#not even sasuke is surprised that kakashi can do it. he's just smart enough to be like '????!!!!'

[mendokuse19]

Fire, Wind, and the Smoke In Between Pt. 2

Chapter 2: Dignity

To love oneself is the beginning of a lifelong romance - Oscar Wilde

It took Shikamaru a long time to realize he was capable of loving someone, long enough to realize that by the time he fell in love, they were already taken. When was being in love important to him? Probably when he realized how lonely his life was destined to be. In hindsight, he should have realized his love for Naruto a long time ago when he agreed to go after that idiot Sasuke because he was important to the blond. If he had been smart enough, he would have realized then that he had no place outside of friendship in the blond’s life.

At first, he was jealous of Sasuke. The man held Naruto’s attention flawlessly and in the same way Naruto held Shikamaru’s. It wouldn’t be till later that maybe Shikamaru realized he was also jealous of the way Naruto held Sasuke’s attention, because a little part of him, a part he refused to acknowledge, also wanted Sasuke’s attention. 

It was early morning and the early hustle and bustle of the mission room next door had died down to Shikamaru and Kakashi could return back to the office to get some work done. The sound of papers quickly filled the room, but it didn’t last long before the silver-haired Hokage spoke up.

“We’re releasing him today.” The Nara froze, his pencil pressed hard enough to the paper that the lead snapped. He could feel the older man’s eyes on him, but he didn’t dare turn around. The truth was, he didn’t trust the Uchiha. Yea, he might have helped save the world, but then he tried to kill Naruto after, even knowing the blond was his mate.

“I want to see him before he’s let go, Kakashi-Sensei,��� the genius murmured before grabbing another pencil. He didn’t look up at the Hokage. Even without the Sharingan the man was observant and he didn’t want to show what was in his gaze. Fear, anger… He was afraid of Sasuke, afraid for Naruto. He didn’t want to see the blond’s heart break again and someone who didn’t have a veil over their eyes needed to be the one to talk to the former rogue.

“Shikamaru-kun, look at me. Can I ask you a question?” The words broke the silence between them and thought it wasn’t an order, Shikamaru found his honey eyes drifting towards the man behind the desk. 

“You already have, Rokudaime-Sama,” Shikamaru began, taking glee in the twitch of annoyance in Kakashi’s lips. “But you can ask another.”

“Do you love Naruto?”

The assistant expected any other question, but that one. He knew he was telling with the tightness of his lips and the widening of his eyes. He could see the moment Kakashi saw it too with the way his eyes softened in pity.

“Doesn’t matter, but if he is going to be in the future Hokage’s life, and I am going to be Naruto’s advisor, then I want to make sure he understands a few things.”

“I see. Well, who am I to stop you?”Shikamaru blinked in surprise. He hadn’t realized his eyes had dropped back to his work but they had snapped up at Kakashi’s approval.

“Cat, can you take Shikamaru-kun to T&I? Make sure he gets a few minutes. I’ll be down in…” the Hokage grins and looks out at the sun. “After the Vice-principal’s lunch.”

“Sempai,” Cat drawled in warning. “You’re going to piss Iruka-Sensei off if you don’t get work done today.” The Nara smirked at the banter between the two friends. Being one of the privileged few to know Cat’s identity had made office time amusing, especially when Kakashi was being himself.

“Maa, Kohai. Iruka loves me.”

“I don’t know why.” The dramatic way their Hokage clutched at his chest had the Nara smirking behind his hand, the brief amusement lightening his mood considerably, albeit briefly.

“I’ll be quick Cat, and then you can bring him back to work,” the Nara teased, grinning wider as the ANBU groaned.

A few minutes later had them both outside of the cell door, the jovial mood gone. “I don’t need long.”“Just don’t kill him. I can turn a blind eye to a lot, but I don’t think I can to that.” While there was still an attempt to tease, Shikamaru found relief. At least there was someone out there who hadn’t forgotten what Sasuke had done. Shikamaru offered a single nod before gathering his chakra. Within one blink and the next, the shadows had wrapped around him and he had disappeared from Cat’s side.

Shikamaru was prepared to be firm, to be angry, but when the shadows dispersed from around him and he saw Sasuke several feet away, his heart broke. Despite knowing what all he had done, what all he was capable of, seeing him bound and blinded felt like a knife in his chest. This was a lot harder to see than he thought it would be and all irritation, anger and rage disappeared in the blink of an eye.

For perhaps the first time, he was truly happy his emotions couldn’t be discovered in his scent, yet he knew it was the cigarette he had smoked that morning that had given him away when Sasuke raised his head. The Uchiha’s mouth was in a thin line and it was only because Shikamaru knew what he was looking for let him know what the man was feeling. The fact that there were no other scents other than smoke would be off putting. Those few seconds allowed him to pull himself together enough to speak.

“They’re letting you out today.” The lump in his throat kept him from speaking normally. No, he needed to push his compassion down. He couldn’t afford emotions. Not right now. Pulling his hands from his pockets, he closed the distance between him and the Uchiha only to lift the bandage that covered his Sharingan eye. He knew better than to reveal the Rinnegan.  “I want you to turn on your Sharingan for this because you’re not going to forget my face.” 

It was a carefully crafted game, and Shikamaru always won games. Turning his back on Sasuke was as much of a powerplay as it was to push that onyx eye from his brain. When he turned back around and leaned against the door, he expected to be met with the Sharingan. Instead, the charcoal orb continued to watch him, that intense gaze as penetrating as his own. It wasn’t until his own eyes narrowed in response that the eye bled red. If Shikamaru thought he was exposed before, it was nothing to how he felt now. That gaze wrapped around him, invading him, and yet, he didn’t feel as threatened as he should have. Instead, what he felt was…safe. But that couldn’t be right. Instead of allowing himself to dwell on these thoughts however, Shikamaru pushed on ahead.\

“You’re going to be on your best behavior when you get out of here. Don’t talk-” he barked when Sasuke opened his mouth. He had to get through this and leave before he lost his nerve, or worse, felt sorry for Sasuke. “You’re not going to hurt him again. If you do, you won’t live long enough for the bond to burn you alive.”  The sharp inhale from the bound man nearly made him smile. Nearly. He was glad his threat was taken seriously that despite all of the power and capabilities Sasuke had, he knew he wasn’t immortal and if anyone would be able to find a way to kill him, it was the Nara standing across from him. 

At least, that was what Shikamaru had believed was going through the other man’s and threat given, he turned to leave. The words at his back though froze him in place.

“You love him, too.” Time seemed to stand still as the shadows wavered around him, influenced by his influx of emotions. In another lifetime, he could have loved Naruto. Perhaps if he had been an omega, or even a beta, Naruto would have looked twice at him, or if there were no gender boundaries at all, the blond would have looked, but in this lifetime, it could never happen.

“Impossible. I’m incapable of it, but he is the future of the Hidden Leaf, and I made a vow to him.” While he hadn’t meant to say it, the words came out eagerly. Was he trying to prove he was not a threat to his mate? No, not really. It was just something he had painfully accepted a long time ago. It still didn’t make sense to him why he had told Sasuke of all people though. Biting his lip, he let those thoughts begin to wander unwillingly again but fortunately, Sasuke broke the rabbit hole his mind wanted to jump down.

“What do you mean incapable of love? If you were incapable, you wouldn’t-”

“Do not mistake loyalty for love, Uchiha. Enjoy your freedom.” Shikamaru snapped back in anger before the shadows wrapped around him and he disappeared again. He didn’t speak to Cat when he appeared again. Instead, he headed straight for the roof of Hokage tower.  He needed a damn smoke. Love? No. He didn’t love Naruto and he certainly didn’t feel any compassion for the man in the cell. It was loyalty. No one was better suited for this job than he was. That was it. Love was for other people, not a man who was bred to translate the art of war.

3 years later…

Leaning in to kiss Temari had been a reflex of the high emotions he allowed himself to feel that way. One of his best friends was getting married to her mate and Ino had never looked more beautiful. Sakura and Ino were truly a perfect couple and Shikamaru was happy for them and seeing the smiles on their faces had something akin to hope built up in his chest and caused him to close the distance.

They had been dating for six months. Ever since Gengo had nearly trapped him in his genjutsu and Temari had stopped it, he’d been infatuated. Of course, his infatuation ran deeper than that. They’d been friends for a long time, despite her penchant for calling him crybaby or yelling at him. She’d always been there for him and had been one of the first people outside of his team and family unit to know about him and the first one he’d told willingly.

“Why would a beta need to wear blockers?”

It was easy to blend in in a crowd or to use the excuse, but she had seen right through him. Where she had brought warmth and understanding though, Gengo had brought anxiety and fear.

“I know people, Shikamaru. They could make you an alpha and then you can take your place as my right-hand man.”

It was perhaps the only thing he’d left out of his report, or kept secret from everyone, but in the darkness of his room, the darkest recesses of his mind, he let himself fantasize. Would he and Temari be mates if he did? Would he have to give up on what he was building with her if they weren’t? She was happy with the way he was, and he believed he was too. At least until the wedding.

Leaning down, he smiled at her, but she immediately turned away. The blush of shame flushed her tan cheeks down her neck and he paused, his stomach dropping out. Reaching up, he brushed the collar of her kimono aside, uncaring that it was inappropriate. The mating mark was a bright pink against her neck and he felt his throat go dry.

“Oh,” he whispered and straightened up. Her hand gripping him kept him from taking another step back but he couldn’t… he couldn’t look at her.  The lump began growing in his throat, making it difficult to breathe and his eyes stung.

“Shikamaru, I was going to tell-”

“No, it’s okay, Tem. I get it.” Oh good, he could still form sentences and not make a fool out of himself. He turned back and smiled, despite wanting to crawl into a hole and die. “I’m happy for you. Is…Are they good to you?” “Yea,” the blond omega whispered.

“Suna?”

“Kiri,” she shook her head.

“Ah,” he nodded, their parody of small talk coming to an abrupt end. “When were…” “After the wedding. Tonight. I didn’t want to ruin Ino’s night.” He nodded stiffly because it made sense and a quick glance around told him that Naruto and Sasuke were keeping Ino and Sakura’s attention. Chouji, who was sitting beside Naruto however, gave him a sad smile. So they all knew. He merely nodded and sent a small smile back. He would not break down here, not like this.

“I see, then uh, this is it?” He asked, rubbing at the back of his head.

“I’m still Suna’s Ambassador, you can’t get rid of me that easily, Nara. I’ll be around to continue to make your life a drag.” “Good,” he barked out a forced laugh and looked away. “Tell your alpha that if he hurts you, I’m gonna kick his ass, Tem. He’s got one of the best.” He glanced out of the corner of his eyes to see her own softening as she reached out to brush their hands together for one last time.

“After I kick his ass, you mean. I don’t want to have to save you after.”

“Mendokuse,” he rolled his eyes and pretended he wasn’t so close to breaking. He fooled her though as she smiled and swatted his arm. “Need me to walk you back to your apartment?” “Nah, I got it. It’s not far.” She paused before leaning in to tug him down and kiss his cheek. “Thank you, Shikamaru.” She murmured before walking off. He waited until she disappeared in the trees before turning back to his friends. Chapter 1

Chapter 3

[kishillaa]

SSM21 Day 9: Family

Sasuke is fidgeting beside her, looking anywhere but the person, a few person, before them.

Understand that he won't saying anything else, Sakura bows, which a 3 year old Sarada, who's in Sasuke's hold do as well, "We apologise to be coming over here. My family were chased by enemy and this husband of mine is just too generous to transfer us here." She half teased, half serious telling the family before her their story.

The Uchihas family looks perplexed. Of course they would, someone who looks exactly like their youngest son is standing right before them, holding a toddler, with an oddly pink hair woman beside him.

"May we ask who you are?" The Uchiha Matriarch, Mikoto Uchiha asked.

It would seem better if they didn't tell the family their identity, but then again, this is once in a lifetime opportunity, to be with Sasuke's family. All of them gather in one place, so Sakura do what Sasuke probably wouldn't approve.

She smiles politely before she spoke, "I'm Sakura Uchiha, this is my husband, Sasuke Uchiha. And our daughter, Sarada Uchiha." She introduced. From her peripheral view, Sasuke is throwing a disbelieving look over her while Sarada squeals when her name is mentioned.

It was Itachi who spoke first, "Are you from the future?"

Sakura beamed at him, "Yes, such smart one you are."

Sasuke wished he has another hand that is not too busy holding Sarada to pinch the bridge of his nose for the stunt his wife has just pulled infront of his supposedly dead family.

-

Sitting with the other male members of his family, Sasuke can't seem to calm down as he plays with Sarada's hair to distract himself and occasionally responded to her babbling questions, and glancing at his wife–who is helping Mikoto with lunch, once in a while. He is forever grateful that his father and brother knew he doesn't want to speak.

"Is he like Naruto-oji, or Kakashi-jii chan?"

Sasuke paused at that, looking at his daughter trying to put pieces of puzzle together since her mother's outburst about those people being their family.

"Neither."

Sarada folded her little arms above her chest as she glares at her Papa. And then she shouted at her mother, "Mama! Papa being annoying again."

"Let him be today, Sarada-chan." Her soft voice sounded from the kitchen.

Sarada huffed and then grumbles on Sasuke's lap, "Be nice to Papa today, Sarada-chan. Just today, please." She mimics her mother's voice telling her what to and not do that day while they're visiting Papa's family.

Sasuke's eyes twitched at that, his lips make a frown of its own, "I don't think its nice to mock your mother."

"I dont think its nice to not answer Sarada's questions either." Was Sarada's quick remark.

"I did answer."

Sarada turns around in his lap to face him, "But you didn't give me proper answer, papa."

For one second, Sasuke lift up his gaze to look over his father and brother before quickly avert it away. He sighs, "Fine." He paused to drink his tea, "They're your family. Like Kizashi, and Mebuki. He," He nodded at Itachi, "is pretty much like Naruto," And then he paused, making a face thinking about the knucklehead.

"But Naruto-oji is your friend, Papa."

"It means family too."

"Really? Does that makes Chocho our family?"

Sasuke shrugs, "Sure."

"Inojin too?"

"Of course, Sarada."

The little girl's eyes glinting with excitement before she frowns, "How about Kakashi-jii chan? Is he family too."

Sasuke rolls his eyes thinking back at when he first started being a father, and somehow, betweem managing his job as a hokage, Kakashi was able to give him some of his Icha Icha Paradise tactics on how to start a bond with his new daughter, "No."

"But I like Kakashi-jii chan."

"Kakashi is bad influence. You should stop staying at his place."

"But I like hokage office."

"It's not a place for kids to play around."

"But Kakashi-jii chan said he likes Sarada's company."

Sasuke snorted, "Right, because you stamp for him."

"Kakashi-jii chan likes it when I help him doing hokage work."

"You should not encourage him to be lazy, Sarada. It's his job as the hokage, not you."

Sarada pulls her tongue our at her father, "But Shikamaru-san helped him." She pointed out.

"Shikamaru is his assistant. It's his job."

"I want to be a hokage too."

"You're 3 years old, Sarada."

Sarada nods her head a few times making her glasses fell down a little bit. "Old enough." She said, as she pushes her glasses up.

"She's a wise kid." Sasuke was startled at the voice of his brother, forgetting momentarily where they were.

Decided that it's time for him to speak up, he nodded, "She is."

"How do you transport yourself here, Sasuke?" It's his father. His stern authoritative voice makes Sasuke's raises his head up to look him in the eye.

He mutely uncover his hair over the rinnegan he tried to hide and show the odd 6 tomoe purple colored eye.

The eye makes the two Uchihas gasped in surprised, "It's rinnegan."

Sasuke nodded, "That's right."

Sarada's laughter surrounded the house successfully attract all attention to her. She lifted Sasuke's hair again to see his eyes. It always excite her to watch the mismatched color of her father's eyes.

"Can you do the star eyes, Papa?" She asked.

As if Sarada calls it herself, Sasuke's Eternal Mangekyo Sharingan appears, swirling into 6 pointing stars.

Sarada's giggle intensify before she pulls her father into her small embrace, and then pull away again, staring fondly at his eyes.

"Just how strong are you, little brother?" Itachi asked, amused.

-

"And then Papa killed it!" Sarada exclaimed with exasperation which earned her grandmother's laughter, Itachi's amused smile and an eye twitch from her grandfather.

Sasuke was silent as he watched the scene unfold before him. After they finish lunch, Sakura will help Mikoto clean up and doing the dishes. They will maybe sit for a little while, talking or rather, listening to Sarada babbles about everything she manages.

He, even though quite uncomfortable, is partly content at what had happen today. Both his family, past and future, finally met. He likes how casually Sakura speaks to Mikoto, the way she follows her orders as they cook together, and how she regards both Fugaku and Itachi. He likes how they accept who Sakura is to him, despite the different of clans, hair and eye color.

He especially loves how acceptable his past family is to their precious little Sarada. At such short time, he noticed how frequent his father will glance at the little girl, fondness marred his eyes. Itachi even though so subtle, shows how he enjoys Sarada's non stop talk, amusement danced in his expression, as if saying, you're just like my otouto. His mother is the most obvious out of them all. She already loves Sarada, that is an understatement of the day.

At this short moment of time, Sasuke let his guard down and savour this significantly valuable moment with his family.

He turn to look beside him only to meet with the green eyes of his wife, smiling at him. Sasuke nods as his expression soften before he returns her smile.

[sun-summoning]

part ii | part iii | part iv

after speaking to kido, sakura rushes home. when she calms down from the rage that nearly had her crush his throat, sakura can admit that she doesn’t really think this is him. he knew a lot about her for someone that was supposed to have been locked up all this time, but he seemed genuinely surprised to hear that sarada had been taken, if not disappointed. he fit the profile of what shikamaru and kakashi thought -- that someone wanted sarada for her eyes -- but sakura can’t stop the nagging feeling that somehow this runs deeper.

back in her apartment, megumi’s body is right where she left it, and sakura feels awful for having moved so mechanically. megumi was an orphan, but she was still someone’s little girl. ashamed, sakura lays a sheet over her and swears she’ll do more later.

she heads to her bedroom and begins her work. alone, she summons one of the cats she’d made a contract with shortly after her marriage. the black cat is sleek and holds himself confidently. he’s always been an efficient one, quick to do as she needs and be competent about it. he regards sakura with a cock of his head.

“sarada’s been taken.”

“your daughter.”

“yes.” 

the cat nods. “i shall inform the clowder. if anyone spots her, i will let you know.”

“thank you.” sakura pauses, self-conscious for needing to rely on everybody else for this part. “if you...if any of you are able to come into contact with sasuke-kun, can you pease let him know too?”

“of course.”

