Sasuke

"I'm not doing this... I'm not staying here if you won't-" I wrote.

No...

I ripped the paper on my desk, tossing it in the trash can.

"Since when could you even give me an ultimatum anyway? I'm not your-" I scribbled out.

No, that's even worse.

I leaned back in my chair and made the mistake of glancing out of the window. The entire village of Konoha had been celebrating all day, the pastry shop was giving out free desserts, the ninja tool shop was having a discount, and even Ichiraku Ramen was having a half-off special for anyone who ordered Naruto's favorite dish.

This village is just...

As I glanced out of the window, I could see the sparklers the children had been carrying around since the announcement that Naruto had been chosen as the successor, in an engrossed state, bursting over the tops of houses and making a collaboration of bright colors.

"If I stayed here... Where would I belong?" I etched into the paper.

My chunin vest was on the hook across my bedroom. I got up, grabbed it and proceeded toward the front door. The cheering was extremely loud through the streets as the official Inauguration Ceremony had just ended. Even though I didn't want to attend, I couldn't help the curiosity. So, while sitting atop my apartment complex, I watched him take up the cap and gown and make his speech.

"I swear on my life I won't EVER let you down. With me as Hokage, no one will ever feel lonely or misunderstood AGAIN."

And as if loneliness was something those brainless sheep considered on a daily basis, they all cheered, screaming his name, clapping, taking their headbands off in respect to Tsunade who gave her final farewell wave and backed off of the stage and fist pumping in the air as Sakura held Naruto's right hand and Shikamaru held Naruto's left.

"You know, me and Naruto go waaaay back." Said a voice. "I've known him since I was basically in diapers."

"You're exaggerating."

"No, really! He taught me everything I know. Watch this."

And I would've just kept on walking had I not been distracted by the pooling of chakra as the man created a swirling blue ball of wind in his palm.

"Wow! That's amazing, Konohamaru!"

He grinned, scratching the dark brown hair that, at some point, he'd let grow out until it spilled over his ears and reached his shoulders like Suigetsu's hair.

"And you could meet him anytime you want, you know... If you're around me when I go over there, that is." He said, grinning and grabbing her waist.

"Sure..."

I stepped into the alleyway, startling them and attracting their attention.

"Sasuke?" Konohamaru said, eyebrows popping up.

"Yo." I replied, easing by them.

"Wow! You know Sasuke Uchiha, too!? Are you guys' also best friends?"

From behind the excited girl's head, Konohamaru nodded hard, pressing his hands together like he was praying.

"Please, please, please..." He mouthed.

I don't have time for this...

"Yeah, whatever." I mumbled, turning back around.

"Wow, Kono! You're like a celebrity!"

"Yeah... I'm just so amazing, right?"

"Hey, Sasuke Uchiha!" The girl said, calling me.

I paused, turning slightly.

"What?"

"Just so you know, I wanted you to become Hokage."

"Congratulations." I said, beginning to walk again.

"It'd be like the return of your clan." She went on. "Ever since what happened to them, this village hasn't really felt whole... You know?"

I lifted my eyes to the blue-black sky, teeming with those explosive bright lights going off everywhere.

Yeah... I know.

I continued walking again, just to have Konohamaru catch up to me the moment I left the alley.

"Hey, man... You okay?"

What do you care anyway?

"I'm fine." I replied.

"Well... Why don't you go find some chicks or something? I know at least ten that would love to have a chance to get to know you." He put a hand on my shoulder. "You look like you need to take a load off."

"I'm not interested." I said to him, shrugging out of his grip.

As I walked on, the excitement got more intense around me. People were more unsteady on their feet, bouncing and bumping into me, spilling drinks, whooping and hollering.

Just to get away from the crowd, I hopped atop one of the bars that was giving out all the free drinks, only to almost step directly on someone.

I looked down, almost looking surprised at the choice of destiny.

"Didn't plan on seeing you here tonight." He said.

His legs swung out over the edge of the building and he rolled the cup of sake around in his hand.

"Actually, I didn't plan on seeing you anywhere."

I stared at the man sitting in front of me, wearing the most casual clothes I'd ever seen him put on, a pair of black pants, some sandals, and a loose fitting white collared shirt with the three topmost buttons left open. His headband, which he'd stopped wearing over one of his eyes because of a lack of a need to, was tied around his neck instead in a formal fashion.

