Sakura whistled as she listened to the story of how Satsuki and Naruto got together right after their Chūnin exams. "That's..." She paused, going over the information in her head. "I was going to say cute but that was really irresponsible, how did you get away with it?" She asked no one in particular. It appeared that her former classmates were all out of their minds from all of their achievements, that she kept up with, and all the ludicrous stories she had heard about them. Especially these two's team with Kiba.
"I will give you a hint." Hinata laughed as she looked at Sakura's flabbergasted face. "Naru's full name is Namikaze-Senju Naruto." She said with pride.
Sakura looked blankly at her, fully aware of what that meant. "You have got to be kidding me." She said as she thought about the trouble-making idiot kid that would hit on her from time to time. He was the son of the slug Senin, the woman that she had looked up to in her youth, and the late Godaime of their village. It all lined up with the inauguration of the current Hokage Shizune, how he had sworn her in months after Lady Tsunade had died during the fourth great shinobi war.
"Sorry Haruno but she is not, I have spoken to Lady Tsunade a couple of times... Before the war." Satsuki spoke with a sad smile.
Sakura looked at Hinata who was rubbing her former teammate's back, she had to take note of the Godaime being a sore subject for these two if Hinata's frown was anything to go by. She decided it was best to change the subject. "If you two were away from the village, then what happened with Pain? I was pretty sure that I heard your name being talked about as being among the injured during the attack." She spoke remembering her being called upon for her proficiencies with medical ninjutsu to help with the sudden influx of injured nin and civilians that was caused by the attacks, a major reason she got a job working at the hospital, though she was supposed to be on vacation right now.
"Funny thing about that, Lady Tsunade was on a diplomatic trip to Suna at the time and she got word from there about the attack and she ran into Naru on the way back, and the rest was history. He came back and kicked the ass of the last path of pain" Hinata paused, pointing with her finger and waving it around her and Satsuki. "Of course, we helped right along with Ino and Shikamaru, Satsuki was even blind at the time and it was tough but we made it through." She said proudly.
The pink-haired woman was honestly in awe of the pair from what she remembered; the last one was the same one that leveled the interior of the village. They had to only treat the gravely injured patients in tents outside of the village walls afterward. She remembered how hard it became very quickly. Then her mind wandered to the only female name mentioned that wasn't with them and her mood dropped slightly, not that she hated Ino but after their match at the Chūnin exams the pair drifted apart rather quickly. For some time she had wanted to reconcile with her former best friend but she had not found the proper time to do so, only to give up funnily enough after Pain's invasion when she saw the look on Ino's face welcoming Naruto back with a gentle embrace covered in injuries herself, and after what she learned about Naruto's life as a child she thought she had no right being in there lives seeing that they might have been together, then two thoughts occurred to her. 'Wait she said that Uchi... Namikaze-san was blind during the attack.' looking at Satsuki though yielded no evidence of the fact. "You are going to have to explain something to me, Hyuga-san said that you were either blind or blinded during the attack with Pain. If you don't mind me asking, what happened there?" Sakura asked while Satsuki's eyes followed her as she spoke.
Satsuki looked put out by the question before chuckling, it was clear as day that it was a sore subject for her. "I can't say, I am afraid. The secrets of the Uchiha clan kekkei genkai is something that want to keep to the members of my clan. I'm sorry Haruno but all I can say is that I was but I am not anymore." Satsuki spoke, thinking of Izumi, Naruto, and her sensei who still had his friend's transplanted eye. Though what she said was how she felt Satsuki couldn't help but have her pride get in the way, something deep down rejects the fact that her brother was a major reason that she got her vision back.
"I'm sorry I didn't mean to..."
"It's fine Haruno, I am the one who should be apologizing." Satsuki continued after Sakura trailed off. "There are some things that I will keep dead with the Uchiha." She finished with an awkward air surrounding the three.
Hinata to lighten the mood thought it was best to change the subject for the group, much to Sakura's relief. "What have you been up to since then Haruno-san? I heard that you were no longer an active Kunoichi not too long after Satsuki and Naru left."