“thank you.” sakura promises to provide the usual exchange at a later time and the cat disappears with a puff of smoke. she heads to her bedroom and she begins to pack in silence. 

her movements are as meticulous as they are automatic, done just so she’s ready to leave the moment she knows where she needs to go. her medkit is stocked. her bag has scrolls, weapons, supplies, and sarada’s favourite toy. she changes out of her days clothes and into the leggings and turtleneck of a uniform she hasn’t worn in years. her cloak is in the front closet. she needs to change her boots. she’ll put on the boots now. she leaves the armour on her bed to don later. right now, they only hinder her movements. she goes to the drawer where her mask hides in plain sight among other trinkets and knick knacks, and on the dresser she notices a flower.

sakura stills as she takes in the detail she must have missed in her earlier haste. she considers the simple glass vase and the single red flower sitting in it. its petals curl at the ends and some are even missing. 

this flower has travelled and as sakura considers what it is, she knows it’s travelled far. 

-

konoha became unbearable by the time she tuned twenty. it's so petty and selfish and she'd never say it aloud, but she hated seeing everyone else so happy. she's happy too -- has so many reasons to be -- but she couldn’t help the nagging jealousy she feels when ino declined her invitations because she was going to see sai or when naruto prioritized her almost always only to head home to hinata.

she wanted to be someone's too. she wanted to be their focus and heart and home, but sakura already knew who her someone was and knew that on some level she was his too, so all she needs to do right now is wait.

most of the time, sakura wasn’t bitter. being apart from him wasn't unfamiliar, nor the steadfastness, nor the hope that one day this will pay off one day, nor the self reminders that what she felt was irrelevant as long as sasuke knew and was comforted by the fact that she would always love him.

to suppress her frustrations rather than confront them, sakura worked. she worked tirelessly and relentlessly and by nineteen, they'd named her the greatest medical ninja konoha has ever seen for her accomplishments, ideas, and innovations.

this took her to suna at twenty and to ame at twenty-one to help establish their own clinics.

“i have a gift for you,” ino told her before she left. 

sakura expected a ribbon or a piece of jewellery or that new book on poisons she mentioned she was interested in. instead, ino handed her a bag. its contents shift, imbalanced, and inside sakura finds a potted plant. 

“a flower?”

“not just any flower, you ungrateful bitch.” ino pointed at her accusingly and then at the plant. its petals are a bright red with darker flecks at their base. “i made it.”

“you made it?”

“yes. you know me, interrogating and mind-reading by day, splicing plants together and making my own by night.”

“that’s sad.”

“fuck you. you’re sad.”

sakura laughed and ino laughed too but it got a bit sad because ino probably definitely knew that sakura was sad. “anyway,” ino continued, “we’ll call it the sakuino flower--”

“how creative.”

“--and i expect you to keep it alive through all of your travels.”

sakura frowned at ino, wondering if ino understood that a potted plant had no place in her travels, but ino didn’t seem to care. moreover, this particular thing didn’t seem to have the ability to survive in the desert climate she was going to be living in for the next six months. 

when sakura expressed as much, ino waved the matter off. “deal with it,” she said, giving sakura one last hug. “you’re one of the brightest minds to come out of this village. you’ll figure something out.”

-

its common name is the fire poppy, having originated from the fire country but somehow managing to survive in the deserts of wind country as well. the flower is know for its vibrant red petals, eye-catching and jarring across the barren brown it’s normally found in. sakura had to play with the original plant’s physiology when she first moved to ensure it could survive the alternate climate. in her spare time, when she wasn’t working with the kids, she deigned to work with her plant, eventually working on cloning the original. at some point she’d given one to a nurse she worked with who much admired the first, and gaara asked if he could try planting them in his garden. from there, the spores began to spread.

“why the fire poppy?”

was this someone from suna?

sakura considers the obvious motivation of revenge, but who would even want that? there were people who didn’t appreciate her friendship with kankuro or any of his siblings. perhaps an apprentice of chiyo’s who blamed sakura for not saving her when she gave her life for gaara’s. worse, perhaps someone that once worked sasori who resented her for his demise. or maybe someone she, sadly, can’t even remember. a patient she lost during the war whose family hated her.

sakura truly cannot pinpoint a motivation for this, much less a person. 

especially a person that would understand the meaning of this flower for her. 

ino would never give her this flower. ino would have scoffed at it and created her own. sarada couldn’t have picked it today. and sasuke certainly couldn’t have left it for her.

someone was in her apartment. someone brought it here. 

was it here before?

sakura considers the poppy and forces herself to keep calm. stay logical, she demands. stay smart. was the poppy there before? no, she thinks at first. she would have seen it. she’s certain she would have seen it.

but, she can accept, it’s possible she might have missed it. sarada was taken. her babysitter was murdered. it wouldn’t be surprising if sakura missed it. but sakura doesn’t miss things. right?

“don’t gaslight yourself,” she orders. 

no, she knows. the flower was not there before, meaning in between her going to kakashi, going to the prison, and then running back home, whoever took her daughter came back.

or worse, there was a team involved and one was with her child and another came back for her. 

sakura curses, wishing she’d put on her black ops armour earlier, because whoever brought the flower here is now making their presence known. she senses two people before she sees them and is unsurprised to find sudden flares of strength.

the bedroom is small and they’re in a building. she needs to take this outside, but where? there’s too much risk for others getting hurt in the crossfire. that’s why this was supposed to stay quiet. that’s why this will stay quiet.

they step out of the shadows and sakura assesses them quickly. one male, one female, both fairly young based on stature and development, maybe early twenties at the oldest. they’ll have agility on her, but they won’t have her experience. 

the man holds a chokuto. good. an advantage. sakura is excellent at fighting against such a weapon. if they’re foolish enough to use her husband’s favourite sort of blade, perhaps they didn’t do enough research on her. perhaps they were hired? but if they were unprepared, then were they really here to kill her? 

are they here to distract her?

that thought fills sakura with dread. is someone trying to keep her busy so she can’t get to sarada on time?

the woman shifts, one leg sliding to the side as she raises her hands. she holds no weapons, therefore she is the weapon. sakura knows all about that. she’ll need to be careful with this one. but she still has a holster on her thigh. it’s thinner that the usual styles. maybe a couple kunai, but more likely a set of sebon. this one is smart then. she’ll know precisely where she needs to hit sakura to stop her.

“haruno sakura,” the man greets with a short nod.

so it is her fault.

if this was about sasuke, about the uchiha, they would know her married name. this is about her, and for that sakura feels worse. her baby was taken and why? just to hurt sakura before killing her? sarada was who knows where with surely no one that could be good and all just to hurt sakura?

sakura snarls, furious in a way only a mother could be, and she feels the chakra pulsing around her fists.

“where is my daughter?”

their masks hide any expressions. they remain at ease in the face of her rage, shockingly unafraid of this woman that can level mountains. 

good, sakura thinks. let them be brave. let them come at her like fools. 

she runs through the bedroom door to get to the living room where there’s at least more space to maneuver. the man leaps and brings his blade down upon her, but sakura manages to shift to the side. careful to not be forced into a corner, she spins out of his range and into the open middle until the woman runs past her partner and takes sakura on hand-to-hand.

she matches sakura’s punches and kicks blow for blow. she’s good, sakura thinks nervously. and she’s fast. she’s small, maybe half a head shorter than sakura, so she puts her weight behind every quick jab. sakura gives most of her attention to the woman, but keeps a wary on eye on the man who sheathes his chokuto.

what as he planning?

it takes that one moment for the woman to catch her unaware. 

sakura chokes on her breath as the woman thrusts a senbon into her shoulder. the shock from that slows her down enough so she can lodge in a second.

“shit,” sakura curses as she stumbles back. she rips the senbon out, but she feels her left arm begin to go numb from the struck pressure point. “what did you do--”

sakura’s eyes widen she she feels something foreign begin to course through her. she considers the senbon, dark with her blood and likely something else. there’s a metallic smell that isn’t from the weapon, and sakura knows she’s been poisoned.

however, her body doesn’t bother to fight it. 

sakura watches her opponents, trying to understand how she’s been poisoned with something she’s immune to and just what poison this might be. she’s immune to everything in konoha’s own collection, as well as the ones she shares with shizune.

which poison is this?

does that matter?

sakura scowls at the two people involved in her daughter’s kidnapping and reminds herself that she can take them on one-handed just fine. she pulls her right hand into a fist and charges. the man is closest, so she lunges at him with a chakra-laden punch that sends him barreling into the wall. 

she grabs the front of his shirt and as she pulls him forward, his mask falls away to reveal green eyes, cold and lifeless, and a black diamond under his left eye that makes her uneasy.

sakura stares at the man, confused, because she knows this face.

she knows him.

her fear and pain and worry makes it hard to focus, but knows him. 

focus.

finally, it clicks. 

“isao?”

she thinks she might have seen something like recognition in his eyes. that doesn’t long though. she left herself open, and his partner stabs her shoulder. sakura releases isao with a cry before the woman punches her in the back of the head and everything goes dark.

-

the sun is up when sakura begins to stir. she hears the birds chirping and people outside going about their days. but the buzz of the television is missing, as are the small thuds of sarada’s steps. where is sarada? sakura wonders hazily, lazily, not quite understanding yet.

where is sarada?

her eyes widen and she sits up so quickly her stomach rolls.

“careful.” tsunade comes into view, steadying sakura and checking her for any problems. “you’re still healing.”

she’s in her own bed. she’s not at the hospital. she got knocked out and the assassins got away. she should’ve done something to track them. dammit. was she so arrogant she didn’t have a failsafe in place for if she didn’t simply beat them? sakura punches the bed, earning a disapproving frown from shizune on her other side.

“there was poison in your system.” 

“it was one of ours,” sakura admits warily. 

“yes. there are very few people with access to those, much less this particular one.”

the one that the assassin used was meant to render a victim paralyzed but still able to feel. it was a dreadful thing, meant only for the worst of interrogations. or, more accurately, for torture. sakura concocted it in her darkest moments at fourteen under shizune’s watchful eye. since then, while they’ve both had small handfuls of keen students, they’ve probably shared poisons from their personal roster with only five people at most.

for this particular poison, sakura knows only two people they showed it to, and only one of those was a student of sakura’s.

“how did you find me?”

tsunade rolls her eyes. “shizune sent you off to a prison from kakashi’s office. i figured i’d have to check on you shortly after. and it’s a good thing i did, stupid girl.”

“thank you.”

“don’t thank me. i’m scolding on you.”

“did they find anything useful?”

“no one’s been able to contact your husband.”

“right.”

“and they’re still under the impression that this has to do with the uchiha blood.” 

“they would be,” sakura mutters, too tired and in too good company to be anything but blunt.

shizune sighs. “do you know who came after you last night?” the flower is still where she left it on the dresser. shizune follows her gaze to the fire poppy, and all knowing with plants as well, shizune determines its origins. “how did that get here?”

“i think it was to taunt me.” sakura grimaces. “you were right.”

“about?”

“i think this is my fault.”

shizune’s eyes widen and quickly soften with sympathy. “none of this your fault,” she reminds sakura. 

tsunade crosses her arms. “enemies of yours then?”

“no.” sakura looks sad. “people i once loved.”

-

tbc

[naruto-scenarios-plus-akatsuki]

I'd like a scenario of Ino and Shika mourning the death of their dads and their uncles. It's not explored at all in the series, but I find it hard to believe that they weren't close. I wish Inoichi could have said something to Shikamaru, even if it was really short due to the time: "I'd have liked to see you grow even more. Work hard, Shikamaru". And Shikaku telling Ino something like "you've always been like a daughter to me. Make us proud'. Inoshikacho is the best family in Konoha.

Thank you for the request. I never lost a father or mother so I may not know the complete feeling but I have loss someone dear to me.  With those feelings, I hoped I conveyed the sense of mourning and loss one truly feels when anyone close to them passes away. 

“For the Lord Himself will descend from Heaven with a shout, with the voice of an archangel, and with the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And thus we shall always be with the Lord. Therefore comfort one another with these words.” 1 Thessalonians 4:16-17 NKJV

Loss and Remembering

The war was won. The enemy was defeated. Naruto was safe and Sasuke had returned. You would think all was well with the world. That good had won the day. Yet with any war there was always a cost.  With anything left good to fight for there was a price.

Ino struggled with that price. Her and many of her comrades had suffered a loss during the war. There was an emptiness to her heart that she hadn’t felt before. A bare hole that was expanding with each passing day as the reconstruction of Konoha went on.

The memorial service for the fallen had already taken place and she had shed most of her tears at the event. Home was bittersweet without her dad. Every article and room had a memory of him in it that she could not erase. She had been a wreak the moment she stepped through the door of her house the first night she returned from the Land of Lightning.

The adrenaline and self-preservation no longer distracted her from the reality that her father had passed away. Her mother had already heard the news luckily before her arrival and embraced her only living child fully as soon as she returned. They both cried together, falling to the floor in their grief.

Death was common in the life of a shinobi, but although it is expected, the pain is still very real and affects the lives of those touched by the individual’s sacrifice. Both Ino and her mom knew what kind of man Inoichi was and how he would give his life for his village and comrades to keep them safe. He paid the ultimate price and although there was honor in his death, both of them were really hurt.

After the memorial and funeral service held for those fallen from the 4th Great Ninja War, Ino realized she wasn’t the only one hurting. The village had lost over a hundred lives. Her friends were all hurting. They had lost someone their own age, Neji, who died saving Hinata. Her teammate, Shikamaru, lost his own father. The pain evident on his face while Choji sympathized and cried too, feeling the lost of both of them.

She thought she had cried all that she had that day. The week building up to the funeral was nothing but tears and staying at home. When the day passed and the memory of the fallen forgotten, others were ready to pick up their lives where they left off. The second to the Yamanaka clan had took over as leader while the elders discuss what was next for the clan. They had expectations for her, and she soon had little time to feel anymore as she was filled with busy work.

They were prepping her to become the next leader. The added pressure weighing on her heart and shoulders, making her wonder if she was capable of it. She hadn’t seen her teammates since the funeral, but to be honest, she was currently lost in her own little world. A bubble filled with to-dos and things she had to learn.

Her elders and clan gave her many praises for her accomplishments in the war, but she would not take hold of the clan until she was of proper age. There were still many things for her to learn. They had told her that although war can advance someone’s maturity, they wanted to be sure she was ready.

Ino felt anything but ready. She hadn’t expected to come back from the war to take over her dad’s position. She thought he would still be here with her. She thought she had many more years left with him. With him teaching her, guiding her, loving her, but he was gone and now she wanted nothing more than her father’s warm embrace and kind smile, telling her how much he was proud of her.

Her mind winced at the thought. She thought she was okay but today was one of those days. She stopped in the middle of the street. The sun was beating down and sky was cloudless. There was hardly a breeze and civilians bustled around her going about their daily lives. So much has changed and yet life keeps on going. Her eyes were watching as the architects and stone cravers were working on the latest project of Kakashi’s face on the Hokage mountain.

She was staring at the piece for a while, lost in her own thoughts. A sense of discontent filling her being. She didn’t want to cry. She thought she was done crying. After the memorial service, she told herself she wasn’t going to cry anymore. She had her mom to be brave for and a clan to lead.

“Ino?”

She was driven out of her thoughts and looked away from the mountain top to see Choji in front of her.

“You okay?” He asked concerned.

“Yea,” she replied quickly, glad to have snapped out of it. She smiled out of habit.

“Are you sure?” he asked, not convinced. He was typically sensitive to other people’s emotions, especially his teammates that he has known since childhood.

“Yup, I had a few errands to run this morning and finally got a break for myself.” She gave a fake laugh.

Choji nodded. “How’s your mom doing? I’ve been meaning to stop by, but everything been so busy.”

“You’re telling me. Between clan duties, training, and the flower shop, I’m typically spent. My mom has been doing fine. She’s been tending to the Yamanaka gardens mostly. Spring just popped up, so we been replenishing our stock…” Ino trailed off.

Choji understood. The Yamanaka clan had supplied most of theflowers for the funeral service free of charge for those who were loss. The biggest bouquets going to Inoichi and Shikaku. Choji had a grim smile on his face.

“That’s great to hear.”

Ino nodded, smiling painfully. Her thoughts having led back to her dad. “Yup. Well I’ll catch you later Choji.” She said ready to make her exit and move pass him.

“Wait Ino.”

She stopped to listen.

“If you ever need to talk, you can talk to me. I miss your dad too, not as much as you probably do, and I know its probably not the same way I’m feeling. If anyone knows what your going through it would be Shikamaru,” he said gently.

Ino’s soft smile was more genuine this time. “Thanks Choji.” she said before she continuing on.

Her mind now was overwhelmed and swirling. She guessed she wasn’t doing as great as she thought she was if Choji could tell something was wrong. She sighed. She also felt like a terrible friend. She hadn’t checked up on Shikamaru. The loss of his dad was probably hurting him just as much and Ino knew Choji would be right that Shikamaru could relate to how she was feeling,but he seemed to be doing just fine.

She wondered how he was able to manage it. The grief, the pain, and the numbness from it. She made her way to the Hokage tower slowly, hoping to find her teammate.

Shikamaru was easy enough to find after asking the receptionist. He had his own personal office now and when she entered it, he was reading through a scroll. He looked up surprised to see her and greeted her. She felt awkward as she greeted him back.

He discerned her quickly, knowing something was on her mind.“What brings you here?”

“Oh, nothing just wanted to see how you are doing. I haven’t seen you in a while. I wanted to check in,” she expressed as if carefree.

Shikamaru leaned back in his chair and yawned. “Well I could use a break. Want to join me?”

She nodded and they both made their way out of his office and to the roof of the Hokage tower. They both found a seat on a bench up there and Shikamaru leaned back to stare at the clouds.

“So how are you holding up?” he asked bluntly.

“Is it that obvious?” She questioned insecure.

“No, but I know.” Shikamaru reasoned.

“I feel like I’m just supposed to magically move on from it but I don’t know how everything just keeps…”

“Reminding you of them?” Shikamaru finished.

“Yes,” Ino breathed. “It hurts. It really does. It feels like I lost…” She was lacking words how she was trying to express how she feels.

“I know,” Shikamaru nodded, his face solemn.

“How are you holding up so well?” Ino questioned in desperation.

“I’m not.” Shikamaru admitted. “I think of my father quite often. He showed me how to be a man. How to love. How to fight. How to be smart. I also think of Asuma often. He had depended on me, he was proud of me, he built me up, and never gave up on me.” He took out Asuma’s lighter, opening and closing it. “I miss them both greatly.” He said after a minute.

There was a silence.

“I miss your father as well.”

Ino sniffled trying to hold back tears but started to cry silently anyway.

“Inoichi was kind enough to relay a message from my father and I’m grateful for him to do so, to give me my father’s last words, but also, he too, gave me a message.”

Ino’s ears perked up and she stopped crying to listen more closely. “My dad left you a message too?”

“Yes, just briefly after my father’s words since there wasn’t much time. But your dad told me that he never had a son, but Choji and I were like sons to him. And he was proud of the men he knew we would become. He also asked for me to keep an eye on you.”

Ino smiled softly at that and thought about all Shikamaru had gone through. She thought of his dad, Shikaku. He was a brilliant man as well and she knew how much Shikamaru had admired and loved his dad.

“Your father gave me some advice once,” Ino recalled, and cleared her throat.

Shikamaru turned his head to listen now and stopped fidgeting with the lighter.

