Not Sick Chapter 34
Well Wishes
"Itachi."
Sasuke's brother looked up, and Tsunade saw something in his eyes. Admiration or resignation, she couldn't tell. It hardly mattered to her. She was far, far too furious for that to matter to her.
"Find Danzo," she said, her voice clipped. "Kill him. And get back that eye."
He nodded, and without a word vanished from her office.
Tsunade stared at nothing in particular, allowing herself to indulge in murderous fantasies. If only she'd never gone to that damnable Summit, things might have been different. It was too late now, though; fantasies were merely wasting time she could better spend saving Konoha was this… disaster.
There had been twenty ANBU posted to guard the Rinnegan, dispersed in and around the hospital; more than enough, it had been presumed, to prevent any covert assault. From the information gathered from the survivors, Tsunade surmised that at least four of them had been former agents of Root. They had turned on their comrades, silently slaughtering several of them moments before an assault group, certainly more Root agents, had moved into the hospital and drawn the ire of the survivors. Most of the new group had gone to secure the Rinnegan, with the rest engaging the ANBU and keeping them from raising the alarm.
More than half the assaulting team had met a gruesome end at the hands of Tsunade's apprentice and Sasuke Uchiha, but they had exfiltrated with their target nonetheless.
Now, nine loyal ANBU were dead.
Tatsumi Inuzuka, stabbed through the neck. Her nin-dog has survived, though its front left arm had been burned and badly broken.
Akame Homaru, punctured lung: drowned in her own blood.
Miharu Ken, slit throat.
Tsutsume Tokiomi, slit throat.
Suzaku Sera, slit throat.
Arisu Tsendo, broken neck and extreme toxin, the product of a rare breed of Aburame insects. No one had been able to determine which had ultimately killed him, but the man had survived at least one grievous injury and warned his comrades over the radio.
Yugao Uzuki, boiled heart.
Hajime Koto, decapitated.
And Miko Tsukasa, who had lost an arm and a leg and bled out thanks to an anti-coagulate coating the blade that had maimed her.
Tsunade hardly cared to remember the names of the dead Root. There had been about twenty-five attackers; probably a decent fraction of Danzo's total forces. Nineteen of them were dead, whether at the hands of loyal ANBU or Sakura and Sasuke. One had been captured, and the remaining ones had fled.
Along with the rest of Root, apparently. Danzo was nowhere to be found, and over one-hundred and fifty shinobi had vanished out of the village. It was a blow, just as much as the loss of the Rinnegan was. Worse yet, Tsunade had no idea where they could have gone.
Well, not no idea. But information on Root's facilities inside and outside of Konoha was sparse at best.
Sakura was in the hospital. It almost felt like a personal insult, that Danzo had maimed Tsunade's student as he'd betrayed the village. Her right eye was beyond repair; most everything above the iris was gone. So was the Root operative who went by "Sai": he had sustained a nasty stab wound that went deeply into his left shoulder as well as a broken wrist, the product of a Root assassination attempt, but was otherwise unharmed. That was good. He would probably have some much needed information.
Tsunade's hands curled into fists, and she glanced at them. Right there in her hands she held enough power to destroy the entire building with little effort, but that hadn't stopped Danzo from stabbing her in the back, along with the rest of Konoha. She'd had him, even. At her mercy.
If she'd just crushed him back then, in her office, so much could have been avoided. A brutal and unnecessary action could have averted this.
Would it have been worth it?
The Hokage sighed, leaning back and closing her eyes. She was slipping back into thoughts about revenge: that wasn't productive. She had to focus on what was, not on what could have been.
It wasn't worth dancing around. Itachi would find Danzo. That was a certainty. But it all likelihood, by the time he did the damage would be done.
'Returning the Nibi will be a start.'
She couldn't meet the Raikage's ultimatum. With the Rinnegan gone, Konoha no longer had access to the captured Bijuu. And with that…
Tsunade laughed. It was a dry, humorless chuckle, an exhalation that slipped from her lips and fell lifelessly upon her desk.
