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the12thnightproject · 14 days

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Chapter Four: Minor Skirmishes - Okatsu discovers why Mitsunari needs a bodyguard, and another plate of stewed eel meets its doom.

Mitsunari x OC; Nobunaga x Mai

Previous Chapter

Logline - In order to protect a political alliance, Katusko and Mitsunari must pretend an engagement. But this “all business” arrangement is threatened by a coup against Nobunaga… and by feelings.

From the Military Notes of Ishida Mitsunari…

Generally, a skirmish can be a minor battle, or even short fight, as part of a larger military campaign, a smaller force drawing out a larger to test resilience, or to gather information about the size of the opposing army. Occasionally, it is itself the cause of the larger campaign.

Or, sometimes, it’s simply a matter of a misunderstanding, an incident in which two groups are in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Personal comments:

Being engaged, even if it is only a pretense, takes more effort than battle. At least in battle, one only has to wear armor, define and implement a strategy, and pay attention to the commander.

Being engaged? Requires one to converse.

While Lady Okatsu seems pleasant enough, I am not convinced she is necessary. I’m not ungrateful - I appreciate the effort that Mitsuhide has made on my behalf to acquire her expertise. However, I have never had any difficulty focusing on reading in the past and believe that on my own, I can discourage interruptions of any sort. Events have already been set into motion now, and it’s too late to switch courses. My engagement has been announced – for it to be unannounced within a day of the announcement would simply cause too much confusion.

At least Lady Okatsu is competent… and… There is something about her which is familiar - I believe we have met before. Though I know little about women, I am at least aware that saying, “I think we have met before, but I cannot quite remember you,” would not be received positively.

Getting attacked by a mysterious intruder was not on my Sengoku bingo card.

I brought my dagger up, and my attacker’s sword met it with a ‘clank.’ “Wait – I mean you no harm.”

“Harmless people don’t sneak into rooms through the ceiling.” I held my dagger steady in front of me. It wasn’t the best defense against a sword, but if someone was coming after me, I was going to make sure to do some damage of my own.

“My apologies for disturbing you. I seem to have landed in the wrong room.” My maybe-not-an-attacker edged backward. “Perhaps you could pretend you had a bad dream?”

Mai had given me her room for the duration of my stay here since she had moved into Nobunaga’s. Was my attacker after Mai?

Except… now that my heart wasn’t thundering in my ears, it occurred to me that my attacker’s voice was familiar. “Sasuke?”

“Yes. Do I know you?” Like me, he kept his weapon ready, but his posture relaxed somewhat.

I found the lantern and lit it, then belatedly remembered to double check that my kimono was fastened shut.

My moderately awesome ninja friend stood in the middle of the room, squinting at me. He pushed his glasses up on his nose and pulled down his mask. “Katsu? Fascinating. This is your most effective disguise to date.” He blinked a few times, darting a quick glance at my cleavage, then back to my face. “Wait. ‘Katsu’ was the disguise, wasn’t it? This is who you really are.”

“More or less.” I combed my fingers through my hair and stuck it behind my ears. “Katsuko… although I suppose I should get used to being called Okatsu.”

He laughed. “I’m obviously not a moderately awesome ninja if I never detected you were a woman.”

As far as I was aware, Mitsuhide and Mai were the only two people who instantly realized I’m female, so he was in good company. “What did you want with Mai?” I hoped the two of them weren’t conducting an affair under Nobunaga’s nose. At the very least, he’d consider that a serious insult to his honor.

“I need to return to our home, er, village for a long visit, and came to say goodbye.” Sasuke wandered to the writing desk, where I had left out my brush and paper.

“Oh… is Mai the girl you were talking about earlier this summer?” Even then Sasuke had seemed rather attached to her, no matter his claim of platonic friendship.

Sasuke nodded. Then he indicated the paper and brush on the desk. “If I write her a note, can you get it to her?” He paused, then added, “Why are you here?”

“Here in Mai’s room? Or here in Azuchi castle?” I plopped back down on the futon and rummaged through my pack until I found – yes, still had some dried pears left. I offered some to Sasuke, as it had been our tradition when we encountered each other on the road. Also, I was still hungry, as Mitsuhide’s roofieing of Masamune had effectively ruined dinner.

“Both.” Sasuke accepted the offer of snacks.

“I’m in Mai’s room because she is in Nobunaga’s. I’m in Azuchi because… well… it’s complicated.” I gave him as brief of an explanation as possible. “So, while we are at Genba castle for a month or so, I get to portray an Oda Princess.”

“You lead a very interesting life, Kats… er, Okatsu.” He folded up the message then turned to me and with a bizarre change of topic asked, “What’s your opinion of the Azuchi warlords? Have you met Ieyasu? Has any of this…” he gestured to my things now spread out on the futon, “touched Ieyasu?”

“We met. I have not touched him. He has not touched me. And as for the first question, if you are asking for reasons of spying, I’m not going to tell you.” I might be only a ‘temp,’ but temporary loyalty is still loyalty. “Remember, I do know who you work for.” Kenshin and Nobunaga might be in a truce, but I was not confident that it would last.

“I’m asking out of pure academic interest. I’m rather an admirer …” He paused, then seemed to reconsider his words. “Since I am going to be gone for a while, I want to make sure my friend is safe.”

Sounded like a lie. Or maybe a truth wrapped inside a lie. But I didn’t think he meant any harm to Nobunaga or the rest of the people in Azuchi. “As long as she is with Nobunaga, she’s perfectly safe from his vassals and allies.” Although as Nobunaga’s woman, she’d be a target for enemies. I didn’t need to point that out to Sasuke. “As much as I’m able, I’ll keep an eye on her as well.”

Hm, Sasuke hadn’t mentioned where his and Mai’s village was, but it wouldn’t hurt to ask him to look for my brother. I got out the drawing that Francisco had made for me. “I know I’ve asked you before, but please, especially if you are on a coast, if you see Toshiie, tell him how to find me.”

Sasuke refamiliarized himself with the drawing of my brother. “I will. Thank you for watching over Mai… and take care of yourself as well.” He bowed, then scampered back into the ceiling.

“You too, Sasuke. Beware of carnivorous trees.” I listened as his soft footsteps faded away into the night.

I would miss him. Not that I had been able to predict when we would run into each other; but knowing Sasuke was no longer roaming the byways of Japan made me feel even more alone than ever.

“Sorry that I got food all over it – at least… it’s not blood?” I handed Mai the kimono she had loaned me. She had stopped by “my” room with more clothing for me. “I’ll be more careful with this one.”

“Don’t worry about it. It was inevitable.” She held up a light blue kimono with a darker blue pattern, and a mint green one with silver embroidery. “I think these will do, until I can complete the custom ones. Do you like them?”

I nodded. They weren’t really my style, but at least they weren’t pink, and she didn’t have to keep giving me her own clothes. “They’re very pretty. But even if I didn’t like them, I would wear whatever they want me to.”

“On that note, Mitsuhide reminded me that he wants you in pinks.” I made a face at that, and she laughed. “There are many shades of pink, and you’d look good in most of them.”

I wondered if there was any specific reason that I was required to dress in pink other than the fact that Mitsuhide knew I didn’t like it. “Did he say why? Is it an official shade for Oda Princesses to wear?”

“I don’t know.” She handed me the blue kimono and busied herself with displaying the mint one on the kimono rack. “Mitsuhide does and says a lot of things I don’t understand. But deep down, he’s a good person. Also. He can read minds, so watch out.”

Sure.

Odds were that, like Aki, Mitsuhide was simply very observant. Clearly, I wasn’t going to get any helpful data out of Mai. “So be it. Pink. Maybe it’s Mitsunari’s favorite shade?” Though if that were the case, why had he asked me if I liked blue?

She looked over from where she was smoothing out invisible wrinkles. “Mitsunari wouldn’t notice what color you’re wearing unless he was required to memorize uniforms for battle.” Then she clapped her hands over her mouth. “I’m sorry. He’s your fiancée. I didn’t mean that way it sounded. He’s lovely, a perfect angel… but a little…”

“Absentminded. I’ve noticed. And, reminder, fake fiancé.” I shrugged into the kimono she’d handed me. It was so soft! I mostly lived in cheaper fabrics, either in the ugly brown maid kimono Fume made me wear, or the sturdier dark green kimono and hakama I wore as Katsu. Color aside, I could get used to this Princess thing.

Mai came over and made some minute adjustments to the fit, humming happily as she did so.

Damn! I was being a bit absentminded myself. Almost forgot. “Mai, I had a visitation from a ninja in the middle of the night.” I grabbed the message off the writing desk and gave it to her.

“Oh no!” Mai put her hand to her chest. “Did he scare you? I’m sorry. I didn’t even think to warn you about him. He’s a friend, and harmless. Alright. No. He’s not harmless, obviously, but he-”

“Mai! It’s ok. I was startled, that’s all.” And sure, startled enough to come at him with a knife, but she didn’t need to know that. “I’ve been friends with Sasuke for a couple of years. I’m used to his quirks.” Though popping through ceilings like Spiderman was a previously unknown facet of his personality.

She relaxed. “I forgot he’s been here that long.”

Weird response.

Quickly, she skimmed the letter. “He wants a chance to say goodbye in person. Kats- er, Okatsu, do you want to go into town with me? I can show you around, then we can meet up with Sasuke at this bookseller he frequents.”

Ha! I bet I know which bookseller that is. Though I was already familiar with Azuchi, thanks to my ‘observational activities’ earlier this summer, it wouldn’t be the worst idea. “I’d like that, but of course, I need to report in with Mitsuhide first. He might have other plans for me.”

“We can take Mitsunari with us. That way, you can be seen together. And if I mention bookseller, he’ll be happy to go along with it.”

That was actually a pretty good idea...

We tracked down Mitsuhide at Hideyoshi’s manor, where, as it happened, they also thought Mai’s idea was a good one. Mitsuhide gave her an approving nod. “We might make a strategist out of you yet, Mouse.”

“You on the other hand.” Hideyoshi looked me over with a frown. “What were you thinking, sticking a sword into the obi? You’re a princess, not a warrior. Azuchi is safe enough within the confines of the town.”

“I’m used to being armed.” I handed over my sword. It had only been a diversion, as I had my daggers strapped to my legs and a throwing knife hidden under my sleeve.

Mitsuhide studied me. “That… was too easy.” He put out his hand.

I unstrapped one of the daggers and handed that over as well. I could work with one dagger, the throwing knife, and the joy of knowing I had won.

“You can keep the other weapons,” Mitsuhide added, “as long as they stay hidden.”

If Mitsuhide ever ends up in the future, he can rent himself out as a metal detector.

It was easy enough to find Mitsunari, as he was holed up in his quarters, reading. It was slightly more difficult to get his attention, but once Mai executed the ‘bookstore’ command sequence, he was willing enough to set aside his book and join us.

I wasn’t sure whether Hideyoshi had given him an additional lecture, or if Mai was a mitigating presence, or, if Mitsunari was getting used to me – whatever the reason, he was more present and willing to discuss landmarks of interest.

At one point, I paused in front of a metalsmith’s shop – I could use some more arrowheads – both the blunted ones for target practice and the sharper ones for hunting and defense. The sound of the smith at work carried into the street. “Is this where Nobunaga gets his ammunition?”

“Some of it.” Mitsunari led us inside the smith’s shop to examine the wares. “Nobunaga has a private swordsmith he uses for his sword collection, and we have metalsmiths in the castle for ourselves and Nobunaga’s personal guards. As you might imagine, when there is active fighting, we need more than what we make. And of course, our guns come from the Kunitomo village gunsmiths.”

I nodded. Most of the guns made in Japan were made in the Kunitomo village, though I knew there was still a big market for European-made muskets.

The weapons inside the shop were of higher quality than what Aki could acquire. I picked up a fully assembled arrow and examined it. It was slightly longer than what I used, and the feathers were different as well.

“Sea eagle,” the smith replied when I asked.

That made sense. Azuchi was closer to the coast than Akihira’s household.

Mai mimed drawing a bow. “Are you any good at archery?” I already knew enough about Mai to know that she had no interest in weapons of war, but it was nice of her to ask, and she was doing a good job pretending not to be bored.

Was ‘Okatsu’ good at archery? Many women in this era were, as they needed to be able to defend their homes while their husbands were at war. And since legendary female archers such as Tomoe Gozen were part of literature, I figured it would be acceptable for “Okatsu” to have this skill. “As long as I practice, yes.”

She twirled an arrow around her fingers like it was a baton, and I could see the smith wince in the background. “Ieyasu’s teaching me.”

“Willingly?” The question came out before I had a chance to edit my words. Eep. I’m usually better tha that, “Er, I mean, how did that come about?”

Mai simply laughed. “It was after a strong suggestion from Hideyoshi. Anyway, you should join us in the mornings if you want to keep your skills up.”

I nodded. I would do that. Belatedly recalling that I was supposed to be developing a rapport with Mitsunari, I asked him if he too practiced.

His response was to proclaim proudly, “Ieyasu is the best archer in Azuchi.”

That… was not the question I had asked, so I tried again. “Do you ever practice with him?”

“Oh. Yes. Sometimes. Ieyasu says he prefers the solitude of archery, but he kindly allows me to join him.” There was that beatific smile again. Maybe his first love was books, but it seemed like his friends could inspire that smile as well.

Deciding that it would be a good test of my skills to practice with the longer arrows, I purchased some, as well as some blunted arrowheads. Mitsunari bought a couple too, saying that he would have Ieyasu practice with them as a way of testing the vendor. Happy with our purchases, we continued toward the booksellers.

“Do you expect to need additional vendors?” It was mostly a small talk gambit. Nobunaga was not currently at war with anyone, but it would be good to know if that was on the verge of changing.

“No immediate expectation, although as Lord Nobunaga continues to push the country toward unification under his banner, there will naturally be more resistance.” Mitsunari turned to look at me, and immediately tripped over air, and stumbled a few steps before regaining his balance. Unfazed, he continued speaking. “In any case, if we waited until there was a need, it would be too late.”

“Good point. Also, always a good idea to create goodwill with your local merchants.” I knew that both local and international trade was important to Nobunaga, and it seemed he was doing as much as he could for the merchant class.

Mai appeared to be a favorite with the merchants as well and pointed out a large stall belonging to a fabric deal. The merchant smiled and waved at her. “We’ll stop in in a bit,” she called to him. She turned to me. “I want to pick out some fabrics for your wedding.”

Alright, enough about that, even from Mai. This was an over the top, just to fool one seventeen year old girl. “Have you met the Kanamori princess? Does Mitsunari really pose that much of a threat to her engagement?” I couldn’t imagine any woman of this time being that willing to act counter to her family’s wishes.

“I don’t know her personally, but as for your other question… well, it’s easier if I show you.” Suddenly she raised her voice. “Misunari! Thank you for coming shopping with us!”

Even before she had finished speaking, women popped up all over the outdoor market, looking a bit like prairie dogs scenting food. Or well… something like that.

“Misunari?”

“Mitsunari’s here?”

“Where? Where is that angel?”

In moments, Mitsunari was surrounded, while Mai and I were pushed back by the tide.

I see.

Or, well, currently I could not see, but I understood.

When my ears adjusted to the pandemonium, I heard several of them invite him to tea, and a fight almost broke out. “Ok. Needs a bodyguard. Got it.”

“Okatsu. He probably needs one right this moment.” At least two of the women had their grips on his arms and Mitsunari looked from one woman to the next, trying to follow six conversations at once. “He might accidentally promise himself to a second, third and fourth wife.”

I gritted my teeth and waded in. Yeesh. I’d been to K-pop concerts that had less of a scrum. “There you are, darling.” I tucked my arm in his, carefully dislodging one of the women in the process.

“Ladies.” Mai scooted in behind me. “This is Princess Okatsu. Mitsunari’s fiancée.”

If glares were arrows, I would have had more holes in me than a pincushion.

Now I was the one who needed a bodyguard.

By the time we had made our escape to the booksellers, Sasuke was already inside, leafing through a book that appeared to be a translation of Greek mathematics. Takauji (the latest of Aki’s messengers to be stuck wearing the dreaded wig and beard bookseller disguise), called out an automatic welcome when we entered. He seemed dismayed to see Mitsunari, then surprised that I was with him. But he didn’t break character, at least.

Once Mitsunari was camped out with a book and Mai was chatting with Sasuke, I made my way over to Takauji. “Do you have any poetry?” In truth, I have no strong feelings about poetry, but I knew the few volumes Aki had were kept on the other side of the shop, so Takauji and I could talk undisturbed.

“Kaya, what’s going on? Did Aki send you to check in with me?” He handed me a slim scroll.

“Not exactly. One of Aki’s most frequent contacts asked us for help with a specific task. I’m based in the castle for a couple of weeks.” I unrolled the scroll – poetry illustrated with pen and ink sketches – and pretended it was fascinating. “He didn’t have any message to you.”

“I haven’t heard from him in a while.” Taka handed me a book to leaf through. “I was really hoping you were my replacement. I’m getting a skin rash from the damn beard.”

I shrugged because what could I say? Every one of Aki’s couriers knew the beard itched. “I told you to bring rash cream. Anyway. You know Aki. He’ll be in touch when he wants something. Meanwhile, since you’ve been here all summer, is there anything going on that I need to know?”

He scratched around to corner of the beard. Oh yeah, I could see the top of the rash. Poor guy. “Nothing big since the conflict with Uesugi earlier this summer. There’s been a gang of sailors causing trouble for the smaller shopkeepers around here. They don’t really bother with me, but I know the restaurant owners are upset.”

Sailors? I perked up a bit at that. Of course, my brother would not likely be in a gang that caused trouble, but if a new ship had docked in Osaka, then it might be worth seeing if I could finagle a trip down there to check things out.

“Really the most trouble I’ve had these days, comes from him.” With a jerk of his head, Taka indicated where Mitsunari had made himself comfortable with a book. “He always makes a mess.”

Sure enough, Mitsunari was leaning against a table, and the stack of books above was swaying dangerously. “Watch it,” I said to Takauji, mostly to clock his reaction. “That’s my fiancé you’re talking about.”

Then I zipped over to Mitsunari to rescue him before he concussed himself.

As I restacked the books in such a way that they would be less likely to fall over, Mitsunari finished scanning the book he had in his hand. He gave me an odd look, as if he had forgotten who I was. Hm. I hadn’t thought he was that absentminded.

Mai completed her goodbye to Sasuke, who had given me another farewell wave before vanishing into the throng of people on the streets. Then, donning her authority as Azuchi chatelaine, she insisted Mitsunari pay for the book in his hands, and successfully herded us out of the booksellers and right into a fabric dealer.

It felt weird to be picking out kimono fabric for a wedding that wasn’t going to happen, although I’d likely get a lot of use out of the rest of the wardrobe once we got to Genba.

Mai held a swatch of something pink up to my face. “I don’t know why you have such a problem with this color. It will look good on you.”

Well, I didn’t know why some people were so fond of pink in the first place. My mother had always wanted me dressed in pi… well. Some people liked pink. I was not one of the people. But Mai was the expert, and I hadn’t the heart to tell her that overall, I didn’t think clothing was all that interesting to begin with, especially when it was clearly her passion. So, I faked enthusiasm for the fabrics she picked out – and really, aside from the dreaded pink, I liked everything else she bought, as she stuck to the blue and aqua shades I preferred. She even bought a coordinating piece of fabric in a deeper shade of teal for Mitsunari, so that we would have matching outfits for our first night in Genba.

Mai… it’s not prom.

After that, she declared herself hungry – actually, Mai has quite the bossy streak - so we headed for a restaurant nearby that she said was good.

For the record, I maintain that what happened next wasn’t completely my fault.

After we ordered our food, my attention was caught by a group of sailors on the other side of the restaurant. Hard not to notice them – they were loud. Would these men, possibly, hopefully have an idea where Toshiie might be? Couldn’t hurt to ask. Before Mai and Mitsunari could stop me, I grabbed the portrait and scooted over to the table with the rowdy sailors.

Normally, such discussions followed the same pattern. I would introduce myself to the sailors, establish a rapport, show them the drawing of Toshiie, they would shake their head, I would thank them, and then be on my way.

That’s what normally happened… when I was dressed as Katsu.

But dressed as “Okatsu,” I attracted the wrong sort of attention. “Pardon me. Have any of you seen this man?” I held the drawing out to the table at large.

Instead of taking any time to look at the drawing, one of the sailors grabbed my arm. “If ya want a man, wench, there’s a whole table of ‘em right here.” He pulled me onto his lap.

Hell to the no on that, dude… I jammed my dagger into his forearm.

“Fucking bitch!” He leaped to his feet and had his sword out instantly.

Damn Hideyoshi for confiscating my own sword.

I deflected the initial cut with my dagger, but he immediately tried to catch me with the backswing. When I leaped backward to avoid getting hit, Mai’s too-long skirt tripped me up and I stumbled into another of the sailors, thwacking him across the arm with my dagger.

In an instant, the entire table of sailors had their swords out.

The first sailor came at me again, but at the last moment, another party came to my rescue, deflecting the strike with a gleaming katana - Mitsunari had leaped in to protect me. Yikes, please don’t get stabbed, Mitsunari! He slung me out of the way, back toward Mai, and I lost track of him almost immediately when the entire restaurant erupted into fighting.

A dagger wasn’t going to be the most useful weapon, but I couldn’t leave Mitsunari unprotected. Arms and legs flying, I jumped back into the fray, and immediately got jabbed in the eye by someone’s elbow. I heard a rip, then realized, I had again ruined another one of Mai’s kimonos. Shit. She was going to hate me.

I glanced back toward her, just in time to see her clonk a sailor over the head with a tea kettle.

