and Sokka. Everyone seemed to find some form of real or busy work to attend to, and not Soza, not Mai, not Yue, not even Azula seemed to look Sasuke's way just then. The only two people he could tell were still looking at him as he stood shaking at the edge of camp were Kakashi and Ursa. From what little he could see of Kakashi's face, his former teacher seemed musing and almost curious, no doubt deep in thought trying to wrap his head around Sasuke's condition. But when Sasuke moved his eyes to Ursa, he couldn't take it.

She had looked at him with a lot of different emotions since they had met: amusement, caring, kindness, frustration, sympathy, pain, regret, plenty of good and bad. But the disappointment he saw in her eyes wasn't something he was able to handle just then and he turned and marched off into the forest himself, the opposite direction that Toph had went. She had been the one person just then who probably could have eased him with just her eyes, but, as all doubled-edged swords were, she had only made his pain that much worse.

---

Ursa realized as Sasuke put his back to her and walked quickly away that her expression likely hadn't been remotely helpful to someone in his current predicament and she wiped the sad disappointment from her face a few seconds too late. She started to raise a hand and walk after him, wanting to call out and plead with him not to run off.

"He'll be fine. But there's no weakness he despises more than his own."

The words came from Kakashi who walked up to stand shoulder to shoulder with her, and she looked at him with slightly incredulous eyes.

"How can you be sure he'll be alright? After everything he's been through? I know you've known him for longer than any of us have, but…"

She trailed off and watched Kakashi carefully. His emotion and attitude was difficult for her to read, but it was impossible not to see the great waves of nostalgia rushing in that one eye she was able to see.

"Sasuke was always a boy ruled by sheer force of will," he said. "That hasn't changed and in fact, it might have steepened since I was last around him. He was willing to sacrifice so much for his causes, and I watched that both destroy him and build him into the young man that was deemed a traitor and criminal by all the villages."

His eye briefly flicked over and Ursa could tell that he was looking towards Azula, Mai, Aang, Soza, Ty Lee, and Katara, all of whom looked like they were trying to hide how much they were trying to overhear Kakashi's words but were failing horribly at being inconspicuous. Ursa imagined Kakashi wouldn't mind considering how he had just spoken to them for hours in detail regarding what he knew about Sasuke's life, but he turned his head slightly to her before asking a question.

"Would you mind if we moved a little further away? I'd like to talk with you briefly."

He didn't need to add the words "in private" for Ursa to tell that's exactly what he meant. Pausing a moment, she nodded and followed him as he walked to the forest's edge and paced in a ways. Only a couple dozen yards from the camp, they reached a small, but very sharp hill. Kakashi bounded up it swiftly, leaving Ursa to clamber up after him, reaching the top a few seconds after him.

"Not very gentlemanlike to not offer a lady help," she remarked in an effort to ensure that there wasn't any ice to be broken between them. Kakashi shrugged as he sat down on one of the few boulders atop the hill, prompting Ursa to join him.

"Even though you seem a decade older at least than anyone down there, I can tell you're as strong a person as any of them, and I do mean both physically and mentally. I figured you'd find an offer like that demeaning."

Ursa didn't know about that, but she appreciated the thought. They both looked down towards the clearing which was just a little way in the distance; her son and Suki had seemed to have pulled the initial awkward edge following Sasuke's spectacle and Toph's outburst, and she could hear very distant conversation as they started to prepare food by the fire.

"That was a neat little trick, the dome you put over the clearing," she said. "You sure that'll keep anyone from seeing us?"

Kakashi nodded. He had performed what Ursa now knew was called a ninjutsu technique, something in the same vein as what Sasuke practiced, in order to create a sort of layer of protection over the clearing that caused anything passed over to see nothing should they have looked down. Though the odds the spirits would make reconnaissance over where they were was extremely unlikely, the thought gave Ursa some peace of mind.

"Ursa, I'll get directly to the point: do you have feelings for Sasuke?"

His straightforwardness caused her to blink in surprise. That whole evening, this stranger she now knew to be a man from Sasuke's past had spoken for the most part with a very mellow and peaceable tone, but she could hear the edge in it now.

"I don't think I need to specify what I mean by that," he continued. "I ask because it is terribly obvious that he has feelings for you, which is wildly surprising to me."

Ursa flicked her eyebrows.

"What's that supposed to mean?"

Her question was a challenge, and Kakashi cleanly avoided it as he shook his head tiredly.

"It has nothing to do with your looks or who you are as a person. My surprise comes from the fact that, in all the time I knew him, from a child to a young man, Sasuke never showed the slightest inclination that he had the time or care for any sort of romantic feelings. You've surely noticed that he's quite the handsome and attractive young man…"

God, have I.

"…and he's been doted on by the members of the opposite sex since a young age. And yet, he has never spent a single second that I've noticed to take stock of that. Even a member of his own team spent years trying to get him to notice her and he resolutely ignored every advance she made. I don't think there was ever anything inherently vindictive about it, but Sasuke has always seemed to believe romance to be an obstacle, a similar outlook to how he's viewed most of the people in his life from childhood, well into when he was a young man."

