Those Who Are Lost

by AraelDranoth

Himawari found herself lost in a strange land, hunted and without a past. Sasuke had lost his way after the war and found himself on a journey of redemption. It was fate that those who were lost should find each other. A Post-War fic about family, redemption and adventure. FINISHED.

20. Conscience in Pink

Those Who Are Lost

Chapter 20

Conscience in Pink

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Hello there my fellow fanfictioners!

Thought I'd go for broke and try and get this one out as soon as I could. As you can see from the incredible length of this chapter, it took a while.

Disclaimer: I do not in any way claim ownership of Naruto or Naruto Shippuden or the Boruto series. These are all the properties of Masashi Kishimoto, the Kami of Shinobi. I am merely a humble fan spinning my own tale in the world he has created.

I also want to give a huge shoutout to Cat Beats and fanofthisfiction for their continued, amazing support of this story. Your reviews make my day every time I read one of them.

Now this chapter is a bit of an odd one. I was trying for something a bit different that I've wanted to do since the beginning of this fic.

This is a Sasuke centric chapter so I am sorry for those readers who have come to enjoy my take on Himawari but I was always going to do this chapter, it was just a matter of when.

This is rather a long chapter as I had a lot of stuff to deal with in it so please don't be taken aback if the length of future chapters differs. When I write a chapter, I try to aim for around 5000 words but lately I'm pushing it to the 7000-mark easy.

In the end, I just write until I feel that the storytelling comes to a natural stopping point.

Now for those who enjoy listening to music when reading, I would highly recommend Quell's theme from Altered Carbon. It set the right mood for me when I wrote this chapter.

Warning: This chapter does contain subject material which is emotionally troubling for some people. I feel I should put this in here just as a safety measure. My defence is that this fic is M rated and I was trying to write emotional material which is an area that I feel I need practice in.

Anyway, enough of my blathering on and on.

To the chapter!

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THE FIRE TEMPLE

"Wake up…"

This was annoying.

Death was supposed to be final.

Peaceful.

Nothingness.

Instead it felt irritatingly like life.

Hard and full of pain.

Perhaps I am alive.

What a strange notion.

He could remember the arrow, so long and large in size that it was more akin to a miniature ballista bolt than an arrow, piercing him.

It had pierced almost entirely through him.

He remembered the lance of agony as it entered his gut and lifted him off his feet. He remembered wondering how it was possible that his intestines weren't taken with the arrowhead and pinned to some nearby wall.

The force with which he had smashed through the wall of some wooden structure he hadn't even noticed in the dark.

Gasping for air as his body tried to shut itself down, to finally die despite his wishes.

His wishes.

Stubbornness.

One of the legendary Uchiha qualities. Even as the darkness descended over him, a memory of slapping his hands around the shaft of the arrow and forcefully pouring pure green healing chakra into the wound, came back to him.

His body wanted to die after everything it had been through. That night and all the times before that it had suffered. More trauma and suffering than a hundred men went through in a lifetime.

His body wanted to die but he wouldn't let it.

Then there was that strange rattling sound. Like pebbles in a can being shaken. He knew what that sound was all too well from experience. The sound of his breath gurgling from tortured lungs through his broken body.

"Wake up." A soft voice said and Sasuke Uchiha couldn't help but obey.

With a gasp he returned to the world of the living.

He didn't open his eyes.

Or rather Sasuke found that he was unable to. Something physically kept him from raising his lids. It was as if they had been glued shut somehow.

"It's blood. You have a wound on your head and it bled down over your eyes and dried there." The soft voice informed him.

"It's pretty gross actually." The voice told him with a shaky laugh after a moment's silence.

Sasuke didn't know how to reply to that. He wasn't even sure that he could. His mouth was hot and dry, his tongue felt swollen from lack of water and throbbed painfully as if he had bit it. He probably did at some point. Then there was the familiar tang of blood when the muscle swept along the back of his teeth.

He could feel the warmth of sunlight across his face and he exulted in it. It was a balm compared to the other sensations which plagued him.

So, I made it through the night only to die in the morning.

"You need water. There's some in that canteen on your left hip but I can't get it for you." The voice told him, a hint of frustration colouring the tone.

The voice was young, feminine and not strong by the sound of it.

Who are you?

With a small nod, the Uchiha began to reach for the canteen he kept on his free hip.

And he immediately regretted the movement as searing agony erupted from his belly and shot through the rest of him.

The Uchiha let out a strangled cry as the fire raged inside him and he could feel the sweat beading his forehead from the trauma and the burn of another injury to his head.

"I know it hurts." The voice pleaded. "I know it does but you need to keep going. You need that water or you're not going to make it."

With a small sigh, Sasuke leaned backwards and took stock of his situation as it was. He was sitting on the ground, that much he could tell. His legs splayed out and his back propped up against a wooden pillar of some sort or another. He could feel cool stone beneath him and there was a variety of scents in the air.

The common things he could identify easily enough, the smells familiar ones he'd encountered endlessly over the course of his life. He could smell the wood that made up most of the structure and likely most of the furniture inside it. The assorted spices and salts he associated with dried meats and the peculiar tangs of various medicinal herbs he couldn't quite put the names to.

There were more but he couldn't put a name to the scents as he became aware of the more overwhelming aroma.

The all too familiar stench of burning.

Amaterasu still burns. How is there anything of the temple still left standing?

It was difficult to be sure of anything with his eyes forced shut as they were. He wanted to wipe away the blood that caked his eyes but he wasn't sure that he had the strength to do it.

He was so tired. His body felt as if it had been set alight and he wanted nothing more than to fall back into oblivion.

A deeper, more primal part of his brain told him that if he were to sink back into the darkness then he would likely never wake again.

Eventually, the fire in his blood receded to a sharp sting and the Uchiha nodded minutely to the voice's earlier urgings.

"You can do this." The voice encouraged. "Fight through the pain."

Giving a small nod in the direction of the voice and sucking in a sharp breath, Sasuke reached for the water at his side once more.

Once again, the agonizing inferno swept through him but this time he was ready for it.

It didn't mean it hurt any less and he couldn't keep the ragged groan from tearing from his throat. He could feel it. It was still there.

The pain.

The arrow was still speared through his guts. Glad for the bracing support of the pillar behind him, Sasuke gritted his teeth.

It's pain. He told himself.

Accept it. Let it wash over you and through you. And move past it.

He remembered Orochimaru's lessons on the subject with frightening ease. Breathing in accordance with exercises taught long ago, the last Uchiha managed to reach his canteen and, with shaking fingers, unclip it from his belt.

"Yes, you got it!" The voice exclaimed; the earlier frustration and desperation replaced with a timid joy.

Face tightened into a grimace, Sasuke unscrewed the cap and brought the container to his lips.

The first gulp of water was like a gift from Kami. The cooling touch of the liquid against his cracked lips and flowing between his teeth and into mouth was the sweetest kiss he had known in years.

It was all he could do not to chug the entire container in one go. Steeling himself, the Uchiha forced himself to take measured swallows.

In spite of his impromptu rationing, the canteen was empty soon after. Thankfully he had drunk enough that at least his tongue no longer throbbed quite so badly and his throat felt wet enough that he might be able to speak.

Lowering the canteen, he let it slip out of his grasp and on to the floor beside him where it hit the ground with the dull clang of cheap metal on stone.

"Who-" He began only to cut himself short as he went into a coughing fit. When it finally ended, he could feel fresh blood fill his mouth.

That's definitely not a good sign.

"Don't push yourself. You're not quite ready to go charging off into the sunset yet." The voice joked but there was an edge to it. As if the speaker were holding back tears.

Sasuke couldn't help the rush of irritation that swept through him. The pain had faded and now he was filled with that comforting sense of annoyance he always knew how to reach for. Leaning over, ever so slightly, he hawked a bloody gobbet to the side.

Enough of this shit.

Filled with renewed strength and determination after his drink, the Uchiha lifted his hands to his eyes, gritting his teeth against the now expected agony and rubbed his eyes clear of the dried blood which kept them glued shut.

It wasn't a smooth process and at times it felt like he was pulling scabs off his skin but he kept at it until he was relatively certain that he could open his eyes unhindered.

When he was finished, he let his arms fall to his sides limply and let out a small sigh of relief as the agony quieted.

Hawking out another gobbet of bloody phlegm off to the side, the Uchiha opened his eyes to the world.

The sunlight streamed directly into his eyes and he blinked, knowing it would take a few moments for his eyes to adjust. All he could make out was a blurry figure standing a short distance away, near the hole in the wall he had made when he crashed.

He was in a storeroom of some kind if the myriad of containers were any indication. Crates, barrels and boxes of various sizes were spread throughout the small building. Several of which he had so obviously smashed to pieces with his meteoric entrance.

Tentatively sniffing the air once more, he was able to detect the faint smells of dried meat, spices and fruit. More worryingly there was the all too familiar tang of blood and the smell of smoke and ash.

Exactly what he had picked up on before.

