"Ah! Ohh, this one is pretty! It looks so powerful!"
Sasuke, for the hell of it, flipped open his phone.
5:34.
It had been an hour since he brought Sakura here to choose a Kaimen. And an hour of "Ohh"s and "Aah"s is annoying for regular people.
Imagine what it would do to an Uchiha.
"Hmmm..."
"Fucking pick one."
"Na, you shouldn't use such foul language, Sasuke-sempai! And they're not just robots! They're - "
"'Super-duper-amazing-outer-space-protecting-laser-blasting robots'. Yes. I know."
"Yes, exactly! So I have to choose carefully!"
How utterly annoying.
In the corner, Naruto snickered. "Ah, they really picked a good apprentice for you, eh, Sasuke?" Sasuke grinned. "Hey, Haruno-san, you wanna hear what Naruto's saying about you?" The girl turned her head innocently. "What? What has Uzumaki-san been saying?" A chill ran down the boy's spine. "Ah! Nothing, Sakura-chan!" He assured, waving his hands in front of his face. Sasuke mumbled something that sounded like "I thought so" under his breath when a message popped up on his phone:
hey sasuke-tan how's your apprentice?
FROM: Kakashi
5:35:27
That smug little bastard.
He fucking set him up with this annoying girl!
Sasuke pushed the buttons on his phone so forcefully that they almost broke off.
go away, asshole
FROM: Sasuke
5:36:04
tsk, tsk such cruel words. don't you have any respect for your sensei?
FROM: Kakashi
5:38:01
no. whats the deal with setting me up with this girl, asshole?
FROM: Sasuke
5:39:56
i thought you'd enjoy some company from the opposite sex
FROM: Kakashi
5:40:32
great. just what I need
FROM: Sasuke
5:41:16
I had nothing to do with it. the slug princess insisted
Sasuke frowned.
Tsunade-san?
why would she want this girl to be my responsibility?
FROM: Sasuke
5:43:03
No reply, Sasuke thought after a few minutes. For once, the smug, masked asshole didn't have anything smart to say. Che. And what a great time to shut up, he laughed bitterly.
"Hey! Teme! Sakura-chan found one!"
Uchiha Sasuke's phone folded with a snap! Finally.
The giant mecha, all aligned perfectly, were all in a somewhat humanoid shape. They were various colors (Katakiuchi-chan is black chrome with red highlights, so cute~), and arranged in order of newest models. (Luckily, as a member of the intergalactic militia, Sasuke wouldn't have to actually buy one. Purchasing a Kaimen would be like buying a new house every other week for five years.) Even though they were just large apparatuses, they responded only to their master's voice, and sometimes you would even feel as though they were people, with souls and memories and emotions. Sasuke thought that perhaps this was a mechanism used to keep away the loneliness and insanity of being in space on your own.
Sakura must've thought so, too, because she spent an hour examining different mechas and turning down the ones that didn't "feel right". At least she finally chose one.
Ah.
It was -
"A super bright white pearly Kaimen! Ah! I'll call him..."
Dark lashes lowered. A vein twitched.
"Sasuke-kun!"
...
"I think it's a stupid name."
"Shut the fuck up, Naruto."
"Aww, you don't like it? Does that mean you don't like your name, Sasuke-sempai? You want me to give you a name?"
"No! You're not naming it after me." Pick another sexy guy to name it after. Cocky, inner-Sasuke grinned. Outer-Sasuke scowled.
"Hmm..." A faraway look glimmered in her eyes. Her smile became small and distant. "Odoroki. Odoroki-san..." Her bright smile returned, as she faced the two boys. "It's beautiful!"
Twitch. Twitch.
More paperwork.
The paperwork around The Slug Princess was so high you couldn't see her. At least, that's how she felt.
Trying to ignore the paperwork, Senju Tsunade decided to fiddle with her pen. She was already stressed out to begin with. Meetings, maintaining the jutsu that kept her... youthful, as Maito Gai would say.
And that girl.
She couldn't stop thinking about her. But then again, she was too much of a threat to ignore completely. Sweet girl, though. She sighed. Why did this have to be her problem? Couldn't she go bother some other poor soul with nothing better to do? Or some asshole who deserved it?
Ah, well, I guess I got half my wish.
Uchiha Sasuke had known Tsunade for many years. Maybe that was why he treated her a little nicer than most other people. It didn't change the fact that he was still an ass about almost everything. She could relate to him, though. After losing her lover, Dan, and her brother, Nawaki... she had to admit it, she had become rather bitter herself.
And she couldn't imagine going through what that boy had gone through.