He paused a moment as he looked towards the camp, watching its members mill about and converse.

"But Sasuke is not the same person whom last I saw a very long time ago. He cares for you and the rest of them, I think, though his pride would surely press him to admit otherwise. Seeing that there are people in his life that care for him and that he cares for in turn is a very heartwarming thing for me."

Ursa felt herself smiling somewhat bitterly.

"I'm sensing the implied 'but' in all that."

Kakashi sighed.

"I'm worried for him. Do you remember when I told you he lost his family?"

She nodded, knowing she could never forget that. Hearing about Sasuke's past had torn her apart over and over, and she had been surprised she was even able to stand. She supposed a great deal of it was the fact that she wanted to talk to Sasuke about it, find out just how much of that pain was still hindering him to this day, but she somehow imagined he would never want to talk about it, not even with her.

"When he was seven."

Kakashi nodded back fervently as though that admittance was further offering credence to his point.

"Not since age seven has Sasuke led anything of a normal or healthy lifestyle. His world was consumed by vengeance, a beast that guided him through the remainder of his formative years and then further as he developed into a young man. When I was in my late teens, I had the pleasure of running several errands and services that drew me into meeting his parents, well before he was old enough to have remembered me. I saw him with his mother, father and brother, before it all went so horribly wrong for him."

He looked at her poignantly.

"He was very happy as a small boy."

Ursa swallowed and felt the uncomfortable burning behind her eyes that indicated that tears were building, but she forced them down.

"But he lost that and never gained it back. He had teachers and people who tried to be his friends, but for as long as I knew him, he was missing actually feeling friendship in return, learning for himself about love, and… and having that person in his life who he could be vulnerable with, that mother he lost."

There was a chill that began to run down Ursa's spine as she found it was all too easy to figure what Kakashi was trying to hint at. He persisted though as she gave no indication of that.

"What I'm trying to say is that I see how he looks at you. I see that desire for approval, and that hope of comfort. And I see love there too. He's not a kid anymore, but there's still pieces of him that never got to have that growth."

The last sentence made Ursa feel rather unwell then and she wanted very badly just then to be alone.

"I never imagined I would see any of that coming from Sasuke and to not only see all of that, but to see it all directed at one person… I just worry what should happen were you to…"

He trailed off and Ursa could sense the many implications that he was leaving unsaid. The possibilities for how and why were somewhat endless, but they all circled back around to a main point, a dark and grisly shadow that sicked Ursa to consider.

He thinks I could hurt him.

She desperately felt the need to deflect before she gave away something she didn't want to.

"We have a positive relationship, I suppose," she said plainly. "But we've only known one another for a little while and I became a romance with him before I had any idea who he was."

"It might do you good to make that clear to people other than me," Kakashi said quietly and Ursa gave a short, disbelieving laugh. So he had been able to sense the resentment from some of the other women too, had he?

"It doesn't matter," she replied firmly. "Our relationship is casual, not anything to read too deeply into, romantic or otherwise."

The silence that fell between them then was rather uncomfortable, and she could feel his uncovered eye piercing the side of her head and she sighed.

"Not buying that one, huh."

Kakashi made a gentle noise of amusement before saying, "I've been lied to my whole life so I have some experience detecting them, but you made that one pretty easy to spot. Because I was talking about Sasuke's feelings for you, not yours for him, but you all just told me that things are a lot more serious for you too."

Closing her eyes, Ursa put her head in her hands, digging her fingers into her scalp in tired frustration.

"I don't know how I feel for him. Before I knew a thing about him, I could see how broken he was and I let that take my interest. I felt that even just one night might be something that could help him…"

Kakashi let out a sound that might have been a discouraged moan.

"So, you have slept with him…"

"He was hurting," Ursa retorted defensively. "I didn't have a real strong feeling one way or another back then even if I know that I was attracted to him, but now… now, things are different."

"How so?"

Gritting her teeth, Ursa distantly couldn't quite believe she was even saying all this.

"Days ago, I told Sasuke to please not be naïve enough to think I was falling in love with him. I didn't realize then that I was lying to myself as much as I was trying to make sure he didn't fall for me."

"That might have failed," Kakashi remarked unhelpfully and Ursa chuckled darkly.

"Clearly," she muttered. "And things have been happening so fast that I haven't even had time to think about it. But I know how he looks at me. And I know what he must be feeling."

Silence fell between them again and she knew that Kakashi was trying to keep from overstepping, but he needn't have worried; in truth, despite her frustration with this line of questioning, his concern for Sasuke had touched her deeply. But that couldn't help her from knowing that her worry about Sasuke's feelings translated just as much to her as well.

"Has your relationship been that of just casual lovers and maybe becoming something beyond that? Or has there been more to it? That sort of… maternal quality that Sasuke hasn't experienced likely in decades?"

It was a deeply personal question, but Usa somehow found that she couldn't just outright tell him off as such. She wished so badly that she could put his fears to rest and tell him that there was nothing but affection that came from romance about the two of them, but all she needed to do was remember what she had asked him to do on the airship earlier that night to know she'd never escape with that lie. Kakashi seemed to understand what her silence meant, and she looked up towards the star-studded night sky as her mind raced.

