Not caring was liberating.

After speaking with his father, Sasuke had spent the entire night lounging against a tree branch replaying their argument. The more he thought about all the words he'd said, the more the knot in his chest untangled and loosened. The words had just slipped out in a moment of frustration and anger. But the more he considered it, the more Sasuke started to make peace with the idea.

Was it so bad to be different from Itachi?

For as long as he could remember, Itachi had been his goal- his obstacle to surpass. Itachi had always been sitting on a throne or pedestal in his mind, the epitome of what a shinobi should be.

Sasuke had worked his whole life to walk the path that Itachi had blazed, gaining strength, and accomplishing milestones as quickly as he could. All the while, telling himself that one day he would close the gap between them and gain his father's approval. But by deciding to remove his father's opinion from the equation…

He would continue to train. He would grow stronger. Not for his father's sake, but for his own. Sasuke had his own reasons for getting stronger. A part of him would probably always subconsciously compete with Itachi. (But wasn't it a natural response to compete with a sibling?) But Itachi wasn't his only goal.

Every time he looked away, she managed to speed ahead. When they were kids, he was secure in the level of his strength over hers. Even after returning to the village, he hadn't felt too concerned by how much she had improved. Recently, however, Naruko's strength seemed to be growing at an exponential rate. Idly, Sasuke wondered how much stronger she would get- how far would she go?

It was a strange situation to be in. He both enjoyed and was frustrated by the challenge that she posed. He could admit to himself that spending the rest of their lives growing stronger and constantly pushing each other sounded like a satisfactory way to live. (But he still wanted to be better than her.)

Newly revitalized by the reorientation of his goals, Sasuke hadn't felt the dread that he'd grown accustomed to when he spotted Naho. His good mood must have been apparent because she seemed even more desperate than usual to be by his side. Surprisingly, his patience with her lasted longer than he expected.

His increased patience didn't extend to his father, however. Truthfully, Sasuke wasn't sure what to expect when he saw his father again. Would he act like last night hadn't happened? Or would he try to approach Sasuke amicably? Did Sasuke even want that?

His neglect must not have been what Fugaku had expected, because the man seemed to struggle with himself upon Sasuke's avoidance. Sasuke could feel his father's surreptitious glances, but he chose to ignore them. (The reversal of their roles was not lost on Sasuke.)

Despite all his revelations from the previous night, Sasuke was still a bit annoyed and upset with his father. To combat this, he repeated his mantra that he no longer cared what his father thought. Be it his father, an arbitrary clan member, or anyone who had compared him to his brother in the past, Sasuke was through with burdening himself with their opinions.

Around midday, his father managed to summon enough courage to approach him during a rare moment of solitude. Sasuke didn't acknowledge his father at first, choosing to remain on his tree branch and wait the man out instead. After about a minute of silence, his father quite loudly cleared his throat. Pausing his lunch, Sasuke peered over the side of the tree branch with a raised brow.

"Sasuke, come down here. I'd like to speak with you," Fugaku started.

What was there left to say? The thought crossed his mind that he didn't have to listen. His father couldn't force him to comply. Nonetheless, Sasuke finished his last onigiri before hopping off his branch and facing his father. Sasuke waited for his father to speak, but the man seemed to be struggling to put his words together.

Fugaku stood ramrod straight with his arms folded over his chest. The posture was a familiar sight on his father, but the noticeably awkward and uncomfortable air about him was new. "Last night, things got out of hand. Harsh words were exchanged, but I think we should put it behind us," Fugaku finally settled on.

"You want to pretend that it didn't happen?" Sasuke clarified in a surprisingly even tone.

"No. It happened. I'm not taking back what I said because I spoke the truth. What I want now is for everything to return to how it was before we left Konoha," Fugaku said in a resolute tone.

"I don't," Sasuke refuted. Fugaku faltered at the flagrant disregard. Doubt was creeping into his eyes and his folded arms slackened. "You meant what you said, and so did I. I'm not Itachi, nor do I care to be."