"Kakashi." I regarded him.

"Sasuke." He returned.

And then it was quiet. I sighed, getting down into a sitting position next to him.

"I know you're not sitting here looking for advice." He finally said.

"Hmph."

And what if I am...?

And as if reading my thoughts, he responded.

"But if you are, I'm afraid you're in this one on your own." He said, sipping from his glass again. "You're not a little kid anymore."

A little kid...

Back when Kakashi was to me what Iruka was to Naruto. An elder brother. A beacon of intellect, understanding, acknowledgement.

But once I discovered the truth about Itachi, he became the opposite. Like a poser, pretending to be my older brother, wearing that Sharingan just to trick me even further, disgrace me and my clan. Almost as much as Naruto, I hated him then. But with the ending of the war and the surfacing of all the issues we had and how well he helped out, somewhere along the line I changed my mind.

"Naruto has you and Shikamaru." I said, finally speaking up. "You guys who decided on Plan Kyuseishu... I'm not needed around here."

And oddly, Kakashi laughed.

"Sasuke... You really are something."

I frowned, not yet ready to look at him.

"What are you talking about?"

"Naruto's probably extended a hand of cooperation to you. He wants to become Hokage with you, I'm guessing."

"Guessing? Isn't it obvious?"

"Obvious that he'd say that but not so obvious that you'd take it in the way that you are." He said, drinking from his cup again. "It's like you still don't realize what kind of person Naruto is. And what you truly mean to him."

"I thought you said you wouldn't lecture me."

"I'm not."

"So get to the point."

My eyes went out over the curvature of the city. With the Hokage Manor in the distance bearing the most lights and action. Kakashi cocked his head back and finished his drink.

"Naruto doesn't want you to be Hokage with him just because you're smart and he needs a strategy. He wants you there with him because he loves you."

...Loves me?

"If you leave or disappear or isolate yourself forever, the damage won't be that he won't be able to come up with an operating foreign policy plan while he's in office. The damage will be that he'll be distracted, torn, depressed... Because he'll be constantly concerned with whether or not you're okay. And in that disarray, he'll grow tired and begin to make mistakes, those mistakes will grow in number and may one day result in the calamity that was the destruction of your clan."

"So you're telling me he'll be heart-broken?" I asked, finally looking at him.

Instead of seeing any trace of humor, he gazed at me with both of his steady black eyes.

"In every sense of the word."

"That's absolutely ridiculous." I replied.

"But isn't Naruto the epitome of ridiculousness." He countered.

And I couldn't really argue against him. Naruto was the kind of person who would slack off and forget about his Hokage duties because he was obsessing over me. That was exactly what he did before when put his duties as a ninja second to chasing after me. Breaking all kinds of rules and walking over all kinds of set boundaries just to see me.

"What the hell is wrong with him?"

"It's not just him... It's you, too." Kakashi replied slowly. "Your bond is incredibly strong... It even...transgresses generations, I've heard. With both of you being reincarnations of souls that have warred for thousands of years."

Reincarnations... Bonds... Uchiha, Senju... Brothers...

It's as if all these things are trying to make my own decision for me.

"Well... It's all up to you, anyway." Kakashi said, getting to his feet. "But somehow, I feel like deep inside, you already know the decision you're going to make."

He sighed.

"Anyway, I'm already late for a date with this woman." He smiled. "Heroes, huh? All I have to say is I trained you and Naruto and suddenly, everyone woman in every village wants to get to know me."

He tossed me his sake cup.

"Why don't you go get yourself a free refill? You look tense." He said, before disappearing into a cloud of smoke.

I looked down at the cup, watching a pair of large dark eyes staring back at me. I dropped the cup, leaving it on the roof of the place and started for the place I realized I'd been heading toward all along.

It didn't take long until my feet dropped on the landing in front of Naruto's house. I pushed the door open, walking through his normally messy front hall. All of the lights were off except for one. I pushed it and the door swung open.

"Oi, Usuratonkachi." I called.

I froze. The door hit his end table, knocking into a vase of Sakura blossoms that tipped over...and shattered on his brown wooden floor.

The creaking bedsprings came to an abrupt halt. Naruto turned, bare back exposed as the sheets slid off of him and Sakura underneath him.

"O-Oh shit..." Naruto said, blinking rapidly and then looking down at Sakura. "Uh... I can explain! Uh... What happened was..."

