The first thing Tsunade saw upon waking up was Sasuke sitting by her bed. She had better; Sasuke had been sitting so close to her for hours. Sakura's fault. Sasuke didn't want to think about Sakura, so he watched Tsunade's eyes slowly focus on him.
She was still for so long he thought she'd fallen asleep with her eyes open. "You're still here," she said as though to a dream.
"My apparition," Sasuke said, and offered the food Sakura had prepared. "Vengeance for my clan."
It was the standard medicinal field ratio: nutritional broth that smelled like dirt. Judging by Tsunade's face it must have tasted like landfill. She sat up and took the bowl from him. If he tried, Sasuke could see the vestiges of the young woman she'd rather present to the world behind the wrinkles. Her distinctive, elegant bones were even more prominent. Striking was the word, though most people looked better without the pallor of a corpse. He caught himself and stared at the wall, fighting down the flush in his neck.
If Tsunade noticed, she didn't say anything as she handed him back the bowl. "Sakura still here?"
Water for her throat, then. "Yes."
"Ah." Tsunade knocked back the glass.
"Ah."
"Your bedside manners, Uchiha." She blew his name as profanity. But as she shifted, the line above her eyes he'd thought was a wrinkle eased. "I see how it is. Had a quarrel, eh, so now you come to ogle another woman, you cad."
She frowned when he didn't react, for once noticing the atmosphere. "Chin up, kid, it happens. Wouldn't be right if a couple never fight, but it's not the end."
Shrugging, Sasuke leaned forward. "Did you truly kill him? Your… precious person. The one who believed in you."
"If it hurts your sensibilities to say lover, his name was Dan," she said dryly. "Orochimaru told you that? No? I did? The whole speech? Dare I hope it wasn't verbatim?" It took her some time to jog her memories, but once she did she had to be prompted to get back to him. "Yes… you could say that. I had the chance, and I let him slip away. I couldn't heal anyone after that either; I was useless; I despised the shinobi way and everything it has consumed, and everyone consummated with it. So I deserted."
No wonder she had expressed wonderment at her own appointment. "But you came back."
Tsunade favoured him with a lopsided grin. "Why, I was needed; who am I to say no? My grandfather built the village. It was his dream, a place for silly boys to dream and succeed. The hat was Dan's and my brother's, and heaven only knows how many other loud brats. The man who'll run the best ramen bar in the world; the world's first mental care facility for children and the compassionate girl who dreams it. You wonder why; you're really asking, would I have let the village that birthed these people die? Someone had to staunch Konoha's bleeding; I was it. That's all."
Then, an afterthought that seemed too dismissive to be anything but a confession, "Besides, who wouldn't jump at the chance to mold a whole village to her liking? Hey, Uchiha, mind if I lie down?"
She'd done it about five sentences ago. She hadn't told him to go away, so Sasuke asked, "But it was never your dream?"
"Eh, what's an old woman got to dream?" she said dismissively. "Dreams, faith in your person… those are nice, but sometimes it's a matter of answering the needs of others."
Faith again. Sasuke's thoughts turned back to Orochimaru, or rather Tsunade's drunk speech which turned out to have been quoted, word for word, from Orochimaru. So Orochimaru of all people had gone on and on about faith. As a warning?
It was a lot of wild-guessing and as good as gossiping, but sleep-deprived, Sasuke had looser control of his tongue and imagination both. He laid it out to her. "But it wasn't that your… lover didn't know or believe in the real you. Maybe it was you. Orochimaru thought you believed in him and drew his whatever from that." And then Tsunade had revealed otherwise, hence the bitter comment? There was only so much gossip he would indulge.
"I've thought him worried in his own way, even jealous. Nothing so salacious as desire, just that he disliked that I was so besotted with a man so far beneath us. In retrospect it was prescient of him, but…" Tsunade grimaced. "No, I don't believe in our long history Orochimaru has ever held me so high in his regard."
Tsunade looked pensive, pale and worn, and belatedly Sasuke recalled Sakura's rant of well-meaning visitors who aggravated her patients. But the one before him snapped herself out of it and said, "Pah, we'll find out from the mouth of the horse itself. That reminds me, what did you do with the Ishi-nin?"
He told her. She sat up as though the pillow was on fire. "Did Orochimaru deliberately make you stupid?" Tsunade was livid and taut – literally, the lines on her face disappeared right under his watch, leaving only the one borne of irritation on her forehead.
"Konoha could handle it better. Also, you were wounded." Really, Sasuke could have sworn she had had more wrinkles than that. He considered, briefly, of continuing on this irritating vein – for her own good, of course. "There's those deserters you healed."