Itachi... She remembered. She remembered the Massacre, still remembered the somber air that had settled itself over the land of Konoha and how it wouldn't go away after that day. She'd never forget that dead look in Sasuke's eyes, which had unfortunately hardened, over the years, into a cold, infinitely angry gaze. (But, for someone who witnessed the murder of his entire family first-hand, Sasuke turned out pretty okay.)
And Kakashi had actually been there. He told Tsunade that he found an eight year-old Sasuke, bawling and screaming, splashes of his family's blood stained onto his face and clothing. The thick, acrid smell of blood... just the way Kakashi described it sent chills down Tsunade's spine. From that day forward, the prodigy refused to form much of a bond with anyone. "'That way, when they die, it won't hurt.'" She whispered eight year- old Sasuke's words to herself, shaking her head sadly.
And as for those telltale green eyes of the Haruno clan... unfortunately, only one pair remained in this world.
"Otou-san! Okaa-san! O-Oji-san! OTOU-SAN! OTOU-SAN!"
Tsunade would always remember those shrieks. The smell of burning wood, hair, flesh and bone... the day that those famous, pretty eyes went dull with pain.
To think that their misery was caused by the same person.
Uchiha Itachi.
However, Haruno Sakura's dull eyes began to flourish with a lucent determination (it reminded her of that confident look in Naruto's eyes) as she grew older, as if she wanted to make sure that she lived happily, like her parents would want. The woman sighed again.
Hopefully, this would be the last loop.
Suddenly, Shizune walked in, holding Ton Ton.
"Tsunade-sama, the - " She eyed the large stacks of paperwork on her desk and noticed that not even one paper had been signed yet.
"Tsunade-sama!"
"Ah, don't worry, Shizune, I have plenty of time to do paperwork!" Shizune frowned but decided that arguing with Tsunade-sama would just lead nowhere. She sighed. "Kakashi-san wants to see you."
"Damn it, what does that asshole want now?"
Shizune's expression darkened. "He said it concerns Haruno-san."
Hazel eyes widened before darkening as well. "...Let him in."
"Hai."
Senju Tsunade pinched herself between the eyebrows. He better not have screwed things up. So far, things were going according to plan, and if this didn't work, nothing would. "Ah, Commander, it's good to see you," a familiar voice drawled out. Tsunade rested her chin on her interlaced fingers and stared at him. "Hatake Kakashi. What brings you here?"
"I'm sure Shizune-san told you." Kakashi smiled beneath his mask. "Anyway, it's also about Sasuke-kun."
"Oh?" One thin blonde eyebrow arched dangerously high. Kakashi's bored expression returned.
"I think we should tell him about the Paraverse."
"Eh? Paraverse? The hell is that?"
Kakashi shrugged. "I figured a being with such devastating powers should have a cool name." Tsunade scoffed, and leaned back in her chair. "So you want me to reveal to him Haruno Sakura's powers?" She closed her eyes. "Absolutely not." Kakashi's visible eye shone with determination. "Mind giving me a good reason?"
"Because, Kakashi," she snapped, "this is the closest he can get to her without disrupting her powers, and telling him would only restart this endless cycle!"
"Or, it could end it." He countered, waiting for a response. Her eyebrows twitched. "That's not a chance I'm willing to take. What if Sasuke decides to abuse her powers? What if Sakura destroys this world altogether? This is not a situation to be taken lightly!" She slammed her fist on her desk, cracking it and sending papers everywhere. Kakashi didn't blink. "Doing this could help us understand why Sakura-chan keeps moving from world to world. The only person she preserves in each of them is Sasuke-kun."
Tsunade sighed for what seemed like the thouandth time that evening. "That's why I am ordering him to be assigned as her teacher and you to keep an eye on her. Observing her behavior is all we can do right now." Placing her head in her hands, she chuckled. "This is our punishment, isn't it? When humans try to make their own god... power is abused. Lives are lost." She stood up and looked out her window, at the countless stars. "And then you get this quagmire purgatory. This is... consequence. Atonement. " A few Kaimen passed by, leaving streaks of light to linger in endless space. Kakashi walked over to the door and opened it. "Promise me this, Tsunade-sama: if it doesn't work this time around... we'll tell him everything. Before this world ends." He heard the Commander sigh. "Alright. You have my consent, Kakashi." He left, closing the door behind him.
What a persistent son of a bitch! The Slug Princess growled and punched the wall, leaving a large hole. Shizune came rushing in and worriedly nagged Tsunade for breaking her desk and the wall and for not doing her paperwork, but the blonde ignored her.
Damn it, Kakashi, if you screw this up, I am going to kick your ass in the next world!
Kaimen: interface
Odoroki: wonder
Paraverse: random combination of the prefix "para-", meaning more than one, and the "verse" in "universe".
XD Thanks for reading!