a/n: hi everyone,

thank you so much for your patience and your kind comments. it's been a loaded year but We Are Surviving And Trying To Keep Thriving.

this is the conclusion of this prequel fic. please subscribe to me so you can read the main fic of this series, 'circumstance', once it gets posted. thank you for all your support! this fic means a lot to me and I hope you all enjoy what's coming - maybe not here, but definitely later on. :)

again, as with last chapter, I would like to say -

***content warning in this chapter for gore/death/suicide content. if u are having mental health problems, approach with caution. xo

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travel through the night

because there is no fear

alone, but right behind

until I watch you disappear

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Get up.

That low, ancient rumble resonated in the walls of his mind, gruff and blunt.

Get up, kid, it said again, intangibly poking him into alertness, some probe he could always somehow physically feel. Time to get moving.

Naruto groaned, grumbled, winced into the sunlight that laid warm on his face. It was yellow as a buttercup, noonish, and happily settling into his pores. He wanted to tuck in like a cat, curl up beneath it and nap until it faded into evening.

His eyes flung open. Noonish.

"Shit." He sat up, fog dissolving quickly in his brain. "Kurama! What the hell, dude?"

I'm not your alarm clock, you idiot! the beast barked. Be grateful I woke you up at all!

A groan left Naruto loud and clear, and he buried his face in his hands, smelling the damp grass and earth on his palms. He'd just been kicking it out in Field Four of the training grounds, doing airborne somersaults to expend some of the extra energy he'd had during the earlier hours of patrol this morning. He wasn't supposed to have fallen asleep. He never fell asleep on the job — not since his days as an elementary school student, and back then he was doing it on purpose, trying to prove a point.

Yamato was going to murder him.

Sai was going to murder him.

Naruto sighed, shoving both hands into his hair.

It wasn't like he never goofed off during patrols. Sometimes, he would sneak into Ichiraku from the back, pawning fried noodles and onions off of the jolly, generous Teuchi, or he'd get a spoon or slap on the wrist from his fussy daughter. Sometimes, he would tiptoe on the roof of the school building, dropping notes and found objects to Shino while he studiously learned at the elbow of Iruka — neither of whom were amused by the gifts, making them all the more necessary to give. Sometimes, he would visit Sakura at the hospital and make sure she was adequately caffeinated, just because he was a good friend. Never, though, did he sleep.

Maybe other people did, but he wouldn't know, honestly. Patrols were the most unbelievably boring ten hours in the universe because everyone had to live in the shadows. It would be different if he didn't have to keep himself a secret. That was really the thing about ANBU he still wasn't keen on — all the waiting, the hiding, the surreptitious nature of every single thing. He knew by now that being unnoticeable was not his strong suit.

Whatever. He stood up, feeling the slight muddy wetness on his back and legs from laying in the morning dew too long, but the coolness of it was kind of nice. A great yawn seized him, and he blew out the exhale from his gut, a mangled growl of a yell carrying off with it. Awake. Up. Time to go.

"Kurama," he called to himself, stretching his arms to looseness with a grin.

What, was the response from within, neither a question nor an attempt to play along. Naruto felt his smile grow wider.

"Let's go have a little fun."

Kurama's smirk ran deep, spreading through his body in a ripple of warmth and energy. A swell of chakra, the lighting of a red-golden fuse. The most natural, familiar feeling in the world.

Sure, Kurama replied. Let's do it, kid. But Naruto was already a few steps ahead of him, bounding off, unable to be contained to a moment, even with his mask pressed to the hot skin of his face.

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Another hour or two found him in his usual haunts, seeing how his other friends lived. Shikamaru was napping, home from a mission; Chouji was doing taijutsu drills with his cousins, and Ino was yawning behind the flower shop counter, staring out the propped-open door with tangible wistfulness. Kiba, Lee, and Tenten were off on a mission, as were most of the other chuunin and jounin. Neji had the day off and was using his time to go to clan meetings with Hinata, but Naruto avoided him like the plague. He'd be the first person to rat him out if he caught him not doing exactly what he was supposed to do — he could almost see the stick up Neji's ass lodged beneath his tonsils if he looked hard enough.

He wasn't sure where Sakura was, though. He knew she wasn't at work lately. That the unsealing hadn't gone well. He'd stopped by her house the day before, but she hadn't been there, and without her chakra its using blaring green flare resting constantly in his awareness, reliable and clear when he could even faintly sense it, she was hard to find. She was like — like Sasuke now.

Naruto tamped down the feeling that welled up inside him at the thought of that name, that person. A single finger, pale white, slipping beneath a slight opening in the wraps of his bandages — a ghost of a touch, curious, against skin not his own, but felt suddenly like he owned it more than the rest of his natural body — he swallowed the memory down, hard, feeling the obstruction rise in his throat around the action.

"Eugh," he shuddered aloud, shaking his head with a whip of his neck. Shizune turned to look down at him from her desk chair, an eyebrow raised.

"I told you you wouldn't like them, and yet you insisted." A manicured finger poked at the bag he held, nail crumpling the aluminum as it landed on the nutrition label. "They're diet. Di-et. It's basically just eating solidified air to feel full."

"Then why the hell do you eat them?" His voice was muffled by the wallpaper paste in his mouth. "They don't even taste like cheese. It's just sad."

"Yeah, well. Pregnancy ruined my body." Shizune sniffed, pulling another pen from a chipped mug on her desk. "It's all about the power of belief, Naruto. When you're a forty-year-old woman with no hormone regulation, you'll understand."

"Hm." He slid his body further down the wall, legs long against the floor and cheese puffs forgone.

Forty years old, huh? It was a wonder of a thing. He never used to entertain the idea of getting older than a young adult, just because he wasn't sure if he'd make it that far, parentless and isolated and carrying a demon as he was. Even when he'd made friends, his happiness was so much about the present, and his goal was always right outside of reach, close enough to taste. And then Jiraiya had died, and Tsunade had fought until her true age showed for a long moment, and suddenly it was all he could think about.

He'd pictured himself in this office, leading things, shoving paperwork off his desk in cumbersome heaps and forgetting about it. He'd even pictured the divots in the wood that his heels would make whenever he sat with his feet crossed on the surface, leaning back in his chair to contemplate things. He'd thought about what the village would look like from outside those big windows, how his silhouette would change and broaden over the years he served and stood before it. Hokage, forever. It was all he wanted.