A sword clattered on the floor and landed at my feet – Mitsunari had disarmed his first opponent.

Well, I wasn’t going to look a gift sword in the mouth. I grabbed it off the floor and was back in the middle of the melee.

The sailors weren’t unskilled, and their weapons were of surprisingly good quality, but some of them were pretty drunk. Of course, with the entire restaurant now involved in what had become a sword and food fight, it was becoming difficult to tell the enemies from the friends.

And so, after I kicked a sailor in the stomach, when I sensed a presence right behind me, I grabbed a plate of food off the table and flung it…

…at Hideyoshi.

Well, it isn’t really a good fight until someone gets whacked in the face with a dish of stewed eel.

@lorei-writes @bestbryn @katriniac @lyds323 @briars7

#TBTMND #throwback thursday #a mitsunari nights dream #ikemen sengoku #fanfic #mitsunari ishida #ikesen mitsunari #ikesen sasuke #ikesen mai #ikesen hideyoshi #ikesen mitsuhide #oc: katsuko #katsuverse

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usakiboi · 1 year

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My art ain’t exactly arting lately so until I get my groove back (my desire to draw gay people in 4k) here’s a list of my naruto headcannons but it’s specifically for my au

Sakura

Blasian

Naturally blonde like her mom but dyed her to match her fathers, unfortunately the colored ended up being lighter than she planned

She isn’t a terrible cook but she gets distracted easily and burns the food she makes

Sleeper build

Went on strike when the public became outraged with her decision to marry Hinata

Acts super girly but is a huge tomboy

allergic to cats

Retired jounin and focuses on her hospitals as well as her family

Sakura regularly checks on Hinata’s heart and goes doctor mode immediately even if all Hinata is doing is catching her breath

Hinata

Plus size

Chinese on her Father’s side and Japanese on her Mother’s

Can eat a lot but doesn’t in fear of what other people would think

Her dream is to prove her self worth to her clan, as she grows her dream changes from simply wishing to prove herself to also wanting to free the branch members from their seals

She becomes the Hyuga advisor and right hand man to Clan Head, Hanabi

She’s retired from active duty to handle clan matters

Hyuga in general are one of the shortest in terms of height when it comes to Konoha. Hinata is the shortest

Has a glare that can rival her father’s but she’s naturally patient and easygoing that you almost never see it

Knits gifts for her friends

Due to the Pein fight as well as her fight with Neji her health isn’t the greatest and if she exerts herself too much she will become sick. After falling ill immediately after the war she and her family made the decision to take her off the roster

Boruto

Is stupidly smart but can’t focus for shit so he fails his test simply because he doesn’t get enough time to fill out the paper

Can cook

Has on multiple occasions argued why pink is in fact a manly color

Never hits his growth spurt and is only slightly taller than his mom when he gets older

Regularly argues with Momoshiki when he gets bored

Would willingly jump off a mountain if you dared him

Has a scar on his forehead from where he broke Momoshiki’s horn

Cant dress for shit

Sarada

Secretly into really nerdy and geeky things

Takes over the cooking when her mother gets distracted

Her glasses classify as a help aid both normally and when she uses her sharingan. Taking them off while using her sharigan could permanently damage her eyes

A majority of her strength comes from enhanced chakra but in her free time she does strength workouts to build her muscles so she can use less chakra when fighting

Would rather her team see her as useful and someone to depend on than someone they need to protect

Mitsuki

Autistic

Like far on the spectrum

overthinks

Gets sluggish in the cold

Albino

has the same marks around his eyes like his parent along with scales on his skin

Refers to Jiraiya and Tsunade as Aunt and Uncle

Also refers to Team taka (excluding sasuke) as aunt and uncles

He calls sasuke big brother in private and Mr.Sasuke around other people

Was responsible for the cut on Log’s face

Baggy top skinny jeans/leggings gay

Orochimaru

Gender-fluid and currently presents as feminine

Cant handle spicy food

Cant handle cold foods

Cant handle cold weather

The stretchy neck, long tongue, and ofher snake features are all clan related traits such as the Inuzuka and their sense of smell

Orochimaru’s mother could also stretch her arms just like Mitsuki can

Orochimaru is still in possession of the Zetsu body and much more prefers it as it last longer than the human bodies and is also moldable, making them able to keep a youthful appearance like they have in Boruto

Horrible self-regulation skills and will starve if they aren’t checked up on

Everyone they’ve ever met has a personal journal made about them stored away in their library

Same height as Hinata

Doesn’t curse or raise his voice ever so it’s really hard to tell when he’s upset

#headcannons #naruto headcanons #au idea #sakura haruno #hinata hyuga #boruto #sarada uchiha #mitsuki #orochimaru #boruto next generation #boruto uzumaki #sakuhina #sakuhina au #guess who my favorite character is

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sneezemonster15 · 1 year

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i think it's a rather smart choice to have made Sakura the annoying and toxic girl she is, especially since Naruto and Sasuke love each other romantically. If she was strong mature and had boundaries appreciation, the GA would have been more suspicious about why Sasuke doesn't want to be around her or returning her feelings, her being annoying and self centered is exactly what Kishi needed without giving too much

No you are right. Sasuke sees through Sakura's shallow and entitled personality. So he simply cannot gel with her. But Naruto considers her a good friend because he generally only sees the good in people, and forgives the bad, that's how he is. While others have a legit reason for their neuroses, Sakura doesn't. But Naruto wanted to make friends and not be constantly ostracized so he takes whoever offers him friendship. Which is why he doesn't really confront Sakura for her shitty behaviour towards him, but draws a clear line when it is about Sasuke.

Sasuke wouldn't do all that for Sakura, he would confront her head on, like he does. If she was written as a good character, Sasuke would have had no reason to harbour antipathy towards her. And Sasuke is inherently a kind and helpful boy.

Similarly, Hinata was written to be wrapped up in her hormonal urge to be with Naruto, having absolutely no distinct personality herself, unless you count chronic shyness, weakness of spirit, and self absorption personality traits. I guess they are. If Hinata was written to be having a strong will and even average intelligence, she would have moved on from Naruto, since he seriously pays her no attention unless she is getting beaten black and blue. He completely ignored her love confession, lol. That would have been enough reason for a smarter and self respecting girl to rethink her ways. Kishi is very serious about his characterization, he wouldn't play around with it without rationally justifying it in the narrative itself. So he wrote Hinata to be dumb, one dimensional, shadow oriented and completely designed to orbit around Naruto, without having any credible personality of her own. Far from being assertive or opinionated, she can hardly even stand her ground, she wouldn't know her ground if it slapped her directly in her face. Lol. Which is why she doesn't even begin to think about Naruto's complete lack of interest in her. In Boruto, Naruto hardly ever comes home, sends his clones to important family occasions but stays at office counting headbands. A strong willed wife would confront him, but she wouldn't. Imagine Minato/Kushina dynamic, Kushina would not have taken such treatment from Minato. But Hinata is the polar opposite of Kushina. Which is why she is married to a gay man who is in love with his best friend and work partner, and is totally willfully oblivious about it.

Kishi doesn't treat anyone else the way he treats Hinata and Sakura in the entire manga, he deliberately humiliates their characters in the narrative. He wants to show that these are the kind of women who would gladly stay in a loveless marriage with gay men, self absorbed, entitled, shallow, unintelligent, fangirlish, whose self esteem is completely tied up with the men they want, and would take the tiniest scraps those men throw their way as long as they could keep calling them their husbands that they won as trophies.

#ask #anti sakura #anti hinata #anti ss #anti nh #naruto #sasuke #sns

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scribe-of-elysium · 1 year

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Medicine - Part IV

Nothing too explicit but 18+ and NSFW anyway.

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Sasuke tenses.

It isn’t the right time, he thinks to himself. It certainly isn’t the right place. They are on a classified mission that contains a high level of risk, with far too much at stake should they blow their own cover. And a grave mistake has already been made in disclosing his relationship with Sakura to his reckless inmate.

But his wife is close enough for him to feel the warmth radiating from her body. Close enough for him to be overcome by the sweetness of her familiar perfume, an enticing fragrance that sings to and sirens his senses.

This is perilous, he knows. For they have been too far apart, for far too long, and the itching desire to touch her, to return the affection she has always offered him so freely, is maddening. It is unbearable.

He opens his mouth in another attempt to warn her - only to hesitate. The way he often has over the years, when confronted by her presence. She presses closer, and his resistance wavers, for the touch of her rosy, soft, plump lips is an ignition that sends a dangerous hum vibrating through Sasuke’s body. Like tinder to a flame, heat rushes through his veins, setting him alight.

He burns. How he burns and yearns for this woman. She makes him burn in ways she does not even perceive, in ways that have restored meaning and purpose to his life. It was Sakura’s love that thawed the numbing, jagged ice that had once encased his bruised and tattered heart. It was her love that had gently coaxed him into trusting her, into relying on her, into daring to dream of a better future for himself - a future in which there was light and warmth. A future away from the bleak, cold darkness and loneliness he had once believed was his only possible destination.

It had been her kindness and patience, and her forgiveness, which had allowed him to begin healing. Allowed him to believe, for the first time since the night of his clan’s massacre, that he was truly worthy of love. Worthy of family. Worthy of redemption and happiness. That he was far more than the last survivor of a cursed and damaged bloodline.

She and Sarada are his redemption. They are the family he had once believed to be forever lost to him. His wife has no idea just how much she has given to him, no idea of the immeasurable gift of her unconditional love, and just how much it means to Sasuke.

He has never been able to tell her with words. He has never been the sort to pen romantic poems, or articulate declarations of feelings. But what is not explicitly expressed out loud, is shared like a secret kiss in every exchanged glance. In the fire and passion and desperation and reverent worship of their touches.

Touches that are too far apart, because duty calls him away from her side too often.

Touches of which he is starved.

When her fingers rake gently through his hair, his fragile hesitation splinters. One minute, he tells himself. Just one minute, and he will end this. He closes his eyes and parts his lips, ravenous to taste her, drawing her tongue into a sensual, frenzied dance that causes their mingling breaths to quicken.

He knows it is a mistake the moment he does it. She is reeling him in, and he can feel himself falling into her honey trap. His heart slams against his chest, and an approving mewl escapes her lips when he deepens the kiss, and brings his hand up to cup the back of her head as she pushes the front of her body against his.

The sound is like a delirium-inducing drug, one that robs him of his senses. Images fill his mind, images his Sharingan has imprinted there, of his tempting wife sprawled beneath him, cheeks flushed, rose hair tousled like a halo around her head, of Sakura writhing and moaning and sobbing and gasping his name in need. Of the bewitching way she looks when she comes undone and abandons herself to sheer bliss, of the pure devotion that shines in her eyes when she strokes his face and whispers that she loves him.

Love that she gives so readily. Love that he consumes so selfishly, so gluttonously.

The last time they had made love before he had departed, it had been slow and trembling and gentle. But there is nothing gentle about their hunger for one another now. It is predatory. It is carnal. It is devastating. A ravenous, feral beast that claws at them, that demands to be let loose.

She grabs at the belt of his trousers, tugging and fumbling to unclasp it. He fists his hand through her hair, and tugs in response, breaking the kiss and eliciting a sharp gasp from his wife. Dipping his head, he lays claim to her delectable throat, sucking and kissing and biting at the spots he knows her hair will conceal, and is rewarded with an approving moan.

“Oh… Sasuke-kun…”

His parched, famished tongue licks up her flesh, as if lapping up an elixir of nectar. He has never much liked the taste of sweet, sugary things. Sakura is his only. His only exception.

Winding an arm around her waist, he lifts Sakura easily off the ground, and sets his wife on the metal work-top. Medical supplies clatter to the ground, but in that moment, she succeeds at last in unbuckling his belt, and Sasuke does not care about the noise they are making. All he can hear is the rushing of blood in his ears, the thundering of his heartbeat. His lips devour hers once more, his mind and body singularly focused on one task. He knows what they both crave and need from one another, and he will honour the sacred vows he made to take care of her in every single way.

The kiss is bruising, punishing, claiming and consuming. A fiery brand that is raw and ruinous and fuelled with mind-fogging lust. A rushed midnight tryst is not how Sasuke prefers to worship his spouse’s sensual body. He much prefers to take his time, in a sanctuary that is private and wholly their own.

But the words Jiji spoke to him about married couples remaining close together haunt him. They have sparked fresh guilt within Sasuke over the many months each year that he is forced to spend away from Sakura and their daughter.

How much of their lives has he missed? And how much will he continue to miss protecting Konoha from the shadows? What if it is not enough security for Sakura and their child? What if this wasn’t the marriage she had always dreamed of and expected with him?

What if another man attempted to approach Sakura? With Sasuke gone so often from the village, it is perhaps not so far-fetched for ordinary civilians to assume that she might be single, and raising their child alone. Sakura is beautiful, clever, successful and talented. Any man in his right mind would try his luck.

The very idea gives way to a twisting, unpleasant throb deep within the confines of Sasuke’s chest, and he kisses Sakura harder, with a desperation that borders on frustration. He loves her. It does not matter how far apart they are. To him, they are always connected. No time or distance will ever change his feelings. He cannot understand why Jiji said those damned words, sparking uncertainties that had never before even occurred to Sasuke. Equally as much, he cannot bear the thought of another man trying to move in on Sakura, daring to touch Sakura-

His thoughts fracture, and his chest heaves as she slips a hand inside his pants, eliciting a pained hiss from his lips. He aches for her. The ache is unbearable, and demands immediate remedy and relief. A remedy and relief only her touch and body can give to him.

He pushes her skirt up over her hips with his hand, then pulls aside her underwear. And when he finally slips inside her velvet warmth and joins them together as one, he is overcome with sensation. With indescribable feeling.

And he knows.

He knows from her sigh as he sinks his teeth into the supple, soft flesh of her lower lip. He knows from the way she trembles against him, from the way she eagerly hooks her legs around his waist and holds him tightly to her as he begins to thrust, hard and fast, against her. He knows as she gasps his name and he groans hers against her neck. That she is his. And he is hers.

And he knows that nothing, and no-one, can ever break their bond, and the sincerity and strength of the love they share.

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End of oneshot. Sorry it took a while to post the last bit. If you enjoyed my writing, please consider reblogging and reading my other work.

Thanks for reading.

#SasuSaku #Sasuke Retsuden #Oneshot #I'm still on hiatus #This was a one-off because I was inspired by the manga #Feels weird writing canon!verse SS #Fanfiction

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cubur · 2 years

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Hello all!

Firstly I hope everyone is well and safe there! I'm fine here except that I miss some things alot... Ok, as you guys know I mentioned a while ago that I will write an article about why I haven't been active since July 3rd, what's going on and what I've been thinking so far. Yes it took me a while to feel ready (but the truth is, I wanted to give myself some time) So i think i feel ready now!

A reminder before starting, this article will be mostly personal and if you don't like "negativity" please stop reading after here !

Let me summarize everything briefly...

When I decided to draw Narusasu, no one was with me. I never thought that someone would follow and even love my art. At first I only had tumblr and twitter accounts. When someone asked me to create an Instagram account for my fanarts, I thought who would want to follow me on Instagram? Yes I probably thought that way at first because I don't trust my style, ideas, drawings. But the main point here was to have fun, right? Then yes I could take a step too... Back then I used twitter only to follow artists, and not many people knew about my arts on tumblr. But after creating also my instagram and facebook accounts i started to feel like i have more responsibilities now. People were saying they wanted to see more arts from me and that made me very happy! There's someone out there who really likes what I draw (?)

No, I never expected this much!

After that, i decided to get some commissions. And all slots taken in one day! That was great!! But all of that also meant more of responsibilities... After a while, I started preparing for snstober while I couldn't complete all the commissions yet. Because I've never participated in a challenge like this before! And I wanted to do at least a few pieces. But things just didn't go as I expected... My pc crashed suddenly as it is now. Well, I said OK! Things like this can happen. I can draw the themes I missed next month. But this time i had a serious argument with my family about it. And that made me have to cancel the plans completely. It also broke my motivation and excitement. It took me a while to get back to work but I did after all. Before long I was faced with another but serious problem that will affect my life. I involuntarily hurt myself mentally... But i managed to get past that too (also thanks to you guys) ...and by sacrificing some things. Again I said OK! I found some motivation to work again. But almost a month later my pc suddenly shut down. So now... It's been one and a half months. I don't remember any time I had to go this long. Ofcourse I'm aware that there are a thousand problems in the world! And I'm never saying I have bigger problems than anyone else. But when you read all this together, doesn't it seem strange to you too? As if someone or something is bothered by my being around and wanted me to leave... I don't know...

All I know is I'm out of patience now!!

And i can't take it anymore !

That's why I thought about quitting digital art entirely for a moment. But to be honest i can't do that... Even if i leave my fanart accounts one day, i don't feel like i can leave drawing completely...

Yes because I was already drawing something before I started drawing narusasu. And ofcourse I do the drawing for fun at some point, but also this is my job. Since I often only draw Naruto and Sasuke, some of you are talking about i can't draw girls. Ofcourse i can draw girls too, just this account was made for fanart and i'm trying to stick to my decision. And i have other art accounts that you guys don't know about. I know i never mentioned this before but here some of my other commish works:

I gave my years for this i can't give up drawing that easily... Yes, I'm telling you all this because I feel better when I share it with someone. And this is the only place where I feel like myself.

I often don't get along with my family and they don't understand me at all. So it mostly makes me feel lonely... But here I have really great and thoughtful followers! And thanks to Naruto and Sasuke i had the opportunity to meet so many great artists too!! I would never have imagined this if I hadn't joined this fandom... I owe a lot of things, i know. That's why I feel close to you guys... Yes I could go on my way without saying anything. But i can't be selfish! You guys are the ones who motivate me most of the time!

So I wanted to tell you about myself and my future thoughts (nope I won't say "my future plans" 'cause that word is cursed to me...)

This constantly breaking computer has been with me for 8 years. I know this time sounds too long. But it went by so fast for me that I didn't realize it was getting old... For the last 1 year, it doesn't want to continue with me anymore and I ignore this fact...... I'm someone who can't get used to innovations easily. When I love something I can't leave it, can't give up on it easily. But unlike me, I've seen my computer give up on me so easily... And ofcourse I'm aware that the computer is just a technological tool. But... I loved my computer... I have accomplished a lot with it! I started drawing Naruto and Sasuke first with it... I fell asleep next to it many times... I laughed, I cried... and many more things that I can't say. But just now... I hate my pc, yes! I also hate myself for loving a tech gadget!! Because it's not worth it OKAY !!! I sacrificed a lot for it, even my eyes (like many artists)!

I mean... What does "take care of yourself" actually mean?

Can we really do this or are there things we can't prevent?

Well, I've never mentioned it before but I've been getting dizzy from time to time for a long time... when I'm using my pc, drawing or doing daily work. And a few days ago i went to the doctor for it, I found out that I have astigmatism in my eyes. I didn't realize it but I've been seeing blurry all this time...and it causes dizziness. But don't worry! Now I have a pair of glasses and everything seems clearer. (Wow !) Also I have a serious problem of stress and anxiety. I tried to do many things, even yoga, but I couldn't be successful at that either. Plus, I have some physical problems i don't want to say all of them. And the main thing is that I've just seen that all this sadness/stress doesn't hurt anything or anyone except me...

"Don't think too much! Don't care too much!"

These are the things I say to myself often but I can't help it... Maybe now you think I should go see a psychologist and even think i'm crazy somehow... And maybe you are right. Because this is not the first time i hear these words. Just, I have a brain that thinks things differently. And when I express them, there can be people who don't want to understand as much as those who are understanding. This is so normal! But it also makes me feel like i'm bothering people with my thoughts... That's why I swallow my feelings. And when i do that after a while my feelings explode inside me and start to hurt me physically and emotionally.

I'm not happy.

This is the only place i feel happy. And somehow when i have to stay away from here... everything gets worse and I unintentionally hurt myself, i'm sorry.

As for the repair issue.

So as I guessed it was the motherboard. I mean motherboard is the main reason my computer shuts down. And that's why it took so long... Since it is an 8 year old computer, it was very difficult to find a suitable motherboard for other parts. The motherboard has been changed three times and it kept doing the same problem over and over, yes, so on the third motherboard it finally worked!! But I'm not as happy as you expected... Because this is much worse than my old motherboard, and it's running so loud right now. Yes i can replace the motherboard with a better one. But I also need to change the processor and ram to replace the motherboard inside now. And maybe i can do that in the future but i think i won't...

'Cause I've given up on it!

Sounds ridiculous but my sister is opening my pc everyday. Just... I can't press that power button anymore. Because now I have a fear about it... no i'm serious. I'm seriously tired of losing my files and constantly writing articles about my pc breaking down! So I decided i couldn't work with a desktop computer again for my mental health. This will be the first and last for me! So now i will try to buy a laptop... But I can't afford it right now since I spent a lot of money to get my pc back. Also, those in my country know that the technological items here are twice the price. I mean a $1000 laptop sells for around $1500/2000 here. It will take a long time... That's why I won't have time to finish some free art for a while and i'll only take commission until i buy a new pc. And since I haven't been able to finish previous commissions here for more than a year, honestly I wasn't thinking of getting commissions once again from here... But for now if i don't get commission then i can't be active here at all. So (after finishing a few pieces) i think i'll reopen commissions...if you are still interested.

So yes my pc is working now but it has had such a problem once and that doesn't mean it won't do the same problem again in the future. That's why I also prepared a plan B for myself in every situation so as not collapse mentally once again !

I REALLY don't want to make anyone worry about me... Because I know how unhealthy this is since I'm a person who worries about every single thing. Just don't please... I'm trying to be fine, I'm really trying... And look I said before that I'll come sooner or later, and I'm here now as I promised! So please don't worry !