"I won't ask that of you. I understand that your brother is a lofty goal to set, but-"

"What you want is impossible," Sasuke interrupted his father before the man could inadvertently start another fight.

Fugaku frowned deeply, the first signs of irritation and anger taking root in his eyes. "And why is that?" Fugaku ground out.

"Because I no longer care what you think of me," Sasuke explained as if it were obvious. Fugaku opened and closed his mouth a few times in stunned silence. "I am still an Uchiha and that makes you my clan head. But that's all that you are to me."

"Sasuke," Fugaku said in a warning tone that Sasuke chose to disregard.

"You haven't earned the right to be called "Father"," Sasuke declared in a hard tone.

For a split second, Sasuke wondered if he had gone too far when he saw the hurt straining his father's face. Unlike last night, Sasuke hadn't been trying to wound the man with words. But before he could say anything more, the hurt left Fugaku's face and was replaced with resigned fury. "I can see now that despite my best efforts, I must have failed as a father for both my sons to turn out so shamefully," Fugaku said in an even tone of voice.

Sasuke could feel the sympathy within him shrivel up on the spot. There was a part of him that was ready to be cowed by Fugaku's harsh judgement. But the overwhelming majority just felt pissed.

No longer caring about sparing any feelings, Sasuke readied himself to go on the verbal attack, but paused upon spotting a quick glint of reflected light. Driven by pure reflex, Sasuke grabbed at Fugaku's clothes and shoved the man to the side leaping out of the path of the oncoming kunai. Fugaku was quick to right himself, eyes spinning into his sharingan.

Sasuke nearly cursed. He hadn't sensed anyone close by. Whoever it was that was attacking could have easily done far worse than a somewhat obvious kunai toss to the back. Activating his sharingan, Sasuke meticulously scanned his surroundings.

"Wicked-Eye Fugaku? His eyes don't look that scary to me," a childish voice said from above.

Sasuke wasn't sure what he expected, but it wasn't a single, Akatsuki member. He recognized the orange masked man from Kakuzu's memories. But what was he doing here? Furthermore, where was his partner? Didn't the Akatsuki members travel in pairs?

When the man turned his eye onto Sasuke, Sasuke tensed slightly and narrowed his gaze. The man hummed in thought, a gloved hand stroking his chin. "You have the same eyes. I wonder if yours are scarier," the man said.

"Hn," Sasuke scoffed and gripped the hilt of his chokuto. The childish front wouldn't fool him. This man was one of those bastards hunting bijuu. As far as Sasuke was concerned, he had a new, immediate goal. With a burst of chakra to his legs, Sasuke moved and drew his blade.

"Sasuke!" Fugaku shouted, but Sasuke didn't stop.

The masked man exclaimed in surprise while waving his arms around wildly, the picture of exaggerated panic. Just as his sword touched the man (who had just stood in place like an idiot), the man let out a loud, pained wail. Sasuke blinked in surprise, however, when his sword met no resistance and slid harmlessly through the man's torso. Sasuke quickly glanced at his blade for any signs of blood or tampering, but there were none.

The man patted his stomach a few times before giving Sasuke a "V" for victory. "Don't worry. I didn't feel a thing!" the man proclaimed.

"Who are you?" Fugaku questioned up at the man.

"Me? My name's Tobi!" the man said and saluted.

Sasuke frowned. "Where's you partner?" Sasuke asked while trying to push his senses outward. He could barely sense the man's chakra, but what he could sense felt…strange- not putrid like Orochimaru but different nonetheless.

The man seemed to wilt at Sasuke's question. "I don't have one. We keep losing members to you Konoha shinobi," the man woefully moaned.

"What is he talking about?" Fugaku asked.

"Not very smart of you to try to pick a fight then," Sasuke taunted with a smirk.

"I reckon that I'm smarter than you, Uchiha Sasuke," the man said and wagged his finger.

"That's what Orochimaru thought," Sasuke shot back.

The man was definitely there- Sasuke could see his shadow moving along the trunk of the tree he was perched on. His sword hadn't made contact, as if the man had gone intangible.