He'd thought about Gaara, wrinkles at the corner of his eyes and lips when he smiled, deepening into a meeting they'd have twenty-five years from now. He'd thought about Shikamaru, all the daughters he'd have that would nag him ceaselessly; whether he'd look like a mirror of his dad, only less badass. He'd thought about Kakashi, old as hell, retired and not looking much different than now, walking around town with his dogs and a newspaper tucked under his arm and a passive wave to familiar faces. He'd thought about his friends and their clans, what their roles would be with families and children and duties and so much to protect and defend.

He'd thought about Sakura, embodying her mentor more the older she got, only kinder and softer and prettier than Tsunade's sharp edges, running the hospital, working harder than anyone else would or could. He'd thought about Sasuke as the adult he'd always been, shoulders straight and broad, stately, and having him whole and normal again with the return of his abilities. Sleek. Powerful. His right hand man. His partner in crime, or the better things that would come with responsibility. A council member — not rewriting the past, but helping Konoha grow from where it was planted.

The three of them together, creating history.

A clanging slam shook the sunny air of the room, whipping the calm from it the same way the door whipped open and hit the wall.

"If one more person tries to tell me how to do my job," Tsunade grumbled, not happy. Her heels clicked against the floor. Naruto could feel the steps where he lay, like heartbeats tapping on the back of his head. "I'm too old for this shit, Shizune, I'm telling you right now."

"That's why you should let me do it," he replied cheerfully, and Tsunade started, noticed him splayed out, a giant among mountains of obsolete paperwork. A signature frown touched the corner of her lips.

"The hell are you doing here?" Shizune was used to this by now, clearly, and paid no attention to the Hokage coming over to kick her esteemed ANBU agent and favorite jounin in the leg. Naruto yelped. "Why aren't you on duty?"

"This is duty!" He rolled away from Tsunade's ruthless foot and hopped up, springing into standing. "I'm protecting the Hokage!"

She looked him up and down with a grimace, a spark in her eyes, and then she stalked toward him suddenly. Naruto stumbled back, unwilling to get a smack on the ass that would bruise, again. She cackled at whatever face he made.

"Come here, you shit. I'm not going to hit you."

"Yeah, right. I'm not fallin' for that one again." His fingers crossed into that familiar sign. "Kage bunshin no —" his back hit the wall — "ah! Ahh! Shizune! Shizune" — Tsunade closed in on him — "AHH! SHIZUNE! HELP!"

All that could be heard were muted crunching noises. "Sorry," Shizune murmured, writing on something. "Busy."

"Damnit, Naruto." A firm brush of a hand to his shoulder. "Stay still, damnit! There's grass all over you!"

"Oh. I forgot about that." Every muscle in him mostly relaxed, letting her turn him and swipe drying straws off his uniform.

"Of course you did," she muttered. "Tracking it all over my damn office."

It was quiet again for a minute. Shizune was snacking on the remainder of her despicable excuse for food, finishing up signing some documents; Tsunade was fussing all over him, picking blades of grass out of his hair and shirt and grumbling the whole while. Something about it all tugged deep within his stomach — nostalgia, maybe, or deja vu. Comfortable.

Tsunade pulled at his shoulder and turned him to face her. He blinked down at her, feeling young and kiddish. Her nails were a light scratch at his eyebrow. Green fluttered like confetti to the floor, slow, floating in the sunlight paneled toward their feet, like it was chasing the last it knew it would get.

"You look awful," she said, thumb pressing beneath his eye. He started. "Have you been subsisting entirely off of salt? Are you even sleeping?"

In any other case, he'd brush it off with a yes, baa-chan, an annoyed huff or a raspberry tongue. But he'd seen the dark circles there after showering this morning — an open book, no secret to hide. And more than that, he could see the sallowness in her own skin, the frayed hair around her temples, the way her jutsu was crumbling at the very edges. She looked haggard. Worried. So was he.

"Are you sleeping?" He resisted making a joke about her drinking habits. She'd probably slap him or something. He could see the empty bottles rolled uncaringly beneath her desk chair. The piles of scrolls lying languid on the floor from where they'd clearly been thrown against the wall.

"No," Tsunade murmured, and her eyes slipped away. The palpable weight of her gaze slid off of him in an instant. Exactly, he thought, trying not to recall Sasuke's slack, unconscious face and gray pallor, blood dried in the corners of his lips. How much he wanted — they both wanted, him and Sasuke — to feel that pulse of chakra beneath his skin again, quicksilver.

"How did the meeting go?" Shizune asked with some gentleness. With a final pat to his shoulder, Tsunade turned away, stomping halfheartedly toward her desk. A huge sigh left her, slouching her shoulders like the grandma she was.

"Honestly, it was a nightmare." Red fingernails scanned the scrolls all atop her desk. "I'm worried…"She seemed to hazard a glance back at Naruto. "If we don't get a handle on our — situation, everything up north will spiral out of control before we even get the chance to do something real."

His stomach twisted. "I thought ANBU was making progress with the de — de…"

"Demilitarization efforts? Sure we are. A number of high-ranking officials were assassinated thanks to us," she said more clearly. "But the ninja there are unbelievably powerful. Don't you remember Kakashi's probe team?"

He felt himself blink. "Kakashi-sensei?"

Tsunade stopped shuffling papers long enough to raise an eyebrow at him. Even Shizune looked up from her work.

"Yes, you dolt. His whole team was killed."

The hard line of her mouth, the weird look on Shizune's face. Something he was missing —

Oh.

Oh.

Naruto had never been involved in gossip. Mostly because nobody ever told him anything. But even he remembered the whispers, the shock of grief and terror that ran through the ANBU offices and locker rooms those several months ago. Dead, no bodies. A team of their most skilled, most convert ninja, all brutally murdered after doing their jobs. The high possibility of death was a prerequisite of the job, and he knew that risk, but this had been different.

Do you think he did it himself? Went back to his old ways? Naruto remembered someone whispering while he changed. Nah, a closer friend in the corps had replied. No way. He's too loyal now. Soft.