Without the Nibi, Konoha could not make a gesture of peace. Without the Bijuu, the Raikage's conspiracy appeared that much more justified. Kumogakure's military escalation wouldn't be abated. Iwagakure would likely follow, along with Mist's.
Which meant that Konoha had no choice but to respond in kind.
With one move, Danzo had forced his way on the Village Hidden in the Leaves. The man had constantly called for military expansion: now, by leaving the village, he'd done more to make the Leaf follow his will than he ever had as a part of it.
Tsunade couldn't help but laugh again. She wondered how much of this was bad luck, and how much of it Danzo had planned. There was no way the man could have known about the Bijuu.
Something in her chest constricted.
"Shizune," she called out, and her longtime apprentice entered silently. The younger girl had been waiting outside. Dan's niece had heavy eyes. She knew, just as much as Tsunade, what this meant for them.
"Call the Jonin Council," Tsunade said, the words bitter in her mouth. "We have to prepare for the worst."
Naruto Uzumaki regarded Sakura with horribly sympathetic eyes. Sakura wished she could receive his pity with some measure of grace, but instead all it inspired in her was embarrassment and anger.
They were both sitting on a short flight of stairs, atop the main Academy building. It was the same place they'd met with Kakashi, three years ago. They hadn't meant to find each other here, but something had pulled them to the place regardless. Naruto's arms were slung over his knees, both pulled up high in a semi-squat, as he stared over at her with his pathetic pitying eyes.
The medical patch over her socket itched, and Sakura resisted the urge to scratch at it. The hospital staff had had to remove what was left of the damaged eye; Sakura knew the procedure, in theory, but she'd never imagined undergoing it herself. The bandages covering her thighs, forearm, and hand didn't irritate her as badly, but they still weighed on her limbs, far more than they should have.
"Are you okay?" Naruto asked for the second time. His voice wormed under her skin, like a thick burr, and a long-ignored part of herself bristled at it.
"I lost my eye, Naruto," she snapped, and the blond withdrew, as though she'd burned him. "A Leaf ninja cut it out while trying to assassinate me." She turned towards him, leaning forward, letting him see her flushed face and eyepatch in full. Sakura felt her lips tremble. "Do you think I'm okay?"
"I don't know what else to ask!" Naruto shot back, his voice rising to just below a yell. Sakura imagined the sound echoing up to the painfully blue sky. "I don't–" He cut himself off, taking a deep breath. "I don't know what to do, Sakura. I don't know how I'm supposed to treat you, or–"
"Naruto." Her brisk voice shut his mouth, and he looked down, seemingly ashamed. Sakura felt shame of her own flow through her body, turning her forehead bright red, but managed to quell it. "Naruto, look at me."
Her teammate looked up, and Sakura sighed, closing her eye.
"Please, Naruto, I'm begging you." She felt so tired. "Just talk about something else."
With her eye closed, Sakura was too aware of the deep ache where the other should be. She imagined it as a red light, flashing on and off, sending a pulse of pain through her entire head, rattling her teeth and shocking her brain. Like a siren, clamoring to be heard, desperate to point out that something was wrong.
"Eh?"
Naruto's tactless exclamation cut the siren down, and after a second of awkward silence, Sakura couldn't help but laugh.
"I don't want to talk about my eye."
"Oh." Naruto shifted, looking away from her and out at the village. Sakura followed his gaze. Konoha didn't look any different: despite the loss of the Rinnegan, despite her maiming, life went on. Shinobi could lose something important every day. A comrade, a limb, family. It was the reality of their world. Sakura had lived her whole life being told that, but being the one who had lost still left her with a bitter feeling.
Amegakure hadn't given her this feeling: everyone had walked away from it whole of body, even if Naruto had been shaken. Sakura hadn't had illusions of invincibility, or she didn't think so, but there was something different about this. Maybe that was just time. Maybe in two weeks, she'd regard her eye the same way she did Amegakure.
