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nikkigrand · 6 years

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Sakutaro

Summary: When Haruno Sakutaro said that he'd date the hell out of himself, he wasn't being literal.

But they say that man makes plans and God laughs, and ain't that the truth?

Somehow finding himself in an alternate dimension where he's a girl, Sakutaro finds himself venturing into unknown, salaciously ridiculous territory...for science.

Word Count: 10k

A/N: Posting this here because male Sakura x female Sakura is trending! Warning, this is kinda kinky...

Kill me, I’m hungover.

Sakutaro groaned as he rolled over in the soft, dewy grass as the early morning sun warmed the lightly freckled skin of his bare shoulders. Burying his nose into what he recognized as a cluster of mint leaves, he inhaled deeply and found himself holding it against a giant wave of nausea.

A few seconds and a soothing pass of healing chakra later, Sakutaro felt sober enough to prop himself on his forearms and lift his head to search for his best friend through squinted, bloodshot beryl eyes. Except, he didn’t see any silky tuffs of platinum blonde anywhere in the expansive training grounds.

Rolling his eyes, Sakutaro stood with a huff and raked his hand through his messy jaw length hair before plucking a few mint leaves from the ground to chew on as he walked. It was so like Inomatsu to leave him for dead after a night of irresponsible drinking. The boar probably saw him sprawled out in some obscene undignified position and decided he’d just leave him there because, wouldn’t it be so funny if Sasuka tripped over him?

Sakutaro begged to differ, it would be the worst day of his life if the woman he’d been pining after for over a decade had come upon him while he was unconscious. Inomatsu would definitely get a kick out of it, but he’d been trying to impress the raven-haired beauty since he met her nearly fifteen years ago, and he would be mortified if he gave her any more reason to look down at him.

In fact, Sakutaro was sure Sasuka still thought he ate worms—never mind the fact that they were in their early twenties—and that was even after he slapped the shit out of that crazy rabbit god during the war. For some reason, no matter what he did, his teammate just wouldn’t notice him.

And wasn’t that just unfair? He had Naruko and Li practically falling over themselves for a date with him, and Sakutaro knew he was charming, so why wouldn’t the damn girl just see him and give him a chance? He wasn’t ugly (something a lot of women in the village would attest for) and he wasn’t stupid, he was one of the most intelligent men in the village. So what was he missing?

Sakutaro had come a long way from the sniveling, awkward mess of a boy he’d been when Team 7 first formed. He even stopped declaring his feelings for Sasuka—the whole lot of good that did him—and left her alone for a while. But he found, much to his chagrin, that it was hard to abandon such strong feelings for someone and he approached the situation with a lot more tact.

Sakutaro’s booted feet took him down the familiar dirt paths and roadways of his home village, the hitai-ite across his forehead marking him as one of her ninja, and was heedless to the villagers’ curious stares as he took thoughtful strides in the direction of the hospital. Too distracted by depressing thoughts to notice the lingering stares, Sakutaro shoved his hands in his pockets with a pout.

He’d once gone to Sasuka’s older sister for advice, and was too nervous to even articulate his dilemma, much less confess his feelings for her younger sister. Where Sasuka’s beauty was sharp and piercing, Itamina’s was soft and breathtaking. But where her face was soft, her eyes were hard and Sakutaro found it difficult to speak under such an unwavering stare.

He’d developed a bit of a crush on her that day, but he was nothing if not loyal. Sasuka held his heart, and the worst part was that she knew it.

God, how depressing can I be, Sakutaro sighed as his nimble fingers slipped his apartment’s key from his pocket. He could almost hear Inomatsu’s voice teasing him for getting so hung up over a girl, that shameless flirt. The pink haired man was comfortable in his sexuality (he’d have to be in order to withstand the mean-spirited teasing that came from having rosette locks) to admit that his blonde best friend was a handsome man. What was the word Saiyu had called him? Ah, yes, gorgeous.

Inomatsu was a gorgeous man and used it to his advantage, something that Sakutaro would loathe to say to the man’s face. He had a big enough ego as it was, with his stupid, long and silky cornflower hair that drew attention wherever he went. It was bad enough that Inomatsu didn’t seem to own any full length shirts, imagine what he’d be like if his tried and true rival admitted that he was the better looking one out of the two of them.

The man would walk the village naked, Sakutaro was sure of it.

As if he needed more female attention, anyway. Sakutaro scoffed as he climbed the few steps to his door on the fourth floor. Inomatsu had women trailing after him like lovesick puppies, and Sakutaro used to be slightly bitter that he didn’t have that type of swagger to make women jump into bed with him with only just a smooth word or two and a smile.

But, after a few one night stands and casual flings, he found that no one quite did it for him like Sasuka. No other woman was as fiery, as ruthlessly intelligent and efficient like her. They didn’t have her flame, her beauty, her will of fire.

Naruko was too loud—too brash and obnoxious with her orange clothing and blonde pigtails. She was also his best friend, and almost like a sister to him—which made things extremely awkward on his part when he hit puberty. And although she was strong and pretty, Sakutaro could never see himself falling for her—besides, Hinazo was in love with the girl. What kind of man would he be if he pursued the love of his friend’s life?

The asshole kind, that’s what.

The other women in Konoha’s Rookie 11 weren’t his type, either.

Chouko would never love him as much as she loved food. To Tenshi’s grief, Nemi was too serious and proud to consider dating outside the Hyuuga clan. Li had a good heart and was a kind girl, but she was too eccentric and youthful for his tastes. Shika was a genius and came from a good clan, but she was lazy and unmotivated. Kiwa was too wild and untamed, as were those from the Inuzuka, and Sakutaro wasn’t sure he’d survive that relationship. Shizu had an entire hive living under her skin—in no life would he be comfortable with that—and she was too withdrawn.

Therefore, the only other woman he’d see himself falling for is if he were a woman. Which, in all sense, would be impossible.

“If only.” Sakutaro grumbled to himself as he unlocked the door to his apartment, pushing the door wide with his foot as his hands worked to unbuckle the clasps to his medic and weapons belts.

But when his foot nudged the door closed with a slam, it was by the grace of his war honed reflexes that he caught the sharp kunai aimed for his head. Pivoting on the ball of his feet to face his attacker and wielding the enemy’s kunai, Sakutaro hadn’t dropped the blade only because his senses were confused—and maybe he was still slightly drunk.

“Who the hell are you and what are you doing in my apartment?!”

Narrowing his emerald eyes at the petite woman before him, Sakutaro determined that he was not in the mood for any of Naruko’s pranks today. His pounding headache was starting to come back and he needed water.

Making his way towards his kitchen, Sakutaro was determined to ignore his pesky teammate until she got the hint and left. Except she’d do no such thing and stepped in his line of sight, right fist glowing and kunai bared in the other.

“I said,” she spat, “who are you, and what are you doing in my home?”

Swiping an impatient hand through his short hair, Sakutaro sighed, “Naruko, I’m not in the mood. Go home.”

“Naruko?!” The girl hissed, “Listen here, mister, I don’t think you know where you are and who you’re talking to—“

“Except I do know where I am and who I’m talking to, Naruko.” He stepped towards her, his patience worn extremely thin, “I’ve told you once and I’ll tell you again, that Oiroke jutsu of yours is inappropriate and I don’t want you using my image.

So, please, stop.”

Because, honestly, how creepy was it of Naruko to pay such close attention to him that she’d managed to catch even the most minute of details in his face to perfect her jutsu. Sakutaro was close enough that he could see the light freckles dusting the bridge of her nose in a way that mirrored his own. He couldn’t remember a time when he’d ever let her get close enough to see the flecks of blue in his irises and the thin blonde lashes he’d gotten from his father tangled with the customary pink.

The woman in front of him was an exact replica of himself—that was if he had breasts and other lady bits, and when did he ever have such long hair? As in, it was Sakutaro as a woman. Courtesy of Uzumaki Naruko.

