#sasusaku hospital

[millientea]

If anyone has fics of post-war Sasuke in the hospital pls tell meh <3

#sasusaku #haruno sakura #sakura #sakura fanart #sakura haruno #sakura haruno fanart #fanart #naruto fanart #naruto #sakura uchiha #uchiha family #sasukefanart #sasusaku fanart #uchiha sasuke #sasuke fanart #sasuke uchiha #sasuke x sakura #sasusakufanart #sasusaku post war #sasusaku hospital

[profound-ninjasalad11]

#Naruto #SasuSaku #Sakura Uchiha (kid) #Sasuke Uchiha (kid) #gifs #Konoha hospital #uchiha clan

[roobylavender]

you know what would automatically change my hatred to love for sasusaku? If their genders were reversed. Majority of the reason why I hate sasuke and sakura relationship is because the type of environment and the culture I grew up in where it's been fed to women since basically birth to always be faithful to her man no matter how terrible he treats her, even after marriage. The pharse, "Just be patient and he will change", infuriates me to another level. Seeing sakura chasing after sasuke throughout the series after numerous rejections and an attempted MURDER on her by him made me roll my eyes so hard like girl just move the fuck on omfg. And even after their "marriage" sasuke's treatment towards her doesn't get better lmao, leaving her alone with a whole ass child to take care by herself?? BYE sakura's patience for him is outmatch cus I would've divorced his ass for that. Though, the more I mature, little by little I begin to understand the complexity of their relationship after putting my gender issues aside for a second and look deep into them. And especially now, after reading your perspective on their whole relationship, it really did made half of my hatred go away and understand the relationship wholeheartedly. Like yeah, I absolutely love the trope of one person saying they don't deserve the other person's love but the other person keep loving them anyway, that stuff makes me giggle and swing my legs in the air and shit. It's just that the only way this trope would work for me if the person loving them has enough self-respect for themselves AND if it's a girl in the former & the guy in the latter. And honestly, I found naruto being borderline obsessed with sasuke annoying too but the reason why I can digest it more well is because naruto can go head to head with sasuke without backing down. Like, I wanted to see at least ONCE sakura having a heated argument with sasuke, or punch him in the face in the series. I feel like sasuke deserves a punch from her at the very least 🤷🏽‍♀️

Sigh, I really did wanna love their relationship and their journey to love (that scene of him catching her when she was about to fall and then having that iconic eye contact had me feeling butterflies ngl) since it has all the tropes I love but the execution is just so...

i mean if it helps any i absolutely hate post-canon and that's where my primary divide with most sasusaku fans lies 😭 i'm not sure if you read the blue-plums post i reblogged but it's a good dissection of why exactly it fails as a conclusion to both their individual arcs and their relationship arc generally. the post-canon we see is a direct answer to what sasuke's and sakura's dreams are at the start of the series, but the problem with this is that sasuke and sakura are nowhere near being the same people at the end of the series as they were at the start. generally, i don't think post-canon really takes the individual arc of any character into much account. its primary goal is maintaining the status quo with a slight veneer of friendship power draped over it for aesthetics. but nothing at the root is changed despite every traumatic development the characters were relentlessly subjected to. resultantly, you're left with a portrayal of sasuke as a neglectful father who glorifies the lone-wolf hero trope, which goes against everything he could possibly have learned from itachi; and you're left with a portrayal of sakura as someone content to keep house despite the bulk of her character arc being grounded in her ability and desire to take initiative not only at home, but abroad. it's not true to who either of them is by that point and, even more than that, it's a disservice to everything they've put themselves through for the sake of the love they were vying for. so while i love sasusaku as it progresses up through 699, i tend to wholeheartedly ignore whatever comes after and relegate that instead to either my own imagination or blue-plums's in her fics

what i will say about the naruto and sakura distinction is that a lot of people are more comfortable with how sasuke reacts to naruto bc they believe what naruto is doing is right. it's kind of like: if the only thing sasuke will realistically respond to is violence then obv naruto can resort to that violence without dwelling on it too much. but if you think about violence in the context of sasuke's entire life, it's not actually helpful at all beyond its ability to physically bring him to a grinding halt. even when naruto finally breaks through to sasuke, it's not the violence that makes things click for him. it's the words he says after, and it's the words he's always said before that that have stayed in sasuke's mind. violence, in contrast, is a poisonous thing for sasuke bc it's the only thing that has defined the parameters of his entire life. it robbed him of every person he cared about prior to his meeting team seven, and inevitably it intimidated him into seeking out more violence once he realized that he was incapable of saving the new people he'd come to care about as well. everything, at the root, was driven by sasuke's traumatically-exacerbated response to love and loss. the idea of losing naruto and sakura to the hands of anyone else was unbearable. so he decided that he'd rather have killed them himself. it was absolutely irrational. but a twelve year old child put through that kind of successive, relentless trauma was never going to think rationally, and certainly not after being exploited by people like orochimaru and obito (and to an extent itachi) in turn

all of this to say: there is of course a gendered aspect to the fact that sakura's response to sasuke is markedly not violence. but i also think people sort of refuse to dissect her response any further and esp in context of the narrative itself. despite being the hallmark of rationality within the team and perhaps even the series, sakura was inevitably always driven by the value she placed on humanity. it would've been so easy and rational and "right" to kill sasuke bc he was an insurgent, a terrorist, a danger to public safety, etc. but sakura knew it was more complicated than that. even without knowing about the intricacies of the uchiha massacre she'd been a witness to his suffering and struggle and helplessness. she was as much unable to kill him bc of her love for him as she was unable to kill him bc she knew it wouldn't be right. bc really, what would it solve. sasuke being written off or dying would accomplish nothing bc he would become one more person in the long line of victims to nationalism and the military-industrial complex. while naruto's desire to retrieve sasuke was driven by his love for him it was also driven by the fact that he was stubborn and relentless and refused to give up on people. if you won't believe in yourself i'll beat the belief into you. it's a very shounen-esque trait. in contrast, sakura's desire to retrieve sakura, while also driven by her love for him, was significantly driven by her ability to see that sasuke needed help. in fact, that's all she ever wanted him to get: help. and it would be one thing for this to be an isolated desire but when you read it in context of her own goals as a medic and a mental health professional, her unwavering belief in sasuke is a lot more striking. she was the only person in the entire narrative who never resorted to violence as a solution to sasuke's problems. and she was angry, to be sure. much as she loves him the struggle to bring him back and convince him that he was worthy of love and healing left her emotionally exhausted. but they're also children at the end of the day. she could've been angry at him, or naruto could've been angry him, and in the end none of it would've mattered in the face of knowing they'd finally gotten through to him. he had a smile on his face, he didn't have an arm anymore, and for the first time in his life he met a loss with utter peace and content. it was a thing of miracles after six years of relentless grief and sorrow, and nothing else could've been on their mind.

at the end of the day, team seven's love for sasuke isn't rational. the farthest thing from it, really. but that's what makes it so radical in context. if love in naruto was only ever meant to be rational then hardly anyone would survive. love was always written as an act of defiance and for however subtle the depiction sakura exemplified it

#this is already so long i won't ramble any further in the text bc i've gotten across my point #but tldr you're totally valid! like honestly a lot of sasusaku fans tend to take the full scope of post-canon as gospel and it's infuriatin #and it definitely panders to a lot of gendered stereotypes #the relationship is i think way easier to digest if you isolate 1-699 and then pretend none of the rest exists lol #me personally i want sasuke to go on travels and meet lots of orphans and dedicate himself to humanitarian work #and i want sakura to do her mental hospital thing and research and advocacy at the village #before the projects she works on inevitably extend to intervillage endeavors #it's a nice way for both her and sasuke to explore their respective itches while also doing something that overlaps #with what the other person is doing. i am also a gazillion times more inclined towards them adopting an orphan #than i am towards the idea of them getting traditional married and having a traditional family and birthing traditional babies. boh-ring #i have a post somewhere on my old blog but to Me it would be revolutionary for sasuke to separate himself from the idea that the #only real bonds are those borne in blood. bc all that matters is love. i think adoption would be a really good personification of that idea #also occasionally they can come back to konoha and do silly couple things. like go to the farmers market and plant flowers #and harvest tomatoes. househusband sasuke and workaholic sakura. my dream combination truly #outbox

[tranquil-turbulence]

SS Month ‘23 - Day 14

Day 13 | Day 14 | Day 15

Prompt: Werewolves

WARNING(S): Mild description of injuries

“Code blue! We’ve got another code blue!” She could still hear the nurses yelling as they ran past her room, seconds before the intercom came to life with the same message. “Code blue.”

Sakura heaved a sigh, or as deep a sigh as she could manage with how weak she still felt. Her wounds were no longer a sharp, rippling pain, but now a dull ache through her bones and muscles. She hadn’t been able to look into a mirror, but judging by the wrappings and gauze she felt on her face, it probably wasn’t pretty.

Turning her head, she looked at the teenage boy in the next bed. He’d gotten here a little after she had, another casualty of the attacks. His eyes were wrapped tightly in bandages, keeping him sightless, and there was a large ugly gash going from nostril to chin, passing through his lips.

Whether he was awake or not, she couldn’t tell. All she could see was his chest rising and falling, the teenager seeming very fragile in that large white bed. He’d had a few visitors now; a couple that were apparently his parents, his mother fraught with worry, and a man who claimed to be his older brother who sat at his bedside until the nurses gently told him to go. Despite all of that, he never said a word, or gave any indication he heard them.

Shifting in her bed, she let out a tiny grunt of pain as her wounds pulled. The bright lights of the room were starting to sprout a headache.

“H… hey…” her voice rasped. “You’re awake… right?”

For a moment, the boy in the next bed remained silent. Then, quietly, he answered, “I’ve been awake for a while now.”

Sakura smiled weakly and reached for the water jug at her bedside table. “Do you… do you remember what happened…?”

The teenage boy’s brow furrowed, creasing the wrappings.

“The last thing… before I got knocked out… was my house being destroyed…” Sakura took a moment to sip some water. “And then I wake up here…”

“I don’t remember much,” the boy admitted. “But… I remember being hit… by one of them. Dammit… I hope I haven’t gone blind.”

She sipped more water, looking at the window. The sky was still dark with the night, and luckily the full moon had waned since the attack.

“So…” He began almost awkwardly. “I’m Sasuke. Did they… seriously put me in the same room as a girl? I don’t know how to feel about that.”

“Why, you nervous around girls or something?” She joked with a wheezing laugh. “I’m Sakura.”

He hummed, thoughtful. “Not nervous, just… curious. I wouldn’t expect them to put us together, considering.”

She giggled again, her throat a little less painful. “I suppose between my injuries and your blindfold, the nurses won’t have much to worry about."

The amused expression that flickered across his face made her smile grow. Maybe her stay in the hospital wouldn’t be so bad after all.

#sasusaku month 2023 #meet cute #hospitals #mild injury #violence mention #sasusaku

[uchiha-hemy]

SasuSaku, después de la guerra, en una habitación de hospital 7w7

✨𝕮𝖗𝖉. 𝕬𝖗𝖙.:

https://x.com/sunimagee?t=zy7ibHLTsbEw7YKg-DCqsw&s=09

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#artists on tumblr #sasusaku #sasusaku fanart #sasusaku forever #sasusaku love #sasuke and sakura #sasuke sakura #sasuke x sakura #sakura haruno #sakura uchiha #uchiha sasuke #sasuke uchiha #anime fanart

[mangasstuffcomics]

Sasusaku moments in the managa part 1

Sasuke was blushing in the manga makes sense a girl just said she wanted to marry him and his 12 old

The physicaly affection was too much for Sasuke apparently he blushed again sakura you can let go now blush

Sasuke acting like a actual 12 old would in the manga

More blushing sasuke also winking sasuke also smiling sasuke and sasuke also complementing her and also realizing something was wrong with Sakura

Sasuke was mad very mad sakura smiled at naruto and thanked him for saving her and sasuke became incredibly jealous of naruto strength and mad that he was incapable of saving sakura like naruto did he was so mad that he thought of sakura smile when woke up in the hospital and over and over again while training he didn't take the girl who liked him Prasing his rival very well one of the many reasons for sasuke inferiority complex concerning naruto and he thought about it for weeks too

Sasuke and sakura holding hands

Eye contact not the last time kishimoto drew them like this

Sasuke touching sakura cheek and hanging on her

Sasuke looks at sakura as she's hugging him in the manga

Sasuke opening up to sakura and telling her that itachi made him cry

Sasuke and sakura forest death

Sakura nothing something wrong with Sakura Sakura bring the First person to realize sasuke would leave the village and thanking Sakura end of part 1

Here's kishimoto drawing of Sakura with the crest of the Uchiha police force

#sasuke Uchiha #sakura haruno #haruno sakura #Uchiha sasuke #sasusaku #pro sasusaku #Uchiha sakura #Uchiha Sasuke #naruto #Naruto

[setsunasknife]

I love the idea of the time Sasusaku got to just be domestic after Sarada was born. Sasuke got to be a stay-at-home dad, while Sakura worked at the hospital.

Sasuke sitting on their couch, Sarada asleep on his chest as he’s reading scroll about one thing or another. Sakura leaving for work and kissing him goodbye and running her hand gently over Sarada’s little head. Sasuke takes Sakura her lunch everyday so that he can see her and Sarada can visit her mommy at work.

After work, Sakura plays with Sarada and cuddles with Sasuke. For the first few years, they got some domestic bliss.

