Author's Note : re-upload for end-chapter AN addition.
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It was afternoon again when he woke up. But instead of his office, he woke up to the unwelcoming interior of his apartment.
His head throbbed relentlessly like when a neighbor decided to do a horrendously huge reconstruction work some months ago at the same time he had just finished a long mission. At the time, after taking a non-soothing shower, he immediately left for his office and didn't return for weeks.
He had lost count how many bottles Naruto had the gut to purchase for them to end up finishing the whole thing. He only just remembered why it had always been difficult to agree to Naruto's drinking invitation; it was never a pleasant experience. Both could hold their liquor quite well and had low tolerance to detect when their body was starting to … deteriorate.
Sasuke pinched the bridge of his nose, tightly shut his eyes, and tried hard to remember why he had agreed to the invitation in the first place.
Unfortunately, alcohol had a way to erase past memories after its consumption but it had no way to interfere with memories prior to consumption. The memory of what had been exchanged between him and Kakashi came back full force with a new wave of intense headache.
Opening his eyes slowly against… nothing really, since the lights were off and the blinds were shut, Sasuke gradually realizing that he was lying on his bed. The bed he hadn't touched in weeks—he could even believe if it was months instead.
His upper body rose, lightly reclining on the headboard as another hurl of headache hit. Pausing completely from making the barest of movement, he closed his eyes again and silently planned what to do next.
The last strip of Paracetamol he had was inside his mission pack… a glass of water should be in the kitchen… something simple like electric kettle and a box of teabags should be in the kitchen as well.
Fuck.
So many things weren't within reach.
What had always been mundane tasks seemed a little bit too much that for a moment Sasuke wondered if they were worth the risks of him having another hurl of headache. But he wouldn't be able to start the day if he didn't risk it.
He managed at last, with a lot of pauses and even more amount of stumbling.
After finishing a mug of tea, which he realized he needed most only after the first sip and with that gone the initial doubts of weighing the risk and benefit, and really, he shouldn't have questioned the eligibility of tea, Sasuke felt so much better.
He was hungry, but another mandatory hangover routine after the tea had to be the priority at the moment. He discarded his clothes in an overly relaxed manner inside the bathroom, then without bothering to slide the curtain separating its functional areas, he entered the wet side through the accommodating slit on the far right end. Facing the side from which the shower was attached, he craned his neck, closed his eyes, and sighed when the first pour of water kissed his face down to his feet.
Somehow, his brain worked the best in this type of prolonged shower—the one with ever running hot water. When, for one, he felt the world shift around him in slow motion, sometimes even completely devoid of motions that allowed him to focus only at the barely bearable scalding heat that was the water pouring down at him. After a complicated mission, it was a good time to reflect what he did wrong, what he did right, what was appropriate for redoes in future missions.
But after a mission where he had lost a comrade, or the one that came out as a failure beyond salvage, sometimes he wished it wasn't the case.
Or when he was reminded with a choice in life that was not so relevant to him.
Just like today.
His eyes pierced to water stains scattered peripherally on his otherwise white tiles.
Kakashi's voice rang inside his head, but felt as though reverberated within the walls of his bathroom.
"What do you think could be the solution for an Omega to avoid unwanted heat or attack from Alphas?"
Sasuke knew the answer. But even today, he didn't want to generate the words. Not that he refused to believe it, because there was a very slim chance for it to be untrue. He just… didn't want to acknowledge it. Not yet. Because when he did, there would be no other option left. It would be time when he had to seal the deal.
Kakashi's voice rang again.
"Mating with an Alpha. That would solve all."
Sasuke abruptly turn the water off.
With that also came a stop to Kakashi's, despite its languid quality, coercing piece of information.
Hours later, dressed in his off-duty short sleeved black shirt, the one he wore daily in the summer but still very much appropriate for duty calls—had the condition called for it, and mildly wafting scent of fresh soap, the Anbu Captain was comfortably cooped up behind the familiar piles of yesterday's reports.