It was the worst thing he could have said. Tsunade leapt and swooped past him, or tried to, and really hobbled her way out. Sasuke sighed. Sakura would kill him. But he was also trying not to think of her, so he hovered by Tsunade's elbow, and was impressed despite himself that she didn't once need his help.
Sasuke had left the prisoners in the servant's chamber. They weren't imprisoned, per se, they – Sasuke and Sakura – hadn't put much more effort into confinement beyond restricting the chakra flow of the one who was only mildly injured, and letting convalescence handle the other.
The former glared at them warily as they entered, also frowning in confusion until recognition flashed in his eye, then it was back to glaring. Sasuke found a chair and tested it. Satisfied, he went to stand by the door and pretended not to notice the way Tsunade just dropped herself on it. And just sat for the longest moment, catching her breath, until the Ishi-nin's curiosity got the better of him.
"What–"
She made a spitting noise without actually spitting. "I don't care about what happens to deserters from another village; I don't even care about your village. But you will tell me how your ANBU got a hold of Orochimaru's technique – oh, the base is that of your old hero, but the maggot is all Orochimaru. Isn't that how you wound up in middle of nowhere, Ame? You were desperate to heal your partner, heard about Orochimaru's old lab in the area." She nodded to the other, who looked vastly better, if still deader than a log.
The Ishi-nin clamped his jaw. Strange, for a deserter to still be loyal to his village. Sasuke thought of reminding him to be grateful, but if Tsunade'd thought it could've been useful she would've said it already. Tsunade went on, "So what is it? You turned your head when he set up his research in the area, and in return you get techniques? intelligence?"
The Ishi-nin spat in her direction and swore. "Do you get off pretending to be a Buddha, hag? Have your old buddy destroy Ishi so you could fix it?"
Tsunade smiled. Not your friendly neighbourhood obasan, this woman. "Sure, whatever helps you sleep at night. I'll even take care of your Orochimaru problem, how about that? As you say, us old friends have a score to settle." Then soberly, she said, "We'll help you get as far away from Ishi as possible, once I'm certain your partner can make it. My word as the Godaime Hokage."
In Sasuke's esteem that shouldn't have meant much, but the Ishi-nin looked at him, and he looked pointedly at the slumbering deserter, and reluctantly, the Ishi-nin began talking. Not much; this man didn't seem eloquent to begin with. Sasuke gathered that with alliance between the greater villages, the smaller villages found work drying up for them for one reason or another. Ishi had always competed with Kusa; the game just suddenly got a lot smaller. The man mostly blamed Konoha, or rather, to Sasuke's amusement, Naruto, who seemed to have spearheaded most of the alliance. Ishi was driven to a brink, and coincidentally, Orochimaru came to set up shop there. So it was Konoha's fault all around.
It was also Orochimaru's idea to bring down Konoha's wrath on Kusa. The fake ANBU gears had come from him, too; the Ishi-nin wearing them had not. And this got their prisoner frothing. His kage would never have thought to sacrifice his men before Konoha's snake poisoned his mind.
"Do you agree with him?" Sasuke said. They were in the hallway, and both he and Tsunade were doing their best to ignore the part where Tsunade practically crawled along the wall. He had half a mind to scold her for treating the sick Ishi-nin in her state. Just half.
"Eh," Tsunade said.
"Eh, that's a load of crap? Eh, maybe you shouldn't have left Konoha to Kakashi and Naruto so soon?"
The stairway. Sasuke braced her by the elbow, since the railing had been destroyed. Tsunade said nothing, didn't even give him the side-eye. Sasuke made a note to seek Sakura, only for the devil herself to wait for them at the landing, hand on mouth and far too many troublesome emotions parading through her expression.
Sasuke dithered, but Tsunade was faster.
"Yes, it is. Exactly what it looks like. Heaven's sake, Sakura, I didn't beat the insecurity out of you so you could be jealous of me." She shoved Sasuke's arm onto Sakura, nearly toppling over her, and staggered into her room.
Sakura's face was fast matching her shirt. It was the perfect opportunity to straighten out his relationship to her, which was why Sasuke cowardly said, "It's really important to her."
She seemed to finally realise she still had his hand and was about to let go, but Sasuke twisted and grabbed her wrist. "Tsunade and I, we–"
"N-no, don't worry about that!" He could almost feel the heat radiating off her face. "Shishou's right, I was just being stupid."
"She didn't say that." She looked skeptical. Sasuke said, "We'll talk. I promised, so we'll talk. But she needs you right now."