#sakura uchiha #sarada uchiha #sasuke Uchiha #sasusaku #it makes it even more sad when he has to leave #what if they were planning to try for another baby because they loved Sarada so much? #but then he had to leave and they didn’t find it fair

[loveforuchiha]

The most important panels in the evolution of Genin Sasusaku's relationship in Naruto Manga - Part XV

That same night, Orochimaru's men arrived and told Sasuke that if he left the village he would have the power he needs. Even then, Sasuke thinks about Team 7 again.

By the moon, we know it's been a while since Sasuke spoke to Orochimaru's subjects, about two weeks. Sasuke has made a decision and will leave the village, even if it obviously pains him to leave. He won't change his mind, the honor of his dead clan is on his little shoulders.

Before leaving the village, Sasuke sees Sakura waiting for him and ready to try to help him one last time. My question is, does she wait for him every night? Remember that it's been days since Naruto and Sasuke fought in the hospital, almost two weeks, so... now I'm heartbroken.

Sasuke tells Sakura to leave him alone. As he told her before, he wants to bear his pain alone, because he believes he deserves it. Don't forget that Sasuke blames himself for being the only survivor of the clan, and for not having enough strength to protect his parents.

Sakura asks Sasuke if he remembers the day they became a team and he says no, so she thinks he doesn't care about their conversations (so she can return home). Even though he is lying, he does remember, in fact, he tells her the same words he said to her that day shortly after.

Look at them, just smiling and being happy. Konoha took that from us.

#sasusaku #pro sasusaku #sasuke x sakura #sasuke uchiha

[anerdinallherglory]

Approaching Sun (35)

Author’s Note:  I had planned on delivering more this chapter, but the wordcount got a little out of hand and it made the most sense to stop it here. I’ll be working on the next chapter in advance so I can still write the good parts while my muse is present. For those that are still with me reading this story, I would suggest listening to Runaway by AURORA for Sakura’s pov in these chapters and Don’t Worry by Boon for Sasuke’s second pov. Special shouthout to my Optom husband who was happy to lend me his medical knowledge for this chapter. As always, let me know your thoughts. Thank you for your patience. I promise it will pay off. 

Pairing: SasuSaku

Previous Chapters: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34

Chapter 35: No Help Needed

Sakura’s trail was cold. Beyond their shared bedroom and her departing letter, there was nothing. Like a released bowstring, Sasuke had sprung forth into the night in the direction of the only detail he was certain about her plan: Tanigakure. He had plucked this detail from Mako’s memories like a healer digs out pieces of metal in a flesh wound. The physical toll of traveling nonstop overnight while chakra-depleted had cost the Uchiha, and he had been tempted several times to just pop another chakra pill into his mouth. However, he couldn’t risk taking it in case he came upon a situation where he would need it in combat. So, Sasuke had trudged through the sand all night, wrapping his hair and face with the black cloth of his turban, pulling the hood of his traveling poncho up and over his hair to better disguise himself; Sasuke didn’t want to even waste chakra on a simple transformation jutsu. He ‘had to be discreet,’ after all.

Sasuke arrived at the jagged mountainous ribcage surrounding Tanigakure the following evening, gaining entrance easily as an unrecognizable traveler in a world of peace. His eyes searched for any flash of pink and he stopped at every place he could think where Sakura might start her search for the organization bent on killing her: the hospital she made Sasuke stay at just so she could visit the medical facilities here, and even their old hotel room, but there was no sign of her. After hours of staking out with no word or sign, Sasuke cursed himself for not gathering more information about her plan from Kakashi before pursuing her. His inability to find even a trace of her just went to show that Sasuke was always a little too confident in himself and still found himself habitually underestimating Sakura’s skill. 

As the sun began to set, Sasuke wanted nothing more than to approach every single soul crowding the streets in the evening lantern-lit dusk and ask if anyone had seen her, but Sasuke couldn’t risk the suspicion it would rouse about his own identity. Who was he and why did he want to know? How did he know her and where could they find him if they did see her? He could already hear the questions and he didn’t want any rumors to make it to the leadership of this village. Discretion turned out to be a lot more difficult when you were panicking.

And so, Sasuke perched himself on the roof above a crowded izakaya, where many individuals were flocking to participate in nighttime drinking and he did the only thing he could think of: watch and wait for a word, a clue, the breath of her name or description between the boisterous laughter of intoxicated patrons. In the darkness of night, when the starlight outshone the dimming lanterns, Sasuke even became desperate for the crickets to sigh but a syllable of her name. But like everyone else, they gave him nothing. Sasuke released a frustrated sigh, adding another useless sound to the nightscape around him as he jumped down from the building, too restless to do anything but pace the streets and wonder how he ever ended up like this.  

.

.

.

Sakura fingered her dark hair in the reflection of the ink-stained water in the bucket at her feet. She scrubbed at the lingering residue of black dye running past her hairline and wrapped the towel in her hands quickly around her short hair. When Sakura heard the crack of the door, she flashed the woman who entered a quick grin. 

“You dyed it!?” the youngest girl of the group, Tabi exclaimed, falling to her knees beside Sakura with her hands covering her mouth. “But it’s your best feature! You would attract the attention of everyone!”

Sakura shook her head, wanting to say something along the lines of ‘that’s exactly the point,’ but she didn’t for the obvious reason of blowing her cover. And despite what she had told the headmistress of the bathhouse, Sakura didn’t plan on being here long—just long enough to gather the intel she needed in order to move into the next phase of her plan. 

“Mother will not be happy,” the girl stated, reaching over to finger a stray lock of jet that escaped from the bundle atop Sakura’s head. 

“Mother,” Sakura responded, using the same honorific for the headmistress, “will hopefully understand my reasons. I don’t want to stand out too much.” 

Tabi shook her head, saying, “Is it permanent? How long will it last? Will the steam from the bath ruin it?”

Sakura shook her head, grateful she could be honest with the young girl with at least one thing. “It should hold for a couple of days, if not more.”

“The sooner it fades back to rose, the better.” Tabi stated matter-of-factly, rising to move to the other side of the room that they shared to begin the evening ritual of preparing for the night’s work. 

Sakura copied her experienced movements, powdering her face while her hair dried, carefully concealing the purple diamond between her brows. Infiltrating this job had been easier than Sakura had anticipated given the reputation of difficulty in this line of work. Sakura had approached the headmistress as a ‘transfer’ from another establishment. Due to Tanigakure’s exclusive nature from the outside world, it was not difficult to acquire fabricated copies of the necessary paperwork indicating a ‘private transfer’ from another village, and Sakura easily produced the medical assessments of her health that was also required. It also didn’t hurt that Sakura’s coloring was considered rare and possibly desirable by some; in other words, she would be highly profitable. Sakura promised the headmistress a steep percentage for every patron she ‘pleased.’ Or would allegedly please. 

No, Sakura did not plan to violate herself in order to gain the information she was looking for. She had never stooped into this role before in all her mission activity, but Ino had once used the disguise in order to slip into minds of her targets more easily once she got them isolated and no harm could befall her body once she performed the jutsu. 

Sakura had only acquired empty leads since she had arrived in Tanigakure. All Sakura needed to do was assess, learn what she could from the right people, and transition into the next step of her plan. The infiltration was the easy part, but this next part was dangerous, and Sakura would have to tread so very carefully. 

“Why are you here, Tabi?” Sakura couldn’t resist asking, wondering how such a lovely girl ended up servicing despicable men at one of the secretive bath house locations in the shinobi world. “How did you end up in a place like this?”

Tabi eyed Sakura curiously for a second before laughing. “I could ask the same about you.” And then she didn’t talk to Sakura for the rest of the evening as they prepped for the night.

Sakura followed the other girls into the establishment, a building disguised as a common bathhouse in the front section, advertising the typical bathhouse amenities, but concealing the back half which included private baths and rooms. When a section of the wall slid back to reveal a dark sitting room, Sakura had to steal herself and conceal an inner cringe under the stares of the lounging men who were already expecting them in the luxury-style waiting room. Sakura never felt so disgusted in her entire life than she did in that moment under the predatory gazes of those who only sought to devour others and pleasure themselves. Sakura immediately found herself second guessing this step. Maybe this hadn’t been such a clever idea. But she had no other choice. The members of the organization had been able to conceal themselves in a “neutral” territory long enough to gain numbers and begin operation. To Sakura, this meant one of three things. The first and most unlikely option was that this anti-peace organization had managed to keep their activity low enough to avoid detection and that Tanikage was truly focused on other things. Sakura doubted this one. The village was simply too small to have as many members as Mako had claimed go undetected. Or there was a very real possibility that the Kage and Council were already aware and didn’t take action because powerful figures were involved, maybe even leadership, or they simply did not care.

When the door was shut behind them, Sakura watched the other girls disappear into the noisy room hazed with pipe smoke, making their way toward familiar patrons. Socialization seemed to be a part of the selection process, to intensify the excitement, and Sakura planned to take advantage of it. She held her breath as she navigated, walking up to Tabi who had already familiarly climbed into the lap of one of the younger men, apparently a returning patron of hers. 

“Is this a new friend,” the man drawled thickly through a handful of Tabi’s hair that he had twirled throughout his fingers and pressed to his mouth. 

At Tabi’s sudden wide-eyed expression at Sakura’s appearance, Sakura answered for herself, soothing Tabi’s fears in the same sentence. Sakura knew the look of someone who felt threatened by her presence, and Tabi was giving her a warning stare for approaching her patron. “Yes. Guta Hae, sir,” Sakura introduced with a bow. “I am new. Perhaps you could introduce me to any friends that you might be in company with.”

Around her, the socialization had already begun and men who had already found their women for the evening, began to mingle with their associates, the girls clinging to their arms like trophies. Several of them appraised Sakura from a distance, naturally curious at the new face. But Sakura wasn’t going to just be picked from the lot like a prized animal ripe for butcher. No. Instead, Sakura would be choosing amongst them in the form of an introduction, just as she had planned. 

Tabi nodded, exclaiming, “Yes. This is her first night so she doesn’t know anyone,” Tabi smiled back at the man who was running his hands possessively over her leg in the dim light around them as he debated whether this unexpected disturbance would be beneficial in some way, or if he should just whisk Tabi away to their private room. “Could you introduce her to some friends, Toka-san?”

“Hmm,” Toka smirked, “any favor for you, dear,” he murmured into Tabi’s hair. “If you’re willing to return it.” 

The words dropped into Sakura’s stomach to spoil like rotten food. This wasn’t good. Sakura didn’t want anyone to suffer anything personally from her meddling, especially not a woman as nice to her as Tabi had been. Just as she was fixing to retract her request, intent to say nevermind, Tabi was helping the man in the lounge chair to his feet, twirling his arm around her neck as they walked toward the crowd gathering in the back of the room. 

The haze grew thicker around the smoking men as they lounged against the shadow-cloaked walls, and Sakura bowed to them when Toka stopped and held out his hand smoothly for Sakura to take. Masking her face to conceal her repulsion, Sakura slid her fingers into Toka’s waiting palm and he held her hand above her head to spin her in a half pirouette in front of his curious counterparts. The way each of their eyes clung to different parts of her body had Sakura feeling like she might wretch. 

“Guta Hae,” Toka introduced, dropping her hand as if he were a gentleman. Sakura knew he was anything but. “She’s new here. Tabi asked that I introduce her to you all.”   

Sakura’s eyes fluttered as she feigned shyness, bringing her shoulders innocently up for a small second. 

There were exchanged smiles amongst some of the men as they debated their current choices, but Sakura’s eyes assessed them back, weighing her options and gathering what little intel she could gather from them. At the center of the pack, Sakura’s medical eye immediately located a man with his eyes tightly bound with bandaging. He was quiet as he tilted his ear to appraise her, solemn with two girls on each of his knees as he sat in one of the red, luxuriously tufted high-back chairs. And Sakura marked him as someone of little interest to her despite the initial surprise of his blindness. His injuries could mean several things, either good or bad for her purposes, but Sakura also could tell that whatever had happened to him had potentially wisened him, and Sakura didn’t need to approach that type of person. The fact that his injury potentially revealed his status as a former ninja, put him on Sakura’s radar; but, she also believed he might be worth investigating at a distance. Sakura’s eyes scanned over the rest of their smoking and laughing personas. 

“New in what way?” one of the men joked loudly as the rest of them snickered with shiny, interested eyes. “New here? Or…new, new?”

Sakura wanted to sneer at such a suggestive question, curl her lip and let her inner Sakura bleed through her teeth and down into her firsts. “I’m from the Land of Fire,” she revealed, weighing the various reactions to such a revelation. And several eyes flickered to her, assessing her differently. 

“The Land of Fire?” asked the loud man again as he crossed his arms. “Can’t be Konoha. I’ve never heard of such an establishment in the Leaf. Not recently, anyway.”

The others agreed around him, but Sakura didn’t reveal that answer. She had made her cast, throwing the lure out onto the smoke-infused water, dangling the bait in the crocodile faces of six influential men. By smiling and shrugging her shoulders and keeping the mystery of her origin concealed, Sakura was reeling in that line and establish her own draw.

Sakura moved toward the loud one, painting a saccharine grin on her face. He was going to be the one to spill secrets, Sakura could tell. He had a mouth on him like Naruto. “Are you familiar with Konoha?” Sakura asked him sweetly as she moved into his inner circle, receiving a glare from the woman on his arm. “I’ve never been to the Leaf, but had many patrons from there,” she continued. 