"Orochimaru didn't do what he was supposed to do. But Tobi won't make that mistake. Tobi's a good boy!" the man said and launched some kunai from his loose sleeves.

It was too easy to knock the projectiles away with his sword. This time when Sasuke approached, the man didn't panic. Instead, he gripped a kunai and started fending off Sasuke's strikes.

Was it a one-off thing? Did it require a lot of chakra to keep up the intangibility? Sasuke doubted that the man would have wasted chakra or revealed such a powerful technique so early on if he couldn't back it up. The man had to be somewhat competent, despite his behavior. Unfortunately, Sasuke couldn't pin down just how competent he was.

From the corner of his eye, Sasuke could see Fugaku drawing a kunai and moving towards them. The man must have noticed as well because he suddenly withdrew from Sasuke and spun in place with a loud whoop. Just like before, the man went intangible to avoid Fugaku's blade. The man scratched his head as he stared at Fugaku, "Is it me or are you really slow?" Sasuke watched his father's face redden in anger.

The man alternated between tangibility and intangibility; his timing incredibly precise. Sasuke didn't like it, but he doubted that he had the speed necessary to land a hit before the man could use his jutsu. But how to get him to slow down? In a moment of divine inspiration, Sasuke got an idea. While Fugaku was busy occupying the masked man, Sasuke moved around the edge of the fight, his eyes focused and attentive. He just needed a second.

His opportunity came just as his father took a punch to the gut. While Fugaku was bent at the waist, Sasuke made eye contact with the masked man. Genjutsu still wasn't his preferred method of ending fights, but if he could distract the man long enough… With his illusion casted, Sasuke moved as quickly as he could. He closed in so fast, his father had barely enough time to duck out of the way.

Despite using his sharingan to cast the genjutsu, the illusion didn't last as long as Sasuke had hoped. Once again, his sword moved harmlessly through the man's head. As his sword was mid-arc, his eyes spotted the man's hand twitch in his sleeve. Using one hand, Sasuke performed a hand sign for a substitution jutsu. Hidden safely behind a tree trunk a few meters away, Sasuke watched the masked man stab a fallen log with a kunai.

"He disappeared!" the man exclaimed, but Sasuke had the feeling that the man wasn't surprised in the slightest.

His feeling was proven correct when the man turned and faced his exact hiding spot. Sasuke nearly cursed. "What was your goal here? There's no jinchuuriki for you to attack," Sasuke said and moved out into the open.

"Nope! Tobi was just curious," the man said with a carefree shrug.

"Curious about what?" Fugaku questioned in a hard tone.

The man stretched his arms over his head with a yawn before saying, "Whether or not you were worth my time."

Instantly, Sasuke felt his hackles rise. Pulling a kunai from his weapon pouch, Sasuke added his lightning release to the blade just before throwing it with deadly accuracy. It was a bit rash on his part, but Sasuke moved to close the gap between them once again, his chokuto sparking wildly. Surpringly, Sasuke watched the kunai vanish into thin air before it even got close. With newfound speed, the masked man cut Sasuke off with his own kunai and stopped his assault cold. The air around the man started to shift, losing the nonthreatening feel, and become far darker with killing intent.

He was a lot stronger than he let on. It was taking all his effort not to keep the man from gaining an inch on him. Frustratingly, Sasuke couldn't sense any exertion coming from the man. "I was curious about the Uchiha that was able to defeat Orochimaru. But you're still a brat," the man hissed. Sasuke glared up at the man in challenge, but before he could do anything to disprove the man's words, he felt the shift in the air.

"Sasuke!" he heard his father shout half a second before he heard his own lightning chirping away behind him. Still staring up at the man in surprise, Sasuke could see the self-satisfied glint in the man's red eye. How could someone still look so smug with their face hidden?

Suddenly, the man pulled away from their stalemate before using a shushin to return to his tree branch. Sasuke heard metal clashing just before the kunai that had been aimed at his back landed harmlessly on the ground. At least he could still trust his father to watch his back… Despite having the upper hand, the masked man relaxed his pose and gave a disregarding "hn" before vanishing with a swirl of chakra.