The fires of Amaterasu were definitely still raging. Thankfully the black flames must have been contained somehow or else he, and the temple, would've been a smoking pile of ash by now.

Sure that he was safe from that particular danger at least, Sasuke returned his attention to his 'spectator'.

His vision was still compromised in that moment and all he could make out was that same blurry figure containing various smudges of colour.

With every passing moment his vision sharpened and soon he could tell that the figure watching him was small, childlike and seemed to be wearing a dress of some kind.

And a girl if the voice and form were anything to go by.

He felt his heart stop for a moment as he took in a blur of pink where her hair would be.

It's not that uncommon.

Even though he thought it, it did not serve to reassure him.

"Who are you?" Sasuke whispered, uncaring of the blood that dribbled out of his mouth and down his lips as he spoke.

There was something achingly familiar about the girl.

Finally, his vision began to clear and the blurry form of the speaker began to sharpen into something more discernible. He found himself staring into two pools of black. Her eyes were darker than any other he'd seen.

The girl smiled at him sadly, unshed tears making her eyes shine like obsidian.

"You know who I am." She whispered, that small sad smile never leaving her lips.

He felt like his heart had frozen inside his chest. He was dead again, he was sure.

It wasn't possible.

His heart may have stopped beating in that moment but his mind began racing, taking in every detail of her and trying to find any inconsistency.

Something to prove that this wasn't true. But he couldn't.

He noticed it in the shape of her jaw, the sharpness of her cheekbones and the colour of her eyes. Oh, so familiar eyes.

Then there was the shape of her delicate nose, the hue of her hair and her forehead. It was impossible to replicate that forehead.

It was impossible.

The moment passed and his heart started beating again.

The girl cocked her head curiously and Sasuke watched as a few pink locks of hair detached themselves to fall over her left ear, covering it.

"You know who I am." The girl repeated.

His heart didn't just start beating again it went into overdrive. So fast and so hard that he wasn't entirely certain that the damn thing wouldn't just explode out of his chest. He felt panic seize him as he shook his head in denial.

His eyes never left her though. Roving back and forth, up and down, he drank her in.

The girl sighed when he shook his head and she moved in closer, jumping daintily amidst the fallen debris until she stood right in front of him.

She crouched down until she was sitting on her haunches between his legs and looked him right in the eye.

"Sometimes you really struggle to see the truth of things when they're right in front of you." The girl huffed.

He didn't say anything. What could he say in a situation like this?

"You know who I am." She repeated forcefully.

Sasuke swallowed, ignoring the coppery taste of his own blood.

This was impossible. He knew it was but he couldn't stop himself.

Slowly, ever so slowly, she nodded as if encouraging him to admit what he was about to admit.

"Yes." He croaked, the sound of it so pathetically tortured that he had to fight the tears from stinging his eyes.

He didn't cry anymore. Not since that day.

The girl's smile became shaky as the tears finally fell from those obsidian pools.

"I know you do." She whispered; her eyes so warm that Sasuke wondered how they could even exist.

She leaned in closer until all Sasuke could see was the warm obsidian black of her eyes.

They were so kind. So warm and soft.

He was swimming in them, drowning in those pools of black.

"You know my name." She told him softly.

He felt the hammering in his chest again. That traitorous heart of his.

"You do." She continued. "You were the only one who knew my name. The only one who bothered to give me a name after everything. The only person in the whole world who wanted to see my face. To remember it."

She reached forward; fingers outstretched as if to caress his face but stopped just shy of his cheek. Sasuke found himself leaning into it until they connected.

It was a strange sensation. Like her digits were there but not there at the same time. As if a ghost were touching him but unable to remain corporeal.

"You know my name." She reminded him gently.

He did.

He was the only person in the entire world that knew it for he had told no one else. His wife had refused it and no one else had ever wanted to know.

Sasuke knew that he shouldn't. A part of him knew that it was dangerous and unhealthy to indulge in this fantasy; the impossibility of her being there.

But the rest of him didn't care.

Because she was there in front of him and she was the most beautiful thing he had ever seen.

"Mikoto." He said quietly, almost reverently. Like she was the answer to his prayers.

His voice remained strong and steady to his surprise.

Sasuke watched as the tears flowed freely down her face. He felt lighter somehow, as if saying the name had unlocked something inside him. A part of his heart that he had kept hidden away and under lock and key for many years now.

Mikoto.

The name he had given her on that night all those years ago. In honour of his mother.

The girl looked at him with her shining tears, warm black eyes and soft cherry-blossom hair and gave him a smile so big and true that it broke the Uchiha's heart all over again.

"Hi Daddy." Mikoto whispered.

He just sat there.

Sat there with his mouth hanging open, sucking in painful gasps of air whilst his eyes remained wide open and silent tears threatened to fall but never did.

The apparition in the form of his daughter merely wiped her eyes and gave him a shaky smile, seemingly willing to wait for him to make the next move.

Eventually his eyes slid to the rest of her as some form of brain function resumed inside his head.

Mikoto wore a simple white dress, plain and unadorned with white straps at the shoulders. She wore no shoes and her bare feet were visible to him

The only ornament that Sasuke could find was the necklace that she wore. He felt his breath hitch in his throat when he recognized the design.

Itachi's necklace. His brother's neckwear stuck out like a sore thumb against her pale skin and white dress and, for a brief moment, Sasuke felt his brain freeze up again.

He knew that that was impossible. Mikoto couldn't be wearing his brother's necklace for he was. Even now he could feel the cool touch of the tomoe links against his skin.

Mikoto hesitated, as if to give him another chance to speak, before letting out a small sigh and getting to her feet. With a small hum in her throat she moved away to another wooden support pillar a little bit further away, more to the centre of the room.

Letting out a small huff, she daintily avoided bits of broken glass and splintered wood, courtesy of his rather spectacular entrance and settled herself down into a seated position. Her legs splayed out in a manner eerily similar to his, her hands clasped together in her lap and rested her back against the pillar.

Nodding to herself, she resumed meeting his gaze.

"You look terrible Daddy." She told him. Sasuke said nothing, his mind too numbed by shock to even register those words let alone react to them.

"You're not really here." He managed at last. As soon as the words left his lips he winced and not from the pain. That had come out far more accusatory than he had hoped.

If she took offence to it then she didn't show it, for which the Uchiha found himself to be profoundly grateful.

She merely blinked at him before chewing her bottom lip with a thoughtful expression on her face. Eventually, she shook her head softly, pink locks falling across her eyes as she did so and the young girl took a moment to sweep them away again.

"No. I don't think I am." She replied a moment later with such sadness that Sasuke felt something break inside him.

What kind of sick, cruel joke is all this?

"Then how-" Sasuke began only to cut himself off as he went into another coughing fit, flecks of blood flying through the air. The Uchiha turned his head just in time so that the spray went off to the side as opposed to his impossible daughter.

Mikoto sighed and got to her feet, brushing imaginary dirt from her dress.

"You're dying here. You need to get up and fix yourself." She told him firmly, her tone taking on that hot stubborn quality that only Sakura could reproduce.

Recognizing the look in her eyes all too well the Uchiha simply gave a small nod.

Looking down at his main injury, Sasuke couldn't help but wince. The emergency healing that he had performed on himself just prior to blacking out had probably saved his life in the moment.

But it left him with a serious problem.

The torn flesh around the entry point had healed around the shaft of the arrow. That meant that every time he moved; the shaft would poke around his insides in a not so delicate fashion.

Not to mention that there was now a hole in his guts where an arrow had made its home.

Probably the reason for my coughing up blood.

Reaching behind him, Sasuke grimaced as the pain enveloped him once again, the shaft stirring up his insides with the motion.

He let out a groan as he felt the arrowhead. It was sticking out the other side of the pillar.

That's really not good.

Mikoto moved to stand next to him, leaning over to look at where he was feeling. She let out a hiss in sympathy.

"That's not good." She told him, echoing his thoughts.

Sasuke let out a hiss of pain as he shifted the wrong way and a more intense level of agony swept over him. Mikoto stood straighter and looked at him with concerned eyes.

"You know what you'll have to do right?" She asked quietly.

Sasuke could only nod, not trusting himself to speak at that moment as the wave of pain engulfed him.

"You can do this Daddy. You have to." Mikoto continued though she knew her words were merely washing over him like water on rock. "You gave her our name after all."

Sweat and blood beaded his brow and it took all his strength not to cry out as he pulled himself forward. He missed Mikoto's next words as he tore his sealed guts anew, pulling himself up the length of the shaft.

"She needs you to live." The words should've meant something to him but all he could focus on was the agony.

It's just pain. Push through it.

With a gasp he forced himself another inch up the shaft, black spots dotting his vision as another blood wracking cough seized him and the acidic taste of bile flooded his mouth.

The fire in his gut had become a raging inferno but the Uchiha pushed through it, using his pain to bolster his strength instead of diminishing it.