Kakashi. They'd been talking about Kakashi. The man who rolled out of bed and performed massive fuinjutsu procedures in the same clothes he slept in. The man who poked him directly up the ass the very first time they met. The man who played jokes and read porn and loved dogs and ate with a mask on and smiled with his eyes. The man who, somehow, was one of the strongest, coolest, most formidable ninja he'd ever witnessed.

He wouldn't have had the chance to know. He never saw Kakashi-sensei anymore. Suddenly, he couldn't even recall the last time they'd hung out. The man was too busy to even grab a bite to eat with him on either of their birthdays. And Naruto realized, with a sinking feeling, that he wasn't even sure when Kakashi's birthday was. They were close, and his sensei was one of his favorite people — but clearly they weren't close enough. Was it because of this? How had he not known? He'd have to fix that.

"Yamato said their recent attempts were more successful," Shizune said. "It's in part because of the lack of genjutsu used by the ninja infiltrating. And the refugee camps near the border have been immensely helpful for gathering intel."

"It's not enough, though." Tsunade sat down at her desk. The chair rolled and creaked beneath her dead weight, but a ghost of a smirk reappeared on her face. "Your husband's a smart man, and I'm glad I put him in charge. My concern, though, isn't offense. It's defense. And I'm not ready to see a third war in my lifetime."

"Yeah," Shizune said grimly, expression as cold and awful as Naruto felt hearing those words. "Me neither."

War. The word bounced against the walls behind his eyes. Like some kind of pinball game, it started at the top, then rolled toward the start, hitting every surface it could on the way back down. Plink. Gaara, dead and hollow before they'd managed to get him back. Plink. Chiyo-baa in Sakura's arms. Plink. The Akatsuki, swift as wind and dark as evil.

Plink. Pein.

Plink. Jiraiya.

Plink. The other jinchuuriki.

Plink. Obito, Itachi, Madara. Gai, forever debilitated.

Plink. Kaguya. The dead rising. Dark and light.

Plink. Him and Sasuke, the force of their hands, the sun and the moon.

Plink, plink, plink.

A shift happened somewhere, a physical click in his brain, and every muscle locked in place. The thought rose and grabbed a hold of him, unshakably sure.

It all made sense. Everything made sense.

They weren't just letting Sasuke off the hook. This whole thing, this play at bringing him back, wasn't being done for togetherness, forgiveness, love.

They were priming him for combat.

"Baa-chan," Naruto rasped, not even meaning to, not even realizing he'd said it until the surprise changed Tsunade's face. "Baa-chan, you can't."

"Can't what?" Her forehead creased between her brows. She had the audacity to pretend.

"You can't do this to him! I thought you were — that this was — that you —"

"What, Naruto?" Now she was getting angry. Of course.

"Sasuke doesn't" — his fists clenched — "you can't just — punish him, and then take it away when it's time to fight your battles!" Tears brewed hot behind his eyes. "I can't believe you, baa-chan. I trusted you.I thought you would take care of him 'cause you wanted to, not treat him like a — like a —" Pawn. A movable piece. Another nameless soldier.

"Naruto, that's not —"

"Shizune," Tsunade interrupted, a hand up to stop her. Shizune shut her mouth, apparently unsatisfied, and crouched back toward her seat. The room felt thick.

Tsunade cut the tension with her eyes, looking directly into his. A hard stare, locked in fire.

"Naruto," she said, like it was a warning. The problem was that he faced red flags like a charging bull.

"You better tell me the truth, Tsunade baa-chan, right now —"

"You have no idea what went into this decision. Don't start throwing around accusations as if you do."

His own anger had gone cold at first, the realization of what had been hidden from him a sickening suck and chill, like he'd accidentally stepped off the side of a cliff. But now, seeing her vehement refusal to own up to it already building a wall between them, he felt the anger mounting swiftly, a fiery hole in the ground rising to meet him. He felt Kurama shift in that deep yellow blackness within, waking again. Hungry for it.

"Oh, yeah? Don't I, though?" He felt impotent, fucking angry, a fresh scrape clean through layers of skin. He marched up to her desk like the earth itself was taking him there. "There's no way this is just a coincidence. War might happen, and suddenly you're being nice to him?"

"Don't question me!" She shot out of her seat, palms slapped flat on her desk, glaring up at him furiously. Her eyes were so brown they were almost red. "You need to trust me. I'm a lot of things, but I'm not cruel. And —"

"Making him fight in a war right after he's done with a sentence, with no time to just enjoy his life, seems pretty fuckin' cruel to me!"

"That's what the council wanted," she said, grimacing almost as deep as he could feel himself frowning. "Believe it or not, I didn't want this. Not like this, anyway."

"Then why?! You're the Hokage! You can do whatever you want! You're supposed to make the best decision, everyone else be damned!" He wanted to shake her, make the old lady come out instead of some weirdly young lady with pigtails, a wrinkle only between her furrowed, irate brows instead of the million she deserved. If she wasn't going to use her powers for good, then why pretend?

A snarl, half-bitten, left her mouth. He felt it stoke the fire.

"This is why you're still a child," she told him. "You don't understand how this job works. I have to put the needs of the country above my own prejudices or wants. If you ever make it to this position, you'll have to do the same goddamn thing. And I don't know if I can trust you to do that given this shitty little hissy fit you're throwing over some stupid fucking boy."

Hissy fit? Kurama laughed from within, a scoff scratching at Naruto's insides. You can do better than that.

Yeah, Naruto replied, stuck on her lack of guarantee, her lack of faith, her dismissal of his best friend. If she wants one, I'll give it to her.

He unstrapped his mask from where he'd tied it around the back of one arm. He didn't even glance at its shape, toad-like and ancient, before he threw it to the ground with force, letting the ceramic shatter, the metal inside expose itself like an organ. He sent a spark of chakra through his leg and stepped, crumpling the metal easily, tissue paper under his casual duress.

"I'm done, then," he said, heat in his throat. "I don't want to do this stupid, shitty job anymore. I don't know why I'm even doing this. You're just gonna keep being Hokage until both of us die anyway."

"You don't belong in ANBU, Naruto." He looked back at her face, so seemingly unaffected by his outburst. "It's just a formality. You belong with your team. That's why I let this whole thing with Sasuke happen."