“It was when we were little and having a play date while the clan heads got together. You and Choji were being boys throwing rocks and climbing trees. I felt out of place and was mad about something and was sulking on the porch. The grownups went in to talk but before your dad went inside, he kneeled down next to me, seeing as I was staring at you two boys. He told me not to let my anger and sadness keep me from enjoying life and the people in my life.” Ino then giggled. “Of course, I was only six and couldn’t understand what he meant as of yet, but I think now his words ring a little clearer. I feel like the loss of them: Asuma, Shikaku, Neji and my dad will never go away.”

“Yet the pain shouldn’t keep us from living. Although the pain is very real, it is temporary. They will never be taken from our hearts or our memory. We’ll live a life they can be proud of and perhaps one day, we’ll see them again.”

That hope uplifted Ino’s spirits. “Yea, I suppose your right.”

Both of them fell into silence for a few moments, remembering the ones they lost. They spent a good while up on the rooftop, sharing more feelings and memories and coming to peace in the wake of the loss although the pain was definitely there. They had each other to comfort themselves and with that only time would heal.

[shanastoryteller]

(thank you to @imlaughingnexttoyou and @dreamsfullofdragons for donating to a black lives matter affiliated charity!)

The Yamanaka Twins Universe

It’s the day of the genin exam, so Orochimaru isn’t even a little surprised when he hears excited knocking at his door. He sighs, but he hadn’t started any especially volatile or sensitive experiments specifically for this reason, so there’s no reason not to answer the door.

“Aunty Maru!” Naruto shouts, barreling into him to give him a hug that nearly lifts him off the ground. “We passed!”

“We cheated,” Sasuke says, but he gives Orochimaru one of his rare smiles.

“We didn’t cheat,” Naruto insists.

Sakura clamps onto his arm, beaming. He pats her on top of the head. “Did you cheat?”

“Kakashi is our sensei,” Sasuke says from where he’s digging through Orochimaru’s fridge. He wonders if he should be worried or not about how unconcerned he seems about the jars of intestines he has to push out of the way to get to the pork buns.

“Oh, that’s cheating,” he says. “Did he even make you take the test or did you all just go out for ramen?”

Sakura says, “Just because we went out for ramen doesn’t mean we didn’t complete the test.” Naruto’s face scrunches in confusion. She reaches into her pocket and takes out two bells. “I swiped them while we were eating. Technically it was within the one hour mark too.”

Naruto and Sasuke are outraged that she did it without them, but Orochimaru just laughs. “Thin ice, darlings.”

“What?” Naruto asks, clearly not familiar with the phrase.

Orochimaru means to explain, but at that moment more screaming twelve year olds show up at his door. “I’m a genin!” Ino shouts, grabbing Naruto and spinning him around the living room. Chouji and Shikamaru just wave. Seconds later, Hinata, Kiba, and Shino show up as well.

They all head for his fridge. He doesn’t have enough pork buns for this nonsense. He ends up calling Anko and Kabuto and asking them to pick up dinner and come to his place before the genin eat him out of house and home.

Kabuto shows up with a bunch of boxed up servings of fish and rice and vegetables.

Anko brings so much dango she had to seal them away to transport them.

~

In theory, Ino and Naruto have their own rooms.

In practice, Ino and Naruto share a room and have a really epic closet.

“Where’s that crop top? The dark one?” Naruto asks, rifling through the racks. Neither of them are very tidy. Every once in a while their mother will get sick of looking their mess and make them organize it, but it never lasts more than a week before it’s back to looking like a disaster.

Ino is busy drawing on her whisker marks. Naruto doesn’t know why she bothers to use a mirror. She’s been doing it since they were five, ever since he started growing out his hair. She could apply it blind. “You mean that one that’s a shade off from Uchiha navy and makes Sasuke grumpy because he can’t figure out if he wants to yell at you for wearing it or if he likes you in it?”

“Yeah,” he says. Sasuke’s crush on him has been going strong for years, and if Sasuke ever realizes that he’s in love with him then that would be neat, but he’s not holding his breathe. For being so smart, Sasuke is really dumb. “Kakashi is going to make us spar today and I need all the advantages I can get. I can use sexy no jutsu on Sakura, but that doesn’t work on Sasuke.”

“You know you can beat them without those cheap tricks, right? Also, wear the chainmail under armor instead of the bandages then,” she says. “I was going to do that but only to make Asuma mad. He keeps berating me about my clothing choices and I keep reminding him he’s not my dad and to mind his business. We’re building a really strong relationship.”

“It sounds like the relationship we have with Dad,” he says dryly, “where he tells us to do something and then we ignore him.”

She hums, turning from the mirror. The whisker marks on her face look just like his. No one would think they weren’t real. “You know, that’s a good point. Want to skip meeting our senseis and take our teams to go get breakfast instead? It’s good to keep them guessing.”

“You are playing with fire,” he says, “yeah, obviously. We should go see if Team Eight wants to join.”

“You know Kiba will,” Ino says. “Hinata will go if Kiba asks. The real question is if we can bully Shino into it.”

Naruto finally finds the top. Now he just needs to find the matching skirt. “No one can bully Shino into anything. But we can definitely bribe him.”

“A man after my own heart,” Ino sighs.

~

“THIS IS YOUR FAULT!”

Kakashi blinks, looking up from his cup of tea to see Asuma and Kurenai crouching in his window. “Ah. Probably. Tea?”

“No thank you,” Kurenai says at the same time that Asuma shouts, “What do you have to say for yourself?”

“Mostly I’m wondering if you could come inside instead of hanging out on the window. I have neighbors.” He starts pouring two cups of tea. “This is good, I’d wanted to talk to you both anyway.”

“About how your delinquent kids are spreading their bad behavior to the rest of the genin?” Asuma demands. They both step inside, so that’s something.

He puts the cups of tea on the table. Kurenai at least takes a seat and picks up her cup of tea. Asuma just stays standing and scowling. “Ah. No. I’m not taking responsibility for that, they were like that before me. You should go yell at Inoichi.” Naruto and Ino are the pack leaders and always head been. “No, I wanted to talk to you about the chunin exams.”

“Those are months away,” Kurenai says dismissively. “If not years, at this rate.”

“Right, yes, but there’s one next week, and I was planning to submit my kids,” he says. “If you really don’t like training a team, here’s an excellent way to get out of it.”

Asuma is turning an unhealthy shade of red while Kurenai just stares. “They’ve only been genin for a week.”

“Yeah, but they’re all clan heirs or Sakura, who’s scary underneath all the pink,” he says. “They’ve had more training already than most genin do when they take the test. Granted, they don’t have a ton of combat experience, but neither do plenty of genin who get promoted to chunin.”

“You’re insane,” Asuma says flatly.

Kakashi pushes the cup of tea closer to him. “That’s not a no.”

[depressedhatakekakashi]

Yesterdays Sadness Saved For Today

AU: Ghosts Au

Words: 1726

Rating: Teen

Characters: Hatake Kakashi and Uchiha Shisui

Warnings: Minor Character Death

Summary: Kakashi tries to escape the village for a while, desperate to get away from all of the ghosts that litter the streets. Unfortunately, the spot he chose to hideaway has a surprise for him.

Made with lots of help from @sakura-rpblog

@itachi-uchiha-deserved-better @uchihashisui-kun it's pretty heaving Itachi and Shisui focused, so I thought maybe you two might like XD

Dark clouds hung over the village.

Not the kind that would pour rain on top of the villager's heads and flood the streets. Force people to run for cover inside of shops or under trees. Those were avoidable.

No, these clouds were the ones created by overwhelming sadness. The ones that would hover over the village until people had time to mourn. To say their goodbyes and stuff their pain away deep down inside of their hearts so that they could move forward.

Forget about what had hurt them so much.

The village was still healing from the attack, and the ghosts who hadn’t made it home littered the streets. Shinobi from the leaf, sand, and Sound all sharing the same streets where their bodies had fallen. Some were searching out the people they left behind, others just standing there wondering why it was Konoha they were stuck in or why they hadn’t moved on.

It was too much for Kakashi to handle today. He needed to escape. To get somewhere where he didn’t have to see any more ghosts, just for a little bit.

So he went to the Naka. A quiet place to hide away and read his book. Maybe he’d even be able to forget about all of those wondering, lost spirits that littered the streets of Konoha. The people that no one else could see.

Finding a nice spot under one of the trees a bit closer to the cliff’s ledge, he settled himself in and pulled out his book. Ready to waste the day away and forget about that crushing sadness that loomed over the village.

“I wonder what you’re reading,” Jumping up from his spot, Kakashi turned to face whoever had decided to intrude on his peaceful getaway, his face immediately losing all color as soon as he saw who was standing there. “Oh, sorry I didn’t mean- wait, can you see me?”

Uchiha Shisui.

A man who had died years ago, leaving behind no body or trace of what had even happened to him, now standing in front of Kakashi staring at him with wide empty eye sockets, blood running down his face.

The weirdest thing about the whole situation was he was still smiling. A bright, toothy grin, full of excitement and energy.

“You can see me!” He threw his arms up into the air in celebration. “I never thought….Itachi always acted like I wasn’t here…”

This is not how Kakashi had imagined his day going when he had made the decision to head to the Naka. Clearly, there were things he didn’t know about the area.

“Hey,” Shisui took a step forward and waved a hand in front of Kakashi’s face, acting as if he could see the other man even though there were no eyes inside of his skull. “You alright? You haven’t said anything at all.”

What was he supposed to say? Were there even any words that fit into this situation? Anything that wouldn’t make him feel like he had officially lost his mind?

“You-how…” that was definitely not it. Now he just sounded like an idiot.

“Well, I suppose that’s a bit hard to explain,” Shisui straightened his back and brought a finger up to rest against his chin. “I don’t really know why I’m here, or how. It’s all a little confusing and no one ever bothered to explain it to me. I just...I died, and then I was here.”

A familiar explanation.

Every ghost he had spoken to had said the same thing, and none of them left until whatever it was tying them to this world was solved. Whether it was a loved one being able to move on, or someone being forced to pay for what they had done to them.

It varied from person to person, and he didn’t have enough information about Shisui’s death to know what was holding him to this spot.

“Where’s Itachi?” The question caught him off guard. Staring at the other man, he watched as that bright happy smile slowly turned sad. A more haunted, hurt look taking over Shisui’s face. “I haven’t heard from him in a long time. He used to visit a lot but then he just...stopped.”

Did he explain the situation?

Tell Shisui what had happened to his clan? How Itachi had slaughtered all of them, taking their lives one by one until the only ones left were himself and Sasuke.

Was that the death he wanted to grant Shisui? The eternal knowledge that Itachi was the reason the Uchiha clan was no more?

“Hey,” Shisui called out to him, forcing him out of his thoughts. “You’re not answering my question. Is everything alright? Is Itachi...”

Opening his mouth, Kakashi tried desperately to come up with something to say. Perhaps a lie that Itachi was just busier than usual, or a promise that Itachi would come to visit again. He’d make sure of it.

He couldn’t though.

He refused to be the one to give Shisui hope.

“He went through with it, didn’t he?” The words sound so broken when Shisui speaks again, his shoulders slumping in defeat. “I tried to talk to him. To tell him that he didn’t have to. That he shouldn’t listen to Danzo. But no matter how hard I tried, or how loud I yelled, he never heard me.”

It sounded to him like Shisui knew more about the situation than even he did. Which made sense in a way. Kakashi had tried to get through to the younger shinobi, but he was a living breathing person. Capable of trying to put a stop to whatever it was Itachi had planned.

Shisui was dead.

Incapable of doing anything. Just a memory for Itachi to visit and vent to. Itachi probably had no idea he was even there listening to his words. If he did, Kakashi couldn’t imagine him being so open. Holding the weight of Shisui’s judgment on his shoulders.

“How long?”

“Five years,” a statement of fact with no emotion in it, even though there was a deep sense of sadness that had settled inside of his soul years ago over the events. “I tried...I wanted to help him but-”

Shisui held up a hand to silence him.

“It’s not your fault,” words he had tried so desperately to believe over the years, but never could. Itachi was his responsibility. His teammate. “The only people to blame here are Danzo and me.”

Danzo.

That was the second time Shisui had mentioned the village elder. It couldn’t have been a coincidence, could it?

He wanted an explanation. Anything that would help him to understand why Itachi had done it. “What happened?” he asked, terrified of the answer that he was so desperate to hear. “Why did he...I don’t understand.”

For years he had tried to come up with a reason.

To understand why Itachi had done it. Why he had thought it was the only course of action when he had tried so hard to get through to the younger shinobi. To help him out when he seemed so troubled by everything happening.

But Itachi was a living breathing person, capable of making his own decisions as he saw fit. No matter how much Kakashi wished he had just opened up to him and allowed him to help in some way, he had chosen not to.

Based on what Shisui was saying, though, that may have been a choice made by someone else. Someone playing god and using Itachi as their pawn.

“Itachi was stuck in a hard place,” Shisui answered after a moment of contemplation. “Fugaku-Sama wanted him to use his position in Anbu to gather information for the coup, while Danzo wanted to use him to take care of the problem he believed our clan to be.”

Kakashi wants to scold himself for not figuring it out sooner. It should have been obvious to him that Danzo had his hand in the events of the massacre. He had seen what the man was capable of doing to get what he wanted. After all, this was the same man who had sent Tenzo to kill him so that he could have his Sharingan.

If he was willing to kill a loyal leaf shinobi, he’d have no qualms massacring a clan that was planning a coup against the village. But of course, he didn’t want to get his hands dirty. He needed a pawn, and apparently, Itachi had been the perfect one to use.

“I wish that he could have heard me,” Shisui sighed. “That I could have helped…”

“Itachi chose his path,” Kakashi whispered, hoping to give Shisui at least some release from his sorrow. Maybe if he was able to forgive himself, he’d move on. Find his peace and take his peace in the afterlife. “You hold no responsibility for what happened, Shisui.”

“Perhaps,” making his way past Kakashi, Shisui came up to the cliff’s edge and stared down at the water below. “Maybe if I had survived, things could have been different.”

Reaching out towards the man, Kakashi found himself wishing for once that he could actually touch a ghost’s shoulder. Maybe it would help reassure Shisui a bit better.

He’d never know. As always his hand simply went through the spirit’s body. A stark reminder that he wasn’t interacting with someone of this world any longer.

“I’ll just have to wait,’ Turning his head, Shisui smiled once more at Kakashi. “When he’s ready, he’ll find me here. I know he will.”

A smart man would take the opening that Shisui had given them and run. Find themselves a new place to hide away and escape the sorrow that littered Konoha everywhere they went.

Kakashi was a genius, but he was not a smart man.

Making his way to the edge of the cliff, he carefully took a seat beside Shisui and stared out to the horizon. That dark cloud he had been trying so desperately to escape only growing as he listened to Shisui starting to hum beside him.

There was no guarantee that Itachi would show up anytime soon, if ever.

So for as long as he could, Kakashi would keep Shisui company.

It was the least he could do. Even if Shisui never found his peace at least he wouldn’t have to be alone.

[haruno-sakura-san]

So I have a thought for an ItaSaku AU. Sakura gets some intel on where Sasuke is headed right before his fight with Itachi. She shows up after they've both knocked each other out. She goes to try and help Sasuke, but Tobi gets between them and takes Sasuke away with him. Which leaves Sakura staring down at Itachi. The man who is the reason for Sasuke's anger and hatred. But she's also a medic. She leans down, assuming that he is dead but she finds the faintest of heartbeats (1)

I’VE FINALLY WRITTEN SOMETHING FOR THIS!

Sorry this took so long to respond too. I love this AU idea and was thinking it over for a while. I knew I just had to write something out for it, the potential was too good! We MUST have more soft Itachi moments and this would be full of them.

Anyway, it strays a little from the prompt, its not finished and I’m not completely satisfied with the last bit (I swear I can’t write Itachi correctly anymore), but its something and I hope you like it! Feel free to send me thoughts, more suggestions or things you’d like different!

🌸🍡

Do No Harm - Part 1/2

Word count: 4,682

It happens so fast, within the time she takes to blink. One second she’s rushing toward Sasuke, the next Tobi is standing over him, then one blink – that’s it – and they are both gone.

“Sasuke!” She screams his name into the empty space, but its futile. They're long gone, and she did nothing to stop him from being taken.

She stops running, hand braced against the uchiwa painted into the only wall left intact from the battle. What is she supposed to do now? She has no idea of where to look for them, and if she goes back to her team and the village empty-handed... Either way, Kakashi-sensei will be pissed. She's such a failure.

Hot tears fall from her eyes, mixing with the freezing rain. She's standing over Itachi's body with hate in her eyes. She never thought in her life she'd have the capacity to truly hate someone like she didn't now. It was his fault. All of it. Her being here to save Sasuke, his fault Sasuke had left, his fault Sasuke had been injured enough to be taken, and his fault Sasuke had festered under his own hatred so much he couldn't love her.

Her hot tears drop onto Itachi's cheeks, and he flinches. He's not completely dead.

Her hands find his skin, still warm, feeling for any sign of life and - there - fainter than the brush of a butterfly's wings is his heartbeat fluttering along.

There's a rush to that discovery and the act of beating back death from someone, and in the face of so much uncertainty on what to do next, her hands automatically start to work. This she knows. This is the only thing she knows. The feeling of uselessness starts to fade away as she gains momentum and his heart beats stronger.

Later she rationalizes that he's the only one who might know where Tobi could have gone and the only one strong enough to face him should it come to that, but it's secondary to that intrinsic need to do and fix. She's so exhausted by the end, it's all she can manage to take them to an inn nearby. She collapses at the edge of his bed and sleeps for hours.

When she wakes, she's staring into the eyes of the man she hates most in the world. She stands quickly, and a blanket drops from her shoulders to her surprise.

"Sorry, did I wake you? You were shivering."

She doesn't expect an apology or that he isn't showing any signs of aggression at all. Her response is uncharacteristically rude, just a cold glare.

"You look familiar, but I don't know why." He says with a lost look, unaffected by her glare, and moving to sit up. He winces, and she's at his side again, checking his injuries even as she scowls. "I can't remember anything, actually." He continues without his eyes leaving her face.

"Excuse me if I don't believe you." And why should she? He was smart, and this could be his best chance at preying on her soft side.

"You don't.. like me." He answers slowly, only because it's written all over her face.

"No."

He looks down at her glowing hands, "But you're still helping me."

She clenches her jaw and doesn't answer. He's clearly tired, but he's trying to learn as much as he can by just observing. The room, her expression, her clothes. His eyes snag on her headband.

"You're a leaf Kunoichi." Her eyes meet his for a moment in confirmation. "I...am also a leaf shinobi." He says it carefully like he's tugging the memory loose from his head.

"You were. Not anymore." She corrects, offended he'd put himself in the same category as her. They weren't the same at all.

"Was? Hmm." He considers it some more. "I remember bits and pieces of my home, Konoha, but that's it. Nothing about leaving. Is that normal?"

"Stop talking so I can concentrate." She snaps, and to her surprise, he responds with a soft apology.

"Yes, of course. I apologize."

He’s healing more slowly than she'd like, mostly because of her own exhaustion and shallow chakra reserves. At the close of this checkup, he asks, "May I please have some water?"