"We need to get back to the village. We have to report this to the Hokage," Fugaku said.

Yet another Akatsuki with unique and powerful jutsu… Sasuke let out an irritated "tch" and sheathed his chokuto.

~:~

As expected, the Hokage had been more than concerned by their mission report. Sasuke did his best to thoroughly answer all the man's questions, perfectly recalling details of their encounter due to his sharingan. Once Sasuke had finished speaking, Minato sighed deeply and ran a hand through his hair.

"Hokage-sama?" Itachi prompted.

"We're still waiting for word from Jiraiya-sensei and Tsunade-sama. Hopefully, it won't take much longer- a few days at most. Kakashi," Minato beckoned. Sasuke watched his former sensei slink into the room through the open window and stand in a lax slouch. "I doubt there will be much left behind to find, but I want you to head to the location Sasuke and Fugaku specified. If you find anything, let me know immediately."

"Hai," Kakashi responded with a nod.

After a quick thanks and dismissal from the Hokage, Sasuke had every intention to find somewhere quiet to avoid his family. Unfortunately, he could tell from the frequent, analytical glances that his brother kept shooting him that it wouldn't be easy to get away from Itachi. Instead of trying to avoid the inevitable, Sasuke waited for Itachi outside of the Hokage's office. Predictably, Itachi was practically on his heels.

"Sasuke," Itachi started, but Sasuke cut him off by shoving a box of tea into his elder brother's chest. Itachi slowly accepted the box while cautiously eyeing Sasuke.

"If you didn't want to be around him, maybe you should have just told him that instead of dumping him on me," Sasuke said in a scathing tone. Sasuke could see Fugaku noticeably flinch where he stood in the doorway to the Hokage's office.

"Sasuke, I didn't intend for-"

"I don't care what you intended, Nii-san. You think you know best, but you don't. Did you even consider asking me first before you decided to stick your nose in my business?" Sasuke asked. He watched his brother's face fall before he quickly hid any traces of emotion once again. "Of course, you didn't," Sasuke scoffed with a roll of his eyes. Quickly turning away from Itachi, Sasuke ignored Fugaku standing uncomfortably to the side and quickly left the two of them alone.

Sasuke knew that Itachi wasn't trying to hurt him. But his brother sometimes couldn't tell the difference between helping and hurting. Itachi was convinced that he knew what was best for his little brother. While he could appreciate the intention behind it all, Sasuke was tired of the manipulation, lies, and furtive plans. His life was his own.

~:~

Itachi watched with a heavy heart as Sasuke walked away from him. He wasn't sure what had happened between his father and brother while they were out of the village, but he was sure that it had been the exact opposite of what he'd hoped. Judging by Sasuke's complete disregard for their father, Itachi had to guess that he'd had a hand in completely ruining the relationship between them. What a mess he'd caused.

Fugaku seemed torn between leaving and striking up conversation with Itachi, but one, warning look was enough for the man to decide that leaving was the better choice. Itachi watched him go as well, the box of tea weighing heavily in his hand.

"Maa, that was painful," Kakashi drawled from behind him. Itachi didn't respond, the guilt keeping his mouth closed. "I don't think I've ever been so happy to be an only child."

Itachi sighed. "Kakashi-san," Itachi pleaded. He hardly needed his failure rubbed in his face right now. He listened to Kakashi's shoes clack as he drew in closer until he stopped at Itachi's side.

"Don't worry about Sasuke. He still called you Nii-san after all," Kakashi said and shrugged.

It was small sentiment, but it still managed to soothe the ache in his chest. Sasuke had called their father by name when he had been giving his report. While Itachi was saddened by the drastic turn of the relationship between his brother and father, he did feel pleased to know that Sasuke wasn't willing to disregard him as well. "Thank you, Kakashi-san."