Before she even learned the man’s name, Sakura’s fingers were grasped carefully once again, the same application of force that Toka had just touched her with, and she was being tugged back around to face the group of men. The rougher man with the bandaging around his eyes had stood to retrieve her, reeling her in towards him as if she were the bait on the line. “Don’t waste your time on him. He’s a clown.”

Sakura’s instinctual reaction was to become solid, send chakra to her feet and become as immovable as her inhuman strength would allow her to be. It took her only a millisecond to resolve herself, to recommit to her plan, and Sakura became supple despite her annoyance with the man who felt too important to be overlooked by her. 

The two women who had once sat on his lap were gone and he replaced them with her, pulling her down to sit on his right knee. She still stiffened despite her resolve, realizing once again how dangerous the people were whom she was trying to play with. This guy was lucky, so incredibly lucky that Sakura’s purpose here was not to kill every single one of them. 

“I can tell you about Konoha,” he spoke lowly, a whisper as the conversation resumed around them, as he bent his head into her blackened hair. Sakura could feel the rumble of his voice in his chest as he said, “What is it that you want to know?”

Sakura couldn’t help herself. She turned her left shoulder into him to create more distance as she watched him carefully. “Are you from there?” she asked, wary that this man might be able to recognize her despite her careful disguise. 

“No,” he answered, “but I know several men who are.”

“Are you a ninja?” she questioned again, trying with everything in her to relax into this man’s embrace. Where their bodies touched, Sakura felt as if he were like a boiling acid, searing and burning at the connection points. 

“Have you been with a ninja?” he countered, and Sakura recognized his attempt to avoid answering the question. 

“Who do you think visited my previous establishment in the Land of Fire?” 

He chuckled, a mirthful laugh that lasted a little too long to make anyone comfortable. His next words sent an electricity through her blood. “What I wouldn’t give to see your face as you lie to everyone around you that you’re a sex worker like the rest of them.”

Her eyes grew wide as she checked to see if anyone heard what he had said. Most of the couples had already retired to their rooms, so Sakura forced her breathing into a steady cadence of ease and indifference. She turned to him slowly. “I don’t know what you mean.” 

Her hand was taken lightly into his and she resisted the urge to snatch it back as he guided it to his cheek, splaying her fingers across the side of his head with his own as he grinned wickedly. “Your face was the last thing that I saw before I lost my vision. I’ll never forget the sound of your voice, Haruno Sakura.”

.

.

.

When the door closed behind them, Sakura snatched her hand from the blind man who had lead her privately to one of the sauna rooms where extracurriculars were expected to take place. Sakura’s initial plan for this part was immediately interrupted. Pulling a kunai from her tightly-fitted silk attire, Sakura spun and pinned the mysterious man against the black wood of the closed door, kunai flush against the flesh of his throat. Beyond the slight tilt of his chin skyward, the man had no reaction. 

“Who are you?” she hissed, all pretenses and disguises temporarily dropped. 

The man chuckled against her blade. “It’s not surprising you don’t remember me. The battlefield of the war was so gruesome and so many men at your mercy, my face was one in a sea of millions.”

Sakura couldn’t help but think of Satou, Isao’s father, and Satou’s wife, whom Sakura had failed to save. Isao’s mother, too, had been one of millions. Sakura desperately searched for any recognition and came up blank. She remembered healing hundreds of visual injuries—this man had only been one of them. A heavy weight settled in her gut as she realized, that like all those others, his injuries had most likely been passed off to others because of the minority of them in comparison to those on the brink of dying. Severed appendages, organ damage, bleeding. Going blind was unfortunate, but not life threatening.  

Sakura asked the next obvious question. “Are you one of the people out to kill me?”

“Yes, actually.” He admitted and Sakura pressed the blade deeper, contemplating the pros and cons of killing him on the spot. “But,” he added lightly, avoiding the dipping of his throat against the bite of her kunai’s sharpness. “Since I was lucky enough to find you first, I will make you a deal.”

“Why should I even believe a word out of your mouth?”

“Because you have something that I want,” he answered, a hand coming up to grip her own. But he couldn’t move the fisted blade away because Sakura’s hand was as unmovable as steal as she no longer suppressed her immaculate strength. 

“And what is that?” she interrogated, unperturbed by his words. 

“Your abilities,” he smiled. “Heal my eyes completely, and I’ll help you.”

“I’ve been betrayed once already by a fellow member of yours,” Sakura revealed. “I won’t make the same mistake twice. Trusting you is the last thing I am going to do.”

Another chuckle reverberated up his chest like the swell of a wave in a turbulent ocean. “Then don’t trust me. But I am afraid that you have no other choice to work with me.”

“And why is that?”

“Because all of your friends are being watched carefully. And to your soon-to-be dismay, a certain Uchiha has been identified here within Tanigakure, and he is looking for you. The Zenshin’s plans for him aren’t a part of your plans, are they?”

Sakura’s kunai bounced as her hand shook in surprise at his words and it nicked his throat once before she steadied it. He hissed and pulled harder against her hand, but it still didn’t move. 

“He is here?” Sakura asked in a whisper, a myriad of paths of possibility spidering out from the revelation. Sasuke had followed her. Despite her wishes and despite Kakashi’s promises of keeping Naruto and Sasuke preoccupied, Sasuke had followed her. Not Naruto, but Sasuke. Even if it was out of concern for her, why? Why did he continue to doubt her abilities? Sakura pushed those feelings to the back of her mind as a new thought formed around the name of the organization that wanted to kill her and many others: Zenshin. To advance. Progression. The exact same word that Mako had declared to her in the desert wind only nights ago. She finally had the name. 

“Here and unsuccessful in his search for you, is what I have heard,” came the blind man’s sultry response in her face. “We knew you had to be close if he was here sniffing for you.” 

Damn it. Her plans were already starting to unravel. She was banking on the fact that they might not believe her brave enough to confront them, alone and in their own territory.  “On the off chance you’re actually telling the truth,” Sakura growled, “you lot are absolute fools to underestimate Sasuke. He and Naruto are singlehandedly the strongest shinobi to have ever walked this earth. He will mow you down just as Madara did to the shinobi alliance.”

“What about you?” he asked, a smirk tugging on the corner of his mouth despite the knife still secured against his flesh, nearly vibrating with the energy it was taking Sakura not to silence him permanently. “How strong are you?”

In the next movement, Sakura sheathed the weapon and relaxed her face into a smile of her own. “I am not far behind them.”

The blind man instinctively rubbed his neck where her kunai had been, smearing the pinpricks of blood there. “You’re lucky that even blind, my senses are sharper than my companions’,” he spoke, seriousness replacing the nervous humor of his previous persona. “By claiming you first, I have saved you from the lions you were prowling amongst just outside.” 

“Which ones in the sitting room are a part of ‘Zenshin’?” Sakura asked, and her eyes grew terribly wide at the next admission from his mouth.  

“Why, all of them,” he laughed once again. 

All of them? If the man had been able to see, he would have noticed that Sakura’s face had drained of all color. Sakura’s mental efforts doubled as she began to cross out steps of her plan and recalculate, following the conceptual intricate spiderweb of possible effects from each detour she could potentially plan for. 

He took a step toward her. “And all of them were already suspecting your identity the very minute Toka introduced you. I happen to be the only one present who has ever heard your voice. My actions to grab your attention will have interested them even more. I’ll have to explain what I did tonight. Your next move will determine the words that will come out of my mouth.” 

Sakura nodded, still silently assessing her options, before she said, “remove the bandage.”

The man hesitated, as if he was almost unsure if he wanted her to see what lie beneath. He only hesitated for a moment before fingering the white bandage. He walked toward her until he was only a few feet ahead of her. When the bandage slipped down to reveal his eye sockets, Sakura frowned at the unblemished nature of them. Not an external injury that could be healed, then. She had been hoping for cataracts or some other resolvable issue via procedure.

He flinched as she touched his temples, tilting his head back so Sakura could peer into them. She summoned her chakra to her fingertips and pressed exploratory chakra into them. He gasped at the invasion when her chakra made contact with his flesh, and his hand came up to grasp on to Sakura’s wrist.

“I’m only investigating the injury,” Sakura reassured him.    

“I know,” he frowned. “You did so once before. You told me there was little that could be done.”

Sakura nodded, feeling dread at her past self’s words. If she had not been able to heal them, she suspected no one could. Sakura suddenly recalled the shinobi war and Kakashi sensei, whose eye had been torn from his eye socket by Madara and then restored by Naruto, through his perfected Ying-Yang release through the sun seal given to him by Hagoromo. Naruto was not only able to restore Kakashi’s eye from nothing, but he had also been able to revive Obito after the extractions of the Ten Tales, and accomplish other grand healing feats during the war in the duration of which he had possessed the seal. Both Naruto and Sasuke relinquished their Sun and Moon seals when they sealed Kaguya. That sort of healing power was gone now. 

Sakura possessed and could control both Yin and Yang chakra due to her healing training under Tsunade and her natural affinity for genjutsus. Even with Sakura’s near perfect control of chakra, she could not use Yin and Yang simultaneously as Naruto had done with Hagoromo’s seal.  

“Are you able to see anything at all? Lights? Shadows? Shapes?” There was a big difference between being blind and being visually impaired. While others saw nothing but darkness, some could still make out some glimpses of their surroundings.  

“Nothing. Not since the war.”

Sakura frowned as she searched the eyes with her chakra. The eyes themselves were undamaged. The optic nerves intact. The retinas whole. They were clear in appearance, with startling dark irises. Black, like Sasuke’s. No clouding. There was only one possible cause left: brain damage.

Sakura frowned at how hopeless the situation was. “Do you have any pain?”

“No,” he answered. “Would pain be a good sign? That the body is trying to heal?”

Sakura winced at his train of thought. People often believed that pain meant the body was trying to repair itself, and that if there was no pain, it meant one of two things: the body was not damaged, or whatever healing was to be done was complete. This was not the case for many injuries. If he was experiencing pain, it might just indicate a different type of injury. Saying he had no pain was just strengthening Sakura’s suspicion.

Reaching to cup the back of his head, Sakura pushed her fingertips into his scalp. He winced at the contact. 

“Were you hit in the back of the head during the war? Is that how you lost your vision?”

He nodded, grinding down his teeth as she determined the truth he hadn’t offered freely. Brain damage was irreversible. Sakura could not create new pathways for nerves. She felt the dead-end her chakra reached after traveling down the optic nerves. The visual cortexes of the occipital lobe at the very back of the brain was no longer receiving signals from the eye. Sakura suspected that he probably had been told this by multiple healers and was hoping she would arrive at a different conclusion. 

“What’s your name?” she asked, feigning medical indifference to his injury. She wasn’t ready to reveal her deductions while he was still in the mood to answer her questions.

“You can call me Rugo. It’s what the others call me.” 

Sakura nodded, understanding why he wasn’t going to divulge his real identity to her. She decided not to ask what village he was from originally, which was going to be her next question. Tanigakure had been neutral in the war, and since he had allegedly fought in the war, he had either migrated here after the war, or he came to be a part of Zenshin mission, specifically. 

“How many members of Zenshin are ninja from other villages?” she questioned instead while she still had the opportunity. 

He hesitated for a moment, before admitting. “Most of them.” Sakura frowned at that. Just how many ninja had been unsatisfied with their lives after the war that they believed healing the grievances of the next generation stood in the way of progression?

“Is your vision loss why you joined Zenshin?” she asked boldly, trying her best to understand his particular motives. Something as significant as blindness could make the kindest of people bitter. If that was the source of his bitterness, Sakura didn’t understand why he wanted to allow such anger spread for the sake of strength and progression in the next generation of ninja.

He did not answer at first, but then said. “Yes. It is the reason. But I did not join Zenshin to prevent you and others from healing the trauma of ninja. I joined to find you. You are the only one who can help me now.” 

Sakura sighed at his confession and pulled her hands away, but Rugo caught them desperately, a sharp contrast to his cocky charisma. “If you can heal them, I’ll help you. Don’t tell me what the other healers say. I know that you can fix this.”

Sakura pulled her hands free, hesitant to disappoint him. She fumbled silently in her pocket for an item that she had prepared for the next phase of this night once she was alone in this room with whichever man was unlucky enough to become her recipient, even though it hadn’t exactly happened how she had planned.

“I am sorry Rugo. Brain damage cannot be reveresed. I cannot heal them.”

The man frowned deeply at her words, shaking his head. He was not expecting the sharp prick in his neck that came next. Sakura pushed down on the plunger that pushed the harmless sedative into his bloodstream. Ironically, as a medic, Sakura couldn’t help but notice the widening of his eyes as the muscles registered his surprise, which indicated that the cerebellum, the separate part of the brain in control of muscles still operated perfectly. He crashed to his knees before falling forward as she caught him. 

She wished she had the time to tell him that he was lucky, so incredibly lucky to only have lost his vision from the type of head injury that he had received. If any other parts of the brain had been damaged, he would have likely lost his ability to speak, to control his muscles, to walk; he could have become paralyzed. Maybe, if he were still alive, they could have this conversation in the future after she executed her plan. 

Sakura was only a little disappointed that she hadn’t been able to accept Rugo’s offer of assistance as an inside source, after all. Whether or not he had intended to, the Zenshin member had already given her the information she was looking for. And Sakura never really needed anyone’s help anyway. Not Rugo’s. And not Sasuke’s, either.