"I went on a date with Hinata," Naruto said, and Sakura's internal ruminations slammed to a halt.
"What?"
"Whoa," Naruto jerked, startled, as she whipped around to face him. "What'd I do?"
"You went on a date with Hinata?" Sakura asked, not quite smiling. "When?"
"Ah…" Naruto scratched his shoulder. "Yesterday, actually. We went for a… walk, I guess, and we got some dango." He frowned, his nose scrunching up. "It was weird."
"What kind of weird?" Sakura scooted towards her teammate, giving him her full attention.
"Not, like…" Naruto gulped. "Not like bad weird. Just…" He gave up, scratching more persistently at his arm. "I didn't really know what to, uh, do."
"Did you embarrass yourself?" Sakura asked, and Naruto snorted.
"Probably," he admitted, and for the first time in three days Sakura laughed. "But hey, I didn't take her to a ramen place!" He considered. "And I thought I was very polite."
"She probably found that weird too, Naruto," Sakura muttered, smiling despite herself. Her left hand ached, the bandage wrapped around it itching her palm. "You should act like yourself around her. That's why she likes you, after all."
Naruto looked at her like she'd ridden a bolt of lightning down to deliver that particular sentence. "You think?"
Sakura shook her head, exasperated. "Jeez, you really didn't know what you were doing."
"Hey, who was I supposed to ask?" Naruto interjected. "You? You were off doing… stuff. I sure as hell wasn't going to ask Sasuke about it. Iruka just…" He stopped midsentence. "Shit. Iruka said the same thing as you." Sakura giggled.
"Well, there wasn't anyone else!" Naruto protested. "Can you imagine what Kakashi-sensei would have said? He probably would have whipped out one of his books and said something like–"
"Well Naruto–"
Naruto spun around, his mouth wide open.
"–all you have to do is treat her kindly, take her out to a nice dinner, maybe go on a lovely walk up by the Hokage monument, and then, when the time is right–"
"Stop right there!" Naruto shot up, his face going red. He pointed at Kakashi, who'd seemingly appeared out of nowhere. The man was perched on the nearest railing, like an oversized cat. "Don't say something you can't take back!"
Sakura had gone to her feet as well (how did their teacher do that?), but even surprised as she was, she could tell Kakashi was smiling behind his mask.
"...Give her a nice kiss goodnight." Kakashi dropped off the railing and strolled forward, his hands held up innocently. "What? What did you think I was going to say?"
Naruto's arm dropped limply. "Nothing," he said, the red draining out of his face. "Just… uh, nothing."
"Hmm." Kakashi cocked his head. "You've been proofreading too much."
The joke flew over Sakura's head, but she didn't let it show. "How long have you been listening?" she asked instead, trying not to laugh, and her teacher turned to her. To her relief, she couldn't see any of the same cloying pity in his eye as had been in Naruto's. Instead, he regarded her with warmth.
"Long enough to set that up," the man replied with a shrug, and Naruto made a noise somewhere between a growl and a groan.
"Whatever. If you're gonna make fun of me, just get it over with." He crossed his arms with a pout. "At least I had a date, Sensei."
"I'm so proud of you, Naruto," Kakashi smiled back. "Between your table manners, personal hygiene, volume, poverty, looks, my, most of us had given up hope."
"Pffffffffft." Sakura had to put her hand over her mouth. Naruto couldn't say anything: he just stared at his teacher with flat eyes.
"Too much?" Kakashi asked.
"Actually…" Naruto said in a dead voice. Sakura could tell he was struggling not to grin. "That was pretty good."
Kakashi's eye closed into another smile. "I aim to please." He dug into the pouch on his leg. "Speaking of which…"
He pulled out a small pink flower, and Sakura blinked. The incongruity of the bright pedals emerging from the equipment of a darkly dressed shinobi seemed ironic to her. Maybe that wasn't the right word.