“Naruto,” the girl growled, “This isn’t funny. I don’t know how you managed to copy my chakra signature, and I’m not going to even dwell on how accurate the little things are, but I’m letting you know right now—I am not amused. So cut it out!”

“Naruko,” Sakutaro barked, already having had enough of her games, “I’m not stupid, Naruto is the name of your male henge, so drop the—“

Wait, did she just say they had the same chakra signature? Naruko was smart, but not that smart, and chakra mimicry was a forbidden technique. His chakra instantly reached out to probe the other pink haired woman’s.

Normally, probing and outreaching with one’s chakra for another always had some type of feedback. It was why chakra control was of such paramount importance as a medic, a stranger’s chakra was always fighting against you. No two chakra signatures were as compatible to blend seamlessly, the only way that could ever happen is if someone’s chakra interacted with itself. And yet, that is what Sakutaro’s chakra did; it blended with this woman’s chakra effortlessly, almost as if her own signature was an extension of himself, and he stumbled back in shock just as she reared back as if slapped.

“What the fuck was that?!”

Their voices rang out in the apartment, both shinobi baring kunai at each other and eyes tracking each small ruffle of clothing and tensing of muscle.

“Who the hell are you?” The girl cried, her voice rising in pitch to match her growing anxiety.

“Who the hell are you?!” Sakutaro pushed back, his own voice deepening in response to the threat.

“This is my apartment and I asked you first!”

“Like hell! You’re all fucked up, lady, all fucked up! This is my apartment!”

“Excuse me?!” She screeched, green eyes the exact shade of his own blazing furiously, “You’re the one who’s delusional enough to make yourself look like me and then come barging into my home like—like you don’t know who the fuck I am!”

“I’m delusional?!” Now wasn’t that rich, “I have no idea who the hell you are, actually, so drop the stupid henge and release that jutsu you’re using to copy my chakra before I drag your ass to the Hokage!”

By the time Sakutaro was finished shouting at the girl, he had a split second to block her punch with his forearms (accompanied by a screech of fury, mind you) before it met his face. And wasn’t that a mistake?

The instant her fist met his arms, a precise output of chakra had him crashing through a hole where the window—his window, his!—used to be and he bit back a scream as the bones in his arms shattered.

Who the hell has strength like that?! It was—it was monstrous!

He skidded through the streets in front of the hospital (because wouldn’t it be so convenient if he’d found an apartment by where he spent every waking moment?), narrowly avoiding screaming civilians, and quickly jumped to his feet.

Sakutaro hurriedly directed his medical chakra towards the bones in his arms, wincing as each bone realigned and mended itself. He watched warily as his pink headed counterpart jumped from the hole where his window used to be and made her way towards him—his eyes narrowing at each crater following her footsteps.

Best avoid her limbs then; but no matter, Sakutaro had something even greater than monstrous strength—precise chakra control. All it’d take is a brush of his fingers and she’d be incapacitated long enough to drag her to the Hokage’s office and then T&I.

Adjusting his leather gloves, Sakutaro widened his stance in anticipation for a destructive fight when she came to a stop in front of him—ignoring the growing crowd of shinobi and civilians.

“I’m going to ask you again,” the woman started, cheeks flushed and voice hard as steel, “Who—“

“Sakura-chan!”

Both heads turned towards the loud voice bellowing from above. Sakutaro instantly recognized it as the gravelly baritones belonging to Naruko’s Naruto-henge and if his shoulders tensed anymore he’s sure he’d pull a muscle. Because if Naruko was there, then who was in front of him?!

He wanted to accuse Inomatsu of learning Naruko’s perverted jutsu and playing such a ridiculous prank on him, but Inomatsu didn’t have the chakra control to demonstrate such strength. In fact, in terms of brute strength, Chouka was the strongest in all the village—due to her clan jutsu, of course.

“What’s going on?” Naruko jumped next to his counterpart, and Sakutaro felt slightly betrayed. Naruko was his teammate, so what was she doing?

His confusion and hurt must have shown on his face because familiar eyes the color of the bluest skies settled on his face, already narrowing into slits before her lips curled in a sly grin—giving Sakutaro the distinct impression of a fox.

“Sakura-chan~,” Naruko sang, the deepness of her voice making Sakutaro’s skin crawl, “I knew you were kinky…using my kage bunshin for such purposes, how scandalous.”

“Shut up, idiot!” The one Naruko called Sakura screeched, the chakra emitting from her fists glowing brighter with her ire, “That’s not me!”

Instantly, playful blue eyes hardened into ice as they settled on Sakutaro’s taller frame.

“Oh?”

“How interesting.”

Sakutaro froze at the deep murmur that came from beside him, all too aware of the sharp tip of a kunai pressed threateningly to the nape of his neck. His eyes shifted to the left to see who had spoken and it was only etiquette that kept him from going slack jawed.

They even had Keiko-sensei going along with this stupid game? Team 7’s perpetually late Genin instructor with the sharp undercut and shuriken patterned scarf was now a man with wild, silver hair and a mask—of all things!

But Keiko-sensei wasn’t the one holding a kunai to sever his spinal cord, and Sakutaro would recognize the chakra signature crackling against his skin if he were deaf, dumb, and blind. It was Sasuka who was standing so coolly behind him, and he was absolutely appalled that they’d somehow managed to coerce someone as proud as Sasuka into this humiliating joke.

“Girls,” Sakutaro’s voice warbled dangerously, a cue to all who knew him to evacuate the premises lest they lose control of their limbs, “This game has gone on for long enough.”

Except Sakutaro was ignored as Keiko-sensei directed her attention to his evil twin, and the sting of betrayal was not pleasant.

“Sakura, who is this?” His sensei’s once smooth, pleasant voice was now as deep as Sakutaro’s own and he shuddered. It was so wrong.

“I don’t know, Kakashi-sensei!” Sakura cried, and Keiko-sensei called herself Kakashi?! What kind of name was that?! “He just walked into my apartment like he owned it and told me to get out!”

Sakutaro tensed as Sasuka’s kunai pressed deeper against his skin, feeling the sharp tip break skin and the sting that came from it—and betrayal. Traitors!

“How did you get into Sakura’s apartment?” Sasuka asked, and there was no way in hell Sakutaro could have suppressed the cringe that came from hearing his crush’s sweet voice be so masculine. She sounded like her father, Mikotsu-sama—if Mikotsu-sama had a stick up his ass.

But wait…

“Sakura’s apartment?!” Sakutaro exclaimed, incredulous, “That’s my apartment! I live there! I’ve lived there for the past six years!”

“Bullshit!” Sakura stepped towards him, hands on her hips and less defensive now that she had backup, “I’ve lived there for the last six years!”

By that point, Sakutaro had already had enough. There were too many oddities, too many inconsistencies with their behavior to be his teammates, so he pulled his hands into a seal and sent a pulse of chakra to unravel any genjutsu that could be causing this—this mockery of his team’s behavior.

When nothing happened, Sakutaro did it again and noticed that the other three were watching him cautiously to see what he was trying to do. Not that they didn’t know! They were the ones who had laid such an elaborate genjutsu that even he as a genjutsu perfectionist couldn’t dispel!

“This is no genjutsu.” Sasuka’s cool voice filtered through his brain until the only thing Sakutaro could reply to that was,

“Well, shit.”

How eloquent.

“Will you tell us your name?” It wasn’t a question, and Sakutaro knew as much.

Sea glass eyes finding his counterpart’s with a frown and furrowed brow, his fists clenched at his sides, “My name is Haruno Sakutaro. And you are?”

“Liar!” Sakura took another step towards him, eyes blazing so familiarly it made something in his gut clench, “I am the only Haruno with pink hair!”

The knot in his gut unfurled with his fury at the absurdity of her statement. “Bullshit! I am the only Haruno with pink hair!”

