1 year and 9 months earlier

Sasuke Uchiha woke up.

He looked at his hand, then his arm as his body lurched up from a deep rest. His muscles weren't atrophied, but his body ached more than he can remember it ever doing. The last thing he could remember was that blond bastard looking down on him with a murderous look in his eyes.

It took him a moment, but he realised he had lost. Before he even got to kill Itachi he had lost, but somehow he was alive. Naruto certainly wouldn't have let him live, so how was a mystery, but it wasn't one Sasuke wouldn't take for granted. He would train and soon he would have his revenge.

Sasuke looked around where his bed was, noting the walls of rock and concluding that he was in a cave. His weakened arms clasped for leverage as he rolled his pale body out of the crib, pushing up the side of a wall and using it as a prop to walk to the door which sealed him inside. A hand twisted the nob, locked, and so the hand once again flashed with chakra, lightning blowing a hole through the door and allowing the Uchiha to push it open, falling once more on the floor he had just scattered woodchips upon.

It was demeaning, being forced to crawl with a weakened body, but the thing that actually unsettled him was his right eye. It was clouded, more so than his other, and as one of the sole surviving members of a clan famed for its oculary power that made him feel more powerless than his decayed body.

It was there, the young Uchiha crawling on the floor wondering just how he was going to get out of this seemingly infinite series of cave tunnels, did a man seem to materialise from thin air. Sasuke saw the cloaked man, a mask framing his face, and forced himself up on a wall, before collapsing into the man's arms.

"Get off of me!" Sasuke shouted.

As commanded, the man let go, leaving Sasuke on the floor and able to look up to the man. He had two eyes, one purple and the other a sharingan with the image of a shuriken printed onto it, sort of like Itachi's eye. Both orbs pierced menacingly through the white ringed mask. "Where is Itachi?" Sasuke asked, rage and hate brewing at the simple thought of that man.

His captor sighed. His hand went up and removed the ceramic accessory, showing a face marred by a gruesome series of scars on a single side of his head, and a frown. "Your brother is dead. Naruto Uzumaki killed him."

And for some reason Sasuke himself didn't know, his eyes turned into mangekyou.

…

Hinata was not a weak woman. She may have had been week as a girl but now she was older and with that age became experience and a sort of enlightened understanding of one's own capabilities. In the days following the Sasuke retrieval mission, more so than anyone else she had spiralled into a craze. She didn't do as well on missions, her team started leaving her behind. Her father soon threatened to mark her with a seal, like her cousins.

And then Naruto betrayed them and something in Hinata snapped. Already she knew that boy she adored was dead, but it was that action that told her that there was no hope. No ray of sunshine or saviour to protect her. The only thing that could save her was herself.

One day she got out of bed, and trained. She didn't eat. She didn't stop. She riddled a post with gentle fist strikes until it was destroyed, and she would move onto the next. At the end of the day her fingers were marred with her own blood, her dainty fingertips were almost bludgeoned, her lungs were drained of all strength, her body burned and ached, her chakra was almost completely depleted, and she felt accomplished.

Hinata ended up not becoming clan heir again because she was born before Hanabi but because she was too strong, mentally and physically, to be refused. And then Naruto came back.

Of course she hated that he came back and Sakura handed him the position of Kage. Of course she hated how his very existence reminded her of the small weak child she had once been. But what she hated the most was his face, drained of all sunshine and splattered with blood and lust. How could they, the child and the murderer have ever been the same? She wondered.

Now her father told her the Seventh Hokage was coming to visit, and that he wanted to meet with her, and she needed to wear a beautiful dress, and she nodded through all of it. Not because she agreed that her father needed to bend to this man. Simply because she wanted to be done with it.

So she stood, her dress lavender and white, shining in the blue moonlight that shone through the blindness window that surrounded her east facing wall, waiting.

The door creaked open and Hinata didn't need her byakugan to tell who it was. Then she turned to him, and it activated because she really did.

A man, black haired and black cloaked looked at her with twin Sharingan. She recognized the face as much as she wanted to forget it. She should have already, after all he had been dead for two years.

"Sasuke Uchiha."

He smiled in a way that mirrored what she had read the snake sannin tended to do in his intimidation sessions. "Hinata." He said with too much informality for the number of conversations they had ever had. "Nice to see you after all this time." Sasuke continued, before dropping his body on the side of her bed as if he owned it.

She stayed still, stood with a posture that demanded respect even though she knew this man would offer her none. "What do you want Uchiha? I am busy, in case you couldn't tell. The Hokage is visiting me and if you two want a rematch I would prefer you do it far away from my own quarters."

"No. I don't want to fight him. Not today at least. I am here simply because I want to give you an offer." Sasuke responded.

"Oh?" Hinata asked, feigning interest to obscure her disdain. "And what would that be?"

"When your father retires he will be clan head. I am sure that's why Naruto is visiting you too. The issue is that I know you have a… Not soft- open heart. You feel for people and I am sure you feel for your cousin as well, as well as every other member of the branch."

"So where are you going with this?" Hinata asked, her eyes furrowing.

Sasuke chuckled. "Naruto might give you the ability to rescind the slave seals, yes, but I doubt it. He will hang the possibility over your head for years until he has gotten all he can from you, and once the time comes he may not even do it. You know how brutal he can be even to those he once considered friends, so imagine how little he cares about the Hyuga. All I ask is that you help when the time comes, because I am going to create a revolution."