With shaking fingers, his bandaged hand reached behind him to the lower half of his back, just inches to the left of his spine and gripped the now protruding shaft of the missile.

It was thicker than he'd feared, he realized with dismay before hardening his resolve.

He was exhausted. Down to his very core and his chakra levels were dangerously low but there was no other option.

"You've got this. You're almost there Daddy." Mikoto encouraged, laying a hand on his cheek once more.

Once more he could only feel that ghostly touch. As if they both wanted her skin to connect with his but the laws of nature prevented it.

A ghost. Able to exist in the world but not to interact with it. He'd noticed it when she'd sat down opposite him. Her body could touch the ground and her back the beam but anything more than that and she passed right through. Her fingers and feet glided right through shrapnel and wooden splinters… and his cheek.

Shaking his head and gritting his teeth, Sasuke focused on the task at hand. The impossible spectre would have to wait.

Survival was paramount at that moment.

Sucking in a deep breath, Sasuke grabbed the shaft of wood sticking out his front with one hand and with the other, extended his pointer finger and focused his chakra.

He drowned out the pain and the world around him, focusing only on shaping the chakra around his finger.

Twisting it and moulding it.

Refining it until it became as sharp as a blade.

A chakra scalpel.

Raising his trembling hand as if it were a knife, he brought it down in one swift motion so that the tip of his digit caressed the exposed arrow shaft.

It wasn't smooth given the angle of his arm and it wasn't as clean as it could've been but it got the job done.

There was a moment of perfect silence as his chakra sliced through the hardened wood like a hot knife through butter and then the wood splintered, unable to maintain its integrity.

Freed somewhat from his pinned position the Uchiha lurched forward slightly and howled as the shaft still embedded in him burrowed its way deeper into his internals, courtesy of impromptu contact with his knee.

Feeling a bout of nausea overwhelm him, Sasuke leaned over to his side and vomited onto the floor. From the corner of his vision he saw Mikoto remain where she was, gazing at him with something akin to pity.

"Nice work Daddy but you need to keep going." She encouraged, rubbing her hands together nervously.

His mother used to do that whenever she worried.

Now came the hard part.

"Don't think about it." Mikoto told him firmly. "Just do it."

Lacking the strength to even acknowledge her, Sasuke just gritted his teeth. Grabbing a thick piece of small wooden debris, he placed it in his mouth as a makeshift bit. With one quick savage motion, he grasped the shaft sticking out of his stomach and pulled it out of his body.

The arrow shaft ripped itself anew through his flesh. Flesh he had healed with chakra to seal around the damn object.

The bit helped but even then, a roar of agony escaped him so loud and anguished that he wouldn't have been surprised if people in Konoha had heard it.

Throwing away what remained of the arrow with a hiss, Sasuke rolled onto his back and sucked in another deep breath, ignoring the urge to grimace as he tasted the remnants of vomit on his tongue.

Mikoto leaned over him, her onyx eyes shining. Sasuke remembered what he had been about to ask her, this phantom of the daughter he had lost so long ago, when the sensation of his blood seeping into the floorboards drew his attention back to the more immediate concern.

The arrow had been removed but there was once more a hole in his innards.

"Your questions can wait Daddy." She told him, eyeing his new injury with a clinical curiosity that was eerily too similar to her mother.

"Any help?" He grunted to Mikoto.

Ghost, hallucination or some alternate universe it didn't matter. If she was here then she could at least make him feel like she was helping.

Mikoto's lips twitched as if she were doing her best not to break out into a grin. After another moment she moved off.

With a simple twist of the lips she becomes her own person again. Not Sakura and not me. It's breath-taking.

"Never thought you'd ask for help from anyone." She mused from somewhere to his right.

Letting out a snort in reply the Uchiha dragged himself back to the pillar and used the wooden beam to prop himself up.

"I ask for help." He argued after a few more moments of quiet went by. Lifting his poncho and the shirt with it he took a look at the site of the injury.

"You almost never ask for help and you know it Daddy." She retorted, her voice emanating from somewhere behind him now.

He could almost feel her rolling her eyes as she said the words.

Sasuke grimaced as he took in the wound. It wasn't as bad as he had feared.

It was worse.

Just before he lost consciousness, he'd sealed up the wound, forcing as much healing chakra into the wound as he could before the blackness took him.

It was probably why he had made it through the night. His innards and skin had reknitted themselves as best they could until they sealed around the arrow's shaft. Like a suction cup.

It had done the job and there was no undue purpling around the wound site so there hadn't been any internal bleeding thanks to the application of the chakra. But the wood was an extremely foreign object to his insides and even as unskilled in the medicinal arts as he was, he was able to make out the indicators of bacterial infection.

"You can't say that you aren't lucky Daddy." Mikoto called to him. Sasuke grunted, pressing against his wound tightly to try and stop the bleeding.

My poncho is definitely ruined.

The material had taken a beating over the course of this adventure and now was absorbing his blood like a sponge.

Shifting to his knees with a heave of effort, the Uchiha braced a bloody hand to the wooden beam which had kept him pinned only moments before.

Fighting a sudden bout of black spots crowding his vision, Sasuke used the beam as a support to rise to his feet.

It felt as though all the strength he possessed was bleeding out through the gaping hole in his intestines.

Leaning against the beam with one shoulder, the Uchiha returned his bloodied hand, the bandages covering it now also drenched in scarlet, to his wound.

Mikoto, as if sensing what he was about to do, rushed back to his side and Sasuke's vision filled with pink locks once more.

"You can't!" She hissed at him, her teeth worrying her lower lip and her eyes finding his own tired ones.

"I don't have a choice." He told her weakly. Mikoto raised her hands as if to stop him but lowered them after a moment, as if remembering that she couldn't really touch him.

"You have so little chakra left." She told him. "It could kill you."

The words made him smile. It had been a while since anyone had said something to him with such compassion.

"I'm used to facing death." He informed her, preparing himself to infuse his chakra back into the damaged flesh. "Besides." He continued, pouring his chakra into the gaping red maw and fighting the darkness encroaching at the fringes of his vision.

"You don't have to heal it all." Mikoto finished, her onyx orbs filled with a surprise that would have warmed his heart if not for the current circumstances.

So, he nodded in answer instead.

After a few moments of watching him pour his life energy into the wound, Mikoto caught his attention again with a light cough.

His entire body now drenched with sweat, Sasuke let the energy fade and raised his eyes to meet hers.

"That's enough Daddy." She told him, pointing off to his right.

He supposed it would have to do, considering his work and the injury. The wound had hardly begun to close or even resemble something like a healed injury but his damaged, vital internals had been stitched back together, leaving only the bloody red ruin of the flesh as a marker. Infection was his next biggest concern and blood loss was still a real possibility if he did not seal and bandage the wound correctly.

Looking in the indicated direction, Sasuke's eyes widened. There, nestled against the far wall was a small wooden table filled with all manner of tools; carpentry, smithy and butchery in nature, was a small white medical kit.

The large red cross on its side was like a miracle.

"Shit." He breathed in disbelief. What were the odds?

"I told you." Mikoto informed him primly "You're luckier than you know."

Luck always runs out in the end.

---

It took him an hour to treat himself. He was nowhere near being out of danger but he supposed he could be considered somewhat stable.

To be fair the medical kit had helped a great deal. It had contained the essentials he needed to keep going. Surgical needle and thread to sew up the wound, antibacterial cream to smear over it and plenty of bandages for all his cuts and scrapes.

But Sasuke knew that it would not be so easy to keep going on like he was in peak condition again. He had taken a hell of a hit last night and by all rights he should be dead.

Mikoto watched silently as he patched himself up the best he could. When he was done the Uchiha made his way outside, every step an agony.

Stepping outside Sasuke was blinded by the glare of the sunlight and he immediately winced, closing his eyes and raising his bandaged arm to shield himself from the glare. His eyes would need a moment to adjust.

It was cold despite the warmth of the sun. Colder than he had expected it to be and Sasuke wished that his poncho wasn't in the condition that it was. The now bloody material felt sticky and clammy against his body.

"That thing is ruined Daddy." Mikoto pointed out. The spectre of his daughter had followed him outside and taken up post next to him. "You should get rid of it."

"No." He replied almost instantly and with far more vehemence than he had intended. He was so taken aback by his reaction that once his eyes had adjusted, he immediately turned his attention to Mikoto.

If she took offence to his response then she hid it well. Instead she met his gaze with a sombre one of her own.

"That thing has had it. It's got more holes than swiss cheese." She told him with a gesture of her hand.

Sasuke looked away then. It seemed that every time he gazed into her eyes, he found himself under threat of being overwhelmed by memory and emotion.

I can't.

He knew why he couldn't just get rid of the poncho. He knew the reason but he couldn't articulate it. To say it aloud would be to admit his own weakness.

To take off the poncho would be to reveal his heritage to the world. He would no longer be Sasuke the travelling shinobi. He would be the Sasuke Uchiha.

So instead Sasuke took stock of his surroundings.