In fact, the color of his hair was because of some freaky recessive gene from his clan’s roots in Whirlpool (another reason why he’d never date Naruko, they could be related!) and he had been bullied all throughout his childhood for looking like a girl. They had even called him—

“Sakura.”

The rosette’s jaw shut audibly at his voice and she glared at him, daring him to refute her claim as a Haruno as if he were blind enough to do so.

“Your name is Sakura,” Sakutaro sighed as he dragged a hand down his face, “And I am Sakutaro.”

She stared at him as if imploring him to get to the point. If things were as his heart were telling him, then he’d be correct in assuming her patience was close to extinction.

“We are either family, or cut from the same cloth.” Sakutaro drawled, tired from the night before and tired from the joke his life had become.

His only consolation was if Sakura were as smart as he was, then she’d surely figure out what he meant, and judging by the twist of her lips and the furrow of her brow she’d understood him.

“I guess a trip to the Hokage is in order, then?” Keiko-sensei—no, Kakashi—hummed, already breezing past them in the direction of the Hokage’s tower and Sakutaro nearly groaned as he was forced to follow behind him—flanked on either side by the other three as if he were a prisoner.

He was still hungover, for Hokages’ sake! He just wanted an aspirin and some water, maybe a granola bar or two. Was that too much to ask?

Somewhere out there, wherever he was, Inomatsu was cackling away at his expense. He had a feeling this—whatever this was—had something to do with him. The man was always dabbling in fuinjutsu in conjunction with his clan’s Mind Transfer techniques. Sakutaro rued the day Inomatsu declared he had a crush on Naruko and decided the best way to pursue her was to have her tutor him in fuinjutsu.

Luckily for Sakutaro, Inomatsu quickly figured out that Naruko was even more of a loudmouth blonde than he was (“…and who even lets her out of the house in that crime of an outfit anyway?! Sakutaro! You’re not her friend. You don’t love her! How dare you?!”), among other things, and the conquest ended quickly. Unluckily for Sakutaro, Inomatsu continued to meet Naruko for fuijutsu lessons and he’d decided that his best friend Sakutaro would be his guinea pig.

As if Sakutaro wanted to have conditioner and hair pomade sealed into his skin…

He did, however, convince Inomatsu to develop a seal for storing herbs and plants on his body while also preserving their potency. The seal was still at its infancy, and if he remembered correctly, the platinum blonde had been working on it before they’d gone drinking.

Honestly, it was all a bit fuzzy. But all Sakutaro had to do was check his forearms to see if the seals were still etched onto his skin. It was too bad he wore compression sleeves up to his biceps, though.

Nonetheless, there was a link between Inomatsu’s drafted fuinjutsu, their unholy consumption of booze, and Sakutaro’s current predicament.

And, if he was right, Sakutaro was going to take such joy in shaving Inomatsu’s head.

The walk to the Hokage tower was as short as he remembered it always being, having been apprenticed by the Hokage himself, and the pink haired man wasn’t surprised that all of the receptionists he remembered as men were now women.

He was quickly adapting to his situation, he knew, or maybe he was just in shock? Either way, Sakutaro should have been surprised—he really should have—but he was not the least bit derailed when they just waltzed into the Hokage’s office and instead of seeing Tsubasa-shishou sitting behind the grand mahogany desk, he found his female counterpart.

“Tsunade-shishou.” Oh, and would you look at that, Sakura was also apprenticed to her Hokage, of course, “We have a problem.”

Standing in front of the generously endowed woman whose eyes were as eerily stern as his shishou’s, Sakutaro couldn’t help but be cowed. If this was his powerful and scary sensei’s counterpart, he had every reason to defer to her.

Tsunade’s eyes travelled from the tips of his booted feet to the top of his distinctive crown of pink hair, and he swallowed when a mischievous grin curled her painted lips.

“My, oh my, Sakura,” The Hokage crooned, “I didn’t know you were so resourceful. Kage bunshin?”

“Shishou!” Sakura cried as she flushed deeply while Sakutaro blanched. Just what the hell kind of sexual deviant was she?! And were those sake cups on the Hokage’s desk?!

“It’s not like that!” Sakura whined, her hand combing through her messy bangs, clearly frazzled, “This is very serious!”

“Oh?” Tsunade rose an eyebrow at that, “How serious?”

“Baa-chan!” Naruko—ugh, Naruto—shouted, “This guy here,” and he poked him to make a point, “says he lives at Sakura-chan’s place! But we’d know because she’s our teammate and since when does Sakura-chan bring guys home, anyway?”

Raising an eyebrow at that, Sakutaro directed his flat stare to the petite female looking like she wanted to hide under the Hokage’s desk and come out only when humanity keeled over for good.

“Oh my god, Naruto, will you shut up?!”

Smiling sheepishly at his teammates venomous hiss, Naruto tried a different approach, “Baa-chan! This is as serious as that time we thought Sasuke couldn’t have Uchiha brats!”

And Sakutaro could have sworn the temperature dropped several degrees when another, even more venomous, hiss sounded from beside him.

“Dobe, shut the fuck up.”

“Hey! Don’t tell me to shut the fuck up! You shut the fuck up! It was a serious concern for the village!”

“It’s not your business!”

“The hell it ain’t! Who knows what that snake bastard did to you while you were away! You sure as hell won’t tell us!”

“Because it’s none of your—“

“Enough!”

Sakutaro would neither confirm or deny that he jumped at the booming sound of the Hokage’s voice, but wow Tsubasa-shishou would be proud. The woman commandeered attention as well as he did.

“You!” Sakutaro immediately directed his attention to the Hokage at her bark, “You tell me what is going on!”

Clearing his throat to stall for time and hands twitching at his side, Sakutaro struggled to come up with an explanation without sounding like an irresponsible idiot. How does one explain to a foreign kage—who’s supposed to be his village’s kage—that he and his best friend had been tampering with fuinjutsu before getting hammered? And then forgot all about said fuinjutsu?

It was quickly becoming apparent that no matter how he said, phrased, or fenagled it, Sakutaro was going to sound like a fucking moron.

Swallowing his dread, Sakutaro decided that if Tsunade was essentially Tsubasa, then she could probably smell his fear and he might as well get it over with.

“Well, Hokage-sama,” he started, voice rough but even, and thank the world for small miracles, “I’m not entirely sure what exactly is going on.”

“Well, then start from the beginning.”

Knowing an order when he heard one, Sakutaro slipped into every ninja’s mission debrief mindset.

“My friend, Inomatsu, and I were experimenting with fuijutsu,” the ninja in the room tensed and Sakutaro hurriedly continued before they pounced, “nothing too dangerous or serious. Inomatsu is a novice in the field, even if he is a brilliant learner, and he theorized that sealing fuinjutsu transported items to empty dimensions for storage purposes. By drawing seals onto the skin, we’d be able to direct chakra to it without using blood as a conduit, and Inomatsu decided he wanted me to give it a try.”

“Why you?” Sakura asked, gears churning in her head as everyone listened intently.

“Because I have absolute perfect chakra control.” And Sakutaro couldn’t help but be smug every time he said that because he was the only shinobi in all the Five Shinobi Nations to have such absolute control of his chakra.

Except Sakura didn’t seem so impressed and rolled her eyes, “Oh, big whoop, I do too.”

Bristling a little at her shut down, Sakutaro ignored her and resumed his debrief, “It worked, but only for small items. Inomatsu was disappointed, but he’d decided that the seal working was reason enough to celebrate—so we did. My friend is a very demanding man, so I didn’t have time to properly remove the seals before we left.”

“So, let me guess,” Tsunade mused dryly, “You and your friend, Inomatsu, then got completely wasted and don’t remember a lick of what happened after that.”

Bowing his head sheepishly, Sakutaro scratched the back of his neck nervously, “That is correct, Hokage-sama.”

