Though Tsunade prided herself in being his first client, it couldn't have been farther than the truth. Through no conscious decision, Sasuke's second journey was a marked contrast to his first. He went where the winds took him: the sunken ruins of Uzushiogakure, the hollows where the desert winds of Kaze no Kuni would not go. Wherever shinobi rarely trod Sasuke would gladly map with his feet. At some point he started visiting every city, every town, every village that wasn't hidden. He tasted their dishes, bathed in their waters. It was strange at first, but he became used to waking up thinking of nothing more pressing than the idle necessity of daily sustenance. From time to time he stood guard at their festivals, walked by their trade carts. Somehow there was always work, even for a crippled, masterless warrior, even for a clumsy, unskilled young man.
Once in a while he suffered to sit down and wrote everything. Above anything else, shinobi traded in information, or Sasuke thought they used to. So he wrote his observations and had his hawk carry them to Kakashi, bill by bill of shinobi bank notes paying for his atonement. He wondered if that was what it looked like to Tsunade, who as the former Hokage would have access. The Hokage's tax-man, she'd dubbed him glibly. No Konoha-nin knew the outside world better than Sasuke (and, as he would discover after their journey, Tsunade herself).
In all his travels he'd not once heard of Orochimaru, though that didn't mean anything. The man was slippery. Stopping at major towns along the way had seemed a sound idea at the time. Information was critical to a manhunt, and information flowed to crowded space the way everything ended in the sewer.
His first day on the job, they stopped at a hub town in Ishi. Sasuke's first act as a rehabilitated and recently-leashed Konoha genin was to hold back a Kusa-nin before he became a smear on the card table.
Splitting up had seemed sound at the time, being that they were both highly capable shinobi. Apparently Sasuke had overestimated the Godaime Hokage's ability to conduct herself during duty.
"We're leaving," he groused in Tsunade's ear. The casino was packed, and the mob were closing in. A bet was already going around: ronin vs shinobi, who would win? Sasuke smacked the Kusa-nin between the shoulders, rendering him unconscious. "Now."
Tsunade's glare was unfocused, but she followed him outside with only a little protest. She followed him all the way to the inn, humming to herself and ambulating like a drunk, bipedal tortoise. Sasuke couldn't stop checking for residue of her genjutsu. There wasn't any. He knew he didn't have to take this mission; his standing with Konoha couldn't have possibly worsened. Or in the opposite direction, he doubted this woman could help him in that regard.
He checked them into the cheapest inn in town, into the cheapest room that wasn't a closet. At the rate she was going he would be paid entirely in gambling debts. He had gone on what Konoha's office would classify as escort missions, but only this one brought unwelcome memories of his very first. Drunk, ornery clients and S-rank missing nin. All that was missing was the annoying teammates and indifferent commander. Not that Tsunade couldn't play those roles in a pinch.
"A hell of a thing, isn't it? Having someone believe in you," Tsunade said apropos of nothing. She was laid on her back in the only bed. Sasuke looked up from where he was folded on the floor, then resumed poking at the hole in his cloak. It had come a long way from the blue cloak Sakura had gifted him. He could almost hear her click her tongue, saw the strands of her hair swinging as she shook her head. She would mutter something about taking better care of himself even as she handed him a shiny new cloak.
Sasuke closed his eyes, exhaled, and took out his sewing kit. Tsunade's voice droned over his head. Sleep-talking, he thought.
"He gazes at you with this fervor, blind as a man gazing into the sun. You wonder, does he know me better than I know myself, to know the great man I could become? You try, oh how you try to shine. Only you are not the sun, and you've burned yourself inside out before this came to light. Then when you turn to him, he will look away from your pitiful husk. It was never you; it was this phantasm he will by heaven turn into reality. It was never about you."
The cloak held fast between his feet, Sasuke sewed. One, two, three stitches, then Tsunade said, quite lucidly, "Oi, Uchiha, were you really Orochimaru's disciple? I can't imagine he would condescend to teach someone dull."
"Orochimaru wanted my body; he didn't need my mind." The bed creaked, and he felt rather than saw her incredulous stare. Needle in, needle out, needle poking his toe. The eyes didn't go away. Apparently he wasn't getting out of this silent. "What, you and Orochimaru?"
"Are you always so literal?" Tsunade snorted, laying back down. "All right, then, suppose this is a narrative. Try a bit closer to home."
"Naruto. Believes in you. Or you thought he did."
"But you have to wonder sometimes, what is your substance? What are you when he is not present to conjure you for you? Isn't that why you left? Have you found it?"
A wise man would have stayed quiet. Sasuke had never thought himself wise, but inebriated by atmosphere seemed more likely. "We were talking about you."
"Ah well, he's dead and I'm a relic of the past, not so interesting."
"Did you kill him?" Sasuke interrupted, suspicious that they were no longer speaking of Naruto. He needed to know for leverage, he told himself, since she knew so much of him already.
"It would have devastated him to see me fall," she said quietly. When he looked up she was tracing gibberish in air. "It would have killed him to know he was the reason I lost myself. Such a fool. Love. Sakura tried to kill you, didn't she."
The needle was heavy in his hand. There was rust right under his index finger. But even focusing intently on his work he couldn't block out her voice. "Strange things people do in the name of love. She's stronger than you think. Sakura."
"Do you have a point?" The job done, Sasuke reluctantly snapped the thread and packed up.
Tsunade laughed. She refused to explain why, and instead demanded that Sasuke made his report. There was nothing on the Orochimaru front, but since she hadn't specified he summarised the state of Ishi. How its civilian holdings, comprising ninety five percent of the country, would have flourished if only they could have amputated the almost-parasitic hidden village. It was always tiny and at loggerheads with Kusa, but with the amnesty and then cooperation between the major countries suddenly there were fewer jobs for both hidden villages.
There. Succinct and thorough. A most excellent bedtime story. Sasuke went to sleep with one ear pressed to the sleeping bag and a hand flat on the other.