"Sakura," Kakashi said, walking over to her. "This is for you."
"It's… beautiful, Sensei," she said. He extended his hand, and she took the flower into hers, cupping it uncertainly.
"It is," he said. His smile grew bittersweet. "It's also a good pain reliever, properly prepared of course. I'm sure Ino could tell you all about it if you ask her." Sakura looked up at him, eye wide. "I could show you a good place to collect them, if you want."
Sakura looked back down at the flower. "Sensei…" Back up. "Kakashi, I…"
"Hey." The bittersweet smile was more obvious than ever. "I understand, Sakura." He tapped his hitai-ate. "Trust me. It will help."
Of course he would understand. It seemed stupid to her that she hadn't thought of it before, at least so clearly. Kakashi had lost his own eye when he was even younger than her: even if it had been replaced by his titular Sharingan, he had been in the same pain as her.
She could talk to him about this. She should talk to him about this. It had only been a couple days, and already she was tired of everyone around her avoiding the subject. She needed someone to talk to.
"Thank you, sensei." She closed her palm, hiding the flower. She could see Naruto in her peripheral vision, craning to see her palm between her and her sensei. "I appreciate it."
"Hmm." Naruto's mutter bought her attention, and she glanced at him.
"What is it, Naruto?" she asked.
"Ah…" His hands came up. "It's nothing. I was just looking at the two of you and thinking…"
"Oh, you're right." Kakashi reached out for her hair, and Sakura jerked away instinctively. "Hold still for a second, Sakura."
She did, not understanding what they were talking about. Kakashi's hand came to rest on top of her forehead protector, still wrapped around her head in in such a way that the plate lay facing upwards.
"Hey, what're you–" she started to ask, before Kakashi gently tugged the hitai-ate downwards. She felt the straps push their way up her neck, before her teacher brought the metal plate to a lopsided stop just above her eye.
The jonin stepped back, admiring his handiwork, and Naruto moved up to join him.
"Huh. I was right," Naruto said, and Kakashi nodded.
"What?" Sakura's hands quested upwards, feeling how Kakashi had moved her hitai-ate. It was slung diagonally over her face, carefully positioned to not inhibit her vision. She could feel it had gone over the medical eyepatch, hiding most of it. It took a moment for her to realize exactly what her teacher had done.
"Oh god," she muttered, her hand dropping.
"You look great!" Naruto said with a wide grin. "Very… professional!"
"Oh Naruto, I never knew you felt that way about me," Kakashi said with some mirth.
"No," Naruto declared. "I don't. She just does it way better than you."
As Kakashi nursed his fresh wound, Naruto turned his attention back to Sakura. She barely noticed.
'I never…'
"Sakura?" The blond's face twisted a little. "Sakura, are you okay?"
She started crying. She could feel it: something hot welling up in her eye. There was no sensation from the other one.
'There is no other one.'
"No, Sakura, don't–!" Naruto said with a clear note of panic. The high-pitched sound made Sakura giggle through the tears.
"Naruto, I'm not…" she said, trying not to choke as more tears escaped. "It's okay." She staggered forward and pulled him into a hug.
"I…" Naruto's hands came up with hesitation, patting her on the back. "It's okay?"
She nodded, seeing Kakashi smile at her over Naruto's shoulder. "It's okay," she repeated. She pulled back with a sniffle. "Thank you."
"Hmm." Kakashi scratched his chin. "We should show Sasuke this. I need to say goodbye to you all anyway."
"Wait, what?" Naruto spun around. "Goodbye? Where the hell are you going?"
Kakashi shrugged bonelessly. "I'll tell you when we're all together. You have any idea where he is?"
Naruto shook his head. Sakura did the same.
"Well," Kakashi said, pulling a book from the front pocket of his flak jacket. "Let's go find him then."
Sasuke's new apartment was just a tiny bit smaller than his old one, and every time the Uchiha realized it, it slapped him in the face once more.