Shaking her head at what must be his stupidity, the Hokage waved her hand lazily and he continued his story.

“At some point during the night, I assume Inomatsu tried to modify the seal and—we were both drunk, I don’t know why I agreed. And I must have tried to use it, I don’t see why else I’d be here…” Sakutaro trailed off, coughing awkwardly to stave his embarrassed flush.

“The next thing I know, I’m waking up on Training Ground 3. I don’t know how I got there, I figured that Inomatsu and I had passed out there since it’s where my team and I spend most of our time. But I couldn’t see him when I woke up, so I went home, and I found, um, Sakura there and she then proceeded to shatter my forearms.”

There was a slight silence after his report where Tsunade stared at him like he was an idiot, and Sakura and Naruto stared at him like he was an idiot, and Sakutaro wouldn’t dare look at Sasuka’s—Sasuke’s—face.

And who even knew what Kakashi thought behind that ridiculous mask?! It wasn’t like he didn’t know what was behind it anyway! What was so shameful behind a mole?

After everyone reached a consensus that Sakutaro was an idiot, Kakashi was the first to speak.

“Luckily for you, Naruto here is our resident seal master. May we look at them?” How nice of them to poise it as if he had a choice. His voice was muffled behind his book, appearing to be uncaring and distracted, but Sakutaro would be a fool not to know that the man was always poised to strike. He knew Keiko-sensei was.

Shrugging, he slipped off his gloves and started pulling up the tight sleeves to expose his forearms as they huddled around him. “Sure.”

The more his seals were revealed, the more Sakutaro wanted to roll his sleeves down. Inomatsu had modified the seals all right…with smiley faces and squiggles and was that a penis?

Naruto’s howl of laughter confirmed that yes, that was indeed a phallus drawn in permanent ink on his forearm; and as Tsunade-sama handed him a cup of sake, Sakutaro vowed to shave Inomatsu’s head and eyebrows.

The rice wine burned as it went down his throat and he tried his hardest to ignore the veiny depiction of the male anatomy taking residence on his corded forearms. Sakura looked at him with sympathy as Naruto grasped his arms with surprisingly gentle hands, bringing his crown of blonde closer to get a better look. Sakutaro took small comfort that even in this, wherever he was, he was still taller than the Uzumaki—even if it was now only by a few inches.

Naruto’s spiky hair brushed against the tip of his nose, bringing with it the peculiar scent of ramen and wind. Wrinkling his nose, Sakutaro decided that it wasn’t entirely unpleasant and not unlike Naruko’s normal scent, but she at least wore a bit of that expensive perfume Hinazo had gifted her. Naruto probably didn’t even do his laundry…

“Well, Sakutaro-baka,” Naruto cheerfully started, his head still downturned and therefore blissfully unaware of the scathing glare the pink haired man directed at his head, “This is so weird, but also so funny.”

Sakutaro didn’t think it was funny at all! How was any of this even remotely funny?

Naruto pointed towards a squiggle that served as a smiley face’s eye, “With this right here,” then he pointed to a squiggle that served as a shamefully thick vein in Inomatsu’s art, “and this,” his calloused fingertip slid down his pale forearm to stop on a sharp line that may or may not have been the beginnings of an obscene character, “and this, you and your friend have yourselves a space time ninjutsu conduit. Apply a little bit of chakra and bam! You’ve got yourself a case of interdimensional travel.”

Sakutaro could only stare at the blonde blankly because they did what?!

“Are you familiar with space time ninjutsu?” Sasuke asked from beside him, bi-colored stare trained unnervingly on his own bewildered orbs.

“Vaguely.” Sakutaro replied slowly, still trying to wrap his mind around the fact that he and Inomatsu had managed to bullshit their way to another dimension. “Kagumo, the rabbit god, used it often during the Fourth War.”

“Kagumo?” Sakura repeated sharply, drawing his attention to her, “Was that the male version of Kaguya?”

Sakutaro nodded, “Aa. He was very difficult to defeat. We were lucky that my team and Itamina-san were there to seal him away.”

He couldn’t help the sadness that churned in his chest at remembering the war and he averted his gaze, swallowing the lump in his throat. “We lost many souls on that battlefield. It was a bloody war.”

Jerking in surprise at the feel of small hands brushing against his own, Sakutaro caught the haunted look in Sakura’s eyes as she withdrew her hands.

“Ours too.”

It was then, at that moment, that Sakutaro knew that he and Sakura were one in the same. A medic might understand his pain—his grief at the cumulative loss of life—but only he could understand the hollow feeling of failure. Of not being fast, good, strong enough to be everywhere at once like Naruko—and by extension, Naruto—could be.

Losing so many Allied shinobi was a crippling blow not only for the shinobi forces, but for morale. The medics were too tired, too hungry, too chakra deprived to heal the shinobi who’d been gutted but who would have lived if only they’d had enough chakra.

Sakutaro had retrieved too many bodies from the battlefield whose souls could have been saved if only they’d had enough medics with enough combat experience and chakra to send to the front lines. As one of the only medics with combative training, Sakutaro was not—under any circumstances—allowed to expend all of his chakra on healing. In the case of an attack on the Medic Corp’s established base, he and a few others would be their front line of defense. He’d stood idly while shinobi he could have saved perished because of his commander’s orders, and he’d never be able to forgive himself.

Sakutaro had devoted years of his life to medical ninjutsu, to learning such intimate details of the human body and how to stitch, mend, and fight death by sheer force of will to get to where he was. He’d spent grueling hours perfecting his task, buried under heaps of medical scrolls and devouring tomes, breaking and rebreaking, mending and mending and mending his bones and hurts in an endless cycle in pursuit of nothing short of excellence. What good was he if he couldn’t even save one dying person? Or ten? Or hundreds? Gods knew he had the skills, but not the chakra.

And something viscous and angry had crawled up his throat to fill that hollow feeling of failure in his chest for one, awful moment when Naruko’s chakra had consumed the entire battlefield to regenerate lost limbs and punctured organs. Naruko, who had never had any type of formal training and didn’t know the difference between the fibula and the ulna, could regrow legs and arms with just a wave of her hand from hundreds of feet away. She, in a few minutes, had done what he and his medics and tried to do for the last year, and wasn’t that just fucking unfair?

The war took something from him—from all of them, and all the shinobi killing and dying on the battlefield for peace or love, or for war, they would always be him. Sometimes, Sakutaro would look to the horizon in the direction of that horribly scarred and empty battlefield that would never heal just to close his eyes and look away.

They were still out there.

And with a fleeting gesture and a moment of soul bearing eye contact, Sakutaro knew that Sakura understood him probably deeper than he understood himself.

“Wait,” Naruto dropped Sakutaro’s hand, stepping away to scratch at his head, “You were in the war? With us?”

Sakutaro’s lips twitched at Tsunade-sama’s muffled “Idiot,” and shook his head.

“While I was in a war, I was not in your war, Naruto-san.” He explained patiently, not entirely unlike the way he’d go about teaching aspiring medical ninja, “As your teammates have already figured out, I’m from a different dimension. One where you and everyone here exist…differently.”

Naruto stared at him like he’d said something exceptionally stupid, which was saying something because it was Naruto, who—like Naruko—was not the brightest bulb in the bunch. They were brilliant in other ways, but some things just weren’t their forte.

“You expect me,” Naruto drawled slowly and with flourish, “Konoha’s resident fuinjutsu expert, to believe that you and some other moron created a dimensional portal with some squiggly lines, a smiley face, and a drawing of a dick next to a storage seal?!”

Naruto dissolved into howling laughter, tears streaming down his whiskered cheeks, “As if!!”

“You were the one that said it was a space time ninjutsu conduit, asshole.” Sakutaro grit his teeth as Naruto’s laughter rose in volume. Fortunately for Sakutaro, no one else found it quite as funny.