The hurt flared, gut-wrenching. Those old feelings, so long buried — that doubt that he wasn't wanted, wasn't good enough to belong — began to surface. He felt them all bubbling up, air pockets from the bottom of the dank water of his consciousness that Kurama always sat in.

"Bullshit, baa-chan." He couldn't stop his lower lip from trembling. "You never cared about Sasuke. Not ever. And I'm starting to think you never gave a shit about me either."

She was mad at him, but now even more so. He could see the way it contorted her face, warped it with ire. She always hated when he didn't go along with her.

"How dare you," she growled, voice rising to a full-out yell. He could see her teeth behind her lips now, bared to strike. "Do you even realize how unbelievably fucking stupid you sound right now? After everything I've done for you, this is the last goddamn fucking —"

"ENOUGH!"

Shizune's voice yanked them both from the moment, like she'd grabbed fighting dogs by the scruff. They both turned to find her standing at her own desk, arms crossed, face dark.

"Shizune, stay the hell out of this," Tsunade said, her voice loud.

Naruto needed to have the last word. "I'm not just gonna —"

"Shut up!" Shizune returned. He hadn't seen her that pissed in a very long time. "I'm not going to sit here and let the two of you treat each other like this. You're being ridiculous. Acting like children!"

His gut twisted. Children. To everyone else, he was always acting like a child.

"Fine, then. I'm out," he said into the tense silence of the room. And he meant it. "I'm done."

"The hell you are," Tsunade said, reaching to grab his arm as he turned to go. He gave it a violent shake, shoving it away from himself until the contact was lost.

He managed one last glance at her. She was right: she was a lot of things. Mad. Mean. Someone who knew better. He stared right at the tension in her hands, the downward curve of her lying mouth, the fire in her eyes.

"I'm not a fuckin' kid," he told her, "so stop treating me like one."

He left after that, running through the window he entered from, and he didn't hear either woman say a word while he did.

.

.

He ran, and ran, and ran. He couldn't sit still. He wasn't even hungry. He had no idea how to distract himself from the hot whirlwind of post-argument. Any time he fought with Tsunade, he'd just go work it off and kick some training dummies or wrestle Lee, then they'd see each other and she would say sorry and muss his hair and it'd be fine. But this was different.

Naruto couldn't just — he couldn't let anyone treat Sasuke like that. He'd had to do this a few times over the years since Sasuke came back to the village. Some black eyes had been doled out for words like traitor or coward being thrown around; some friendships had dissolved with people who insisted on hating the Uchiha clan, still. Anyone that close-minded wasn't worth Naruto's time. It was incredible to him that anyone still lived like that — prejudiced, and persistently so. Hate was the most soul-sucking, unnecessary emotion. They were adults now. This was an era of peace. They could work things out.

Besides, Sasuke had done nothing but good since he returned to Konoha. He was dutifully living out the sentence he was given, paying off any debt he had to the village, keeping to himself. Naruto knew it killed him not to have his powers, but he never complained about it. They still trained together — taijutsu only, of course — to keep him ready for the chakra he would soon get back. There was a lot to look forward to. Things were good.

He plopped down on a rooftop, thinking, the shingles warm against his legs. Were things good, though? Tsunade and Shizune were talking about war like it was actually a possibility. He knew shit was getting serious with ANBU, but only serious in the sense of...of something temporary. Something they could fix. Sai had told him, dark eyes unfailingly neutral, not to worry about it. So he hadn't. Now, though...the candid way Tsunade had mentioned it, the timing of this whole thing with Sasuke falling into place — now, he couldn't be so sure.

His hand found the mess of hair at the back of his head and tugged, subconsciously, and he felt a little like he might jump out of his skin.

He'd be back with his team. Tsunade had said so. Him, Sasuke, Sakura-chan, Kakashi-sensei, all back in one piece after years of being apart. He tried to picture it in his head: Sakura, hair pink and long and face as pretty as ever, sparkling with strength and focus as she read medical stuff or trained. He knew that. Kakashi, face in a pervy book, twirling a kunai around his finger while he lounged in a tree to "keep watch." He could see that. Sasuke, grumpy but competitive in his understated way, using his katon to make a fire and aiming shuriken at trees — Sasuke, there. He wanted that.

Naruto felt the warmth of that ideal, that image, a print like an impression in wet sand. But it was just as impermanent, swallowed beneath the coax and cover of the sea. There was something hollow about it. Something about it just didn't work. Maybe it was because they were older now? Kakashi-sensei looked the same, just with two eyes visible instead of one. Sakura, though...Sasuke...his stomach felt unsettled still, flopping weirdly, and nothing real came to mind. He could picture them all individually, a still life, parts of a whole. Not as one big picture.

Maybe it was because he was different now, too. He was strong, and a sage, and had more friends than he knew how to keep up with. He was lucky and full, so far removed from the lonely, angry kid he'd been when he met them. Maybe it was because they were all different, in a way.

He laid back, arms spread to let the sun touch every inch of skin it could, head against the sandpaper roughness of the roof. The three of them weren't the same people anymore. He was imagining them without their complexity, without the years that had passed since they started. And that was just counting the stuff he knew, that he'd been there for. What else had Kakashi-sensei hidden from him — a whole team dying? There was no telling. Was Sakura-chan hiding things from him too, then? Would she do that to him? He couldn't tell if he could even be sure of that.

The one thing really bothering him was that Tsunade had said he belonged with them. It begged the question: if he didn't know the simplest things about its members, then did he really?

He felt himself retreating inward, the anger curling back into its hiding spot, not meaning to at all. Dampened, inundated by confusion. All nine tails between his legs, shame taking their place. He scrubbed his palms over his face, relishing in the hot skin and calluses rough against his face, and slapped his cheeks just to feel the sting. And then it was quiet.

You miss 'em, Kurama said plainly, a soft reverberation cutting through the mass. Simple as that.

"I dunno, though," Naruto whispered, as if this were classified information. "I always miss them. I don't know what that means anymore, you know?"

Of course, though, he didn't. Kurama never responded to those kinds of questions. Fucker.

Air left Naruto's lungs in a long, slow drop, and then he filled them up again. One breath by one breath.