It was more than enough. An extended room with a squared off kitchen separated by a nice marble countertop, with an attached bathroom opposite. A decent sized bed in the corner, a cabinet in the other: he even had a balcony, like in his old home.
But everything was just a tiny bit smaller than what he had once had. It seemed appropriate to him. The apartment was one of thousands throughout the village directly subsidized by the Daimyo and the Land of Fire's military, meant to provide comfortable and affordable living for shinobi in the Villages. As a child, Sasuke had lived in his clan compound: he'd only needed to to step foot in one of these apartments after his family had died.
Now, he resided in one by the grace of the Hokage, thanks to the efforts of his team.
Yes. It was very appropriate indeed.
He was seated by the counter, on one of the two chairs in the room. His hands were wrapped around a glass of milk; it was pleasantly cold, though it wasn't a truly hot day. Sasuke hadn't had milk in several months. It wasn't something he normally enjoyed, but he'd bought it on impulse at the grocery store earlier.
He hadn't been in a grocery store for several months either, for that matter. When he'd been with Orochimaru, he'd been encouraged to hunt for his own food, though the Sharingan made such a thing pathetically easy. The man would occasionally provide meals of his own, usually of stunning quality. Sasuke had tried not to think about what the Sannin may have been putting in his food. After Sasuke had left, he'd gotten the vast majority of his meals from either wildlife or restaurants, whichever was more convenient.
Walking into a market where one could buy whatever one desired, Sasuke had felt almost overwhelmed by choice, though he'd obviously not let it show. As he'd left, he had worried about the clerk recognizing him. Irrationally: the Sasuke Uchiha known throughout Konohagakure three years ago and the Sasuke Uchiha of today looked very different. Acted differently as well. The old man at the counter had smiled at him while looking over the food he'd picked out. Noodles, edamame, tomatoes, some biscuits, several cuts of salmon… nothing remarkable. And the milk, of course.
Sasuke took a sip. The thick taste brought him back to an earlier time, when he didn't have to reacquaint himself with civilization. It lay on the line between comforting and alienating.
"Sasuke."
He spun around so quickly that the glass of milk nearly flew across the room. The cup in his hand would have cracked if he had not been careful to hold it with a light application of chakra, rather than a reflex grip.
Even now, the sound of his brother's voice still yanked up from deep within him an instinctive readiness.
Itachi had entered from the balcony. Unsurprisingly, he'd slid apart the glass doors separating it from the apartment proper without making a sound. Now, he was standing in the center of the room in strangely casual clothes, watching Sasuke with keen eyes.
"What are you doing here?" Sasuke said, narrowing his eyes.
"I apologize," Itachi said, walking forward. He took a seat besides Sasuke, his posture perfect as always. "Perhaps I should have knocked."
"It's alright," Sasuke said, turning back towards the counter and setting his glass of milk down. "You were always like that."
Itachi chuckled. "It's not a good habit."
Sasuke grunted in vague agreement.
"Hmm. Milk?" Itachi asked. Sasuke wondered why he wasn't getting to the point. That was unusual. "You never liked milk much."
"I felt like it," Sasuke responded, taking another sip. It was growing on him a little. He left the second part of the sentence unspoken, but he was sure his brother heard it anyway.
'Answer the question.'
"I received my first mission today, Sasuke."
Sasuke set down the glass with a muffled thump. So that was what it was about then. It made sense. His brother had come to say goodbye. Again.
"I imagine it has something to do with what happened to the Rinnegan."
Itachi nodded. "I've been sent after Danzo."
Danzo.
Sasuke sat back. The glass in his hand cracked.
"Yes," Itachi said, glancing at the glass. "Given the circumstances…" His hands came together in front of him, clasping together. "I thought it appropriate that I ask if you wished to join me."
The younger Uchiha stared at the older. His head was full of white noise.
Danzo.