It was worse than he had expected. The main gate was ahead of him but it was much further away than he had been expecting.

That shot threw me nearly a hundred feet.

What kind of monster was that freak?

The temple showed signs of battle-damage everywhere the eye could see. The stone pathways were chipped in hundreds of places and there were scorch marks against every surface that he could determine. Then there were the bodies. He could still see them, beginning where he had exited the maze of pathways leading to the interior of the temple complex.

Sasuke knew with a grim certainty that the number of the dead would only increase if he were to make his way into that labyrinth once more.

They didn't even bother to recover their dead.

He wasn't surprised. Nothing of the new Sound Village that he had encountered had led him to believe that they placed value on the lives of their own. Still, in spite of that knowledge the Uchiha was surprised at the dull anger that throbbed through his veins at the clear lack of respect to the dead.

"Do you think any of the priests survived?" Mikoto whispered as she followed his gaze to the corpses of the Sound nin.

In all honesty the thought hadn't even crossed his mind until she spoke of it. His mind flashed to the memory of the High Priest Sora and the lackey priest who had lured him away from Himawari's side. Now that dull anger became a roaring fire and Sasuke let the old, familiar feeling surge through him, let it strengthen and invigorate him.

"Those that died must've been so scared." Mikoto continued, seemingly unaware of the dark cloud that had descended over her father.

Her words washed over him like ice water. Instantly his rage fell away to be replaced by a hollowness that felt like it would destroy him. He remembered all too well the pile of bodies he had seen stacked in the main temple shrine.

Things had happened so fast that he hadn't really processed it. It had been all so sudden that he had allowed old instincts to take over and then everything else had happened.

Looking up from the trail of dead, Sasuke turned his attention to the three temple towers. What was left of them at any rate.

The central tower, the one which he had set ablaze with Amaterasu, was gone. In its place a column of thick black smoke rose into the air a mile high. The black flames had continued to grow and feed since the tower's fall. The second tower had been lit as well, the dark jutsu eating away at the structure like some ravenous beast.

How has Amaterasu not consumed the entirety of the complex?

It took another moment for his intuition to kick in.

The stone. Most of the pathways and walls are made of stone. The black flames burn for seven days and seven nights but it is still just fire. It needs oxygen and fuel. Stone isn't a great source of fuel for fire.

The original tower must have collapsed against the second or else spread the flames to the nearby structures made of wood which then achieved the same outcome.

It took him a further moment to take note that there was no breeze either.

Nothing to blow the flames one way or the other.

He supposed that, in that regard, he was rather lucky to not regain consciousness only to burn to death by his own jutsu.

The sight of the dark flame eating away at the holy place reminded him of an apocalypse.

"I did this." He murmured, almost without thinking.

Mikoto looked at him questioningly.

"What do you mean?" She asked when he didn't continue.

"The temple." He growled. "And the priests… their death and desecration are on my head."

The pinkette rounded on him, her eyes suddenly filled with a vicious light.

"That's not true Daddy!" She insisted loudly. Sasuke said nothing and watched the black flames crawl their way up the second tower. Eventually the Fire Temple would become nothing more than a ruined landmark until even that was swept away.

If he was younger then the thought of obtaining such vengeance would have filled him with satisfaction but now all he felt was that same hollowness.

I just don't care.

"Yes, it is." He replied eventually. His daughter, or perhaps she was part of his imagination, seemed to struggle with something. It was clear that she was fighting whether or not to say something. In the end, she decided not to and merely let out a sigh.

Gazing upon the battlefield he had created for a few more minutes, Sasuke felt he had gathered enough energy to continue.

He had placed Kamui in the stables in the North-Eastern quadrant of the temple. It had been about a ten-minute detour from the gate from which they had entered.

Not too far. Once I have my horse then…

Then what? What could he do?

Sasuke swallowed as he considered the situation.

They had taken Himawari and he didn't know where. Picking up a trail was always a possibility but the older shinobi knew that there was a good chance that the ninja would cover their tracks as a precaution.

They had a several hours head start and a mission to complete. If what that Jashinist bastard had let slip at Sandy Springs was true then they were running out of time to enact their plan.

Which meant that he was running out of time.

Sasuke frowned as he realized that his only option would be to try and follow their trail. It would be slow work too. Tracking, while a skill he was proficient in, was also one that took a great deal of time. If you tried to rush it then you would misread the signs and be led astray.

Time was not on his side. If the forces of Sound were willing to go the extreme of attacking one of the holiest sites in the Land of Fire then it meant that they were desperate.

The time for the ritual must be near and that meant Himawari was in mortal peril.

He only had two choices available to him.

Give up or go after them, after Himawari.

To Sasuke Uchiha it was easy, for there was no choice at all.

He needed his damn horse.

He began moving away, picking his way through the debris his crash landing had created when Mikoto said something that froze him in his tracks.

"Didn't you have a sword Daddy?" Mikoto asked him.

---

Sasuke's eyes widened, hand reflexively reaching for the scabbard that he kept at his hip. His hand brushed the familiar black lacquered wood of Kusanagi's scabbard but ended abruptly where the scabbard would normally meet the hilt of the blade.

Immediately he set to looking for his sword. Like a man possessed, he sunk to his knees and began scrabbling through the debris, shoving aside chunks of stone and timbers as thick as his arm in his search.

He finally spotted his beloved chokuto's hilt beneath the remains of a beam. Still too weak to use chakra, the Uchiha grabbed the timber with both hands and heaved in an effort to lift it. The strain was incredible and Sasuke let out a roar of agony as he ripped the stitches on a freshly sewn wound on his right shoulder.

"It's just a sword. You don't have to do this." Mikoto offered, unable to do anything more than stand there miserably as her father hurt himself for a piece of metal.

"It's not just a sword to me." The Uchiha seethed as the shard of lumber began to rise with his efforts.

"I forged it myself." He hissed, ignoring the blinding agony that ripped its way up his spine.

I'm getting too old for this shit.

"Kusanagi helped me avenge my family." He continued, unsure as to why he was even offering anything at all. "This blade helped me save the world."

When Kusanagi had been destroyed at the climax of the ninja war, he had forged the blade anew. He was hardly alone in this regard.

Shinobi dealt with so much that they tended to get attached to the unlikeliest of things. Naruto had his goggles from when he was a kid, which he kept at home and he always bore the mark of the Uzumaki clan even when he didn't know what it was.

Kakashi-sensei used his books as a way to distract people from what he cared about; the photo of his own team consisting of Rin, Obito and Minato.

And Sakura… Sasuke knew Sakura's all too well.

So it was that when he finally lifted the beam clear, he almost sobbed when he beheld what had become of his blade.

The sword was broken. It had hit something during his crash with such force that it had snapped the last third of the blade off and it had not done so cleanly. The broken edge was chipped and jagged in its break and there were shards of gleaming, bloodied metal everywhere around the once noble weapon.

As he knelt there, his broken blade cradled in his hands, the Uchiha felt the grief wash over him. It had been a long time since he had felt fresh grief like this.

Not since…

"I'm sorry Daddy." Mikoto said.

Transferring Kusanagi to his sword hand and tightening his grip on the broken sword, Sasuke rose and turned to Mikoto with a snarl.

Letting the sudden fury take control of him while it lasted, he stalked towards the pinkette. Mikoto took a step backwards, her posture stiff and her eyes wide and wary.

"What are you?" Sasuke hissed lowly, every word simultaneously a plea and a threat. "How are you here?" He continued.

Mikoto, to her credit, held her ground and stared unwaveringly into his eyes.

"The answer to your question is right in front of you." She replied slowly, as if she were trying to calm a wild animal.

"And what…" Sasuke shot back, his grasp on Kusanagi's hilt tightening so much that he was amazed the hilt didn't snap in two as well. "… Does that mean?"

Mikoto's obsidian eyes narrowed in response and she took a step towards him until the crown of her head and his chin could've touched. The young girl leaned her head back but never broke eye contact.

"It means to look at that damned sword Daddy. Look at it and see yourself." With a huff she took a step back, turned around and stood with her back to him, arms crossed.

Frowning, the Uchiha considered her words.

Look at Kusanagi and see myself?

A nagging feeling pooled in his gut.

Or am I bleeding internally from some nick I missed?

His hand shook as he raised the blade to eye level. Kusanagi always had a mirror sheen to it, one of the enhancements the forges of Oto had worked into the blade. It allowed him to use the blade as a peek mirror in stealth missions or to scan injuries in awkward places.

His hand continued shaking as he gazed into the mirror of the blade's flat side. Instead of his own ebony eyes gazing back at him, one orb of scarlet and one of violet greeted him instead.

Sharingan and Rinnegan.

"This is how-" He began only to cut himself off as his daughter whipped around, her eyes replaced with a pair of all too familiar scarlet pupils. A single tomoe circled the sea of blood lazily.

"You always jump to conclusions." Mikoto told him, her eyes almost glowing with nascent irritation.