Okay then I guess that's all I have to say...

If you've read my long weird article this far, I congratulate you !! I always appreciate your patience and understanding with me! (but you already know that) Even so, let me thank you for everything!

A month and a half may not sound like a long time, but it taught me a lot... What i want to do in the future, what i really want, what i miss, what i like, what i will never give up, what i will give up, the limit of my patience, the limit of my strength... And even though I feel tired enough to start a new page again, i think i'll start anyway. Just I know what I really want to do so I still have the strength to go on!

And so... Endless thanks to everyone who is still here with me !! 🙏

See you all asap ! ( Just I hope you haven't forgotten me and my art yet ^^; )

#text post #personal #nice to be here again after a month!#long article #But this time it's really long...#And if you managed to read till the end I congratulate you!!

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akamikazae · 2 years

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Love me Mercilessly Kakashi x Akami Chapter 18: Small word count: 4k warnings: Violence, mentions of gore, trauma/Ptsd previous chapters [x]

Returning home from a brutal mission in Kiri Akami unintentionally lashes out at Shisui. Struggling to keep her deeds in ANBU separate from her life in the village Akami finds solace spending time at the Uchiha Compound; specifically with the company of a 3 year old Sasuke.

Sasuke was getting so big, walking and talking with ease. He still had trouble saying Itachi’s name so he stuck mostly to ‘Nii-san.’ S’s proved just as challenging so Shisui sounded more like ‘hisui.’ But Sasuke had no problem with his A’s, though he almost always called her ‘Kami-chan.’

When Akami came around to the backyard Shisui grabbed her and swung her around. He kissed her a dozen times before setting her back on the ground.

Sasuke ran over to them as fast as his little legs would take him.

“Kami-chan! Kami-chan,” he sang.

Akami scooped him up the way Shisui had her. She sat beside Itachi on the blanket he dragged out back Sasuke still in her arms. He reached up and smooshed her face between tiny hands and kissed her on the cheek. His mouth was open and he did nothing to move his lips; it was more like he tried to eat her cheek. He’d never done that before.

Shisui grabbed Sasuke out of her arms and pretended he was mad holding him in the air giving him a harmless shake.

“You can’t go around kissing people's girlfriends' little man!” Shisui teased, tickling the kid until he squealed with joy. Once free he crawled back towards Akami and was rewarded with a peck to the top of his head. She’d never done that before either.

“Kamichan what’s that?” Sasuke asked, poking her forearm with pudgy fingers.

“Sasuke, it's rude to point,” Itachi said calmly.

Akami unwrapped the bandages from her wrist and Sasuke scooted between her legs for a closer look, turning her hand to watch the crisp black lines curve around her wrist.

“It’s my summoning tattoo. You know how Shisui and your brother have a contract with the crows?” Sasuke nodded. “I have one with snakes.”

Sasuke cocked his head to the side, he always thought crows were the only option.

“Can you ummon anything?”

“I don’t see why not.” She said,

“Does Hisui-san have a tattoo?” He asked, directing all his attention to Akami, not bothering to consult with Shisui at all. Akami always had an answer for his endless reign of questions.

“No, you don’t have to have one but it makes it easier sometimes. Do you want me to show you how it works?”

Sasuke nodded furiously.

Itachi himself had been curious and he watched as she extended her forearm. Gently nipping the skin of her thumb enough to draw a drop of blood. Sasuke gasped, upset but far too curious to avert his eyes. Afraid he’d miss it if he so much as blinked. She swiped her bloodied thumb up the length of her inked forearm. A copper bellied water snake appeared in a cloud of smoke.

Summoning Ryu was a lot more practical now that he trained to use his chakra to maintain a smaller size, sort of like a henge. He would no longer level a Forest; unless of course Akami wanted him to do just that.

She held out her palm for Ryu to slither into. The dark snake twisted himself up her arm just as the tattoo had. Balancing himself at the end of her wrist to hold his head up and inspect Sasuke. Sasuke wasn’t frightened in the least as he stared at the snake in amazement.

“This is Ryu, he is loyal to me and me to him. Ryu, this is Sasuke. I am loyal to him as well.” She said, earning a wide smile from Sasuke.

“Can I pet him?” Sasuke asked Akami.

“Why don’t you ask him yourself?” She said,

“He can talk?!”

“I most certainly can, far better than you I imagine.” Ryu spat.

Sasuke frowned and Akami fixed her summons with a venomous glare. Ryu hissed lazily.

Akami gave Sasuke a firm jiggle, encouraging him to try again.

“Can I pet you?”

Ryu didn’t answer but lowered his head for Sasuke to gently stroke the black scales behind his chartruese eyes.

Continue reading [x]

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pussymagnetmadara · 2 years

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what are your thoughts on rock lee and neji as a ship- Space anon

Hey anon! thanks for your ask.. so what about Neji x Rock Lee as a romantic couple..

Tbh, I never thought of them that way, I always liked them as BROmance, but why not. At first Naruto, Neji seemed annoyed to be in the same team as Rock Lee, whom he considered as a weight, more than a full comrade, but their relationship evolves quickly (and I think thanks to their sensei- who for my part is by far a better teacher than Kakashi- but that's another story…). The highlights of NejiLee are in my eyes, during the arc of the Chunin Exam, when Tenten expresses her concern for Rock Lee and Neji smirks, and assures that Rock Lee can't be beaten so easily. (HE BELIEVES IN HIS ABILITIES). Then Rock Lee stopping Naruto who was starting to want to fight Neji after his fight with Hinata (IT'S LIKE "DON'T TOUCH MY BABY.) Then, it is canon that Rock Lee draws his courage and his determination from Neji's victory (also Sasuke and Naruto's but here these elements are not interesting) and even if this last one loses his fight against Gaara, Neji doesn't remain surprised and almost proud of what Rock Lee could give during this epic fight and when he realizes that Rock Lee is seriously wounded, he approaches a really sad and worried face for Rock Lee.

And all this in one arc, there would be so much to say about Rock Lee and Neji and even if I classify this in the "friendship" box, I can admit people who send them in the "romance" box. It's kind of like the messed up friendship that Sasuke and Naruto can have, only much less toxic. So we can interpret them as "enemies" to friends or "enemies" to lovers, it's ok for me, this couple doesn't bother me at all.

PS: I put "enemies" because I don't think they were enemies but rather not friends, enemies is maybe TOO BIG for them to qualify what kind of relationship they got at the beginning of Naruto.

I hope I answered your question and see you soon :)

#nejilee #neji hyuga #rock lee #naruto ships

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yo-aloe-vera · 2 years

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I noticed that you get quite a few comments from Sakura fans who are unhappy with the way you portray her. I think you're closer to her canon character than any of their fanworks though. I really think Sakura coerced or manipulated Sasuke into giving her a child somehow. We know she can be mean and manipulative, as seen by every one of her confessions (including the fake one to Naruto). The way she tried to kill Sasuke was also cowardly and manipulative. Naruto had just told her that he wasnt giving up on Sasuke even though the promise he made to her no longer stood, but she still wanted to kill him. She really doesnt see Sasuke as a person, she couldnt even try to understand. In Chapter 3 she tried to get Sasuke's attention by talking shit about Naruto, but he defended Naruto. She even tried to "steal" his first kiss and thought about him peeing in front of her so that she could see his dick. She always jumped on him no matter how many times he made it clear that he didnt like it. And SS was deliberately written to be a bad and dysfunctional 'couple' in Gaiden. I think Sakura can actually be called abusive when she frightens Sarada into shutting up, shouts at her for asking valid questions about her weird 'relationship' with Sasuke and destroys her house. She's still insecure over other women and possessive of Sasuke in her 30s. She specifically covered Karin's face with her own picture to fool her daughter and she spoke badly about Ino to Sarada, so Sarada stops Ino from getting close to Sasuke. Sasuke was actually extremely unhappy to see her after all those years. He shouted "why exactly are you here!?" with a frown. He basically said he and Sakura are only connected because of Sarada and he was reluctant to say even that. He only called her his wife in front of Sarada and then Sarada has a flashback to that moment when she thinks about what kind of relationship they have. Naruto's not even her friend anymore, he knew nothing about her life, thought Karin could actually be Sarada's mom and that was the first personal conversation he had with Sarada. What does it say about them that Kishi made sure to let us know that Sasuke never even kissed her and he rejected her before he left. He looked miserable in his family photo and family dinner. It can't be a coincidence, Kishi could have drawn a happier expression if he wanted to convey a happy family. In your story Sasuke neglects Sarada because of her connection to Sakura and I think that might actually be true in canon as well

I think these are good points.

I can forgive some of Sakura’s distasteful behavior pre-Shippuden because of her age. But she had no development at all. The way she and Sasuke are in Boruto, at least as far as I can see, is just... no. That is a toxic dynamic. It is hella gross, and the way both of them treat Sarada is reprehensible (which of course is a huge and important part of the plot of SEA).

The forehead poke, so beloved of sasa stans, is deliberately a way to keep her at a distance--just as Itachi always used it with Sasuke.

The disdain sasa fans have for any kind of anti-sakura heterodoxy is also just weird to me. There are many characterizations of my fav characters that irk me in fanfic. So I don't read them? And I don't understand intentionally reading things that make you unhappy?

I've been fairly kind to Sakura in my stories until this one. I wanted this particular fic to draw on the toxic traits of all the characters, though, and her character as it developed after Shippuden ended was extremely toxic.

So I am perplexed and, honestly, somewhat entertained by the animus sasa fans have for the story. Like, OK, boo, we get it, you are mad. Noted. Oh, you're still mad. Mmkay, dumpling, hope you feel better soon lol.

Then some of them decide to take on the worst traits of their idol and go all out crazy on SNS writers like it's holy war and they're cleansing the world of evil. By being incredibly snide, by harassing writers, and just all around making poor decisions because someone writing a fanfic they did not pay to read failed to give them what they wanted.

All that to say, thank you, I agree with you. Sorry for the tangent on your comment, you unleashed the beast 😆

Thank you for reading, and also thank you for discussing your viewpoints.

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the-letter-horror-lover · 2 years

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BORUTO ALTER: Last Shinobi by SongofVedas

Anime » Naruto Rated: T, English, Adventure & Fantasy, Naruto U., Sasuke U., Boruto U., Sarada U., Words: 112k+, Favs: 48, Follows: 49, Published: Dec 2, 2020 Updated: Jul 19

21Chapter 12: FORMATION: INO-SHIKA-CHO!

BORUTO

-KIRIGAKURE ARC-

SHIKADAI sighed, opening green eyes. The sun cast shadows about the forest, each of them like little black pools underneath clouds of leaves.

Beside him, Chocho Akimichi stood. She wielded a tantō confidently, tapping her feet in excitement. To their backs, Inojin Yamanaka was found. The youth had long black and blonde hair, split down the middle and framing a pale face down to a pointed chin.

Shikidai knew Inojin was at the ready as well- scroll in one hand, brush in the other.

It was silent...save for the incessant chirping of birds.

Shikadai smiled, looking every bit like his mother as he did so.

When will you make your move... Sensei! He thought.

With Chocho at his right, they could defend themselves from not only both directions, but also from the ground and the air.

With Inojin at their flank, he could use his-

Each of the young genin suddenly heard sandals clacking against bark from the branches above.

She's coming!

Shikadai expected an attack from the trees-

The ground between them ruptured violently, spears of rock striking upwards from within the genin formation.

Earth style-!

The genin leapt into the air, using chakra to increase their speed. Despite their status as students, Shikadai estimated that their agility far exceeded the rank they currently held.

Shikadai somersaulted backwards, crouching against a thick tree trunk. Inojin landed in the branches above him, while Chocho reformed at Shikadai's center right.

Despite the surprise attack, we maintained our formation. However.. sensei isn't fighting seriously yet..Shikadai frowned.

Is she trying to catch us off guard? Create a variance in her strategy?

Chocho spoke aloud, slightly breaking Shikadai's concentration.

"You're going too easy on us, sensei!" She boasted.

Inojin chuckled from the trees.

"Shut up, fatso." Inojin said with quiet politeness.

Chocho whirled her head up at Inojin.

"I'm- I'm not even using my dad's jutsu right now!" She yelled.

It was true. Chocho was able to revert between body sizes- a genetic mutation of the jutsu she inherited by the blood of the Akimichi clan.

Her "normal" body could infuse chakra and use the body expansion technique.. while her "fat" body was able to retain chakra that Chocho infused over days.. months.. and even years.

While in this form, she could expend that chakra instantly, unleashing a torrent of power that not even Chocho can currently control. In fact, the form could kill her if not used properly.

Despite her somewhat self absorbed attitude..

Chocho was strong.

"Water style: water severing wave!" Moegi's voice rang throughout the forest as the sound of gushing water filled Shikadai's ears.

A high pressure stream cut through wood, toppling trees as it mowed towards the assembled genin.

Suddenly, a massive ink wall formed between the genin and the spearing water. the ink solidified into a tangible painting of an ornate oni gate, complete with swaying charms.

Inojin's jutsu.. the Material Imitation Technique. Unlike his father, Inojin was unable to perform Beast Imitation Art. However, his jutsu seemed able to create "inanimate" non living objects- anything from bridges to spears. Even rocks, fire, and water.

Despite his relative inexperience, the art Inojin could create was far denser than that of regular Beast Imitation Drawing, meaning it was harder to destroy- and in some situations, far better suited for defense and offense.

"Good, Inojin!" Chocho complimented, unbothered by Inojin's earlier insult. She planted herself on the ground, fingers curling around the handle of her small sword.

She can sense what's coming too- nice Chocho! Shikadai remained silent as four snaking rods of wood burst from between quivering trees.

Moegi's speciality..

Wood release.

Moegi had created a facsimile of the First's jutsu. It lacked the chakra controlling properties and overall strength of Hashirama's original ability, but maintained the same versatility. It was that same versatility that hurtled towards them now.

Heh.. now this.. this could actually kill us! Shikadai thought with a bit of sadistic humor.

Chocho held her sword outwards vertically. chakra plumed from her- causing light red hair to waver in the air.

Then, a gust of wind followed flashes of steel.

Smoke billowed beside Shikadai as the sound of wood punching against metal bounced between trees.

Chocho's speciality..

Weapon expansion.

The Akimichi clan possessed the ability to expand their bodies into massive, bulbous forms. However, Karui Akimichi was able to create a new jutsu.. a combination of the Akimichi's Chō Haetataki and Kumogakure kenjutsu.

As the smoke cleared, Chocho could be seen wielding a massive blade- one that nearly rivaled the nearby trees in length. She held it defensively as Moegi's branches pummeled Chocho's sword with a hail of thundering blows. Despite this.. Chocho's weapon was resolute.

The principle was simple. By imbuing her Tanto with her own blood, she was able to transfer gigantism to it. Karui created the Jutsu.. and Choji mastered the technique. With that said..

Chocho has the potential to utilize it to greater extents than either of them!

The sound of bark scraping against metal ceased. For a moment, it was silent.

Chocho leapt backwards, shrinking her weapon back to its normal size.

Inojin kept to the trees as they all heightened their awareness, chirping birds tentatively resuming song during the calm.

Shikadai's eyes leapt from leaf to leaf, left to right.

Where will she strike next..

"Shikadai.. I'm not sure if she's doing it on purpose or not.. but I can sense her." Chocho whispered.

Shikadai lowered his head.

"Far away enough that you're talking, huh?" He responded with a slight smile.

Ironically, it was Chocho, not Inojin, who was the strongest sensory type on the team.

Chocho frowned, unamused as she formed a jutsu sign.

"Obviously.. So what do we do?"

Shikadai pondered.

She wants us to attack her.. that much is clear. Which means she's going to put up a real fight this time. We'll have to be careful.

Shikadai intrusively scratched at a bandaged wrist.

I could use it.. But I'd prefer not to risk any damage during a training exercise..

Whatever.

"Inojin," Shikadai threw his head backwards and up, blond ponytail swinging behind his neck.

"Draw as many ranged projectiles as you can. Arrows, swords. Anything you can manipulate and throw."

"That's easy." Inojin rose from his perch, stretching both arms before jumping to the forest floor.

"Chocho," Shikadai turned to her as he pointed to his head.

"Your job is important. Inojin is going to be following your lead. I need you to attack Moegi directly- Inojin, start drawing by the way.." Shikadai said calmly.

He returned his attention to Chocho.

"You're not just creating an opening. You have the strongest offensive ability out of all of us. More than likely.. it'll be you to call this thing." Shikadai folded his arms.

"While you're doing that, I'll come in from the opposite direction, behind her. It's simple enough.. but variables don't lie. There's three of us." Shikadai looked at both of his teammates, smiling down at Inojin as the boy drew, then across to Chocho.

"And.. we're pretty strong." Shikadai finished.

"Chocho- where is she?" Inojin asked as he rose.

Chocho clicked her tongue in annoyance.

"I can't sense her as well as before. But I still can see the general area." Chocho answered.

Shikadai assumed a slightly more authoritative tone.

"Inojin- advance with Chocho, but retreat once she makes contact. That's when you'll use your art." Shikadai instructed.

"Between the two of us.. we're sure doing a lot, Shikadai." Inojin chuckled.

The young Nara offered a content smirk.

"I'm just doing what I do best.. staying out of the way."

With that, he nodded to Chocho.

"Let's move."

The genin seemed to vanish into the air with a whisper. Chocho and Inojin rushed ahead, while Shikadai himself circled from above, leaping from tree to tree.

Suddenly, Chocho swung her head around in panic.

"Shikadai! Behind you!" Chocho's voice echoed throughout the forest as the sizzle of chakra prickled the skin at Shikadai's neck.

Water style again-

Shikadai threw himself to his knees as bullets of water sped above his head with loud hisses. He flipped against the wood of the tree, kicking himself away from Moegi and down to his teammates.

Moegi silently continued her advance.

Her movements were faster, obviously more trained. As Shikadai landed, he saw the shadow of Moegi descending from above him.

Shikadai ignored her.

As Moegi began to attack, a katana shot through trees. It impaled her through the stomach before her body exploded into a cloud of white smoke.

Good.. Inojin knew it was a clone. And even better.. Chocho hasn't fully revealed her position. She fled as Moegi chased me.

Both of his teammates were able to maintain their plan, despite the fact that Moegi's attack changed their original roles.

And now...

Shikadai's eyes followed the path of Inojin's painted weapon. Inojin had defended him.. but he was directing him as well.

Shikadai pressed his palms together, strengthening the murky, quivering line of darkness that stretched across a forest floor splotched with shadows.

It crawled up a tree, curling around the trunk..

And directly across Moegi's legs.

When she had moved to attack Shikadai, Inojin was probably far away enough to see her use substitution- allowing him to not only defend Shikadai, but also reveal Moegi's location.

Shikadai's ponytail wavered as Chocho sped past him. In seconds she was behind Moegi, tanto pointed at her sensei's back.

"...We could go for a bit longer.. but I think that's enough." Moegi spoke aloud from a distance.

"You've improved. All of you." Moegi finished.

"Do you think we're ready for the Mist? Ready to help the fifth Hokage?" Chocho asked.

As Shikadai approached, he noticed Moegi's expression harden.

"This mission has the potential to be more dangerous than what we faced in Suna. I've trained you well.. I think this sparring match is evidence of that." Moegi said.

Her eyes then lowered into a warning, shadowed gaze.

"However, this exercise and actual combat are two entirely different things. I don't have to tell any of you this." Moegi continued, her voice softening.

"I genuinely don't know what we'll face there, Chocho. But I need each of you to promise that you'll trust each other, and trust me. That may be the only advantage we have over our foes."

Shikadai and the others nodded, promising their sensei.

Moegi's expression changed again- it was happy.. relieved.

"Let's get back to the village then. I want you guys to have time to talk to your family and friends before we leave."

Chocho and Inojin excitedly complied.. but Shikadai continued to watch Moegi. Her expression seemed to grow more hollow.. almost scared.

Is there something about this mission we don't know?

Shikadai's mind flashed to Himawari in the hospital. Then, to the story of what Boruto and his team faced.

He scratched at his bandagesonce more.

There was a possibility that they could face something sinister. It seemed clear to Shikadai that something in the ninja world was stirring. Something different from the Sunagakure rebellion.

He continued with his team, unsure musings causing him to furrow his brow in silent reflection.

EARLIER THAT MORNING..

SARADA woke with a start. Her arm ached. Despite her mother's healing, it still had to be bandaged and re-bandaged every time the sun rose. Sarada sighed, leaving her bed for a waiting dresser.

I shouldn't feel sorry for myself.

Himawari..

Sarada was able to visit Hima briefly yesterday. Boruto, The Hokage, and Lady Uzuamki were there, of course. Boruto..

He could barely speak. When Sarada looked at him, she could tell from his face how much pain he was in.

She felt much of the same.

They had all watched as Himawari was nearly beaten to death. It was beyond not helping-

It was the fact that they couldn't do anything. Sarada shut her eyes, tears threatening them as she bandaged a thrashed arm.

I told Boruto to stay back. If he hadn't done what he did..

Sarada opened her eyes, wiping them with determination.

I have to get stronger.

She was an Uchiha.

Sarada herself wasn't even quite sure of what that name meant to the village, but she knew that regardless of it being reverence or infamy..

It was a name that was known. And further, it was one she had a responsibility to.

That thought brought anger to Sarada's mind.. an emotion she had felt many times when it came to anything pertaining to her father.

She-

Sarada's thoughts grew silent as she stilled movement.

She narrowed sharp eyebrows, dark purple hair flying behind her head like a hawk.

I thought I heard something last night-

Voices.

It was mom and..

Sarada's eyes widened as realization echoed throughout her nerves.