Only when Sakura turned on the tap water for the bath that wouldn’t be used after all, and she was certain the sound of it would keep her from being disturbed by the head matron, did Sakura bite into her flesh. Blood pooling at the tip of her finger, Sakura placed her thumb against her palm and pushed her five fingers into the ground, performing the summoning technique. 

“Lady Katsuyu,” Sakura greeted the small slug, 1/1000th of her original body, that began to climb its way over the legs of the man she had just incapacitated. 

Sakura knelt, using her blood smeared finger to trace an intricate symbol on Rugo’s temple. The blood pooling where she had traced, and small trails hastily dissected from the main paths to trickle down into the hair at his temples. “You’re certain this will work?” Sakura asked the human-size slug that reached up to cover the man’s unmoving face with her body. 

“It should,” Katuyu reassured her. “The blood is just an extra step of assurance. I should be able to do this on my own without it.”

Sakura nodded, sparing the little extra chakra it took to stop the blood flowing freely from her thumb without completely healing it. She was going to have to repeatedly break the skin there as the night continued, so growing new skin was not needed.  “This is the first of many.”

“Sakura, dear,” Katsuyu responded as the slug divided into an even smaller version of herself and slipped into Sakura’s outstretched palm while the main body completely consumed the man Sakura had incapacitated.  “Please be careful.”

 “Of course, milady. I’m sorry for what you will witness from this moment on.” She tucked the slug away into the hem of her robe’s neckline. 

Sakura opened the door to her room and turned to stare down the hallway at all the closed doors concealing the fellow members of Zenshin. 

.

.

.

It was the sheer lack of activity that he was witnessing in his observation spots that first alerted Sasuke that something wasn’t quite right. In every town, if someone positioned themselves correctly, there would be brawling to spectate, scandals to witness, information to gather, but not in Tanigakure, apparently. The last twenty-four hours had been surprisingly uneventful in comparison to his first pass through when Sasuke and Sakura had been ambushed in their sleep. It was odd, how quickly they had been identified the first time in Tanigakure, but Sasuke had yet to be approached. Yes, he had been more discreet than before, but Sasuke was starting to feel annoyed both with his lack of progress in finding Sakura’s whereabouts and this organizations inability to notice his whereabouts. 

That was, until he noticed that nothing around him was particularly noticeable. Ah, he realized. So I have been discovered. It was the only explanation for how fruitless his efforts had been to acquire any real intel about an organization fixated on killing his friend. Sasuke realized immediately that he was purposefully not being fed anything helpful. It only unnerved him when he realized just how many people must be in this group if the multitudes of people he currently watched from above were being intentionally silent. Sasuke also surmised that whatever organization this was, they were also dodging interest from the leaders of Tanigakure. They, too, were trying to fly under the radar.

And so, Sasuke waited in the night, perched above the noisy izakaya once more, rain pattering against his cloak and bouncing from the brim of his black hood, content to play his role while he schemed. He contemplated doing something unexpected just to shake things up, but what would they consider unexpected? Sasuke tried to see this situation for their perspective. This organization knew that Sasuke had followed his pink-haired friend here, and that he was searching for her. They knew that Sasuke had retreated the last time he was here, whisking Sakura away in order to protect them both. They knew he was trying to be discreet so as not to cause any problems for Konoha. With that information, Sasuke deduced that they expected him to continue to look for Sakura, sit and listen discreetly until he located her, interrupt her mission to take her away. They were allowing him to do just as they expected him to in order not to alert him. 

To their extreme disappointment, Sasuke was smarter than everyone involved in this ridiculous plan to distract him. 

And so, Sasuke covered his face tightly. He planned to throw a wrench into the plan, discreetly, while still sending a very strong message to those he assumed lurked in the rain-cloaked shadows. And it wasn’t going to cost him very much chakra. 

Unfortunately for them, thunder rumbled above him, and Sasuke inhaled the energy of the surrounding atmosphere. Unlike in his battle with Itachi, Sasuke did not have to manipulate the air with Amaterasu in order to manipulate the cumulonimbus clouds into existence. They brooded over him regardless, as if his very frustration manifested into the storm that now cast the village in a torrential downpour. For once, Sasuke saw it as a sign that the universe might actually be on his side, that his decision regarding a future with Sakura might have been the right one. One worth destroying a few buildings for. 

And he did exactly that. Sasuke wasn’t entirely his former revenge-seeking self, one bent on the destruction of an entire village, but he smirked dangerously as a flash of lightning struck the infuriatingly useless izakaya. A lightning bolt strikes in 1/1000th of a second, and the explosion happened first. Sasuke waited on the sound to follow before he let out one quick laugh to himself. Sasuke inhaled as if it were the first real breath he had in a long while; it felt so good to let go, to cave to destruction. To push things back into motion and take control of a situation. 

As expected, people ran from the building, some attempting to put out the small fire in the ceiling, while others ducked for cover back into other structures and away from the smoking rooftop. The heavy rain assisted in putting it out very quickly, causing minimal damage. 

It wouldn’t draw enough attention from those who didn’t know that the lightning wasn’t entirely one of nature’s unfortunate disasters. Only those who were watching him as closely as he was suspecting, would realize that Sasuke was done waiting. 

When two ninja landed on either side of him, Sasuke’s Sharningan glowed in the dark as he leaned his head back against the building, arm slung forward over one reclined knee. His Sharingan darted to each of the two men, seeing what no one else could see in the blinding shower and muddled night. Two shinobi, faces covered, stood before him, proudly adorning two headbands with that insufferable five-spiral symbol he’d seen the last time he was here and more recently glimpsed from Mako’s memories. 

“Finally,” the Uchiha breathed as he rolled his neck. 

At his words, the two ninja, obviously assigned to monitor him, glanced at each other in surprise. Sasuke saw it cross their faces: the moment they realized they had been outplayed and forced to show themselves. 

The air, now electrified, lashed out on its own and more lightning crackled in the air above them. In one lightning flash, Sasuke sat unmoving against the building’s side. In the very next, he had swapped with one of the men, teleporting places with him. Timing his movements with the crash of thunder, Sasuke grabbed the second by the neck and hurtled him into the first, smashing their bodies together. Sasuke justified his next actions based on two things: his low levels of chakra and the fact that he had one arm to handle two ninja at once. His katana spun free of its sheath before either men could even react to their sudden collision, and Sasuke skewered them on his blade, penetrating one through the shoulder and the other through the bicep until they were pinned together against the elevated section of the roof. They cried out in unison but their noises didn’t echo beyond the very next crack of lightning that Sasuke generated somewhere in the distance, its very purpose to disguise their screams. 

Releasing the blade, Sasuke knelt before them in the pouring blackness, just so that they could see a glaring set of red and purple irises. He wouldn’t waste his limited chakra combing through their deranged minds, so Sasuke planned to interrogate his preferred way and do it thoroughly. “Where is she?”

“We don’t know who you’re talking ab—,” came the automatic lie, and Sasuke twisted the blade immediately in disguised fury. He was not in the mood to listen to deceptions. The thunder boomed. 

Sasuke sighed. Sometimes it was the most predictable outcomes that tipped Sasuke over into an all-consuming sea of annoyance. If he treaded this sea too long, Sasuke would tire and eventually sink, and the Uchiha was already too well-acquainted with the depths of anger. If he hit the bottom, people would begin to die. And Sasuke didn’t want to be a murderer anymore if he could help it. Steadying himself, Sasuke pinched the bridge of his nose and said lowly, “I would advise not bothering to waste my time with more lies. It won’t end well for you.”

“We don’t know,” spat the first man as he clutched at the katana penetrating through his arm. “The lightshow is unnecessary. Someone needs to put you in your place, Uchiha, for using your power in this village.” 

So that was it. As long as Sasuke was laying low, they were planning to leave him to his futile attempts to find Sakura. They didn’t want the real authority alerted to his presence because then Sasuke would talk, explain his presence and involve the real people in charge of this village. That, or there was deal with the higherups. If the village leaders knew of this organzaiton’s activity, they had allowed it to transpire as long as it remained inconspicuous. All of this information told Sasuke that the less evident of a profile this organization could keep, the better. Sasuke suspected that Tanigakure didn’t want multiple villages involved, but were somehow benefiting personally from this arrangement. Sasuke guessed that this secret organization also wanted to eliminate more reputable individuals off their list before they were confronted by multiple parties. It was a testament to their lack of experience and firepower if they had yet to eliminate Number 1 and had already pissed off two out of the five Kage. 

“Last chance to be honest,” Sasuke hissed, twisting the blade deeper into both of their bodies, relishing the squelch of the blade’s movements in their flesh.

“We lost her!” the man in the very back hissed, spitting out rainwater, holding his partner very still with his clenched fists to keep him from jostling the weapon any further. “And many of our men, with her.”

Sasuke unfeelingly blinked at that confession. 

“Shut your mouth,” the front man said to the fellow soldier behind him, jostling the both of them as he tried to shift in order to look back at him. 

“Stop moving!” the man in the back hissed, grabbing more firmly to the man seated practically in his lap. 

They had already located and lost her? The mention of other members of their organization going missing was the part that had Sasuke’s mind trying to make connections. Sasuke wasn’t sure if this was a trap. He had expected it to be a lot more difficult to receive any answers from anyone. So, what was the angle? Did they intend to follow Sasuke to her after telling him that? There would be no chance of that happening; Sasuke would quickly ensure it. 

Inhaling, filling his lungs with electric energy, Sasuke reached forward and gripped the hilt of his katana. The current came from his lungs when he exhaled and it snaked around his arm in a circuiting slither, crisscrossing down the blade until a surge of electricity connected with their open wounds. Another crack of lightning, closer this time. More screaming. 

It had been a very long time since Sasuke had used this technique to simultaneously torture and weaken his captive. He remembered performing this very move on Yamato, the temporary squad leader for Team 7 when they had come searching for Sasuke in one of Orochimaru’s underground hideouts. How ironic that he had once felt the same level of annoyance that he was now, but it had been directed at Team 7. And now. Now, it was because these imbeciles had the absolute audacity to come after one of them, as if any member of Team 7 could be taken down by such dirt beneath their feet. As if Sasuke didn’t have the absolute power to obliterate every single one of them without a second thought. 

“Enough,” Sasuke growled lowly, forcing himself to talk more than he was usually inclined to do. “This current will intensify over the course of two minutes until you are essentially executed by electrocution. Which means you have two minutes to answer my questions without lying. If I even suspect a lie, lightning will travel straight to your heart before two minutes is even up.”  

Their eyes widened, and Sasuke moved out of the path of the rain running down the slope of the roof towards him, until he was free of any electrified water that connected with their bodies. 

“First question,” Sasuke began, thickening the electricity traveling through his arm to his blade. “Where was her last known location?”

“The bathhouse,” groaned the man in the back, the more talkative of the two. “The brothel.”

Despite his usual collected countenance, Sasuke’s red and purple eyes widened marginally at such a word. A brothel? A brothel? A new fire quickly formed in Sasuke’s chest at the revelation, and it was not the lightning-style chakra centralized there. It was a fire of panic and rage. 

“When?” Sasuke asked next, amping up the voltage once more. The man in front, the first to receive electrical current, slumped forward unconscious.

“Earlier in the night,” the guy mumbled, lips beginning to numb with the rest of his body. His words still came out in a rush, however, eager to meet Sasuke’s deadline, before he, too, ended up like his partner. “Our leaders failed to give us our next orders at our usual rendezvous point. We arrived at the bathhouse, their last known location, to investigate—the other girls. They told us she had taken them.” 

“Where is this bathhouse?” came Sasuke’s final question.

“Promise you will spare me, first,” the man pleaded, but Sasuke’s frustration only grew at the begging. Instead of assuring the man, Sasuke twisted his blade again. 

After the scream, came the answer to his question. “On the eastside, against the mountain.” This man, too, fell unconscious, slumping against his partner, when Sasuke poured more electricity into his chest cavity. Sasuke ripped his blade free from their bodies. 

He left them there in the rain, feeling absolutely no guilt at all because they would at least eventually wake up. Unlike every man who had occupied Sakura’s space in a godforsaken brothel, these two men were lucky because they would keep their lives. 

#naruto #ssfanfiction #naruto fanfiction #approaching sun #sasusakufanfiction #sasusaku #narutoshippuden #naruto gaiden #sasuke shinden #sasuke retsuden #sakura hiden #sakura haruno #sakura uchiha #sasuke uchiha

[sunshinecherryblossom]

And the war between the ships has begun... sighs... Well, now I want to understand one thing: in the first case we have Minato who notices Kushina who is watching his training because she is worried about him and she approaches him (in all this we remember that she was already Minato's girlfriend at that time) while in the case of Hinata and Naruto she was secretly spying on him without doing anything concrete for him and he didn't even know of her existence in all that but ok! a similar setting is enough and we can already speak of parallelism obviously. Regarding the SS the situation is identical: both Sakura and Kushina show extremely worried about the person they care about at that moment given that both Minato and Sasuke were in the hospital and both were happy with their awakening but the main difference is the situation in which the scene takes place: Minato, in an attempt to stop Kushina's transformation, is seriously injured and seeing Kushina extremely worried about him surprised but also reassured him (note the sweet and calm smile he gives her as she squeezes him) while with SasuSaku we see Sakura extremely worried about Sasuke who hugs him when he wakes up but due to different circumstances. Furthermore, Sasuke has never reacted like Minato with Kushina and coincidentally, when Sakura embraces Sasuke, Naruto is seen with a smile similar to the one his father assumes. Now, the setting could also be the same but this does not mean parallelism. I urge these folks to look for the meaning of true parallelism before spreading such comparisons because comparing the SS or NH to the MK is just a disrespect to Kishimoto's own wife as Sakura is her basis while Naruto represents the author himself. Among other things, seeing so many likes on Twitter on such comparisons only leads me to think how toxic and illogical the Naruto fandom can be and how much people have to try to deny the evidence just to add grist to their own mill. This isn't about ship preferences, everyone can ship whoever they want of course, but about objectivity so please grow up 💀💀💀🙄🙄🙄

#pro narusaku #anti ss #anti naruto ending #anti sasusaku fandom #anti naruto fandom #anti naruhina #anti nh #anti naruhina fandom #minakushi #minato one shot

[watermelonsloth]

Alternative Canon Ships

I think something that annoys me and a lot of other people about the canon ships is that they weren’t the only options by a country mile. So I wanted to finally put my money where my mouth is and take a crack at pairing the Konoha 12 without changing the manga.