Want us to find him? Kurama finally responded instead. Naruto could feel the ribbing on the edge of the question — he groaned against it.

"Stop eavesdropping on my brain, asshole," he said, louder now. "I'm not in the mood for sparring."

So you do, then?

Naruto groaned again, trying to drown out the ancient cackle within. "Stop, dude, I'm — I'm working. I can't —"

Kurama laughed so hard it sparked a drove of goosebumps on his back and arms. Work. Sure.

I hate you, Naruto thought, hoping the message would drip down into the void. Apparently, it missed — no response. He shook his arms out instead, wiggling the discomfort out through his fingers, and closed his eyes. Breathed in. Breathed out. One breath by one breath.

A weight, sleepy in the lightest way, settled over him. Habit. Sage energy was always there, but it wouldn't truly manifest unless he leaned into it, took a step —

He's by the memorial.

"Damnit, Kurama!" His face grew hot, the sun baking it. "I'm not going over there!"

But even when he stood up, even when he continued his shift on rooftops and the back streets of neighborhoods, even when he tried to eat and forget the curdle of inertia still floating in his stomach, he could still feel that presence burning a hole into the back of his consciousness. And he did, somehow, go over there, drawn to that slip of unmistakable energy like a magnet throughout the rest of his patrols. He spiraled through the village in a circle, wading through thickening clouds and drifting sunbeams, waiting. Avoiding.

He couldn't explain what the pull was. He couldn't explain what the hesitation was. He didn't even know how much time had passed since he'd decided not to come this way. All he knew was that when he crouched atop the branch that overlooked the edge of the memorial grounds, when he saw that dark figure in front of the Uchiha engraving, he felt the very cells of his body loosen and rise like effervescent bubbles.

Sweet, he thought, the giddiness shoving all else aside.

Light as a feather, he dropped himself to the grass, tiptoed over to try and sneak up on his unsuspecting friend. Sasuke was kneeling, silently, almost like he was praying, but Naruto didn't know if his eyes were open — hopefully not, because the stone with the memorial engraving was shiny and new, almost wetly so, and both of their silhouettes were apparent in it. Amorphous blobs with a hard sheen outlining them, overcast daylight filling the space between. He closed the distance he could see before him.

"Heh," he laughed in a brunt exhale, the result of collision with Sasuke's back. The blades of his shoulders pressed into Naruto's chest through his uniform. "Gotcha!"

Sasuke's reaction was visceral — a sharp, immediate roll of his shoulders; a leaning forward. "Get off of me."

"Not until you admit that I got you, loser," Naruto jeered, a laugh buoyant in his throat. Sasuke was warm and solid beneath him. He didn't realize how much he'd needed the physical contact, so he enjoyed it, burying his nose into sleek black hair and inhaling the fresh scent of his soap.

It was very short-lived — within seconds, he was on his ass on the ground. "Hey!"

"I told you to get off of me," Sasuke said, flat and sharp like the side of a knife. The usual. He stood up in one slow, silvery motion, turning to look down at Naruto with a scowl.

Those eyes, one ethereally light, one dark and loaded, were like magnets, like weights. Naruto felt something in his chest contract and then expand, something not quite a heartbeat. He was just out of breath.

The look lingered a moment too long, though, and too dense, the memorial silent around them save for a single bird's whining chirps. He felt himself frown. A weird itch flew in the space between his skin and muscle.

"What's wrong?" he asked.

Sasuke was quiet for another moment. It wasn't an unreasonable question, was it? He was supposed to be unsealed by now, back to normal, but he wasn't yet. And that was the one thing he wanted, but he'd have to wait until they figured out what the problem was, and they were still working on it. Sasuke wasn't exactly a patient guy. Good at biding his time, maybe, but not patient. And when he spoke, it only reminded Naruto of that.

"Why are you here?" His voice was quiet, a drag of cutting monotone.

Naruto swallowed. That answer came easy. It was the same one as always. "I was hoping we could hang out later. Y'know, after I'm done with patrols."

"And do what?"

That answer, somehow, did not come as easily. Naruto felt like a butterfly, the kind that made Shino upset — pinned to something, wings stuck by hairline metal rods, or in this case an iron gaze. He blinked, eyes to the grass, thoughts suddenly spilling onto his tongue and stumbling out.

"I — I dunno," he began. "I just had a weird day, and I know you're feeling kinda down because all this stuff is taking awhile." He tugged at the back of his hair. "We should go get food or something."

"I don't want to go anywhere."

He looked back up at Sasuke now, finding that gaze still hard and steady. He'd have to way to fix that. Somehow, he always could.

He sighed, huffing against the shake in his chest. "Dude, come on. I'll just come over if you want. I can bring you some of those onigiri you like from that nee-san's store, and then we can —"

"Shut up, Naruto." Sasuke turned, eyes straight ahead, and started to walk away. Naruto stood and bounded after him in an instant, catching the shoulder that no longer had an arm attached to it.

"Sasuke, wait." The loose fabric of the sleeve bunched between his fingers. "You don't have to isolate yourself, dude. We're gonna get this shit taken care of. Me and Sakura-chan and Kakashi-sensei." He had to believe it. "Let's all go eat together or —"

The most disarming thing happened then, cutting him short. Sasuke laughed. Not in the way people rarely got to see, that secret, full-bodied delight that filled Naruto with the same. No, it was that same haughty stab he was famous for, something no one had really heard since the fourth war.

"Are you fucking kidding me?" He shoved Naruto's hand away with his own. "You can't be serious."

Naruto ignored his motions again, grabbing his shoulder and turning him so that they were facing each other. Perfect eye level. "Why wouldn't I be? We're a team, aren't we?"

Something flitted across that straight expression. Something budged. Naruto could literally see the way Sasuke held onto it, the way it put emotion somewhere deep in his eyes, a twitch in his lip, and then the way he let go of it, a loss of tension somewhere that could only be sensed and not seen. His head tilted back a bit, looking down at him. Haughty.

"You always were too optimistic, weren't you."

Naruto could feel the wall he was putting up. No.

"How is that being optimistic?" he asked sincerely, insistently, bridging some of the space between them. "We are a team. I know we've all been doing our own things, but that doesn't mean we aren't — that we can't — that we can't depend on each other. We're a family."