But Naruto's words faded into the background of my brain as I stared at Sakura who pressed into him to hide her exposed chest, face quickly turning pink with embarrassment and I closed my eyes backing away.

"...Sorry for interrupting." I said, turning back around.

"Sasuke wait!" Naruto called. "Uh... Just wait out there. I'll be out in a sec."

I closed the door behind me, seriously considering just leaving but not being able to think of a good place I could go where he wouldn't just find me.

It didn't take long for the door to open and Naruto to walk out in a black t-shirt with the Uzumaki symbol in orange in the center and his classic Orange pants. And Sakura draped in Naruto's classic orange and black jacket, which he hadn't worn since the war, and red tights.

She paused near me, like she was considering saying something. I looked away from her, stripping her of the chance address me. After a few seconds of her awkwardly standing around me, Naruto beckoned her towards the door.

"You alright?" He asked her, putting his hands on her shoulders.

She nodded.

"I need to talk to Sasuke. Is it alright if you crash at Ino's house tonight?"

She nodded again, eyes flicking to mine momentarily.

Naruto grabbed her chin.

"Hey... I love you."

And then her eyes went back to him and stagnated, not needing anywhere else to look any longer. She leaned into him, kissing him and even though it was at a whisper, I knew she'd said...

"I love you, too."

He backed away, closing the door after him and then leaned against it as he turned to me. We both stared at each other silently. I crossed my arms, and leaned back against the coat closet he had next to his front door.

"Look, I know what you're thinking..." He said.

He sighed, sliding down to the floor in front of the door.

"It kind of just happened, you know?" He said, pushing his fingers through his hair. "But... I won't say I'm sorry."

He looked up at me, through the strands of his loose hair.

"You were really hurting Sakura."

I slid down onto the floor diagonal from him and bent my head back against the door.

"She was really lonely."

"Well, then it was perfect then, wasn't it?" I said. "You both were lonely. You both were obsessing over me. And now, you have something else to focus on."

"What are you talking about?" He asked me.

"Exactly what I said. Everything worked in everyone's favor, didn't it?"

"You sound like you wanted this to happen or something..." He muttered.

He looked up at me. I quickly averted my eyes.

"Wait... Wait... Really? You actually planned this? That's why you hit Sakura?!"

I frowned.

"I didn't hit Sakura on purpose." I replied, getting an uneasy feeling as the memory returned. "...It was instinctive."

"To slap someone for trying to kiss you?"

"I already told you I don't want to talk about this." I muttered.

"It's way too late for that."

I remained silent momentarily, gazing out of the window where a corral of children laughed, running past his apartment. Suddenly, Kabuto's words from the last time I'd seen him, over two years before, pressed against my memory. He was giving my eyes a regular inspection after he and Orochimaru had surgically altered my Rinnegan so that I could activate it and disengage it with ease, like my regular Sharingan.

"Using medical ninjutsu, I'm able to see the mental grafts of your brain. You're pretty messed up."

"I didn't ask you how messed up I am." I replied, pulling my shirt back on. "I asked you to do this because I need to know if there are any setbacks to this new Rinnegan."

"There aren't." He replied. "Except... Something about the Sharingan."

He paused, tossing the scalpel in his fingers.

"What?" I asked, hand already on the doorknob.

"Your eye Kekkei Genkai. It has emotional withdrawals, doesn't it?"

I had paused at the time, considering his questions.

"Says the 2nd Hokage... Some legend about a curse." I turned around. "Why do you ask?"

He nudged his eye glasses.

"The stronger your eyes get, the more mental synapses it shuts down." He replied. "In particular, they are the ones connecting to the part of your brain that controls deep emotion. At this point... You shouldn't even be able to experience true peace yourself. And yet you're advocating for it?"

"What's it to you?"

"I won't lie that initially I agreed to help you with all this because I still felt slightly indebted to Itachi." He confessed. "But... In Itachi's absence, I couldn't help but begin to see you as something like a younger brother. Someone I care for."

"I'm not a child."

"Just because someone cares for you, doesn't mean they're belittling you." He pointed out.

Then he sighed, pacing the room steadily, in the kind of way only someone with bad news does.

"Your nerve endings... If they remain distant from each other any longer, you'll lose all ability to feel."

I stared down at my hand on the knob, my fingers hardening.

"Feel what?"