That voice.. it's..

The young Uchiha leapt across a small room, turning into a jump as she rushed downstairs. The voices grew quieter at the sound of her footsteps- but she didn't care.

Sarada's eyes strained- she rounded the last corner before entering her kitchen. She stopped-

Sakura was silent.

Sarada's mother stood- her face was tired.. but happy. Before her, a tall man loomed with his back to Sarada. The shape and wave of his hair was exactly like Sarada's, save for the color.

Sarada looked down to the man's boots. Then, she glanced up at the back of his head.

"You.." Sarada snarled.

Sakura stepped forward.

"Sarada.." she began. Sarada's dark eyes narrowed past the man's shoulder.

Sarada maintained her composure as her body shook.

She saw them then- the eyes of the village. The eyes of scorn, derision. The eyes that cared little of her ability, her devotion. Eyes that saw only the crest on her back-

Uchiha.

"I've suffered.. we've suffered so much!" Sarada did begin to yell then.

"And he just decides to come back?! After abandoning everything?!" Sarada stood defiantly, striking her fist against her chest.

"Turn around, Sasuke Uchiha..." Sarada rasped.

Sakura opened her mouth to speak again, but Sasuke raised his hand in silent protest. Sasuke turned.

His face was younger than what Sarada had remembered, and he bore the same look as she did. They had the same eyes, the same nose, the same jaw.

It was clear that they were both the thing that seemed so reviled, the thing that was nearly scrubbed from all the history books Sarada read, the unspeakable thing written on her very face when they saw her.

Uchiha.

"What is it that you want?" Sasuke asked brusquely.

Sarada lowered her head as a new wave of anger washed over her.

"What is it that I want?" Sarada retorted bitterly.

Sasuke nodded, unfazed.

"From this. Your anger is justified.. I can understand it." Sasuke said quietly.

Sasuke's voice beat around Sarada's head almost like a heavy rain.

What is it I want?!

A thousand questions basked in the pain of her early childhood built up within Sarada to such degrees she felt as if she were close to vomiting.

She lurched over, before forcing herself into a steel, steady calm.

Sarada leveled her cold eyes onto Sasuke.

He met her gaze.

"I want to know the truth." Sarada said.

"It would only serve to harm you." Sasuke replied instantly.

Sarada gritted her teeth, curling both hands again into tight fists.

"I deserve to know!" She shouted. Sarada cackled cynically then.

"And since when did you care about harm? I don't even know who you are!" Sarada stepped forward, her voice rising with righteous indignation.

"I deserve to know! I'm not stupid! There's something everyone is hiding! Even mom!"

Sakura's face fell as a silent tear escaped her eye. Sarada felt a pang of guilt then, before noticing she was crying too.

It's his fault.

No one would feel like this if it weren't for him! I know mom doesn't want to lie to me! It's you!

"...I can and will tell you. I promise you that. But now..I can't do that to you.. I'm sorry, Sarada-"

Sarada rushed at Sasuke. Chakra pooled into her right fist as she threw it squarely for his chest.

Sasuke didn't move, and Sarada stopped inches short of a blow that she knew he wasn't defending against.

"Fine..." Sarada looked down as she stepped backwards, fist shaking.

"Fine, if that's how it is!" She laughed.

"If everyone is content to keep lying.. fine. but.. I want to fight you. I want you to see that I became powerful without you, I want you to see I don't need you! It doesn't matter that you're here!"

Sasuke simply nodded.

Sakura made one protest, but Sasuke simply ignored her. The man stalked out of the house, darkness still clutching the world outside.

He paused.

Sarada rushed to her shoes, then chased the man out the door.

As she left the warmth of her home, the man instantly increased his speed. He leapt from building to building with silent whispers, nearly as fast as the birds flying above.

He's already testing me!

Sarada increased her speed, using advanced chakra control to fuel her body. In seconds, she was paced with Sasuke.

They quickly traversed the multiple domed roofs of Konoha- Sarada could tell they were headed for the west gate.

So.. we're leaving the village..

Sarada continued to follow sasuke as the man blinked through Konoha's gate, Sarada following in the wake of shifting air.

They hopped across a nearby stream, trees above wavering in the now warming orange hue of the sun.

Outside konoha's walls, various houses were scattered about. A significant amount of people lived in the ever expanding countryside, finding their home in the shade of the Land of Fire, nestled between giant trees that had bore witness to eras of countless war and conflict.

It was here Sarada and Sasuke found themselves. Sarada continued after the wavering black cloak before her-

Sasuke abruptly stopped.

To their right, a small, modest home waited underneath the gaze of a towering tree. A single file of smoke rose above the dwelling, while warm lights reflected from three windows staggered amongst the home's floors.

Sasuke gripped his sword.

Sarada stepped forward, before passing her eyes across the house once more.

Wait..

This is Sumire's house!

Just as Sarada was about to speak, Sasuke let go of his weapon.

He turned his head halfway to regard Sarada, his one visible brow sharply cutting downwards.

"I thought.. I sensed something." Sasuke looked back at the home once more, before shaking his head.

He resumed their journey.

They moved through the wood in relative silence. Sarada said nothing, and Sasuke offered no conversation.

Sarada's anger still simmered.

For him to simply return.. as if nothing happened..!

The young Uchiha felt pain behind her right eye. She blinked away the searing burn, focusing a hate filled glare at the world ahead of her.

Finally, they left the long belt of trees. They came across a wide valley, filled with wavering white flowers and tall grass. Far in the distance, a large slab of stone stood..

Bearing the Uchiha crest.

Sasuke began walking. Sarada followed closely behind. She wanted to ask where they were.. but she also didn't want to speak to him yet. Not yet..

Not until I prove to you I don't need you! You don't deserve to be here!

With that thought, Sarada stamped her feet firmly to the ground.

"Enough walking, Sasuke!" She clasped her hands together as chakra began infusing within her.

Sasuke dipped his head, accepting her challenge.

Sarada vanished in the air.

She appeared above Sasuke, leg kicking down at the crown of his head.

He stepped backwards-

Sarada threw herself to Sasuke's right.

He thought I was going to land right in front of him!

Sarada's hands weaved together in rehearsed seconds.

"Fire Style: Fireball Jutsu!" Sarada belched an orb of flame- hitting Sasuke close range as sound and smoke exploded from the epicenter of the blast.

Boring, Sasuke!

Sarada spun on her heels, dodging to the left as Sasuke extended a kick meant for her head.

He pivoted, before landing gracefully before her.

A lull.

Sarada raised her arms-

Sasuke exploded in a gasp of air.

He appeared before Sarada, swiping a leg across both of hers. She fell backward, recovering into a roll as Sasuke continued his advance.

She kicked into a standing position, forcing Sasuke back as he moved his arm and legs in defense.

"You're more skilled than the Uzumaki boy," Sasuke commented.

Sarada remained silent, sliding backwards as she threw her hands behind her back.

It's time.. I've grown used to the difference in our height and strength. Now.. Begins the real offensive!

Sarada produced four shuriken, flaring them like cards as she crossed her arms.

She broke into a run, flinging each arm to the left and right. The shuriken swirled around Sasuke, before clashing against each other and changing course- now aimed for his eyes.

Sarada ran ahead-

Sasuke vanished.

"How-"

Sarada felt a hand on her shoulder-

She relaxed her muscles, freeing herself from Sasuke's grip before he could take hold.

Sarada hopped backwards, panting. Sasuke didn't pursue.

"You're stronger than I expected." Sasuke said.

"If you're this strong.. why weren't you able to help Himawari?" Sasuke asked.

Sarada's eyes widened as her blood thumped.

"I know what happened. I know.. that boy- Boruto Uzumaki.. fought the creature away from her. Yet.. you're stronger than him. What is it that he has.. that you lack?" Sasuke stepped forward.

Sarada hissed.

"You.. you have no right to speak!" She ran-

Sasuke vanished again.

How is he doing this?!

Sarada felt the air from Sasuke's rounding kick-

But didn't have the muscle strength to evade it.

His boot connected with her jaw, sending her crashing into the ground.

Sasuke's shadow loomed over Sarada-

She tapped into her chakra, zipping backwards as Sasuke's fist crushed a small crater into the ground where she once stood.

Sarada sniffed- she noticed then her nose was bleeding.

Sarada wiped away the blood, leveling her gaze with Sasuke's.

Himawari..

Could I have done more?

Could we have beaten that thing if I had-

Sarada's right eye began to sear again.

For Sasuke.. for him to accuse her, the man who abandoned his own family, his own daughter-

Sarada roared in anger. She flipped her hands together-

Sasuke's eyes widened in surprise.

"Yes, I know that jutsu!" Sarada bellowed.

"Fire Style: Phoenix Flower Jutsu!" Six globs of devouring fire shouted forth from Sarada, each of them speeding for Sasuke.

Sarada instantly chased after her own jutsu, hiding in the shadow of the furthest orb as she rounded on Sasuke's position.

She saw him- saw as he was about to be enveloped by three spheres of fire-

He vanished again.

But this time- Sarada noticed he reappeared somewhat before her trajectory.

I still don't get it.. but this answers two things!

One, if he could help it, he wouldn't have teleported near me! That means his ability is confined to his immediate area!

Two... He can't see me!

As the fire rounded for Sasuke, he raised his palm. Sarada's jutsu exploded against Sasuke's hand..

And then was drawn into it.

What-

Distracted, Sarada paused as her position was revealed. Sasuke wasted no time-

He jumped forward, unleashing a flurry of blows to Sarada's face and body.

No..

Sarada felt herself being pushed backward, blood flying from her mouth as Sasuke continued his attack.

No!

I won't lose! I refuse to feel this pain! This blood.. it isn't mine! I will not show weakness! Not to..

Sasuke's face flashed before Sarada's right eye.

Her anger.. her fury.. reached its boiling point.

Not to you, Sasuke Uchiha!

Sarada blinked. Her right eye burned-

But through it.. she could see Sasuke's movements.

No, beyond that.

She could see the tension of his muscles, the ending points of his arm, his fingers.

His strike.

Time seemed to have slowed, but now it was speeding up again. Sarada caught Sasuke's fist with her own, pushing a wave of chakra forth in such intensity it whipped at the wind.

For a moment, they both stood, fists touching.

Sasuke stared at her. His face.. he looked almost sad.

Finally, Sarada stepped backward.

"What..? What is it? You have nothing to say now?" Sarada raised her hands into a jutsu sign, preparing another attack-

Sasuke drew his blade. Sarada paused-

She stepped backwards as he approached.

However, Sasuke raised his blade's flat to Sarada's face, allowing her to see a wavering reflection.

In it, she saw that her right eye was now red.

A black ring circled within her pupil, while a small, ink-like tomoe rested at the crown of it.

"The.." Sarada stepped backwards.

"It seems it only manifested in one eye.. curious." Sasuke said as he appraised Sarada's gaze from a distance.

"What.. what is this..?" Sarada asked as Sasuke sheathed his sword.

"That is the legacy of the blood within you...the Sharingan."

"So.. this is the man Jigen's up in arms about?" Code yawned, peering over the body of a well-built individual, white hair flowing behind the corpse-like individual's head.

The man was enclosed in a blue incubation tube. Where his heart would be, a circle of the death scroll thudded, thinly hidden underneath a veil of discolored skin.

Amado chuckled from across the room.

"You shouldn't stand so close." He warned.

Code scoffed, unease somewhat tensing around his neck as he backed away.

"He feels almost like.."

"Otogane?" Amado finished, looking up at Code as he prepared a cigarette.

"Yes.. I knew that she was... related, in a sense, but.. for it to feel like this.." Code smiled.

"You're truly a monster, Amado. It's unfair you created a failure like me before you were capable of something to the level of... what was its name, again?" Code inquired.

"Kashin." Amado said simply, huffing darkly on his cigarette.

"Kashin Koji," the scientist finished with a smoky exhale, standing up to match Code's height.

"Sounds ancient." Code said. He wanted to know more, to tell the truth.. but he also didn't want to know anything about Otogane that would get him in trouble. Code had his use due to his relation to the Ten Tails.. but as a failed vessel, he knew he existed on borrowed time- and personal favor.

"So, what's with Kashin's left ar-" Code began.

Suddenly, the lab door crashed open.

Before either of them could react, Delta strode into the lab, purple eyes critical in their regard.

"Ah, just who I was looking for." Delta said, smiling thinly at Code.

Code instantly glowered.

They were both inners, and further, by all rights, Code was stronger than Delta.

However, it seemed that Delta held more favor with Jigen, and was able to leverage that favor into more and more authority within the organization.

I'm little more than the Ten Tail's handler..

Code frowned, masking his insecurities with a false air of confidence.

"Delta.. I'm surprised to still see you here. I thought Lord Jigen sent you off to die already." Code smiled with a grin dipped in hate.

Delta returned the look, eyes shining.

"Hmph.. that's actually why I'm here, dear Code." Delta began as she twirled on white boots.

Amado chuckled in the background as Code glared on, watching Delta cautiously.

"Kirigakure is a dangerous place.. Not to mention, if our new intel is correct.. the Fifth Hokage is there, as well." Delta reported.

Code shrugged.

"Afraid of an old war relic?" He said.

Delta pursed her lips into a smile.

"I want to ensure my mission is successful.. to enact Jigen's will. I need what you'd call.. a trump card."

Delta's hair bounced as she spoke. She playfully twisted at a long, blonde strand of it as Code digested her words.

"You have your own tools. Both your lower and upper guard still live." Code replied harshly.

Delta flashed her eyes, meeting Code's glare.

"I want Botäshirin."

Amado chuckled.

"Oh my..." the man laughed quietly. Code inhaled, lowering his voice to a hissing whisper.

"You've gone too far Delta. That-" Code rasped.

It was useless to resist- Code knew that.

But she couldn't. Delta couldn't possibly be that crazed..

"By all accounts, you should be stronger than her now. Is that fear I smell dripping from you, Code? Didn't you want your opportunity to burn her to a crisp?" Delta chuckled.

Code stomped his foot onto the lab floor, fire shooting upwards and around his body. He breathed haggardly- the density of Code's chakra began breaking various medical instruments within Amado's lab.

"Control yourself, Code. You'll threaten him." Amado said sternly.

Code looked away, flames dying down as Delta laughed boastfully.

"Ah, yes! It is that power I missed, Code. It is too bad I can't take you. However.. another failed vessel is just as fine." Delta smirked.

Code's glare darkened.

"I haven't given you her. And I refuse to." Code said with finality.

Amado sighed, turning back to his work.

Delta cooed mockingly.

"You know what I possess. Drop these foolish pretenses, and give me the key. I've grown bored of the smell in this room." Delta spat.

Code gritted his teeth.

He could continue to refuse her..

But she possessed the Seal.

Those who carried the Seal could command other Inners.. save for Amado and Otogane. They could even forcibly command outers and uppers, if it came to it.

In a way, the seal made Delta the third strongest member.

The seal, when activated, could control Code's mind.. rather painfully, and force him to give Delta what she wanted.

The young man sighed in defeat, opening his palm.

A zipper-like protrusion cut across his palm, blood momentarily spilling from the void-like wound.

From it, a key jumped. Delta grabbed it as it flew through the air, smiling as the smooth metal loudly slapped against her skin.

"Good boy." Delta smirked.

She turned, sauntering out of the room.

"I'll be sure to treat your former Upper with the utmost care.. Code!" Delta laughed as she vanished into the bowels of Kara's lower catacombs.

Amado twirled in his chair, crossing arms.

"That was interesting,to say the least." Amado raised his eyebrows towards Code.

"You- you could've stopped her!" Code protested.

Amado smiled.

"I guess that's true, I could've." He said as he typed at a diagnostic chart.

Code swore.

"...Botäshirin Zhenjin.." He whispered.

Botäshirin.

She had served under Code for some time.. before she went mad.

There were six failed vessels of Jigen. Each of them inherited a portion of his overall power.. Code was one of them.. Botäshirin was another.

The vessels of Jigen were considered failures as while they possessed powerful chakra, they were unable to perform Jutsu. All of them.. save for Botäshirin.

Due to her intellectual deficiency, she was made an upper. However, five years ago she had gone mad. She killed two inners, and then nearly killed Code.

It was Boro and Amado who eventually stopped her. They contained her in a special prison- the very same one she was hopefully decomposing in now.

"If she wants to unleash such a monster.. then she'll have Jigen to answer to. This doesn't involve me." Code said almost to himself in reassurance.

"Now there's a mature thought." Amado grinned.

Though.. if you dare bring Botäshirin back here.. I'll kill you both! Seal or not, Delta!

Code smirked at his dark musings, before leaving Amado to his corpsemen's work.

SWEAT dripped down Shojoji's face. He was hidden within the walls of an unassuming home. He hadn't moved for nearly six hours.

The home was occupied by a young girl and her mother and father. They were all Shinobi, but he could tell none of them posed any actual threat, combined or alone.

No, it wasn't them.

That chakra earlier.. it must've been the Hokage. I didn't expect to sense him..

Did the Hokage suspect something already? Was that even possible? Was there a ninja with that sort of sensory ability?

No. If the Hokage suspected something, the house would've been evacuated by now. But..

For a moment.. It was like something with incredible chakra was staring right at me!

Was it possible it was the same chakra that Lady Otogane felt..?

No. This was powerful chakra.. but not otherworldly. Which means my goal is still within Konoha.

Shojoji steeled his resolve. No doubt, after this mission Otogane would let him be.. perhaps for the rest of his life. All he had to do was gather intel.

This family.. he wouldn't take them, not yet.

But he knew that within this home.. his key into the village slept.

Shojoji smiled.

Yes. The world of Shinobi.. was quite cruel.

NEXT TIME, DOUBLE CHAPTER!

TO KIRIGAKURE! Then, YOUR FATHER'S JUTSU, THE RASENGAN!

13: YOUR FATHER'S JUTSU!

BORUTO

SACHI YAMANAKA.

Short, blonde hair bobbed against her forehead, framing frantic light blue eyes as a desperate gaze peered ahead. There was only one thing on her mind.

Shota.

Sachi clasped her hands together tightly, sweat making palms slick to the touch. She was in an abandoned home found choked between two crossing streams.

Kawa no kuni..

The land of Rivers.

The young kunoichi released a steady beacon of chakra.

If you're in danger.. or if you think Konoha is after you.. come to the Land of Rivers. I will be there. I will sense you.

Shota's parting words before all this began thrummed within Sachi's mind. He loved her. They loved each other-

Sachi's senses began to calm.

I've been running for almost two days.. but I'm safe now. I'm here. I trust Shota. More than anything.

The home she hid within was built of wood, with exposed windows on every wall. A doorway, broken, spilled into the woody area outside. From cuts within the roof sunshine splashed, leaving warm patterns that crossed Sachi's eyes along with the thoughts that raced behind them.

In the silence between now and fate, Sachi found herself thinking about the interrogation.

Inadvertently, she shook. Sachi suddenly remembered the headband still warming a cold forehead as guilt tunneled through her body.

Two Konoha nin were killed. Shota.. he promised no one would die.

He said that this would help Konoha in ways it refused to help itself- using old Uzumaki techniques to fuel new medical technology.. to save lives!

Sachi shuddered.

The Death God scrolls.

Scrolls that, like the rest of the village, were warded behind a complex spell of chakra that only the barrier team knew of. The chakra inscriptions changed monthly.. However, Sachi had an innate ability.

Her sensory jutsu seemed to be able to decode chakra she felt. She understood the components of most jutsu, and while she couldn't perform the jutsu she experienced, she at least could record it, and knew how to replicate it. This was a skill that only Shota knew of.

Which is why when he asked for her help..

I wanted him to value me. To love me. He.. Shota isn't evil. I didn't think there would be any ha-

Sachi's emotions exploded as a familiar chakra suddenly stepped through an empty doorframe. She nearly leapt from her hiding place, smiling as her blue eyes locked onto an angular, handsome face shrouded by dark hair.

Shota smiled back softly. His skin was fair, smooth and unblemished, save for the red circles underneath his eyes. His pupils were dark brown- brooding and intelligent. As Sachi ran to him he pulled her close, caressing her head as she softly began to cry.

"I'm so glad you're safe," Shota whispered. They separated for a moment. Sachi looked up at Shota, tears falling from his eyes. She pulled his face down to hers, wiping his tears as she kissed him softly.

"They..didn't seem to pursue me as much as I expected. Sai must've held them back." Sachi said almost neutrally.

The shock of meeting Shota again.. after all of this.. it made it seem almost as if the last two days weren't real. But now that he was here-

"Two people died, Shota..!" Sachi whispered, almost as if she was still within Konoha's walls. She loved Shota.. but she needed to understand what was happening, and what this meant for them.

Shota gave her a look of genuine surprise. He then glanced away, out towards one of the windows and then to the wooded fields beyond.

He was silent.

"Shota! Please! I just.. I'm scared, Shota! I left everything for you!" Sachi pleaded.

Shota did look at her then. He slowly lifted his hand to Sachi's face, before cusping his palm against her cheek.

Sachi's heart ached.

Sho-

The thatched roof above cracked away with a violent, splintering bark. Sachi immediately turned, eyes wide as a scream filled her lungs.

A white, foxlike dog with blue eyes stood amongst the smoking debris. But that wasn't what filled her with terror.

No, far from it.

The upper body of a human girl was stitched to the dog's back, dried blood forming a matted, red ring around the girl's torso. Her arms dragged across the wood floor, while dark red hair veiled a lowered head.

Sachi.. she recognized the dog. It was Junban, one of Shota's ninken. Sachi knew Shota was interested in studying human biology.. but to do this..

This.. this is wrong!

Sachi stepped backwards.

Is this why Kiba expelled you, Shota?!