Sasuke was no longer budging. He got even closer, close enough that their noses almost touched, invading the space to command it. He was angry, and it caught Naruto's breath like a fist.

"They aren't mine, Naruto. They're not my family. My family is dead." His eyes dropped. Naruto's heart beat in his eardrums, his jaw. And then they met his own again, impenetrable as a plate of steel. "And so is yours."

Years ago, that would have done the worst to Naruto. It would have broken something in him, a split like wood in the structure of his heart. Now, though, it only made his lip tremble, and he could suck it up. Sasuke's eyes watched his mouth.

"I" — he choked on it, just a bit, and decided to start over. "I know how hard this is for you —"

"Really? Do you?" The words were low, almost a whisper now given their proximity. "You, with all your infinite power, how easy it is for you to have everything —"

"I just wanna help you, man," Naruto pressed, the words welling up in him like they were being pushed. He couldn't hear him talk like that anymore. It wasn't fair. He clenched Sasuke's shirt in his hand even tighter. "You don't have to be alone. That's all I want you to understand."

"You can't help me."

No. No. No. "Yeah, actually, I can. You just have to let me."

"I want to be alone. Can't you see that?" There was the barest breath in his words, and it wafted out against Naruto's face. "Don't be stupid, Naruto. Please."

"I'm telling you, Sasuke, I'm not just gonna let you do this to yourself, not when you're so close to getting everything back. It's gonna be okay —"

He was silenced by a hand over his mouth. His lips, still mid-word, were stuck open against Sasuke's cool palm. Air lodged itself painfully in his throat.

Sasuke said nothing. There was only the press of his gaze locked where Naruto couldn't look away, even if he tried; like he was waiting to see if Naruto would keep talking. He didn't dare. He could feel the pulse from Sasuke's hand on his mouth. He could taste the skin.

He would suffocate like this, he thought. And then the hand moved to his cheek.

"Don't," Sasuke said, voice quiet as a secret. "I'm going to leave, and I want you to go home when I do. Got it?"

His hand was solid on Naruto's cheek. A weight holding him to this moment. A circle of heat where his own breath had marked was warm against the skin of his face, a spot of sun in the coolness of Sasuke's hand. He felt the sudden, strange urge to turn his face into that palm, to feel the finger pads soft on his closed eyelids, the edge of the thumbnail against his patches of freckles. Feel his lips against the smooth heel of it. Bring his tongue, even, to the lines that crossed it. Taste all the places Sasuke's destiny would take him.

But he didn't. He shuddered an inhale, terrified of where his instincts lead, and thought.

No. He didn't want to leave Sasuke alone. He didn't want to go home.

"No," he said, a rasp catching his voice, and he met those eyes. One light, one dark. "I won't."

"Please, Naruto."

Sasuke stared for a moment. There was something there, behind that gaze, something stirring and fighting to get out.

"Talk to me," Naruto urged, his own voice quiet now, his free hand finding the one touching his face. He swallowed, and it was difficult to do so. "I'm here. Just tell me what's goin' on."

Neither of them spoke. Neither of them moved, save for Naruto's breath coming in heavy bursts, like he was running. He could feel the way his bandages closed against the smooth back of Sasuke's hand, every molecule of tension between the two of them. He wasn't going to just let this slide. Sasuke had to know that. After all this time, if nothing else, he had to know at least that.

He closed his eyes, and his jaw shifted beneath his skin. Closing himself off, again, like always.

"Let me go," he said, slipping his hand out of Naruto's grasp. "Just — let me go, and don't come find me."

And then, just like that, Sasuke walked past where they stood. No longer able to spirit himself away with a jutsu, this was the next best thing — a cold exit, a rustle of grass with every footstep, softer the further he moved away and the closer he got to the fence at the far boundary of the memorial. A stride with a purpose: trying to disappear.

"Sasuke!" Naruto called after his dark figure, knowing it would do no good, but knowing more that he had to try. "Sasuke!"

But Sasuke did not stop, did not falter, and he did not deviate from that singular force of a path. It was all Naruto could do to watch the broad, black shape get smaller, smaller, smaller until he couldn't see it at all.

It would be okay, he told himself, pressing his bandaged hand into his cheek to fill the gap Sasuke left. This wasn't forever. Times like this always started with Sasuke leaving, and with Naruto staring at his back, and they always worked out. Things would get fixed, and they would be better, and it would be alright. He would always find him in the end.

.

.

The damp, metallic smell of ANBU headquarters filled Naruto's head from the moment he entered. He'd never liked it, never felt at home in this place, but after his fight from earlier — a million miles away, it seemed like, but still just as shitty, that fight with Tsunade-baa-chan — something had really changed. The enclosed, windowless space of the rusty labyrinth of hallways made him feel like he would lose his mind.

He finished his duties as fast as he could. He checked them off, a list in his head. Sign out. Change out of his sleek, tight fatigues. Change back into his t-shirt and favorite sweatpants. Cover up the tattoo by his shoulder with the soft cloth of his sleeve. Be normal again.

He balled up his uniform shirt and pants, tucked his kunai and shuriken and gloves and leg bandages between the folds of his defense vest and closed it like a book. Threw everything into the locker. No mask to throw on top of the pile this time. He wondered, with a slight flush of embarrassment, whether Tsunade had done anything with it — thrown it away, sent it down here for repair, ordered him a new one, pulveried it into dust. Who knew. He felt kinda stupid now, thinking about his outburst, but…really, it'd been about more than just his status here.

His fingers curled around the cold metal of the locker door, his thumb digging into the inside of the lock. And then he shoved it shut. His hand covered the kana he knew was written on the outside.

Tatsu, they called him within the division, after his summons. Not Bunta, like Gamabunta, the legendary chief of Myoubakuzan, or Kichi, after Gamabunta's elder son, or even just Kaeru, naming him a frog like every other member was named after the thing on their mask. Tatsu, like Gamatatsu, the youngest of the toads he was bound to, the one no one ever took seriously — not even himself.

It's just a formality, Tsunade had told him. You don't belong in ANBU. He didn't want to accept how right she was.