"I suppose I could speak to him. He's hardheaded and stubborn, but I can usually get through to him…eventually," Kakashi offered.

Itachi could tell that Kakashi was making a monumental (for him) effort. Kakashi wasn't the type to involve himself in the personal problems of others- choosing to avoid them altogether. But Itachi knew that Kakashi did care for his brother in his own way. "I know that you care about my brother and for that I thank you, Kakashi-san. But Sasuke has every right to be upset with me. I think it would be best to let him make the next move without any further interference from me."

Kakashi shrugged again and said, "If that's what you want. Can't blame me for trying to help out my former student and kohai."

Itachi was too surprised to respond before Kakashi had quickly fled the hallway. For a man that ran from emotional displays, Kakashi felt quite deeply. Itachi smiled softly before returning to work.

~:~

The Hokage Monument was deserted, tranquil, and the last place that anyone would look for him. Sasuke half-expected Itachi to track him down to continue their discussion, but when ten minutes had gone by without an appearance from his brother, Sasuke breathed a sigh of relief.

Admonishing Itachi wasn't something that he'd ever expected that he would do. It did hurt to see Itachi so upset by his words, but Sasuke didn't regret his actions. It still felt liberating to take control of his life from his brother. Fortunately, Sasuke doubted that Itachi would hold a grudge over something like this.

Suddenly, Sasuke felt the sudden, muted appearance of another. He almost cursed, but he supposed that he shouldn't be surprised that Kakashi had found him so easily. "If you're here to nag me, don't bother," Sasuke warned.

"Nag you?" Kakashi parroted in a mystified tone as he approached. "I just wanted to ask you some more questions about your mission."

Sasuke critically looked up at Kakashi's lax stance next to him. He supposed that even if Kakashi had come to chastise him for how he treated his brother and father, it wouldn't change much. Sasuke respected Kakashi's opinion as a shinobi and a leader, but even he could tell that Kakashi wasn't the best at personal relationships.

"What more do you want to know?" Sasuke asked and stretched a leg out in front of him.

"The jutsu that the man used, are you sure that you didn't see him use any handsigns?"

"He didn't need them. He was fast enough without them," Sasuke said. It annoyed Sasuke to admit that the man had been faster than him- faster than he could keep up with.

"He wasn't invisible, just intangible," Kakashi remarked, almost muttering to himself.

"Yes. I couldn't land a hit on him and then he just disappeared into thin air," Sasuke groused.

"Shushin? And you didn't try to pick up on his trail?" Kakashi asked.

"It was different. Whatever he did used more chakra than a shushin. His entire presence was completely gone after a few seconds," Sasuke explained. With a shushin, there can still be a residual trail of chakra leading back to the one who used the jutsu. Even Shisui's left a small trail behind, but it hardly mattered when he was also leaving corporeal copies of himself behind every time he teleported.

When Kakashi didn't respond, Sasuke looked up at the man in question. Kakashi was staring off into the distance, looking increasingly tense and anxious. When he cupped a hand over his headband-covered eye, Sasuke raised a brow at him. "Kakashi?"

"I have to go," Kakashi excused himself, barely getting out all the words before vanishing with a small whirlwind of leaves. Sasuke watched him go, feeling lost and confused by Kakashi's mysterious behavior.

~:~

Sasuke had been in a light doze when something disturbed his slumber. His initial reaction was intense irritation, displayed by how quickly he grabbed the kunai hidden under his pillow. But when he identified the chakra of the person that was currently breaking into his room, he released the weapon with a soft sigh. Being woken before he was good and ready to wake usually put him in a bad mood, but he could find it in him to spare her from his wrath.

Sasuke listened to her slide his window open before climbing in, much quieter than usual. The thuds of her shoes hitting the floors came seconds before she pulled back his covers and slid into the empty space on his bed. There was just enough moonlight that he didn't need his sharingan to see her clearly. She was wearing his shirt again.

Wide, blue eyes blinked at him before she whispered, "Sorry for waking you. I tried to be quiet, but your window squeaks."

"I sensed you outside, Dobe."