“Okay, okay,” Naruto wheezed in between heaping bouts of ugly laughs, “One: I’m not the asshole, you’re the asshole! And two: I was only speaking hypothetically. As in, if you didn’t have all this other shit around it, then that’s what it’d be! But since you got a wiener on your arm, it’s literally impossible for it to work!”

“And yet here I am.” Sakutaro told Naruto, voice contemptuous and wry, almost as if he wanted to spread his arms like a bird and bow for his graceless audience.

Sobering up, Naruto placed a fist on his hip and scratched his chin with the other, eyes squinting and head tilting as he observed the taller man’s face.

Never was there a day when Sakutaro was happier to note that in Naruko’s extensive list of facial expressions, Naruto’s current face was not one of them.

“So,” Naruto pursed his lips, “Hypothetically speaking, if you were from a dimension where things were different, who would you be here?”

“Dobe…” Sasuke very nearly groaned at his blonde teammate’s idiocy. Sakutaro could relate; was Naruto not able to read chakra signatures?

“Shut up, Sasuke-teme!” Naruto spat, “This is a legitimate question!”

“He’d be me, Naruto.” Sakura growled from where she stood next to the Hokage’s desk, fingers rubbing her temples in circular motions, “I am him, and he is me. We are the same person—just from different dimensions.”

Naruto’s mouth dropped open silently, before he shut it with an audible click to stare at Sakutaro suspiciously. “I don’t believe you. You can’t be Sakura. Prove it.”

Blinking slowly at his demands, Sakutaro turned his head expectantly at his female self. It seemed she was at a loss for words, as well. There weren’t many ways to prove a person’s identity. There were the obvious two: DNA analysis and chakra signature identification. But those methods took days, and Naruto looked like he wanted an answer now.

Fortunately, Tsunade was there to save the day.

“And how do you suppose they prove it, brat?” The busty blonde sighed as she leaned an elbow on her desk with her cheek resting against her fist.

Naruto sputtered for a response, clearly not having thought that far, before settling on whatever his mind must have first latched onto, “What’s something only Sakura-chan would know?!”

“Naruto,” Sakura intoned, exasperated beyond all belief, “He wouldn’t know anything about me because he’s not me! He is the guy version of me! It doesn’t mean we have the same mind!”

“Well then, I don’t know!” Naruto huffed, crossing his arms over his chest, “But he’s not Sakura-chan unless he proves it.”

Having apparently had enough of the tomfoolery (something Sakutaro had quickly grown tired of himself), Tsunade stood and pointed a perfectly manicured finger at her female apprentice.

“Sakura,” Tsunade said, voice sharp as a whip, “You have two birth marks, correct?”

Sakura squeaked, and then blushed deeply, “Yes, shishou.”

“Wonderful.” Clapping her hands, Tsunade gestured towards the storage closet by the book case where Tsubasa-shishou kept his cleaning supplies. “Go in there and confirm that yours and Sakutaro’s match.”

Excuse you, lady?! She wanted him to what?! No!

From an outside perspective, all shinobi in the room watched intently as an identical shade of rose flushed up the two pink haired people in the room up to the roots of their hair. The female of the two fanning herself and the male shaking his head resolutely.

“No, absolutely not.” Sakutaro replied, completely adverse to the idea as Sakura also shook her head.

Tsunade’s eyes narrowed, “You think you have choice? Get in there before I make you do it in front of these three!”

Sakura squeaked and made a beeline towards the closet, Sakutaro dragging his feet behind him as he followed. Inomatsu must definitely be cackling behind some stupid book on poisons by now. It’s just his luck, just his luck, that he’d have to show his embarrassing birth mark to someone—both in such intimate places, too!

As Sakura opened the door to the storage closet, pulling the chain to the light bulb as she went, Sakutaro’s breath picked up as he nervously shuffled in behind her as he shut the door. It wasn’t like he hadn’t been with a woman before, or been naked around one. And he’d seen plenty of female bodies as a medic, this was no different.

Plus, Sakura was himself. He was Sakura. There was nothing weird about getting naked in front of yourself, right? It’d be like looking in the mirror…if his reflection had breasts and lady bits. God, he was twenty-two and could barely stomach the word vagina in reference to himself!

He was doomed. He was so nervous. Why was he so nervous? His palms were clammy and he wished he’d put his gloves back on, no one likes clammy palms. But it didn’t matter! It wasn’t he was going to touch her—himself?—anyway, so it didn’t matter!

His wide eyes scanned the closet for something to focus on. Was it small in there, or was it just him?

“Okay,” Sakura sighed, twirling a muted lock of pink around her finger and looking everywhere but at him, “Let’s go at this like medics, okay?”

He didn’t trust himself to speak, so Sakutaro nodded.

“Okay.” Sakura nodded to herself, and he admired the smooth collectiveness of her voice, “You’re a medic, I’m a medic. This is just another physical, nothing to be nervous about.”

Her eyes were identical to his own when they sought them, and he bit back a huff of surprise at her proximity because he could see the blue in her eyes even in the dimness of the supply closet. So, yeah, the closet was definitely smaller with two people in it.

“Besides,” she said shyly with a tremulous smile, “You’re me and I’m you, right? We-we shouldn’t be nervous! So, let’s just get this over with, hm?”

Sakutaro nodded in acquiesce, eased by her gentle bedside manner, but the trembling in Sakura’s hand as she reached for the zipper of her vest belied her nerves. Dissociating himself from the situation, he forced himself to look at her as other patient—something that was admittedly not hard to do—but as the tug on her zipper revealed inches of smooth skin, a lock of long rosette hair fell forward to brush against the curve of her breast and his concentration was shot.

Sakutaro was so embarrassed he wanted to cry. He, the great Sakutaro—hero of the Fourth Great War, one third of the second coming of the legendary three, wrecked by the appearance of his female counterpart. He couldn’t even dissociate! The situation was too weird! What medic couldn’t dissociate themselves?!

But it was his medical and scientific curiosity that spurred him to drink in the sight of her exposed flesh, light freckles and tiny moles placed identically on his own body (freckles only on his shoulders from being in the sun, one tiny mole under his collarbone, two others by his ribcage and his elbow.) His eyes clinically swept up the elegant curve of her neck, taking in her full lips, the straight slope of her small nose, her large eyes staring at him demurely, all set in a pretty heart shaped face.

Sakura was beautiful.

And wow wasn’t that a fucking weird thought? It was so weird, soso weird! But, Sakutaro fancied himself a handsome man, so it’d only be logical that he’d find his female counterpart beautiful, right? He was Sakura, Sakura was Sakutaro.

It was then that he noticed that she was looking up at him expectantly, and she was just so small! He was well over a head taller than her! He’d always thought, in some depraved part of his brain, that if he were ever a woman, he’d be as tall as he is now.

Well, apparently not.

“Y-Y’know,” Sakutaro cleared his throat as if that’d get rid of his nerves, “We don’t have to look at anything. We can just walk out of here and say that we did. No big deal, right?”

Just as Sakura started to nod along to his suggestion, a booming voice sounded clearly through the door, “Haruno Sakura, I dare you to lie to me!!”

Said girl “eep!’d” before repeatedly banging her head gently against the shelves. Sakutaro exhaled nervously, a small grin finding place on his lips as he tried to scratch the back of neck in a nervous gesture he’d picked up from Tenshi, only to put his arm down because the space was too limited.

“She’s scary, huh?”

Sakura huffed a small laugh, “Yeah, she is. The scariest, you have no idea.”

Sakutaro hummed. “Oh, I think I might.”

“Is your shishou scary as hell, too?”

“Tsubasa-shishou is absolutely terrifying. I swear they cow village children by telling them Tsubasa is going to get them if they don’t behave.”

Sakura giggled softly, eyes dancing in the dim light, “I hear visiting mothers at the hospital tell their children to eat their vegetables or else the scary Tsunade-hime is going to make them eat pebbles!”