Anyone I didn’t mention here should be presumed single in my AU because I either think they’re better single or I don’t care about who they end up with.

Option 1

Naruto and Sasuke - The entire series is about them learning to understand each other and ending the cycle of hatred by coming together (in holy matrimony). Naruto wouldn’t have a character arc without Sasuke and Sasuke’s character arc is incomplete without Naruto. I don’t think I need to explain how they act as foils and compliments for each other or how they’re willing to go to great lengths for each other or how they show time and time again how much they value each other.

Sakura and Rock Lee - We really went through the chunin exams for nothing. They have very little screen time together, but what we have is good enough for it to at least make sense. Rock Lee is clearly willing to both wait and die for her and Sakura has a mini arc about learning not to judge people on appearances and to respect him that culminates in her giving him flowers in the hospital. Worst case scenario it needs to get the NaruHina treatment and have a movie made about why they came together in the end.

Shikamaru and Choji - I’ve already said that I don’t care for any of the inter-Ino-Shika-Cho ships, but they interact with too few characters for me not to bring them up here. They’re childhood friends, they obviously care for and respect each other, they have complimentary personalities, and Shikamaru stands up for Choji on multiple occasions. They don’t get too much attention in shippuden because Choji and Ino were shafted, but they at least continue to support each other when they are shown interacting.

(This is where we start losing a sturdy foundation because the characters don’t have enough screen time spent interacting with anyone unmentioned. From here on out the bar is in hell and I’m only pairing the characters off because it would’ve been expected.)

Ino and Sai - A lot of people shit on this ship and I get why (Ino is caught in Sakura’s shadow and Sai was literally Sasuke’s replacement in team 7, so it’s easy to see them as discount SasuSaku). However, the ship isn’t the most unbelievable in canon. Ino has shown that she has genuine feelings for Sai and they at least interact with each other.

Hinata and Shino - Hinata would make sense with either of her teammates, but I’m choosing Shino because he makes more sense. They’re similarly introverted types, they get along, Shino has been shown to have faith in her abilities (I’m not saying Kiba doesn’t, but Shino’s more consistent about it), and I think it would be fitting for Shino (who’s insecure about being unnoticeable) to end up with someone who would prioritize him if he ends up with anyone at all.

Option 2

Naruto and Sakura - These two would’ve made more sense, “red herring” and “pursued her for rivalry” my ass. Both are ready and willing to make sacrifices for each other, they interact a lot and most of it is positive (we aren’t mentioning the slapstick because I’m not having that asinine argument), there were hints throughout shippuden of Sakura returning his feelings, they have complimentary personalities, Sakura ending up with Naruto is beneficial to her character, Naruto ending up with Sakura is in-line with his character arc and theme, both stop to consider each other’s feelings on multiple occasions, Sakura attempts to help Naruto in any way she can on a regular basis, (even if I hate how often this is mentioned) Sakura is explicitly compared to Kushina, there are more hints at their relationship than I care to list here, and there’s symbolism for a flower under the sun/heaven and earth.

Sasuke and Karin - SasuKarin is the sister ship to Naruto and Sakura because of its parallels (the Uzumaki has feelings first, the girls are both compared to Kushina, the girls both act as support and medics to the boys who take on leadership roles, the Uzumaki wants to protect/see their love interest’s smile, etc). As for reasons: Sasuke has been shown to respect Karin and her abilities, Karin loves Sasuke because he was the first person to show her kindness, Karin has put her life on the line for Sasuke on multiple occasions, both are willing to go to great length for the other, and both unlocked abilities for the sake of saving the other.

Ino and Sai - I’ve already explained this.

Shikamaru and Temari - This ship isn’t perfect, but I think it makes enough sense for most people to not be upset (the only people I’ve seen complaining about it are people who hate Shikamaru or ship something else). They always share at least one scene when Temari enters the story, there are hints about it being romantic, and makes more sense in canon than many of the other options.

Choji and Hinata - This is, admittedly, a stretch, but it isn’t as much as a stretch as ChoKaru so I’m considering this still in the safe zone. The two both have shy and sweet personalities that make it easy to imagine them getting along, both struggle with overcoming their low self-esteem and taking action themselves, both care deeply for their friends, Hinata fits with what Choji wanted romantically in his infinite tsukuyomi dream, and both have the shared idea of maintaining kindness even in a ruthless shinobi world.

Bonus

Naruto and Hinata - This ship was fine, even with its lack of screen time, but the Last and Boruto ruined it, so we’ll just pretend that didn’t happen. Naruto learned to not judge and respect Hinata, Hinata has multiple scenes where she snaps Naruto out of spiraling (the proud failure speech is still peak NaruHina), Naruto stands up for Hinata, Hinata takes a lot of inspiration from Naruto and his determination, and Hinata cares about Naruto’s wellbeing and feelings so much it’s a near irrevocable part of her character. With nothing changed it would still be just as flawed and clumsy as in canon, but it wouldn’t be unforgivable.

Hinata and Rock Lee - Again, I’m stretching canon for a Hinata ship, but I think there’s enough ground to stand on to at least mention it. That ground being a weird amount of parallels. They both have experience being in Neji’s shadow, both of them are untalented and make up for their shortcomings through hard work, both care about the people they love to a self-sacrificial degree, both are true to their word, both of them admire Naruto (join the club), both of them has a teacher that acts as a parental figure, and both of them have unrequited love because the target of their affection has feelings for someone more conventionally attractive than them(though Hinata gets more conventionally attractive as the series goes on so…).

Ino and Choji - It’s not perfect, but it gets the job done. They support each other as teammates, Ino could help Choji be more confident, Ino getting with Choji could symbolize her getting past her superficiality, and they don’t have opposing personalities or beliefs as far as I can tell.

Sasuke and No One - I’m just putting this here to remind everyone that there’s an argument to be made about Sasuke being better off without a relationship. I absolutely get why he was paired off and I probably would too if I was in charge of the epilogue (it can be an indicator of him and the clan healing, plus an Uchiha child/the sharingan is a fun idea to mess around with), but him remaining single also makes sense. He states how he’s disinterested in romance and he just doesn’t have that many working potential love interests in canon. Yes, there’s Sakura but more than a movie could cover would have to change before the two of them could reasonably work together and it might still ruin her character.

#I don’t know if I like option 1 or 2 more #anti naruto ending #alternative Naruto ending #Sasunaru #narusasu #sasunarusasu #sns #leesaku #shikacho #shikachou #saiino #shinohina #narusaku #sasukarin #shikatema #chohina #chouhina #leehina #choino #chouino #I feel like I’m testing the gods’ patience tagging all of these ships #my stooff

[sentimental-idiot25]

SasuSaku: "You look so pretty." A saying every girl wants to hear from the boy she likes. It took Sasuke a few years to just out right say it. He used to say it in a very roundabout way. Lingering glances. Complementing the color of the clothing she was wearing or the different hairstyle she would dawn. It was never explicit. "You look so pretty." She was wrapping bandages around his injuries in the hospital after his fight with Naruto, and she was so focused on her task that she didn't notice Sasuke's gaze fixed on her. When he spoke, she froze, her fingers fumbling with the bandages. It was hard to concentrate when the object of her affection was staring at her with such intensity. Her face turned red and she was sure he could see it. "You look so pretty." He said when he saw she has cut her hair again after not seeing her for a few months. He reached out to tuck a loose strand behind her ear, and his fingers lingered there for a moment. It was the first intimate contact they had since he returned to the village, and Sakura felt a shiver run down her spine. "You look so pretty." He says while placing his hand on her cheek as he leans in and kisses her for the first time. Intentional and sweet.

"You look so pretty." He tells her as became self conscious of her baby bump after an older woman commented that Sakura looks further along than she was. He hold her hand across the table and reassures her with a smile. "You look so pretty." He says between his breaths as she's underneath him with their foreheads pressed against each other. Sasuke repeated those words, his voice becoming a whisper as he became lost in the moment. It was a phrase that had the power to drive Sakura wild, and Sasuke knew it. But he couldn't help himself. He was crazy about her, and he wanted her to know it.

#sentimental idiot25 #sasusaku #sakura x sasuke #sakura #sasuke #compliments #blank period

[lilc77]

Suffer with me SasuSaku lovers...hahaha

So I was perusing through my WIPs and found this little gem. It's another one of those thoughts that came in the middle of the night and I just vomited what I could at the time before I forgot it. It's a WIP, I recently called, "Together Again" - SasuSaku Timetravel AU. After re-reading this WIP, I was sad that there wasn't more. I was even sadder when I realized that it was I, who left it unfinished and haven't written more (*sobs incoherently*). I'm pretty sure where I want to go with this, the problem is the same as always, figuring out how to get there. I will eventually pick this back up but in the meantime, I am sharing this little snippet because it's that good if I do say so myself...lol. So for all you SasuSaku lovers out there, suffer with me and enjoy this snippet. Trust me, you won't be disappointed, except maybe want more...hahaha.

"TOGETHER AGAIN" - A SasuSaku Timetravel AU

CH. 1 

SAKURA HARUNO, the pink-haired medic nin, dries her hair off with a towel as she prepares to read a few medical charts while waiting for her hair to dry before going to bed.  

This has become her nightly routine. Most women have a beauty routine, others spend time talking on the phone with their significant others. Her, she has her work, training and sometimes the other thing that she took from her Shishou, the Fifth Hokage, besides her enormous strength and her medical ninjutsu, her love for the alcoholic beverage.  

She would sometimes have a drink or two while doing some work before bed or when work has been a little too stressful, she stops by a local tavern to get her fill. Occasionally, she would be accompanied by a friend or two but when her friends are busy with their own significant others or out on missions, she finds herself at the tavern alone with her work. Since she’s a regular, the tavern owners and the barkeep keeps an eye on her. The tavern owners see her as a daughter while the barkeep has a hidden crush on her, though he keeps it to himself as to not seem like the other idiots who wanders in the bar looking for someone to warm their beds at night. To be perfectly honest, he’s attracted to her and fears her at the same time. Some of the regulars also look out for her knowing that she can protect herself especially from travelling drunkards who are naïve enough to hit on her and unaware that she has the strength of a hundred men in her delicate little pinkie. On the occasion that it happens, the regulars as well as whoever is working for the night make their bets to see how long she’ll let the poor fellow talk and how far he flies out the door. On a night she feels generous, he gets away with just a hurt pride and with both legs and arms intact. On an unlucky day, she runs into them the next day at her job as Director of the Konoha General Hospital. Of course, she can pass them off to her residents and interns without having to deal with them herself. This earns her a few sniggers and gossip as well as a few of them trying to play matchmaker.  

This is what became of Sakura’s life – work, training and being the only single one left out of her peers. Even her best friend, Ino, is set to be married in a few months. Not that she’s complaining. Her work gives her a sense of warmth and happiness knowing that she saves lives, and she keeps families from being torn apart. She also garnered a lot of respect from her peers as well as the whole village. It makes her feel proud of herself to know that they rely on her and places their lives and the lives of their loved ones in her capable hands.  

As for her personal life, it is a personal choice. It’s not that she doesn’t try, she has been on a few dates, and she’s even slept with a few of them. On one occasion, she had to shower and dress at work coming straight from the previous night’s tryst. However, most of the time, the relationship doesn’t go far mostly because of her busy schedule or they’re busy with missions and are out of the village while she’s stuck in the village running the hospital. She tried dating a civilian once, even though he was from a well-off family and held a prominent position, his insecurities got the best of him, and he ended up cheating on her. Then there is also a part of the reason for her singleness that she would never admit to anyone but to herself, even then she doesn’t dare to speak it out loud except in the deep cavern of her heart – the fact that her heart has never truly healed from the loss of a certain dark-haired nin whom she loved since she can remember.  

After the battle between her two best friends resulting with one of them losing an arm and no trace of the other except for a large, burnt crater with a few specks of blood and singed pieces of clothing. There was no closure, at least not for her. There was no body to bury - just the anger and a gaping hole that won’t heal no matter how hard she tries. She has tried, hell, everyone who loved her tried as well. At first, they would try to comfort her when she would have a hint of an emotional breakdown then they would amuse her and spar with her when she would have her fits of anger though the surrounding area paid for most of it with the number of trees she destroyed and the craters she created on the ground. After a while, after everyone had moved on and thought that she did too, she started keeping how she really felt to herself and decided to bury herself with her work to keep busy and keep from thinking about things she doesn’t want to dwell on. Eventually, it resulted in what her life had turned into – a routine. After a few years, the routine made her life bearable and eventually, not as bad as she thought. She even genuinely started smiling again without having to fake the smile. Her work and the hospital were flourishing. She even started travelling out of the village to promote new practices and procedures and to promote her new idea of starting a Children’s Clinic for Psychological and Emotional Trauma.  