No one greeted him on his way out. That wasn't how things worked around here — or maybe people just made a special case to avoid him. Not Neji, not Yamato, not Tenten, not Sai, but that was just because they'd all known each other before they got here. Whatever. He didn't feel like talking to anyone anyway. Well, that wasn't entirely true. If he'd seen Sai — who was basically his boss now, and it was weird — he would have talked to him. He would have asked him about the rest of what Tsunade had said. Not Yamato, who was too nice about that kind of stuff, but him, Sai, unfailingly frank to the point of tactlessness.

The probability of war. He would have asked if he really wasn't supposed to worry about it. That had to be a lie. He knew baa-chan was lying to him, because it was possible enough that they were all willing to put Sasuke through this. A dull stab tweaked in his gut. Naruto hated her for throwing him into this awful bullshit process, this trial and error, if she couldn't fix him immediately. If she couldn't give back what was taken. If she couldn't treat him like a fucking human being.

The sun was low enough to qualify evening by the time Naruto made it out of the catacombs. A good while had passed since Sasuke had left the memorial — enough time that he'd probably cooled off, meditated, and was now reading in his living room with that one lamp on by the armchair. Naruto wondered what he'd done with the fight behind his eyes; whether he'd carefully tucked it away, never to be talked of again, or if he'd thrown enough kunai at a backyard tree to feel like it was gone. Only one way to find out.

"Kurama," Naruto said under his breath, wading through the people-filled streets of Konoha. The workday was over for office-level ninja and regular citizens alike.

Huh, was the only response he got, a light press to the back of his brain.

"What would you want to eat if you were mad?"

He slipped his hands in his pockets, squinting against the low beams of sun peeking between shop buildings and apartments as he walked. The smell of street food was heady, tantalizingly so — some yakitori was starting to sound really good for a pre-dinner snack.

Didn't the kid tell you to leave him alone?

Naruto laughed, a scoff that wasn't exactly funny, just at the predictability of the question. "Dude, you know that's never stopped me." He patted around his sides for his wallet. "That's his way of saying don't make me talk about my feelings, I don't have any of those, or some dumb shit like that. And then I go to his house, and we play cards or something, and he feels better."

He laughed again, more genuinely this time at his own grumpy imitation of his friend, and Kurama didn't respond for a minute. That was fine. Naruto just window-shopped, glancing at steaming dango glazed with sticky, shiny kuromitsu at one old lady's food stand, yakisoba bread arranged in sloppy lines on the counter of the guy's cart next door, carrot pieces flung over every visible surface.

He kept walking, nothing striking his fancy on behalf of Sasuke. And then, when he finally reached the intersection at the end of the street:

I always used to eat people's guts when I was pissed off, until you came along.

Naruto's smile grew until it stretched from ear to ear, warmth in every part of his body.

"Lucky you," he said, louder this time, and turned the corner.

.

.

A rock slipped into the front of his sandals right as he made it to the gates of the Uchiha compound. In no time, it had rolled right into the space between his arch and the sole supporting it, and Naruto yelped as he pressed his foot into it mid-step.

"Shit," he hissed, trying to kick it out with a flail of his leg. The thing didn't even move a millimeter. "Fine, then, I see how it's gonna be."

He set down the plastic bags that had been digging into his arms, letting them gently settle onto the ground before removing his shoe. There were red marks on his visible forearm skin, crisscrosses from the handles. Maybe getting all that food had been overkill, but he wanted to make sure Sasuke had plenty of options. Fruit salad with tomatoes, onigiri, shrimp chips, a few bentos and sandwiches, just to name a portion of his spoils. The sweet stuff he'd bought, admittedly, was all for himself.

The rock — pebble, apparently — flung itself out of his sandal. He wiped his bare foot on his opposite leg just in case, put his shoe back on, heaved all the bags back onto his arms. He wasn't going to leave tonight until he was sure Sasuke wasn't stuck in his head. He couldn't let him be alone in this. It fucking sucked, yeah, but he would do whatever it took to help him get his chakra back, and then he'd fight tooth and nail to get baa-chan and the council to leave him out of whatever fight was coming. Unless Sasuke wanted to join it, that was.

Naruto was strong, though. It was just a fact. He'd done things that should have been impossible, and he'd worked his ass off to get there. If he could accomplish all the things he'd done up to this point, he could protect the village, their country, everyone, fight alongside them himself. He could solve this, the right way.

He took the road down to the house Sasuke lived in, careful not to let his feel skid along the ground and make another rock find its way into his sandal. He let himself in the gate, food swinging in its bags, and walked up to the front porch, set the bags down again on the creaky wooden bench there so he could give the door a proper knock.

He waited for a good minute, rocking back and forth on his heels. A nervous excitement was building the way it always did when he got to hang out with his friends, and especially with Sasuke. He knocked again, in a rhythm this time, hoping it would annoy him into opening the door. With a devious grin, he brought his other hand to the door, rapping on it with both sets of knuckles in a very non-musical pattern.

After another minute or two of waiting, the grin faded. "Hmm."

He tried the knob, deciding to let himself in, as was occasionally the case with his visits. Unlocked, of course. The house was unlit save for the sunset radiating through the sliding glass of the back door. Also not unusual.

"Sasuke?" he called. He peeked into the kitchen, its plain white walls and counter, and suddenly remembered the time he'd cut himself trying — and failing — to make them vegetable fried rice and scrambled eggs for dinner. A deep gash above the top joint of his middle finger. Sasuke had — he'd — Naruto felt his face heat, recalling the almost instinctual manner with which Sasuke, irritated as always, had taken the bleeding finger into his mouth, pressed the wet heat of his tongue to the cut to help clot it.

"Sasuke?" he called again, yelling with enough emphasis on the sound of his name to wipe the memory away. He wasn't in the living room, either, the table clear of the games Naruto brought over or even an empty cup of water.

Maybe he was taking a nap. They'd both been taking a lot of those lately, both for the same reason. With that in mind, he went straight for the bedroom upstairs, taking them two at a time just because he could. The bathroom, which he passed on his way around the banister, was also empty; the hallways were starting to get dark now that the day was coming to a close, and they, too, were empty.