Their quiet laughter was interrupted by a loud banging on the door, “I did not send you in there to have a tea party! Do as you’re told and get out here!”

Rolling her eyes but still keeping a grin on her face, Sakura unzipped the rest of her vest as Sakutaro did the same.

“I stopped having tea parties when I was five.” Sakura mumbled under her breath as she undid her chest bindings, her fingers freezing when Sakutaro’s head lifted sharply from where he was attempting to unclasp his belts to stare at her with wide eyes.

His mouth dropped open silently, words forming but unable to speak.

“You…?” Sakura’s own lips were hesitant, frozen as a statue, eyes widening in wonder as a bright flush bloomed across Sakutaro’s cheeks.

“Don’t tell anyone!” Sakutaro gasped before shyly averting his gaze, fingers working clumsily to undo loops and buckles.

At Sakura’s silence, Sakutaro added softly, “I was alone a lot, and I didn’t have many friends until Inomatsu.”

Glancing at her from beneath his lashes, Sakutaro watched her bite her lip as a gentle smile softened her face, “It’s okay, me too. I won’t tell.”

He smiled gently in response, and Sakutaro crossed his arms. This part would be easier for him than it was for her, and he lowered his gaze respectfully when Sakura reached the last of her chest bindings.

“Alright,” Sakura sighed, “Let’s get this over with.”

Carefully lifting his eyes to stare directly into her own, he found her standing awkwardly with her arms crossed over her chest. He made sure to look nowhere else but her eyes until she told him to, he did not want shattered forearms again—thank you very much.

She was very nervous, he could tell, and so was he. But he didn’t have to expose himself like she did, so perhaps if he made her laugh…?

“I’ll show you mine if you show me yours.” He grinned at her, eyes warm and keeping a respectful distance. His grin, however, faltered when she blanched and made a face like he’d just farted.

“Ew,” she frowned, “Don’t say that! You’re such a guy!”

“What?!” He laughed, slightly confused but picking up on the teasing lilt in her voice, “I was only trying to make you laugh!”

“But what you said was so dirty!”

“Listen here, woman, I go only where your mind takes me.”

“Oh, my god,” Sakura groaned, hiding a smile behind her hand, “I’m such a dork.”

“I am not!”

Clearing her throat, Sakura held eye contact with him and dropped her arms and Sakutaro, in light of her professionalism and the less awkward atmosphere, successfully dissociated himself enough to reach out with a clinical hand to push aside her vest—right over her pounding heart—to look closely at the nipple of her left breast.

He hoped she forgave him for what he was about to do, but he couldn’t see very well, so he brought his head closer—close enough for his breath to fan across it and see it pebble in response—and angled her towards the light.

A small smile curled his lips as he glanced up at Sakura, who was doing her best to avoid looking at him. There, crossing onto the skin of her nipple from her areola was a slightly darker patch of skin in the shape of an oval. One that matched the one on his own left nipple.

Releasing her vest and taking a step away from her, Sakutaro nodded his head and Sakura nodded back before boldly pushing his vest aside with cold fingers. He stood absolutely still, but shuddered as she trailed her fingertips down his well-formed pectorals, gooseflesh rising quickly along his skin, and was very surprised that she was so…handsy. His own nipple, the same exact peach shade of her own, stiffened as she leaned in to get a better look.

He felt, more than heard, her murmur to herself, “Well, would you look at that.” Before stepping away from him with her own smile.

“Okay!” Sakura chirped, zipping up her vest without doing her chest bindings, “That wasn’t so bad! There’s only one more left!”

Sakutaro raked a hand through his hair, “Yeah, that wasn’t bad at all. Next is the one where the groin meets the pelvis, right?”

Sakura hummed in response, her slim hands already hiking up her black, civilian skirt to reveal black lace panties.

“Trying to impress someone?” He asked slyly, relishing in the blush that spread across the bridge of her nose as she lifted her head—just like him.

“How did you—“ She trailed off at his knowing stare and huffed, “Right. You’re me, I’m you.”

Unbuckling his pants, and sliding them down his legs, Sakutaro took a moment to be mortified. He just met her and he was practically naked! This was so weird!

Standing there with his pants around his ankles, and rolling his black boxer briefs as high as they could go, Sakutoro was quick to curse Inomatsu.

Sakura chuckled, “Black. How sensible. Trying to look cool for someone?”

Sakutoro scoffed as he straightened, “As if she’d ever let me get this far.”

Sakura shrugged as she lifted a glowing hand to her inner thigh, “She’s missing out, then.”

Crouching down in front of her, the glow of her medical ninjutsu illuminating the sharp contours of his face, Sakutaro smirked, “So is he.”

Using the light emitted by medical ninjutsu to find that elusive birthmark in the shape of a stupid flower on her inner thigh wasn’t much better than using the light in the closet, and Sakutaro cursed.

“Well, I can’t see anything,” He said as he rose to his full height gracefully, “I’ll take your word for it then.”

But Sakura had a frown on her pretty face and he didn’t like it, it was like he was upset.

“Hey,” Placing his hand on her shoulder, Sakura looked at him from below her lashes, “What’s wrong?”

Sakutaro’s brow furrowed when her eyes refused to focus on his face, and blinked when they suddenly did just that.

“Aren’t you the least bit curious?” She asked, teeth worrying her bottom lip familiarly,

“Curious?” He repeated, not sure what she was asking of him. He was curious about many things, like why he was staring at himself as a woman.

“Yes.” Sakura whispered, eyes lighting up as something bloomed in her mind, “Aren’t you curious about how perfection and accuracy travels through dimensions? Are we exact replicas of each other, save for—well, you know—or do we have something the other doesn’t? Can we tell by facial expression what the other is thinking? Do we have the same tics? Do we like the same things?”

He didn’t say anything, but she was breathless as she barreled on because she already knew.

“If-If this turns out to be true, and-and we are what we think, then I know you and I know I’m right. You want to know as much as I do.”

Scrubbing his hand down his face, Sakutaro cursed Sakura because she was right. The scientific anomaly of having two people with exact DNA was a treat too tempting to ignore; no two person’s DNA was the same, not even identical twins, so to see two people not cut from the same cloth but the cloth itself was a once in a lifetime opportunity.

Sakutaro didn’t even have to say anything, she knew his response. He nearly flinched when her cold hands found his own, the soothing feel of her medical chakra coaxing his own out of his pores. Her fingers entwined with his own, palms resting against each other as the glow of their hands grew stronger. It was a peculiar sensation having someone’s chakra blend completely and seamlessly with your own; if Sakutaro could describe it, it’d feel like home.

“Will you two hurry up in there?!”

Glancing at the muffled voice coming from the other side of the door, the pair nodded at each other.

“We can explore and theorize later.” Sakura said, excitement showing through her guise of clinical detachment, “For now, feel and confirm.”

Sakutaro had a split second to utter a dumbfounded “wha?” before she grabbed his hand and placed it on her right inner thigh. His hand instantly froze, eyes glued to her flushed face, her glare making his heart beat a steady drum in his chest.

“C’mon, Sakutaro,” Sakura grunted, a very unlady-like sound for someone with a man’s hand on her thigh. And oh, did he just think that? “You know where it is, just touch it and see if it’s there.”

Swallowing the nervous lump in his throat, Sakutaro’s hand eased gently up her thigh, grateful that her skirt was bunched up to her waist, it was already awkward enough that he had to crouch down to reach her, what if he’d had to hoist her into his arms?

He’d probably die from all the blood rushing to his head.

The taut, iron muscles beneath his calloused fingertips quivered as he felt around and he was awed by how silky her skin felt as juxtaposed by her monstrous strength. She was deceptively frail and delicate looking—a berserker with petal pink hair and bottle green eyes. All she’d need was Naruko’s pig tails and she’d be the emasculators of all emasculators.