She was also training regularly – sometimes by herself and at times her old teammate and best friend, Naruto, would join her, sometimes her other teammate Sai, and even her old sensei and Rokudaime, Kakashi. She would also go to Lee’s Dojo whenever she has energy enough to deal with his excited youthfulness.  

She even made a conscious effort to start going out more. She had lunch and dinner with her old team regularly, at least as much as their busy schedules permit. Sometimes it would be all of them, other times, it would only be one or two. She also let her girlfriends and female coworkers drag her out for a night in town. She can honestly say that she was happy. Everything was going great. That is until “they” walked into her life. 

She was about an hour into going over her patient’s charts on her bed when she started dozing off. Her head fell sideways on her pillow with the chart on her chest. She must’ve been more tired than usual since she started to snore lightly. She only snores whenever she’s sick or when she’s exhausted. Suddenly, there was a light rap on her door. Sakura didn’t rouse. After a few minutes, the rapping became louder. This jolted Sakura awake. Panic was evident on her face since she wasn’t expecting anyone at this hour, and no one dared to stop by unannounced unless there was an emergency at the hospital. She hurried to put on her robe and see who’s at the door. She stopped a few feet shy of her door and her knees buckled.  

It can’t be. There’s no way it’s him.  

However, there’s no mistaking it. There are two chakra signatures behind her door and one of them is faint and unfamiliar, but the other is as familiar to her as breathing. Her heart pounds in her chest. He knocks again but this time, he calls out to her in the familiar way he used to knowing she’s standing a few feet from him with only a wooden door between them. Not that it would’ve stopped him. The fact that he’s still standing behind it knocking and hasn’t forced his way in says a lot since he could’ve easily broken it down. There is a barrier ninjutsu in place that prevents anyone from entering except for members of her old Team 7 including her sensei. She forgot to alter the ninjutsu and remove his permission once he defected, so he could’ve passed through it and entered at any time.  

“Sakura, please open the door,” the familiar voice pleads. His voice is a few octaves deeper, but she can recognize it anywhere even after not having heard it in years.  

Sakura places her hand on the door, shaking. Sakura can’t believe it. Part of her feels that she’s not awake and that she’s dreaming since she’s dreamt this very thing happening many times before. However, the coolness of the metal knob in her hand and the loud thumping sound of her beating heart in her ears says otherwise. She opens the door but wasn’t prepared to see what she saw.  

There he was, SASUKE UCHIHA, her old teammate, friend, once upon a time enemy, and her first and only love. He stares at her with a look that’s unfamiliar on his face – helpless pleading.  

“S-Sasuke?” Sakura asks more for confirmation than anything else. She still doesn’t know what to think or feel. She’s too stunned to say anything else.  

“Can we please come in?” Sasuke pleads. 

For the first time, she notices the bundle with long, dark hair asleep in his arms. That’s why he couldn’t cross the barrier, it’s because of her. Sakura weaved the signs to undo the barrier. She steps aside and opens the door wider letting them through.  

CH. 2 

Sasuke sips his drink incognito under a dark hood in the back booth of a tavern in a foreign land.  

He’s been working odd jobs from being a hired help to accompanying a fishing vessel out to sea for weeks sometimes months. He has been wandering from place to place ever since he arrived in the foreign country four years ago. He hasn’t quite found a place to settle down in that he feels he could make his home, so he stays until a better job finds him elsewhere. He’s learned the language enough to navigate and communicate with the locals. He’s also learned their customs and adjusted his style accordingly so as not to stand out. Although, it’s not so easy at times since the women tend to give him a lot of attention wherever he goes, hence, the purpose of the dark hood.  

Sasuke Uchiha had always received a lot of attention from the opposite sex even when he was little. He thought it was annoying then and even more so now that he’s older except on a few occasions. They used to fawn over him and act giggly and would follow him everywhere he went so that he could never be alone even when he wanted to, and he so desperately wanted to be alone then. Well, there was one whom he didn’t mind being around. He used to look for her pink hair but that was a long time ago. Sometimes he wonders what she’s doing but shakes the thought off and places it back in its box, in the deep pit of his heart before it can take root. There’s no point in bringing up the past and it’s not going to do him any good. Plus, she’s better off. At least, that’s what he has convinced himself to make himself feel better.  

At times, he would dream about her, not sure why but there she would be. Sometimes he would dream that he was back in the village with her or that she would be with him. Seems like they were sharing a life together. There were also times where he would dream about touching her or what it would feel like to touch her and explore every inch of her body, every curve. They would be so enraptured by each other and entwined together that it was hard to figure out where one started and the other ended. It felt a little too real and at times, not enough. When the loneliness and the longing would be too much for him, he would seek the company of other women, but it always ends the same, he always leaves before they wake and never stays with the same woman. He leaves with his body being fed for a brief time but for some reason he’s never satiated and there’s always a feeling that something’s missing. Plus, no matter how beautiful the woman nor how much pleasure she claims to give him, it’s always her face that he sees and only hers. He feels guilty but he lets them know that there will not be a second time, nor will there be anything more than what he is willing to give that night. Nothing more, nothing less. Most of the women are fine with the arrangements, though there have been a few tears. On one occasion, the woman had been married though to his defense, she did not disclose it until afterwards. He also always made sure to keep the ninjutsu that makes him sterile for a while lest he want a little Uchiha running around.  

A little Uchiha or a few of them running around...yes, he’s even dreamt of them. A few mini-him running around yelling “Papa” and fighting amongst themselves. For some reason, it’s always the same, different dream, same number of children. Plus, these same children look the same in all of them with just the difference in ages in some of them – the eldest, a girl with black hair and dark eyes with glasses looks just like her father, the second, a boy with pink hair and green eyes, the third, another girl with dark features but she takes more from her mother, and the youngest, though one can’t really tell his features yet since he’s either a babe in his mother’s arms or still in his mother’s womb. Also, for some unknown reason, their mother was always her with her bright pink hair and bright green eyes. She’s never looked more beautiful than when she’s glowing and her belly round. The look of joy in her face as she’s surrounded by their rambunctious kids. His face reflects the joy she feels albeit on a much smaller scale. You could see contentment in his eyes. Those were the good times. 

Other times, he would have nightmares of her getting hurt or dying, in the worst times, he would be the cause of it. There are also times when he would dream of nothing but them sitting together and talking. Not really about anything either and he always never remember the conversation but what is ingrained in his memory was her smile, laughter, and the way she calls him, “Sasuke-kun.” No matter what version of a dream he has, he would force himself awake to remind himself that none of it is real. 

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

BACK AT SAKURA'S HOUSE...

She shuts the door and exhales before turning around to face her old teammate. 

“Is there a place I can lay her down in?” Sasuke asks. 

“Uh...in there,” Sakura points in her bedroom. She leads them to her bedroom and cleans the mess off her bed. She moves her patient’s charts onto her nightstand and turns down her comforter for Sasuke to lay the girl in. She finally sees the girl up close. She looks like a mini version of him. Sasuke lays the girl, removing her shoes and tucking her in. He moves the girl’s long dark hair out of her face and tucks it behind her ears. The girl looks about 4 or 5 years old. Sasuke was about to leave when the little girl reaches out for him and calls him, “Papa.”  

He’s a lot taller than her now and his hair is no longer spiky, it’s flat on his face and his bangs swept to one side. Even though they’re only months apart, for some reason, he looks a bit older than her, more mature-looking and refined. He’s still as handsome as ever. His mature look really looks good on him.  

- END OF SNIPPET -

#naruto #uchiha sasuke #haruno sakura #sasusaku #uchiha sarada #timetravel au #wip

[lunaneko14]

It's really funny to me lmao.

Okay listen up because you're about to laugh

So anyway, about 2 years ago I saw some sasusaku fans saying that the Uchiha family was RICH!!! LMAOOOOOO WHAT??? according to the manga, the Sarada Manga Ksihimoto illustrated and wrote. ( and the anime ) They don't even have a house!. They pay rent. The Uchiha have no residence. It was destroyed. Their fortune was gone after their massacre. So what are those people even saying lmao.

Anyway Naruto's family has their own house, has a lot of money since Naruto's hokage and Boruto could have any game and console he wanted and Hima any toy she wants.

So who's winning here? lol

They have a lot to say about Naruto man and I'm tired. I am a Sakura fan but they are insufferable on twitter. They even make me have seconds thoughts about Sakura too. And it's THEIR FAULT.

It’s especially funny when they claim Sakura OWNS a hospital and is a high ranked doctor like she must be spending her check on drugs or toys to satisfy her when Sasuke’s gone because I’ve never seen a high ranking doctor that pays rent……

And fuck me I just realized SASUKE OFFICIALLY WORKS FOR NARUTO SO SAKURA SHOULD BE GETTING SUPPORT FROM THE HOKAGE TOO!

#naruto #anti sakura #anti sakura haruno #anti sakura uchiha #uchiha #uchiha clan #sasuke uchiha #sarada uchiha #anti sasusaku

[sgrayonderii]

visitor to yomi

Even from across the universe somehow they are meant to be; because deep down, they were the same. RTN!Sasusaku AU

For Sasusaku Month 2023, Day 14 Jealousy.

https://archiveofourown.org/works/48568264

It is not a surprise to see Sasuke at her doorstep after a long night shift, but Sakura does not expect him to be slumped over at her entryway half dead and unconscious.

Her heart stops.

On instinct, she runs to his side and checks him for injuries. There is always an unsettling feeling of dread whenever she sees him hurt.

Only him.

Sasuke is reckless.

Always so reckless.

And the dull ache in her chest becomes an unbearable torrent when she imagines how the light inevitably leaves his eyes.

She cannot help but breathe a sigh of relief when she realizes he is only severely depleted of chakra. Not ideal. But not immediately life threatening.

Sakura half considers leaving him there for making her blood run cold, for making her mind stray to dark places. But the logical part of her concludes that it would be detrimental to his recovery, so she hoists him over her shoulder as she unlocks the door to her empty apartment.

As she sets him onto her couch, there is something that bothers her about him she just cannot place. Something different. Something wrong.

But Sakura cannot find herself caring about what ifs and possibilities right now. All she knows is the comfort of the steady beat of his heart.

When her hands finally stop trembling, Sakura steels herself to perform a proper physical exam.

Sakura gently lifts his chin and listens to the faint puffs of his breathing. She watches his chest rise and fall. Placing her hand on his cheek, she feels for the heat flowing through his veins.

She can’t afford to miss anything.

As she unclasps his heavy cape and lets it fall away from his still form, Sakura finally realizes what was bothering her.

Sasuke is missing an arm.

--

Sakura moves him to her bed. Sasuke is too cold for her liking, so she wraps him in her comforter. When she is sure he is situated, she lies next to him. Not close enough to touch, but not far enough to miss his warmth.

Thankfully and surprisingly, his phantom limb is already well healed and well taken care of. The bandages are wrapped professionally and carefully. He smells like smoke and healing herbs instead of rosewater and sweat.

Even though she is glad Sasuke is not in any immediate danger, a small part of her burns with a not-so-foreign feeling.

How dare he show up on her doorstep weeks after he leaves for an escort mission only to return to her like this? More broken than when he left and smelling like another woman?

Sometimes she doesn't know why she tries. Sakura will always be the girl that everyone leaves behind. It is only a matter of time before this boy who smiles like flowers wilts away at her touch too.

But tonight, just for now, she pretends that everything is okay.

--

Sasuke does not wake the next morning or the day after. And Sakura stays by his side the entire time.

She holds his remaining hand as if it were an anchor.

Honestly, she should have taken him to the hospital. Or even to the Uchiha residence. But she deludes herself that the best place for him to be is right here. Sakura is a selfish woman after all. Hasn’t Sasuke always been well aware of that?

Perhaps that is why whenever he presents a flower for anyone other than her, an ugly indescribable rage bubbles up within her.

That gesture should be hers and hers alone.

--

When the gravity of her parents never coming home finally hit her, she realized how alone she was.

The village council decided that the daughter of the heroes of the village shouldn’t stay at a common-place orphanage, instead placing her in her own apartment room, away from the fox’s wreckage.

Occasionally a caretaker would come and take care of some household chores and made sure she wasn’t starving but otherwise, she was left to her own devices. There was much to rebuild after all, extra manpower should not have been allocated to just one of the newly made orphans. The fourth Hokage wouldn’t have wanted that of course.

During those early days Sakura doesn’t want to be a burden.

She found a way to reach the high-top stove with a wooden stool and three pillows stacked on top of each other so the lady who brings her meals does not have the come as often. She learned how to budget her measly allowance so she doesn’t have to ask for more funds when the village coffers were being emptied for restoration. Sakura even acquired the ability to swallow her overwhelming grief whenever it was just too too quiet.

Sakura is after all, as the progeny of the saviors of the village, she cannot dishonor their name by being useless and selfish when so many more people are less fortunate than her and lost so much more.

And because she was such a good child, an example of a true loyal shinobi, soon the village deems her basically self-sufficient.

Soon they just left her to herself entirely.

--

On the third morning since Sasuke arrived on her doorstep, Sakura has to go back to work. She almost wants to call in sick but her strict work ethic prevents her from using her accumulated PTO when she does not really need it.

