Beta-reading credit goes to elenathehun. What would I do without you, buddy?

Sakura had wanted to come with them. She'd had three days to make her case, beginning with overtures subtle enough to be brushed off as polite worry, and ending, on the day of their departure, with a vigorous debate that must have rattled all the way downstairs. Times like these reminded Sasuke that, yes, that infernal woman was Sakura's teacher.

Or had been, as Tsunade was insisting. Sasuke walked in on Sakura saying, "But even Kakashi-sensei has admitted to missing your wisdom!"

To which said wise woman chortled. "I'm sorry, I must have gone deaf. My wisdom?"

Sakura looked at Sasuke helplessly, who could do nothing but shrug. Sakura tried again, saying it all in one breath. "W-well, I – I definitely think you are wise! You taught me – made me into what I am today, and I regret to say that I still need your instructions. I need you, Shishou!" She finished with a bow.

"Sakura, Sakura, my silly little apprentice Sakura, you need me least of all. No, it's time for you to grow up and assume responsibilities. You can't expect your old master to catch you forever." The fierce pride in her expression caught Sasuke off-guard. Sakura stared at the woman before her – perfect hair, perfect skin, and Yin Seal pulsing with power – as though seeing an impostor.

Sasuke squeezed her hand, speaking for the first time. "Someone has to take care of Orochimaru." This didn't seem to mollify Sakura at all.

"Come now," Tsunade said, impatient and yet soft, "I won't be away forever. At the very least I'll return your boyfriend to you."

Sakura let go of his hand in order to have two hands to massage her temple with. "All right, already. Do you have to double-team me, though?"

Sasuke gave her hand one final squeeze. I'll return her to you, he vowed silently. She didn't seem mollified by that one either.

Justifiably so, as that very night Tsunade disappeared. Sasuke caught up to her at the border of Ame and Kusa. She didn't seem surprised to find him following her.

"It's not her place," Tsunade said as Sasuke joined her.

"Hn."

"She wouldn't understand."

Bluntly, Sasuke said, "She does. More than you give her credit for." After all, he had thought the same, and learned better later.

Tsunade snorted and shook her head. "Let it be known that I still think she could do better than you, but… you're getting there, Uchiha. Keep it up. Now stop dawdling. Orochimaru will not wait for us."

Sasuke thought that with the way they'd been going through his bases Orochimaru would've been alerted already, but he kept his silence and followed. Night gave into day, and the marshes dried and firmed, grass and shrubbery became a steppe. Steppe gave way to cement and stone pavement, and they steered clear of that. Orochimaru would not be found among any civilisation but the one he fashioned for himself. Sasuke had been thinking about it all the while. The Kusa-nin they'd fought had been too low-ranked to be privy to any information pertaining Orochimaru. A snake hiding in grass. But suppose the grass was on fire, suppose a fat rat ran around rustling the grass…

Well, Sasuke was that fat rat, and, as Tsunade loved to note, he could inflame anything with a glance. And they had been going around the world, ringing the bell in every base of Orochimaru's.

On the second day, the snake's tail rattled. Suigetsu hadn't lost his flimsiness at all, and Jūgo still looked at Sasuke with more respect that he'd deserved. It nagged at Sasuke now that he no longer needed Jūgo's absolute compliance, but probably not as much as the fact that they both went back to Orochimaru.

"Karin?" he asked before either could speak.

"You'll see," Suigetsu said cryptically. "Hey, so, just checking, this isn't you coming back home all errant son-like?" He eyed Tsunade nervously as he said this.

"Tell Orochimaru his old friend wanted a word," Sasuke said.

"Yeah, that's what Orochimaru-sama – and me, by the way – figured." Suigetsu shrugged. "Well, this way."

"You seem well," Jūgo said quietly as he brought up the rear.

Sasuke nodded, and – perhaps inspired by his reunion with Sakura – for small talk, he replied, "And you?"

"I am well," answered Jūgo. This caused Tsunade to give Sasuke a jaundiced look.

Suigetsu took them to a crevice in a valley near the borders of Ishi. It was less of a tight fit than it first appeared. The labyrinthine tunnels within were familiar, as was the darkness. He was taken to a room with a ceiling-high glass column filled with ominous-looking effervescent liquid, and the still more foreboding-looking indistinct figure floating within it. Orochimaru stood before his experiment, pretending he hadn't staged all this for his visitors' benefit. As soon as he'd announced their presence, Suigetsu fled, taking Jūgo with him.

Tsunade crossed her arms. "All right, I'll bite. What in hell is that, Orochimaru?"

"Tut, tut, so impatient. Is that the Hokage asking, Tsunade?" Orochimaru turned, slowly, dramatically. The shape of his earlobes were different, as was his nose. His frame was wider than Sasuke remembered. It had only taken Orochimaru three years to start looking for a new body. Sasuke was… not disappointed. Only a fool would be disappointed that an untamed snake, upon his release into the wilderness, would eat the first rat that came his way.

But he wondered what Tsunade would make of this. There was a grim satisfaction to her as she said, "A new body. I see yours was a minuscule change, if any had occurred at all."