She didn't know exactly what it was that she had with Sasuke or even what she wanted with him. But to suggest that Kakashi hadn't touched a nerve and that there was no maternal instinct for him that paired with her attraction and lust for him was a dead lie. It hurt her to consider that somehow she might have been using him to vent her own frustrated feelings for not being able to be there for Zuko and Azula's childhoods, and that she sensed that Sasuke possessed even less than what they had been given.

I'm trying so hard not to fall for him… and now I can't even deny that beyond being his lover, I do feel some motherly instincts for him.

Another thought that should have unsettled her, but somehow it didn't. Kissing Sasuke felt perfect, taking him in bed felt perfect, and holding him gently and singing softly to him had felt perfect. Ursa didn't care what conclusions her mind was trying to draw; at some point she knew she would have to confront this, but for now, she didn't care what Kakashi might have thought of her. Though he never would have been able to stop her, she decided to still ask him a question out of courtesy.

"I suppose you want me to break things off with him?"

Kakashi shot her a look.

"What? No, please, if you're happy too, I can't think of a better thing for Sasuke to have in his life right now."

Surprised, she furrowed her brow at him.

"But I thought you said that—"

"I just don't think Sasuke can get hurt like that again," Kakashi said, somewhat abruptly and Ursa looked at him as she watched the sadness pass through his eye. She wasn't sure what to say for a moment before she decided to use the same honesty he had been showing her.

"I don't know all what this will mean to you, but I promise that I will never do anything to hurt that boy," she said softly. "I knew even before I know what I do now that he's been through enough pain to last a hundred lifetimes, and I would sooner end my own life than further damage his."

Kakashi sighed.

"I appreciate your words, Ursa, but I suppose I never held your integrity or character in check. I don't know that pain will ever stop shadowing Sasuke's steps, and I apologize for implying that anything you might have done would be contributory to that. I can see that, regardless of the nature of your relationship, you've helped him a great deal. And for that I'm very grateful."

Ursa nodded, though she took his deeper meaning close to heart.

I have to decide what I want us to be. What I'm able to be for him. I told myself and him that we could never be together, but could I even dare to say that now?

Feeling that she might not have the strength to confront this now, she instead asked,

"If Sasuke were to return to his own world, after all you've said that he did, what would happen to him?"

Kakashi waited a few moments before answering, "I would be required by ninja law to take him into custody; assuming that Sasuke evaded capture, which he could certainly do being much stronger than me, or perhaps because I wouldn't be able to find it in my heart to bring him in, he would be hunted down until captured."

"And then what?" she persisted.

"Considering the nature of what's he done as well as who he is, he would likely stand trial before the full Kage Tribunal."

"And?" Ursa followed up, feeling an eerie anxiety in the pit of her stomach. There came the longest stretch of silence between them yet, during which Ursa was almost entirely sure that Kakashi wasn't going to answer her.

"On charges of terrorism, plot to murder, attempt to murder, murder, treason, and rogue activity, he would most likely be sentenced to death."

---

Toph tried to keep from shaking as she felt him coming.

After storming out of camp, she had tried to move far enough away that her solitary spot would be exceptionally secluded so that no one would come find her while she tried to get ahold of herself. Several long minutes had passed in which she hadn't been able to coax herself into feeling any relief or calmness, and then to boot, she had felt him coming.

She had been waiting for this moment for what felt like her entire life. Sasuke had walked into her life only to leave after bewitching her with the most painful and unending allure, feelings she hadn't been able to manage as a child, and ones she was barely willing to try and comprehend now. Years of listening to her friends talk behind her back when they thought she couldn't hear or wasn't listening, pitying her for not being able to move on from a boy who was never coming back. Toph had replayed Ty Lee's words to her over and over in her head, feeling their weight and pressure cracking at the fault lines that should have broken long ago. She had wanted to give him up, so many times, but never could.

Despite all of that, now, he was back. He had come back.

And Toph didn't want to so much as hear a word from him.

It was the most frustrating thing in the world, to have spent this long wishing against hope for just a chance to feel him, to speak with him, to try and understand him, but as she thought to his mindset, his attitude, his—

Bullshit. You don't care about any of that. Blowing up on him back at the camp hadn't been because of his actions.

It was true. Toph didn't care remotely about any of those things she was trying to convince herself she was angry at him for. She supposed she was indeed mad at him for several reasons, for conceiving and abandoning Soza, for abandoning all of them, but Toph knew that if not for just that one other thing, she would have been able to try to forgive and understand these things in a heartbeat.

But as he had raged with his back to them, Toph had felt her.

That woman.

Zuko and Azula's fucking mom.

And she had been the one to take him.

The unfairness of it made Toph want to scream. But Sasuke drew closer behind her, his footsteps almost audible now; she had been able to sense him when he had still been at least a hundred meters away, and this was no time to fall into hysterics. She was angry at him, she had to remember. Because all of this hurt simmering in her gut, all of this angst that she had been living with was his fault, whether he had meant to cause it or not.