Sakura blushed at the question knowing full well that her story was not going to be anywhere near the tale as the other two's. "Well back then I thought that I did not have what it took as a shinobi, I don't know. I guess it was a combination of what my genin squad was and the fact that after the academy I kind of was lost on what to do." She paused to run her hand through her hair. "But I guess life is all about trial and error right? A little over two years later I found a job at the general hospital when the Rokudaime still worked there and she took me under her wing after she saw me heal some of the injured from the incident with Pain. It was funny she recognized me as a classmate of Naruto's and gave me a chance as a student because I was in his year. After that, I started working there as a nurse and…." She paused thinking about her reunion with Ino, who had shrugged her off, and with Kiba whom she had a connection. "Where I found my place in the worl-"
Before her sentence could be finished the café's door rang and a medium-sized husky entered flanked by Hinata and Satsuki's former teammate Inuzuka Kiba. The dog bound straight to their table right towards Sakura, nearly knocking her out of her chair, licking her face while she suppressed a smile. Kiba followed behind the dog, noticing Hinata and Satsuki in the process. "Satsuki? Hinata? What are you two doing here?" The man spoke nervously.
(…)
At Konoha's general hospital, Naruto was visiting a purple-headed woman currently in a medically induced coma. Looking at her sunken skinny face he had a sad smile as he told her about what he had been up to since he had last seen her. Everything from he was now the head of a clan of Konoha after an eight-year process to what he wanted to do as the village became bigger to eventually how his daughter was doing. "You should see her Anko-nee. She has really sprouted up these last six years, it feels like it was just yesterday when I held her in my arms for the first time, I wonder how you had felt when you took me in. Did you feel the same as I did or were you more worried about the fact that I was some orphan brat? I made a lot of trouble for you when I was little didn't I?" Naruto Spoke remembering the two decades that he had known Mitarashi Anko. "Sometimes I wonder if Kaa-chan had not adopted me where we would be now, what type of people we would have been? What kinds of lives that both of us would have led." He tried to keep calm as he continued. "I still think of that day, of the hand that you extended to me in that dirty little apartment." Naruto nearly choked out a breath as he fought to keep the tears at bay. "I sometimes wonder if it wasn't for Izumi… if it wasn't for her would have taken that hand. After Kaa-chan died I wanted to run, run away from everything. If it wasn't for Satsuki, Hina, and Hanabi I might have."
The man looked at the woman he had considered his older sister for nearly twenty years and smiled trying and succeeding to regain his composure. After doing so he got up from his chair near her bedside leaning to kiss her on the cheek in the process. Once he was at his full height he offered her his goodbyes he moved to the exit of the nearly featureless room looking at her unconscious form one last time before leaving. Not being a few steps away from her room's door a familiar feminine voice invaded his ears. "You come and visit Anko-san all the time but you can't make some for poor old me? Naru I'm offended." He turned to see his old friend and teammate Yamanaka Ino standing at the nameplate near the door he had just exited. "And here I was all dolled up for you and you ignored me completely. I missed you, you know?" She tilted her head up and to her right resting it on the wall as her blonde sideswiped bangs obstructed the Strength of a Hundred Seal on her forehead as her striking pale blue eyes looked at him intently.
"You know as well as I that the walls have ears, who knows if someone is going to take your jokes seriously." Naruto replied with a deadpan expression.
Ino let out a chuckle before closing the distance wrapping her arms around the taller man's neck and pulling Naruto into a tight hug. "I am the director at this hospital so what I say goes, we both know I can make anyone in Konoha disappear if I want them gone, Naru."
"And you wonder why I don't come by your office all that often, you are just as scary as when we were on a team together." Naruto replied with a smile on his face as the pair let go of the embrace.
"Who do you think made me that way? High time you take responsibility for that, I am fine with the mistress role, if it's open." After getting a laugh out of Naruto, Ino's face turned more serious. "In all seriousness Naru, we need to talk… It is about Otogakure."
Naruto's smile left his face, and he looked at her with frowned brows. "You probably should have taken this to the Hokage." He spoke frankly.
"I did Naru…" She poked him in the chest. "Who do you think pointed me to you? This matter stays between the three of us so the council and Satsuki are kept in the dark."
Naruto narrowed his eyes at the information, for some reason neither Ino nor Shizune wanted his wife to find out about it, which would mean that it was most certainly about the Uchiha, and he just got a bad feeling about this.