"Shota.. what did y-"

Sachi felt the weight of movement behind her.

She turned her head just as the tip of a kunai slashed across her neck. Sachi spun around, blood splattering against the wood.

Shota regarded her as she fell to her knees, blood pouring down a green flak jacket.

She tried to speak, tried to curse. Tried to scream. But she couldn't. Before she died, the last thing she saw were the tears in Shota's eyes.

"The Rasengan...?" Konohamaru repeated.

Boruto glared at Konohamaru, folding his arms across a purple shirt as the man groggily rubbed his eyes.

"Yes. I need to get stronger. Mastering the rasengan is a step towards that." Boruto said softly. As he spoke, the image of Himawari's mangled body reverberated throughout his mind.

Konohamaru's tiredness seemed to fade away as he nodded knowingly. But then, question painted over the man's face.

"I offered to teach you before..what changed?" Konohamaru raised an eyebrow.

Boruto looked away as a rising sun warmed his back.

"Sasuke Uchiha."

Alarm replaced confusion within Konohamaru.

"Sasuke Uchiha?" Konohamaru frowned.

"So.. he's returned."

Boruto nodded.

"He said he would help me become stronger.. if I can learn it." Boruto clasped his bandaged hand into a tight fist.

"The rasengan." Boruto finished.

Konohamaru remained silent. Boruto looked at him for some time, wondering what exactly was on the man's mind. His brows were furrowed, brown eyes focused on Boruto but somehow also past him.

Finally, Konohamaru spoke.

"Your dad.. the Hokage." Konohamaru graced Boruto with a slack smile.

"I know he trusts Sasuke Uchiha. No, it's beyond that."

Morning wind blew, causing Konohamaru's curly hair to rustle in the breeze.

"They're brothers. They love each other. But.."

Konohamaru's eyes snapped towards Boruto's.

"Sasuke did things that aren't forgivable. Things that-"

Unlike himself, Boruto interrupted.

"What things? What happened before the war, Sensei?" Boruto asked.

Sarada had spoken to him about her suspicions about the Uchiha, and he learned about their role in the war during his studies at the academy. But.. Other than that, there was absolutely no information on the clan itself.

When they were younger, it didn't stand out. But now...

It's clear that something happened. Something they're hiding from us.

"I.. I'm sorry, Boruto. I shouldn't get into this." Konohamaru sighed harshly, waving the subject away with both hands.

"Just know that.. Sasuke's path isn't the only way. I know what you want, Boruto. I had the same look in my eyes when I was your age. You want to succeed. To become stronger."

Konohamaru clasped Boruto's shoulder, offering a wide smile.

"Don't forget about the people who care about you. Sasuke.. he isolated himself. He thought only he could change things. I.. don't want you to become like that." Konohamaru said.

Boruto looked down, absorbing his Sensei's words.

He wanted to ask more, but he knew that Konohamaru was trying to keep something secret.

He didn't want to push the issue. Konohamaru deserved more than a pointless argument.

"With that said.. I can't imagine a greater honor than teaching you the rasengan, Boruto." Konohamaru grinned, curling his hand into a fist, eyes filled with fiery vigor.

"Back then.. your father was more than a Sensei. He was.. like an older brother to me. He's my family." Konohamaru affirmed.

"That means you are too!" Konohamaru offered his fist to Boruto.

Boruto raised his eyebrow.

"It's.. like the unison sign. Consider it an agreement. It's a promise I'll teach you your father's jutsu." Konohamaru said.

"Hmph." Boruto scoffed.

Nonetheless, he tapped a clenched fist against Konohamaru's own.

They began immediately.

#boruto fanfiction

0 notes

mokutone · 2 years

Note

sasuke

YESSSS! sasuke yelling time.

explanation for the drawing in my answers ajdjanxkajjd

favorite thing about them —despite everything. when he is most himself, he doesn't want to hurt people if he doesn't have to. he can't bear to kill him, he tells team taka that they aren't to kill anyone, he's had an immense amount of trauma done to him, and he knows the weight of it, and if he can avoid doing that to somebody else, it seems he wants to.

least favorite thing about them —uhh my least favorite thing about him is also my least favorite thing about gaara. and a couple other characters in naruto. it's really hard for me to watch kids be in desperate pain and practically begging for help in a situation where nobody seems able or willing to help them. for a lot of sasukes parts in the anime i'm just like averting my eyes lmfao

favorite line —I think I'll pick the most impactful line. Idk if I'd call it my favorite.

you know the bit where kakashi ties sasuke to the tree? absolutely fucking humiliating him and then on top of that, telling him that his quest for revenge, LITERALLY sasuke's fucking ninja way (for all its many many problems!!!!), is useless and meaningless? and how sasuke gets that nasty look on his face and he says: "What if I were to kill the one you love most? How far would you stray from what you just said? I could make you feel true pain." and that line just fucking kills me. i am inconsolable. obviously Kakashi takes it as a threat from a child and brushes it off as one—but it's not! he's quite literally begging for understanding. he's like, if i could just hurt you as much as i've been hurt, maybe you would understand me! maybe this is the only way anyone could ever understand me! maybe then you wouldn't tell me how useless and stupid this one thing, the thing which i have built my life around, is!!! but kakashi doesn't give him that. lol. kakashi's like "well there's no way i'd ever be in that situation bc i there's nobody left who matters to me ,^)" like. great job dude. you had the witty comeback against the child. also told him that you do not care about him or his friends at all. you won the trauma game. congratulations. your prize is unfortunately dealing with your guilt complex around this for the next 6 years when you have to go to war against him. jesus fucking christ. Sasuke was trying. he was fucking trying! despite everything, he was trying, with the one adult he trusted enough to even ATTEMPT explaining himself to. ugh. whatever. i'm normal and i have normal feelings about things. i'm normal. i'm so fucking normal. jesus christ.

brOTP —this is unhinged for me, bc i normally answer these based on characters canon relationships, but i am so fucking desperate for yamato to interact with sasuke. i want it so bad. i have so many ideas. i think that yamato would be very useful to sasuke in his recovery. i hate kishimoto and i hate knowing that this will never happen.

OTP —i don't really care about this kind of thing! naruto, i guess, because naruto is the person sasuke seems to care the most about thruout the course of the narrative, and also because my best friend wuvs them

nOTP —i don't really care about this kind of thing. sakura, maybe. it doesn't really matter to me.

random headcanon —his life skills are atrocious and everyone in his close circle of companions is worried about him when he returns to konoha. Yamato starts giving him cooking lessons (Yamato is also an amateur at this. theyre both learning),

which are unfortunately the trigger for minor and unnoticeable but very regular panic attacks for Sasuke. He's like, having a very hard time believing that anyone could really forgive him, and his ONLY interaction with yamato before this was literally jamming a sword through his shoulder joint and running straight electricity through it. Why would Yamato, who didn't even know him before he ran off, forgive him for that? What does Yamato get out of this situation? When does Yamato reprimand him for the pain he caused? When does the other boot drop? When does he find out what this is all about?

This goes on, increasing Sasuke's tension slowly and steadily until Yamato accidentally triggers a major panic attack (he drops a pot, and Sasuke is so wound up at this point that the sudden metal clang itself is enough to put Sasuke right over the fucking edge) and suddenly it all comes into focus for Yamato, who realizes "oh, this kid isn't just unnaturally stiff all the time, he's actually scared shitless of me, and was only putting up with these cooking lessons because he clearly feared the repercussions of saying he didn't want to, to somebody so embedded in his social circle. fuck."

Trying to make this better, he then takes to inviting Naruto over so that Sasuke has a little bit of a social buffer between him and Yamato. Eventually all of team kakashi + team seven is trying to fit into Yamato's tiny jōnin apartment weekly for free food and entertainment (the entertainment is teasing each other).

unpopular opinion —i like him? and i don't think he's over dramatic. i think he's a fairly realistically written character (up until the end i guess stuff gets weird there) because he's mostly a reactive one, and Kishimoto excels at writing little traumatized guys having intense reactions to things. It's what he likes to do and hes pretty good at it.

song i associate with them —Baby, I'm an Anarchist by Against Me! solely for this line.

No, I won't take your hand And marry the State.

like. skdghskdghsdjhgsdhjgsdjhg

favorite picture of them

i literally use this all the time. i think things should be easier. i would like for sasuke to be able to pick up that glass of water.

#yamswers #anonymous #f1ghtingdreamer #hehehehehe #sasuke uchiha

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animeomegas · 3 years

Note

Sorry, but now I'm imagining little Sasuke trying to sneak into Itachi and his alpha's shared bed and sleeping between them in order to "protect" his big bro from his alpha. And when either of them(most likely Itachi) kindly refuses him, he pulls 'but I had a nightmare' card 😂

(This is phenomenal, anon, thank you so much for sharing. I honestly am so pleased for an excuse to write more of little!Sasuke’s shenanigans with his older brother’s mate.)

Sasuke concocts many plans to try and separate his beloved brother and the evil alpha who is taking advantage of him.

And sure, none of them have worked so far, but this one is going to work for sure!

He’s going to stop that alpha from taking his brother’s innocence! Because Iruka told them all about gross stuff that couples do, and Sasuke didn’t totally get it, but he certainly isn’t going to let someone do that to his brother, no way! (You’re too late Sasuke, I’m sorry to have to tell you this…)

Hence his plan:

He’s going to get in the middle of them at night! There’s no way that won’t work!

So, he goes to talk to Itachi!

…

“Big brother,” Sasuke draws out, trying to be as cute as possible so Itachi can’t say no. “C-Can I sleep in your room tonight?”

Itachi raises a single eyebrow but turns to give Sasuke his full attention.

“Why?”

“Because… er… because Kakashi sensei says we’re going on a mission soon and I’ll miss you,” Sasuke let the pride of coming up with a plausible response smooth over the embarrassment of asking such a thing.

Itachi startles slightly, but smiles.

“We will have plenty of time to see each other in the daytime, little brother, and I will walk you to the village gate to say goodbye. Kakashi senpai is a very capable shinobi, so you shouldn’t worry too much.”

Itachi then pokes Sasuke on the forehead and leaves him scowling at the ruined fragments of his plan.

Oh well, on to plan two.

…

Sasuke’s second plan is a lot more embarrassing, so it was his second plan for a reason, but desperate times call for desperate measure.

He can handle some embarrassment if it means protecting his big brother, he’s a shinobi after all!

And so, plan two commences!

…

Steeling himself, Sasuke knocks on his brother’s bedroom door where he and his alpha are currently staying. Sasuke had gone upstairs a few hours ago and pretended to sleep, but Itachi and his alpha had only gone to bed about twenty minutes ago, so it was the perfect time!!

*knock knock*

Sasuke hears some shuffling and muffled swearing from behind the door before a vaguely irritated Itachi’s voice calls him in. Sasuke must have been just in time! Itachi sounds irritated, that stupid alpha must have upset him!

Creaking open the door, Sasuke steps in.

“Big brother,” Sasuke calls, trying to pretend to be sleepy. “Can I sleep in here tonight? I had a nightmare.”

Sasuke rubs his eyes for a moment for effect before looking up to his brother to see his reaction.

Itachi narrows his eyes at him like he knows something is going on, but Sasuke just smiles sweetly in return.

Itachi’s evil alpha clears their throat awkwardly.

“I’ll just be in the bathroom,” they say, before hobbling to the bathroom, and they’re holding a pillow in front of them for some reason. Oh well, it doesn’t matter, he managed to scare them away for now at least.

“What game are you playing, Sasuke?” Itachi’s firm voice brings Sasuke out of his musings.

“I’m not doing anything, I just had a nightmare,” Sasuke starts before noticing something was different with Itachi. “Hey, your hair is all messed up, what happened?”

Itachi’s face takes on an uncharacteristic blush.

“Nothing, it’s just… messed up from laying down, that’s all.”

“And… is that a bruise on your neck!? Did that awful person hurt you? Tell me and I’ll get cousin Shisui to help me deal with them!”

Itachi blushes even more and covers his neck with his shirt.

“No, it was just an accident, Sasuke,” he says, but Sasuke can tell he’s lying, that awful alpha probably did it to him! “What are you doing in here anyway, and tell the truth this time?”

“What?” Sasuke gasps in fake offence. “I already told you, I had a nightmare.”

“Uh huh,” Itachi says in a way that makes it obvious he doesn’t believe Sasuke and has run out of patience. “Go back to bed, Sasuke.”

At that moment, the alpha comes out of the bathroom, pillow gone now, and kneels down beside Sasuke.

“You had a nightmare, little one?”

Sasuke bristles at the tone and the condescending name.

“Yeah,” he deadpans. “You died.”

“Aww,” you coo. “That’s what made you upset?”

“No, dream me laughed so hard I hurt myself.”

“Sasuke!” Itachi reprimands from his position sitting up in bed. “That is not a kind thing to say to people. It’s past your bedtime, go to bed.”

Sasuke huffs.

“Fine, but you have to tuck me in!”

“Sasuke,” Itachi starts, exasperated.

“Yeah, Itachi,” the alpha laughs. “Go and tuck him in.”

Itachi glares at his alpha, nervously fiddling with the blankets pooled around his waist.

“Go and get into bed, Sasuke, I’ll be through in a minute.”

“No,” Sasuke objects, not wanting to leave his brother alone with that alpha anymore than necessary. “Come now.”

Itachi purses his lips, the flush returning, while his alpha giggles in the corner.

“Yeah, Itachi,” they grin. “Why not stand up and go now?”

“You’re not helping,” Itachi hisses.

The alpha laughs one more time before putting a hand on Sasuke’s shoulder and leading him out of the room, despite Sasuke’s protests.

“Go to bed and Itachi will be through in a minute.”

Just before the door closes, Sasuke sees the alpha throw a pair of pyjama trousers at Itachi. Why on earth would Itachi need two pairs of pyjama trousers? This alpha is weird and obviously bad news.

Sasuke would just have to make his case when Itachi came to tuck him in.

#sasuke #omega itachi #itachi x reader #naruto #a/b/o #omegaverse #alpha!reader #alpha reader #reader insert #gn reader #sasuke and itachi #alpha x omega #little!sasuke #little sasuke #young!sasuke

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rayshippouuchiha · 3 years

Note

I don't know if anyone has asked this yet. But what is Itachi's reaction for the Sasuke Dies AU?

The air of the Dansu Plains has a salty tang to it, sea-salt flavoring the air as it wafts inland from the Gold Sea. It's so different from the thick decaying heat of Itachi's childhood. So far from the way every breath in Konoha draws in the scent of Hashirama-sama's trees and the sweet, almost peppery aroma of the fire-lilies that litter the village proper.

They were, as the stories go, Mito-sama's favorite flower and so Hashirama-sama had made sure they were plentiful in his Uzumaki wife's new home.

For all that a part of him will always miss Konoha and those he left behind there, Itachi has found a certain sort of tranquility in the travels his mission has taken him on. And, if there's nothing else, the sea air is easier to breathe, softening the ache in his chest by noticeable degrees.

Beside him on the path they've been walking through the waist-high seagrass, Kisame grumbles just a bit as he adjusts the lay of Samehada on his back.

He, as Itachi well knows by now, will always prefer the cooler waters and the salt breezes that flow off through air closer to Kiri.

And then, between one step and the next, Itachi's entire world shifts.

"Aniki."

The word, barely a whisper, floats by Itachi's ear, the feel of fingertips on his forehead a ghost of a sensation that strikes him to the core.

Itachi freezes for a split second before he whirls around, his heart pounding out a thick, heavy rhythm that threatens to rattle his ribs.

"Itachi?" Kisame rumbles at his side, Samehada now firmly in hand.

Itachi ignores him, Sharingan blazing as he searches their surroundings.

But there's nothing there, the plains empty except for the two of them. Even the wildlife has been driven away by their presence.

"Itachi," Kisame repeats, voice slightly softer than before. "You're crying."

Itachi barely hears him, barely realizes he's moving until his fingertips come away from his face wet with tears.

Something in his chest twists sharply, something animal keens and writhes in the very depths of his soul.

There, standing in the middle of the path, face wet with tears and a phantom whisper still echoing in his ears, Itachi falls to his knees.

