"By the way, what did you do to Orochimaru?"

"Hm?" Tobirama was unusually distracted today, and it was interesting seeing his black and red eyes widen in genuine uncomprehension. His face, too, was oddly calm. Unfurrowed. He took a sip of steaming tea.

"Orochimaru. Shishou said you…neutralized Hashirama's cells in him?"

"Neutralized is an interesting word to use. Orochimaru would probably describe it as….hm, I'm not sure. I can't exactly feel extremes in this body, and of course I've never done this to myself. But let's say I restored the cells that were his, and drew the water out of Hashirama's cells. That last part was so quick it probably didn't hurt, but the regrowing part. I hope it hurt."

"You didn't kill him?"

"Oh, I wanted to."

"Because he reincarnated you? Though it was to fight Madara?"

Tobirama laughed a little darkly. "No. Because he experimented on children."

Sakura cocked her head at that. She had known, of course, but with the years of war and one horror after another, she'd become a little numb to Orochimaru, pushed him to the back of her mind, and her recent memories of him being that of the recent war.

"I will admit, I didn't like that he humiliated me either. Hashirama's cells or not, it was very frustrating being immobilized by- by someone who couldn't have gotten within fifty feet of me during my life. But that deserved no more than a slap, honestly. The children, though-" His face lost its calmness, "-he's very, very lucky I didn't strip him of each muscle one by one."

Sakura hesitated. Aside from that brief moment of pique where he had displayed his chakra force, she'd not seen the Nidaime in his full force and wasn't sure how quickly she'd die if she offended him.

"I know you want to ask something," he said. "Spit it out."

"You experimented on people too, right?" She kept her arms braced around her neck, watching him closely, but all he did was cock an eyebrow at her.

"I know I have an infamously short temper, Sakura, but I tend to yell, not physically abuse people who anger me."

"Sorry," she said meekly.

"Don't be. You shouldn't hesitate to call out hypocrisy." He took another drink of tea. "And to answer your question, I dissected quite a few corpses, and I lost exactly seven small animals to developing Hiraishin, but I certainly didn't experiment on people. Well. One person."

"For Edo Tensei. It requires human sacrifice."

"Living sacrifice. There was a man I put on death row for killing his family. I was furious enough to think of using him to test it out- and it worked. I knew he would stay alive as long as the jutsu was present, but when I released the soul- he died too. After that I used shadow clones. It was a much larger drain on chakra than using another body, but the way I used them was so effective that it was worth it."

"You can use clones?" Sakura nearly shrieked. There Kabuto- and Orochimaru- were, using their underlings, when Naruto could have literally done the same with a thousand more.

"Well, yeah. I didn't come out of the warring clans era without some serious value for human life. In fact, the sacrifice for my body right now is a clone- a Zetsu, was it?"

"Are you kidding," She said, but it was hardly a question. "I would have thought the process would be too damaging for a clone."

"Shadow clones are far more durable than Naruto would have you believe," Tobirama said dryly. "I developed them instead of using water clones for a reason. Naruto certainly has the chakra for a good number of them, but that leads him to take advantage of quantity over quality."

"Are you going to tell him that?"

"Maybe." He sipped his tea serenely. "If he ever stops calling me Grandpa, that is."

"By the way, are we training today?" Sakura didn't especially want to train, but she had never wanted to train her entire life despite the fact she knew she had too. Ah, to be a civilian and sleep in on mornings! But that life was long gone.

"Oh yes. Get out your staff, and start kneading chakra. I really hope you've been practicing your sensor abilities, because I'm going to hide, and you're going to try to find me. And hit me, if possible."

Realizing an opportunity, Sakura immediately lashed out with a punch- but she didn't make contact and the momentum sent her sprawling, while Tobirama was simply sitting opposite to where he had been, tea not even spilled.

"Good! If I weren't who I am, you would have definitely gotten me." He chuckled at her face. "Don't feel bad. There's some serious discrepancies in strength between my era and this one."

"You're an anachronism," she muttered, getting out her staff. "At least I'm more emotionally stable."