"How can you know what it is?" She continued. "Perhaps the Rinnegan brought me here. The eyes of the Sage were known to bring the dead back to life."

She took a step toward him. He remained transfixed with his daughter's Sharingan. It was a terrible beauty to behold.

"But I wasn't a teenager when I died was I, Daddy?" The words were said without malice but they cut deeply. Every reminder of his little girl's death had that effect on him.

The scars ran deep.

"So perhaps this is the work of the Sharingan." She continued, taking another step closer to him. "Some sort of elaborate genjutsu you placed yourself under so that you would have the motivation to keep yourself alive."

Her words induced a mild panic in him and he fought with all his will to keep himself in check and not just run away.

He was Sasuke Uchiha. He would not run.

Not again.

"Then again there is the blow you took to the head." Her voice lost more and more of its fire with every word that passed her lips. "Or perhaps this is some kind of mental break you're suffering, the psychological trauma of the years finally catching up to you."

"Maybe I'm just an illusion conjured up by your brain to tell you something." The words were softer now and filled with a pained tenderness that made him wish that he could hold her in his arms once more.

But you can't. She's just a ghost.

"Perhaps it's guilt that brought me here." She whispered, taking that final step to be back where she was before.

She stood there in front of him, his daughter returned.

"Or maybe Daddy, It's all of those things." Mikoto finished, her hand reaching up to cup his face. Her fingers passed right through his cheek before pulling back to lay against where the skin would be. When her digits passed through him, he felt a slight, soothing chill.

Sasuke hesitated for a moment before returning the gesture with his free hand.

"You're not really here. You're not back no matter which one it is." He had meant for it to be a question but it came out as a somewhat strangled sentence.

"I'm not really here regardless of which option it is. I can only stay as long as I'm needed." Mikoto confirmed with a slow shake of her head.

And inside, the last Uchiha's heart broke all over again.

"The question isn't how I'm here." Mikoto's eyes filled with a warmth that seeped into his tired bones, filling him with an energy he didn't know he had.

"Then what is the question?" Sasuke murmured, looking at her for the thousandth time. Whatever the explanation he planned on remembering every facet of her face. Almost absently, he returned the broken Kusanagi to its scabbard.

"Why did you bring me here." She finished softly.

He couldn't give her an answer to that.

---

Sasuke found himself surprised at his inability to clearly remember the path to the stables. He knew why of course.

Naruto.

The moment his oldest friend's name had been mentioned, his focus had narrowed. All that had mattered was the lure of the message. It had been so effective as bait that he had only retained the vaguest awareness of his surroundings as he was led to the 'message' location.

It had only been the extreme sense that something was wrong that had kept him from falling into whatever trap that had, no doubt, been laid for him.

So it was that as he retraced his steps to retrieve Kamui, he took in his surroundings as if for the first time. They were headed to the outer edges of the Fire Temple and safely out of the path of destruction of Amaterasu.

At least for now.

There was no battle damage in this section of the temple and the cleanliness and the silence of it all made Sasuke uneasy. The going was slow, his injuries to blame for the delay.

He was still very weak and every step was a challenge. His body wanted to shut down, at least for a time.

What proved most frustrating to Sasuke was his inability to keep the pace. He had already had to stop three times to rest. Throughout it all Mikoto had stayed at his side. Her Sharingan had faded back into the inky pools of black he had become so lost in.

His daughter, no matter her form, had kept silent. Instead she had used the time to observe her surroundings with a sense of wonder that, once more, made his heart ache. His real daughter should've been able to experience the world as such.

The Uchiha tried his best to keep his attention on the path ahead but frequently found himself glancing at the pinkette to take in her reactions. Her mild curiosity at the stonework pathways, her gasp of awe at the flocks of birds in the sky above as they migrated south, the way her nose wrinkled when she inspected a line of ants while he was taking a rest break.

Sasuke didn't say anything during the journey.

What could he say?

So instead he observed, craving each and every sight into his memory like a chisel to rock. For however long this… thing lasted, he planned on remembering his daughter.

"Daddy, look." She said at one point, snapping him out of his daze. Mikoto pointed at something ahead of them, her eyes grim. Following her direction, the Uchiha pivoted his attention and found himself grimacing.

The stables were ahead but it was not a good sight. The doors to the stables had been done in, a single half remaining which hung by a single hinge.

The Silent Step had taken no chances with him it seemed. They had sent someone to kill his horse.

Heart in his throat, the Uchiha moved to the stable entrance. The interior was dark and it took a moment for his eyes to adjust. When his eyes did adjust a moment later, the sight took him by surprise.

Kamui stood at the far end of the stable, grazing peacefully at a pile of hay which had been set aside to be fed to the various stalled animals.

The door to his mare's stall was wide open and there was a disturbing silence from the other stalls. The blood over the stall entrances told him all he needed to know about what happened to the other horses.

Aside from a rather large cut across her belly, Kamui seemed to be perfectly fine. The same could not be said for the two enemy shinobi who had attempted to kill her.

It seemed the one, thrown into the door of the stall opposite Kamui, had been killed by a powerful kick to the chest. The shinobi's chest was caved in an unnatural way and it was clear that he had died on impact. The other nin, a kunoichi, had suffered a far more gruesome fate.

Still clutching the kunai in her hand, she lay in the centre of the stables. Her head, or rather what was left of it, had been reduced to a pile of messy pink mush.

Kamui had not taken kindly to being attacked and had stamped the life out of the second shinobi. Given the awkward angle of the body it was clear that the ninja had not died to the first blow like her compatriot.

"Woah… that's one tough horse." Mikoto breathed as she took in the carnage alongside him. Sasuke let out a snort as he moved further into the building towards his horse.

"You have no idea." He replied shortly. Kamui raised her head, ears pricked up at the sound of his voice. The mare given to him by Kakashi, turned around to face him.

If a horse could look as happy as a clam then Kamui would take first prize. With a small whinny, the animal made its way to him, seemingly untroubled by the wound in her side. Sasuke gave the creature a small smile before reaching up to pat the side of the steed's neck.

Kamui nickered in response and brushed his cheek with her chin.

"She likes you." Mikoto teased him with a light laugh.

"I should hope so." He murmured back, a smirk tugging at the corner of his lips.

Kamui pulled back her eyes to blink slowly at him. The animal's way of questioning something that he had said or done.

This horse is far too clever for its own good.

"She can't see or hear me Daddy." Mikoto informed him quietly. "No one but you can."

Nodding slightly as he absorbed the information, the Uchiha petted the horse a few more times before leading Kamui over to where his saddle, bridle and saddlebags had been kept. They were exactly where he had stored them.

It seemed a lucky stroke that the Sound ninja had no interest in his possessions. That or they had been killed by his warhorse before they had the opportunity to loot or destroy his things.

Mikoto watched him silently as he worked. First, he rummaged in his medicine satchel, retrieved a jar of some, foulsmelling green ointment and proceeded to smear it across the cut in Kamui's side.

Mikoto still remained silent and Kamui didn't seem to mind his ministrations, the slight flick of her tail the only indication that she noticed the ointment's application.

Once he was done, Sasuke grabbed the reins and led Kamui outside. Mikoto followed after silently.

Her silence worried him and he found himself constantly checking over in her direction. Worried that she could disappear at any moment.

She was still there but something was wrong. Mikoto kept her eyes on Kamui and her eyes were shining with unshed tears. His daughter kept looking as if she were on the verge of speaking up but then her courage would desert her at the last moment.

One thing was for sure. Mikoto was upset about something but he had no idea what.

What was wrong? Was it something he did?

As they made their way outside back into the sunlight, Sasuke decided he couldn't wait anymore.

"What's wrong?" He all but demanded. It took a lot of effort to keep from injecting his annoyance into the question. For all the anger that he had let go over the years, his impatience remained a constant companion.

He always wanted to know the answer to things even as a child and when he couldn't obtain the information quickly his anger would overtake him.

Mikoto opened her mouth as if to say something but then seemingly changed her mind at the last moment. Her mouth shut close with an audible clack and she shook her head.

"I thought you were here to help me." Sasuke remarked, turning around to lead Kamui further away from the barn.

He ignored the strange look his horse gave him as he seemed to be speaking to the air. With a small sigh he prepared to mount.

Mikoto let out a strangled cry when he placed a foot in the stirrup. He froze, unable to face her.

Sasuke let out a low breath before placing his foot back onto solid ground and waited. He clearly was getting old if he couldn't even hold onto his anger against a shade that may or may not be a figment of his imagination.

"Do you ever think about me?" The question was so faint that for a split-second Sasuke couldn't be sure that he had heard it.

But he had.

Without hesitation he whirled around, so quick that Mikoto flinched with the motion. She took one look into his eyes before her own dropped to her feet.

Did he ever think about her? How could she even think to ask such a thing?

Releasing a low growl which caused her head to shoot back up and gaze at him wide, terrified eyes the Uchiha stalked over to her, ignoring the somewhat bewildered look that Kamui gave in return.