Begrudgingly, she gets him a glass and press it into his hand. He winces again at the weight and almost drop it. Sakura catches it quickly and raises it to his lips, silently helping him drink. She removes it before he has his fill with an explanation, "Drink too quickly, and you'll make yourself sick."

He looks up at her, now much closer than before, and stare.

"What?" She barks.

"I can finally see you clearly." He says it without embarrassment. His eyesight was that bad, and he's just admitted it with the same even tone as one would admit the sky was blue. "You're beautiful for a kunoichi. You don't have any scars."

She stands up quickly, feeling a flare of strong emotion in her. Hate. She hated him so much. This all had to be an act. Playing on her softness and vanity. She stalks go the door.

"Where are you going?" He asks with a note of panic in his voice.

"I'm getting dinner." The first excuse that pops in her head, and closes the door behind her. He won't leave in this state, and even if he goes, good riddance.

Again she's faced with why she's doing this at all. She should be reporting back to the village, to Kakashi, but what would she say. She just revived a criminal and aided him in escaping capture instead of reporting back. But more than that, she was scared. What if they told her Sasuke had been killed? How can she face them after being such a failure? Naruto's disappointed face would break her.

There were too many scenarios to think through. Too many what-ifs, and that was paralyzing. But she did know if she left Itachi now, he would die. Maybe that was for the best anyway. He was destined to die anyway, right, so she should just walk out the door -

She stops short at the bottom of the stairs. At the inn's entrance is a giant man who's skin was ice blue and cloak covered in red clouds, darkened by the rain. Kisame, Itachi's partner. She darts back up the stairs before he can see her, hurrying back through the door to their room.

"Did they not have food-"

"We have to leave." She's already gathering her few supplies, shoving anything useful in the room into her pack. "Now."

She pops a soldier pill and helps him to the edge of the bed, threading his arms through the straps of her plack and dropping her traveling cloak around his shoulders.

"What's going on?"

"Just get on my back." She crouches in front of him, waiting to feel his weight leaning against her before she grabs the back of his knees and stands. They flew out the window into the rain as fast as she can manage.

The weather is awful for traveling but gives them lots of cover, beating away their tracks as she runs with no destination in mind other than away from the inn and the battleground to the north.

The longer she runs, the weaker they both feel. He needs rest and at the warm wetness seeping into her back, she knows he's reopened some injury. But she doesn't know where to stop. She has nowhere safe to take him.

"Miss?" She hears in her ear. She hadn't told him her name. She tilts her head, so he knows she heard him. "I think I remember something. A hideout from when I was a child."

Her gut tells her not to trust him, but what choice does she have? If she's walking into a trap, the worst they could do is kill her, and if Sasuke was dead, well...

"Head to the right toward that Maple tree with the twisted branches. There's a hidden door at the base."

She takes his direction and sees it almost immediately. It's been shaped from a sapling or through some Jutsu has a pair of lower branches twisting unnaturally together in a spiral. She inspects for a door but doesn't see one.

Itachi asks to be lowered, and she does, looping a weight bearing arm under his shoulders. On his hands and knees, his hands sink into the muddy grass, and she feels a flare of chakra. A door snaps upward. She doesn't ask any questions yet, just hurries them inside.

Uchiwas cover the room, including a faded tapestry on the far wall "Protect and Serve" in script at the bottom. It looks to be some kind of secret meeting room, but she figures it doubles as a safe house when she finds enough to last a full year in the back. She hopes they won't need them for that long.

Dragging out a dusty futon that smells like mildew, she makes a comfortable place for Itachi to lie back. No chakra left for healing, she has to treat his reopened wounds the old fashioned way, with antiseptic and stitches. After she's finished, she again hand feeds him water and a quick miso soup she found dehydrated in the back.

He thanks her more times than she can count, and not once does she answer.

Only when she's rinsing out bandages in a sink in the tiny bathroom does she finally stop to consider just what she's doing.

Again she had the opportunity to leave. She could have left him for his partner to find, but she took him and ran. Staring at his blood on her hands, she feels nothing but disgust for herself and confusion. She scrubs her skin raw.

Wandering back to the room where Itachi is sleeping, she props herself up against a wall, glaring at him until she loses the battle against her exhaustion.

*

His coughing is what wakes her, wet and deep. She pulls his hand away and sees dark blood. A curse leaves her. She'd check before she left for internal bleeding and broken ribs. There was no reason for blood in his lungs. None. Although it will have consequences, she pops another soldier pill and looks again.

It's a disease.

Her hands drop away, and she leans back on her calves. Another chance to give up and walk away. Another choice.

She stands and begins to pace. It was very advance, and this type was something he'd have been born with. Treatable now, but clearly untreated. She turns her back on him, staring deep into that tapestry with the uchiwa. A chink in the great protege's armor. In the strength of the Uchiha clan. Had they left it untreated to save face? Doesn't matter because she needed to decide whether it would be worth it to hide here and heal a man whose very body was fighting against him. A man she hated. An enemy. Should she stay even when she should already be headed back? When Sasuke could be in trouble?

His wet coughs pull her back, and she can't stay away. Her glare is hot on her face as she does what she can to ease his symptoms for the time being.

Team 7 and 8 would have already found the battle sight and have more information than her. They were a team designed for tracking. What would she even add to that? She'd be a spectator. Here at least, she was doing something. She was making an impact. And if Itachi lived, he could give them information they didn't already have.

She leaves to find tea and rationalizes some more.

The second wave of exhaustion from the soldier pills is worse than the first, as she knew it would be. She doesn't know how much time has passed, but Itachi is thankfully sleeping when she wakes. She'd die if he saw her in this state.

Her empty stomach lurches, bitter saliva filling her mouth. Staggering to the bathroom, her muscles tight from overuse and sleeping against a cold wall, she's sick several times. Nothing is I'm her stomach but yellow acid, and when that's gone, dry heaves for several minutes. The cool tile on her face is a relief. She's exhausted, and the weight of her loneliness hits her in full. Her friends don't know she's here. She can't leave. Even if it makes her the weakest shinobi in the world, she just wants to go home and see her mother's face again. She wants her mom to bring her peppermint tea and rub her back softly until she feels well again.

She's silently crying on the floor, holding her breath through the sobs, so they don't escape. Her moment doesn't last long because Itachi's coughs reach her again. She sits up, wipes her face, and focuses on the only thing she can.

She doesn't have enough chakra right now, but he's not coughing up blood this time, so she opts for traditional methods. A warm mug of tea in her hand, she slides behind him and helps him sit up, leaning his weight back against her smaller frame. His breath is less labored sitting up. She stirs him awake and carefully pours tea into his mouth, it's sharp herbal vapors opening and soothing his airways. Then she rubs circles into his back until he falls asleep again, thinking about her mother and her home.

*

It takes a week before he's well enough to stay away for any length of time. It's restless and agonizing for Sakura, who, left alone with her thoughts, rehashes all her options until she's shredded to pieces. None of it matters. Her life has become a series of reactions and that’s it. The moment he needs her, she's there nursing him without the desire to be. She still hated him with everything in her, and this place was covered with reminders of that. It was inescapable.

His lucidness was as welcome as it was unwelcome. A companion of any kind eased some of the loneliness, but his attempts at conversation left Sakura feeling angry and tired. He maintained that he didn't remember anything when she questioned him about Akatsuki, their base locations, and Tobi. It was very clever given she wanted him only for information at this point. She's sure he's just dragging this out until he was strong enough to run. Another inevitable scenario to worry over.

It's that theory that has her still being uncharacteristically rude to him. She gives one-word answers or none at all whenever possible.

Eventually, he stops asking, taking the hint that she won't answer, and just starts talking out loud, puzzling through any memories he can. It's little things: a particular drill he ran in training as a boy, learning his first Jutsu, the smell his mother had. Most are about training, to her surprise, like he'd spent most of his time doing only that, but his mother began to appear more and more. It didn't matter to her, she told herself. Just the sound of his voice alone grates on her ears, and she grinds her teeth and the monotony of it. She's never hated anyone this much that even that is irksome to her.

But one day, she wakes up, his words are drawn out, sloppy, and stop making sense at all. An infection kept up on them, and it bottoms out her stomach. If she lost him now, none of this was worth anything. She wasn't worth anything!

His words become very important

then because if he was speaking, he was surviving. She asks him as many questions as she can think of as she cares for him, though it's all delivered in a clinical tone.

Can you sit up for me? Yes. What's your favorite color? Pink. Think harder, please. Oh, right, blue. Do you have any persistent chills? Yes. What's your favorite food? Dango. How's your headache? Worse. What’s your birthday? Its in June, I think. Lay back down for me? Okay. Favorite birthday present? Breakfast my brother made me.

She stills at that, pulling the cool, damp cloth from his forehead. He'd never once mentioned Sasuke, and her surprise at him remembering shown was mirrored on his face.

"I had...a brother." He murmurs, his fevered face looking up at hers. "Sasuke."

For the first time, she nods in confirmation at a memory of his. He nods back at her as well.

"For my birthday one year, he made me breakfast. But mother wouldn't let him use the stove, so he took the rice leftover from dinner and pressed it into rice balls for me."

Sakura catches herself staring and dips the cloth in cold water again, wringing it out and dabbing it against his warm forehead.

"He woke me up by jumping on my bed...One of them rolled off the plate and ... onto the floor...We had to split the last one." He’s far away, speech slowing, and that scares her. His eyes slide closed.

"Itachi?" She says a bit too quickly. He doesn't respond. "Itachi."

He looks at her through heavy eyelids, making eye contact for the first time in days—her fault, of course.

"What else happened?" She asks softly, staring for the first time this intently into his depthless eyes. He blinked, and they turned glassy.

"I don't know, but... Suddenly I feel like crying."

Sakura bites her lip, dabbing the cloth at his temple, then over the trail of tears rolling from his eyes.

"I think I love my brother very much." He says, and she sees in his face that he does... or did.

"So did I." She whispers, and his brow furrows. The tense of it is another question she doesn't ask herself. Instead, she cooks the cloth again and asks, "Would you like to hear one of my stories about Sasuke?"

*

It's hard to maintain hate for someone whose wellbeing is the sole purpose of your life, Sakura finds. That or she was just growing to like him after all. The stronger he got, the more of a real personality started to emerge. He was polite and kind in a constant way that was becoming harder and harder to believe was an act. It was little things, really, like when he stopped her from killing a spider, and she had to let it outside instead.

After the night of fevered delirium, their conversation had become less stilted. He still didn't remember much about Akatsuki or his time after the massacre but learning about his childhood made him unavoidably human.

"My father and I didn't get along." He admitted one day in conversation. He couldn't remember details out of thin air, but once he started down a train of thought, things came to him in the same context. His father didn't often come up.

She nodded for him to continue, but his brow furrowed, and he looked away. Sometimes she knew he was holding back, like now, but why was still a mystery.

"Can you not remember?" She offers, adjusting her seat on the bed.

"That's not it." His eyes are trained on the floor. She waits for him to continue if he'd like but doesn't press. "We didn't see eye to eye on a lot of things. He had very high expectations."

"I can imagine. He oversaw your whole clan, so I'm sure the pressure was -"

"You don’t know what you’re talking about." Itachi cuts in, tone steely cold.

She stiffens. He'd never raised his voice at her once in the weeks they'd been here, and for the first time in a while, she feels wary of him.

"He made me kill a man at 7 years old." Rage sizzled in his voice, but Sakura could only see shame in his eyes. She leaned back in surprise. "It was a traitor among the Uchiha, one of my own clansmen. My father wouldn't tell me what he'd done to deserve death but placed the kunai in my had anyway. He said it was my duty to protect the clan at all costs, even from traitors inside of it. I begged him not to make me. Then he beat me until I agreed.”

Sakura felt sick and presses her fingers into her lips, wondering just what kind of man Fugaku really was.

“I was too weak to hold the kunai myself, so he squeezed his hand around mine. It felt so small in his. He'd only ever shown love to me with those hands. Small gestures like a pat on my back or head. But that day, he beat me and held my hand so tight it hurt and forced me to press a kunai into my own relative's neck until it bled, and he died."

His hands curled into fists that shook as the words finished pouring out of him. Sakura hesitates, unsure what to say to him, but her hand reaches out to cover his, giving it a gentle squeeze. He lets out a breath, threading her delicate fingers with his.

She wonders if he’s misremembering or rewriting his memories into something he can live with. He’d killed every one of his clansmen, so what  if he was mixing two memories together? But the emotion in his face, maybe she was too naïve, but it felt too raw to be anything but the truth.

“The more I remember about my life, the less I want to. I’m coming to realize most of it was filled with regret.” His hand clenches hers. “ All I feel is powerlessness. I just want it all to end.”

“Don’t say that.” She commands, scooting closer toward him on the futon. Her purpose had become to keep that from happening, but she wonders if he’d already tried to sending Sasuke after him like he had. She wonders if he’d try again given the chance.

“Why shouldn’t I want to die?” He’s dejected, almost resigned. “I know I’m a murderer. How can someone redeem themselves from what I’ve done? I can’t even remember all of it, but I see the way you look at me and know there are worse things hiding inside my head.”

The pity in her face and the fact that she can’t meet his eyes confirms his suspicions. Itachi recoils from her at the realization, disgust marring his graceful features. This mouth draws tight at the corners, jaw jumping under his skin and he looks away.

"I don't think I deserve to still be breathing. I feel that more every day. I see your face and feel..." He breathes in through his nose and then out in a whoosh. He looks at her again and says, "So undeserving."

If she didn't know the whole story, she might have contradicted him, but she does. Many terrible things had happened because of Itachi Uchiha. But the man capable of doing those things and the man holding her hand now couldn’t be more opposite. She made the decision to be here, so he deserved something from her. The person she knew, or rather the gentle person he was without his memories, deserved to live.

So what if his story was true? What if this is who he was before whatever he had endured as a child made the way he was? Was there more to the story, things out of his control? If he was just a boy who’d suffered abuse until he snapped, Sakura knew she could forgive him for just about anything. She’d forgiven Sasuke for the very similar reasons.

Itachi shrinks a bit more into himself in her contemplative silence. All she can see now is now small and lost he looks, a little boy who just needed someone’s help. Her help. It tugs at her until her fingers curl around his cheek, and he leans into it. Her touch was familiar and comforting now after so much time caring for him. It is quiet for a moment longer.

"You should have left me in that inn and gone home." He finally says into her palm.

She shakes her head but realizes he can’t see it with his eyes screwed shut. "I couldn't do it."

From the way his brows droop, she knows he understands that she had tried. Shame clutches her stomach.

"Why not?" he murmurs, compelled to even if he believes the answer will be unpleasant.

She can't answer, but he gives her plenty of time to. What could she possibly say to that? Even to her, the truth was tangled together with the dozens of rationalizations she’d made so that she could look herself in the mirror every day without hating herself. And those were so impersonal, it would only hurt him more if she did.

He finally speaks again. "We've discussed many things but never how I fit into your life." Her hand drops from his cheek, but he catches it, dark eyes finally opening. This he's not letting this go as easily as the rest. "What are we? Colleagues? Friends?"

There’s an innocence to him believing they could have been friends that again has her stomach in knots. She doesn’t want to think about it or how far she’d gone for him despite what they were.

She tries to lean back. The space between them grown too small to fit his questions and the weight of his stare. He stops that too, hand coming to the back of her neck – firm, but not so hard she can’t break free if she wants. He’s constantly asking her closer so he can actually see her expressions. She tells herself that’s all this was.

"Why are you so invested in me, Sakura?" His eyes jump between her own. When he could see clearly, his eyes never stayed still.

Again, she doesn't have an answer but finds her chest rising and falling quickly, adrenaline tingling inside. It must not be from fear, because she doesn’t feel like running. She’s sure she should feel like running.

Instead she’s drawn forward.

"I can't remember you at all, no matter how hard I try." His eyes trailed her cheek, to the pulse hammering in her neck. His thumb brushes away her hair from the spot. Her cheeks heat. "There must be something, because I...feel something for you. It’s frustrating not remembering why or what you feel for me."

Feel something? What did that mean? She swallows, lips parting after. It catches his attention and his always moving eyes still. Reacting without thinking, her's fall to his now, and even if he hadn’t moved yet, she wondered if they would begin to dip forward. She wondered if with his thumb brushing her neck and his eyes on her lips if he was thinking about kissing her.

Finally, the missing instinct to run hits her full force.

"There's nothing to remember." She says quickly, stopping whatever it was he’d been considering. He finds her eyes again, questioning her. This was too close. She can feel his warm breath on her face, and as she inhaled she could taste the sweet and herbal he’d drank on her tongue. "We never met before I found you."

His forehead creases. "I don't understand. Why would you care for me like this if I was a stranger to you?"

"I don't know." A prickling pressure builds behind her eyes. She doesn’t know anything. Everything she was had spiraled so far out of her control that she was thinking about him without any hate in her heart. With something else in her heart entirely. "It just happened."

"Something like this doesn’t just happen.”

This? There is no this. There is nothing more to this than getting some intel and then going back to her life like it never happened. But she’s faced with the how impossible all that was now and her head spins.

She’d have to tell everyone where she had been. No lie she tried to spin could possibly explain her absence or Itachi’s reappearance for that matter. Sasuke would be furious. He’d never forgive her, let alone love her. And for what? For what was she doing all of this?

“I’m just your brother’s teammate. That’s it.” She breaks away from him, quickly shifting to her knees and springing to her feet. What the hell was she doing?

“I see.” He says in that quiet way he does when he’s sifting through his memories for more information. His hands fall to his lap. “Sasuke’s…”

Sakura turns her back and leaves. She was Sasuke’s, but she’s realizing not once in her life was he ever hers. At this point, she doubted he ever would be.

[itachi-uchiha-deserved-better]

Not sure if you've concidered this before, but I like an AU where Mikoto is the one to execute the massacre. Mama bear would totally want to protect her babies and I want her to be strong enough to do it so her Itachi doesn't have to, don't you think???

Here's a start:

Itachi returns to the compound ready to follow through on orders only to find the district silent as the grave, blood pooling in the streets. Someone's beat him too it. He rushes to Sasuke's room first, terrified someone's hurt his little brother and finds his mother creeping out if it in an old shinobi uniform he's never seen her in before. Her face unreadable. His stomach sinks, fearing she's done the unthinkable. She's killed Sasuke. His sharingan actives through a fog of tears and he draws his Katana.

"Mother?"

She'd smile a soft, loving smile, walk forward and wrap her hand around Itachis shaking blade.

"Take care of your brother, Itachi." And she tugs the blade forward, lancing through her stomach, warmth spilling out of her.

She falls to her knees, still smiling and tugs Itachi close into a hug, driving the blade in deeper. His eyes are wide and his whole body trembles.

"Always... remember how much I...loved you."

She drops to the ground, taking several ugly minutes to finally pass to the other side.

Afterward, Itachi is praised for having the strength to kill his mother, the traitor to the village who destroyed the clan. It's not a surprise to most after her medical records surface documenting long term domestic abuse and a history of psychiatric drugs to deal with the trauma. It's written off as a psychotic melt down. So Itachi comes out a tragic hero to the village.