"Anything." He said. "Peace, happiness... Love."

"I'll live." I muttered, pulling the door open.

Behind me, he leaned against the operating table, pulling his light gray hair back roughly.

"Sasuke... What is life? What does it even mean to you?" He had asked me.

"Sasuke?" Naruto said, calling my attention back to the present.

I pulled a loose thread in my black pants, considering my next sentence.

"Before...you asked if I felt anything whenever Sakura got close to me." I finally spoke up. "The answer is...no."

I pulled harder on the thread, ripping it off.

"Everything is just... It's all..."

So numb now.

"I knew that Sakura needed someone." I went on. "I knew that she decided a long time ago that person would be me. But... I wasn't going to work for her. And I knew that. So, I tried to stay away from her so I wouldn't hurt her anymore. And in the meantime, I was waiting around for you to wake up."

It was like two birds with one stone. Finding someone that could stabilize Naruto, and finding someone that could love Sakura. All the while, getting the two most obsessive obstacles out of my path. Their union would mean salvation for all three of us.

"How the heck was I supposed to know that?"

"I thought it was obvious." I replied.

"You didn't even-"

"Anyway..." I muttered, interrupting him. "It doesn't even matter. In the end, staying away from her just hurt her more."

Naruto shook his head.

"She thinks it's her fault. That there's something wrong with her."

"It is her fault..." I told him.

His expression immediately slipped into disagreement but I continued speaking before he could voice it.

"...For wasting her life on someone who doesn't have a heart."

"Doesn't have a heart?" Naruto asked. "Isn't that a bit-"

"No." I answered. "It's not an overstatement."

We were silent for a while. And then the topic at hand came to the forefront of my mind. It seemed to come to Naruto's mind too, as he asked.

"Did you make a decision?"

"How can I? When it seems like everyone wants to make it for me."

"What are you talking about?"

"I can hear all the perspectives. I can see Madara leaving Hashirama and Konoha. And being a reason why I should stay. I can see Danzo living in the shadows, and being so jealous of Hiruzen he could plot the ruin of my clan. And that being a reason why I should leave." I looked at him. "I can see you... You being too trustworthy and naïve and allowing the world to fall into chaos without a good strategy. But... I can also see you being...just fine... Just fine without me."

I looked down.

"More than any of that, I can hear my brother... I can hear his final words. I can hear what he said."

"Which was?"

"That no matter what decision I made, he'd always love me."

"Really?" Naruto said, grinning. "Well, I could've told you that. I feel the same. Whatever you choose..."

"Even if I choose never to see your face again?"

I expected his smile to falter and him to consider that, the weight of it, but instead, he nodded.

"If I knew that was what you wanted... I'd only be upset if I felt like you were being forced to go. Or forced to isolate yourself. Or just pressured in general. But if that's what you truly want..." He smiled. "How could a true friend ever say no?"

A true friend, huh?

"I can see how it's hard for you, Sasuke... You feel obligated. So you don't want to run away like Madara. Because you feel like you should be the savior that Itachi could never be. You feel like you owe him something, his death, his cause, all of their deaths..." He shrugged then, grabbing at his shirt. "And I'm probably not innocent of that either... You probably feel like you're chained to me. Just to stop the Uchiha/Senju warring forever. It's almost like you're... You're..."

Trapped.

"But... Sasuke..."

He slowly looked up at me.

"You can't live life based on other people. You have to think about what you want. And do just that. Or else... You're going to fade away. You're going to go numb. And then, maybe in five years, or one year or even tomorrow, you won't even know who you are anymore."

I stared at him as he ran his hand through his hair, jostling a blue necklace that I didn't recognize.

"I know I'm the last person you want telling you something like this. But... Tell me. What do you want? What do you really, really want out of life?"

What do I want?

Before, I thought I answered that question when I said to become Hokage. I needed to protect Itachi's will. I needed to preserve the strength that was Uchiha. Or at least that was what I explained to Kabuto when he asked me what life meant to me all those years back.

But... That's not me. That was Itachi. That was his mission. And even if he failed it, it doesn't mean it's mine now. My original mission... What was it?

My fingers tapped anxiously against my legs.

What do I truly want to do? If... I had to answer, I'd say...

"Home."

An image of my elder brother and parents and everyone in the Uchiha clan flashed in front of my eyes.

"I've always just...wanted to go home." I repeated.