So, Toph stood with her back to him as he approached her over the next several seconds, not willing to face him and hardly daring to even breathe.

He stopped walking and she closed her eyes. There came only a breeze then, rustling the long grass that stretched over the island and softly shaking the long palms of the trees around them. Toph knew that there were none immediately near them by the sound, and she tilted her head up, spending a moment wondering what the night sky above looked like, something she had pondered a thousand times in her life and would surely ponder a thousand more.

Sasuke spoke and Toph felt her world tear at the seams.

"I don't suppose you want me to be around you right now."

It wasn't a question but it couldn't have been clearer that he was asking permission; Toph felt her anger rushing to the surface, her primary defense in a case like this.

"That what kept you away for twelve years?" she snapped and was thrilled that her voice wasn't shaking. Sasuke didn't reply immediately and instead took a few steps forward, and she felt him scratch the back of his head and could feel his nerves too.

Good.

"I'd tell you I'm sorry, but I would be surprised if that would be sufficient for what you're probably feeling."

He must have known how badly that came out, because he was braced by the time Toph had spun, made it to him, and punched him again. Nonetheless, he released a low groan as his stance wavered; Toph shook hair out of her face as she tried to control her breathing.

"No kidding?! You figure that out all by yourself?!"

After he said nothing for a moment, she pulled her fist back and felt some angry satisfaction that he tensed up. She chose not to him again and instead turned away from him, feeling a tingling in the ends of her toes. It was impossible to ignore the anxiety that was stabbing every nerve in her body now, and she wasn't sure how long she would be able to keep it together, but she wanted Sasuke gone if she found that she indeed needed to break down.

"Would you just talk to me instead of hitting me?" he growled and she released a scream of a laugh.

"When did talking ever do a fucking thing with you?!" she shouted and wished desperately that she could see his face, see his eyes. Maybe there would be guilt, maybe there would be hurt, maybe there would be fucking anything, but only being able to read his body language and voice was one of the most frustrating things about it all.

"Well, if you want to talk, let's start hearing some excuses, I'm sure you've had plenty of time to brew some up," she snarled. "Why don't you tell me why you left, when you knew what it was going to do to all of us? I know I was a stupid little girl, but why don't you tell me how relieved you were when you could put me to your back? Oh, and how about you throw in why it was that you fucked Azula's royal privates and then took off before you ever had to deal with the responsibility of being a father?"

She took a step nearer to him, and her voice shook for what Toph knew wouldn't be the last time.

"Oh, and Sasuke? I'm not a kid anymore. Spare me any of that 'I did it for your own good' or 'you wouldn't understand' bullshit."

Her aggression was something that she actually had hoped might get him worked up, piss him off to the point where he might just start venting and she might hear some honesty from that. But she sensed no anger in his movements, nor in his voice.

"You want answers?"

Toph cracked a fake, sweet smile. "If you wouldn't mind."

Sasuke fell silent a moment and then he walked past her to seat himself on a slab of rock in the semi-clearing they were in. As he walked by her, Toph couldn't keep herself from breathing him in and his scent brought her back to her childhood, nostalgia washing over her. It was a minute or so before he started to talk.

"I knew that my staying would cause more harm than good. And I don't just mean because of what happened at the end of the war. I tried to distance myself from it, but I wasn't stupid enough not to notice that you and a few others had been eying me up, pardon the phrase. We were all still young, and I knew that me staying would only wind up causing heads to butt, and tempers to flare, and the fact of the matter is, I didn't belong there the same way I still don't belong here. And I would be lying if I said that the responsibility of friendship wasn't something I wanted to get away from. I know the toll it can take when it's with someone like me, and I suppose you could call me a bit of a coward for that."

Toph could sense no lies coming from him as she tried to keep her anger afloat, and when he spoke next, she nearly broke then and there.

"I thought that leaving you in particular would be good for both of us. I fully believed that when I was back on my own that I would feel some measure of relief, and I suppose I did to a certain extent. But that pain of saying goodbye never left. I don't really know why, but it haunted me every day I would wake up and realize that I was alone, not traveling with people who might have been my friends. And I'm not lying when I say that I think I missed you most of all."

Terrified to even feel for dishonesty in him there, Toph could find none in his voice or his body, and she swallowed down what she knew would have been a sob, resorting to tightening her lips in fury that she was getting this worked up. Her feelings were completely flipping, anger replaced by hurt, resentment replaced by a much rawer pain.

He missed me.

Sasuke's voice grew flat and bitter.

"As for Soza, Azula intoxicated, drugged and raped me the night before I left. I have no memory of sleeping with her, but Soza is pure proof that she succeeded in her plan."

Toph felt her shoulders slump as a numbing horror spread through her core, suffocating her anger in its wake. Her lower lip trembled as she felt the earth beneath her feet spin. She remembered the words Mai had screamed, and Toph had pushed them out of her mind, hoping somehow that they were just metaphors or something else, that she wasn't actually hearing any reality in them. She had wanted so bad to believe that.

No… oh please, no, no, no…

"She… what?" she barely managed to whisper and Sasuke shrugged.