But Danzo isn't pleased, knowing Itachi failed his true mission and remains bitter that Mikoto thwarted his plans.

Dun dun dunnnn 😱

Ok sorry this took me so long to get to but I saw it on my trip home over the weekend and was just absolutely stunned and blown away by this idea because it has so much damn potential and I am so here for it. 

And so I wanted to be able to give it my full attention and maybe even spend some time doing a drabble or developing an AU to go with this idea because DAMN it hurts so good. 

Mikoto is smart and she knows her sons. She knows as soon as the news of Shisui’s death is given to them that there is something very very wrong and she can see in Itachi’s face that he knows more than he’s telling.

It’s been a long time since Mikoto took on any missions. But she’s probably still one of the most skilled Uchiha in the compound. Fugaku wouldn’t fall in love with anything less. You also cant convince me that Mikoto didn’t have the Mangekyo after Kushina’s death during the ninetails attack. I really like the idea of her Mangekyo having to do with seeing people’s secrets or seeing the things that people try to hide. So it doesn’t take much for Mikoto to figure out what happened to Shisui and who is behind his death. 

I think in this AU, Mikoto knows that Danzo used Amatsukami on Itachi to convince him that the only way to save Sasuke is to massacre the clan. She knows that the only way to stop him, to deprive Danzo of his prize and to protect her sons is to commit the atrocities herself. 

Not only does she take out the whole clan, she destroys the eyes of every single person that she kills. She won’t allow Danzo to have them. 

Kakashi is the one to find Itachi in the village. Hiruzen and Danzo show up with the Anbu and the first thing that Team Ro does is go looking for their friend and former member. And the scene Kakashi finds is so horrifyingly familiar. Mikoto is laying on the ground in a pool of her own blood. Itachi is kneeling beside her, silently sobbing. It doesn’t take Kakashi any time at all to figure out what probably happened. 

Danzo is in the middle of framing Itachi when team Ro returns and refutes him. Danzo is furious, but no one can deny the haunted look in Itachi’s eyes and all the evidence supports team Ro’s story. 

Only Itachi knows the truth. 

Perhaps as Mikoto is dying, she urges Itachi to take her eyes. It’s her final words that convince him to do it. “Use them to remember me and to see the truth at the heart of those who would harm you or your brother.” And so he makes it look like he destroyed his mother’s eyes in the fight, but really he has them, giving them to another one of his crows and using them to make sure that he can’t fall prey to Amatsukami again. 

Kakashi takes in Itachi and Sasuke. He wants to make sure that Itachi doesn’t have to suffer alone the way that he did. 

Itachi actually goes mute after his mother’s death. He can’t trust himself to speak without betraying his grief, and the village needs to see a hero, not someone who mourns for a criminal, so he just never speaks. He learns other ways to communicate. He goes back to team Ro, since both Kakashi and Tenzo have always been able to read enough of his body language to understand him. He becomes known for his uncanny ability to see through lies and manipulation to the point where Hiruzen tries to keep Itachi by his side day and night to learn which of their allies are trustworthy and which are traitors. 

I want to explore this so much more, honestly I think this is one of my favorite new AUs

[sariasprincy-writes]

Hollow Point - Epilogue

One // Two // Three // Four // Five // Six // Seven // Eight // Nine // Ten // Eleven // Twelve // Thirteen // Fourteen // Fifteen // Sixteen // Seventeen // Eighteen // Nineteen // Twenty // Twenty-One // Twenty-Two // Twenty-Three // Twenty-Four // Twenty-Five // Twenty-Six // Twenty-Seven // Twenty-Eight // Twenty-Nine // Thirty // Thirty-One // Thirty-Two // Thirty-Three // Thirty-Four // Thirty-Five // Thirty-Six //  - Epilogue Part I (here) 

Epilogue Phantom Pain

Berlin, Germany

It was raining again. Water fell from the sky, pelting the ground and speckling the glass of the store fronts lining the sidewalks. Inside a little coffeehouse a few blocks from the city center, Sakura sipped her mocha as she watched the sky attempt to drown the earth beneath it.

The little shop wasn’t terribly large. Just big enough for a few tables. She sat by herself while the rest of the room was occuied by a group of young, high school-aged locals. They chatted animatedly in rapid German; their laughter only broken up by the tinkling of the bell above the front door.

Sakura didn’t look up as the chair across from her was pulled back before a man in a raincoat sat down. Kakashi pushed his hood back before he let out a relieved sigh, obviously happy to be out of the rain. He ordered a plain Americano from the waitress and waited to speak until she brought it out to him in a large porcelain coffee mug similar to Sakura’s.

“How did your meeting with your contact go?” Kakashi asked before he taste-tested his drink.

“As well as could be expected,” she replied. When he shot her a curious look, she explained with a faint glare. “He was more interested into getting into my pants then talking actual business.”

“Which is why you choose to work with women,” Kakashi provided.

Sakura tipped her head. “Still, he proved to be of some use. As it turns out he knows of someone who wants to begin moving product into New York.”

“Oh?”

“Her name is Karin. She’s a Russian dealer out of Moscow. She smart and crafty, but she’s been busy fighting other dealers within the country to branch out.”

Kakashi’s brow arched in surprise. “You’ve been watching her a while then.”

“Almost a year,” she nodded.

“She shows promise then.”

Sakura hummed her agreement as she drank from her now-lukewarm mug. “I’m not ready to introduce myself yet though. She has some in-house cleaning to do before she can consider branching out. Until then, I’ll keep watch from a distance. Ino thinks Karin would help Tenten keep up with her orders.”

“That would ease the flow of product out of Cairo too,” Kakashi said.

Sakura nodded again, her gaze distant as her mind worked through the ins and outs of her business. There had been some Egyptian Federal Agents poking around her eastern port lately. They were moving so much product it was beginning to draw the eyes of the government; something she needed to shut down soon.

“Is your shoulder bothering you again?” Kakashi asked abruptly.

Confused, Sakura realized she had been massaging her shoulder through her sweatshirt where Izuna had shot her nine months ago. It ached on cool days or when she sat still for too long. And when she allowed her mind to wander…

She dropped her hand. “It’s fine.”

Kakashi obviously wasn’t convinced, but she continued before he could press her. “Any word on Kisame?”

The ex-Marine observed her for a long moment before he finally shook his head. Sakura didn’t know if she was more relieved or disappointed. Kakashi had spent the last few months bouncing between Egypt and Israel, mostly keeping an eye on Temari’s operations and checking in with the latest news in Tel Aviv. If there was any news on Kisame, Kakashi would have heard.

“Temari hasn’t seen or heard anything from him since he arrived in Cairo nine months ago,” Kisame said. “He likely scouted out what became of Akatsuki in Egypt before he returned to Israel. He’s been underground since then.”

“Hopefully he got another assignment,” she murmured, none too hopeful. Sakura didn’t doubt Kisame still had it out for her. Especially since their last meeting had ended on less than friendly terms.

“Speaking of another assignment, you’re heading back to New York almost two weeks earlier than you planned,” Kakashi said, absently stirring his coffee. “What’re you working on?”

“Nothing in particular. Tenten is looking to recruit more men. Her influence is spreading faster than either of us anticipated.”

“Tenten has the money and resources to handle that on her own,” he said in confusion.

“Yes, but I want to be there to remind her who provided her all her new territory,” Sakura said, just a hint of sharpness entering her tone. “Tenten and I get along just fine, but she plays by her own rules. I don’t want her forgetting this is my game.”

Kakashi considered that with a single side-nod, as if to say he agreed with her reasoning.

Sakura fell quiet after that, her mind running through the errands and projects that needed her attention when she returned to the States. She needed to meet with Tenten, check in on Ino, and Sakura tended to have this habit of dropping by Tobirama’s. Purely to get an update on his numbers, or so she told herself.

“What time does your flight leave?” Kakashi asked.

Sakura checked her watch. “Four hours from now.”

“Do you want me to join you or do you need me to check in on Temari again?”

Whatever Sakura was about to say fell forgotten as she heard Itachi laugh somewhere behind her. Abruptly she jerked her head to the sound, her heart skipping a beat in her chest. Only for her gaze to land upon another man. He was a young American, about Itachi’s age with a deep laugh like he used to have.

Not for the first time, Sakura forced herself to remember Itachi was gone, he’s dead. She had stood on the hill in Arlington nearly nine months ago as they lowered his casket into the ground. His entire family lined the front row of mourners, including Shisui and someone Sakura recognized from a photo on the mantle above Itachi’s fireplace: Sasuke, his younger brother.

Then they had stamped the newly dug earth with a name plate. Sakura had only visited it once.

Still, Itachi haunted her. She heard his voice in crowded places and felt his touch in her dreams. She wondered when she would ever stop thinking about him.

“Sakura?”

At the call of her name, she turned her gaze back to Kakashi. There was an expectant look on his face that reminded her he was waiting for an answer.

“Check in on Temari,” Sakura finally replied. “If the police aren’t poking around again, come join me in New York.”

With that decided, they finished their coffee and stood to leave. Under the awning, Kakashi told her he’d keep in touch and to update him on the situation in New York. She nodded her assent and waited until he was out of sight before she dared glance back at the coffeehouse.

A dull ache rose in her chest, but she inhaled and exhaled quickly, pushing the feeling away as she turned her back on the café. She had a plane to catch.

xx

Queens, New York, United States of America

As soon as she landed, Sakura made her way to Tobirama’s mansion. It was late when she arrived. The stars were already out and a bright, full moon illuminated the sky even against the polluting city lights.

As usual, the guard let her pass. She drove up the circle drive and parked out front. Immediately a staff member greeted her and accepted her car keys to park her vehicle in the garage. The butler answered the door before she had even started ascending the entrance stairs. In the doorway, he accepted her coat without anything more than a polite ‘good evening’.

Tobirama greeted her at the bottom of the stairs. His brow arched curiously. “You’re here early.” Then he glanced at the expensive watch on his wrist. “Nearly two weeks early.”

She cocked her head, a smirk lingering in the corner of her mouth. “Should I come back later?”

His gaze lingered on her a moment. Then the corner of his lips flickered up into a smirk before he grabbed her and roughly sealed his mouth over hers. They stumbled to the bedroom, bumping pictures on the wall and tripping over discarded clothes until Tobirama hoisted her onto his hips. Her legs wrapped around his waist before her back hit the wall just inside the bedroom door.

A sound between a gasp and a moan ripped out of her throat as he lined himself up. Then he settled deep inside her, allowing gravity to do its job as his fingers bruised her thighs. Sakura wasn’t even sure if he had closed the door behind them, but she couldn’t care less as he started a hard, fast rhythm. Her head fell back against the wall as he buried himself into a particularly sensitive spot, her breathy moan turning into something sharper as his teeth bit into the soft skin of her neck.

Then Sakura retaliated. Her fingers tangled into his hair, jerking his head back before she crushed her mouth to his. She wasn’t sure if she had missed him, but she was certain she missed this, and she tightened her legs around his waist to pull him closer.

Their battle lasted until climax. Sakura came with an unmuffled cry before Tobirama carried her to the bed. He finished inside her before he rolled off to rest on the bed beside her. Sakura didn’t move until her breath evened out and the sweat on her skin began to make her feel cold and sticky. Without a word, she pushed herself to her feet before she made her way to the joined bathroom.

Inside, Sakura took a quick shower and wrapped herself up in one of the plush towels on the rack before she paused in front the mirror. Steam clung to the surface and she wiped it away with her hand, only pausing when she caught sight of the ugly, circular scar on her shoulder just below her collarbone. It had healed well after the surgery and would fade more with time, but it was a stark reminder of what had happened that day.

Sakura turned away before the memories could surface. She rubbed some lotion onto her legs and ran a brush through her hair before returning to the bedroom.

Her bag had appeared in the hall just outside the door and she brought it inside before dug out her computer bag. Tobirama was still in bed, his own laptop open in his lap.

“How was Cairo?” Tobirama asked.

He didn’t look up at her as she settled on the far side of the bed, one leg bent at the knee in front of her while the other hung off the side of the mattress.

“Boring,” Sakura replied as she booted up her system. “Temari has a pretty good handle on everything happening over there.”

Tobirama side-eyed her. “So, what did you do for the last month?”

“Hung out at the beach. Drank frilly drinks.”

“You’re not the kind to drink frilly drinks,” Tobirama said flatly.

Sakura couldn’t resist her smile. The man was right about that. “I went to Germany.”

Just as she expected, he blinked in confusion. “What the fuck is in Germany?”

“A contact,” she replied, unfazed by his language. “You remember how I said I might be able to get a line into Russia? There’s someone in Moscow that might be willing to start trading into New York.”

He nodded slowly. “Okay, but why meet in Germany?”

“Because that’s where he lived. I don’t fucking know. We just did,” she said, attitude creeping into her voice.

Tobirama was hardly put off by her tone. He didn’t look up from his computer as he asked, “So now what?”

“Now we wait to see if this new dealer contacts me,” she shrugged, her eyes turning down to her computer as her finance software loaded up. “It might take a little while, but I think I have what she wants.”

On the other side of the bed, Tobirama cocked his head. “Which is what?”

“Guns, money, power. Exactly what every other woman wants.”

He shot her an odd look as if to say he doubted that was what every woman wanted, but Sakura ignored him. Instead, she turned down to her work, double checking her accounts and her gun stores.

She was still balancing her finances when her phone went off a little while later. She picked up her phone absentmindedly, saving her work before she glanced at the caller ID. Instantly, she froze. The number was unsaved in her contacts, but she knew who was on the other end.

Orochimaru.

Closing her computer, Sakura stood from the bed. She picked up the call, but didn’t speak into the receiver as she grabbed the first article of clothing she found off the floor. It was Tobirama’s shirt. Quickly she slipped it on over her head before she left the room, closing the door behind her.

In the hall, a maid passed by. She nodded respectfully at Sakura before she quickly retreated down the other end to give her privacy. Sakura hardly even glanced in her direction. The staff were already used to seeing her half-naked, if not fully, by now.

As soon as Sakura was sure she was alone, she held the phone to her ear. “What?”

“Well isn’t that an unpleasant greeting. Shall we try again?” Orochimaru replied cheerfully. When Sakura remained silent, he huffed. “Fine, be that way. I believe you know why I’m calling.”

“You want to collect my debt.”

“Smart and beautiful,” he chuckled.

Sakura resisted the urge to growl. “What do you want?”

“And straight to the point,” he complained. “Very well. There is a man named Inuzuka Kiba. He’s a drug runner that I want taken care of. He’s mostly a ghost, but he commonly does his business in-”

“Moscow,” she finished.

She heard Orochimaru’s surprise through the phone. “You know him?”

“I know of him,” she said vaguely. “Why do you want him gone?”

“Oh darling,” he chuckled too fondly. “When I cleaned up your mess in New Jersey, did I ask any questions?”

A glare settled across her expression, but she forced it away with a sigh. As much as she hated Orochimaru, he had a point. And taking care of Kiba might actually earn her a favor in Russia.

“Consider it done,” she eventually said.

“Excellent.”

Orochimaru hung up then, but Sakura didn’t immediately return to the bedroom as she weighed her options. She hadn’t exactly been planning on moving into Russia so soon, but with Orochimaru’s orders, she had no choice.

After another minute, Sakura finally returned to the bedroom. Tobirama was still sitting where she had left him, computer on his lap. He glanced up at her briefly when she paused beside the bed, her phone still spinning slowly in her hand as she thought.

“What is it?” he asked.

Blinking her thoughts away, Sakura tossed her phone down onto the bed. “Remember how I wanted to go to Russia?”

“Yeah.”

“Turns out we’re going earlier than I planned.”

Tobirama arched his brow in surprise. “When?”

“Next week.”

Xx

Moscow, Russia

Music filled the ballroom. It drifted from the orchestra down below and rose up into the high ceiling. Men and women were dressed in expensive evening attire with glasses of champagne and whiskey in their hands provided by passing servers.

From the second floor, Sakura stood shadowed on a balcony overlooking the elegant party. The faint murmur of conversation reached her ears, but from her distance she couldn’t make out their words. Especially not when they were laced with such heavy Russian accents.

Like a hawk hunting her prey, Sakura watched the party-goers mingle with a calculating gaze, her eyes sharpened with black eyeliner. The people below looked like business men and women, and perhaps most of them were, but her sights were set on one.

Karin.

The beautiful woman stood out in her sparkling, silver dress. The material brushed her ankles, but it hugged her bust and curvy waist, the bits of crystal in her dress sparkling against the giant chandelier overhead. Her red hair spilled over her shoulder in silky curls, her bangs framing her youthful face. She was only a few years older than Sakura, but even she had to admit Karin was doing well in the Russian Underground. Especially now that Kiba was out of the picture.

“Is she ready?” a voice asked.

Sakura didn’t turn her gaze away from Karin as Tobirama came to a stop beside her. The woman below them was fingering a flute of champagne, but Sakura had been keeping an eye on her for near that of an hour. It was only her second glass.

“Not quite,” Sakura replied. “Perhaps after another drink.”

“Should I warm her up for you then?”

Sakura turned her gaze away to peer at Tobirama then. There was a reason she had invited him to come along with her. He looked dashing in his black-on-black suit. The color was normally slimming, but this particular outfit made Tobirama’s shoulders broader, his muscles more apparent. Dangerous without being overly intimidating.

He really was an attractive man with his dark eyes and grey hair. Under the shadows of the balcony, the ridges of his cheekbones were emphasized, the cut of his jaw stronger. He was a silver fox. Exactly the type of man Karin was attracted to.

Sakura smoothed her hand over one side of his collar, pressing it down firmer. Then she smiled. “I’ll give you a couple of minutes to get acquainted.”

Tobirama smirked faintly, the harsh shadows making it appear more cruel, before he slipped away. Sakura tracked him as he descended the stairs and slipped through the crowd until he was standing beside Karin. He took her hand as he introduced himself, bowing slightly as he raised the back of her hand towards his mouth. He didn’t kiss her skin, but he came close in a polite greeting.

Sakura hadn’t told Tobirama she was using his charm to gain a hearing with Karin, but he had always been smart. Sakura didn’t put it past Tobirama to have figured it out himself.

From her shadowed vantage point, Sakura watched the pair like a predator. Tobirama flirted with Karin seamlessly, bold but not abrasive. His intentions obvious but unapologetic. The red-haired woman fed on it. From her research, Sakura knew Karin had been starved for attention in her childhood. And who better than Tobirama to give all of his to her now.

Sakura continued to stand there until Tobirama’s gaze briefly flickered in her direction. A silent cue that Karin was ready for her now.

Stepping away from the balcony, Sakura adjusted the shoulder of her black evening gown, ensuring it covered the scarring on her shoulder. At the same time, her phone pinged in her clutch purse, a stark reminder to mute the device before she went into this meeting.