"Are you? I read some files and found out you have a little voice in your head." He laughed again while dodging another strike that didn't connect. "I said use the staff, not your fists! Next time you do that I'm getting out my sword, and we'll see how well you can reattach your own fingers."

"I can reattach my own fingers perfectly," Sakura yelled, now unable to see him as he hid- somewhere. "Not even a scar!"

"I believe you," the voice called out again. She strained to listen, but couldn't pinpoint a direction. Or see anything. There wasn't even a suspicious rustle of leaves. She closed her eyes and tried to sense chakra, but a vicious kick sent her to her back. When her eyes shot open he still wasn't there.

"Stupid," his voice chided. "Why on earth would you close your eyes?"

"Is this another genjutsu?" she called. "How am I supposed to sense you if you're hiding your chakra?"

"Figure it out. And don't close your eyes!"

I am not capable of murdering this man, Sakura thought to herself. I am definitely capable of murder, but I cannot successfully murder this man so I should not waste energy trying.

"Have you ever considered teaching me something before going straight to the 'hitting me' part of the exercise?" Sakura strained every single sense even more. "Because that might fit my learning style better."

"I'm pretty sure I've done that. On the other hand, I've been a teacher for longer than you've been a student, so I would suggest shutting the fuck up and doing the exercise."

Sakura picked up a rock with her free hand and threw it at the thick tree foliage to her left, and then darted to the location to swing her staff. The rock, not connecting with anything, was snatched out of the air a foot from Tobirama's face as he neatly sidestepped her swing and then sent her to the ground with a blow of his own.

"Good, you found me. You still need to be faster, though." He tossed the rock in his hand before chucking it behind him carelessly. "How did you sense me?"

"I don't know. I just guessed."

"Not bad for your first time. We'll do it again from now on until you recognize how to sense me on command." He paused, half turned away as if he were about to disappear again, and said "by the way, have you been strength training?"

"Yep," Sakura answered warily.

"Hm. Seemed like it."

She was about to be pleased before he said the next sentence and disappeared.

"Not because you seem stronger, just cause you seem a little more tired."

"Ass," she muttered. I can't kill the Nidaime. I can't kill the Nidaime. I am not yet capable of killing the Nidaime.

…

"What kind of person do you think you are, Haruno?"

"Don't talk to me," she said. "My brain is buzzing. I can hear every living organism in a fifty mile radius. Everything is alive."

The Nidaime slapped her gently on the forehead. "Don't be ridiculous. Developing a small measure of sensor skills is not that dramatic."

"It is! It's like my brain was a chamber of twenty locked doors and now half of them have been opened!"

He didn't say anything, so she peeked out of the corner of her eye and saw him staring ahead, smiling slightly. After a few heartbeats, his earlier question popped back into her mind.

"I think I'm a bit of a pawn. One that's reached the end of the chessboard."

He looked at her then, somewhere between calculating and quizzical. "Explain."

"I wasn't very much originally. Nothing unusual. Somehow, by luck or by ambition, I've ended up in a place where the commander, or the god, or the player or whatever, has the choice to mold me into something else, something useful. Who I was meant to be originally is destroyed, but I'll be a hell of a lot more help now that that's gone."

"You don't think that you are who you're meant to be?"

"Nope." Sakura covered her forehead with an arm, blocking down the sun that had been bearing down relentlessly all day.

"Don't you wish you were that person, whoever you think you were going to be?"

"I don't. I decide on the person I want to be, and then I become that."

"That's almost psychopathic, Haruno."

"I can't help it. You enjoy training. Learning. I have to make it a habit. I'm telling myself to shut up every second because I'm constantly complaining at myself. I want-" she cut off, waving her arms in the air in frustration- "want to be something I'm not. I'm- changing. Myself. To be better."

"And you think that it isn't you."

"I'm not sure. I feel like I'm creating myself over in my idealized image. I'm not what I was expected to be. It's as if I'm not truly happy with the version of myself that was my default, and I'm not even sure that I'm happy with the versions that I create either."