His eyes never left every report of attention on his desk, with his right hand holding a half-eaten onigiri and left hand alternating between pointing or tracing highlights of the report with the index finger, or making revision with his pen, or stamping his seal at the end of the report when he was done proofreading.
In two big bites, Sasuke liberated his hand from holding the onigiri, briefly tracing the figures he had to approve with a finger of another hand, then finished that one report with a seal of his own. Carefully he stacked said report atop the other completed ones, glancing at the plastic container of his onigiri while doing so. He still had one remaining onigiri, hopefully not the one umeboshi filled. He was starting to get tired of the taste.
Did the onigiris do their work to fill his stomach? Pretty much.
His eyes swept over potential next reports as his hand crept to the container for the last available meal for today. When his eyes caught a sight of something, his hand hovered midair.
Now attention completely focused to said report, Sasuke pushed back the desire to eat and pulled the report to the center of his desk with both hands.
The report presented him the number of his men, organized by their ranks, and supplemented by personal information, namely age, sex, traits, and length of service. On the last page was the new recruits that would be appointed tomorrow.
At the reminder, Sasuke sighed and ran his long fingers through his half-dry dark hair.
Tomorrow…
He was still very much having second thoughts about attending the ceremony or choosing to be the invisible vice head despite knowing the mandatory of it all. Because if he was to attend… he would have to face whatever it was he had been trying to avoid since his arriving back in Konoha.
All active Anbu would be there; a certain someone would be there.
If he knew he was going to be this susceptible and unreasonable, he shouldn't have accepted the offer to be vice head in the first place.
His eyes centred back to the report at hand. This year new recruits amounted to a hundred, only thirteen joining his division—five personnel less than last year's. Ten alone were Betas, the rest Alphas.
Last year it had been five Alphas.
The numbers alone was enough proof of how Beta is the more compatible Anbu. Alphas weren't even half the amount.
Naruto's voice from last night unplanned exchange decided to make a visit to his mind,
"I want to end this… I want to put an end to this stratification bullshit."
He hadn't realized this, not until the words were said aloud, but it was what Sasuke had always wanted all along. He hadn't thought about it that much, but the moment he heard Naruto's intent after becoming the Hokage in the future, he easily shared the same sentiment—it felt almost visceral.
People saw him as an Alpha since birth and he still was an Alpha when his kin was slaughtered by their own. In his pursuit to become stronger, he was an Alpha before he was a lone survivor of the Uchiha clan. People dismissed the image of a lonely, frail, and miserable child who had just lost everyone that had been his family all his life and reduced him into the Alpha who could take all.
But anyone could only take so much.
He was sick being an Alpha.
To terminate the use of traits stratification had always been his goal for as long as he could remember.
At first, it was a mere fleeting thought, produced by his hate towards the world people around him had built to live in. The thought came and went intermittently, most of the time it was buried by his own cynicism and only appearing in several highlights of his life. One out of those had defied all sense of impossibility—one particular moment of utmost understanding.
It came in the form of Hyuuga Hinata.
Before meeting her, in his head it was ingrained that all Omegas were denied the chance to become an Anbu—let alone a regular kunoichi. All for what? Because they could only be a hindrance in a mission? Because of impending heats that no one could predict to happen? Because their heats were threats to Alphas?
Yet she made it happen.
It was possible, despite all odds.
What had been a mere fleeting thought had become a new objective—one, that he was confident it could work.
Hyuuga Hinata… just who are you?
The day of the ceremony, Captain Uchiha was still inside his office when he was supposed to be in the conference room, performing curtsies to higher-ups and welcoming new recruits as the face of their division. He had showered just fine since he had made it a habit to keep a change of clothes or more in the office, but he hadn't made it apparent that he was getting ready for the ceremony.