Around him the world drifts away.

~~~

By the time Itachi comes back to awareness, the sun has begun to set. The light turns the leaves of the small copse of trees Kisame had obviously carried him to blood red. The blurriness of his vision makes them look like globs of heatless fire.

It would have been beautiful to him once, would have invoked thoughts of Konoha in deep summer. Would have set off the flashfire sort of memory connections so characteristic of the Sharingan. Would have started a cascade of images and sense memories.

The memory of the molten glow of festival lanterns and the sound of high-pitched but delighted laughter. The sweet taste of daifuku snuck to him late at night by a mother with slender, calloused hands and a softer smile. Of tiny fingers tugging at his shirt hem as wide dark eyes stared up at him in awe.

Once it would have rippled out across his mind, drowning him in memories it had taken months of heavy training to learn to catalog in seconds.

It doesn't matter though, not anymore, not now that what is left of Itachi's heart is officially broken.

Shattered beyond all healing, blackened at the very roots.

"You back with me?" Kisame asks from across the small campfire that's settled between them as he leans forward to tend the small set of spits settled near the flames.

The scent of roasting flesh thickens the air around them, some sea bird or another fallen prey to Kisame's hunger no doubt.

Itachi waves the offer off when Kisame holds one out in his direction.

Food has no purpose for him now.

The dead do not eat and Itachi's body has been dying in finger lengths for years now.

It seems as if his soul has finally caught up.

There's silence between the two of them for long heavy moments, only the crackling of the fire and the soft sound of Kisame's chewing to be heard.

"I loved my village," Itachi speaks up, head tilted back against the bark of the tree Kisame had leaned him up against and eyes turned up towards the sky.

Across from him Kisame goes completely still.

"Loved it enough to do horrible, terrible things in its name," Itachi continues, "and to know I would die in its service as all shinobi one day must."

Itachi takes a moment.

"I loved my village," he finally repeats, voice barely a whisper. "Loved it enough to slaughter my Clan in its name."

His mother had smiled when he'd cut her down, proud of him even in his lowest moment. Fugaku had been stoic even in the face of death but on his worst days Itachi likes to think there'd been forgiveness of a kind in his eyes as well.

"The only thing I have ever loved more in my entire existence," Itachi presses forward, "was Sasuke."

Wide dark eyes and pale skin, a gap-toothed smile and puffed-out cheeks. The only purity Itachi has known since he was four and blood seeped in around the edges of his existence.

The one who was to be Itachi's ultimate condemnation and redemption all in one.

"I am a traitor to the Akatsuki," Itachi tells him bluntly, ruthlessly. "All I have ever done has been in service of Konoha."

"What," Kisame starts slowly, "exactly are you saying?"

"The truth," Itachi replies. "Finally I speak nothing but the truth, my friend. I have loved my village with everything I am, through blood and bone and death. But there is a rot lurking deep inside of it. A blackness hiding in the roots. Someone needs to burn it out before it can spread any further."

"I feel like there's a question in there somewhere," Kisame points out, always so quick-witted and perceptive. Always far more than what most would see when they look at him.

Deceptive in the brutality of his appearance just as the fragility of Itachi's own had always been a lie.

It had served them well as partners, their complementary personalities and skillsets.

Itachi hopes it will serve them well in what is yet to come.

"You were willing to slaughter for the Akatsuki," Itachi says. "To cut through any who stand in the way of our task. Would you be willing to do so for me instead? Would you be willing to follow me off of the path we have been traveling down together?"

"You're asking me to defect from the Akatsuki and help you what? Cleanse Konoha of corruption?" Kisame huffs out a bark of laughter.

"Yes," Itachi answers calmly.

"You know this might just be suicide don't you? Even for us?" Kisame asks him wryly.

It is not, Itachi notes, an actual refusal.

"Sasuke is dead, Kisame," Itachi replies, the words thick and heavy on his tongue. "Death will be a blessing."

#RayRambles #Still Is Sitting AU #Naruto

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cherrynojutsu · 3 years

Text

Title: Like Gold

Summary: Sasuke grapples with love and intimacy regarding his developing relationship with Sakura after returning to the village from his journey of redemption. Kind of a character study on Sasuke handling an intimate relationship after dealing with PTSD and survivor’s guilt in solitude for so long. Blank period, canon-compliant, Sasuke-centric, lots of fluff and pining, slowly becomes a smut fest with feelings.

Disclaimer: I did not write Naruto. This is a fan-made piece solely created for entertainment purposes.

Rating: M (eventual nsfw-ness)

AO3 Link - FF.net Link - includes beginning/ending author's notes

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Chapter 7/?: Catalysts

Sasuke doesn’t indulge in baser needs often, despite the frustrating paradox that is the male endocrine system’s apparent determination to make him do so. He finds it feels… empty, after. Like there’s supposed to be something more, but instead there’s just whatever is situated above his head to stare at while his breathing levels out, an interminable abyss of silence and stars, or tree foliage, or apartment ceiling. Impulses and feelings of a sexual nature are probably normal for anyone his age, but in the past, satiating desires like this has made him feel guilty, given the context.

When he's not plagued by nightmares rife with gore and blood and bodies, or the occasional aching memory, his subconscious takes the opportunity to bombard him with dreams of a suggestive nature, having deduced somehow that it’s the most effective method to get him to… tend to things.

This variety of dream customarily involves pale pink hair, multifaceted eyes, and soft fingertips, branded into the part of his brain that controls his most base instincts with a hot iron.

He notes begrudgingly as he gazes at plain plaster above him, brows furrowed, that ostensibly, it works well enough, if the intricate mess of thoughts and feelings in his head and on his abdomen are anything to go by.

Sasuke would never admit it to anyone, but Sakura has headlined exclusively in nearly every sexually-charged dream he's ever had, and resultingly the majority of his sentient thoughts while indulging outside of dreaming, too. When they were Genin, it was innocent enough; he had reasoned that, being the main girl his age he associated with, it made sense his inadvertent dreams, beyond the scope of his control, involved her. He'd shaken it off in those early days as the by-product of the developing hormonal cocktail that is the pubescent masculine mind, and ignored the part of himself that kind of had a crush on her even then. Or definitively more than a crush, after the Chunin Exams and the hospital and jealousy.

He had tried convincing himself of the same thing at fourteen, once he'd left the village and had attempted to sever all bonds. It didn’t work, though; by that point he knew better, knew what the feeling he was trying to squash actually was.

Which meant it didn’t work at fifteen, either.

Nor sixteen, and definitely not seventeen, eighteen, or nineteen.

All of that has been wholly indecent on its own in the past, causing him to feel shameful every time it happens, and even more ashamed if it’s a rare day where he’s weak enough to act on it, a day where he wakes up mere seconds from an edge rather than minutes.

But this morning, he woke up on the tail end of all of that with the addition of freckles , of all things to fixate on, and he just knows he's never going to forget about them now, that they’re branded into his grey matter in perpetuity. Freckles just above the interior of a shoulder, eight of them, a small scattering he had been pressing his lips to, listening to a softly whispered Sasuke-kun, reaching around her with his only arm, so he could make her say his name like that again.

It is far from the first time he’s touched himself to the thought of Sakura, but it is the first time he’s indulged since they’ve been… together.

Except this time felt… different.

Less like an unrealistic reverie he should try to abstain from and more like an eventuality. Less guilt, too, or rather, almost none, because he’s in a relationship with her now, and he’s pretty sure he’s supposed to have feelings like this regarding her. Not that he is anywhere near ready to do anything about them, because he absolutely is not; he’s not certain he even comprehends that level of vulnerability, to touch another person and allow yourself to be touched by them, though he badly wants to, someday.

No, Sasuke doesn’t indulge in baser needs often… but he did this morning, when he woke up teetering just on the precipice, fantasizing about tiny tan flecks seen and unseen, and he’s trying to work through how he feels about it, this guilt surrounding the fact of not feeling guilty like he ordinarily does, as well as the lingering curiosity he’s struggling to force down regarding how many other freckles Sakura has.

Even moreso, he yearns for soft words that he has often thought may be sentimental to the point of being utterly quixotic. It's why he doesn’t typically submit to this kind of inclination in the first place; it’s meaningless on one’s own, he secretly thinks, though he has nothing to compare it to. No sense of connection or true lasting fulfillment like he imagines there must be, for people to talk about it the way they do; just pleasure that's there for a blinding scattered second and gone the next, with nothing tenderhearted or meaningful in the moments following as his vision refocuses and he picks up the pieces.

He stares at his ceiling, an aporia of longing and complicated compulsions ricocheting in the hallways of his head, or perhaps from his skull to the roof and back again, an absurd push and pull that leaves him with more questions than answers.

Has she ever thought about him the way he thinks about her?

What would it sound like, Sasuke-kun, when she’s like that?

Is it okay to feel like this, now? To think about her in this regard?

Sasuke is accustomed to not sleeping well - it comes with the territory of his lived experience, an unfortunate fact of life he’s somewhat learned to deal with - but during the mission to Sand, he'd slept fairly restfully, though in short increments of five or six hours. That's apparently the tipping point of how long he gets to go without being sojourned by some variety of vision in the night.

He eventually makes his way to the shower, using torrid water and soap to double cleanse what’s left of his mess. That's a big contributor to his consternation, too; it's so embarrassingly messy that it’s impossible to imagine ever doing anything like it with her . He flips the dial to cold after he’s bathed for the better portion of five minutes, because serpens caput is still burned into his retinas, and he’s hoping against hope to freeze it out of himself like he has tried to do with shame in the past.

It doesn’t work; it just induces shivering, algidity overwhelming the senses but doing nothing to distract the mind.

He shoves his face into his book after, desperate for the distraction a proverbial fiction featuring an old fisherman can provide and thinking once again that he needs to acquire a lamp. Anything to get the thought of pressing his lips to her freckles out of his head, because he’s pretty sure if he keeps thinking about it, he’ll have to take care of things for the second time today, and then he really won’t know how to feel.

So when a banging erupts on his apartment door shortly following eight, followed by a shout of, “TEME! I'm here, let’s go!”, all he can think is finally, because he knows it will at least get his mind off of this strange lack of guilt and a curiosity he’s not ready to unpack yet. The book helped, but he thinks he needs the challenge a fight against Naruto can provide to truly leave behind this level of prurience. He doesn’t know how he’s going to look her in the eye when they meet at three as they planned, otherwise.

Sasuke shoves on his sandals and grabs his chokuto before opening the door. “So you finally showed. Thought you'd sleep all morning.”

Naruto’s eyes narrow, indignant and already launching into a retort. Good. Maybe he’ll get some iota of order knocked back into him, enough to put compelling constellations away for the time being.

XXX

Sasuke feels monumentally better by noon. It’s another draw, an absolute whirlwind of swinging limbs that made it impossible to focus on anything else. He didn’t take joy in it necessarily, and he suspects Naruto bruised his ulna bone to the extent it almost cracked, but it helps, the diversion of pain; the tinge he feels when he moves it is a welcome hindrance. They’d stuck mainly to taijutsu and clashing weaponry, so physically, he’s pretty exhausted.

They’re resting in the dirt, making a valiant attempt at rehydrating. It’s moderately hot for this time of year, barely on the cusp of mid April, but it’s seeming like the Konoha heat will be returning with the same vengeance it always does. A small trickle of sweat sinks its way down his back.

Sasuke feels nearly normal again. Or normal to the extent he generally feels, anyways. He gets the urge to do something good - to tip the scale, so to speak.

"...The cutting board works. Thank you." It’s not what he’s most thankful for right now, but it’s a nice thing to say as substitution.

His friend grins at him. "Welcome! It was all me, by the way. Hinata-chan didn't even help me pick it out!" Naruto scratches his head, downing more water. He’s moving rather slowly, as if he is sore, too; Sasuke thinks perhaps he came close to beating him this round.

They stare upwards for a while, soaking in the sun as clouds roll lazily by. Birds fly overhead, finches and song sparrows twittering their selections, collecting materials to build more nests for this new season. It’s another effective distraction, one that fills him with a sense of nostalgia, replacing his earlier sense of compunction regarding the mystifying concept of physical love and the whims that accompany it.

Naruto speaks up after a bit. "Ne, teme, wanna go to the market with me? Hinata-chan asked me to get some groceries and some stuff for the backyard."

Sasuke glances at his teammate and contemplates. It can't hurt. He did want to pick up potatoes to make actual curry with, and he could get some other things, too. He'll still have time to shower before he meets Sakura at the hospital.

"...Sure."

Naruto takes longer to rise than he does, shuffling carefully as if he is in pain, but once he’s standing, he seems fine enough, stupid grin slapped on his face at Sasuke’s agreement to go with. They set off in the general direction of his building so he can drop off his weapon first. He gets dirty looks sometimes, walking around, though it’s not nearly as bad as when he first returned and it doesn’t bother him on the same level that it used to. When he’s with Naruto or Sakura, he gets less of them, but he can't imagine a sword strapped to his back in the market will do much to help his reputation.

Naruto doesn't allow the easy silence to last. "Y'know, teme, it's really good to have you back in the village. It feels like everything's finally coming together. We'll have to do some fun stuff this summer. And also in the fall!” Gears are turning behind cerulean eyes, and he adds, ”...Hmm, and the winter, too!"

"...Yeah." He stares at the mountain, thinking about what cherry blossom trees look like in summer and fall and winter. It will be nice to see the one across the street change colors throughout the seasons. Or the one on the hill, where they're going later today. He has seen their like numbering in the thousands, scattered everywhere on his journey - he’s highly cognizant of them, for obvious reasons - but he hasn’t been granted the privilege of watching the same one through the whole of a year’s growth cycle in a long time.

"Sakura-chan seems really cheery lately, too. Can't imagine why." The second sentence is said flippantly, without any real conviction, as if Naruto knows exactly why.

Sasuke glances at his teammate, neck warming and heart skipping a little at the mention of her. He doesn’t think he’ll ever get tired of hearing that Sakura is happy from secondhand sources; it makes him feel like he’s doing something right for once. Maybe not all his impulses are complicated in nature enough to require dissection, as he was accustomed to doing when he was away; spending time with her is one, and he's been indulging it often.

He briefly entertains the idea of outright telling Naruto that they're together, then, but the dobe is moving on before he comes up with the words. "Well, anyways. Wanna spar Monday morning, if neither of us get a mission by then?”

That’s… specific. Maybe he doesn’t need to say anything to him, after all; he’s sure it’s no coincidence that Naruto is asking about the exact time period Sakura is busy training with Ino, probably as aware of her schedule as Kakashi is. Their old sensei might have told him, he supposes, or maybe Sakura said something; Sasuke wonders when he last saw her.

“...Sure. If you think you can handle it.”

The response he gets is a slug on the left shoulder, but it’s not overly hard. Sasuke narrows his eyes in response more out of habit than any real malice. He sees as Naruto’s hand retreats and slips out of a fist that words are written on his palm. He didn’t notice it throughout the morning due to their hands constantly being locked around weapons or thrown in punches, and he resists the urge to roll his eyes; it's likely a grocery list.

Naruto leans against the brick downstairs while Sasuke drops off his sword, and then they head to the main market area as the dobe chatters. It’s fairly busy, it being a Saturday, but it’s not intolerably so; most people are busy eating around now.

Sasuke is completely unsurprised when Naruto beelines straight for the noodles; naturally he would be out of them. He takes the opportunity to procure a blend of wild rice. Thus far he only has white and brown in his own pantry, and he’s been trying to eat it often. He's always liked rice, but it’s high in calories, too, an easy way to try putting on weight. Another variety to choose from would be beneficial.

He trails after his friend to the baking supplies next, where Naruto examines containers of flour and sugar. Sasuke concludes Hinata must bake, because he’s confident any cookie prepared by the dobe could not possibly be edible. While his teammate is occupied, Sasuke turns the corner and procures a half dozen eggs, a large bag of potatoes, and two different varieties of tomatoes. The extra five pounds of weight held in the crook of his arm doesn’t do wonders for his bruised bone situation, but it’s not wholly unbearable; he’s fairly used to dealing with pain.

“Hinata-chan said to go to the gardening stall on the north end,” Naruto says once they’ve paid and exited the building, so they begin a course in that general direction. “She said they have the best perennial bulbs; that means they come back every year!”

Sasuke twitches, surprised he can even pronounce the word perennial if he’s lived this long without knowing what one is.

“Anyways, she wants to plant some, uh…” His voice trails off, and he peeks at his hand, where Sasuke now sees the names of flowers written in feminine writing that has to be Hinata’s.

Of course. Like he could spell the words, let alone read his own sloppy handwriting.

“Iris, phlox, and uh… echo-na-na-chee-ah.”

“Echinachea,” Sasuke corrects dully, giving him a withering look.

“Sure! That! She wants to plant those in the backyard, kind of line the house with them, since the front is looking pretty nice now. She said to get bulbs; they root better. They might bloom this year, but if not, they’ll for sure come in next year!”

“...And she entrusted you with this?” Sasuke asks, raising an eyebrow.

Naruto just laughs, utterly unphased. “Duh, that’s what the list is for, teme. Hinata-chan is super smart like that. Putting it on my hand makes sure I don’t lose it!”

They meander to the northern edge of the market, past the congregation of other stalls selling seeds and garden starters. It's getting towards the end of planting season for Fire Country, but there is still plenty to choose from here, allegorical gates of green swinging open in salutation. They pass some tomato plant starters, already starting to climb their cages, but Sasuke decides against it; his hand is full presently, and the bone still kind of hurts, and none of them are red heirloom tomatoes anyways, being smaller variations like plum or cherry or grape. He likes all tomatoes, honestly, but if he was going to grow one, he’d just want the one of a favorite to worry about. Repotting a starter would also require a planter, which he doesn’t have; another thing to carry.

The stall Naruto leads them to is probably the nicest one there, judiciously laid out and everything labeled neatly with precise calligraphy. The few tables the vendor has are overflowing with perennial starters, but Naruto goes to the three vertical displays of seeds and bulbs, so tall they are at eye level with both of them. They’re filled to the brim with diminutive packages, printed with large pictures of the flowers they contain the beginnings of, along with genus names and common names in smaller text. The blond examines them, surveying his hand, then the display, then back to his hand again in scrutiny.

Sasuke watches, resisting the urge to sigh and waiting for the inevitable.

“Hmm… I guess this would be a lot easier if I knew what any of these looked like. Gonna have to read them all.”

Sasuke rolls his eyes and steps forward to point to the section of iris bulbs to start with. He gives him a minute to work out which colors to pick, observing the throng of people entering and exiting around them, young and old and in-between.

Phlox are next; he directs his teammate to the appropriate section, where there are quite a few options of hues. Naruto examines them as if he is making a grand decision transformative in nature, mumbling to himself.

“Hmm… She likes blue and purple. Maybe I should…”

His own gaze wanders as he tunes Naruto out, taking in pictures of begonias and caladium on plastic shiny in the sunlight, before his vision locks on the far display.

He wanders over to it as if his body is moving of its own accord.

There are several varieties of lilies, he learns as he scans the packaging, oriental, trumpet, and what is apparently called nerine. White nerine lilies had been the variety his mother grew, lining their yard with curved porcelain petals, clusters emanating from many single stems.

He sets his groceries at his feet to free up his hand, picking up one of the packages to read the instructions on the back. His arm aches as he does so, but he couldn’t care less.

Nerine lily bulbs require good drainage. If there are still puddles in the prospective planting area 5-6 hours after rain, locate another site, or amend the soil with organic material to raise levels 2-3 inches. Nerine lilies also require soil that is somewhat gritty, though it also must be organically rich. Adding compost may increase nutrient content.

In spring, choose a location in full sun. If you are in a hotter region, site them where they will receive morning sun and afternoon shade, and plant the bulbs with an inch of the slender top above the soil surface. The top of the bulb is the area that looks like the stem of an onion. Install bulbs 8 to 11 inches apart for a massed look.

Nerine bulbs develop foliage that gather sun rays and strengthen the plants during the spring and summer months. Flower stalks develop in the fall. Provide water when the plants are actively growing, and very little when they are dormant.

You may cut the final flower stems to display decoratively. This will not hurt the plants and the cuts last long periods of time indoors. After they finish blooming for the year, cut off any remaining flower stalks. Your plants will rest for the winter months before sending up new growth in the springtime. Over time, nerine lilies will form clumps. They like to be crowded, so don’t feel pressed to divide them unless flower production begins to decrease. Clumps can then be dug, split apart, and moved to other parts of the garden, or shared with friends.

When Sasuke looks up, deep in thought, he notices Naruto searching for what he assumes is echinacea, flitting stiffly at random between the first two displays and scratching his head. Wordlessly with the package of lily bulbs still in hand, Sasuke points to the bottom right corner of the first, where several color selections are.

“Thanks, teme!” Naruto plows back to the specified stand and stoops down comically slowly, though Sasuke barely sees, gaze drawn pensively back to the packet he was examining.

The memorial stone has decent drainage, aside from the occasional hard rain like last weekend; that will become less common as the weather warms, and one or two monsoons a summer never drowned his mother’s lilies. Shade in the afternoon could be an issue, though. There’s a large oak tree on the west side that might cast some protection over it, but he only ever visits under the cover of night, so he’s unsure. He would have to examine the trajectory in person to gauge.

He considers the market bag the groceries were handed to him in earlier, studying it closely.

Carefully, he puts the package back where he found it, though his eyes linger on it. He’s no gardener, not like Sakura is, and besides, his arm hurts.

XXX

He’s leaning up against one of the blue columns outside of the hospital when Sakura emerges at three, sprightly as ever. She’s holding the two journals and the medical text from their first trip to the library; she said yesterday that she needed to return them, but there shouldn’t be any new ones she needs to check out just yet. He hadn’t stayed terribly long after they’d finished the tenmusu because he needed to shower and write his mission report, but they’d made plans to swing by the library and journey back up the hillside to read together again. There was also mention of possibly picking up food afterwards, to take to her place. Hazel Wood must be in her tote, hooked around her shoulder.

“Sasuke-kun,” she greets cheerfully. “Whew. It’s getting warm out already.”

“...It is,” Sasuke comments before he extends his hand for her texts, his own already held there, a silent offer to carry them for her.

She blushes as she passes them to him, sliding them into his hand. His eyes drift to the freckle on her cheek, and he wipes his mind blank by sheer willpower alone as they head east. The books aren’t as heavy as the groceries had been earlier, so it doesn’t hurt as much, but he's wondering at this point if the bone might actually have a small crack. He thinks he should ask her to look at it; maybe later, at her apartment.

“My balcony days may be numbered by now, at least until the fall comes,” Sakura observes as they meander.

He contemplates. “...Do you sit out there often?” It is so utterly befitting of her that he thinks he can picture it, her reading out there, surrounded by plants. He wonders if she ever admires the night sky. Their team had stargazed sometimes, on missions that first year as Genin.