The bedroom door was ajar, and inside was same furniture as always. Bare walls, lined only by a wooden dresser, a side table with a lamp, and a bed. A few books were stacked neatly atop the first two surfaces, while the bed was made, void of any sign of Sasuke. Naruto had slept in that bed a few odd times over the past few years. He could still remember the burn of sleeping on one shoulder too long, feeling like he was bruised from its bizarrely hard mattress. He could still remember the way Sasuke's eyelashes, dark gray, rested gentle where they met his cheekbones as he slept. The only real time he didn't look angry, because he wasn't awake to be, Naruto thought with a wry smile.

He went to the window on the other side of the room, using it as a vantage point to see if he could spy Sasuke sweating out whatever was going on amongst the trees behind the house. All he could see, though, was green. No swift slip of black or the glow of his pale skin anywhere among them. Naruto didn't even have to touch his sage energy to know Sasuke wasn't here.

There were only two other places Sasuke ever went, especially when he was in a bad mood: either the memorial or his family's old house. He'd already visited one today — there was really only one other option.

He bounded down the stairs, three at a time, whistling to himself. The anxious, bubbling excitement had grown now that this had become a bit of a hide-and-seek. He'd find Sasuke, ankles and feet in the small creek in the Uchiha's backyard, and he would sneak up on him again, hug him from behind until he was shaken off with a pissy huff. The mental image made him snicker. He'd take care of putting the food away when he got back.

A sheen of orange cloaked the entirety of the Uchiha compound, bringing a beautiful light to the monotonous gray and white of all the houses within. It was easy to find Sasuke's childhood home. Always had been. It was like a beacon situated at the end of the longest side street, a big piece of land compared to the closer quarters of the smaller houses lining the road, windows reflecting the sun enough to make Naruto squint. He picked up the pace, unable to contain his limitless energy, the thrill of what awaited him.

He skipped the front door, headed around to the back and scaled the wall surrounding the garden with nimble hands and feet, did his best to be quiet. When he peeked over the top of it, his eyes zeroed in on exactly where he knew Sasuke would be, where victory awaited —

— only to find that, too, empty. He frowned, now, as his eyes traced the dried remains of the creek, the only water left now muddy and green with algae. The back porch was silent. The doors were all closed.

This was getting weird.

"If you're hiding just to be a pain in my ass," Naruto muttered, lifting himself effortlessly over the top and landing on a patch of browning grass, "I'm gonna punch you in the face."

He crept into the house, tripping only once on a floorboard that had been slightly unwedged from its place, accidentally sliding one of the back shogi doors closed a bit too loudly. The house was much darker than the other, and with the stark silence, the knowledge always sitting in the back of his head that Sasuke's family was killed in here — it was more than a little eerie. The hairs on his arms stood up.

Got a bad feeling about this place, kid.

"You always do," Naruto whispered. "But I don't believe in ghosts."

Sure, Kurama said, bringing their attention to the shiver waiting to drop from the nape of his neck. Keep telling yourself that.

"Shush."

Naruto pressed on, peering through door after door. Nothing but vacant rooms, all still and dusty, abandoned. Why Sasuke would want to come here, other than to be absolutely miserable, he couldn't fathom. There were too many rooms in this place, too many doors, nothing to be found behind them. He'd lost count of how many he'd opened — some perhaps twice. There was nothing he hated more than a fruitless search.

The whole thing was making him impatient. That nervousness and excitement from before mixed with this strange creep of dread all morphed into a big ball of energy, and he was already bad with staying hidden, with dealing with quiet. Fuck it, he thought. He'd rather be on Sasuke's sofa now, trying to get him to crack a laugh.

"Sasuke," he called, cupping one hand beside his mouth, "dude, you in here?"

He waited.

No response.

His breath went tight in his chest. Enough was enough.

Now that the jig was up, and he no longer wanted the delayed gratification of taking Sasuke by surprise, he let his chakra coil into a shorter wavelength, let it loosen back out to pick up more on the environment of the home. Immediately he ran into a roadblock. Nothing but frigid, dark, terrible energy met his sage instincts — lingering effects of the sad, unfulfilled spirits of the Uchiha family. Trying to get past that dense, oppressive force and sense Sasuke, with an absence of even the thinnest shred of his chakra, was like walking knee-deep in quicksand. The shiver dropped, rippling chills over Naruto's back and arms.

It felt impossible to get through, a mass of ashes that would drown him if he looked too hard, and so he found himself pacing down the hallway instead, throwing every door open until it smacked against the other side of the wall.

Nothing.

Nothing.

Nothing.

"Damnit, Sasuke! Where the hell are you?!"

He flung open the door at the end of the hall, expecting nothing again. What else would there be?

But there was something — huge blood stains and spatters spread across the tatami floor, old and new. The smell of them clear and thick. A black shadow floating above them.

His blood went cold.

At first, his eyes couldn't make out what they were seeing. Some kind of trick of the light, maybe?

No, there was a shape to it, the way it drifted motionless above the floor.

And then he made out the sight of a foot, colorlessly pale, red dripping dark from the ankle beneath the hem of black pants.

He took a step forward. His whole body was shaking, all of a sudden. His mouth went dry. A body was hanging, rope tied to the rafters exposed by carefully removed planks in the ceiling.

The wood was meticulously stacked by the wall. His stomach dropped.

"No," he said, the word splintered and broken. No, no, no, no. Please. No.

He made himself look. He saw black hair. He saw the rope circling a white neck. He saw broad, familiar shoulders. Only one arm limp by its side.

"No," he repeated, breath coming fast now instead of stopped altogether. He stumbled over to the body — it's not — it isn't — it can't be — to find the part that he couldn't see.

Stop, Naruto! NOW! Don't — Kurama was screaming at him, grating against his spine, the inner boundaries of his skull. He didn't listen. He had to make sure this was some stupid prank — or some other person. He couldn't lose — he — it wasn't —

The face. White lips, open. Black hair stuck to red. Red. There was so much of it, too much of it, too much of it, coming from the —

Eyes. They were — not closed, they were — not empty, they were —

NARUTO!

He lifted a hand, his real hand, fingers trembling uncontrollably, to touch the split eyelids. Slashed down the middle. The sockets behind them, mutilated, full of some unnameable thing — gelatinous, cold. Bile rose in his throat.

Gray eyelashes, the color of charcoal, delicate, his, coated in blood.

Don't come find me, Sasuke had said.

Naruto screamed.