She offered only a soft "oh". Sasuke waited for her to say more because there was always more for her to say, but she remained surprisingly quiet. He wasn't sure how long they laid on their sides staring at each other, but eventually he felt his lids begin to droop. But before he could nod off, she finally broke the silence. "It would have been nice to have you on my mission with me. I got to meet another jinchuuriki."

Sasuke blinked his eyes open to regard her. She didn't look upset. "Hn," he succinctly offered, but she seemed to get more than enough meaning from it.

"Besides Gaara and Kaa-chan, Utakata is the only jinchuuriki that I've met."

"I'm guessing you already made a new friend," Sasuke replied with a small smirk.

"Of course, 'ttebayo. Jinchuuriki have to stick together," she said in a resolute tone. Sasuke could only hum in response. Her very presence was putting him back to sleep.

"How did your mission go?"

"Hn," Sasuke scoffed into the quiet. "It was a waste of time."

"I thought you would have had fun or something. But I guess Fugaku-san isn't very fun," Naruko mused.

"That's an understatement," Sasuke replied. "He wanted to take the mission with Itachi, but Itachi sent me with him instead."

"Oh. They're still fighting? You never told me what they're fighting about," Naruko said and wriggled a bit under the covers to get comfortable.

Of course he didn't. How could he tell her the truth when it would implicate his clan? While he was sure that she wouldn't repeat it if he asked her not to, he also knew that she would try to get involved. To avoid that catastrophe, he simply neglected to tell her. "My father is still upset that Itachi moved out and doesn't want to become clan head," he said.

"Wouldn't that make you the future clan head?"

"I doubt that he would ask me. Even if he did, I wouldn't want to accept," Sasuke said, but even he had his doubts. Could he say no? Would saying yes be the equivalent of accepting his role as Itachi's replacement? The mere notion of it made his skin crawl.

"Are you upset with him, too?"

He knew that his dissatisfaction with his father was incredibly obvious. When he had finally returned home for dinner, it had taken his mother less than five minutes to pick up on the shift in their dynamics. She hadn't brought it up at the dinner table, but Sasuke had overheard her chewing his father out when he walked by their room later. Surprisingly, Fugaku had been mostly silent while his mother vented her frustrations with him.

"What happened with Itachi was bad enough. Now, you've managed to alienate both of our sons."

"It wasn't my intention, Mikoto."

"I warned you, Fugaku. I warned you and you brushed me off. Well, I won't be fixing this mess you made- not this time."

Sasuke hadn't heard anymore from either of them after that. He hadn't intended to cause a fight between his parents, but he wasn't about to try to interfere with their relationship. He would apologize to his mother in the morning- he did feel truly guilty on her behalf. But that would be as far as he would go. "I couldn't care less about him or his opinion of me," Sasuke said, the conviction in his tone making her blink owlishly at him.

"That's a big change. You must have had a pretty intense mission together," she replied.

"Hn," Sasuke said and rolled over onto his back. "We barely spoke to each other."

"Yeah. Your dad talks less than you do. I was jealous of you for a while a long time ago," she admitted. Sasuke couldn't hold back an incredulous look. "Tou-chan has been the Hokage for my whole life. You'd think that I'd be used to him always being busy.

"When I found out that your dad was the clan head and chief of the police force, I was a little happy. I was happy that there was someone else who would understand what it's like. But then I saw you training with your dad once by the lake," she trailed off.

Sasuke remembered training with his father. It was the only time in his life that his father had truly made time for him and had even expressed pride in him for mastering one of the clan's signature jutsu. It had meant so much to him at the time, that it hadn't bothered him too much that his previous failure had been compared to Itachi's instant success.

"It was the only time we've trained together," he admitted.

"You don't train with the sharingan together?" she asked, sounding genuinely confused.

"No. We don't train together at all. It's not a big deal. I don't need to train with him," Sasuke rebuffed. He mulled over his next words as he stared up at his ceiling. "The mission wasn't a complete waste of time," he amended. "I came to realize that I don't want to follow any path but my own. And I don't care what anyone says."