"She had it in her head that by doing that, she would have her victory. I had told her in private I could never love her, and I guess that became her backup plan."

Toph wanted to not believe it. She wanted to deny this, and tell Sasuke that he was somehow wrong, that he was missing something. Soza was not a child born of rape, she couldn't have been.

But she only needed to think of who Azula was, and she knew for certain that such a horrible deed was hardly something the princess would have shied away from.

That snake… that lying, bitter, vicious snake.

Despite the nausea, fear and disbelief that had rocked Toph to her core, she sensed something strange from Sasuke, something she wouldn't have expected from him following this admission. She still remembered all the times she had felt his frustration, his annoyance, his worry, even his occasional shows of kindness and compassion. It would have been all she expected to feel nothing short of rage from him over this abominable truth, but as Toph struggled with the reality of it in her own mind, she sensed something that might have made her more angry than anything that had happened since Sasuke had returned.

Sasuke was practically squirming in shame.

"She… raped you," Toph quietly repeated, the gravity of it hammering at her soul.

"Yes," Sasuke said quietly and without urging, he told he in brief what it was that he had learned aboard the airship. And through every one of his words, she could hear the humiliation and sorrow in his voice.

"She bore Soza… and you never knew," she clarified, her voice almost sounding like it was coming from another person entirely. Sasuke released a low growl deep in his throat and she could feel him drop his head into his hands.

"I was such a fool… I can't believe I allowed it to happen."

His words confirmed that Toph's senses were not playing tricks on her, and she made no verbal reply to him. Instead, she rushed forward and tackled him off the rock and they both rolled to the ground; winding up on top of him, Toph grabbed his shoulders and slammed him into the ground as she screamed at him.

"Fucking damn you, Sasuke, why?!"

He grunted and grabbed her wrists.

"I know, I should have known, I should have been able to keep it from—"

She let out a shout of anger that ripped at her throat, and she punched him in the face.

"Not that!" she roared. "That evil bitch does that to you, and you're sitting here feeling ashamed?! Sasuke, you were raped! She used you, she lied to you and everyone else, and now, Soza has gone her entire life without a father because of what she did!"

It wasn't until she felt a hot wetness on the back of her hand holding Sasuke to the ground that she realized she was crying uncontrollably.

"It's not your fault! It's not your fault! It's not…"

Her voice quivered and broke then and she dropped her face onto his chest, soaking his clothes with her tears.

"…it's not your fault," she managed to get out bitterly as she clung tightly to him.

Toph had been ready to be furious with him, she had even been ready to try hating him. Whatever it took to distance herself and keep the pain deep within from winning. But as she lay on top of him, her knees splayed on either side of his waist, she knew that she had already failed. His warmth and feeling was the same she had remembered, somehow comforting and enveloping, and even despite their exchange, she wanted to lie with him like that forever.

Why can't I hate him?

Suddenly, something occurred to her, and she pushed off of him and leapt to her feet. She had already marched several yards before Sasuke got up, following and calling after her.

"Where are you going?" he asked.

"To kill Azula," she replied through gritted teeth. She didn't know how this immediate conclusion hadn't evaded her; that bitch needed to die for what she had done to Sasuke, and to her own daughter. Azula had lied to everyone with a shit-eating smile on her face, never admitting that Soza's father was just as aware of his role in her existence as everyone else. So many years it had been now; had she enjoyed it? Imagining them squirm while she replayed over and over the idea of taking Sasuke and—

Toph forced her thoughts to cut off. She knew that if she thought for even a second longer about Sasuke being raped by Azula, what little rationality she had with her would be no more.

Sasuke caught up to her quickly enough and gripped her by the upper arm with enough strength to halt her progress.

"What are you doing?!" she seethed and Sasuke seemed surprised at the strength with which she pulled at him.

"You know you can't do that," he said through gritted teeth before Toph summoned a column of earth to knock him flat on his back.

"Like hell I can't!" she snarled and continued pacing back towards camp. Reaching into the earth, she tried to feel Azula's presence, that haughty and regal way she carried herself, true irony considering the monster she was.

Sasuke reached her again, only briefly winded by her attempt to throw him aside. She pulled her hands around to perform another bending action to restrain him, but he was faster than that and caught her wrists, holding them tightly and keeping her from performing the sweeps that were necessary to bend. Shouting in anger, she drew back a foot to stomp it and utilize her bending through other means, but Sasuke seemed to have recognized this attempt for he wrapped a leg around hers and pulled her to the ground. She writhed in his grip as he rolled onto his back, holding her on top of him and depriving her of the earth that made her such a formidable bender.

"Let go of me!" she screamed as she tried to pull free from him.

"No," he said firmly, prompting her to shout further and thrash against him.

"Why wouldn't you want this?! After what she's done to you?!"

His response made so much sense that she actually found herself even more furious.

"Because she's Soza's mother. And I know you care about her no matter what you're feeling for her mother right now."

Toph wanted to tell him that he was being stupid, that Soza didn't have anything to do with this, but as his answer lingered in her ears, she felt the sudden rage pass out of her, and her body went loose in defeat. Sasuke didn't seem keen on immediately letting her go, but after several long moments, he did. She remained lying on top of him for a few seconds before getting to her feet and Sasuke followed suit.