On his left, all the reports he was needed to work on were already piled into one collection of completed tasks. He simply had no more reason to keep him from attending. On the center of his desk, lay a profile of a Third-Rank Anbu, someone who had served in the Anbu for five years, and within all those years had been undetected as the only Omega in the organization. At least until he discovered her secret—until he made the secret reveal on its own.
Should they never met, she would still be undetected just fine, probably managing to aim higher in the future, and meeting him eye to eye as people of the same rank.
He managed to keep it to himself and Kakashi for now, but it was about time her secret reveal itself if he didn't acknowledgethe need for distance between them.
For all he knew, he could be the bane of her existence and the meeting between them wasn't supposed to happen.
He shouldn't test the boundaries… shouldn't he?
Deciding not to attend would be a wise decision, wouldn't it?
She could be a celebrated warrior with great achievements for years from now, and he was confident she was capable of it, but she could be inwardly hating herself more for hiding and achieving everything without being her true self.
Would he be the one to pave the path for her to surface as an Omega Anbu in the world where Omega was denied the chance to be anywhere near that title?
Would he let the chance slip from his fingers like an incident from years ago? The one he heard from Kakashi days ago but the memory was still as fresh as if only yesterday he reported to the Hokage in his office.
Just how certain was he that she was his fated partner? It would be a good chance to test things out. See for himself if he was indeed the cause of it, if his presence alone affected her.
Sasuke tapped his fingers on the desk, then with said fingers pulled her profile close to his almost squinting eyes. His eyes were easily glued to her headshot, but his brain was elsewhere, contemplating for the last time whether to attend the ceremony or not.
He had already too much to think about, hadn't he?
He thought she had clear gray eyes, but there was a light tint of lavender to them in the formal headshot. Under the moonlight, they had been glinting from the angle he was perched, akin to pearls under the sea surface. They weren't in the photo, but it didn't make them any less beautiful. The same midnight hair was done in a tight knot, some strands managed to escape and framed her face. He decided he liked her hair down better.
With her mask on, he hadn't gotten a chance to see her face below the eyes. In the headshot, the Omega looked … attractive enough. Enough to evoke the need to see her in person.
Tch.
In his haste, the subordinate's profile was put inside the underdesk drawer carelessly, half-drawn and half-pushed, leaving her headshot visible through the slit the captain failed to close.
It wasn't long before the office door was closed with a hard thud.
Author's Note : no sasuhina interaction again this time, but you've got the idea of what to expect ;D.
To Zisaidwut : Thank you for mentioning about Sakura being an Alpha! Presumably, it arose the need for an explanation. I would agree with you had I chosen her traits based on her canon Pre-War self. But in my eyes, she has showed the traits of an Alpha after she summoned Katsuyu for the first time, and when Team 7 was pictured as the most superior team of their year, in my opinion it is logical to say it was because of the dynamic between three Alphas that they became the so called The New Sannin.
Note that Alpha-Beta-Omega is defined biologically. In this universe, they do a work-up to "diagnose" the traits for newborns. But as mentioned by Naruto, he wants the people to acknowledge that you don't have to exceed expectations, being an Alpha, as he himself has experienced so has Sakura. Beta may have the capability to lead and should be allowed to lead, as I hinted they (Sasuke and Naruto) both have met a leader Beta but I didn't specifically said who the Beta is. You'll find out soon. And Hinata being an Omega and Anbu has been elaborated enough I suppose. I also haven't mentioned what traits Neji belongs to :D.
Hope that explains things, I wish to add more but that would be me leaking the plan that I've been keeping secret xD
ToDay10-kyoshi : from chapter 11 onwards, the story depicted what happened before chapter 10 in Sasuke's perspective, that means what has been happening on his end before Sasuke comes knocking at Hinata's door at 3 am. If any of you noticed, I've been using past tense instead of present tense in later chapters to help with the timeline. To avoid confusion, I'll switch back to present tense when we are back to original timeline. Hope that helps, xoxo.
p.s : life's been sOoo insufferable. I'm soooo tireeed. x.X