He dropped to one knee so that he could look at Mikoto at eye level.

"Every day." He told her. Mikoto looked at him, her eyes shining with something he couldn't identify but her face was guarded. A moment later she dropped her gaze once more, finding his feet to be a much more riveting view.

Frowning Sasuke reached out and rested his fingers under her chin. He couldn't touch her but she understood his intent and raised her chin slightly. Hesitantly, she lifted her gaze to meet his again.

"Every damned day!" He said forcefully.

He reached forward, two fingers extended and rested them against where her forehead would be. If he were to continue then he knew that his fingers would go right through her and for a moment he wished that the spectre of what his daughter could've been were real.

He thought back to the worrying number of reasons why she could've appeared to him to begin with. As he considered the possibilities once again, he came to a sudden realization.

It didn't matter.

Even if she was real in some sense, he couldn't touch her.

"Every single damn day." He repeated, his voice filled with a gravity that made it impossible for his daughter to look away.

With a sigh he rose and turned back to Kamui, swiftly mounting the mare. With a flick of the reins the horse began a slow, leisurely walk.

It would not take so long to make the return journey to the main gate this time. He would've offered a seat in the saddle to Mikoto but they both knew that that wouldn't be possible.

So instead she walked beside Kamui, able to keep pace with the beast with relative ease. She was still wiping away her tears with the back of her hand but seemed much happier now that he had said what he had.

---

They journey began as another silent affair. Mikoto even began humming a soft tune to herself.

"I have no one left." Sasuke began suddenly and Mikoto stopped humming immediately.

The Uchiha frowned. He didn't know why he had said that. "I'm all alone in this world. The last Uchiha."

The words seemed to spill forth from his lips of their own accord and he couldn't seem to stop. It was only as he began speaking again that he figured out why he would do such a thing. It was because she was there to help him.

She had even said so.

He had the unique opportunity of being able to confess all his thoughts, all his secrets without fear of recrimination. Because one way or another Mikoto was his creation.

"Naruto, Sakura, Kakashi. They all tried to be there, to tell me I'm not alone and they were right… but they're also wrong." He swallowed deeply. "I grew up surrounded by family. I knew them all, every cousin and aunt and uncle."

Mikoto said nothing. The pinkette continued to walk beside him, staring up at him, her eyes unreadable.

"I watched my family die and for so long I thought that if I could just avenge them then that would be enough." Sasuke continued. "You see they were right even now."

He looked deep into her eyes and felt that familiar stinging sensation in his eyes. As if his body were trying to cry but it had forgotten how. "I'm not alone. I'm surrounded by ghosts all the time. They follow me wherever I go."

"It wasn't enough was it?" Mikoto asked after he fell silent, the air filled with the sound of horseshoes striking stone.

"You already know it wasn't. I killed my own brother for vengeance and it left me feeling nothing but hollow." He replied. He was unable to keep the bitterness from seeping into his voice.

"I tried to fill that void inside me with the only thing I knew, my rage and a madman used that to turn me into a monster." He all but spat, unable to look his daughter in the eye as he spoke those words. "I let him do it to me."

He had done a lot to try and put his ghosts at rest. It hadn't been enough.

"You're not a monster Daddy." Mikoto insisted fiercely. "You never were."

"No. I'm just broken." He said bitterly.

"That's not true!" Mikoto exclaimed, her eyes narrowing in denial.

"It is!" He repeated more forcefully then continued before she could reply. "I was sure. I was so sure that loving Sakura would be what I needed to… to…" Sasuke sighed, trailing off for a moment as he reached up and massaged his scalp to alleviate the small headache he could feel coming on.

"I was so happy when we found out about you." He told Mikoto, a small smile tugging at his lips as he recalled the particular day. "I could've died from joy. The prospect of having a child, of being a father brought me such indescribable joy."

Mikoto remained silent but he could tell that all her attention was fixated on him, on his words.

"Sakura and I used to bicker all the time over you. Whether you would be a boy or a girl, what classes you would enjoy, what colour your nursery would be. Hell, we argued for a week over you name." He let out a small huff of amusement as he recalled some of the arguments. The pregnant kunoichi had a habit of punching holes in the wall of their home whenever she lost.

"Who won?" Mikoto asked.

"If you're just my head trying to tell me something then you should know." Sasuke shot back with a snort of wry amusement.

"She did." Mikoto said.

"Hn." Sasuke assented. "Sakura won most of our arguments despite what people may believe."

If she hadn't then they'd have been in their third house from all the damage she'd have caused. Mikoto let out a small laugh at what he said and the next few minutes were spent in comfortable silence.

"Why did you name me Mikoto?" The young girl asked suddenly, her voice filled with genuine curiosity.

"After my mother. Sakura's choice I assure you. All I could think was that I didn't want to be reminded of someone I'd lost" Sasuke explained. A few more moments passed after Mikoto responded with a meek 'Oh',

The Uchiha let out a sigh before speaking again.

"I was an idiot. The moment I saw that first ultrasound of you in your mother's belly I knew that it was the perfect name. One that fit you perfectly for you would be kind but strong, just like my mother was." He informed her.

"I won the argument for your middle name though." He added with a twinkle of triumph in his eye. Mikoto looked up at him with excitement shining in her eyes.

"What is it?" She asked.

"Kayai." He replied, snorting when he face crunched up in confusion.

"Kayai?" She questioned.

"Hn." He replied. "Mikoto Kayai Uchiha."

"Kayai." Mikoto recited to herself.

"Why did you leave?" The question was a painful one and Sasuke didn't know how to answer it. Mikoto noticed his expression and reached her own conclusion. "You left because of me. Because I died."

"Yes." Sasuke saw no reason to dance around the issue.

"And Mom?" Mikoto asked sadly.

Sasuke let out a sigh as he recalled his wife and the state of their relationship after losing Mikoto.

"We drifted apart after your death. It wasn't the same. In that moment I'd lost my family all over again, all hopes and dreams for the future gone in an instant." He told her.

"You didn't try?" The young girl pressed.

"I did." He began, only to shake his head a moment later. "We did."

He didn't like recalling those memories. They held nothing but anguish to him now. "Perhaps not as hard as we could've but we were both hurting. It hurt to be around each other. It was a constant reminder of what we'd lost."

"I'm sorry." The pinkette whispered, her eyes glued to her feet.

"It was not your fault." He told her firmly. "I was the one who gave up on the end. I wanted to die but I couldn't kill myself so I decided it would be better for me to leave. To seek my end on the road, pushing the boundaries of our known road in search of the one thing that always eluded me."

Mikoto considered the information for a moment before nodding slowly, as if she understood.

"Mom didn't stop you." The girl concluded to which the Uchiha shrugged.

"We spent one last night together. It was a goodbye of sorts but I think a part of her was glad to see me go. To finally have the chance to move past all the pain without me as a reminder everywhere she turned."

"What were you searching for? All this time?" Mikoto asked. It was a difficult question and Sasuke considered it for a moment. He wondered if he could even put it into words.

"I'm not sure. I never really knew. All I know is that I still haven't found it. Perhaps I was looking for a reason to keep on going, to keep on living." He offered after due consideration.

They fell back into silence as they passed the store room in which he had awoken. The Uchiha didn't even glance at the structure as they left it behind and made their way to the main gate. As the bodies came into view once more, his daughter let out a small noise of confusion.

"What is it?" He asked as he lifted his poncho and shirt to check on several of his stitches. His stomach and back had been cut in several places by shrapnel and enemy blows. His needlework remained as good as it had ever been. The stitches were holding at least, though the wound on his stomach was bleeding slightly.

"Why didn't you stop them?" She asked. Mikoto sounded curious more than anything else.

"I tried." Sasuke replied with a frown.

"We both know that you could've done it. You have the Rinnegan and the Mangekyou Sharingan." As she spoke Mikoto walked ahead to inspect one of the dead shinobi.

"I doubt there are even five people in this entire world that could stop you if you didn't want them to." She reached out as if to poke the corpse before thinking better of it and turning to face him instead.

"So why didn't you Daddy?"

"Because I'm not that person anymore. I refuse to hurt people because it's easy. My powers have consequences." He told her, gesturing at the black flames rising ever higher in the distance.

Mikoto said nothing, turning around so that he was unable to see her reaction to his words.

---

As they made their way out the gates and back into the countryside, Sasuke pulled Kamui up to a halt.

"What is it?" Mikoto asked from beside him. Sasuke did not reply save to hold up his hand, indicating that she should wait.

Strange, I thought I heard…

There it was again. That sound. One he was all too familiar with.

"When the ship is sinking, the rats all go the same way." The Uchiha murmured, almost to himself. His vision narrowed with an icy focus as his next step became suddenly clear.

With a click of his tongue and a snap of the reins, he sent Kamui into a canter. Instead of the main road leading away from the Fire Temple and back out to the Green Sea, Sasuke took a smaller path off to the side. He could hear Mikoto's hurried breaths as she jogged to catch up to him.