Green eyes settle on him from his right. “I like to, when it’s nice out. A lot of times in the summer it gets too hot, though there is an occasional night when it’s cool enough. Fall is really the best for it. You can see the changing leaves from above. Even if it's a chillier day, it’s pleasant with some tea and a blanket in the evening."

He debates for a long moment, but decides against bringing up stout squirrels or chestnut-flavored everything or Naruto slipping on a leaf.

“...It sounds nice,” he comments simply instead, wondering if he’ll be invited to sit with her on her balcony, once fall arrives. They would have to sit kind of close; the space doesn’t seem very big from below, and it's cluttered with greenery.

Sakura smiles up at him, a look that says she agrees with his assessment.

Then, she offers softly, "You can sit out there sometime with me, if you'd like."

His neck warms; all he can do is nod and avert his gaze elsewhere, an abundance of something tender and sweet flaring to life in his belly.

Returning the books barely takes two minutes; they’re wandering towards the outskirts of the mountain in short order. Sakura sprawls in the same spot she did last time, so he takes up the same position, too, leaning up against the trunk of the tree, stable and strong.

And then his eyes catch on another freckle she has, this one near her elbow, and all he can think about is the slightly textured consistency of his ceiling, and whether the impulse to press his lips to her skin without guilt was an okay thing to feel.

She reads and he more contemplates than reads for about an hour, sprawled beneath the scant amount of shade provided by this tree that has lost its petals, trading them in for florets of a greener variety. It’s pleasant, once he can drown his inner disarray of thoughts. He eventually gets through a sliver of his book, though turning the pages is a little cumbersome, tinged lightly with pain. Perhaps he shouldn’t wait until later to ask her to examine his arm.

Sakura finishes her own book, though she keeps the pressed petal between its pages; she must have gotten through more of it while he was on the way to and from Suna. She just reclines there, after, looking up at the sky with her arms at her sides, near exactly the relaxed pose she used to lie in when they were younger.

Sasuke finishes the passage he’s on, and marks his place with the petal she’d plucked from his hair last week, before pointedly setting the text aside and following her eyes to the azure. Fluffy clouds are floating by as the sun inches closer to the west horizon, pushed steadily by the breeze.

“How is Ichika’s recommendation?” She questions.

“...Interesting.” He genuinely is enjoying reading it, despite his aberration.

Her head angles towards him, lying against a gnarled root at a slightly different angle. Her expression is curious, like she’s encouraging him to elaborate.

“Simple, but heavy with metaphors.” He considers for a second, then adds, “You might like it. Poetic.”

Full lips twist upwards. “Maybe I’ll read it next. Her recommendations are usually pretty apt; she gets a good read on people.”

“...How was yours?”

“Hmm.” She pauses, as if thinking it over. “A girl and her mother who get caught up in some bad luck. They inherit an estate - that’s where the title comes from - and supernatural things start happening. It’s kind of a story within a story situation; the grandmother they inherited the house from was an author, so they start going back and reading her writing for clues.”

“...A mystery.” It seems like she’ll read any genre. Mysteries would probably entertain her; she’s always liked to solve things.

She laughs, music to his ears. “Yeah, I suppose it is. It was pretty good. Well written; better than the last one.”

There is a pause.

“...Maybe I’ll read it next,” he echoes, her same words from earlier.

Green sparkles at him, amused before she shifts back towards the firmament.

“...Sounds like a book club.”

It is the most Sakura joke. He huffs a ghost of a laugh as more gauzy clouds drift idly by. It is peaceful, sitting here underneath the same sky as her, observing in easy silence through branches with fresh emerald buds.

And then Sasuke flexes his forearm, shifting slightly, and it still hurts. He considers; she probably won’t mind.

"...I think Naruto cracked my arm bone," he finally confides.

She turns to him, expression fluctuating immediately into one of disquiet, pink brows knotting closer in concern. He blinks and she's standing already, walking over and sitting cross-legged in the nearest open space, an indent in gnarled roots that she navigated through and found a place in as if it were nothing.

Wordlessly, Sasuke holds it out for her to inspect once she’s seated, and she gently rests her fingertips on his forearm.

"It’s from this morning?” Sakura asks, looking concerned in a way that makes his heart thump a little. Or maybe it’s from her hands encircling his skin.

He nods; she must have deduced that they trained earlier. She prods gently before threading green chakra beneath his skin towards the bone, probing for a break.

She frowns. "Oblique fracture in the ulna, though it's very slight and non-displaced.” Her gaze flicks up to him, and all at once, it’s the exam room again, him hyper aware of how close she is to him even though this is clinician Sakura. “I’ll fix it; you really shouldn't have been carrying anything on it."

It takes him a moment to realize she’s referring to him carrying her books earlier, because he’s thinking about the groceries from the market, which were definitively heavier. Her proximity and the aroma of tart berry and the freckle on her cheekbone are all incredibly distracting. Especially the freckle. He peers at her fingers, glowing verdant, and notices one on the inner portion of her right wrist, too.

"...Sorry." He says finally, flicking his eyes back up to her nervously after a long minute is spent mending marrow back together. She inclines her head back down to his arm, apparently accepting his apology for not mentioning it sooner. It's an odd sensation; he can feel the crack fusing from the inside out, ataractic chakra seeping into the diaphysis to fortify.

He feels like he should clarify, so he adds as she works, eyes fixed on her face which has settled in concentration, “I thought it was just bruised at first.” She nods as if that makes sense, working on it for another minute or so without glancing up.

He hopes she's not mad at him. Sasuke shifts his gaze downwards, something in him sinking.

“Flex it, then bend, please,” she requests, not moving her digits; she must need to feel the arm move to determine if it’s healed. He does as she asks and it’s notedly improved, no lingering pain.

“It’s better. Thank you.” He looks upwards just as she does, hoping the jade will still be soft on charcoal.

It is, startlingly so, and she’s flushing all of a sudden, dropping her hands from his arm and rising to her feet a step away, as if she, too, just realized how close they were. It's different here, daylight and not part of their routine like her entryway is becoming.

“You’re welcome,” she says somewhat hastily, complexion darkening. He’s not sure he’s much better; his neck is warm, and he remembers very specifically where each of her fingers had just been on his skin, like the ten points of contact are singed into his epidermis, and likely his grey matter, too.

As he tries to force his pulse to even out, Sakura adds, softly, “You could have just come in with him.”

His brows furrow in confusion. “...What?”

Sakura blinks, countenance appearing as if she is sorting through a problem in her head. Pink dissolves back to her normal coloring.

“Naruto came in with a slipped back rib, earlier today. I assumed it was from sparring with you.” She rolls her eyes, then. “He went and got groceries before coming in; he had them with him. Luckily nothing chilled; he had to wait for a bit.”

"...He didn't say anything about his rib." Now the slow rising and crouching is making more sense.

She sighs, closing her eyes for a second as if something has become clear, but she only replies, "Ah. Of course."

"...Wouldn’t shut up?"

"...Yeah." She turns away slightly, cheeks stained anew for some reason; it makes him curious what their third teammate babbled to her about. "He said as I was kicking him out that he was going to plant flower bulbs with Hinata this afternoon. He showed me the ones he picked. It’s good timing; the perfect time of year to plant some. Pretty soon it'll be too warm."

He lets those words drizzle slowly into his being, a little gentler than a summer monsoon.

"...Our next Hokage can't pronounce echinacea," he eventually tells her.

She chuckles with mirth, a sweet sound he finds relieving; she must have gathered he was present for that endeavor, now, and she can't be too mad at him if he can still make her laugh. Sasuke inwardly hopes she doesn’t gather that he also got groceries; he doesn’t think she’d be very impressed. It was kind of stupid to do that with a questionable arm, in retrospect.

"No," Sakura acknowledges finally, appearing highly entertained. "And he didn’t know what a perennial was until this morning, yet he’s planting an army of them. Probably without reading the directions."

They look over the village together for a lengthy moment in which he considers text printed on the back of a white package.

Then she says his name, so quietly it’s almost a whisper. "Sasuke-kun.”

He angles to her, and sweet jade is on him again, ebbing seafoam cresting as the late afternoon sunlight hits her.

"Thank you for telling me about your arm. In the future, please come to the hospital, if I'm working. You can wait in my office, if you’d prefer. I don't mind; use the window.” Her expression changes to troubled, and suddenly she is no longer the clinician version of Sakura; everything is tinged with something more, something that burns him in its intensity. “You shouldn’t just… suffer in silence, if something hurts. Even if you think it’s nothing. Please tell me."

Oh. She’s not mad, just worried. Heat grazes his ears, and he swallows, staring down at his forearm.

He wants to be close to her. He really does.

"Okay,” he agrees, and means it, carefully meeting green.

They head down the hill together to seek dinner before the rush hits, deciding to go to the yakitori stand she mentioned when he first returned. She chatters about how Naruto wants to have a bonfire in his backyard, once summer’s here and everything is planted.

“...He’s excited about his yard,” Sasuke comments after they’ve ordered, leaning against the wall of the exterior waiting for their takeout. He requested his without the sauce, since Sakura said it’s on the sweeter side for yakitori.

Sakura grins, and she’s really pretty, shadows of a nearby tree dappling her skin, cheeks still red because he paid. It’s only fair; she’s been feeding him. “Yeah, he is. I’d like to see their flowers and garden in the back, eventually. I’m sure once they’ve got it how they want it, they’ll have all kinds of get-togethers back there. Last year we carved pumpkins at their place, instead of at Ino’s and Sai’s; there’s less mess to clean up if it’s outside. He said today that you should come this year.”

“...What?”

She blinks as if remembering something, then smiles sheepishly. “So I never mentioned this, because it happened after I…” She flushes, and she looks away for a second. “...After I sent a letter for the month already, but Sai learned about this artistic thing they do in the Land of Woods, a couple years ago.” Her gaze shifts back to his. “They hollow out pumpkins and carve designs into them, in late October. Warding off evil spirits as they go into the cooler season or something; they put them on their doorsteps with candles in them so the carvings light up the night. It’s odd, but I think it’s become a tradition now. It’s fun, once you get the hang of it. We roast the seeds with salt and Hinata bakes pumpkin bread.”

That sounds entirely odd and completely characteristic of Sai; he supposes there is the artistic angle to consider. Sasuke passed through the Land of Woods three separate times, but never in the fall. “What kind of designs?”

She smiles as if she’s trying not to laugh; his expression must be that of one who is exceedingly perplexed. He supposes it’s not an expression he wears often. “Well, they’re supposed to be scary, I think, but we don’t really do well at making them that way. They’re more funny or decorative. Sai makes pretty good ones, I guess, mean faces with sharp teeth.”

“...What do you carve?”

Her eyes twinkle. “I tried a leaf, the first year, and a crescent moon the second. Sai and I teamed up to carve one for Kakashi-sensei, too, last year; a scarecrow with a cat.”

A crescent moon is not at all what he would have guessed she’d gravitate towards; he thinks immediately of the Six Paths Yin Seal that once adorned a hand he no longer has. Then he comprehends the final part of that sentence.

“...A cat?”

“Oh. Yeah, he got a cat.”

“...His summons are dogs.”

She giggles. “Yeah, Naruto and I thought it was weird at first, too, but he does kind of seem like he’d be more of a cat person overall, the more we thought about it.” Sakura shrugs. “He’s in the village most of the time now, being Hokage, so I guess he thought he could be around enough to take care of one? They’re more low-maintenance than a dog would be. I usually get tasked with feeding it and changing its litter, when he travels to watch the Chunin and Jonin Exams.”

Momentarily, he wonders if Sakura knows what’s under Kakashi’s mask; their old sensei allowing her into his space in his absence may have given her opportunities for some form of low-key reconnaissance on the matter.

Then his brain seizes on another notion, one that’s far more amusing, because she said she teamed up with Sai, and that can only mean one thing.

“...What does Naruto carve?”

Sakura’s grin widens as if she perceives exactly what thought he’s just had. She probably does; she knows him well. “He’s terrible at it. His never look like anything; just orange mush. He loves it, though, and Hinata puts it on their front step anyway.”

He snorts. Figures.

A bell dings, so they peer back in, and sure enough, their food is ready. Sakura steps forward to collect it, thanking the worker, but as she turns, she pauses.

Sasuke follows her gaze, and sees none other than their third teammate in the street, walking their direction and waving emphatically. He’s wearing a different pair of pants, knees absolutely covered in dirt and grass stains.

“Oi, teme! Sakura-chan!”

Sakura glances up to him before swiveling towards the road, their food in hand; Sasuke trails close behind, pushing apart the hanging banners of the stand as he steps beyond the threshold of the restaurant.

“Naruto,” Sakura greets when they’re out in the open.

“...Dobe.”

“Looks like you’ve planted everything,” Sakura says more than asks, gesturing to his pants as evidence.

“Hehe, yep, all of ‘em! It was work, but it will be worth it, later in the year.” Naruto scratches his head, grinning. Sasuke lets those words sink in, too, drenching dead roots.

“And now you’re getting Hinata yakitori as a treat?” Sakura pushes, seeming incredibly amused.

“Well…” Naruto looks away bashfully, grinning ear to ear. “Yeah. Gotta repay her somehow. She has good ideas. I just follow her lead.” He looks back to them, then. “Did you tell teme about all our awesome plans?”

Sasuke’s focus falls to Sakura, who is flushed, biting her lip in a smile.

“I may have started to.”

“Well, good, because our yard is going to be totally the best, and if he thinks he’s getting out of it...” the dobe points at him accusingly, “Then I’ll kick his ass!”

Sasuke scoffs. “As if you could.”

Sakura shakes her head, pink locks fluttering with the motion. “Always with the physicalities... Anyways, I’m sure it will be lovely, when everything finally comes together.”

An uncommonly stretched pause passes where blue eyes zero in on the food container Sakura is holding, before they travel up to the two of them.

The grin shifts to something remarkably tender.

“...Yeah. I’m sure it will be.” He says it with the utmost confidence, like he is as certain about it as he is about the sun rising tomorrow, and Sasuke gets the sense that he is no longer referring to gardening.

The moment passes, and then Naruto is punching them each on the shoulder respectively and sidestepping away towards the yakitori stand. “Anyways, gotta go, so I’ll catch ya later! I’m guessing you have plans of your own.”

Sasuke blinks as their teammate disappears into the restaurant, ears burning a little. When his vision travels down to his right, Sakura is blushing a dark red. She meets his gaze, smiling sheepishly.

They turn to go to her building. The entire way there, Sasuke considers everything in the beginnings of a green that seems endless, nurtured by people from all walks of life. He has been noticing it this whole time, since his return, but now he's thinking about how dull it would be without it, whether it’s dirt roads or lifeless grey granite. This is not the wilds, where seeds sprout unabated. Here, one must put in the work to grow things, find suitable locations and till the soil.

When they reach Sakura’s apartment, his eye lingers on her plants as he follows her inside. She sets the takeout on the table by her window. A shadow of a leaf from the jasmine above them is cast hazily out of focus on her left cheek.

“Would you like any sauce with yours? I could make some teriyaki sauce quick, or I have lemons I’ll be cutting up anyway for mine.”

“...Lemon?” Citrus complements chicken, he knows, but he understands that to mean she’s planning on putting it on hers, over top of the yakitori sauce.

Her lips curve upwards. “I like it on other things, too. It’s good on yakitori.”

So Sakura slices a lemon and it sits on the center of the table between them as they eat. She drizzles her yakitori with three of them, and he takes the other three. The chicken is pretty good, tart with the citrus and seared alongside green onions. It’s still warm, as it wasn’t a long walk to her place at all, a convenient sort of sustenance.

“...What else do you like lemon on?”

She chews thoughtfully, swallowing before answering. “Hmm, a lot of things. Fish, even ones that are usually served with lime. Pork. I like it on vegetables, too. Salads, pasta, rice. Most desserts that include lemon I like, as well.” She pauses again, and adds, “Lemonade, if it’s homemade.”

No wonder they’re always in her fridge. “...And tea.”

His heart flips at the way she smiles at him.

“...And tea,” she agrees.

They watch the streets fill and empty from her window, finishing the meal in a companionable reticence, smelling faintly of citrus rind and shadowed by greenery from above.

He helps her prepare decaffeinated sencha after, trying not to stare at the freckle on her cheek. He’s pondering this morning further, the notions of impetus and yearning, and also the way she says his name, but this time uttered softly under a cherry blossom tree with an invitation into her office, if something hurts.

Sakura cares about him. A lot. Sasuke knows this, has known for years, but it’s the actions of her affection, the way she expresses it purely and simply as if it’s a true north cascading through her veins, that has inched its way into his bone marrow, engraved on the latibule he carved inwardly to avoid dry swallowing life’s more bitter medicines.

As she stirs sugar and honey into her own cup, she asks, “Care for a chess rematch?”

He doesn’t even have to think about it; he nods his assent. It’s time to test something.

They arrange the board together at her table. The first round, Sasuke cautiously plans every move, surveying alternating squares and attempting to predict what strategy Sakura will employ. In some instances, he mirrors her, moving a rook a turn after she does, shifting a pawn out of imminent danger, and so on. It’s a very involved way to play, requiring attentive calculation of each move.

It’s a prolonged match that he eventually loses with a final sweeping motion of her remaining bishop, but it’s fairly close.

“...Again?”

She grins and wordlessly starts setting up the pieces she has captured, so he begins to set up hers. It’s an interesting task, a message of opposites, her setting up his dark figures and him setting up her light ones.

The second round, he simply follows his instincts, negating planning ahead farther than a couple of turns. If he gets an impulse to shift a pawn one way, he does. If his gut tells him to move the knight into her territory or to retreat a rook, he goes with it.

It drags on for the better part of an hour, and ends in a stalemate.

The smile she gives him is breathtaking, a broad and warmhearted validation.

“You’re good,” she comments, jade eyes dancing with joy. He gets the impression that it is not often she gets forced into a draw. He wonders who else she plays with. It can't be Naruto, but maybe Sai or Ino also play.

“...So are you.” He is somewhat reassured now. His impulses used to be ruinous, stemming from anger and anxiety and loss, but perhaps his journey helped in that regard. He just needs to make sure they're rooted in the right things, whether it be logic or affection, and then the major task becomes to feel rather than to overthink.

When he kisses her good night in her entryway, another movie watched and plans for tomorrow later, he doesn’t reach for the freckle the first time, though his hand twitches with the longing to. It’s treasured, this tender pressing of lips that feels like dipping a toe into still water. It is imbued with both of her hands resting on his shoulders again, ten fingertips that have him in her grip more than she could possibly fathom.

He studies her eyes when he pulls away, staring down into soft depths of viridescence. He will drown in them someday, he thinks, slowly but surely working up the courage to wade into the deep end.

The second time he kisses her, he lets himself graze her cheek to truly appreciate the difference, allowing acknowledgment of the impulse, compelled forward rather than backward as if bound by some metaphorical form of northern star situated on the rise of her cheekbone.

Sakura leans into his touch once more as she did yesterday, but this time, she brings up her own hand and delicately lets her fingertips rest atop the outside of his, as if she encourages the caress, thumb brushing against his knuckle as his lips gently brush hers. Her other hand stays resting on his clavicle, a tender embrace, osculant in a way he has hoped for countless times, inclusive of this morning.

It is exactly what he needed, a catalyst of encouragement comprised of a heat that is gentle, coaxing, but still brands him all the same.

Maybe it's okay to want to skim her freckles and more, to allow the affinities he has to breathe. They’re together now; it stands to reason they'll one day venture into territory more uncharted, if he can concede to that kind of vulnerability. Not that he’s anywhere near ready for that - he’s not - but his instincts don’t appear to be all disastrously calamitous. Touching her cheek is something she clearly welcomes.

Sasuke gave in to darker tendencies once. Perhaps it's okay to give in to lighter ones; nothing grows in the absence of light, after all. He brushes a thumb across the high point of her cheekbone once more with her hand encompassing his before they part, embracing a new habit prior to whispering good night.

The way she smiles up at him, skin aflush and glimmering eyes, is everything.

XXX

He inspects the stone and the soil surrounding it for a long while, heavy-heartedly trying to ignore the encyclopedia of names in favor of envisioning what it would look like with lilies surrounding it. Less lugubrious, probably. The trajectory of the tree’s shadow would touch the stone in the evening, he sees, now that he’s here in person. He only ever haunts this place after nightfall when there's less chance of someone happening upon him. He wishes it was more secluded for that reason; maybe healing happens in the sunshine, and that’s why he still struggles with coming here after so many years, creature of the night that he is.

Evenings with Sakura feel like healing, though, and they linger after hours consistently. Maybe next time he’ll visit his dead kin at twilight, a brittle sort of compromise.

He'll see if the impulse still grips him tomorrow, and then decide. He knows his mother would like them. Itachi would, too, although it never feels like he's here, not the same way that it feels like the rest of them are, the air weighted with an accursed brand of perfume pouring outward in all directions.

White lilies may be able to touch the light in his stead for the time being. Even if they don’t grow, he at least will know he tried, and there is always next year. By then, he may have the capability of asking Sakura if she would help him; she’s clearly a capable gardener, and there should be less sediment, if he puts in the work.

By the time he leaves for his apartment, a thin layer has loosened.

#naruto #sasusaku #ssfanfiction #cherry writes #like gold #fanfiction #i said chapter 7 by the end of august and we cut it kind of close but we made it B)

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silverstarlightlion · 3 years

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the final entry in the team seven dies on the bridge au - this one got way away from me but oh well, I’m not editing it because that’s not how this chain works

Team Seven take the mission to the Land of Waves. On the bridge, they fight Zabuza and Haku.

On the bridge, Kakashi dies.

It happens in a flash, a shout and a burst of chakra and blood. The ice mirrors trapping Sasuke and Naruto in with Haku crack and break, and there's a high-pitched electric whine that lasts for a moment longer than the voices, before everything turns eerily, horribly silent.

In the ghostly silence, the mirrors collapse and smash into the half-finished Bridge, shattering, and Team Seven comes apart and shatters with them. Kakashi drops to one knee – thud – as the lightning in his palm winks out, and Zabuza steps back with a sneer. At his side, Haku lowers their hands, ignores the streak of blood across their side, and relaxes their stance. They move into Zabuza’s wake, following him as he strides past. Towards Sakura.

Towards Tazuna.

Naruto shouts, incoherent, and all at once he's wreathed once more in the strange and sticky red chakra, and throwing himself at Zabuza. Sakura is struck dumb, frozen, unblinking, watching Zabuza approach with sightless eyes, her kunai still held before her – her grip is textbook and too tight, and wavers when the Kiri-nin get too close.

She doesn't move, as Haku lashes out to stop Naruto's descent, flings him back. She doesn't move when Zabuza walks past her. She doesn't move as Sasuke snarls and jumps after Haku as well, as their fight re-engages. She doesn't move when Tazuna cries out behind her, she doesn't move when her name rings in her ears, she doesn't move when it ends with a whimper and a gurgle. Sakura doesn't move as Zabuza sets his sword on her shoulder.

She thinks, for a minute that lasts her whole lifetime, that Zabuza’s going to kill her too. She's not sure that she minds.

It's only when Zabuza grunts, dismissive, and turns on his heel – taking his sword with him, leaving a nick in her collar so shallow it doesn't even hurt – that Sakura finds the will to move. Gasps in a deep breath, like she's been drowning. Naruto and Sasuke are still fighting around her, flashing back and forth as Haku fends them off, but it all just sounds like echoes as she remembers how to walk and starts creeping towards Kakashi-sensei.

He's sprawled gracelessly, and his head is turned just a little too far to the side. He's half on his stomach, shoulders flat to the concrete, with one leg crumpled up underneath him. The grim, grey light of overcast morning winter is reflecting in his eyes, a glimmer that feels like a lie.

