Hey guys! Long time no see! I wanted to thank you all so much for your lovely reviews and feedback! I really appreciate it! Each one always makes me smile, no matter what.

If you've stuck with me this long, I'm grateful. So without further adieu, here's chapter five! Hope you all had a wonderful holiday season, a Happy New Year and a Happy Easter!

Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto. Cuz if I did shit would be a whole lot DIFFERENT. Ya happy?

Life Restored

I'm going to rip your fucking head off.

His mind was on one thing and one thing only as he glared intensely at the man standing over him. Flexing his hands a couple of times under the table in front of him, he fought the urge to power his chakra to them and plunge a ball of electricity through the shinobi.

"One month."

It took all of his control not to arch an eyebrow at Konoha's top interrogator, Morino Ibiki as he said this.

"For a whole month you have been residing in the village since your return." Ibiki continued, his gaze hard and penetrating as he met Uchiha Sasuke's gaze head on. "The village elders have convened several times trying to discuss and figure out your motivations for returning." He casually paced the small interrogation room, hands clasped behind his back as though this was no big fucking deal.

Ibiki turned a nasty smile to the Uchiha. "Word has it your old teammates have accepted your return willingly too. Wasn't this their big dream? To finally have succeeded in bringing you home after all those years?"

His jaw locked. Hadn't he been in and out of those meetings with the Council before all of this? From the corner of his peripheral he saw the Hokage's eyes narrow, and he relaxed his rigid posture. This sort of thing was to be expected, he knew. Violent reactions were what they wanted to see, so he refused to comply.

Not that it wouldn't be immensely satisfying.

Ibiki leaned in closer, his scarred hands landing on the table just a few inches away from the lone Uchiha.

"It's too bad your old sensei couldn't have been there to see you return." Ibiki's words were spoken in a harsh whisper. "You really were his greatest disappointment."

Sasuke's eyes flashed red before he got a grip on himself and checked his anger.

Ibiki smiled ruthlessly. "Don't like being reminded of your shortcomings, Uchiha?" He rose to his full height. "There are damn plenty of them." With one look at the Hokage, he glared right back at Sasuke again. "But we're not here to list the numerous failures that you've made, are we?" Ibiki's eyes narrowed. "We are here, because you seem to want to stay in Konoha again. Your motives have been explained, and your goals seem to have been achieved. You're such a fucking inspiration."

Tsunade cleared her throat.

Ibiki backed off. He was pleased to note that the Uchiha looked positively murderous, but did not attack. Nor did he say a word.

The Hokage stood, her hands planting themselves on her hips as she pegged Sasuke with a serious expression. "As discussed in my office after the latest council meeting, you must agree to submit yourself to evaluation. Are you prepared to proceed?"

Sasuke slowly rose from his chair, his thoughts focused on his goals as he met the Hokage's gaze. "Hai, Hokage-sama."

Tsunade gestured to him to follow her.

Ibiki sneered, but Sasuke paid him no mind as he stepped around the table in the center of the room, his demeanor back to suave and calm. Nothing would keep him from accomplishing his goals. Not even a shinobi who apparently still had it out for his family. Sasuke resisted the urge to shoot the bastard a smirk. All in due time, he thought silently.

As he climbed the stairs to the top floor of the interrogation building, he had to hide his surprise when he discovered both Yamanaka Ino and what appeared to be the Hokage's assistant, what was her name, Shizune? Standing beside Ino, the elder kunoichi watched him with a wary frown of her own.

Tsunade turned to face him, her eyes narrowing as she gestured for him to step forward.

He complied, if but with some wariness.

Tsunade smirked. Kid was smart to be wary. She thought silently. "Close the doors." She called to the ANBU guard. "Kami knows I don't need that blundering loudmouth interrupting this."

Sasuke felt a smirk slide onto his face before he could stop it. Naruto indeed would be the very first to show up and barge in during his interrogation. Thank fuck it was still early and the blonde dobe still asleep.

The heavy wooden doors were slid shut, and as they did so the resounding noise left an ominous feeling in the air.

The birds were chirping.

That was the first thing that was prominently noticeable to her as she sat behind her desk, paperwork coming all the way up to her ears. There was something to be said about peace, she thought, as the light morning breeze filtered through her open office window. The cool air helped to clear her head, much better than the forgotten mug of tea on her desk had.

But she'd been sitting like that for over an hour now. Her mind not completely focused on much of anything, as the lingering remains of fatigue still evident in the dark circles under her eyes. Naruto was still sacked out cold on her couch in her small apartment, having told her he wasn't going anywhere until she'd rested up. His reasoning for that remained unknown, at least until she'd woken up this morning to a phone call from Ino. A faint smile tugged at one corner of her mouth. Naruto was so transparent; she didn't even know how she'd missed it before.