He waited for her response for only a few seconds. "Okay. If that's what you want," she accepted with a soft yawn. She shuffled closer to him before slipping her arm over his stomach and resting her head on his chest. More than accustomed to her clingy sleeping habits, Sasuke readjusted his position to help her get comfortable.

"Don't stay mad at him forever, though. If you frown anymore, you'll get wrinkles just like him," Naruko teased and snickered.

With a roll of his eyes, Sasuke yanked on one of her pigtails. Ignoring her soft complaint of pain, he said, "Go to sleep, Dobe."

~:~

"Rasengan!"

Sasuke quickly substituted himself with one of the many splintered, tree branches that littered the training ground. Naruko had been enthusiastic today, utilizing her Sage Mode to power up her punches and jutsu. Sasuke was silently grateful that she was posing such a challenge today. The intensity of their spar was capturing the entirety of his attention, keeping him from focusing too long on the disaster that was breakfast that morning.

Naruko thankfully hadn't stayed to witness his mother's icy attitude towards his father, his father's awkward silence, and Sasuke's attempts at ignoring it all. There was a tense air all throughout the meal, the clattering of utensils sounding exacerbated by the silence. Fortunately, things had improved once his father had finished and left with a subdued farewell. His mother had easily accepted his apology while offering one of her own.

"I won't ask you to overlook his faults and forgive him. I'm sorry for always asking it of you in the past. Whether or not you choose to do so is your decision to make, Sasuke."

"Chidori nagashi!"

Sasuke watched the twenty clones around him all disappear with several puffs of smoke just before the real Naruko broke through the ground beneath his feet with her fist drawn. Quickly blocking the punch, Sasuke aimed his knee at her gut. He could hear the air wheeze from her lungs, but she still managed to block his punch to her face with her forearms.

Time seemed to pass both quickly and sluggishly when they sparred. He could easily get lost in the motions of the fight, distracting him to the passage of time. But reality was always quick to set in whenever he or her pulled themselves back up onto their feet. They could spend all day pummeling each other until their limb were sore and energy exhausted, but it rarely felt like an entire day had gone by.

At around 4 pm, Sasuke sensed someone approaching their training ground just before they suddenly appeared at the tree line. While ducking to avoid a clone flying at his head, Sasuke caught a glimpse of the person. Slowly rising from his crouch, Sasuke watched the Hokage approach them with a frown on his face. The normally put together man looked a bit disheveled, in Sasuke's opinion. His hair looked even wilder than normal, like he'd continuously run his hands through it. Naruko stopped as well, the Rasengan in her hand slowly dying out. "Tou-chan?" she questioned.

"Naruko," Minato started, but hesitated. "I felt that it would be best if you heard this from me."

Naruko looked even more confused by her father's behavior. Even Sasuke had to admit that the Hokage held a strange air about him. "Heard what?" she asked.

"Jiraiya-sensei is dead."

~Omake~

When she had first started sleeping over, it had taken some time to get used to falling asleep and waking up with her wrapped around him. She latched onto him in her sleep, arms holding him close while her legs got tangled up in his. On more than one occasion, he'd woken up far too warm and with a puddle of her drool soaking his shirt. The most uncomfortable mornings, however, were the ones that required him to extricate himself from her grip while hiding morning wood.

"Sasuke?" she softly beckoned.

Already half-asleep, the most he could offer her was a sleepy, "Hm?"

"Have you ever had sex?" she whispered.

It took a few seconds for her question to sink in, but when it did Sasuke felt all thoughts of sleep leave him. "What? Why are you asking?" he asked in a thankfully even tone.

"No reason," she mumbled into his chest before squeaking out, "Good night!"

Admittedly, he was mildly curious as to what put the thought of sex into her head. But he was also hesitant to ask. She seemed intent on pretending that she hadn't just dropped a bomb on him. He wasn't opposed to the idea of ignoring it as well. But the thought had been planted in his head…

Sasuke nearly cursed.