"Kakashi-sensei…?" she hears herself ask, her voice absolutely tiny, and her knees give way to drop her at Kakashi's side. Naruto is shouting something behind her, getting distant, and Sakura can't tell if he's moving away from her or if she just can't trust her senses anymore, but she can't bring herself to try figure it out. Her ears are ringing. Kakashi doesn't respond – doesn't move, doesn't blink, doesn't lift his gaze to her. His pupils don't respond to the light, too dilated. His mismatched irises are almost eclipsed. "... Kakashi… sensei…?" Her voice is a ghost in her own throat. When she reaches out, it feels like watching someone else do it; her hand is shaking violently, numb and cold, and her very skin feels like it doesn't belong to her, clingy and fuzzy and tingling all at once, like she's both trying to crawl out of herself and is the thing trying to be climbed out of.

Kakashi's face is warm when she touches him. It's a struggle to roll him over, the effort a blur of sound and nauseating breathlessness as she grips his shoulder and pushes. He's limp, utterly so, and his limbs drag and twist when she manages to get him more on his side. There's no movement in his chest or stomach.

He doesn't blink. He's not breathing.

The blood is pooling underneath him where Haku had torn a hole in his side, from all the cuts Zabuza gave him. When Sakura touches his face again, tries to turn his head even though she doesn't even know why, she can feel the broken bones in his neck grind.

Her tears taste like bitter acid as she collapses, each sob into Kakashi's unbreathing chest torn out of her as if she's turning inside out. Sakura can feel each beat of her own heart, like being kicked, a thunderous stomping in her ears, and it's a betrayal of the highest order when she can't feel Kakashi's under her hands. She thinks she screams, maybe. She's not sure.

It's not real. It can't be real. If she can just cry hard enough, if she can get out the huge, heavy, writhing thing that's crawling up her throat, if she can just make it all stop for just a moment, she can make it stop being real. Because it has to be a lie.

Kakashi is one of the strongest shinobi in Konoha. He's their teacher. He's improper and lazy and grouchy, and he's fought so hard to get this mission done, and he can't be dead. There's so much more he still has to teach them.

She thinks that one of them touches her, maybe, but it registers only as searing pain and she cries out between choking sobs, and it's only when she eventually has to pull back from Kakashi— From Kakashi's… body… from Kakashi that she remembers she's got the incredible misfortune to exist, and that there's still a solid world around her. It's revolting. That the world dares to continue being when it should be shattered.

But she pulls back, because her sobs are getting caught in her throat and she's gagging on them, stomach convulsing as the force of her crying slides into violent coughing, until she jolts and vomits.

Naruto, returned from the fruitless chase, keeps at Sakura's side and rubs her back, and tries to figure out what to say. How it could have possibly gone so wrong. They should have won. They were supposed to win – they were supposed to save Inari and prove that goodness meant something and make sure that Waves would be okay.

But there's nothing but the cold wind and the grey sky and blood on all sides, and the smell of death and salt and bile while Sakura struggles to breathe through her tears and retching.

Sasuke hasn't made a sound. He stands a few feet away, eyes dark, staring at Kakashi with hatred and icy anger. His hands are clenched. He knows too well that Kakashi is dead and they failed and it doesn't mean a damn thing. Because life is cheap and death is worthless. Sasuke is seven years old again, and trying to figure out how to say goodbye to the corpses that are no longer his parents, and Kakashi will never even know if they mourn him or not. He can't find the will to care or fight or cry. It doesn't matter. None of it matters. Nobody matters.

Death comes for all. Why should it mean anything if it found Kakashi now, or later? It would find everyone eventually.

Sasuke would make sure of it.

And across the countries, far beyond the knowledge of the now-lost genin, Konoha is split apart with the howls of eight ninken.

It's the ninken who find them first, in the end. They haven't moved from the bridge, half-completed, when the ninken arrive. It's late afternoon, and they've huddled together and done not much else. Sakura is in a small ball, curled up on the ground and holding onto Kakashi's body like he might still wake up at any moment and give her something to do. Sasuke stands nearby, arms folded, silent. He's watching, guarding, perhaps, except that he spots the ninken incoming and says nothing and moves neither to block their approach or welcome it. There are several Narutos milling about, one sitting with Sakura, hand still rubbing her back, while the others do… something. Even they're not really sure. But Naruto is a creature of action, and he can neither figure out what it is he's supposed to do nor tolerate the prospect of doing nothing.

There are Anbu on the ninken's tails, and they quickly take charge of the situation, and everything blurs together into noise and colour and pain.

When they arrive back at Konoha, the Anbu have to drag Sasuke up to the Hokage Tower with them. Naruto trudges alongside voluntarily, his gaze straying constantly to Kakashi – pale and still and cold and stiff in the Anbu's arms – and he silently prays that Grandpa Hokage will know what to do, because everything… seems a lot less simple than it did before, suddenly. Sakura offers no resistance, tucked against another Anbu's chest as she has been since they first picked her up in Waves Country. She's still shaking, each breath shallow and rattling, her gaze distant and empty. Putting her down isn't an option. Naruto is pretty sure she would simply stay curled on the ground where she was set, if the Anbu was to put her down.

Hirizen is unusually serious, when they're taken into his office, but that makes sense, Naruto supposes. The death of a Konoha jōnin is a big deal. Orders are given over their heads, and Naruto stays quiet despite the endless questions clawing at the inside of his ribcage, because Hiruzen does know what to do, obviously, because of course he would, so Naruto just has to wait until he tells them what they're supposed to do.

Right?

And it'll be okay? Like it's supposed to be?

…

Sasuke fights. He snarls, and then shouts, and then draws a kunai. The Anbu who'd dragged him up here in the first place knocks him unconscious, somehow, too fast for the genin to track, and carries him out. Sakura doesn't even ask where they're taking him.

And she… quits. Not on the spot, it's not until they attend Kakashi's funeral – and Sasuke attends too, shackled to an Anbu member, and it's the first time they've seen him since Hiruzen's office – but at the end of the day, when almost everyone else has gone, when Sasuke's gone (and he didn't even acknowledge them, didn't say a word to them, ignored Naruto's shouting after him when the Anbu walked him away), she finally finally finds her voice to speak. She's been silent since the bridge.

"I'm… I'm quitting," she whispers to him, while her parents stand just a teeny bit back to give them space. Her eyes, dull and hollow green, are fixed on Kakashi's headstone. "I can't do this. I can't do anything."

She sets her hitai-ite on Kakashi's grave, and Naruto never sees her in training again.

He finds out where Sasuke is, through a combination of stubborn defiance and reckless rule-breaking. Hiruzen allows him into what can only be a secret Anbu facility, and takes him down endless stairs until finally he sees the torchlit cage that Sasuke is in. He's doing pushups when they arrive.

It isn't until Naruto appeals to him as a friend that Sasuke finally stops, gets to his feet, storms up to the bars. "We are not friends," he hisses.

"What are you going to do?" Naruto can't think of anything else to ask him. What can he possibly be doing? How can he be okay down here?

"I'm going to kill the people who deserve it."

Naruto visits Sasuke six more times, and six more times he's almost fully ignored while Sasuke ceaselessly trains, alone in the dark, as if he doesn't even care that he's locked up like some kind of criminal. Naruto dares once to ask Hiruzen to let Sasuke go, and he learns that day just why the Kage's are so respected and so feared. It's the first time he's ever been scared of Hiruzen, and no amount of apologies or make-up ramen afterwards can undo it.

If this is what being Hokage really means, Naruto's no longer sure that he wants it.

The seventh time, Sasuke is gone, and no one will tell Naruto where he's gone.

When, months later, Iruka takes Naruto to meet Jiraiya, Naruto leaps on the offer of training. He's been… not wallowing, but his team has disintegrated and his training has gotten spotty. He needs a teacher, someone incredibly strong like Jiraiya, because Naruto has to get stronger. He needs to get strong enough to protect the people who matter. He needs to be strong to make sure that nobody else dies because he couldn't stop it – he needs to, because maybe if he can get there, if he can promise safety, then he can earn back his family. Sasuke and Sakura had been, pretty much, for the short time they'd been a team.

His team was everything. How could he protect Konoha if he can't even protect his teammates?

And so Naruto leaves with Jiraiya, single-minded and dogged, and if he pushes too hard too fast then it's all Jiraiya can do to try and keep up with Naruto's pathological need to chase strength.

…

Sasuke relinquishes freedom. He has no use for it. In the dead of night, he's whisked out of the Anbu Red Vault and into a silent promise of power and revenge. He allows the Seal to be placed on his tongue without resistance. He's called upon, eventually, to murder the other child he's been trained alongside, and he does so without hesitation or mercy. He dons the black uniform and the pale mask and he carves himself into nothing more than a blade, and he lays himself in Danzō's hand. One day, he is promised, he'll be the weapon wielded to end Itachi's life.

…

And Sakura leaves. She does it out of mercy, she thinks at first. It's her fault, after all, that Kakashi is dead. That Sasuke is gone. That Naruto is alone. She knows nothing of their fates, and she dares not ask after them, because if she involves herself then, she's sure, she's just going to get in their way.

And it’s a guilt that she's finally realised she isn't strong enough to carry. She stood by, on the bridge, and she did nothing. It doesn't matter that she was Tazuna's last line of defence; Tazuna is dead. It doesn't matter that she was told to guard him; the man who gave that order is dead, too.

It's her fault, it's her fault, it's her fault, it's HER FAULT.

So she sneaks out, and she means it to be mercy, because the only way she can think of to make sure she never does it again – does nothing – is… if she's not around to. And it's mercy, really, if she doesn't force her parents to be the ones who find her. She's never been able to scrub her own skin free of the way Kakashi's had felt. Warm and faintly damp with sweat and smooth between the endless minute scars, cooling into tacky rigidity. He'd still looked like himself, when the ninken had got there, but he'd felt like stone under her hands. Like he wasn't real.

Like none of it was real.

Sakura decides, in the dead of night, that she's willing to give anything to make it not real.

And, in the end, someone extends mercy to her parents but it's not her. The first moment of freefall, when she jumps off the edge of the Hokage monument, is exhilarating. Freedom. Safety. She's going to escape, and she won't have to take down anyone else with her ever again.

The next few seconds overwhelm her with terror, and Sakura loses her grip on reality as it suddenly registers what her freedom really means, and as the ground hurtles up towards her, all Sakura can think is that she's afraid. Like she was on the bridge. Like maybe that's all there is, after all. Fear.

So when a pair of arms wraps around her and snatch her out of the air, Sakura clings on and sobs without knowing who it is that's saved her, or if it’s even real, and it feels like being on the bridge all over again. But the arms stay close, hold on tight, and eventually Sakura manages to remember how her senses work.

"... Gai-sensei?"

He's still dressed in his signature green jumpsuit, but there's a grimness to him that's unfamiliar. Holding her entire meagre weight close to his chest with just one arm, Gai brushes her hair back out of her face, sticky and matted with snot and tears. "It's going to be okay, Sakura." She can't wrap her head around why Gai's here. How is he here? But Gai glances at her at the same moment Sakura realises he's walking, and she can't get the whine in her throat to make any more words, but Gai seems to understand. "If you were to die now, then Kakashi died to protect you for no reason. And I know you don't want to squander that."

Her fault. But Gai says it differently. Like for her isn't the same as her fault. Was it for her? Sakura isn't sure of anything, anymore. If anyone knows, it must be Gai-sensei. A shudder goes through her, and she buries her face in Gai's shoulder. Her senses are screaming at her, her heart still wild and painful in her chest. It seems to think she's still falling to her death.

"... What can I do?" It was already squandered. Wasn't it? Sakura couldn't do anything. She'd stood by and watched.

But Gai grunts, pets her back. "It's never too late to stop giving up. Get strong. Protect the things Kakashi can't anymore. Protect yourself. Protect Konoha."

And it’s pathetic, but Sakura is pretty sure she's pathetic no matter what, so she scrunches up her hands in Gai's shirt, and wishes they would stop shaking so bad, and shakes her head. "I can't. I'm not strong. I'm… I'm not strong."

"You're here." She almost wasn't.

And the whine breaks out. "I'm here bec-cause I'm weak. B-because he was— was strong."

Gai hums. She can't tell if it's agreement or not. "So do him proud. I'll show you how." Gai loosens his grip, just a little, and picks up Sakura's head. Forces her to meet his gaze. His face is oddly shadowed in the moon- and lamplight. "It's not easy. It's never easy. But it's worth it. You're strong – let me show you just how strong you are."

They're on the other side of the village, Sakura thinks, now that she's looking around. Still shaking – shivering, really – but they're in a residential area, closer to the outskirts, where the houses have little gardens and families and—

Gai carries her to a house. Lee is on the porch, watching anxiously.

"Why are you doing this?" Sakura manages to ask, while Gai brings her inside, and carefully deposits her on a couch. Lee appears at his side a moment later, and he offers Sakura a glass of water. Automatically, she takes it, and Gai steadies her hands so she doesn't drop it. Their faces are blurry through her tears. "Why…?"

It's Lee who speaks up, and he's quieter than usual but no less intense. "Because when we lose a family member, we should come together to support each other." Gai nods, beams at Lee proudly. "Kakashi-sensei was Gai-sensei's family, so he was my family. And you're Kakashi-sensei's family, so you're our family."

The water tastes like adrenaline and steel when Sakura makes herself sip it, but the gentle chill of it diffuses in her chest and something she doesn't have words for eases slightly.

"I couldn't have said it better myself, Lee," Gai says, pulling Lee down into a hug with his free arm. "So. Let us help you be strong, like Kakashi wanted."

It's surreal. So many things have happened in so little time; a few minutes ago, Sakura had been convincing herself to jump from the top of the Hokage monument. How can this feel so different, so quickly? She's in— Is she in Gai-sensei's house? And it can't fucking be real – but nothing feels real anymore, hasn't for a while now, and… if anyone knows what Kakashi wanted, then it's Gai.

And it’s Gai.

… Can he really teach her strength? Does it matter?

"He's not totally gone while we remember him," Lee says quietly, and he lays a hand on Sakura's knee. "So if we do what he wanted, then it's like he accomplished his goals."

It doesn't make a lot of sense to Sakura, because Kakashi-sensei is definitely gone, but… Well, she can always jump off a high place later. Maybe they're right? Would Kakashi want her to learn strength from Gai?

Sakura drinks the rest of the water.

"Okay."

#StarlightLion #Starlight Writes #Naruto #Team Seven #Hatake Kakashi #Uzumaki Naruto #Haruno Sakura #Uchiha Sasuke #Maito Gai #Rock Lee #Kakashi dies #and Team Seven fractures #Naruto is beyond his reach #and Sasuke has given himself over to the dark #but by gods Gai will save Kakashi's kids if he can #Sakura is his now #also please consider: Sakura with the power to open the Eight Gates

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excitedlysuffering · 4 years

Text

Green With Envy

It’s past 2am and my eyes hurt so it’s unedited for now sorry y’all😅

Original Request (from Wattpad account): What makes the boys jealous, if possible?

Guest stars: Sasori and Sai!

Masterlist

Naruto~

Oh, this boy… he’s too oblivious sometimes he doesn’t even know to be jealous. He was at a hot spring with friends once and someone says, “(Y/N) is so hot…” Naruto just grinned and said, “Yeah, she really is.”

But that doesn’t mean he won’t protect your honor. If someone says something a little too… risque like ‘Yeah, I’d tap that’ for example, get ready for more Narutos than you can count all charging you with a Rasengan.

He will not stand other guys cozying up to you. He’s the one who should be blessed with your hugs and cuddles. Won’t hesitate to cause a scene and yell to the entire world that he loves you and won’t let any other guy make a pass at you.

“Naruto, you didn’t need to go that far! You blasted him through three walls!” He’s endearing, really.

Sasuke~

Is jealousy an Uchiha thing or just a Sasuke thing? One of life’s many mysteries. Anywho, unlike Naruto, the second your name is brought up in conversation, he goes on guard and he’s listening closely.

If anything is said that he deems inappropriate, whether it be disparaging or otherwise, Sasuke had better be held back or he just might punch you into next week.

“Sasuke, calm down! He just said I had good taste in clothes!”

Even though he can easily get jealous, he knows the importance of freedom and he trusts you. He won’t come guns blazing (or sword slashing rather) and drag you away unless you need it of course.

The last thing he wants is for you to feel like you’re dating your dad or something. He’s very blunt and if he becomes uneasy with the way another male is talking to you, he’ll let said male know. Maybe after scowling with his Sharingan activated, however.

Neji~

Neji doesn’t really get jealous per se, more like offended on your behalf. Because of his upbringing, which taught him manners and the utmost respect, he really can’t understand talking about girls like they’re objects? Will never refer to a woman as ‘hot’ or anything like that.

If someone even dares speak of you like that, (even if you’re not necessarily together yet) he will fight them, and they will experience the 64 palms technique.

He especially hates people in your personal space. He really does trust you, just not others. Is not afraid to embarrass someone on your behalf. Half the time his glare is enough to scare them off, but some people are just clueless. (They wake up in the hospital)

“Neji! You can’t just throw me over your shoulder and leave! And that guy looked like he had seen a ghost?!” Needless to say, even cool, calm, and collected Neji has his limits.

Shikamaru~

Shika is too laid back to get jealous over little things. Somewhat like Neji, he doesn’t get jealous. He might feel threatened on your behalf, but never jealous. He can trust you with his life why shouldn’t he trust you with your relationship?

However, if someone is clearly harassing you or just generally making you uncomfortable, he will not hesitate to step in and make them leave. He won’t resort to physical violence (too much work), but he will intimidate them or put his genius to use and play some kind of trick on them.

He honestly has endless patience and at the same time no patience? Patience with you if you’re having a pleasant conversation with someone, but will go from 0-100 (or 50, really, anything more is a lot of effort) real quick.

“Shika, that guy thought he was really paralyzed, thanks to your shadow possession!” Being jealous is a waste of time, but clever revenge is always a treat for Shika.

Kiba~

So. Jealous. So. Easily. Kiba is naturally animalistic (in the best way) and just like a dog, can be very possessive. If explicitly asked, he will try to tone down his jealous fits, but will still be protective. If he does have free reign, however, oh boy…

No chill at all, whatsoever. Whether it’s absolutely destroying the object of his rage or just simply making out with you right there. No matter how annoyed he may get, he respects you with every fiber of his being and would never tell you to change or try to control you. He wouldn’t ever embarrass you (unless Kiba and Akamaru pummeling a room full of guys is embarrassing).

Just let him FIND OUT someone is making you feel the slightest bit of unease. One second, they’re chatting you up and then BAM! There’s a flash of white and a huge dog ready to maul them.

“Kiba, what do you mean they all looked at me for too long?! We walked in the door, of course, they turned to look!”

Gaara~

Gaara is a bit of a conundrum, but in a way that makes sense? Like, he doesn’t feel the need to get jealous of guys because when you leave, he’s going to be kissing you goodnight, and he’s the one who gets to spoil you.

However, he will get jealous of little things. Oh, you’ve spent a good amount of time playing with an animal/pet? Be prepared to walk in on Gaara giving them a stern lecture on stealing you from them. Gaara knows he has any potential suitors beat, but tiny adorable animals and children? In his mind, he can never be too cautious.

He gets a little pouty but that can easily be cured with cuddles, sometimes with that evil little pet that stole your affections from him. He can never stay jealous for long, he views it as an unproductive waste of time. He could be actively trying to get your attention, but instead, he’s going to be sulking in a corner? Yeah, no.

“Gaara! Stop scolding my cat, that’s not doing anything!”

Sai~

On the rare occasion that this cinnamon roll gets jealous, he’s confused and shocked. Like just imagine the surprised Pikachu face and that’s him. He knows what jealousy is, he can identify it just fine, but he doesn’t know why he’s jealous.

You aren’t doing anything, all you did was laugh at someone else’s jokes, but still… do you find them funnier than him? Are you going to leave him because he’s not that funny?! Cue the slow onset into insanity… Poor Sai is losing his mind to paranoia and made-up scenarios.

Will most certainly drag you away (gently) from whoever is taking your attention and leave. He doesn’t even bother with a fake smile, they don’t deserve it. He’ll explain to you calmly even though he’s panicking on the inside. Once he is back to normal he’ll show you his nearest artwork.

“What the-! Sai, you can’t just draw caricatures on people’s car!” You don’t even want to know how he figures out which car is theirs...

Kakashi~

Too cocky to be jealous. He has the right to be though because one glance at him without his face mask can cause instant pregnancy. Anywho, he knows you love him and some guy trying to hit on you like some high school douche isn’t going to change that.

He does like to intervene, however, just to flex like ‘yeah, I’m the boyfriend, now get lost’.

He’s not big on PDA, so he won’t start kissing you to ward off strangers, but he will wrap on arm around you or hold your hand and ask who your ‘friend’ is.

When there’s that one stubborn person who won’t take a hint, Kakashi doesn’t mind rocking someone’s world or getting kicked out, he needed to perfect that one offense technique anyways. He’s pretty laid back though, so it has to be somewhat drastic for this though, plus he knows you can handle yourself.

“A thousand years of death?! Isn’t it weird to be poking old men in the butt?!

~Akatsuki~

Pein~

Pfft. Who does he have to be jealous of? He’s a god among mortals, after all. To him, you’re a goddess and as such you belong with someone like him, not the peasants around you.

But on the offhand chance that someone doesn’t heed his godly status, he will not hesitate to pull you into his side and yell ‘Almighty Push’ and totally obliterate that loser. (A/N: Holy crap I think that needs to be a one-shot cuz, wow, Pein being all protective is making me swoon?)

If it’s not a big deal, he’ll easily let you take care of it. If you’re strong enough to catch Pein’s attention, you’re more than strong enough to deal with some lowlife. That doesn’t mean, however, that they won’t feel his wrath too.

If you ever want to witness a true royal rumble, dare someone to mess with Pein’s S/O. It’d be an epic tag team match (slaughter, really) for the ages. One would d be surprised how quick he can lose his cool when it comes to you.

“Pein, that’s the fifth time this month! Kakuzu is going to murder me if I ask for money to fix this wall!”

Deidara~

Need I even say it? Jealous boy all the way. You’re his favorite masterpiece so why should let an uncultured swine who doesn’t even understand your worth touch you? Rhetorical question, he wouldn’t.

He is not above fighting or placing a bomb on someone who gives you one too many glances. He’d make sure they knew it wasn’t art, they weren’t good enough for that, before blowing the offender up.

No one and he means no one gets to talk bad about his S/O. If someone insults you in his presence they might as well as swallowed one of his explosives and trusted him not to blow them up.

Will one 100% hide you from view if you look too appealing. He thinks you look ravishing, but he’s the only one who should be able to think that, in his opinion. Don’t worry, no one’s ever gotten close enough to harass you with Dei around. His one-eyed scowl is a great deterrent.

“Deidara! You blew up my favorite restaurant! He didn’t even say anything to me!”

Sasori~

Would rather die before admitting he was jealous. As adamant about not being jealous as he is about art being eternal. That’s not to say that he won’t take action though. He will use chakra strings to make the perpetrator walk away, meanwhile making them bump into literally everything in the general vicinity.

The two of you don’t leave the base all that often so it’s unusual to see an envious Sasori action, but it’s a real treat when it happens. After he deals with whatever idiot crossed him, he’ll be a bit more affectionate that day/night.

Not huge things, but instead of working on puppets all night, he’d be more apt to hold you that night. Average people hitting on you make him insecure because he realizes he’s not that great at normal relationships but he still doesn’t want to lose you. That feeds into his jealousy and he figures the only way to get rid of it is to make sure those other guys can’t offer anything he doesn’t have.

“Sasori! If you wanted a hug, you could’ve said that instead of treating that guy like a ball inside of a pinball machine!”

#naruto x reader #sasuke x reader #neji x reader #shikamaru x reader #kiba x reader #gaara x reader #sai x reader #kakashi x reader #pein x reader #deidara x reader #sasori x reader #naruto scenarios #jealousy #naruto shippuden #request

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