Sasuke’s breathing is steady now and the color is returning to his cheeks. She can even tell the thurm of his charka gain strength with each passing minute. Discounting his now missing arm, Sasuke probably just needs rest. Whether she is here by his side or in the hospital mattered very little.

With on last fleeting glance, Sakura leaves.

The hospital has a steady trickling of patients by the time she arrives. Sakura is quickly recruited to clinic to help with the incoming ninja for their routine check-ups.

While most of the time, a routine check- up before or after a mission was not out of the ordinary, but ninja are naturally skittish in hospitals. Besides the stench of blood etched into the walls and the screams that echoed down the hallways, most shinobi just hated being poked and probed, especially the ones with significant bloodlines. As a result, only certain high-ranking medical ninja or doctors were allow to examine them.

Sakura just happened to fit both criteria.

Her schedule is seemingly endless.

An Aburame clan member with his insects that were eating his intestines. A Yamanaka now hearing too many voices. A Hyuuga branch member with a splitting headache and a pulsing sealing mark. Several mauled Inuzuka with infected bites and torn limbs.

There is never a time for Sakura to even sit for lunch, let alone think about her house guest.

As the sun begins to set over the horizon, the nurse hands her a chart for the last patient of the day who had finally arrived after their escort mission. Before Sakura can even open the file, the patient saunters in like the world is his oyster.

“Hello Kitten, did you miss me?”

Sakura’s heart stops.

In one hand is a fresh cut single rose, dew still glistening on its petals. Sasuke uses his other hand to brace himself on the doorframe as he tries to lean seductively against it.

His other hand.

She suddenly feels very dizzy. From across the room, Sasuke watches her go pale.

“Sakura! Hey, are you ok?” He reaches for her but she flinches away as if he were a ghost. The hurt in his eyes is palpable.

Sasuke’s patient files fall from her hands. She stumbles backwards and Sakura all but collapses on the floor, no longer able to stand. Sasuke rushes to her side, his arms catching her before she can hit her head on the tile, encircling her in a warm protective embrace. His worried words increase in volume, drawing the clinic staff into the room. But Sakura can’t really hear anything.

Her thoughts are racing.

Because Sasuke is in front of her, alive and well. Uninjured. Perfect and whole.

Then who was the Sasuke she spent worrying about for the last three days? The one that is broken and lying in her bed like a corpse?

She isn’t sure what’s real anymore.

But the faint scent of rosewater keeps her from the brink of insanity.

Eventually, Sakura is able calm her breathing, brushing off Sasuke’s anxious embrace, and stands. She reassures the staff that she is fine, just a bit of hypoglycemia. Nothing to worry about.

Although it is enough to placate her subordinates, Sasuke is not convinced. He flutters around her like a worried hen, insisting that she sit down and eat something. Even digging up a melted candy bar and a few solider pills from his pockets to offer to her.

“I’m fine,” she reassures him, “Really.” Seeing him now, lively like this, warms her heart. “Don’t worry, I’m fine now.” She looks into his eyes, he softens.

“Ah, okay.” Sasuke gives her a half smile, so full of affection it makes her heart ache. He extends his hand to help her up, Sakura takes it.

A knock on the door causes them both to look up. The nurse at the door, pretty and blushing, glances at Sasuke shyly. “Dr. Haruno, Lady Tsunade wants you to take the rest of the day off. She can see the last patient if needed,” the nurse then looks to Sasuke batting her eyelashes, “Sir, if you would follow me.”

“No need my little kitten, I can reschedule. Besides this way I can see you lovely ladies again.”

Sasuke winks and the nurse giggles. His megawatt smile causes the young girl to blush even more.

Abruptly, that ugly sensation that Sakura knows all too well returns. It burns her to the core causing her to grind her teeth. Her fists clench, her nails bite into her flesh drawing blood.

Without a word to either Sasuke or the nurse, she gathers her things and brushes past them to the exit.

“Hey wait for me!” Sasuke is already scrambling after her down the hallway.

Sakura spins around, surprising him mid step. Her glare could kill a lesser man, but he receives it so often that Sasuke is only mildly disoriented. “Go back inside. You are already here, go find Lady Tsunade and finish your physical.”

“But Kitten, you are not feeling well!” there is a slight tremble in his voice, an emotion she cannot really place. “Let me walk you home at least.”

She shakes her head. “Leave me alone.”

Because at the at the end of the day, Sasuke always does.

--

There is a certain spot behind the academy training grounds and further down the path, underneath the shrubbery and pine trees, that Sakura goes to cry.

When she first started school, the teachers all praised her for being so well behaved and well read. An excellent example of a model student. But when it came to the practical exercises, she struggled.

Unlike many of her classmates who had clans and bloodlines and secret techniques more ancient than the village, Sakura was just painfully average.

Her parents did not pass on to her any impressive justus before their untimely demise. Nor did they teach her much besides the basics. From the corners of the schoolhouse, her once-beloved teachers whispered that indeed the only child of the Hokage, despite her efforts, was quite the disappointment.

And the children were crueler.

They did not like the nepotism bestowed on her position as village darling, despite being products of it themselves, and they made sure she knew it. How her efforts amounted to nothing even if her parents were heroes. How no one would look at her if Sakura had not been born under a lucky star.

Her ugliness, her weakness, her uselessness; the reasons that her parents would rather die than come home to her.

Sakura never gaves them the satisfaction. In fact, it just drove her to prove them wrong. She studied harder than anyone else. She practiced longer than her peers. She is a flower that blooms regardless of adversary.

Yet at the end of the day, nothing really filled her emptiness. So she returned to certain spot behind the academy training grounds and further down the path, underneath the shrubbery and pine trees where the ugly, weak, useless girl does not have to hold up a world of expectations.

And then on that fateful day, a little boy the same age as her, stumbled across her hiding spot. Sakura still had tears in eyes and snot streaming down her nose. Her hair was a bird’s nest and her fingers bloodied from holding kunai.

The child was descended from a large influential clan and the epitome of everything she is not. His mother the head of his clan, his father the chief of police, his brother the once in a generation genius. Handsome, strong, and gifted. He was Uchiha Sasuke, the boy in her class who is all smiles and laughter.

But his expression was the one that Izanagi wore when witnessing the horrors and ugliness of Yomi.

Sakura whose fragile perfect facade that she worked fruitlessly to obtain was stripped away in a second by the one person who was her antithesis.

The anger boiled to the surface.

“GO AWAY!” But she was the one that runs away.

Sakura retreated back to her lonely apartment, she hid under the covers, where none of the dying daylight could reach her.

She must have fallen asleep because Sakura was awoken by a light tap on her window. A silhouette outside her balcony was illuminated by the fading twilight. Even though she continued to ignore him, the tapping continued until she finally acknowledged him.

And it was Sasuke Uchiha, the boy who has never lost anything. An outstretched hand held a single rose in full bloom, hurriedly cut from his mother’s prized rose bushes. The thorns had been carefully picked away, though in haste, so Sasuke’s hands match her bloodied ones.

She was flabbergasted. “Wha..?”

“For you!” he was flushed and red and very very sweaty, as if he ran the entire way to meet her. “When my mom is sad, my dad always gives her flowers. So here, take it!”

Gingerly she took the flower from his trembling hands. Sakura felt just as red as him now. “And if you are still sad, I’ll get you more! I’ll get you all the flowers in the village! No, the world!”

Sakura smiled then, then laughter bubbled up in her. He was so silly. So ridiculous. But yet her heart has not been this light in years.

“Thank you, Sasuke.”

Perhaps that’s when her world shifted on its axis.

--

Her neighborhood is quiet when she returns to her complex. As Sakura treads up the stairs, she can’t help but think that maybe, just maybe, the last three days were just a dream. A figment of her selfish desires and exhausted mind.

But as she unlocks the door to her unit, the faint smell of cooking rice and miso soup wafts past the entry way.

It is almost surreal.

Pinpricks of tears gather in her eyes. She has not come back to a home cooked meal in years.

Sakura takes a deep breath and rounds the corner to greet this imposter.

She has seen Sasuke in the kitchen multiple times; he often helps his mother when he comes home early from the station and especially when Mikoto invites her over for teatime. But it is just jarring to see another version of him in her pink frilly apron stirring a pot of soup.

He faces her uttering a quiet “welcome home”, setting some plates on the table. The dead ringer gestures to her with his single arm to sit and eat. But all Sakura can do is stare.

This man is just as handsome but now seeing him awake the differences are obvious. His hair is slightly longer and a fringe covers the left side of his face. He does not hold himself with the brash confidence that she is used to. Rather his posture is a subdued sort of arrogance, like a beast staring down its prey.

Sasuke has always been strong, but this man was dangerous.

And his eyes. One of them the nostalgic gaze she is used to. The other, an endless lavender spiral-the pattern is something only spoken of in forgotten legends, is staring into her soul.

“Who are you?”

Without missing a beat, “Uchiha Sasuke.”

“From when?”

The man, Sasuke, spots a calendar on the wall. “A few years from now.”

She needs to calm down and think.

Time travel is not unheard of, there are even few forbidden Justus that are sealed away in the Hokage’s office that Sakura has researched. Space- time Justus are notoriously hard to replicate though, especially without a bloodline limit. But the greatest danger with those techniques are creating paradoxes. One simple singularity could destroy everything she cares about.

Two Sasukes existing at the same time surely would break the universe. Sakura clenches her fists.

She cannot the Sasuke she lo-…her Sasuke, be overwritten.

However, the planet continues to journey around its star. This man had been in their world for several days at this point. Both Sasuke and this alter ego did not seem to have any side effects of existing at the same time.

And perhaps most of all, she cannot think of any timeline where Sasuke would become like this; stoic, muted, and filled with what seems to be an overwhelming sorrow.

In the back of her mind, Sakura recalls a time where she was lost in an alternate world. She had been amnesia at the time, and even now it still seems like a midsummer dream. But Sakura still remembers it fondly despite it all.

A place where her parents are alive. The place where she, her other self, lives.

“From where?” He smiles then. Soft and gentle, so fragile. It leaves her breathless.

“Far away from here.”

--

Dinner is a mostly silent affair with only the clinking of utensils against porcelain as accompaniment. Occasionally he would refill her plate when she would be close to devouring everything. Strangely he must have known that she hadn’t eaten since breakfast.

Once he deems that she had enough to eat, Sasuke clears his throat awkwardly. “I assume you have many questions but before you start, I want to apologize for imposing.” He appears a bit lost, “I did not realize I was on so low chakra, so thank you for helping me.”

“It’s alright,” Now that she has something in her stomach, the anxiety has ebbed. Sakura does not know where to start but regardless of how or when or why, there is one question that she needs to be answered above all else; “Are you okay?”

On the surface, her words are very broad. Her line of sight however is focused on the man’s missing limb. This Sasuke understands her intention though. “Yes, I’m fine now. These are old wounds.”

Sakura lets out a sigh of relief that she didn’t even realize she was holding. No matter the universe, she hates seeing Sasuke in any sort of pain. “I’m glad,”

“Will you be staying long?” Even if they are not at risk for the universe imploding, having two Sasuke’s in close vicinity to each other might still prove perilous. After all, when Menma’s doppelganger had appeared, her wayward teammate caused a major terrorist incident.

“Just long enough for my reserves to recover.” Sakura nods, understanding that would mean soon.

She hesitates, but only for a fleeting second. “You can stay here… if you would like…until you recover” Sakura wants to think this offer is in the name of Konoha’s security and not her own selfish desire.

“Ah thank you, if you would have me.”

--

“Do you travel to different worlds often?” The are eating breakfast the next day at her tiny dining table. Sakura calls in sick today so she has the leisure of asking the other Sasuke everything that has been plaguing her mind.

“In a sense,” he pauses to pick out the bones from his grilled mackerel, carefully placing them in a small pile at the corner of his plate. Once he completes the task, he trades plates with her and removes the bones from her fish too. “There is threat I’m investigating; I’m just following leads.”

“Should we be worried?”

He shakes his head, “No, this world seems to exist in a different plane from what I can see. It’s probably why things are so different here.”

“Different how?”

“Like…” he contemplates, “like how my counterpart has two hands.” She snorts.

“What else?” He glances over to the picture on her book shelf, the team 7 photo. Where Kakashi looks half asleep, Menma scowling in a bad mood, her; rim rod straight trying to emulate perfect posture, and Sasuke who is winking into the camera.

“We call ours ‘Naruto’.”

“So Ms. Kushina really likes ramen in both worlds.”

He chuckles, “I suppose.”

“It seems like a fun place.”

“Ah.” The other Sasuke has that look again. The one that clouds over is otherwise statuesque face, one of yearning.

“Then why are you here? Why didn’t you go back there to begin with?” When she was somehow transported to the other world, Sasuke’s whereabouts were unknown. The other Ino, her alternate classmates, even Lady Tsunade avoided speaking about him as if he were a taboo subject. Back then, once she had regained her memories, her only thought was how her other self was so fortunate to live in the world where her parents were alive and she was so loved.

But now, Sakura isn’t so sure how wonderful that world is if it could make Sasuke, her definition of happiness, have such a sad face.

His gaze is far off and his voice barely a whisper, “…I wanted to see someone… but I’m not sure I should, she is happier without me.”

“What do you mean?”

“Another thing different about your world is that your version of Uchiha Sasuke, could make her…you… happy.

I’m just not…worthy of her.”

Sakura startles him out of his pathetic monologue by slamming his hands on the table and standing up angrily.