"It's not easy to be happy with anything in this world." As the light struck his face, still turned away from her, Sakura realized it was golden hour.

"Not yet," Sakura agreed. "I think maybe when I retire I'll be happy."

"I'm retired, you could say," Tobirama said. "Ask me again in a few weeks, and I'll tell you if I'm happy."

…

The Nidaime shows up on Sasuke's right. Sasuke isn't about to admit he was surprised, and he refuses to show it as well. It's a lost cause. The Nidaime doesn't care.

It takes five minutes of silence before something happens- they've been walking from the ANBU office back to Sasuke's apartment- and the Nidaime growls "No. Left."

Sasuke's about to throw a flippant fuck you to him before he notices the Nidaime pointing at a brightly painted building- small, but clearly well lived. It's the same finger he'd raised before, in that tomb with Orochimaru, when the Shodaime'd ordered him to stand down. Sasuke obeys.

He follows the Nidaime in, and in the foyer he strips off his armor. With some hesitation, Sasuke does the same thing, stashing his smaller weapons and leaving his sword up on a tall shelf where few could reach, let alone be bothered to look. The Nidaime isn't giving him any more explanation, but instead makes his way into the main room with the assumption that Sasuke will follow. He rankles at the other man's arrogance, but-

Madara! Stop!

-and-

What kind of a man are you!

Sasuke marks his footsteps.

The room is buzzing with children- and their chakra, minute and unchecked, fizzes around as if a soda bottle were shaken and let loose. Four of them immediately break from their castle and sprint to the Nidaime, three of them clinging to his legs and the final one leaping six feet into the air for him to catch. Sasuke realizes he can't quite find a single thing to say. The Nidaime takes care of that for him; without a word to Sasuke, but in a soft tone to the four children, he puts one of them into Sasuke's tense arms while picking up the other three and letting them climb onto his shoulders and hang off his back.

The one in Sasuke's arms looks at him. "Are you Uncle's brother?"

"No," he replies abruptly. The kid has bright eyes and a solemn mouth, the mark of young children that didn't know how - and didn't care- to try smiling to make others feel at ease.

"I have a brother," the kid says. "And Uncle does too. I thought you were him, but Uncle always said he couldn't bring him."

"How old is your brother?" The Nidaime isn't watching him at all, but somehow Sasuke knows he's paying attention.

"Eight. I'm three. But we're four and three quarters years apart, not five."

"You're smart, aren't you," Sasuke says. He hasn't held a small child since he was eight himself. It's more than half his life ago.

"Yeah. Are you stupid?" Sasuke's ready to drop the kid for that comment, but the tone tells him it's a genuine question, free of derision. "My brother always says a lot of people are stupid, but he never calls me stupid. Uncle calls his brother stupid a lot."

"What's your name?"

"Mizuki," the kid says. "Torifu Mizuki."

Sasuke stiffens again but tries not to let it touch his eyes. "Mizuki's a pretty stupid name if you ask me. Your brother might just be trying to spare your feelings."

"It's not! Your name is stupid!"

"You don't know my name," Sasuke points out to Mizuki.

"I'll call you Uncle Stupid," she says. She points at the Nidaime. "He'll be Uncle Smart and you'll be Uncle Stupid."

"Let's see if you can beat me in a game of Numbers, Mizuho," Sasuke says. "Then we'll see who's stupid."

Mizuki frowns with her tiny little face and holds out her pointer fingers with determination. "We will see."

"I suppose you know that my mother's sister married a man with the family name Torifu," Sasuke mutters at the Nidaime.

"I don't make it a habit of stalking other people's family lines," he replies.

"That doesn't mean you won't do it once. Why?"

"Consider it me making reparations to you."

"You didn't sign the order they gave my brother."

"And yet, I think you would agree I might have done more to prevent it."

I'm putting another Tobirama fic on my AO3 account if any of you are interested-the username is the same. Once again, commenting reminds me to update! I'm not dead, as much as it seems like it, and I do see all the comments! I'd love to hear from you all, otherwise this just completely slips my mind.