The man who'd killed his family. The man who'd destroyed the Uchiha. Who'd sent an assassin after him; who'd taken Sakura's eye. Who'd stolen the Rinnegan, and betrayed Konoha. It would be so easy to forgive Itachi, Sasuke thought, if the man who'd forced him into the role of scapegoat were dead. It would be like scraping his brother's sins away.
And yet–
He couldn't. He really couldn't afford to.
The last time he'd left the village, it had been all in the name of taking down Itachi. He'd cut all his bonds for that goal. But vengeance hadn't bought him anything. He'd seen how it would have ended, more than a month ago, in the depths of Itachi's Tsukuyomi, and though he hated to admit it, his brother's illusions had been indistinguishable from reality. It had been the same in the darkness that filled his blinded self in Amegakure, as he struggled with the masked man's ultimatum. A hollow ash, spilling out and infecting everything with its crumbling nihilism.
Vengeance wouldn't bring Sasuke Uchiha the peace he wanted.
Just the same as back in that cold tower, he realized what could.
He had a new chance here. With his old teacher, his old teammates: with Juugo, ever loyal, and Karin, filled with a new warmth. It wasn't a chance he could afford to throw away.
'Our best chance at what?'
"I can't," he said, and Itachi blinked.
"I have to stay here," Sasuke said, and his brother invisibly slumped.
"Oh." Itachi almost sounded disappointed. "I had thought…"
For the first time in Sasuke's experience, his brother seemed lost for words.
"What did you think?" Sasuke asked. The question came out colder than he meant, but he didn't notice. Itachi sat still, not responding.
"Considering what the man had done," Itachi finally said. "I thought it would be unbecoming to not inform you of my mission." He was more formal; stiffer.
Sasuke nodded, leaning back. "Well… thank you," he said, the phrase unfamiliar on his lips. "But I have to stay here."
Itachi rose slowly. "I understand perfectly, Sasuke."
The older brother walked towards the balcony; with a negligent motion, he slid the glass door aside. Sasuke watched his brother go. There was something different about him now. Had he really wanted him to accompany him on his assassination that much?
"Itachi?" Sasuke asked.
His brother didn't turn around. "Yes?"
A silence filled the room, and Sasuke had no idea how to break it. Itachi was waiting for something, but Sasuke had no indication of what.
"Good luck." It was weak, but it was there. Itachi nodded, and vanished as quickly as he'd arrived.
Sasuke turned back to his counter. Something had changed, and he had no idea what it was.
He mulled over the encounter for about a minute, but found nothing more than what he'd already seen. Itachi had reacted strangely to his answer. Had he expected Sasuke to jump at the opportunity to pursue Danzo? A week ago, he would have.
That must have been it. Itachi had been surprised: genuinely surprised. Sasuke imagined that was very rare. That was probably what had generated the unease.
Someone knocked on his front door. Sasuke started. That was the first time someone had knocked on his door: the first time in a long time someone had knocked before entering any room he was in, really. It was strange: unfamiliar. Who could possibly-
No, it was obvious.
He made his way to the door with a dash of uncertainty. It had been years since he'd done something like this. Distantly, Sasuke hoped it didn't show. His front door was varnished wood: it didn't have a peephole through which to observe anyone standing outside of it. The handle was plain bronze.
Sasuke opened the door without ceremony. Naruto Uzumaki beamed at him from the other side.
"Hey," he said, hooking his thumb over his shoulder. Kakashi Hatake and Sakura Haruno stood there, bleeding nonchalance and uncertainty respectively. Sakura's headband had been drawn down over her removed eye, in a mirror of Kakashi. It looked as though the two of them were wearing a peculiar badge of honor. "Can we come in?"
Sasuke couldn't tear his gaze away from over Naruto's shoulder. Seeing Sakura looking like Kakashi was… strange.
'Damn.'
"Of course," he said. His composure had slipped for a nanosecond, but he was sure only Kakashi had noticed. The man's eye had an infuriating tilt to it. "Come in."