"You wouldn't actually have tried to kill her, would you?" he asked almost tentatively and she scowled.

"I don't know. I should have."

Though she didn't really know why, Toph found that she was just as fed up with this maturity from Sasuke as much as anything. She couldn't imagine what would happen if she suddenly found out that she had somehow been a parent for the past dozen years and had never known, and yet here Sasuke was, somehow coping with it. She wanted to hit him again for no real reason, but refrained.

"What did you want?" she snapped abruptly, wanting almost to just be alone so she could process the idea that the girl she had spent so many years growing close to was a result of rape. It was a very strange feeling; in her head, she was shouting at him to leave her alone, but she was terrified what would happen if he did. That was hardly what she actually wanted.

"I don't know," he replied plainly. "I just wanted to see if you were still mad at me."

"I wasn't mad at you!" she shouted and felt ice in her veins as she realized what she had just said.

"All evidence to the contrary," Sasuke muttered somewhat casually, but Toph could tell that he was paying close attention to her. Her insides were even more a mess than they had been, as she felt the real reasoning behind her anger, the reason that instead of rushing into his arms the moment they had been alone like she desperately wanted, she had confronted him with such open hostility, the same hostility she had shown him back at the camp.

Be honest. Be honest with him and yourself.

But Toph couldn't have been more scared to do so.

"What's the matter?" Sasuke asked softly and Toph could feel her heartbeat as a rhythmic and deafening pulse in her head.

"I… I wasn't mad at you because of your powers and how you were reacting. And I wasn't mad at you because of anything else I just yelled at you over," she managed, just another set of words that kept her from spilling the truth for a few moments longer.

"Why then?" Sasuke asked, sounding genuine in his concern and curiosity, and again, Toph wanted to hit him for sounding so mature, for sounding so much like… like…

Like a man. Not a boy.

"I knew that you were probably angry at me for a ton of reasons, but if it's not about Soza, if it's not about leaving, and it's not about that, then what?"

"I just told you, you fucking moron," she growled. "I'm not mad at you."

"No?" he asked and Toph turned away from him, digging her fingers furiously into the sides of her head.

"I am, but…! But I have no right to be! But damn you, Sasuke… damn you to hell for it anyway…"

He was shifting his weight uncomfortably now, and Toph knew that her caginess was starting to unsettle him.

"Toph, if there's something that you—"

Not wanting to face him, and not even wanting to stand as she talked, Toph dropping down to the dirt and pulled her knees up to her face where she sat. She spoke and tried to imagine that he wasn't there, that this could all just be something she was saying to herself.

"When you left, I thought I could move on too. As the first months started to go by, I grew close with Ty Lee and Jin, and they both tried to reinforce with me what I was already trying to believe, that it was just a crush and that I would forget about you. But twelve years later and… and it never happened. I didn't find any other boys interesting, I never even so much as tried to date. Because every time I thought there might be something to one of the boys in my metalbending classes, or even when I heard a cute voice flirting with me, it didn't matter. Because all I could think about at that point was you. How close I had come to kissing you, and somehow knowing that none of these other guys would ever be the same, and how they would never make me feel how you did."

She reached a hand absently over her shoulder and brushed it over where his mark was lain against her skin.

"I can feel it. Even when you weren't around, I could still feel it. I always felt it as this hollow, yet perfect part of me. It wasn't until I was a woman that I realized and truly came to grips with the fact that I was still hoping you would come back. Even despite what you said, and the fact that it had already been so many years… I really was hoping in sheer agony that you would come back to me."

Her fingers gently dug into the area where she was marked and she didn't say anything else, until Sasuke quietly asked behind her,

"And?"

Toph rested her forehead against her knees, not knowing how she was going to get through this without crying again.

"And then everything happened over the last week, and it culminated with you being back in my life, that one wish that I had bet everything on, and that one wish I was so sure I was never going to have granted."

Sasuke didn't say anything, but Toph felt him slump slightly where he stood and she figured he might have finally caught on to where this was going, so she decided to get to the point.

"I felt you when you were in that cabin on the airship with Ursa. I… could tell how close you two were."

He remained silent for a while longer before finally speaking up again.

"You never gave up on the possibility that…"

Trailing off, but the implication being completely readable, Toph laughed, a bitter, humorless and miserable sound.

"I don't know why I was ever stupid enough to think that after so long, you wouldn't have found someone. And I heard her singing to you, and I could feel how relaxed you were. You seem really happy with her."

The tears started to spill then and Sasuke spoke quietly behind her.

"Toph, I—"

"And I know that even if you hadn't found someone like her, you would have found someone else. I asked Jin and Ty about it years later and neither of them could deny how attractive you were. I knew some other woman would have got to you long before I could twelve years later."

"Toph, I'm not—"

"And even if they hadn't somehow, it would have been someone else now. Mai, or Yue, or… please tell me it wouldn't be Azula, not after what's happened…"

"Please just—"

"I'm sorry, Sasuke, but that's the reason for it, it really is."