Orochimaru's gaze shifted to Sasuke, lingering long enough that Tsunade must have noticed it, too. He answered slowly, as though the gaze should have sufficed and he was disappointed it didn't. "Alas, the wind was stopped before this windmill could be moved. Although since you are here, Sasuke-kun, perhaps I have been remiss. Perhaps you've only been biding your time."

Sasuke didn't answer. He had missed his chance to affect things when he let Orochimaru slip after the war ended, and subsequently never sought him out. Never cared to, if he had to be honest with himself. He was used to the vagaries of Orochimaru's eccentricities, and as long as he didn't threaten Konoha directly, Sasuke didn't care. Even then, he was fairly certain Naruto could handle him. Come what may, Sasuke had promised to come back to Konoha. To come home.

From the start of their journey, Orochimaru had always been Tsunade's business. Tsunade, who had been uncharacteristically still. Taking Sasuke's silence as it was meant, Orochimaru addressed Tsunade once more. "Well, Tsunade? It is a little unprecedented, but I'm sure we could find a suitable arrangement. It is not every day that a Hokage steps down from her position alive. I am humbled to receive your presence here."

"Oh, stuff it," Tsunade said. Sasuke thought it lacked her usual bite. "I'm not here to join you, Orochimaru. Never in a million lifetimes. Put that out of your mind. The time for our alliance had come, and long past."

Orochimaru didn't seem surprised or let down in the slightest. He seemed thoroughly bored, in fact. "Well, I've tried. But surely you did not come all this way with Sasuke-kun only to die, discarded like a used rag now that Konoha has found a virile young man to hang its hopes on."

Tsunade snorted. "Projecting won't validate your issues, Orochimaru. But you're right about one thing…" Suddenly, firmly, she said to Sasuke, "Leave us."

In response, Sasuke only raised one eyebrow. "No. As you say, I'm keeping my promise."

Tsunade didn't seem amused by the callback to their earlier conversation. "This isn't the time and place, boy. Sometimes you just have to fall back on a promise, and vow to make right on the next one."

"This isn't about that. Or you," Sasuke said, insisted really.

"Is that all?" Orochimaru said, sounding almost disappointed. "Are you truly set to oppose me? Tis a folly the way you are now, Tsunade; surely you must have realised that."

"Yes," Tsunade said slowly, "Is that all, Orochimaru? A brush with death, a look at the other side, a second chance at life, and a snake returns to its old hole. Enough."

Orochimaru moved and said nothing. The chamber was suddenly teeming with shadows, like cockroaches that swarmed inside silently as Orochimaru turned and left through the other exit. One vaguely tentacled blob jumped at Tsunade as she followed, but Sasuke's sword got to it first. She never looked back, taking it for granted Sasuke would cover her back. He wondered if it was as much as Orochimaru took it for granted his minions would die to stop Sasuke.

They did, one by one, throwing themselves at Sasuke. He had just enough pity to merely disarm and dislocate what he could. The earth shook with power originating elsewhere, and echoes of destruction that had nothing to do with his carnage deafened his ears. Finally, only Suigetsu and Jūgo remained. The former flinched under Sasuke's mismatched gaze.

"Hey, look," Suigetsu said, holding up empty hands, "For the record, I think this is stupid, too, okay."

The earth shook, with the unmistakable vibrations of a distant explosion echoing in the underground room. Sasuke shrugged. "Are you going to stand in my way?"

Grimacing, Suigetsu slunk off, Jūgo a step behind him. Sasuke wasted no time in chasing after the remnants of the Legendary Sannin. Quiet had descended in a way that left his ears ringing – too quiet.

The path wended upwards, spitting Sasuke onto a prairie, or what was left of it amidst the gouges and craters. With his eyes he found Tsunade almost instantly, sat in the middle of a shallow crater as though in deep meditation. Even at distance he could see the tremors on her hands, the fine lines of age that must have plagued her precious face as well.

Of Orochimaru there were no signs to be seen. The Rinnegan saw nothing foul, but Sasuke still approached with caution, and what in another person would be called dread.

"Tsunade," he began, and waited.

Even with her back turned to him he thought he could see her smile. "Why, Sasuke. You called my name. Worried? I'm almost touched."

Slowly, she turned her head. Withered, and no longer hiding the pain each movement cost her, Tsunade smiled at Sasuke.

"Orochimaru?"

"Not a problem anymore," she said smoothly.

"Ah… And you?"

Tsunade smiled impossibly wide. That seemed to be her only answer. "And what will you do now, Sasuke?"

"Home," he answered, surprising himself with how forceful the idea was, how quickly it leapt off his tongue. He hadn't spent too much time thinking about it, but he supposed it had been long incubating at the back of his mind. And now that it had broken out of its shell there was no containing the longing, the thrill long absent from his journey.

"Then go home, Sasuke," said Tsunade, "Go home, and be lost no more."

And that's all, folks, for my first completed WIP in... forever! I started writing this before the Gaiden came out. My thoughts on canon compliance has changed since then, but honestly, I wouldn't have written a different ending.