Home... Where everything is back to normal.

Naruto looked down at the floor between his legs. Outside, the sparklers continued on. I had a strange urge to cry. But it didn't happen. Or more so, it couldn't.

"If you're talking about a place where people resemble you..." Naruto finally spoke up. "That home's gone, Sasuke. It's long gone."

I know that.

"But...if you mean, somewhere where people resemble you on the inside. Then..."

On the inside...? Inside I'm...broken, discarded, lost... Is there even a place where the people are anywhere similar to that?

An image of Suigetsu, Jugo, Orochimaru and Karin flashed into my mind's eye.

Rejected and forgotten.

"I think I know where that is for you." Naruto spoke up. "And if you trust them, then go."

I raised my head, looking him firmly in the eyes.

"Yeah, right... So you can destroy the entire ninja world?" I asked him. "I still don't agree with your decisions. It's been two years now since you implemented the Five-Month Plan for the 'sick'."

I edged away from him.

"And like I assumed would happened, more people are cropping up, not less."

"But I listened to you, you know..."

I got to my feet, raising my eyebrows at him.

"We haven't put anyone into a permanent sleep yet." He sighed. "I knew, even if they were making that choice for themselves, it wasn't good so... I was kinda..."

He scratched his head.

"I was hoping you'd come up with something before the doses of 'Peace Pills' the medical ninja were giving maxed out."

"How long before that happens?"

"It basically already has." Naruto said, shaking his head. "We're going to have to make it a clean cut at this point."

"I said that in the first place." I muttered. "But now if you just abruptly cut them off it, there are going to be riots. And the other villages... They followed after you? With the Peace Pills?"

"They didn't really have another choice. They didn't want half of their villagers moving here because we were giving out free Infinite Tsukuyomi drugs!" Naruto reminded me.

I shook my head silently, thinking back to the last rocky three years of my life.

"There is another option." I told him.

"What?" He asked.

"I asked Kabuto and Orochimaru to brainstorm a certain antidote in their free time." I replied. "They came up with something eons ago but I never considered expanding it to the general public."

"Well, don't leave me in the dark! What is it?"

I recalled Orochimaru grinning as he walked toward me with the single pill.

"Just one of these would be enough to completely erase the emotional damage in your brain. No major drawbacks." Orochimaru had said.

"Except that you'll think you're a five year old." Kabuto had pointed out. "Erasing what the Rinnegan and your other eye jutsus have done isn't that easy... One pill will most likely obliterate the last fifteen years of your life from memory. I already told you. The only way you can fully recover is if you shut down the Rinnegan for good."

"Or implant Naruto's DNA into your brain." Orochimaru suggested.

"I'm not going down the same road as Madara." I explained. "And my eyes are my strength. I'm not stripping their power for something as trivial as this.

"So what are you doing this for anyway?" Kabuto asked. "If not to connect to people..."

Sakura had flashed into my minds eye at that point. Her smile. Her laugh. The way everything she did and said just seemed like a big gray blur to me no matter how hard I tried to color it.

"You're wasting my time with the negatives. What are the positives?" I wanted to know.

"Well... The memory thing can be dealt with, if you're a patient five year old." Orochimaru sneered, but then he got slightly serious. "The truth of the matter is that if worst comes to worst, with specific phrasing we can 'plug-back' your stronger memories. Like your ambition to become Hokage and whatever else it is you're going on about these days..."

He cocked his head, giving me a grave look.

"However... There's no guarantee phrasing can bring everything back. Your entire personality is on the line. Who you are. What you believe in. Your entire drive as a human being."

I reached for the pill, but something in my mind, maybe a part of me that actually for some strange reason liked who I was, hesitated and I jerked back.

"Don't force this decision on yourself now." Kabuto had said. "I've come to realize that... Your memories, who you are, and what you have of your past... That can be your greatest salvation when you truly are lost."

"Hey, Sasuke?" Naruto said, snapping his fingers. "Come on, stop zoning out."

"It's a Memory Dispelling Jutsu." I told him. "Depending on how many of the pills you take, it permanently destroys the memory you have of the past fifteen years. In the brain of, say, a twenty year old man who thinks he's thirty five, if he took one, it'd hopefully reset the entire mentality he had in the Infinite Tsukuyomi, thus, in his brain, it would be like the dream world never happened."