Toph felt the tears rolling down her face consistently, her lungs beginning to contract quickly with the sobs she knew were soon to come on. She hated that after all this, she was still just going to break down in front of him again, just as she had done when they were young, when she was barely old enough to even know what love felt like.

But that's what it was. Love. I know that now, why else would this hurt so bad?

"I know there's so many beautiful women out there, and you could probably take your pick from any of them. I let myself be alone for so much time, denied the idea that anyone else could make me happy, somehow believing that you would be the same way, and wouldn't have found someone. I just stupidly told myself that it could be me, and I'm paying for being so blind, not just with my eyes, but with my… my… my heart…"

She choked down a sob and pulled her knees closer to her, wishing Sasuke would leave already. She knew how pathetic she must look and sound, a stupid girl crying about love and hope and all this nonsense when there was so much chaos to be dealt with. Sasuke didn't want to hear this, he didn't need to hear it right now, not after everything he was already going through.

"I'm sorry," she managed. "You don't deserve to have me being mad at you right now."

Please just leave.

But Sasuke didn't leave.

He stood behind her for well over a minute while she cried and hated herself for it. She couldn't sense his intentions through his feeling, so difficult as he usually was to read and she wondered what exactly he thought of her just then. Then, she felt him move, not away from her and back into the trees as she had hoped, but towards her and she felt her heartrate shoot up.

Oh, please, no… I don't know if I can handle him touching me.

When his right hand pressed lightly against her side just beneath her shoulder, her breathing caught in her throat. It was so much different than how it had felt when she had attacked him, almost as though it was the feeling of a completely different person; her anger was vanished from her, and all she had left was her pain and feelings for Sasuke.

Feelings she found she was still, even with them being right in front of her, scared to face.

He put his other hand on her shoulder and as he gently but firmly pulled her to her feet, Toph felt a strange weightlessness pass over her. The way his hands felt, the heat of his body being so close to her, she almost wasn't able to stand on her own two feet.

"You're right," he said calmly. "There are a lot of beautiful women."

Toph's heart sank among all the other rioting emotions within it and she lowered her head, not wanting him to see her tearsoaked and red-eyed face. She didn't get far before his hand brushed beneath her chin and lifted it; she felt the faintest warmth of his breathing and knew that she was face to face with him. Her world was spinning wildly as though she were drunk, but her mind was completely clear. It had never felt as clear as it did just then, the life she could feel surging through her veins unmatched by the last twelve years of her life. All of that time paled in comparison to each second that passed as he held her close to him.

It hurts so much. Please, please, if I feel this way any longer, I'm going to die, I know it, I know—

"But you missed one," he murmured and Toph's thoughts were all cast aside as a wave of bliss, relief and agony crushed her as Sasuke pressed his lips to hers.

---

What are you doing?

He couldn't quite believe it himself, and yet here he was.

Why are you doing this?

Why was he doing this?

Because it's her.

It was still such an insane thing that he was doing; how could he do this after Yue, after Ursa? Why hadn't he been able to resist Toph's tear-streaked face as she looked unseeingly up at him with those gorgeous, tortured eyes?

Sasuke supposed the answer was in the question. Because this wasn't like Azula kissing him, or Yue kissing him, or even when Ursa had for the first time. Perhaps they were two people kissing, but beyond that, things were so much different. Azula had pushed herself on him and kissed him more than once in his life, and likely more times than he knew that one night that he didn't hold any memory of. Yue had approached him as well, seeming desperate to touch against her own feelings as well as his. And even though Sasuke had found himself almost clinging to Ursa whenever he could, she had been the one to approach him and give him that first kiss that had started everything.

Toph hadn't.

She had shown him just how broken she was and all but asked him to leave as she tried to make it sound like she wasn't crying as hard as she was. Before he had approached her, she had all but been asking him to leave.

So why didn't I?

Stupid question.

Because… I wanted this.

He wanted to kiss her.

Toph was almost limp against him, even as she brought a shaking hand up to gently cup his face. Her whole form was shaking ever so slightly as though an earthquake were present beneath her. Sasuke almost tightened his grip on her before he realized he didn't want to scare her. His hands started to tremble on her then as he tried to think of how he could ease her mind, even as his own raced faster than he would have thought it would.

They gently broke apart, their lips still brushing as Sasuke whispered to her.

"I'm sorry, I don't want to do anything that's going to—"

Toph shut him up by kissing him again and this time, her arm wrapped around his neck as she clung tightly to him, her grip rather intense. Briefly, she pulled back from him again, her breathing light and almost frantic.

"Please don't leave again…" she moaned quietly and Sasuke pulled back from her, his eyes widening.

His digits seemed to grow paralyzed as he felt a horrible dryness in his throat. He felt sick to his stomach, his world burning around him.

What have I done?

Toph's expression seemed to flash with fear a moment and she moved her head forward slightly as if to find his lips again, but he didn't reciprocate. Fresh tears welled in her eyes and she pressed her face to his chest and cried quietly, wrapping her arms around him like a child holding their parent after a nightmare. Not even sure he should dare to, Sasuke put his arms around Toph, but his movements were stiff; the pure pleasure that had come from kissing her had been replaced with an overwhelming sense of fear and anxiety.