Though Tsunade didn't think so, and somehow had found a way to seal the door. However much she fretted, Sakura didn't want to break in, and neither did Sasuke. They drifted to the room they had taken turns sleeping in, sitting side by side on the small bed. It was a tight fit, very apt for their situation.
His back warm from the rare afternoon sun shining through the curtainless window, Sasuke decided he owed Sakura, and began first. "Tsunade is looking for someone. She thinks I can help her. As a bait, at least."
Sakura made a small noise. She always did have a sharp mind. "Orochimaru? But why?"
"Ah," Sasuke exhaled slowly. "You of all people should understand."
"Well, yes, but…" Sakura did know, and had confessed as much; they both knew: bonds that transcend betrayals and desertions and attempted or successful killings, bonds that turned a willingness to save a life to an entitlement to end it. "But you saw her! You were with her, you know she couldn't fight Orochimaru."
"Ah. I'm not going to let her die," Sasuke said.
"O-oh, I didn't mean to imply–"
She froze as his knuckles brushed hers, then his hand covered hers, and then it was Sasuke's turn to suppress a shiver. "Give her time."
Sakura sighed. "And you as well."
She smelled like moldy cotton, like he did, like the entire house did. Sasuke inhaled deeply. "I don't know if the world needs the Uchiha. Konoha is doing well, has been for a long time, without my clan."
She squeezed his hand and trapped it between hers. "But we need you," she said, an edge of desperation in her voice. "Naruto, Kakashi-sensei. I need you. And if it's Kakashi-sensei, I'm sure he could be made to work with you. He has to. He knows it's injustice, he knows it encompasses more than the Uchiha. I mean it, Sasuke-kun. It's absolutely the problem of the entire village if a clan, even the founding clan, can be marginalised to the point of extinction, and he's sworn to make things better and Naruto–"
Sasuke shook his head. "Kakashi's doing what he can, and even that idiot Naruto is getting involved in everything. You're all working hard, but it's not easy. Konoha isn't going to change overnight. I can understand that. Anyway, Naruto and Kakashi have the entire village behind them. And you… you're strong, Sakura. The kind of strength I wish I'd understood when Itachi told me to seek power.
"But that's my clan, Sakura. That's the Uchiha. We're made for war and violence. Our pride and joy we awaken through loss and despair. And vengeance. You don't know how right it'd felt."
He was afraid to look at her and saw revulsion, but her gentle hand cupped his chin, imploring him to look at her. What she could have seen in his hideous eyes he didn't know; he definitely knew it wasn't worth the compassion in hers. "But you've overcome it. Yes, for a while you were lost… so lost that I'd believed you were beyond help… but you pulled yourself out, Sasuke-kun, and I think that's remarkable."
"No, that was Naruto. I can't ever win against him."
A ghost of a smile lit on her face. "I don't think anyone can. Um, you must be tired of hearing this…"
He brushed the fringe covering her seal, letting his hand linger there. Sakura leaned into the touch. A pleasant tingle sparked from his fingers all the way to his head, and he murmured, "I know. I'm not alone. I can trust you, Sakura, to catch me when I fall. But not with myself. Not with where I'm going." He wasn't making much sense, he knew; it frustrated him to no end. "Not the way I have with Itachi."
Sakura pulled away to look at him in the eye, taking with her words with which he could have explained himself. She understood anyway. "You want to be absolutely sure that no matter what you do, it's a decision that you've thought and chosen for yourself."
He told himself he absolutely deserved her long-suffering sigh. Then her cynicism. "I suppose I can understand that. So you'll need more time. That's all right. After five years, what's a few more?" She had every right to her non-existent faith in him and his promises, too. Somehow, she still had the grace to favour him with an apologetic, if pained, smile. "But, well, it's not really about me, is it?"
"I'm sorry."
Her snort echoed between the dilapidated furniture. The bed sprang with her rise, or that was his insides taking flight, leaving him empty. He almost didn't hear her say, "I think, at the end of the day, in my better moments, all I really want is for you to be happy – but you think happiness is nebulous, anyway, so I'll settle for peace."
Her grin was cheeky and pained at once. It was her kiss that nearly undid him, made him greedy. He wanted more than her lips on his forehead. But they were still moving, and he forced himself to listen to the words coming out of them. "… if Konoha's not a part of it, or, or if I'm not, then so be it. Just… to be able to be content with yourself. That's it, Sasuke-kun."
Sasuke closed his eyes, thought to hell with it, and kissed her back. On the lips, but just a peck, to tease her, but more himself. It was a promise, and what was one more between them?