"Wow... You really came up with something that thorough?" He asked. "That's interesting. I mean... The way a Memory Dispelling Jutsu sounds... It's almost as if..."

He trailed off.

"It wasn't originally intended for the 'sick'." I replied. "They made it...for me."

I lowered my hand to him, helping him to his feet.

"What the hell for?!" He exclaimed.

I averted my eyes from him, running my hand through my hair.

"I don't want to talk about it."

"This again?!" Naruto exclaimed. "Come on! You were doing so well with the whole honesty thing."

"What's wrong with keeping some things to myself?" I retorted.

"Nothing except that you'd clearly feel better if you just got it off your chest."

I rolled my eyes.

"I got tired of it, alright?" I said. "I got tired of... Seeing her... Every day and being unable to..."

I scratched my hair.

"I didn't immediately just give up on her. I did want to be the one... So, I... I tried to..." I shook my head. "But... Something like that... It's just a shortcut. A coward's way of doing things. So at the last minute, I refused."

Naruto's expression went from curiosity to concern in seconds.

"That's..."

Really pitiful, right?

"Anyway... When I return to them, I'll oversee the experiments they're doing. If they've worked out fine, I'll send the first shipment of cures by bird."

Naruto nodded hard.

"And then, that'll be the end of this nightmare, right?"

"Yes."

My eyes slid toward his bedroom door where I could clearly see Sakura's red headband hanging on a hook.

The end of that nightmare... But perhaps, not my personal one.

"Naruto." I said, walking toward his front door.

He turned away from the window where he'd been gazing at the excited city and raised his eyebrows.

"Could you...tell Sakura that... That if things were different..." I grabbed his doorknob. "I would've loved her."

"Why don't you tell her yourself?"

"I wouldn't know how to say it. Besides... You're the charismatic one, aren't you?"

I turned and maybe it was something in my eyes but he nodded slowly.

"Okay. I will."

He reached out, showing me his fist.

"I'll always be here for you, Sasuke."

I looked at it, then reached out with my own fist.

"Yeah, I know." I said, bumping him.

"Sasuke's back!" I heard a feminine voice exclaim the moment I entered within a 100 foot radius of their home.

So, that's Karin...

The hawk I'd been riding swooped low, allowing me to lift off of it and spiral down, landing on my feet in a massive field of golden grass.

A puddle next to my feet surface, forming into a man.

"Long time no see, jerk-ass." He replied.

And this is Suigetsu...

After dropping me off, my hawk, and a dozen other small birds swooped low around a single person who walked steadily toward me and nibbled at him or, if small enough, rested in his hair and on his shoulders.

And there's Jugo... So...

"Where are Orochimaru and Kabuto?" I asked him.

Suigetsu turned, pointing toward a rather large log cabin that Karin was standing outside of.

"Well, Kabuto's inside there." He said. "And the Snake Lord comes and goes."

Then he turned back to me, giving me a wry smile.

"Kinda like you. So, what? You've finally figured out where the real party is at?"

I turned, walking toward the cabin. Halfway there, Jugo fell into step with us and asked me the same question.

"What brings you here this time, Sasuke?" He asked.

"That's exactly what I'm trying to figure out. But he's got that invisible tape on his mouth again."

"Shut up, Suigetsu." Karin said as we neared.

"You don't even know what I said!"

"I can tell it was stupid just because your mouth was moving."

"Bite me, Karin." He said. "Oh wait, you can't. You'd probably pass me a disease with all the teeth marks you've got on your skin."

"Oh, whatever! It's not like anyone would want your gross Shark Teeth anywhere near them any day! Go visit a Medical Ninja!"

"She barely even talks when you're not around." Suigetsu muttered to me. "She's just trying to show off right now."

"I can hear you, you asshole!"

"What's all this noise about?" A voice asked.

I turned to see Kabuto walking up with his arms full of brown store bags.

"I keep having to tell you guys to lower your voices while the kids are having nap and you just-"

He froze, glasses tilting on his nose as he saw it was me.

"...Sasuke? Wow... It's been... Almost two years now."

Jugo walked up to him and kindly grabbed the bags from his arms.

"What do I owe the pleasure?" He asked. "I thought for certain I'd be seeing the last of you when you denied the... Well, you know."

"Did you get my message? About the Memory Dispel Jutsu?"

He scratched his light gray hair, which he had grown to almost shoulder length, and nodded in the dark purple long sleeved shirt he wore.