Naruto walked in like it was his apartment; Kakashi slunk through the doorway like a wet cat. Sakura was the only one to hesitate at the threshold, before she stepped through with a hint of… wariness? Suspicion? If Sasuke activated his eyes, he'd be able to read her, but without the Sharingan his perceptive abilities were insufficient.
'You're not a people person, Sasuke.'
Who had said that. Kabuto? He should have killed the man after betraying Orochimaru. It would have saved him a lot of strife. And Konoha, now that he considered it. Funny, to consider, in abstract, 'causing trouble' for something like Konoha. One more thing he hadn't done in a long time.
"Huh. You gotta nice place, Sasuke." Naruto's voice drew his attention. "I think it's a bit bigger than mine."
"They're the same size, Naruto," Kakashi said, his eyes scanning over Sasuke's counter. "You and Sasuke have the same kind of apartment." Sakura looked interested at that. She was the only one, Sasuke realized, that hadn't lived in an apartment like this as a child. Kakashi and Naruto, like him, were both orphans. Sakura probably still lived with her family.
"Hmm," Naruto said, looking around. "Well, it's pretty nice."
"It is a little… plain, though," Sakura said, standing with her arms clasped over her elbows. She was right. Sasuke's old apartment had had paintings, a television, some scrolls hanging on the walls. The new one had none of that; the walls were bare.
"I'm working on that," Sasuke said. That was a lie. He hadn't really considered it. It was only now, after Sakura had pointed it out, that he was able to appreciate how spartan his new apartment was compared to the old one. It could use a couch. Or a plant. Maybe some paint...
"Do you need any help?" Sakura asked, and Sasuke regarded her curiously. He wondered what exactly motivated her asking.
"Mm." He didn't know the answer to the question himself. "We'll see." He paused. "What brought you here?"
Naruto, who had wandered over towards the balcony, turned around exuberantly. "Oh! Kakashi needed to tell us all something."
Kakashi nodded. "Right. Considering the circumstances, I figured I should tell you all before I left."
Sasuke concealed his mental double-take. Two people coming to his apartment in the span of ten minutes to give their farewells. That went beyond coincidence and into bizarre.
"Yeah, you said that earlier. Where are you going, sensei?" Sakura asked. The older man closed his eye.
"I'll be leaving the village for the foreseeable future," Kakashi said. "I'm tracking down Obito."
"The masked man?" Naruto asked, and their teacher nodded. Sasuke remembered that night in the tower again, and the later encounter the rain. That man pretending to be Madara, who'd brought him and Naruto to the very edge. It really was just like his brother's departure: Kakashi was being sent after the man who'd done the Leaf massive harm.
It made sense: the timing just struck him as strange.
"Well… cool," Naruto said. Sasuke snorted, and the blond shot him a dirty look. "When are you leaving?"
"Today," Kakashi said. "I really have waited around too long already."
"Do you have any idea where he could be?" Sakura asked, and Kakashi shrugged.
"Somewhat," he said languidly. "All I know is that Orochimaru's got his hands on him." Sasuke wondered how he could possibly have figured that out.
"Orochimaru, huh," Naruto said, his eyes flicking towards Sasuke. Kakashi effortlessly picked up the gesture and shook his head.
"I won't be needing a companion. Well, another," he amended. "Kisame Hoshigaki has already…" he chuckled. "Insisted on coming along."
Sakura frowned at that. "Do you trust him?" Kakashi laughed; it wasn't mean spirited, just dry and soft.
"That doesn't matter. I've worked with people I didn't trust before," he said with comforting assurance. "He has a personal stake in the matter anyway. I'm sure it will be fine."
"Hmm." Naruto leaned against the wall next to the glass doors to the balcony, hands in his pockets. "Well, if you need help sensei, just call. You know we'll come running."
"No doubt, Naruto." Kakashi glanced at Sasuke. "We all know what you're willing to do."