Well, Sakutaro decided, if he was going to be a woman—he’d want to be her. He couldn’t quite wait for the chance to spar with her.

“Sakutaro,” Sakura whined, and oh she shouldn’t be saying his name like that, not her. He was still a man, even if they were one in the same, and his own leg twitched in response. “What are you doing? Hurry up!”

Nodding more to himself than to her nagging, Sakutaro ignored his impulsive, primal desires to run his hands over such soft, feminine skin and his fingers made a beeline towards where he knew that stupid little birthmark would be.

Spreading her legs even further apart with a nudge of his knee (yes, it was that up in there), Sakutaro ignored Sakura’s gasp in favor of probing deeper. When he reached the junction of where her thigh met her pelvis, he gently extended his long middle finger to feel around the smoothness for the slightly raised skin in the shape of a lotus flower. Finding it, Sakutaro ignored Sakura’s deep puffs of air against his neck in favor of tracing the design to confirm its shape—its petals extending slightly across her labia and surrounding thigh, and he hesitated when he accidentally brushed upon a certain wetness and heat.

Freezing when Sakura let out a low mewl, he became emboldened by her thighs clenching around his hand and he tentatively brushed his calloused fingertips against her again, boldly circling her skin with a featherlight touch.

She rocked against him, and Sakutaro shut his eyes against the heat collecting deep in his groin. What was this? Was this wrong? How did it get to this?

Just when he was about to take the literal plunge, Sakura shoved him into the shelves and bottles of window cleaner toppled onto the dusty floor.

“Okay,” She stood there panting, her unbound breasts heaving beneath her vest. Cheeks flushed, lips parted and eyes darkened by lust, Sakutaro thought her the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen. “You found it. My turn.”

Excuse you, Sasuka who?!

His hips jerked when she toyed with the elastic waistband of his boxers, and Sakutaro buried his face in her hair. Her hair that smelled like vanilla and passion fruit—he smiled, how fitting. Large hands trailing down her sides to rest on her unbelievably small waist, he gripped the fabric of her shirt tightly, straining against the desire to buck into her hand. He was so painfully aware of her already, and this was—this was…he didn’t have a word for it.

Sakutaro hissed when her small, soft hand plunged into his underwear—the side of her palm barely skimming the side of his hardened length as she gently, if not curiously, ran her fingers over the smooth skin of where his own thigh met his pelvis. He, like herself, preferred to be clean shaven—and wasn’t that a given for them? He liked what she liked, she liked what he liked.

His own lotus flower birthmark wasn’t as deep as hers had been, by virtue of being a man, and she found it quickly. But his foot still jerked into a collapsed bottle of detergent when her fingers lightly trailed over the raised skin that overlapped the sensitive skin of his tightened sack. He softly groaned her name into her hair, voice deepened by desire, and he felt her shudder against him.

Sakutaro had never had woman touch him like she was, doing so much by doing so little, and it figured that the one to do so would be himself. Sakura would know that he liked to be teased, just as he knew she’d like the same.

But Sakutaro hadn’t indulged himself in months, and if Sakura kept going, things would be messy and awkward, so he gently eased her away and she mutely pulled her hand from his underwear. She smiled at him sweetly before adjusting her clothing as he did the same, willing his frantically beating heart to slow down and blood pooled below to resume normal activity.

Once they were dressed adequately enough to conceal their experimental activities in the supply closet—of all locations, Inomatsu would be proud—the pair looked at each other with silent understanding and promise.

“You are me.” Sakura whispered, her fingers reaching to trail softly down his cheek.

“I am you.” Sakutaro replied, his hands tucking a strand of long, pale pink hair behind her ear.

And when they smiled at each other, it was like looking in the mirror and coming home.

#haruno sakura #sakura haruno #male sakura haruno

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gigiree · 7 years

Text

Burnt

A/n: day 14 and 15. Sunrise. Pasta. In which Hanabi has a heart to heart. —-

The twilight is eking away behind the gray clouds, painting them a foreboding dark purple that signals more rain to come.

Beyond the sporadic drizzle he can hear patter against the tiny stones inlaid in his garden and walkway, he can hear a much louder clattering. For a mad second, he thinks the rain has started falling harder, only to realize belatedly that the sound is actually the slapping of running feet going hard against the gravel.

He senses a wave of chakra, pressing heated and frightfully heavy on his little home. He chances one glance at Hinata still sleeping peacefully, and takes a deep breath. He arches over her protectively, just before his front door bursts into a thousand wooden pieces.

There’s a loud clattering as all that’s left falls to the ground and he can make out cold, white eyes full of fury peering at him from beyond all the dust.

“Fuck.” He hisses, looking over his shoulder at the horrendous mess. Amazingly, Hinata is still asleep, her steady breaths making her chest and rise up to brush against his.

He tries not to dwell on that. He can’t when he has to whirl around and block a strike from a very livid Hanabi Hyuuga.

She’s little. Not much taller than her sister, but she’s angry and she strikes true. Lucky his Sharingan lets him be one step ahead of her, dodging and twirling.

“UCHI-”

He manages to dodge inside one of her strikes and claps a hand over her mouth. She struggles and he can feel his other shoulder going faintly numb as she gets to land a few hits.

“Would you shut the hell up.” He hisses, and Hanabi’s frustrated shriek is muffled. He sighs, and nods his head towards the couch where his guest is still miraculously asleep.

The sight of a gently slumbering Hinata seems to be enough for Hanabi’s anger to melt away.

She slumps against his hold, and pries his hand off her mouth angrily.

“Why is she here?” She whispers, her tone still angry enough to make him wince.

“She fainted in the shop. The old lady seemed to be fine with me bringing her here.” He shrugs, and then looks back to the damage to his doorway with increasing anger. “And you, you little ass, owe me a new door.”

Hanabi seems to wave him off, her face oddly stricken as she takes in her older sister. Feverish, thinner, dark circles deeper than usual, and slowly breathing under about five warm blankets.

“Why didn’t you put her in a bed? You’re so rude.” She admonishes him quietly, moving forward to tuck the blankets in better around Hinata. She seems a little frustrated when she notices that the covers are already well wrapped and that Hinata has been very well taken care of.

“If I had done that, you would have castrated me and she would have freaked out when she woke up.”

Hanabi doesn’t ask why he didn’t bring Hinata home. He wonders if she already suspects the tongue wagging that would happen should one of the main branch’s princesses came home unconscious. A sign of weakness.

She nods at him, still looking oddly sorrowful and young as she brushes back a few strands of hair behind Hinata’s ear.

“She never tells me anything…she just keeps on giving me that same stupid dopey smile and answers my questions with more questions.” Hanabi whispers, and her voice breaks a little. Sasuke doesn’t want to deal with water works at the moment, but somehow, that face she’s making is ridiculously familiar.

It’s the confusion and loneliness he used to feel when Itachi would evade him, push their time together into distant promises until one day Itachi had seemed to be enough of a stranger, that’s Sasuke could believe this person capable of killing his own family.

Hinata is entirely too benign and soft and cowardly to ever do something as dark as that, but perhaps, the desire to shield her younger sister from all this sorrow is something she shares in common with Itachi.

The thought makes him angry and melancholy. Still, he understands. But her sadness isn’t something he can really deal with. Instead he goes for riling her up.

“You coddle her too much. She’s a grown woman. You didn’t have to bother the old pharmacist and you didn’t have to track her down here.”

Hanabi whirls at him, her long hair swaying violently against the orange and yellow of her kimono.

“You don’t know anything about us. The Hyuuga look out for each other…we’re family.” She bites out, struggling to maintain her volume. “I’m the clan head. I am responsible for everyone.”

She’s still standing straight, but he can see her shrink a little at the claim. He wonders why they foisted such a heavy burden on someone so young…Hiashi was still alive. Why hadn’t they waited?