Fetching her phone, Sakura unlocked the screen to silence her ringer when she saw an unusual text message: a simple location with a date and time. It was from an unknown number, but the description was oddly familiar. There was only one person who ever texted her like that:

Itachi.

tbc…

[grimmjowkurosakidrake]

Heeeelllo!! So i'm not used to "fic prompts" but I may have one ahah. I was thinking about young and fierce Sakura who would defend Sasuke against some hostage-taker who wants Sasuke's sharingan ( kind of like what happened with Hinata) and by any chance she knocked him out and then she runs in the forest with an inconscious Sasuke on her back??

I always try to be realistic when writing Badass!Sakura. specially Genin!Sakura. I mean of course this is fanfic but I don’t like to overpower my girl. I don’t trust Sakura’s raw power to single handily save Sasuke. But I trust her to use her nerdyness to at least secure him until their team helps them out. Anyway! I hope you like this little one-shot!

These men don’t want to take Sasuke’s Sharingan for themselves by any means, they don’t want to kill him out of some misplaced sense of retribution against the Uchiha either. They don’t even target him as a way of demanding ransom by holding the last owner of one Konoha’s strongest bloodline limits hostage.

They take him because of faith.

Sasuke and Sakura aren’t even on a mission when the ten men; all dressed in black and red robes with white Oni masks hiding their faces and only armed with long ceremonial staffs, ambush them. 

They’re running together up the hill that leads to the Hokage mountain one morning. Spending some time together as a team without Naruto running commentary, flirting with Sakura or starting a fight with Sasuke.

They love Naruto, even if the both of them are hesitant to admit it out loud for completely different reasons. But sometimes all they want is some time alone to train in silence and to strategize alone for future team seven missions.

The men don’t approach Sasuke, they’re smart like that. They wait until both teammates stop to take a well deserved breath, when they unconsciously separate from each other a few meters even when silently smiling to each other for a work well done and then they attack.

Sasuke is not fast enough to prevent the first man from gripping Sakura’s long hair tightly and holding the sharp side of his staff directly against her neck but he is fast enough to kick the next man who falls in her direction, beating him against the forest ground and steeping into his throat with just a little pressure.

“Let her go!” He screams frantically. “Let her go or I’ll snap his neck,” he threatens when he feels the rest of the men circle around them. Not doing anything, just watching silently and attentively.

“Do it” goads one of them, “we won’t realise the girl anyway. Not until you come with us.”

“Don’t play with me.” Threatens Sasuke, applying pressure on his own victim’s neck. The man holding Sakura doesn’t move, he doesn’t even apply pressure on Sakura’s neck, he just watches him as he viciously steps on the man’s neck with the force necessary to finally kill him.

“You’re truly a descendant of Madara-sama himself!” Marvels Sakura’s captor at the sigh of his dead comrade at Sasuke’s feet “burdened with the curse of love, a cold blooded demon born on this earth!”

“Come with us, Sasuke Uchiha.” They say “come with us and we’ll let the girl go.”

Sasuke doesn’t hesitate. He holds his hands up to them and allows them to tie him up and tie an old looking ruby necklace to his neck that make him feel suddenly weaker.

“This necklace will suppress your chakra,” they warn him, “so don’t even think about escaping.”

Sakura waits just mere seconds before following them. They don’t travel for too long, and thankfully don’t even notice her meagre chakra tailing them. 

They stop in a small temple hiding on the forest by Konoha’s boarders. Sakura only has some shuriken, cord and kunai with her, she doesn’t know any offensive ninjutsu nor is she trained in genjutsu.

But she’s smart.

The forest is full of poisonous herbs, animals and bugs of all classes. The first thing she looks for are herbs because she knows them by heart, but she’s lucky enough to find some dangerously poisonous spiders.

She kills some of them carefully and coats her weapons in the poison, the others she traps in little vials she usually carries for this same reason.

The temple is guarded by only two masked men and Sakura does a quick job of releasing the spiders on under their robes and just wait it out until they fall, either dead or passed out, all depending on their immune system or their weigh. Sakura doesn’t care much, she enters the temple and that is all she cares about.

She’s little and lean, so she can easily walk the walls and hide in the old vents of the temple without being heard, she tries to find Sasuke but instead just finds three more men.

They don’t expect it when Sakura holds them together by quickly tying the cord dipped in paralysing paste made out of bufotoxins she extracted from some toads around their exposed necks. They can’t even scream before all of their muscles loss their movement.

Then she finds Sasuke.

He’s held in a luscious looking room, his training clothes replaced with black and red ceremonial robes and he has bruises all over his face. He’s awake and Sakura sighs in relief when she doesn’t sense more people around his room.

“Sasuke-Kun,” She whispers from the vents above his head.

“Sakura…” He murmurs in surprise, one of his eyes too swollen to properly open and look at her. Sakura smiles bitterly and jumps from the ceiling to his side, where he’s sitting on a king sized bed.

“At least they’re treating you well, Sasuke-kun.” Smiles the girl awkwardly looking around the room.

“What are you doing here!?” Demands the hostage, glaring directly at her eyes.

“I’m here to get you out!” She declares half-heartedly.

She knows she’s not like Naruto and Kakashi. She’s weak, weaker than her teammates at least. But she’ll be dammed if she allows Sasuke-kun to be kidnapped right behind her nose in a poor attempt at protecting her without her doing everything in her power to try and save him.

“You can’t be here!” Berates her Sasuke, “they’re crazy, Sakura. They think they will summon a demon by sacrificing me. They won’t second guess it before killing you If you try to get me away from them!” His voice is desperate and his face contorts in an anguished expression. Sakura can barely hold her own tears when Sasuke grips her arms tightly enough to bruise. “You have to go, Sakura.”

“I’m sorry, Sasuke-kun but I can’t.” She apologises, caressing his neck where the necklace is still glowing and constricting his chakra. She can’t take it off and probably no weapon in her power will be able to break it. Their only option now is for them to escape from this place and hope for Kakashi-sensei or another Jonin to find them and help them.

Kissing his head sweetly she hits in the back of his neck, precisely on the pressure point needed to knock him out and taking him without any protests. He’s too heavy to hold him on her arms so she sticks to carry him on her back.

The guards the Kunoichi attacked first are still out but just as she’s almost out of the temple without being noticed she hears a enraged “Get her!” So she runs.

She runs and doesn’t stop for anything. Not when one of them throw a fire release justsu straigh at her leg, not when two senbon hit her directly on her arms and not even when a Kunai hit Sasuke on the shoulder, making him groan in pain even while passed out.

She needs to bring Sasuke home. No matter the cost.

[cywscross]

got any f/f fic recs?

Okay so apparently not Final Fantasy but femslash. I’m stupid, sorry. Uhh I don’t read that many femslash compared to slash but I can name some:

NARUTO

Sing as their bones go marching in again by felinedetached  (Sakura/Ino)

Instead, it goes like this: Haruno Sakura is the daughter of two civilians, from civilian families. She is nothing and no one—smart, yes, top kunoichi, yes, but she will never be on par with clan kids. She is teammates to an orphan powerhouse from a dead clan and the last remaining Uchiha.

Haruno Sakura is nothing and nobody, but she breathes and grows and thrives and the forest thrives with her.

(She opens her eyes to wood, grown from nothing, and Hatake Kakashi stares in disbelief at the tree where his student used to be.)

Or, Haruno Sakura should have had the goddamn Mokuton and this author is mad.

No one there to shame me for my youth by felinedetached  (Sakura/Ino)

What she hadn’t expected was to be what is apparently next in line for Kakashi’s position—although, she supposes it was inevitable—or for the nurses at the hospital to look at her with such adoration.

Sakura’s not complaining, she just hadn’t expected it.

(She’s the medic on a team of powerhouses, the backline fighter to Naruto and Sasuke’s brilliance, and she never thought it would be her people looked at like this.)

But it is her; and as she gets glances and propositions from both civilian and ninja, from male and female alike, she wonders.

The Fair Maiden by Tozette  (Sakura/Ino)

Basically: Princess Ino has been kidnapped by the terrible dragon Sakura! Brave knights Chouji and Shikamaru must rescue her from the fearsome beast. It... does not go entirely as expected.

The Shinobi version of Pride by grit (Sakura/Hinata/Karin)

The coffee sways dangerously.

“Why,” Sakura interrupts, before the chaos can get any worse, “are you in my kitchen?”

every fire is a lesson learned by blackkat (Konan/Sakura)

Just when Konan has lost hope, she meets a hero.

three birds watch and the fourth flies by grit  (Minato!Sakura/Kushina)

There's a legend in her hands like clay, so she must work hard to be formidable, to be everything he was and she isn't, because what if she screws up the future, selfish enough to make space for her own?

She pours over heaps of sealing scrolls and tries not to think too hard on what happens if she fails.

Or: Timid Minato but this time around, she's Sakura.

throw it my way (all the love you keep) by amako  (Sakura/Ino)

The crux of the matter is: they don't have a Hokage, the one that could be Hokage is sharing a Moment with his soulmate or whatever, and when asked to take the mantle again, Tsunade had broken a few bones. Not hers, obviously.

will to live by justdoityoufucker  (Sakura/Ino)

Sakura joins the ANBU. The entire world seems a little tilted after that, but they all adapt.

Bumpy Future by Dovey (Sakura/Hinata)

It's her last year at the academy when Sakura hits her head. When she wakes up, she has a little trouble matching memories to the people in them- but she'll have to get it right eventually, yeah?

in which sakura pairs vague associations with the wrong people, and everyone is much happier because of it (Except Iruka-sensei).

the Rebel ‘verse by felinedetached (Sakura/Ino)

(Three things come after that:

The moment of realisation. The moment she realises Sasuke’s left the village, gone off to do who knows what with Orochimaru-

Her memory returns to her - she was useless against her teammate; taken down by a pressure point and unable to do anything to prevent him from getting at it.

Inner rages, throws herself around, cursing and screaming until finally, finally she calms and she says Uchiha Sasuke is a traitor.)

In which Sakura gets the character development she deserved.

shattered dreams into rhapsodies by blackkat (Kushina/Mikoto)

For the prompt "I’m a monster/guardian that the local village give sacrifices too and you’re the new sacrifice but don’t worry I won’t eat you, I’m kinda lonely"

-0-

HARRY POTTER

Four Walls (And the Right People) by blackkat (Lily/Narcissa)

“Is coming in there going to make me lose my will to live?” Lily calls, amused.

“No!” Harry protests, wounded, like she and Narcissa haven’t previously walked in on structural damage, fires, flooding, and mysteriously conjured cat-sized dragons. Sirius has been a terrible influence on them.

the girl who lived (again) by dirgewithoutmusic (trans!Harry/Ginny)

Molly tried her best. When Harry had told them, Arthur had asked excitedly, "is this a Muggle thing?" Hermione had hurried out a "no!" and a frantic history of gender diversity in the wizarding world.

"It's just that I'm a girl," Harry had said, and Arthur had nodded and asked her about how telephone booths worked. He would call her by the right pronouns until the day he died at the respectable old age of one hundred and thirty three, and he would make it seem easy.

But Molly had to try. Hermione explained things faster and higher-pitched every time Molly messed up a pronoun. Molly frowned and muttered and put extra potatoes on Harry's plate at breakfast. Harry slept in Ron's room, which didn't bother either of them but which made Hermione scowl.

Harry got boxes of sweets and warm hugs, as Molly chewed things over. For her fifteenth Christmas, the Weasley sweater she would receive would be a bright, friendly, terrible pink.

The next time Harry visited, Molly put her on Ginny's floor to sleep-- for some definition of sleep that involved Hermione hissing threats at three in the morning if Harry and Ginny didn't "shut up about Wronski feints, do you know what time it is."

-0-

GAME OF THRONES

When Warp Is Fire And Weft Is Ice by afterandalasia  (Dany/Sansa)

People tell many stories about them, the Mother of Dragons and the Queen in the North.

Some of them even have a grain of truth in them.

a strangeness of sunlight by musicforswimming  (Dany/Sansa)

Someone calls Sansa home, and sets her free in doing so.

Ivory and Dragonglass by madeinessos  (Rhaenys/Sansa)

For the valar-morekinks prompt on livejournal: "Rhaeneys follows in her father's footsteps when she and Sansa run away together to the free cities so they can be with each other . Both ladies left a letter to their families so that their absence wouldn't spark the embers of another rebellion."

Sansa in Dorne by sear  (Arianne/Sansa)

Alayne Stone wakes confused, in the body of the young maid she once was. She has returned to Winterfell, before everything went wrong. All she wants now is to be free, to never be hurt again. Dorne will give her that.

Mirror of the sun by myrish_lace (Dany/Sansa)

Daenerys arrives at Winterfell to attempt to treat with Jon Snow. She's immediately side-tracked by her fascination with Sansa Stark, and the two grow closer. Told from Daenerys's point of view.

-0-0-

And these are genderswap femslash, in case you’re not a fan:

TEEN WOLF

Utterly Appropriate by wynnebat  (Peter/Stiles)

There's only one person whom Stiles would marry, and whoever has asked for her hand isn't on that list.

Spin a Web of Silk by twothumbsandnostakeincanon (somanyofthekids)  (Peter/Stiles)

“Darling, will you marry me?”

Stiles stared into the eyes of the light of her life, the one who held her heart- her love.

And then she looked back at the man who had asked the question.

“Yes.”

Sugar Babies Not Sugar Vaginas by twothumbsandnostakeincanon (somanyofthekids)  (Peter/Stiles)

Stiles is a copywriter working for a service that's been contacted by a company that sells something called Passion Dust. It's so much worse than it sounds.

Free Birth Control by twothumbsandnostakeincanon (somanyofthekids)  (Peter/Stiles)

“I can’t believe they haven’t fixed the footbridge yet,” Peter said, disgruntled as she toweled off her feet, getting all the muck from the creek off of them.

“I can,” Talia said absently as she shelled peas on the front porch. “The only people who use that bridge are you, Stilinski, and Stilinski’s clients. And Stilinski does her best to avoid clients. Did you hear what she did to the woman who took out the bridge?” Talia settled further back into her chair. Peter immediately recognized it as Gossip Position, and leaned in eagerly.

“No, tell me everything.”

Ain't No Stranger (Been This Way Before) by pibroch (littleblackdog)  (Peter/Stiles)

Stiles loved orgasms, and she really loved the shuddery, mind-numbing orgasms Peter had spent months meticulously and enthusiastically learning to coax out of her. She also loved the relief from cramps she’d get from a good climax or four, and Peter had no complaints about blood. Definitely a win-win, all around. - Stiles has a period from hell, and Peter has a surprise.

On The Loose by SmartKIN (Peter/Stiles)

Stiles has a job to do; Hot Lady Sniper almost ruins it for her.

The Same Damn Hunger by Twisted_Mind (Allison/Stiles)

There’s no soft jazz, no flower petals or candles, because that’s not what this is.

-0-

MARVEL

Mightier Than The Sword by aloneintherain (Johnny/Peter)

Janey Storm freezes in the doorway.

Pen is half naked. Her boney, freckled shoulders and the faded sports bra she’s had since high school are on display. Bruises from this morning’s encounter with the Scorpion haven’t had time to heal yet—purples and sickly greens tesselate over her ribs and toned stomach.

Janey can see every unedited part of Pen: her open knuckles, blood a sharp red against her pale skin; her unbrushed hair, grown out past Pen’s jaw like a tangle of weeds; her loose jeans, slung low on her hips, with fraying ends and ripped knees. Janey stands there and sees Pen Parker, a half naked, wide-eyed girl choking on her heart.

“It’s occupied,” Pen manages.

--

Or: a universe where Johnny and Peter were born girls.

-0-

YOWAMUSHI PEDAL

One For The Road by Atropa Belladonna (WorldsJunk) (Onoda/Arakita)

Fuck her entire life on a cactus she’s a fucking loser. Not because Onoda’s boobs are bigger than her’s - ok, they’ve always been. Actually, everyone has bigger tits than she does, she is flat as hell and she likes it. Why the hell would she want a couple of Shinkai-style jugs waving around in the wind when she’s riding for fucks’s sakes, that’s impractical as all fuck. No, Arakita is a loser because now she can’t stop thinking about Onoda-chan’s tits and no way she is perving like this on an innocent girl that is all around too good for the likes of her.

[daraanna]

“Arranged Love”- Part Two „Red ribbon”

She sat at her mother's bed. She slowly soaked the sponge with water and then washed the skin of the sleeping woman with it. She shouldn’t have deal with this, but when she saw how maids treated the sick woman, she chased them away. It didn’t change the fact that now  she should serve her husband not mom. Once again she felt disgust. She did not dream about such a life. Although she has long ago abandoned naive plans to follow her father's footsteps, she hoped that she will be able to become Miko. She definitely preferred to serve gods and people, rather than just one self-loving man. However, in the current situation, that wasn’t the main thing she was thinking about. The pain after his father's death was still fresh. Although two months have passed since his funeral, she still could not believe it. She often caught herself on that she expected him to return. It did not seem real that he would never see him again. After the information about her husband's death, her mother's health deteriorated sharply. Her mother was sick for many years, but now she barely found the strength to get up from the bed. Looking at her, she could not stop the growing fear at the thought that she would leave her soon too.

“I think that this hand can’t be any cleaner... “ she heard a melodic voice. She looked up at the smiling face of pink-haired woman .

"Good morning" she replied and smile back, "How are you?”

"Uh ... It used to be better ... Although I'm more interested in how you feel ?" In spite of her pain, her mother was still worried about her more than she was about herself. Involuntarily, she sighed. "Everything is okay? Sarada did he ...

"No... We did not even do it," she replied. “He preferred to talk ...”

 “I knew that Naruto's son must be kind ...”

"Or prefer servants," replied the black-haired woman under her breath.

“What?” Sakura asked.

“Nothing important...”

“Sarada. I know you did not dream about it ... I and Dad would do anything to make you happy ...”

“Mom, you do not have to ... It's the only way to defend Naka from plundering. Nobody dares to attack the emperor's land, especially now ... “she stopped when felt touch on her hand. Her mother gently pulled her to hug her tight.

You know perfectly well that it isn’t what I mean. I will not ... I do not know how long I can be with you. Naruto was a friend of your father from an early age. I know that you will be safe here ...” Black-haired girl instinctively snuggled into her

“You should not call the Emperor by name” - she reminded to which the older woman reacted with laughter. “You know, your father called him a dope... I think we know each other too long to follow the court's etiquette”

Sarada nodded in pity. How many stories she heard about the times when father and mother grew up in the royal court. Sasuke as a son of Shogun was sent to the palace for study with sensei Kakashi Hakate. Her mother was the daughter of the castle servants, but because of her extraordinary beauty, she was taken to learn in order to become an imperator’s concubine... However, the friendship that was born between her parents and the young emperor thwarted many adult plans. Everything changed when the army of Danzo attacked Naka. In one night all members of the Uchiha clan were murdered. The only survivor was her father who was then in the capital. It took him 7 years to regain his hometown and defeat the forces of the Shimura. However, she did not know the details of what happen then. Her parents didn’t want to talk about it. When she finished thinking the door to the room opened. Empress stood in them carrying a pot of tea. Sarada quickly stood up to bow to the arrived, which she replied with a smile.