The path was rough and unmarked, save for the passage of many feet over the ages. The trail, for that was what it was in essence, looped around the back of the temple before sloping gently downhill. Sasuke did not need to reach the end of the road to see his destination.

A small lake just behind the Fire Temple. The lake was renowned for the circle of cherry blossom trees which ringed its shores. It was the shore which was his destination and the source of the sound that he had heard.

He knew all too well the cries of the bereaved and the mourning.

Sure enough, he could see them. A small group of men in priest robes. There was a dozen of them in total from what he could see. Half of the group were facing the temple, on their knees and praying and sobbing in equal measure as they watched their place of worship, their home burn to the ground.

Devoured by the black flames of his rage.

The other half were doing the exact same thing. Except they were faced away from the temple and towards the lake. As the Uchiha drew closer he understood the source of their grief.

The sakura trees were filled with bodies, hanging at the end of ropes by their necks. Not just any bodies either, Sasuke realized with a growing sense of horror.

All the dead were women and children.

Their families.

Sasuke didn't need to check the other trees around the lake to know that they would be similarly filled.

"Oh my god." Mikoto whispered as she took in the same scene.

"I don't think Kami wants anything to do with this." Sasuke growled.

Dismounting, the Uchiha moved toward the group. They didn't seem to notice as he moved their wracked heaving forms, their arms outstretched to the temple and the dead in equal measure.

The Uchiha moved through their meagre ranks like a shark cutting through water. The monks' survival instinct kicked in as they sensed the apex predator in their midst and they unconsciously parted to let him pass.

Dully, Sasuke noted that one of the monks weeping over the ongoing destruction of the Fire Temple was Daiichi, the one that had been assigned to lure him to his death.

At last, as he pushed through, he came upon the man he was looking for. At the tree closest to the shoreline he spotted them.

Three bodies hung in the tree. A young woman and two small boys.

Wife and sons.

Beneath their swaying bodies knelt Sora. The High Priest did not acknowledge his approach. Perhaps he wasn't even aware of it.

As Sasuke moved to stand in front of him all he saw was a broken man. Sora's skin was taut and covered in ash and his eyes contained a haunting emptiness that almost weakened the Uchiha's resolve.

Almost.

The thought of Himawari in danger strengthened it.

The man ignored his daughter's gasp as he slid Kusanagi's shattered form from its scabbard and levelled it at the kneeling priest's throat.

"Daddy…" Mikoto whispered. Sasuke ignored her.

He had only one goal now.

"You've come to kill me, haven't you?" Sora whispered. The man said the words without any real emotion. It was as if he were no more than an actor reciting his lines. "To reunite me with my beloved Sayuki and my boys."

"Where is she?" Sasuke demanded coldly. Pressing Kusanagi's jagged edge deep enough into Sora's throat that a bead of blood ran down the priest's neck, Sasuke raised the man's head. "Where did they take her?"

Sora kept his eyes on the swaying bodies of his family.

"They promised." Sora whispered brokenly. "They promised they wouldn't hurt them if we did as they bid."

Growling, Sasuke leaned forward and slapped the man across the cheek with his free hand, hard enough to leave a red imprint behind. It seemed to do the trick and a spark of awareness returned to the High Priest's eyes.

"What did you do with Himawari?!" Sasuke asked, forgoing the threat of Kusanagi in favour of gripping the priest by his holy robe.

"Answer me you traitor!" The Uchiha all but roared. Every second in this man's presence reminded him of Himawari and his failure to protect the girl. It brought with it, unspeakable shame and anger and Sasuke intended to use those emotions to the fullest. "Answer me!"

"Tomorrow night." Sora sobbed. Tears flowed freely down the man's ash stained cheeks. "At the stroke of midnight, the girl will be sacrificed. They will take her life's blood and her heart for their own dark purposes."

Though the anger filled his heart like molten lava, Sasuke felt the rest of the blood in his body freeze.

Sasuke let go of the priest for a moment only to reaffirm his grip around the man's throat, squeezing just enough that Sora began to scrabble at his grip with desperate fingers. But Sasuke wouldn't kill him.

Not yet anyway.

"Where are they?" Sasuke hissed, his voice ice. He absently noticed Mikoto had come to stand just behind the priest. He had expected her to continue to watch on with fear or even outrage. But the moment Sora had revealed the fate that awaited Himawari, his daughter's eyes had gone cold.

Sasuke didn't know how to react to that and so focused on the task at hand instead.

"I don't know." Sora croaked. "They didn't tell us anything other than 'It ends at the end.'"

Sasuke growled and tightened his grip further, then used Kusanagi to cut a bloody line down one of the priest's cheeks.

"What the hell does that mean?!" Sasuke demanded, ignoring the man's gasp of pain.

"I don't know!" Sora insisted, tears flowing freely down his cheeks. "You've seen what happens once they're done using people!"

"What happened when they were done using me." The man's eyes turned once more to his family. "We were just tools to them."

"So you just handed the girl over to them knowing what would be done to her?!" Sasuke spat. He felt nothing but disgust for this man.

"No!" This caught Sora's attention and he turned his gaze back to the Uchiha's. His eyes were filled with fire, weak but still there. "I wanted to save Himawari!"

He wanted to save her? Who is he fooling?

"Then why didn't you?" Sasuke demanded, loosening his grip enough to allow the priest to breathe more easily.

"They had my family!" Sora croaked from his abused throat. "They gave me no choice! It was the girl or my wife and son!"

Sasuke considered the dead swinging behind him.

They were dead the moment those shinobi came here.

"Don't listen to him." Mikoto hissed, her Sharingan blazing once more. In the shade of the Sakura trees, her eyes glowed crimson.

"You had a choice." Sasuke informed him, deadly serious. "You chose to sacrifice an innocent child to a bunch of murdering psychopaths in exchange for an empty promise."

Sora's eyes widened in shock as he absorbed Sasuke's words.

"In the end you abandoned a little girl to a horrible fate for nothing." Sasuke finished, morbidly curious as to how the High Priest would respond.

Sora's tears intensified as he realised the gravity of his actions. Sasuke let go of the priest for there was no reason to hold him now. The man slumped forward, defeated.

Sasuke watched as the tears fell onto the ground like rainfall and the air was filled with the creaking of rope and the sobbing of the priest.

"It's true." Sora said eventually as the sobs died down but the tears still fell. "I did abandon the girl to her fate despite knowing her family and who she was."

Slowly, Sora got to his feet. Sasuke watched and waited as the man moved closer to his dead. Mikoto likewise moved to stand just next to her father.

"They threatened my family and I gave Himawari up." Sora murmured softly, more to himself than to the man interrogating him. "I decided to do it the moment my loved ones' lives were at stake."

"But even though I regretted it…" Sora hissed; his voice filled with a quiet anger. Turning on the Uchiha, Sasuke took a step back in shock at the look in the man's eyes.

They were filled with a rage and determination that shook him to the core.

"I'm sure you would've done the same thing if you were in my position Sasuke Uchiha." The High Priest took a step forward, his hand clenched into fists at his side. "I'm sure of it. If it was your family's lives at stake you wouldn't hesitate to do the same as I did!" The man screamed.

Sasuke felt like he couldn't breathe. His mind flashed back to the night his parents were killed. The bodies of the men, women and children he had grown up with, butchered in their homes and in the streets of the Uchiha district.

He remembered the look in Itachi's eyes as his life slipped from him. The feeling of his baby girl, Mikoto, still and unbreathing in his arms.

The Sasuke of the past would've happily killed anyone and done anything to claim his vengeance and bring back those he had lost. He wouldn't have hesitated to set the entire world on fire with Amaterasu if it meant he could achieve those ends.

"That's not you." Mikoto told him softly from at his side. "That's not who you are anymore."

"Am I wrong?" Sora demanded, his eyes wide and his pupils little more than pinpricks. "Would you be willing to sacrifice those you loved for the sake of another? In order to stay true to your own values and honour?!"

Sasuke closed his eyes and gritted his teeth, fighting off his ghosts and demons as the memories of all the wrongs he did came flooding back with Sora's words. All the times he had placed his clan above his friends. Sacrificed his honour and morals for hollow vengeance.

"It's not so easy is it?" Sora spat, invigorated upon seeing his words effect the shinobi. "Would you have done any different to what I did?"

Sasuke tightened his grip on Kusanagi, deaf to Mikoto's pleas and soothing encouragements that he was different. That nothing that Sora said was true.

"You talk like you know it all." Sora continued, seeing his words were having an effect on the veteran ninja. "Like you're so sure that you're in the right but what will you do?! Will you go and rescue the girl?"

Sasuke could've sworn his heart was beating was so fast that it could jump right out of his chest.

"No." Sora answered for him with a shake of his head. "Because you've seen who they are and what they can do. To go after them would be suicide!"

Sora grabbed Sasuke's collar and shook the Uchiha, causing Sasuke to stare into the man's eyes.