“That’s bullshit and you know it! In no world would any Sasuke be unworthy! You are just being a coward!”

Deep down she knows she is a hypocrite. She is the coward. But she even if she cannot have her parents or her Sasuke, she needs to make she that her other self doesn’t end up like her. Acrimonious and bitter. So ugly and hideous.

Because she finally realizes the look in his eye; the entire time he was looking for a fragment of his Sakura in her.

Hot tears threaten to run down her cheeks, because what she wouldn’t give to be in her other self’s place.

They eat the rest of the meal in silence.

-- By noontime, his charka is back to a healthy level.

Sakura knows that her time is up.

There were so many things left unsaid between her and her parents. Even if this was not her Sasuke, she doesn’t want it to end like this.

“I’m sorry for what I said earlier,” She crosses her arms awkwardly and looks at an interesting spot on the drywall. “I don’t know your circumstances and it was not my place to say that.”

“It’s alright, you were right.” Sakura tilts her head at him, his expression is gentle. “Thank you for everything.”

His strange purple eye begins to dance and a dark mist swirls behind him.

His portal to home.

To her.

As Sasuke turns around to leave, “And I think you should be kinder to yourself too. You and her are similar. In that case, he and I are as well.”

With those last words, his presence is swallowed by the abyss.

--

There is a tapping on her balcony window. A silhouette framed by fading twilight stands silently, nervously on her terrace. Sakura sighs, the turbulent emotions still swirling within her.

She opens her screen door to unsurprisingly find Sasuke there. She gestures for him to enter as the evening chill has already begun to settle in.

“How are you feeling?” In one hand is bouquet of daffodils, the other a packed bentou. He hands her the flowers which Sakura accepts with trembling hand. He sets the food on her table and begins to unload everything.

“When my mom heard you took off work, well you know how she gets,” he unpacks rice balls with umeboshi, karage, tamgoyaki, watercress, pickled vegetables…a seemingly endless spread. “Once you feel better, she wanted to have tea with you. Not that you have to, of course. I think she just likes having another girl around chat about girl stuff…”

He’s rambling now. Sakura grabs his hand, holding it like an anchor intertwining their fingers, halting Sasuke’s anxious chatter.

“You really scared me you know,” he confesses. The expression he makes now, is so similar to the one that another version of him made; one of longing.

“I’m fine now, I promise.” She squeezes their linked fingers, “thank you.”

And Sasuke’s smile, the one at this moment just for her and her alone, is all that she needs.

A/N:Originally I was going to write for D13 Bodyguard but it became too convoluted and work got super crazy. Fortunately, I found my old draft for this instead which fit the Jealousy prompt very well. This was the initial WIP for trials of izanagi but it was scraped because I thought Charasuke would be more fun to write, although he doesn't show up much here. I'd like to think this is a prequel/companion piece to that.Thank you for reading! Happy Sasusaku month~

#sasusaku #Sasusaku month #Sasusaku month 2023 #SasusakuMonth 2023 D14 #SSM23 D14 #D14 Jealousy #RTN!Sasusaku #Road to Ninja AU #Charasuke

[greatideas-badwriter]

SasuSaku: Sacrificed To The Banished Prince Ch. 8

"Your Highness, you're making our guest uncomfortable," Itachi calmly said.

Akuma was doing all he could not to yank his fiance from the prince's uncle's embrace because he was entirely sure he wouldn't be able to hold himself back from attempting murder. Then, he'd lose control of this body, and his consciousness would disappear forever.

Madara Uchiha was forced to retire when Fugaku Uchiha ascended to the throne. After his and Mikoto's death, he was reinstalled as king and made it clear that he wouldn't give the position up a second time. The older Uchiha man released Sakura, who stumbled away to Akuma's side, obviously shaken by the informal behavior.

'She looks terrified,' he shared a glance with the pink-haired woman, and she covertly nodded to communicate that all was well. He turned his glare onto the prince's older brother and uncle, 'I'll cut off their hands once I've rid this body of that coward prince's soul.' How dare they lay hands so casually on her!

"Fear not, Lady Haruka. We'll be family shortly," Madara said with a charming smile, "Please call me Uncle, and don't hesitate to tell me if you need anything."

Sakura surprised Akuma by politely bowing with all the grace of a well-educated lady of high status. Her usually soft voice was firm and devoid of emotion, "Of course, Uncle. I fear there has been a misunderstanding, as my name is Sakura. I still thank you for your warm greeting. It's a pleasure to make your acquaintance." She then directed her bow to the first prince, "Yours as well, Your Highness."

Akuma's eyes locked onto the prince's brother's, and he recognized the subtle look of confusion. Baron Haruno was a well-known man even in the royal palace. As a result, his children were prime candidates for political marriages, though until recently, only the eldest, a son named Hihara, was of age.

The Haruno name used to be affiliated with hard work and self-made wealth. Sakura's grandfather, Mitsuhide Haruno, built and maintained a small fortune with the invention of healing potions. After his death roughly ten years ago, though, Kizashi Haruno, his only son, took over and slowly began to run the family name into the ground.

The need for healing potions had only increased, yet the flow of products had slowed substantially to the point that rumors were beginning to spread that they were no longer being crafted and would disappear from markets once their surplus ran dry.

"Curse, you're being surprisingly well-behaved. Have you finally surrendered to the second prince?" The king asked almost sarcastically while leading everyone into the palace and through the halls.

Akuma scoffed, "We've a temporary agreement to co-exist. I'll earn my freedom soon." 'If I tell them it's because we both desire this female's affection, they'll try to separate us, and I'll be forced to murder everyone.'

"I see. How unexpected," The king stopped at a tall door on the second floor of the massive castle, opening it and gesturing inside, "So long as you remain docile, I won't enforce nightly subduction." He smiled at Sakura, "Are you confident this demon will bring you no harm? I can prepare a separate room if you so desire, Niece."

'Don't mistake my behavior for weakness, Sacrifice,' Akuma threatened inwardly, shooting a glare at the petite woman in question.

She noticed without even meeting his gaze and nodded, "Of course, Uncle. Thank you again for your hospitality."

The king and prince said their goodnights, and then the pair was alone in the large, extravagant bedroom. Sakura's composure faltered the moment the door closed behind the royals. She brought a trembling hand to her chest and closed her eyes, taking a deep breath to apparently calm her shaken nerves.

"The mouse has a talent for keeping up appearances." 'I didn't deem her capable of fooling those idiot royals into seeing her as the average lady.' It impressed Akuma as much as it angered him because he suddenly wondered if anything she'd said or done in his presence had also been fabricated.

He sat on the edge of the bed and began taking off his shoes, red eyes in a glare. Sakura did the same on the opposite side. She didn't comment on his statement.

"Akuma, may I rest?"

She still had her back turned when he sat up and looked her way. He admired her slim figure and tilted his head, "Has traveling exhausted you?"

Sakura angled her body so she could look at the pillow, brushing her long hair behind her ear with low, tired eyes of emerald, "Yes."

He watched the petite woman sluggishly climb under the covers, turn onto her side with her back turned his way, and become still as she appeared to fall asleep. In the short time that they'd been acquainted, it was already noticeable how much easier it was for Sakura to fall asleep or relax in his presence. He found it odd that she could trust a demon because no other human he'd encountered had.

'I want to see the terror in her eyes that I see from everyone else. I want to taste the salt of her tears as she begs me to spare her.'

"...Thank you for not hurting anyone, Akuma. I appreciate you not breaking your promise."

Akuma's eyes widened on her turned back, 'Did she just...thank me? Surely she's aware that I have little choice in the matter.'

An unfamiliar warmth met his chest. His body moved on its own. With a furrowed brow, Akuma climbed under the covers behind her, loosely holding thick strands of her hair in his hand. "Don't misunderstand. I may be your master, but I'm not doing any of this for your sake." No response came.

At some point in the early morning, Sasuke's eyes crept open to land on Sakura's back. Soft pink hair remained loosely between his fingers. Akuma had fallen asleep shortly after lying down, which was rare. The prince studied his fiance's hair, shoulders, and back without moving a muscle.

'This woman is unlike any other I've encountered. I want to know everything she's experienced to become this way.'

One of the main reasons that Sasuke avoided meeting his fiances, other than preventing The Curse from memorizing their faces, was so they wouldn't approach him casually. He was more than traditionally handsome and wasn't ignorant of that fact. The few women he did properly court during their engagements were smitten with him and often tried to tempt him into their beds. This sleeping young lady, however, had done no such thing.

No, Sakura had only asked questions about his curse and himself as though they were to become friends rather than lovers. She offered no information about herself unless first asked and seemed to hang onto his every word as though it was knowledge to be treasured. Somehow she did all of this without coming off as obsessive or uncomfortably eager. Instead, Sasuke almost felt flattered that she deemed him worthy of studying.

Most women see him as either a murderer or a pretty face with money to be taken advantage of. Sakura seemed to see him as a human being, something he'd rarely encountered since the age of twelve.

The prince found himself bringing his handful of her hair to his lips and closed his eyes as he took in the sweet scent.

For the past few days, he'd distanced himself from her because he felt himself growing too attached too quickly to Sakura. Not only that, but he was able to listen to her conversation with The Curse when he forced her to assist him in bathing. The young woman was either playing ignorant about sexual things or truly wasn't taught of them.

It scared Sasuke because The Curse was undoubtedly aware of it, too. Other than murdering the poor girl, there was one thing that the monster could do to harm her from which she'd likely never recover. What was worse was that there was little Sasuke could do to prevent it. All he could think of was to offer to make Sakura's first time a positive experience, but he felt they weren't nearly close enough for such a thing.

So, he was stuck between gathering the courage to talk to his fiance about it or trusting that The Curse wouldn't break their deal and rape her. It'd rid of the demon once all was said and done, but leaving a young lady so broken may be a fate worse than death. He had no idea what to do, and he was hesitant to ask anyone for advice because there was no one he completely trusted with something so sensitive.

"Little brother, I'm relieved to see you in such a state." Sasuke's eyes shot open, and he carefully pulled away from Sakura to sit up and see Itachi sitting at the tea table nearby with a sad smile, a teacup in hand.

The second prince glanced at the still-sleeping woman before climbing out of bed and whispering as his elder brother had to not rouse her, "Don't misunderstand, Brother. The nature of our relationship is not what you assume."

Itachi's smile spread into a soft, mildly amused one, "What is the nature of the relationship with your fiance if not affectionate?"

Sasuke's glare hardened as he crossed the room to open the wardrobe and fetch out clothing for the day, "I believe this is a conversation to be held with Lady Sakura and Uncle, not just us."

Itachi chuckled quietly while getting to his feet, "Be sure to wake Lady Sakura soon so she may prepare for breakfast, little brother."

Once the first prince was out of the room, Sasuke glared at the closed door that he'd disappeared through, 'We haven't seen one another in person in years, yet he only came here to tease me about Sakura. There wasn't anything else he wished to speak about?'

He'd never admit it aloud, but he'd missed Itachi greatly. They'd been attached at the hip as children. Itachi had been the best brother anyone could hope for and treated Sasuke as an equal despite their six-year age difference. He even visited the banished Sasuke a few times during his exile to the winter lands, but that all stopped when the first engagement notification arrived via post. It'd been almost five years since their last face-to-face encounter. There was no reason given, not even a letter responding to the few that a confused Sasuke had sent after being completely abandoned.

After freshening up and dressing, Sasuke hesitantly approached his sleeping fiance. He knelt beside the bed and lifted a hand to her shoulder, only to pause before it could touch. His head tilted unconsciously as he studied her vulnerable face, 'If only I could allow her to rest longer. She looks so peaceful.'

Sighing, Sasuke's fingers curled into a fist, and he returned his hand to his side, speaking to wake Sakura rather than touch her, "Lady Sakura, it's time to get dressed."

Her emerald-colored gaze opened slowly, not seeing anything. Her voice came quietly, "...that man had yellow eyes...."

The prince's mouth clamped shut in shock, 'Yellow eyes?' His own dark ones widened as he recalled the one time in his life that he'd witnessed such a color. Then, he temporarily forgot his caution and touched her shoulder, "Sakura, who is it?"

She seemed to snap out of her tired stupor and sat up, looking around before resting her gaze on him with a reddening face, "L-Lord Sasuke, good morning!"

"What man are you talking about, Sakura? The one with yellow eyes."

Sakura's face paled, "How do you know about that?"

Sasuke shook his head, rising to his feet as she climbed out of bed and soothed her clothing and hair, "You spoke in your sleep just now. You said there's a man with yellow eyes. I need you to tell me who he is."

"Hello. My name is Konan. I'll be tending to Lady Haruno during your stay," the door to the room opened to reveal a tall, straight-faced woman with bluish-purple hair and bright orange eyes.

'I can't talk to her about this with others around.' The prince bowed quickly to the maid and then to his fiance, mumbling so only she could hear, "We'll speak later."

He left the room so she could get dressed for the day, leaning against the wall near the dining room downstairs to take a calming breath and gather his thoughts, 'Is there a chance she met the wizard Orochimaru before he died? If so, maybe she knows of his colleagues. They might be able to offer insight about different options of ridding my body of The Curse.' 

#haruno sakura #uchiha sasuke #sasuke #sakura #sasusaku fic #sasusaku fanfiction #sasusaku #naruto #narutofanfic #naruto fanfiction #naruto shippuden #narutofanfiction #sakura uchiha #sakura haruno