"Good morning Sakura, Sarada, nice to see you," queen welcomed them, putting tea at the nightstand

“Sakura, how are you feeling? “ moments later, the emperor appeared in the room, putting the youngest girl in a consternation - I see that my beautiful daughter-in-law  is also here!” he shouted patting her on the head “My son is lucky, amazing that Sasuke bastard became the father of such beauty. You probably have all the genes after mom ...

-Naruto! - the menacing tone of the pink-haired woman stopped the emperor.

Hinata-sama did not look happy about his words either.

“I'm sorry, I know, I should not speak ill of the dead, but it's hard to believe that teme is dead ...”- the blond sighed. Everyone in the room became sad. Seeing this empress, she decided to change the subject.

“Um .. Sarada, have you met Himawari?

The girl looked at her questioningly, not knowing what that sunflower is ...

“Uh ... Younger sister of Boruto, Himawari. You know ... She was very happy that now she would have an older sister ... She is 8 years old, so she does not understand everything yet, but she really wanted to meet you, "she said smiling.

"True, why do not you go and visit her, and we will talk to Sakura-chan?" said blond.

Black-haired girl felt like she was 10 years old again. It was hard to tell her how she felt about that the royal couple treated her like a child. On the one hand, she felt anger, in the end, it was them who married her with their son, making her an adult. On the other ... It made her feel safe . However, no matter what she think about this situation, every request of the emperor should be treated as an order. She got up and, bowing to the elders, left the room.

...................... Finding the rooms of her sister-in-law was not easy. Although the Uchiha residence in Naka was not small, the imperial palace was enormous. She had already lost hope of finding herself in these intricate labyrinths, when something furred had grazed her feet. She froze. Moments later, another animal ran out from the next door, followed by a little girl dressed in a multi-colored kimono.

“Kurama no! “ she shouted after the fox.

If it was not shocking enough, moments after that she felt the weight on her shoulder. When she turned her head, she saw the frightened Tanuki suspended on her hand. “You should be friends with Shukaku and not chase him! Oh! Sarada-nee !?

The confused girl only nodded.

-Wooow, sister is so pretty... Let's have play! - shouted a 8-year-old girl and before she could protest, she was dragged into the chamber. The room was a mess. Scattered ribbons, paint stains, two buried beds for animals, and after that a bed and a huge wardrobe with scattered clothes. In the middle of it all, a frightened babysitter stood.

“Princess, you can not ... Oh! “  she started, but she quickly bowed when she saw Sarada. Black-haired returned the gesture.

“Nana, you can go ... Sister will take care of me” a small Uzumaki smiled. The governess opened her mouth for a moment as if she wanted to resist but when she saw the fox returning to the room she apparently found that it was better to evacuate because a moment later she was gone.

"Will you help me comb Kuraama?" Asked the blue-eyed girl, trying to catch the unfortunate animal.

“Comb?”

"I must put a ribbon on his tail to make him look kawaii ..." she replied

"Um ... Are you sure he likes it?" She asked, looking at the frightened animal. Himawari looked at her pet and then at the ribbons in her hands.

“D-does not look like ... But the ribbons are so pretty” she sighed .

“You know ... What is nice for people does not have to be nice for animals “ Uchiha crouch next to her - Look at Kurama, the gods gave him beautiful fur, he don’t need additional decorations ...

The girl looked at her with understanding. Then, without any warning, she hugged her.

“Nee-chan is sooo smart!”

Black-haired had no idea how to react. She was not used to such close contacts with strangers, but on the other hand, it was hard not to like the little princess. She gently stroked her head. "Don’t you think you should clean up here?" She replied, looking around the room.

“Huh? There's no need , maids will do it ...”

“But it's your room and I do not think your pets are feeling well in this mess.”

Himawari looked at the fox and tanuki animals were stressed by frequent entanglement in different clothes and ribbons.

"I think you're right," she replied sadly.

Sarada smiled.

"I can help you and then we'll play, okay?" She asked. The younger returned her smile.

“Hai”

.................................... It did not take long for them to clean this room. It is true that more work was done by the older, this little Uzumaki didn’t hesitate. Finally, the beds of animals were also tidy and this time they set them on opposite sides of the room to give Kurama and Shukaku time to get used to each other. The eight-year-old seemed to be proud of the new decor she received.

"And now she wants to brush  sister’s hair!", She grinned, holding a brush and a bunch of ribbons in her hand. For some reason, this sight caused Sarada to have shivers . However, the promise is a promise, so she obediently sat down on the floor.

"Can I use all the ribbons?" Asked the girl innocently, but it did not make her feel better.

“Um ... Or maybe it's better to start from one? “

"Okay but  the longest," replied the blue-eyed girl, pulling a red ribbon from the cabinet.

She agreed. At that moment, she did not see anything strange about it. The problem appeared when it turned out that the ribbon is 20 meters long. So after finishing combing, she continued to follow her like a veil.

“What do you think?”

“Hn... It’s pretty - it's not that she lied. Indeed, the hairstyle was not ugly, as to the practicability you could argue, but she did not have the heart to deprive smile of this little girl.

“What are we going to play now " she heard her voice, but the colors of red and orange spreading through the room clearly suggested that the night was approaching.

"I think that soon enough you should go to sleep soon, right?" The young princess's smile was soon gone. Sarada felt strange. As if a strong instinct told her to do something to comfort her. So she did what she knew the most. Before she could think her fingers: the index and middle were on the girl's forehead.

"Next time," she said, smiling, seeing surprise of blue-eyed girl. Then she realized what she had just done. She felt strong pressure in the chest and growing panic.

“I have to go” she said before she left the room. Her step was accelerated just like her breath. Emotions from the previous 2 months have been flowing her again. Shock and pain when her father's body was brought to their estate in Naka. She missed her breath and felt dark in front of her eyes. She felt that she was all shaking, but she could not control herself. She missed her father, she missed her home, she was afraid for her mother, she felt far too much. She did not know how much time had passed till she regained contact with reality. She was in her husband's room. She was not sure how she got here, but she was grateful she was alone. She hate to cry in the presence of others. Still slightly shaky, she tried to get up from the floor. As she leaned against the chests of drawers, her eyes fell on the katana lying on it in a decorative package. She took a closer look at the blade, which was really well done. Despite of the richness of decoration, they did not interfere with holding the handles, nor did they change the fluidity of the movements with the sword. Curious, she took it in her hand. It was heavy, far heavier and longer than her katana, but well balanced. The steel from which it was made also seemed to be the highest, but the blade was dull and dirty. Involuntarily she winced, even the most beautiful work of art not preserved will become a trash. Instinctively she looked into the dresser in search of tools to clean the blade and quickly found them. Cleansing and sharpening took her much longer than normal. Applying the last layers of maintenance oil she felt that she was calm. For some reason, even such a prosaic act was able to bring her at least a substitute of home. Carefully, she put the katana back in place and was about to move into the bathroom when she almost get heart attack with the impetus of the open door. Her husband ran into the room and did not notice the red ribbon stretched across the ground. A moment later she felt a heavy burden on her and then she was lying on the floor. When she opened her eyes she had two blue irises in front of her. She felt that she was breathless. Why had not she noticed that they looked like this ... As if someone had cut them out of a piece of sky.

"Ugh ..." her thoughts were interrupted by the voice and movement of the future emperor, who tried to get up, but the red ribbon entangled them like some spider web "What the hell is that?" He asked. However, she had no idea what to answer.

“I-I’m sorry” she answered after a moment.

She felt his surprised eyes on her and then heard his sigh.  he stood up and goes to the chests of drawers.

"No problem," he replied, taking Katana and leaving room. He probably did not even notice that something changed with the blade. She slowly got up from the floor. Her husband was not bad... He was not cruel, he was no older than she was for 20 or 30 years. He did not treat her like an object, he did not look at her with superiority like most of the candidates for her fiancés whom her father dismissed. He did not have any of the features she feared so much, yet she had no idea how to get along with him. They were too different at the same time, both were still children, no matter what the letter of the law claimed. Probably none of them was delighted with the situation in which there were either. Resigned, she headed for the bathroom. She was tired of that day, a quick bath should relax her a bit... Or maybe not ... A good fifteen minutes took her to persuade the servants that she really can wash herself without their help. They really think that she will undress herself in the presence of 5 strangers?

................................... The following weeks in the imperial palace passed in a similar manner. She looked after her mother every morning, then went to visit her sister-in-law. In the afternoon, she cleaned up her husband's katana, which was actually the only thing connecting her with him outside the bed they shared. They have hardly ever talked since the wedding. The exception was the official ceremony on which they had to put together as the future royal couple. Every day looked the same until one day when she get up and find the materials and sewing thread on the table. Everything looked very expensive. After the first shock she remembered the first and only conversation with blond. Instinctively, she made her way towards his sleeping form. After all, it was nice of him. She did not think she would remember something like that ... There was only one problem ... The girl had no idea about embroidering...

.............................. Sarada felt herself blushing when her mother's laughter filled practically the entire chamber.

"You hate embroidering ... W-why did you tell him that you like it?" pink-haired said trying to stop laughing.

“Tsh ... I do not know. I was thinking ... Uh ... I thought it was something that a good wife should be interested in ... - she replied even more embarrassed - Y-you will teach me this or not?

“Sarada, when you were 4 years old, you almost give the governess a heart attack by escaping through the window from the embroidery lessons ...”

“I know it! “ Oh Kami, why her mother have to teasing her like that ...

“Do not you think that such lies are a bad way to build a relationship?”

In spite of the fact that she knew that her mother wants to help her  at that moment she was too angry.

“Do not lie? My job is to look nice, curtsey, smile like a fool and give birth to sons! How can I be real in something like that? "She screamed as she rose from her chair. At first she wanted to run out of the room, but she stopped and sighed.

"I'm sorry, I should not have ..." she stuttered.

"It’s okay... I understand ... If you want to I will teach you this," Sakura replied.

.............................................................................................................................

Soooooooo...  there is another part and it is a little bit longer, but If I had to be honest I have the feeling that first chapter was better written... this time I am even less sure about that I translate it correctly.... so heh.. I hope It is readable...

   <<first part                                                                                     next part>

[babyybitchhh]

Okay, I haven’t posted a Naruto update in a good minute first and foremost because I’ve had so much extra shit going on that I can only watch one episode a night, sometimes two if I really push it. But also because I’m neck deep in the never ending filler that takes up just about half of the first season and I’m losing my damn mind. I understand the need for filler in a long running series that was being broadcast in tandem with the manga’s publication BUT what I don’t get is why all of it has to be so boring and uninspired. The only legitimately good filler episode so far was team 7 trying to get a look at Kakashi’s face and the ramen making episode was so-so. Everything else has been ... hrm. I just finished the Shape of Water sea monster arc with the weirdest team matchup ever last night. Naruto/Ino/Shino being led by Anko was, honestly, the most off putting formation of characters I think I’ve ever personally witnessed.

Honestly I’d skip all this bullshit and go straight to Shippūden to save myself the trouble but I’m such a completionist that I know it’ll haunt me if I don’t just watch it now and get it over with. Far be it that I’m in a hurry to get back to the dramatic and homo erotic subplot gripping friendship- rivalry story of Naruto and Sasuke but I just ... really wanna get back on track with the main, canon narrative. I miss Kakashi. I miss Jiraiya. I yearn for the Akatsuki. And, perhaps most of all, and in a completely unexpected turn of events, I miss Shikamaru and his misogynistic attitude towards women. 😭

I already had a vague idea of who my boys would be when I started watching this shit because I’ve been exposed to the series enough over the years that I could make certain predictions. I knew I was gonna be a thirsty thot for Kakashi. I knew the Akatsuki were gonna’ turn my pussy into a super soaker, as a whole group and never mind individually. Jiraiya didn’t ping my radar until I actually got to him in the story but, taking into account my history of intense sexual desire for much older men? Yeah, it didn’t actually come as a surprise.

Shikamaru though? My dude whose always got some shit to say? Especially when it comes to women? Now THAT came out of left field. I wasn’t ready emotionally, physically or spiritually. Never in my life would I have looked at this man and said “yup, he’s the one. I’m gonna ride him like a bucking bronco.” The only thing I can assume at this point is that I like him for the same reason I like Senkuu which is to say that I like men who are smarter than me and aren’t afraid to flex. 🤣 like yes, baby! Talk down to me and make me feel like a dumb bitch! 👏👏👏 make me question my own intelligence without actually calling me out on my IQ. 👏👏👏 explain shit to me, slowly and in simple terms, so that I at least stand half a chance of understanding. 👏👏👏 I love that shit. I live for it. Smart boys speak to my heart on a deeply personal level and, lucky for them, I stay drinking my dumb bitch juice on the daily so they can talk circles around me any time, any place and about any subject.

Like, I want Shikamaru to try and teach me shogi. Just once ☝️ and he regrets his decision almost immediately because god, how is this slut so pretty but also so stupid? Wait. Scratch that. This is exactly what he should’ve expected from a girl like me, really, how did he ever convince himself that shogi was a good idea for someone of my intelligence? He just wants to throw in the towel and be done with it, it’s clearly a lost cause, but I’ve already committed to the experience and Shikamaru just has to grit his teeth and see it through to the end even if though he knows damn well it’s an exercise in futility. He’d beat me easily because I have no clue what the fuck I’m doing, I’m just moving pieces around the board without rhyme or reason tbh, and as soon as he claims his inevitable win he starts packing up like ... iight, I’m out. And I’d be like but wait babe, we can play another round, I think I’m starting to get the hang of it! and he’d sort of grimace and say maybe tomorrow but tomorrow never comes. 😭

And then every time after that when I bring up the subject he just super casually distracts me with sex so that I forget about it. He wouldn’t want me straining my poor little brain after all ... 😤 silly woman. /sarcasm

[365daysofsasuhina]

[ 365 Days of SasuHina || Day Seventy-Four: Goodness ] [ Uchiha Sasuke, Hyūga Hinata ] [ SasuHina ] [ Verse: A Light Amongst Shadows ] [ AO3 Link ]

There’s hardly a soul that would argue the goodness in Hinata’s heart. Soft and sweet, never with a harsh word against anyone, she’s a wonderful friend, teammate, sister and daughter. It’d be quite the feat to find someone with something ill to say about her...unless they just happened to be biased that way.

...on the other hand…

Not many people make a case for any goodness in one Uchiha Sasuke. His teammates would rally to his side, but...well, there’s still that flicker of doubt when they’re pressed. The only ones who seem unshakeable in their faith in him would be the few scraps of family he has left. But...well, there might be a little bias in play, there.

Hinata, however, seems to agree.

On more than one occasion, he’s leapt to her defense, even if he didn’t really have to. She, for reasons she at least partially understands, has found herself as one of the few on the youngest Uchiha’s good side. And while he might be a bit harsh at time, he’s just...lost his patience when it comes to things like civility in the face of rudeness or disrespect.

Not so much in his own case, though. Just in others’.

Like hers.

More than once he’s grabbed offenders by their shirts, Sharingan shining as he commands an apology. And while some onlookers wouldn’t call that good...Hinata knows otherwise.

Letting one such troublemaker loose to scamper down the road with his tail between his legs, Sasuke watches coolly until Hinata steps up beside him.

“You really didn’t have to do that,” she assures for what feels like the hundredth time.

And for the hundredth time, he simply replies, “No, didn’t have to. Wanted to, though.”

That earns an exasperated sigh, jogging a few steps to catch up as he starts walking. “Sasuke-kun -”

“Do you have to call me that?”

“...um -?”

“Sakura calls me that, and it grates on my nerves.”

“...oh...I’m sorry, I - I didn’t know. Um…” A pause, and then, “...Sasuke.”

“Better.”

“...where are we going?”

“Well, I was going home. Then you started following me.” A dark eye glances to her. “...does that mean you’re coming?”

That earns a surprised blink. Why...did she start following him? “...I don’t...know?”

“Do whatever you want. Doesn’t bother me.”

Still glancing to him and walking in stride, there’s a moment to consider before just...keeping on. At the very least, she can stop in and see the one of them she knows best. Itachi’s wife helped in her recovery post-chūnin exams, after all. There wasn’t much avoiding them becoming friends after that.

“You ever think about standing up to jerks who talk to you like that?”

Startled from her thoughts, Hinata glances to him. “Um...w-what?”

“That guy who sneered at you. Why didn’t you do anything?”

A pause. “...well, p-partly because I knew you would.”

Sasuke glances to her, brow furrowed questioningly.

Laughing lightly into her coat cuff, she counters, “W-what? I was right, wasn’t I?”

“...hn.”

After a few more giggles, she goes on. “I don’t know, I guess I just...don’t much mind what anyone says about me now.” Hands clasp behind her back as they walk. “...when I was little, I was either bullied, o-or ignored. You...can guess which I preferred between the two. For a while, I took everything rather...personally. Because people had used them as weapons against me: their words. But...then I grew up. I faced my cousin, and his anger. I faced Pein, without any fear. I fought in the war, and survived. And now…”

All the while, he watches her from the corner of his eye.

“...now, it all seems so...trivial. So, someone doesn’t like me, for...whatever reason. So what? I didn’t survive all I faced to let my time be taken by someone who means nothing to me, saying things I know now aren’t true. I almost died when Neji-nīsan attacked my heart. And again when Pein impaled me. And the war was so perilous...I was lucky. And...looked out for,” Hinata adds softly. “...and now, I’m here. I survived all of that, and now...I want to use the time I have to become all I k-know I can be. I don’t know exactly w-what that is, yet...but I know I’ll get there. Or at least, I’ll try. And if I use all my time focusing on...on that, then what time is left over to bother with people who try to bring me down?”

By her words’ end, Ssauke’s expression has slackened slightly with surprise, brow lifted just a hair.

“...what?”

“...nothing. Guess I just...wasn’t expecting that.”

Hinata gives him a wry smile. “...I’ve changed a lot since the last time you k-knew me Sasuke-k...Sasuke. Well...I guess in some ways, I’m still the same. But...I’m not afraid anymore. And I walk my own path. Not my father’s, or my sister’s…” Ever so slightly, she wilts. “...not Naruto-kun’s. I realized that the only person I need to make proud...is me.”

“...that’s pretty damn smart.”

Head bowing, she can’t help a smile and a hint of a laugh. “Well...it took me a l-long time to learn that. But...better late than n-never, right?”

“True enough.” Considering her a moment longer, Sasuke then offers, “You’re a far better person than I could ever hope to be.”

“W-what? Sasuke, don’t s-”

“It’s just how it is. I don’t have that patience, or that...grace. I might not care what someone says or does to me. But to someone who doesn’t deserve it?” He scoffs. “...the jerk better start running.”

Head tilting as she considers him, Hinata offers, “But...that is good.”

“...what?”

“You fight for others. Maybe fighting isn’t always the answer,” she admits with a smile at his look. “...but...when you do, you do it for what you feel are the r-right reasons. You want to protect people. And that is good.”

For the second time, surprise shifts his features. Apparently, he hasn’t thought about it that way.

By now, they’re passing into the now-unwalled Uchiha compound, no new barrier established since it’s leveling and then re-leveling during and after Pein’s onslaught. In the distance, for now, only one house stands in the large grassy field that was once filled with homes, streets, and shops. One new manor for the three Uchiha men, one wife, and two little ones...so far.