Sasuke barely paid attention to the back and forth. He'd been mulling over the situation since Kakashi had admitted Orochimaru had Obito in his possession. The Snake Sannin finally had an Uchiha: worse yet, one with an incredibly powerful Sharingan. The masked man's intangibility technique had been terrifying to fight against.
Yet, just like last time, he'd been forced to take a subpar body before an optimal host could arrive. With the Fushi Tenshin needing to recharge, there was a window of perhaps a year, maybe two, before Orochimaru could take a new host.
A year before Orochimaru had the Sharingan. A Mangekyo of his own. It was an unpleasant thought.
"Sasuke?"
It was Sakura. She sounded concerned. Sasuke realized he was grinding his teeth.
"I'm fine," he said, snapping out of his fugue. "I hope you find him, Kakashi."
"Don't we all," Kakashi sardonically said. Sasuke grunted in agreement.
"Sakura," the Uchiha said, suddenly turning to her. She smiled back. He hadn't expected that. "You seem to be doing better."
"We talked a little," Sakura said, gesturing towards Naruto, who grinned back. "It helped."
"Was that your idea, or…?" Sasuke asked, drawing his palm across his eye and imitating the headband. Sakura giggled.
"That was sensei," she said. Sasuke was glad to hear some genuine mirth in her voice. Seeing her beaten and bloody in the street outside the hospital, thick black blood leaking from her eye socket, had inspired a vicious feeling in him. "I'm not going to keep it like this, but it's kinda funny, don't you think?"
"It's–" Sasuke stopped mid-word, nearly choking.
'It's cute.' That's what he'd almost said.
Damn it. He couldn't say that. Sakura would turn into a human-shaped beet. Naruto would pester him to his own deathbed. And Kakashi…
Kakashi would never let him forget the slip of tongue as long as either of them existed in any capacity. The man would have it carved on his gravestone if he could get away with it.
"It's very professional looking," he finished, suppressing the cold sweat that stubbornly appeared on the back of his neck.
"Hey!" Naruto said exuberantly. "That's just what I said!" He slapped Sasuke on the back: a familiar contact. It grounded him. "See, Sakura? That's two to one: maybe you should stick with it!"
"No way!" Sakura shook her head with a small laugh. "What will people say?" She looked at Kakashi. "I can't copy the Copy Ninja."
"It would be fitting. Dramatic," Kakashi chuckled. "Jiraiya would love it."
"Oh, crap," Naruto muttered. Everyone in the room glanced at him, and he raised his hands defensively. "Hey, it's nothing. Thanks for reminding me, sensei. I really got to talk to him."
"Oh?" Sakura asked. "What about?"
"Ah, it's nothing," Naruto said. "Just some stuff."
Sasuke smirked.
'Great deflection.'
"What're you looking at?" Naruto asked him with narrow eyes, and the Uchiha shrugged.
"A bad liar." The words slipped out, and he regretted them almost immediately. He was trying too hard. That's what Sasuke Uchiha would have said three years ago: he was almost certain it wasn't what Sasuke Uchiha would say now.
Naruto didn't seem to notice. More likely, he just didn't care. Instead, he laughed.
"Yeah," he said. "I never have been much good at that."
He was such a guileless person. Somehow, it caught Sasuke by surprise every time.
"Alright then," Kakashi said, ambling towards the balcony. He slid the door open, and a cool breeze wafted in. "You kids have fun. Hope to see you sooner rather than later."
"Good luck, Kakashi-sensei," Sakura said warmly. The man looked back, smiled, and was gone.
Sasuke was left alone with his former team. Current team? He almost wanted to ask them. Were they still Team Seven, after all this time, all his mistakes?
"Well… now what?" Sakura asked, and Sasuke had no idea.
"No idea." Naruto echoed him without knowing it. The Uzumaki grinned. "Let's go see if we can find you a couch, Sasuke. This room sucks."
Sasuke almost smiled back. He was sure Naruto saw it in his eyes. Gratitude. An unfinished thought, from back before Itachi had departed, crawled to the forefront of his mind.
'Change.'