Her gaze found the clock on the wall, and she felt her eyes soften a little. It was still very early, but she had found herself back in her office today with little to distract herself from what she now knew was going on this morning.

Uchiha Sasuke was undergoing evaluation.

Of course that was perfectly classified information, she knew. Sakura felt her stomach tighten at the memory of what had happened just yesterday in her apartment with her old team. Sasuke's face kept flashing to the forefront of her mind almost every time she closed her eyes. The feeling of his strong arms wrapped around her, his rough but warm hands on hers, the gentle way he cared for her, his piercing red gaze…Sakura shook her head hard and smacked her cheeks a little to distract her very imaginative mind.

"Oh for Kami's sake, get a damn grip!" she berated herself.

Here she'd been so terrified of him the night he returned, and yet she now found herself secretly longing for him. Again.

Sakura cursed. Maybe Ino was right. Maybe she really was losing it.

Her mind reverted back at the thought of her best friend. Really the only reason she had even been privy to the knowledge of Sasuke's evaluation was because of Ino. The Yamanaka Clan had been called in for this special assignment, and Ino had gushed to her having no one else to go to and expunge the massive torrid of emotions sweeping through her.

Though Sakura suspected that pregnancy had a tendency to do that to any female at this stage. But as far as the curvy blonde knew, Sakura wasn't privy to that particular bit of information just yet either.

A small smile tugged the corners of her lips up and thanked her lucky stars she had asked Tsunade-sama to take her on as an apprentice. The vast amount of knowledge that she'd gained from training under the Hokage was great. And she now knew her skill level was unmatched by any other medical ninja in the village, save for the Hokage herself.

Hugging her friend's medical chart to her chest, Sakura suddenly pushed herself back from her desk, the feet of the old chair scraping against the floor rather loudly. It would be a shock for Ino to hear, she knew. But Sakura was thankful to have been the medic to be handling Ino's case…and to have run her friend's lab work. Popular as the gorgeous blonde was in the village, news would not be privately HIPPA protected for very long if any of other the hospital medics had been in charge.

Nope. Sakura tucked a wayward strand of pink behind her ear. It was her duty as her best friend to be the one to deliver the happy news…if her best friend's fiancé hadn't already figured it out yet.

Hiding a cool smirk, Sakura walked over to her filing cabinet, massive as it was, and neatly slid her friend's file in place. Just as she was pushing the drawers shut, Sakura's eyes caught on the massive section of files she'd been organizing. The files were shoved haphazardly together, each case log containing data that was individually different from one another, yet fashionably the same.

Her personal little side project.

Feeling her eyes narrowing, she tightened the messy ponytail at the crown of her head before pulling the first of the stack free from the unorganized jam she'd shoved it in a few days prior.

The first case was of an elderly man who had been brought into the hospital with signs of a heart attack, yet his vitals were stabilized as his mind had been placed into a very powerful genjutsu. Sakura felt a cold chill prickle at the back of her neck as she read over the preliminary medical report. Her mind quickly reverted back to the ANBU Nin who had been brought in to Emergency a few days ago. His mental state was the same.

Sakura was a blur as she pulled that file, and hastily scribbled a notation on the side of his prelim report.

The next file she pulled was from back during the war. Towards the end, after her shinobi cell had returned to Konoha, she'd been placed on a medical team to make rounds in the newly built hospital. There were at least a half dozen patients that had been badly wounded during the battle of Madara, who all had similar injuries, yet at the same time, were all in a seemingly comatose mental state. It had been Ino who had mind swapped with one of them to make the discovery that it wasn't a coma that they had slipped into, but a very power genjutsu.

The similarities were too close, too much alike to be purely coincidental.

Sakura felt her stomach do a little flip as she turned the page in her most recent file. In her sensei's handwriting, she caught the small notation beside the diagnosis.

Comatose.

Something wasn't adding up. Her photographic memory flashed as she remembered the look on Ino's face as she emerged from the mind swap of those patients. Even as she'd reported on the genjutsu being the cause of the comatose state of the patient, there was something underneath in her expression that wasn't going along with what she was telling the medics around her.

Her eyes narrowed. Kakashi-sensei had brow beaten that age old saying into hers and Naruto's heads from Day One.

"Look underneath the underneath," She whispered as her fingers slowly turned the page, her quick mind adding together all of the facts.

Sakura felt her heart freeze in her chest. In the work of a second she grabbed the stack of files from her cabinet and flashed out the door, running as fast as she could go…

His eyes closed and he felt a wave of unease as the jutsu was initiated.