"We're the same, you and I." Sora shouted, his eyes crazed. His grief had driven him to a kind of madness. "We're both cowards at heart, you're no different from me!"

Memories flooded across his waking eyes as Sasuke relived every horrific thing he had done in the name of avenging his family. Every time he had betrayed his friends for that cause.

"Come back home Sasuke." The voice of Naruto and Sakura whispered in his ears. Just two more ghosts to add to his retinue.

Breaking the priest's grip and shoving him back a step, Sasuke glanced at the blade in his hand, considering it for a moment before he raised Kusanagi high ready to cut down the man where he stood.

Time to make a choice.

"Daddy no!" Mikoto screamed as he brought the crimson coated weapon down on the man.

Sora sank to his knees as the cut was made, his eyes wide and with tears, endless tears tracking their way down his face. He looked down, expecting to see his entrails spilling onto the soil.

What he saw instead made him lose all control.

With a ripping sound, the holy robe of the High Priest of Fire that he wore over his clothes fell to the ground, the belt and material shorn in two from the sharpness of the chokuto.

Gazing up into the Uchiha's eyes he found himself staring into purple and red orbs filled with contempt and loathing.

He had never noticed their colour before.

"You're lower than trash." Sasuke told him, his voice filled with a resolution that shook Sora to his core.

After a moment's hesitation, the Uchiha tossed Kusanagi onto the ground next to Sora. The priest did not react, his gaze fixed on Sasuke as if he were the devil himself.

Sparing one last glance at his discarded sword, Sasuke turned back to the priest.

"A man like you has no right to that holy cloth." With that the Uchiha turned away from Sora and made his way through the throng of sobbing men back to Kamui.

Mikoto followed him silently.

---

"You gave her your name." Mikoto told him, echoing her earlier words when they had navigated the burnt-out ruins of the Temple.

The Uchiha had remounted and was making his way back to the main gate to pick up the trail.

Sasuke opened his mouth but Mikoto cut him off with a small shake of her head, pink locks swaying back and forth with the motion.

"You gave her our name Daddy." The words took him by surprise. They contained no malice or anger.

"It didn't mean anything." He said eventually, his eyes already sweeping back and forth over the horizon and his surroundings for any trace of where to begin.

"It meant everything and you know it." Mikoto told him firmly. "You didn't have to offer it to her and she didn't have to accept it."

Sasuke hadn't thought about it like that. Mikoto didn't give him the chance to ponder it before pressing the issue.

"You gave her our name Daddy and she took it. She didn't have to but she did." She reiterated. When he didn't respond, occupied as he was, Mikoto let out an annoyed huff.

As if inspiration seized her, she ran in front of Kamui, her arms widespread as if she could stop the horse in its tracks.

In a way she did as Sasuke pulled up hard on the reins with a curse.

"What the hell are you doing?!" He demanded, ignoring the annoyed whinny from Kamui. Some part of him knew of course that he and Kamui would have passed right through her but instinct had made him stop.

"You're wrong daddy. About so many things." Mikoto snapped with narrowed eyes, her Sharingan still blazing.

"You said that you weren't a hero but you saved the world." She told him, her finger pointed at his chest, almost accusatorily. "How many lives would've been lost? How many people would've suffered? What kind of world would've existed if not for the part you played in the war?"

Sasuke began to reply but she cut him off with a glare, her tomoe spinning furiously.

"You said that you couldn't fight like you used to, use your full power because you didn't want to hurt anyone anymore but that's not why." She launched into the next point with such viciousness that Sasuke's snapped shut with such force he could hear his jaw click.

"You're afraid." She told him mercilessly. "Afraid that if you unleash your full power you won't be able to stop. That you'll become addicted to it again, to the pursuit of power."

Sasuke closed his eyes, trying to drown her words out but his ears weren't nearly as accommodating.

"You're afraid of becoming who you were."

He could hear her move closer to him, feel that light almost touch on his knee and so he opened his eyes once more to gaze into her own.

"You said you left because you couldn't stay in Konoha anymore after I died but that's not why you left. There was no elusive answer that you needed to find." She said, almost tenderly before her voice hardened once more.

"You're a liar Daddy." Mikoto accused and he almost flinched with the force of it. "You weren't searching for some elusive answer outside of Konoha. You were looking for the one thing inside Konoha that no one would ever give you."

"What are you talking about?" Sasuke replied harshly. Something inside of him was suddenly afraid of what she would say next.

"My middle name." Mikoto demanded. "The name you wanted for me, say it."

Sasuke's eyes widened at the request and he felt his mouth go dry once more. If his heart kept on like this then he'd have a heart attack before nightfall he was sure of it.

Mikoto kept her gaze on him as he worked up the courage to say the name he hadn't said since the day of her death.

"Kayai." The word sounded strangled as it left his throat. He felt numb from the effort.

"Kayai." Mikoto repeated, nodding her head in satisfaction. "It means forgiveness."

"They all welcomed you back with open arms because of Naruto. Because he vouched for you and silenced as many of the dissenting whispers as he could. He told them of the things you did to end the war, to save all their lives but no one truly believed it." Mikoto explained as if he didn't already know the truth of it.

"That's not true." He forced the words out and even as he did, he could tell that neither of them was buying it.

"It is true Daddy." She replied firmly. "The reason you left is because you couldn't obtain forgiveness from any of them for the things you did."

Mikoto reached up to place her there-not-there hand over his.

"The reason you left is because no one. Not Sakura, not Kakashi, not even Naruto. Not one of them ever said that they forgave you." Mikoto informed him, her voice turning gentle once more.

"You left because you thought that maybe you could find someone out there in the world who knew who you were and would forgive you for the choices you made, for the friends and loyalties you betrayed." She finished quietly.

"Why?" Sasuke moaned, his eyes starting up with that damnable stinging once more.

What the hell was wrong with him today?

"Why would you tell me this?" He asked after taking a moment to control himself.

"Because you need to hear what I'm about to say Daddy." Mikoto told him seriously. Her eyes had faded back to that beautiful obsidian. "It doesn't matter whether I'm a product of strange and ancient chakra or a conjuration of your mind."

"You need to hear the words I'm about to tell you even if you believe that it's just you talking to yourself." Mikoto continued.

Sasuke found himself drowning in those pools of midnight black. They were his mother's eyes through and through. So full of warmth, kindness and determination.

"I forgive you."

And for the first time in over a decade, Sasuke Uchiha let the tears flow freely.

---

"You were wrong about being alone." Mikoto told him. It had been an hour since they had returned to the gate and Sasuke had already picked up the trail of the Sound Nin. Trained ninja they may be but they were moving at speed in large numbers. It didn't leave much room for error.

"What do you mean?" Sasuke asked with a frown. He had made a quick trek back to the storeroom where he had crashed and did a supply run. The Fire Temple was finished, he didn't have the chakra reserves to extinguish Amaterasu and he wasn't sure that he wanted to. It made sense then to take what he could to help him in the form of provisions.

It was as he was packing the final materials into a sealing scroll that Himawari had begun speaking again.

Kamui had long since accepted that her human now spoke to thin air and waited patiently for him as he placed the scroll into the saddlebag and refilled the canteen he had discarded earlier with fresh water from a public tap.

"You have a daughter Daddy." Mikoto told him.

This caught his attention. Turning away from his task, Sasuke gazed at the pinkette in question.

"Of course, I do." He told her with a faint smile. "Nothing will ever change that."

Mikoto sighed and shook her head, raising her hand and poking his forehead with her own two fingers. A mirror of what he'd done to her not so long ago and it brought back memories of Itachi teasing him in the same way.

"Not by blood but by choice." The pinkette told him with a sad smile. "Her name is Himawari Uchiha and she needs you."

This time Sasuke's heart beat steadily and his blood ran warm inside of him.

"I know." He told her quietly, watching to see how she reacted. A huge smile graced Mikoto's features and she stepped forward as if to embrace him.

Sasuke closed his eyes and wrapped his arms around his daughter, wishing for all the world that he could feel her in his grasp.

"It's time to be a hero Daddy. Go save my new sister." She mumbled sadly. Sasuke said nothing but nodded tightly, hoping that she understood that this was the best he could offer. His word.

His bond.

It seemed to be enough.

"I love you Daddy." She whispered.

When he opened his eyes, Mikoto was gone. He looked around him but his daughter was nowhere to be seen.

Sasuke felt hot tears escape him once more as he whispered in reply. "I love you too."

---

Wow… I hope I achieved what I was aiming for.

Not much to say other than yay I broke the 100 000-word mark on my story and that this is the longest chapter I have ever written so, achievement unlocked.

We're nearing the end here and I hope that you guys have enjoyed this story. It should reach 25 to 27 chapters at most, depending on how I break it all up.

I would love it if this fic somehow reached 100 reviews before then but as long as you guys enjoy it then I suppose that's good enough for me.

Until next time my fellow fanfictioners with Chapter 21: In My Enemy's Hands.

P.S. I know I sometimes change my chapter titles but that's because new ideas strike sometimes.