“...are you sure it’s okay I just...drop by unannounced?”

“I know you’re coming. It’s not totally unannounced.”

Hinata just gives him a small pout, which he clearly ignores.

“Tadaima.”

A greeting is called back from another room, apologizing as she wrangles the twins for their lunch. Stripping off his shoes, Sasuke nods his head in gesture for Hinata to do the same. “It’s not like you’ve never been here before.”

“I-I know, but -!”

“But nothing - get in here.”

Feeling a bit chastised, she does as asked, hovering like a child not knowing what else to do in a new place.

“Itachi’s never home before dark, and Shisui’s out with Kakashi on bodyguard duty. She only goes in for major surgeries anymore - otherwise she’s stay-at-home.”

“Busy family,” Hinata notes with a smile.

“...yeah…” Hands in his pockets, Sasuke seems to get lost in thought for a moment...but Hinata can guess what enough what he’s thinking. This - all of this - is more than he ever bargained for.

...it makes her so happy for him. After so long of being alone...he has his home, and at least part of his family back.

With them, she knows...that goodness in him will only keep growing.

     A smidge early for once! Woohoo!      Not...too much to say about this one. Sasuke isn't exactly a model citizen, I will admit. But at his core, his intentions are good. They just often have rather...perilous routes to them, a la Sasuke's impatience and willingness to get his hands dirty to get what he thinks he needs.      Hinata, at least, can see that.      Aaanyway...that's really all I've got for tonight lol - thanks for reading!

[peachblossomss]

Hearth— a Naruto fanfic

Link to FF.net:

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/13035782/1/Hearth

Post-war SasuSaku /short story/ a way to get me back into writing

I don't own Naruto

rated M most likely

One- Introduction

Saku

"Sasuke...?!"

"Sakura. I need a place to stay." was certainly not what I expected Sasuke Uchiha to say when I opened the door this bright, Sunday morning. Alas, he surprised me. Sasuke Uchiha, at my door...after all this time? I couldn't breathe. My voice didn't work properly, and I couldn't help but get ensnared by the way the sun illuminated him, almost like he was a saint. As if. His surprisingly timid, yet annoyed voice snapped me out of my trance. In flesh and blood, standing on my front steps, was Sasuke Uchiha- and he had something to ask me. "Sakura…? I need a place to stay. Can I stay here? Naruto mentioned once that you have an extra room for guests…" Sasuke trailed off, sounding unsure and with a slight blush darkening his cheeks. There was no way he could avoid the look of disbelief on my face. What. The. Fuck. What I thought would be a calm, semi-lazy (as I had training and a lunch date with Naruto in the afternoon) Sunday, was certainly going to be a bit more...interesting.

"Hello to you too, Sasuke. I've been fine! Thank you so much for asking." I snapped. He had been gone for months on his journey. Granted, it was his journey of redemption, which I completely 100% understand his need to go on. My only issue is that he never sent me a message. Not once. And he has the NERVE to show up on my doorstep at 8am on a Sunday, the ONLY Sunday I have off from work this month? The only Sunday I can sleep in on. "I mean, you've been gone for what, 5 months without contacting me, and show up on my doorstep asking for a place to crash?! Why don't you go stay with Naruto, or Kakashi even? You clearly kept in contact with them more than me, despite...despite…"/Before he left on his journey the two grew close to one another. He would randomly pick her up from her graveyard shifts at the hospital, or he would show up unannounced at her small and homey apartment with her favorite foods, somehow knowing when she'd have had a bad day. Sasuke admitted that she is his most precious person. They spent the night before he left together. Not sexually, though. They stayed up late- laughing, crying (mostly only Sakura, but Sasuke let tears form in his eyes, and that was him crying in her book), and talking about everything and nothing... soaking each other in, almost like they were lovers and best friends. Sakura had known something was going to change./ I couldn't say it. I didn't want to throw his uncharacteristic vulnerability back in his face, months after the fact.

"Despite what, Sakura? Do you care to elaborate?" he asked sharply, that earlier apprehensiveness and embarrassment long gone.

"Well, despite the fact that we uh, you know, spentalotoftimetogetheranditmeantalot to me…" I whispered embarrassedly. I could feel the blush heating my cheeks. I couldn't look him in the eyes. Although I am usually extremely open with my feelings, I've learned it's best to keep my love for Sasuke to myself. He never was quite comfortable with my outright confessions.

/Sakura would keep her deep love for Sasuke hidden, as to not scare him away. She knew he had to atone for his sins, make his path pure once again, and also keep his precious people and all of Konoha safe. She knew she would be nothing more than a friend. She was simply one of his only family members, just like Naruto, Kakashi, and even Sai. She would support him on his voyage of redemption./

"Sakura," He sighed, running his hand down his face, covering a slight smirk "I only sent Kakashi messages, Naruto somehow coaxed Kakashi into telling him my whereabouts, I assume he used the Icha Icha books as leverage...although the dobe isn't that cunning alone...anyway, he sent me letters. Kakashi doesn't even know I'm home yet."

Without listening, I protested. "You knew where I liv-" I stopped short. Home...he said he's home. He said he's home and I'm the first person he's seen. Out of everyone, even our Hokage and former Sensei, Kakashi. I tried to fight the shy smile that was threatening to dissipate my angry demeanor. After months of being away, my house is the first place he's visited. I know I'm reading into things, since he appears in need of a shower or two, a hot meal, and a good nights sleep on a cozy bed. He knows I have it all on hand. He also knows I would never turn him down. It doesn't matter, though. He's using me, and I'll let him, as long as I get to spend time with him. It's worth it, and it always is. Anyway, he is my teammate, and that’s what friends are for, right? To help one another in times of need. I sighed, rolling my eyes. "You can stay, I guess. Let me show you to your room."

Sasu

Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck, what am I doing? It was too late to back out, I already knocked on her door. Fuck. She's home, and she's going to answer the door. It's been 156 days since I left Konoha. 156 days since I've seen her weightless pink hair and her kind, yet determined green eyes. 156 days since I've used an actual shower...fuck me. It has also been 156 days since I left Sakura at the gates to Konoha with a poke on her forehead and a promise. A promise I have no clue how to keep. A promise i will try to keep. I need to make everything right. /Sasuke left her with a promise. He said he'd be back, and next time he left, she would leave with him. She asked if she could come with, she wanted to be there for him, frustratingly enough, she somehow knew he needed assurance that he never had to be alone again. He declined her, saying his sins had nothing to do with her...at this time. Afterall, he did try to kill her./ First, though, I need a goddamn shower, and I need to see her. Why do I need to see her? Why is it that this annoyingly stubborn, smart, brave, eternally kind, girl, no...woman, is constantly on my mind? I can't stop pacing the porch as I wait for her to answer the door. What is taking so long? I knocked a whole 46 seconds ago, a kunoichi should be to the door within 20 seconds, 35 if she is sleeping. Maybe she IS sleeping…

"Sasuke…?!"

"Sakura.” I let out a breath I wasn’t even aware I was holding. “I need a place to stay."

——————————————————————-

AN:

Hello all! It’s me, Peach! Sorry I’ve been gone for so long, I’m kinda a lazy p.o.s sometimes. I’ve been having major writers block. This lol story is a way to get my creative juices flowing..I have no outline or anything, so this story is just coming out as I come up with it. I don’t have a beta or anyone to read over my work, so I’m sorry if it’s confusing. Don’t worry! There will be more of Sasukes views in the upcoming chapters. ;) please review!

As always, much love!!

-peach

[arachcobra]

Naruto Episode 3, 4 and 5 Review

Whom toils for the bell

Review of Naruto Episode 3, 4 and 5: Sasuke and Sakura: Friend or Foe?, Pass or Fail: Survival Test and You Failed! Kakashi's Final Decision

ArachCobra

Before anything else, I should mention the intro. It's quite nice. The music is good and the visuals tell a neat little story. A good intro that I could easily imagine drawing people in.

So we start off with Naruto's morning routine and upon seeing this, a question pops up. Who takes care of this kid? I mean, we haven't really followed his home-life up until now, so the question has just been hanging in the air, but now it comes to the fore. You could argue that Naruto can at this point live on his own. He is expected to be in the military, after all.

And fine, that's a good argument. But who took care of him until then? Did they just throw baby Naruto into an apartment and say: “Come back in six years when you're ready for school, kid.” Someone must have been Naruto's caretaker, yet this person is strangely absent.

So Naruto goes to school, stopping only to have a short talk with Konohamaru.

Somewhere else, Sakura leaves for school too, only to meet her bitchy rival Ino. The two then engage in a power-walk duel.

In school, we quickly learn that every girl hast the hots for Sasuke, the brooding boy with the black hair and thousand mile stare. So of course, everyone in the room with a vagina is fighting over him like dogs over a piece of beef, despite him quite clearly not giving a single fuck about any of them. I've never experienced anything like this personally in real life, but I guess it's not entirely unrealistic.

The only exception to this is Hinata who's completely into Naruto instead, but he was to get close to Sakura instead. It's a mess, to say the least. Of course, Sakura doesn't care about him, even violently showing him aside so she can chat with Sasuke, in a move I'm sure will endear her to the viewers.

Anyway, Naruto, for some reason, climbs up on a table so he can glare at Sasuke, because Naruto wants to bet he one drowning in women. But then he gets pushed and the two share their first kiss.

Awkward.

And then all the girls, except Hinata, just straight up mauls Naruto for daring to be in an accident. Because every woman in class except little miss Shrinking Violet was apparently under the belief that they were entitled to be the first to swap mouth water with Sasuke and that Naruto has stolen it from them.

You know, I actually feel kinda sorry for Sasuke here, what with the way he's being objectified as this here vaunted prize that the girls are fighting, violently even, to get ahold of.

So while Naruto is nursing his shattered skeleton, Iruka comes in and designates teams, with Naruto, Sakura and Sasuke being on the same team, which causes Naruto to yell, in the middle of class, about why someone as great as him should be on a team with someone like Sasuke.

These diplomatic skills and self-reflective values will no doubt do him good as future hokage.

Anyway, the reason is that to balance the team ,they've put the worst student(Naruto) with the best(Sasuke). And Sakura... Well... I guess she's there.

So after this the episode decides that it's time for shenanigans.

And by shenanigans, I mean that Naruto violently ambushes and assaults Sasuke, then steals his form so that he can try and use it to get it on with Sakura, only to be struck by diarrhea due to drinking bad milk, resulting in more misunderstandings and violence.

Unwarranted violence, attempted rape(Rape by deception.) and toilet humor. Isnøt this just the height of comedy.

Now, before anyone tells me that it's just a series of joke and I shouldn't take this serious, remember that this is all still supposed to happen in universe. Being “a joke” doesn't magically eject the scene from existing alongside everything else and what we see is a very disturbing side of Naruto.

Maybe he really was left to raise himself from chilhood and that's why he's developed these deranged tendencies.

The episode mercifully ends and we go to the next, where we start with Kakashi, their new ninja group teacher, showing up late, resulting in him beaing pranked by Naruto.

Kakashi is this extremely chill dude who's not afraid to call the trio out on their bullshit. He's such a great character.

So he takes them away to get their introductions. Naruto's is pretty much what we expect. Then we get to Sakura, who keeps blushing and glancing at Sasuke while trying to say what or who she likes. You can practically hear the gushing of vaginal fluids.

And then she finishes of by declaring she doesn't like Naruto. I don't blame her. After the last episode, I'm not too fond of him either.

Sasuke's intro is great, if only because it's hilarious. “I don't like anything and I dislike a lot.” He's moments away from declaring that he takes his coffee black, LIKE HIS SOUL! And when he talks about his motivation, he declares that he will kill “a certain someone.” Mostly because the author hadn't figured out yet who that was. So that sounds really hilarious. At least in-universe, Naruto is uncertain who he's talking about.

So Kakashi talks about a test they will be put through and the next day, all three show up early in the morning, tired and sleepy.

Well, except Sasuke. Because he's supposed to be cool.

So hours later Kakashi shows up and gives them the rundown.

Meanwhile, Iruka is having tea with the Hokage, concerned for Naruto. This scene is actually split up in multiple smaller parts, spread across this and the next episode. Which gives the impression that the two are spending hours, slowly talking, not helped by the background suddenly changing. We also learn that Kakashi has had dozens of teams in the past, none of which ever succeeded in passing his test. Which seems maybe just a tad bit unbelievable, especially considering that he's only 26.

Back in the field, Sasuke and Sakura have gone into hiding to look for an opening. Naruto on the other hand is out in the open, loudly challenging Kakashi to a fight. Because Naruto has apparently misunderstood what being a ninja is all about.

It's not like his attempts work out. Kakashi is just too good. And he he shoves both his fingers up into Naruto's ass hard enough to launch the kid into a nearby river.

Yep.

So then Narutoo actually manages to outwit Kakashi by using his clones, attack with a full squad and having an extra clone ambush Kakashi. Well, until the man magically switches place with a clone, which causes the Naruto army to succumb to infighting.

Then Naruto spots a bell lying in the grass and instantly think he knocked it loose, only to be hoisted into a tree by a snare.

You see, Naruto isn't very smart.

Then, as Kakashi emerges from hiding, Sasuke strikes with the most stupid looking long-range assault ever. First, he throws his weapon out in a fan, despite him trying to hit one specific target. Then all the projectiles veers to the right, like a flock of migrating geese changing course, and then slams left into Kakashi. Then, to continue the stupid, Kakashi doesn't even look like he gets hit. It looks more like he was standing on a wheel and the projectiles showed him to the side. And then, despite being hit in the side, we suddenly see him flying backwards in this weird wavy way that is probably meant to look like slow-mo, but instead makes it look like Kakashi turned into a balloon.

And then he turns into a log.

Thanks to the microphone in Sasuke's head, we get a full analysis of what this technique is all about. I'm not sure why Sasuke would think this, but it sure does keep us viewers informed.

So then we switch to Sakura, who's ambushed and hypnotised by Kakashi.

Naruto gets caught by the second snare in the tree, which you would have though he'd have noticed from his vantage point.

And the Kakashi fights Sasuke in what is actually a pretty cool sequence, except Kakashi has to shill Sasuke by being amazed by his fighting and surprised by his jutsu.

He's still beaten, left in the ground for Sakura to dig up.

Naruto tries to steal the food, but Kakashi catches him.

And after Sakura digs Sasuke up, she worries that he will get a bell and she won't separating them. So she suggests they should just give up. Gee, that's real love right there. “I'm so clingy that I'd rather have you redo an entire year instead of risking our lives not being fully fucking synchronized.”

So the test ends and Kakashi straigt up spells it out for them that they failed to demonstrate teamwork, all the while tearing into them for all the mistakes they made. It's awesome.

So Kakashi gives them another chance, and if that was his plan from the get go, I feel like he should not have explained the teamwork part yet.

So the three decide to team up by having Sakura feed the tied up Naruto(Which he seems a little too happy about), only for Kakashi to explode onto the scene with a hilarious war-cry of “YOUUUUUU!” Then he summons a goddamn thunderstorm to set the mood, because Kakashi wants you to know he's the best character so far. When the three stand up to him and stick with each other, he lets them pass.

And then the yall walk happily into the sunset.

Except Naruto. He's still tied up.

Great teamwork right there.

Okay, so the first episode is not good. In fact, the second half makes it awful. The humour doesn't work, the characters behave abhorrently and the toilet humour is cringe as Hell. I can heartily recommend skipping the rest once teams have been assigned.

The two episodes covering the bell test works a lot better, with some awesome fight scenes, Kakashi being funny and some good insight into how difficult it can be to be a ninja. Though I can't help but notice that both Naruto and Sasuke got to attempt to take a bell, whereas Sakura was just kinda ambushed and left behind. It feels kinda... Uneven. But besides that and some minor goofs, the episodes are quite good.

Givenea

Episode 3

Was this episode written to piss me off? Because if so, it’s working.

Let’s split this up to talk a few parts: Naruto, Sasuke and Sakura.

Firstly, Naruto has over the last few episodes been established as this loathsome little squirt with few redeeming qualities, (see the former reviews for clarification) and here this reaches critical levels.

His kiss with Sasuke was an accident and so I’ll not cry sexual assault on that one. I will however cry assault later when he, well, assaults Sasuke in order to tie him up so he can steal his form and sexually assault Sakura. And yes, as disguising yourself or your identity to sleep with them is rape, doing the same for a kiss is sexual assault. But such antics aren’t out of character for Naruto and he has yet to, and will never to my knowledge, be called out on it.

Oh, and the only thing that stops him, is being physically unable to go through with it do to a bout of diarrhea. So, he has no qualms assaulting his crush. This does not speak in his favor. 

Then there’s Sasuke and Sakura, they are afforded two characteristics each.

Sasuke broods and we see a glint of something that could be a sense of honor towards Naruto. Let me elaborate on that one. When he and Sakura meet up, he asks what she thinks of Naruto and she berates him and notes upon Naruto being parentless as a reason for this. SASUKE CHEWS HER OUT FOR THIS. By actions this guy is already pretty likeable. More of this please.

Sakura crushes on Sasuke, hates Naruto. The first seems a pretty standard prepubescent crush, so let’s not dwell on that, though she seems way more occupied with it than good is. Her dislike of Naruto is by herself attributed to Naruto being annoying, though with the behavior we see out of him that is a pretty mild sentiment. As she says him being “annoying” is due to him not having parents and given the attitude said to be held by the adults of the village: I’d call it obvious that her hatred is partly do to an influence from her parents that she was never quite aware of. But, more importantly when Sasuke calls her out on this, she realizes her wrongdoing and makes a conscious effort to be nicer to Naruto. Even if this doesn’t stick initially, it lays the ground for character development. More of that please.

Besides, I’d rather watch these two develop, work past their issues and become a well working team, than spend one more minute observing Naruto be an asshole. Less of this please

Episode 4-5

This episode introduces Kakashi. He steals pretty much every scene he is in. More Kakashi please.

Two major themes: a focus on teamwork and the harshness of the ninja world, are introduced. And rather well actually.

The first them is showcased through dialog during the test mostly, but the test does show how necessary it is to work together.

The later is really hammered home with Kakashi’s speech at the memorial stone, it is a really great emotional moment, and the three kids’ reaction shows just how unprepared they were for this reality

The show also does a really good job at showcasing the hurdles each character must overcome to become a good team. 

Naruto must learn to trust as well as stop and think before rushing in.

Sasuke must learn to respect his comrades and work with them.

Sakura must learn to consider both of her teammates equally and not let her crush on Sasuke blind her to the task at hand.

I generally just like these two episodes, they’re full of good setup for what is to come for these characters.

Fluttersniper13

Well, really, there wasn't much there but the most intense love affair between two girls ever and girls beating the shit out of Naruto. All I can remember of that episode.

Then there's the test. Some cringe, but Kakashi is cool, even if he seems to like bad touching his students. Then there's more fighting, cringe and then it's over. And then there was that hilariously dumb scream. And yeah, that's about it.

(Link to chapter: https://www.fanfiction.net/s/13125294/3/Naruto-Rewrite-1-Road-to-Ninja)