Far off, he heard a cry of shock, but his mind was now occupied and unable to respond to the outside disturbance. The presence in his mind now was unfamiliar and intrusive, but not threatening. He forced himself to relax as the girl from the Yamanaka Clan completed the jutsu.

This was part of the plan. He had to do this to finally avenge his family…

Itachi.

His Clan.

The Uchiha honor.

"You're not making this easy, are you?" A sardonic female voice whispered in his mind. Sasuke felt his jaw clench. Just get on with it…

She chuckled. "Very well."

Slowly, painfully, as if his mind were an onion being peeled layer by layer, he felt his mind start to bend to the jutsu. The whole point of this was for Ino to use the jutsu she'd created using her family's interrogation skill to read the mind of enemy shinobi. He told himself that he was fine with the procedure being used on him. He'd even been drugged for the effects of the jutsu causing an erratic heart rate and potential heart attack. A slow, deep breath helped quell his anger a little more.

"You've led a hard life, Uchiha." Ino's voice murmured in his mind. "Mind letting me see what else you've done?"

Forcing his mind to open was not something he was accustomed to doing. Memories flashed before his closed eyes as Ino dug through his head, sorting out from the first Chuunin Exam to when he left the village. The memory of his last goodbye to Sakura played much slower than the others had, and before he could snap at her that it was private, her voice stopped him.

"She had nightmares about you for months," Ino murmured as he watched Sakura's tears fall from her cheeks in the memory. "And she still refuses to talk about this night…"

He saw himself shut Sakura down as he walked away from her. Her young voice was pleading for him to stay. How he stood just inches from her, breathing in her cheery blossom scent just seconds before he knocked her out…his quiet thank you.

She was really pulling him through the mud now. The moment the memory ended, his mind burned as if it had been held too close to a flame. There was a long stretch of silence…before memories began to slowly bleed through the darkness once more. Ino did not linger on his time spent with Orochimaru, he saw. It seemed as if Konoha intelligence had been briefed on this information already, and he felt himself smirking. He supposed he had his clone to thank for that, remembering back to when Sai had infiltrated the old snake Sannin's lair.

"He never was meant to be a replacement." Ino's voice cut through his thoughts, reminding him for the umpteenth time that she could hear him.

Sasuke felt the strongest urge to open his eyes to glare at her, before remembering that the girl must be unconscious at the moment. "You think I want to be all up inside your head like this?!" Ino's curt voice turned to ice within the work of a second.

"I'm supposed to be seeing something big, something important. But you're not making any of this easy on me, Uchiha. If you'd let down some of these walls a little it'd make both of our lives a hell of a lot easier…"

His head lowered to his chest as he felt beads of sweat form on his forehead as he bit back his snarky response. Like hell would any part of this be easy. But the obnoxious blonde had a point, and he slowly, cautiously opened his mind, to the facts that he learned from his brother back during the war…back…when he'd had a second chance to talk with Itachi like they were brothers again.

The story burned his mind as he played it for Ino, sparing no details on the culprits of the pain and agony of his family bloodline. There was no commentary, thank Kami as he let his memories tell the story for him. Before the end of it, he felt his heart in his throat and his eyes burn.

Itachi's face played across his mind, the memory taking the effect of the moon lighting up the sky at night. His brother's words of kindness and redemption echoed in his ears, and loathe he admit it, Yamanaka Ino's as well. The last words his brother had spoken to him slowly faded as the memory of Itachi disappearing played across his mind again.

Ino paused, almost as if she knew this wasn't a cakewalk for him, before slowly continuing on. But when she reached the moment after he'd been battling with Obito…when he'd gone searching for the cave by the river…there was a flash of pink and then…

Sasuke shut his mind down instantly.

"WHAT THE HELL?" Ino's voice cut through his mind sharply.

You're done. He thought angrily. You have what you need. Now get the hell out of my head.

Tsunade watched with the eyes of a hawk, as Shizune looked after the young Yamanaka kunoichi. The girl was lying peacefully on the ground ten feet away from where the Uchiha had been restrained to the floor where he knelt.

The exchanges between the two shinobi were almost completely incognito, save for the few glares she saw play across the Uchiha's face.

For three hours they had been that way.

Just then, Ino's body began to twitch, before the blonde opened up her mouth and began to scream. The Uchiha's eyes shot open as he looked up, searching for any signs of attack before settling on the blonde lying close by.

Shizune was by Ino's side instantly, her hands going to the girl's shoulders as the blonde shook. Ino's eyes snapped open and she gasped, feeling her heart pounding hard against her ribcage. Her scream died down almost immediately, but she pushed herself up, waving Shizune off.

Her sky blue eyes shot up to the Hokage, and the knowledge that burned in them stilled Tsunade's heart for a moment.