"I got it." He replied. "I and a couple other medical ninjas that help me here have been trying to mass produce it in pill form."

He motioned back toward the cabin.

"And we've been distributing it to all the sick children here and observing their intake like you suggested we do." He explained to me.

I glanced over his shoulder at the brown house on the hill full of dark green grass.

That house? That's where the experimenting is taking place?

Jugo opened the door, taking the bags inside and Suigetsu played with a hose that Karin had begun to use to water the flowers, soaking her in water.

"I'll KILL you!" She screamed.

"So, you're housing the 'sick'?" I asked.

He nodded, smiling.

"Since a place like this was basically the sanctuary of my own childhood, I thought the best way to repent for my sins would be to create a safe house for the newer generation." He explained. "All kids. All orphans. ...Why don't you come see?"

He turned around, walking up the dirt path, and without much else to do, I followed after him, squinting my eyes against the gleaming sunlight. The cabin didn't look too big from the outside but inside it was spacious. Jugo placed the bags on a round table in what looked like the kitchen as Kabuto led me through an adjacent door.

"Here they are."

He pushed the door open, stepping aside to show me a room filled with royal blue cots covered in white blankets. Under the white blankets, were dozens of sleeping children.

"They're not all 'sick'. But they're all under the age of thirteen and have nowhere else to go. No one who cares..." He said, keeping his voice low. "At least, here, they know they're safe. And they're warm and well fed."

"How many?" I asked.

"We get more and more every few weeks. But the last head count I did was at thirty six." He answered. "My brothers from my childhood orphanage go out scouting and drop more off as often as they find them."

His expression suddenly turned agitated.

"Out of the thirty six of them here, twenty nine are 'sick'. Those kids... They've been getting abandoned by the big villages once they run out of Peace Pills or refuse to put them under."

My eyes layered over all of them, and I began to feel the one emotion that had never really left me. Helplessness.

So... More rejects, then.

"How are the experiments going?" I asked.

"We'll find out for sure in a few days. But as of now, no one seems to be rejecting it completely." He said, crossing his arms. "Actually... They're beginning to act more like children. No one's complaining of having back pains or eye problems. Or other diseases that old people normally get. And a lot of them are starting to take interest in childish games."

"So then it's over." I said.

"Don't put your shuriken in a line." Kabuto warned, closing the door. "With medicine, it's never over until it's over."

"If the experiment succeeds, I'll need you to prepare more." I explained to him. "We'll start with Konoha and if that goes well, we'll need to expand to all five ninja nations as quickly as possible."

Kabuto nodded.

"I'd be happy to. This is all...a result of my errors anyway."

"Eh, don't beat yourself up about it." Karin said, coming inside carrying a basket of fruits. "No one's fucked up worst than Madara. His end was bad."

"Karma teaches the deaf." Jugo stated.

"Or the emotionless." Suigetsu said, giving me a knowing look.

Then he dropped into a chair next to the round table.

"So, anyway, what gives? You just came here to tell us rejects to get to work and now you're off again?"

They all stared at me, seemingly waiting for a pin to drop. I dropped my hands, pulling the over-the-shoulder messenger bag I had off and setting it on the table.

"Rejects?" I repeated. "What are you talking about?"

I sat down in the chair across from Suigetsu and leaned back.

"You guys... You're similar to me, aren't you? And I'm certainly not a reject. So neither are you."

The white lace curtains were rustled by a soft wind and like the drop of a beat, smiles coursed across everyone's face. It may have been the first time in recent memory that something I said created a room full of smiles instead of a room full of frowns.

This... Might really be where I belong.

"On top of that, we're saving the ninja world from an epidemic, aren't we?" Karin asked, walking toward me to set the fruits down on the table. "Rejects can't be heroes."

"Yeah, they can! We're the Rejected Heroes." Suigetsu replied.

"Can you quit mocking me?!" Karin shouted back.

Rejected Heroes...

My eyes settled on an apple at the top of the brown basket and I grabbed it, turning it over in my fingers.

"Somehow... It fits." I said, before taking a bite.

Up Next: The final chapter of this little ending is next. You'll get to see what Naruto, Sakura and Sasuke's lives all end up like after a seven year time-skip. If you weren't disappointed with this awesome, Sasuke-centric segment, leave a review! I love to read them!