She told herself the reality didn't sting, she was well aware that Sasuke had never looked at her twice on the matter, but it was strange to discover that she still had a bit of watched from a distance, as a girl exited the inn with Suigetsu, her cloak hid her well, but based on her height he deduced it wasn't Sakura. This left him relieved, but the question remained, who was she to his brother? All signs pointed to his brother being present, the man they found in the forest had no external injuries likely due to genjutsu, the crow led him to this village and suddenly vanished. Suigetsu had not seemed too happy with his plan, but everything was pointing to his brother being in the same inn as him.

"Change of plans Juugo, I want the kid, you'll be the distraction." Kidnapping wasn't his plan when he thought of drawing out his brother, however the possibility of his brother starting his own family after all the death he had caused, he needed to know. If the girl was in fact his niece, what then? kill her? Keep her? What? He tried to get the thoughts out of his head, with the knowledge that his brother cared little if at all about family, if anything he was about to kidnap an innocent girl. It didn't change the fact that for some reason, he wanted to see the little girl.

Even before Suigetsu explained to him that the inn keeper had only mentioned a man being in the top level and had only discovered the woman with her child, he had wanted to see the crying infant. Wanted to hold her, it was a ridiculous urge, one that he knew was guiding his decision, but he couldn't get himself to care. If the infant was unrelated to Itachi she would be safe no harm would come to her.

There was some hesitation before Juugo agreed, neither of them were morally content with kidnapping an infant, but the girl's mother wouldn't be gone long. It was a gamble, that went against his principles, but there was something wrong, a pull he could not escape from. Sasuke knew he was overlooking something about the whole situation, but it whatever it was, it came to mind only as a shadow.

Sakura had left him no room for argument, she immediately went to pick up Sarada and place her on his bed, only telling him,"don't worry she just ate, and she just fell asleep. Plus, she already pooped." Five minutes into her absence, and Sarada was making a strange face, her tongue was sticking out, clearly, she was putting effort into something, he found amusement in the face until he realized this must be the dreaded poopy face Sakura had mentioned in one of their talks.

The poop was not a problem, he had been unlucky enough to change some diapers in his youth, the issue was Sakura had been so confident that Sarada would just only sleep she had only delivered Sarada to his room. That was easy to care for, he sent a clone to collect the necessary items. It was as his clone was about to hand him over the items that he heard a crash from Sakura's room.

"You can't guilt trip me" she could smack her head against a tree if it wouldn't require her to stop. She should have known that older Sasuke was still Sasuke-kun, the boy she is in love with, she had been too smug its why the words had so quickly turned on her. Really, she should learn to be quiet. No, she knew the reason she left, Sasuke's chakra was no longer fluctuating, it was settled, it was recovering, besides like he said, "we have to guarantee that my wife is there, or that she is with Itachi." Which she knew to mean "go and check." So here she was now, no sleep in what felt like a decade of a day, trying to reunite the one she loves to the ones he loves.

Suigetsu had made one thing clear to Sasuke before meeting the girl, he would not hold her back. Suigetsu refused to keep a mother from their child, especially because he saw the baby, fresh off the womb he recalled thinking. Now as he looked to the girl, the rage the frustration, he wondered if even distracting her had been too much. Her realization was worse, she looked to him ready to fight, but he waved her away, "I'm not going to stop you." She left immediately after that. This, he knew was his lowest moment, one that would not be easily beaten.

He saw he run, no doubt a mother's love guiding her still however she had hair covered in the cloak, but suddenly he saw red. Karin's red hair, "Where were you?"

"Since when do you care? Look I don't have time to explain, that woman that just went running, does she have pink hair?"

"Yes."

"Why is she running towards the explosion?"

"Take a guess."

"Shit!"

A/N: Sorry about how long it took, remember my author's note of being in a good mood? I got sick days later, and while sick I lost all urge to write (and all my food too). Then I got blocked, because I didn't know who to focus on, then about a week ago I realized what I needed to focus on, getting all the characters in the same time, I needed Karin but she was falling behind, I need Itachi but again he was falling behind and it wasn't right to just have confrontation, I needed to give him a little bit of Sarada time. I need the characters to catch up for what they need to do, and that's what the first part of this chapter is. So next update should be more thrilling, and guess who is the star of the next update? Hopefully all the jumping around between charaters will end soon.

also Sarada's poopy face is based on my niece's one (though her brother did the same face), and the whole baby wakes up when it shouldn't, based on my own experience when my nephew was and infant, "he just ate." the moment his parents leave he begins to cry for food. "He just fell asleep," wakes up as they finish talking. "He just pooped." Begins to poop. He was winter baby so they tried to avoid taking him out, and i was 15 at the time. So this happened a lot.

In case you guys hadn't noticed I am very open in the notes, probably cause so many of them disappear when I combine the chapters, which I will be doing before the next update, so do look back through all my apologies of how long it took me to update fondly. I know I suck with updating, but imagine if I did update it chapter by chapter instead of by parts? You guys would hate me with a passion.

And again thank you guys for reading, I am not the most amazing writer, if anything I am average or right below it so I really do appreciate you guys reading this.

Update: Fixed a mistake just now, and lesson learned I will never call myself average again