"Well Yamanaka?" Morino Ibiki's sharp voice cut through the tense silence. Tsunade felt her eyes narrow.

"He is not a threat." Ino's voice was strained, but genuine. Sasuke had to remind himself not to smirk.

Just then, the thick and heavy wooden doors folded inwards before splintering like they were made of nothing but paper. Tsunade's eyes shot up to see her apprentice breathing hard as she stood in the doorway, looking haggard in her white lab coat with several file folders in her arms. Sakura climbed over the broken wood as if it were nothing as she slowly made her approach to her shishou. Ibiki stepped in front of Tsunade, his arms crossed tightly over his thick chest and a deep glare etched into his threatening face.

Sakura brushed by him as if he weren't there at all.

Sasuke felt the corner of his mouth twitch as he watched her move. Her standing within the village permitted her to seemingly do as she pleased, he thought silently as he filed that tidbit of information away for later.

Tsunade watched her apprentice before addressing the pink haired kunoichi. "This evaluation is closed, Sakura. How did you come to learn of it?"

Sakura slammed the thick pile of folders down on the table in front of her sensei in response. Her arms were crossed over her chest in a mixture of anger and defiance as she pegged her sensei with a sharp glare.

"I doubt that matters as much as faking the same diagnosis on twelve different cases, sensei."

Her arms crossed over her chest as she met Tsunade's gaze head on, knowing that she was signing her death warrant on the disrespect front. But she had to be sure.

And she got her answer when Tsunade closed her eyes, exhaling on a heavy sigh before she began to chuckle.

Confused didn't even begin to cover Sakura's reaction. Her emerald eyes shot over to Shizune, questioning before the brunette silently shook her head.

"Sakura, you are certainly the brightest young kunoichi I have ever met." Tsunade slowly stood, her eyes traveling over her apprentice's head to look at the Uchiha. "You can release him now. He'll need to be taken to the hospital—"

"Excuse me, I mean no disrespect sensei, but what the hell is going on?" Sakura politely interjected, feeling her anger slowly rising.

Tsunade looked back at her, her gaze hard. "Perhaps it should be you to give this report, Sakura. You are the one who figured out the puzzle, after all. And I do believe that Homura and Koharu would appreciate being filled in as well." She smirked as Sakura blanched momentarily before getting a reign on her emotions.

"Tell us what you have found, Haruno Sakura." Koharu said, staring down with a faint glare. "If it was important enough to interrupt this meeting, that is."

Sakura cleared her throat, quietly tucking strands of pink behind her ears as she bolstered her confidence.

Sakura felt her heart speed up. She knew she was unprecedented by being here and probably would get slapped with a shitload of paperwork or a few low-ranked missions. But as she faced the elders, her eyes burned with the knowledge she had acquired from her research.

"I believe..." She swallowed hard, feeling her heart beating fast behind her ribs. "I believe that I have found evidence of Uchiha Sasuke's involvement in saving the lives of no less than twelve Konoha citizens, shinobi and civilian alike. Both before the end of the war, and after his recent return."

She could feel his eyes boring into her from behind, but she refused to turn around to look at him. But her cheeks blazed brightly.

There was a heavy silence. Before the room erupted in outrage.

A smirk took over her face as Tsunade slowly rose to her feet. Her hands called for silence from the two old members of the council, to the ANBU guards flanking the lone Uchiha survivor.

Sasuke's eyes locked on hers and he felt his stomach tighten as she addressed him.

"Uchiha Sasuke. Your crimes against Konoha and the hidden villages have been noted. But with the evidence presented and this evaluation complete, I hereby pardon all charges against you. Within a year's time based upon good behavior and compliance on your part, you shall then be reinstated as a shinobi of Konoha."

He could not help but drop to his knees.

A/N: HEEEEYYYY GUYS!

Thank you so much for reading! I've gone back and edited the first chapter a little. I wasn't happy with the way it flowed, so I tweaked it and added some stuff. Feel free to check it if you're interested! I know I'm a butt and took a good couple of months to update, but there has been a lot going on. Anyway, I won't gore you with the details, but I'm thankful that this semester is about over. But I am excited to tell you all that I was chosen to be an extra in the new Hunger Games Catching Fire movie! It's moments like these that I'm proud to live in this lovely state! I'm so flipping excited for this November!

In other exciting news too, my Red Sox are top in the American League right now! WE'RE AHEAD OF THOSE EFFING YANKS! WOOHOO!

Much love and kisses to you all! I'm working on the next installment so you dollfaces won't have to wait long, I promise. XD And there's just three weeks left in this grueling semester, so I mean it.

Love you bunches,

Konoha no Uchiha Sakura