"You're insane." The Hyuga clan head said, shaking her head.

"Come on. Don't tell me the idea isn't alluring." He responded, Hinata turning away from him.

It was, she didn't admit. More than anything Hinata wanted her clan free but she knew even if she was given the luxury of controlling the clan she would still be hampered by the clan elders. Would she simply kill them so they couldn't use the branch members as hostages? How would she even do that?

She needed help, but allies were hard to come by, especially ones who were so powerful and so dedicated, and Sasuke was both a former member of a clan that wasn't completely dissimilar and had power enough to rival the Hokage at one point in time. He would be a great boon, but even if he did defeat Naruto wouldn't she just be replacing one evil with another?

She shook her head of their thoughts whilst keeping her physical one still like stone. Sasuke couldn't know how much she wanted to agree with him, and so she needed to distract him. A question, she decided.

"How did you live?" She asked, unsure of herself, wherever the man in front of her was real or a self-made illusion created to cope with her incoming position. The desperation was as much to change the subject as to actually get an answer from the raven haired man.

He got up in response, walking towards her, close enough for the hyuga signature strained bulging eye veins to be apparent even to a normal eye. "If I told you, you wouldn't believe me."

"Try." She responded, challenging him.

Sasuke sighed. "My brother was an agent for Konoha. He killed his clan under orders of the village, and he killed the Akatsuki under orders of his village, and he even tried to kill Naruto under orders of the village."

Hinata shook her head. "The massacre? He killed everyone Sasuke. Even the children."

"He was a child." He said, the gleam in his eyes murderous now. "Either he would kill everyone, and he and I would live, or all of us would die. He chose the only real choice they gave him."

Logical, she supposed. Though what interested her was a choice of words peculiar considering what Itachi had done to his little brother.

"He and you?"

Sasuke nodded. "He was my older brother. He saved me then, and he saved me again. He used an ancient technique, as well as that purple eye Naruto stole from him to revive me."

Hinata knew not to trust the words of the man in front of her, yet it made sense. She had heard of Hizashi being sacrificed from her cousin, and that story was startlingly similar to the story of the youngest ANBU captain sacrificing everything for his village. If Sasuke really did believe this then a surface level disdain wouldn't cut his rage for Konoha. Not only did they ruin his life, but they turned his brother into a monster too. Still, she had to hold onto doubt, less he sweep her away in the rivers of belief. A man, back from the dead? How could she trust that?

"This is… All of this is impossible."

Sasuke laughed madly. "I knew you would say that. But, Heiress, I make the impossible happen."

Then he turned to leave. "Remember Hinata, would you rather trust me or him?"

And just like that he phased through the wall. Hinata rushed towards it, stance prepared, but saw no chakra signature with her eyes. He was gone, fully, and whatever technique he used evaded her view completely. What didn't though were her visitors.

A few seconds later her father knocked. "Hinata! Your visitor is here."

The knob twisted. The door opened. And sure as day, he was there.

Naruto smiled. Hinata hated it.

…

The conversation had been uneventful from Naruto's perspective. Sure she had been pleasant and formal as he expected, and there was an impressive undertone of hidden hostility, but it was simply her asking him to make sure the branch got released, and him promising to do so when she is made clan head.

As cold as the night air was that night it still wasn't as cold as her steeled heart. She hated him, but he wasn't so petty he would keep the branch slaves simply because she was against him. Naruto did wonder if she trusted that though. He sighed, and then vanished in a body flicker, speeding through the village until he was home.

Temari and his house was technically attached to the Suna embassy, which made it much easier for her brothers to visit but also served as a sort of placation to the council. Suna would always be kept in check, even if they suddenly decided to hate Naruto (Not that they ever would).

He opened the door, took off his shoes, announced to the whole house "I'm home!" and then took off his hokage coat, like he always did. Apparently his father wore it like he did, which might have annoyed him if he didn't know he was a better man than he will ever be. He heard a "Welcome back" respond, and smiled to himself. Temari always did calm him, letting him return to the reality where the one in control of his life was him.

A glass of orange juice was poured into a tall glass, and a man was soon sat in the clean and collected living room both lovers lived in. Naruto leaned back into the couch and sighed as his joints stretched, relaxed completely. He peered over as he saw his wife exit the bedroom dressed in her typical attire. She leaned into the cushions of the seating and rested her cheek on his shoulder as he kissed her on the top of her head.

"I missed you." Temari said, as Naruto moved away a few strands of blond hair, then kissed her on the forehead again, savouring each touch.

"Had a long day."

"Do you want to talk about it?"

Naruto grinned, though to his wife it felt hollow. "No. I just want to be here. With you."

She smiled, bright and as beautiful as the sun. Then she looked to the side, in thought.

"Naruto. I might be pregnant."

…

A/N: Sorry for the long update but I was busy with exams.

Anyway, I wanted these next few chapters to build a sort of mystery. Whoever guessed one of the men was Sasuke, congrats.

Sasuke is different. Who told him about Itachi? Obito, duh. Why is Obito helping Sasuke? That's the question. Is he just working for Akatsuki or is there a different plan afoot?

Anyway, review, thanks for reading.