“How embarrassing it must have been…For her to have had to ask your permission to look at the Hyuuga scroll collection.” Sasuke observes, remembering Hinata’s frustration when he’d assumed that she could give herself permission.

“Shut up.”

“Did it ever occur to you that maybe she’s doing all this to protect you? To keep your burden light?”

“I said shut up.” Hanabi whispers, but he ignores her.

He moves away from her sparking eyes, looking out at the rain staining the stones in garden darker. The cold is seeping in through the broken doorway, but it’s refreshing.

There’s a long moment before Hanabi walks softly to stand next to him, looking out at the rain too.

“She’s always protecting me.”

He sighs softly.

“It’s what big siblings do.”

She clicks her tongue, but looks a bit calmer now. Contemplative.

“What do you want from her, Uchiha?”

“I have no expectations.”

Hanabi turns to look at him. She catches the stillness of his body, the careful stoicism that’s slipped over his face. The tension of his jaw and she pairs that with the way she’d seen him huddling over sister to protect her. She factors in the chilled bowl of water and the damp towel on the coffee table, the pile of blankets.

“You like her.” She barks out a disbelieving laugh, looking at Sasuke with newfound understanding. “You like her. You of all people…”

“Shut up, Hyuuga.”

She doesn’t. She stifles her giggles, but edges her shoulder into his ribs.

“I feel so sorry for you…but it’s probably entirely one sided…my sister…it takes a lot for her to fall for someone.”

He grunts non committal reply. He pretends that doesn’t bother him. He has no expectations after all.

Hanabi quiets down, and then gestures easily towards his ruined entryway.

“How much would you say this is going to cost?”

Sasuke swears he hadn’t planned for his eye to twitch. —-

Hanabi stays too. She sends a crow with a bit of a fudged message.

“Hinata and I are staying over at Haruno’s house for the night. Girls’ sleepover. If anyone asks…” She tells Sasuke in a conspiratorial tone, before clapping her hands and then feels guilty when Hinata mumbles. Her gaze softens, and her smile turns so tender, Sasuke thinks he’s going to be sick.

He’s not sure how he ended up with two house guests, but the Clan Head is adamant that she will nurse her sister back to healthy and keep their honor intact.

She brushes back her sisters hair, threads it into a smooth braid and his heart does a leap into his throat when Hanabi comes close to uncovering the mark, but thankfully, her hands move away from there, and the silence is broken by a thin growling coming from Hanabi’s stomach.

she has the gall to blink wide eyes up at her host and ask-

“What’s for dinner?”

He remembers that he hasn’t done any shopping. —-

He pokes despondently at the pot of clumpy pasta he and Hanabi had tried to make.

“Don’t look at it like that. You’ll hurt its feelings.” She hisses, before moving the pot from the fire onto a cooling mat on his counter.

“It’s already a mess, idiot.” Sasuke says, wincing as she tries mixing it and scrapes the crunchy burnt bits from the bottom.

This seems so surreal. Already the wind is howling against the makeshift plastic tarp they’d placed over the door. The fireplace has been lit, and they’ve moved the couch and Hinata bundle in front of it to keep her from shivering any more.

His small house, empty of all expectations, is now full and broken and too crowded for his liking.

This feels strange. It reminds him of the first few days spent in the village with Sakura and Naruto. When coming back had felt like more than a death sentence, his body tired and heavy.

He’d wanted to tell them to leave him in the Valley of the End, to let him sink into the earth to become a stone, never moving, forever sleeping.

They’d all but laughed in his face, and dragged him to Konoha. They’d offered him food, a place to stay in one of the newer housing districts. He’d stopped locking his door on occasion, just because it was easier than having Naruto push it out of its frame with his exuberant knocks.

He’d stubbornly refused to eat those first few months. And Sakura would commandeer his kitchen, Naruto and her filling up the ring apartment with so much noise. The smell of her burnt ramen could still make his stomach curdle, but the memories were tinged with a latent appreciation.

It’s the same feeling now, except he’s the one caring for this young Hyuuga and her sister, the girl made of starlight sleeping on his couch.

“Sister would have known how to make this come out really well?” Hanabi laments, idly spooning some of the soggy mess into a clean bowl for herself. She begins serving some for Sasuke and he coughs and shakes his head.

“I’m good.” He says awkwardly, and trying to distract her, pursues her train of thought. “Hinata can cook?”

Hanabi squints at him suspiciously before setting down the wooden spoon, and wiping her hands on a dish towel.

“Yeees. She can. Lots of stuff, although she prefers baking.”

“Hn.”

“She also really likes pressing flowers and keeping a garden.”

Sasuke’s interest is piqued. Hanabi wonders just how much he knows of her sister and how could he fall for her when he barely knew her…unless there’s so much more that he knows and she’s just out of the loop again.

So feeling a bit chagrined, she leaves out a few more details like breadcrumbs. Keeping the sweetest details of her sister to herself…that would be up to him to find out on his own. Still, she can’t help teasing him a bit.

“She also likes historical romances. Especially the accurate ones.”

Sasuke smiles…actually smiles softly at some distant thought in that pretty head of his.

“I knew that.”

“What else do you know?”

He pauses, seems to deliberate with himself, but then decides that she already knows about his feelings. There’s not much else to hide.

“She’s looking for her place in this world, but she still holds onto your family as tightly as she can. She likes being free, but also feels lost. She likes tea and coffee equally, and really like peonies. She really likes that umbrella I borrowed from her.”

“What umbrella?” Hanabi asks curiously, past a bite of pasta. He wonders if the manners she’d showed the first time they met were nothing but a ruse. He’s pretty sure they were, but that’s neither here nor there.

He gestures towards the living room, where the umbrella hangs from a hook on the wall. It’s battered edges are charming in the light of the fireplace, and as fairly nondescript as it is, it seems like the best sort of umbrella possible.

Hanabi gasps. Drops her fork in favor of covering her mouth.

“She let you keep the umbrella?”

“Borrow. Keep. Whatever.”

She shakes her head, and looks up at him suspiciously, her eyes watery.

“The pasta isn’t that spicy is it?” Sasuke jokes, but it feels awkward. Misplaced.

“Sorry. It’s just…she almost never leaves that umbrella just anywhere. It was a gift from Neji.”

He looks long and hard at the worn umbrella. Looks at the girl tucked tight under a whole bunch of blankets. With sadness and dreams and a whole bunch of apologies wiped away for now, she looks peaceful.

He feels a fierce tug in his chest, an aching, terrible thing that makes him want to gather her up and curl in around her. To protect her.

It’s horrible and it makes him nauseous…or he could try and blame it on the pasta, but he hasn’t eaten any.

They don’t speak much after that. —

Hinata wakes to the rising dawn, the gray of the sky melting away in the first rays of the warm sun.

She can hear a few mourning doves cooing somewhere in the peony bush. The window pane is dotted with the remnants of rain.

She feels sluggish, but less so than yesterday. She finds, much to her horror, that she is not at home.

The last thing she remembers is Sasuke’s soft smile and the sharp smell of the apothecary.

She shifts her head, and finds her hand to be in Hanabi’s loose grip, her sister’s sleeping form curled up like a cat in an out of place armchair pushed up right next to the couch.

She looks across the room, and finds Sasuke cross legged on the wooden floor, quietly filling out some mission paperwork.

She lets out a cry of dismay, and is ready to apologize, but he looks up and his face is drawn into such a wonderful expression of relief, that she finds her words stuck in her throat.

The sunrise softens his features, makes his smile tender and brings out the hidden grays in his dark eyes.

“Your sister was worried about you. You also owe me a new door.“ He says quietly, and then goes back to filling out the paperwork.

Hinata whispers a hoarse thank you, and lets her head fall back onto the pillow, just so he can’t see how much her face burns with embarrassment. —

#sasuhina #sasuhina month

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