Guilt. This is guilt.

He held Toph and listened to her cry as the world seemed to be laughing at him.

I can't promise her anything. I couldn't protect her. And I can't promise that I can be there for her. I don't know anything. Why am I putting this on her?

Sasuke had wanted to kiss her. But now that he had, he felt more lost than he had in even the last decade of being on his own.

She needs stability. Safety. I want to give her that. But I know I can't.

He suddenly wanted to find Ursa and as he thought to this desire, he realized just how much he had taken her presence for granted. Every time he had felt remotely bad in the last several days, he had wanted nothing more than to just go to her, to be in her arms. When he had made the trek across the Nations to reach Ba Sing Se, he knew that he had missed her badly. The idea of the woman who might as well have been an angel to him putting her wings around him was such a euphoric thought that it felt all the worse when his guilt swallowed him.

Sasuke felt guilt for daring to kiss Toph when he was so lost himself, he felt guilt for not being able to be who she needed, he felt guilt for what he had done to her for almost half her life, he felt guilt over the fact that he had never once forgotten about her himself. He felt guilt over the idea that a woman as good to him as Ursa was someone he was taking for granted, he felt guilt over the idea that he wanted to run to her and use her as a coping mechanism and hadn't thought once about how she would feel for helping him through what would surely have been something of a breakdown right then, he felt guilt for wanting her as badly as he did.

And most of all, he felt guilt that he was feeling the way he was about more than one woman.

God help me… seeing Toph now, all I wanted to do was kiss her and hold her, something I never thought I would have wanted so badly… and now I can't stop thinking about Ursa and what she's done for me and how she makes me feel, I want to be in her arms so bad… And that's not to mention Mai, and Yue, and…

He didn't even dare think her name; how could he after what she had done?

All of the chaos I've brought this world… and I'm thinking about women?

It was all Sasuke could do to try and keep him from raging at himself as the guilt swarmed over him and as if by damningly painful coincidence, Toph gently pulled her head back and looked at him, her unseeing eyes still glistening with tears.

"Sasuke? What's wrong?"

He didn't dare say a word for fear that his voice would be shaking more than hers had been. But he still knew that silence couldn't hide his overwhelming pile of emotions, especially not from her. Toph let out a soft moan and stroked the side of his face.

"Oh, Sasuke, please don't shut me out, please don't—"

"Toph, I…I…"

Sasuke didn't know what he could even say, what he could even dare to as he quickly tried to blurt something out. But all he could think about as he looked at her was how she was probably feeling how stiff he was as he stood there, and as he realized that he was trembling, he couldn't help but curse himself.

"Sasuke?"

Her voice was a gentle breeze, even as it quaked with sadness and worry. Sasuke closed his eyes and, finding he still couldn't speak, he leaned forward and pressed his forehead to hers. She reached up and held him, both hands on either side of his head and as they held one another, Sasuke had to try not to cry as his anger and guilt weighed more than he felt he could even bear.

He needed Ursa so badly, but he couldn't bring himself to leave Toph's arms. In her own way, her touch was just as powerful.

"It's okay," she said gently, pushing past the shake in her voice and Sasuke released a quaking breath as he put his arms around her.

"It's okay," she said again and Sasuke hugged her with all his might. He found himself relieved she couldn't see the look on his face, he didn't need Toph ever knowing just how much this was killing him.

---

Ursa walked into the tent that Sasuke had been lying in and looked around it, making sure that nothing of great importance had been left in there during Sasuke's brief spell of unconsciousness. Just thinking back to that caused her heart to hurt, so she ignored it and instead focused on the task Suki had asked of her.

There didn't seem to be anything of consequence lying about the small space, but when her eyes landed on a dark cloak, she bent down to pick it up. Holding it in front of her, she heard Kakashi's words echo in her head, not for the first time since she had left the privacy of his company.

"I just don't think Sasuke can get hurt like that again."

She pressed the cloak just under her nose and could detect his scent ever so clearly. Closing her eyes, she clutched the cloak tightly to her and dropped down to sit on the makeshift cot.

What am I doing?

How could she have made that promise to him, to tell Sasuke that she wasn't falling in love with him, when she knew damn well that was outside her power to decide? But Ursa knew she had been so confident; Sasuke had intrigued her and she had gone with her gut in advancing on him, and he had reciprocated her. And she knew so much more about him now, things she would never have dreamt in a thousand years could be true of him, things that should have made her want to keep a considerable distance from the boy who had lost so much.

I can't fall in love with him.

She had told Kakashi, she had told Yue, she had told everyone including herself that her relationship with that boy was nothing but casual. She had believed the words when she spoke them, and yet she kept thinking to how he had let her cradle him and sing to him, how much they had held hands walking back to the loading bay; she replayed every single kiss they had shared over and over in her head as they collaged around the memory of her mounting him back at the inn.

I can't fall in love with him.

Ursa tightened her eyelids and held the cloak ever closer, wishing she could replace it with Sasuke himself.

But I am anyway.