A.N.: ...I don't want to spoil the ending of this with any of my attempts at wittiness or comments about what things mean. Make of it what you will. I wrote everything I wanted to in my past note - now it's time for what you want to write to me. I'm here to tell you that reviews are still welcome, even if all you want to do is ask questions. The story is over after this, so unless it compromises an open meaning, I can tell you anything you want to know (yes, this is the Q&A).

This chapter is here to offer you closure - and because our other main character's arc wasn't done just yet. In order for you to understand proper: names are a very important thing. As could be surmised by what was hinted to be Sakura's fate after death, she lost something more than her life - hence the terms you will see employed in this chapter.

I hope you'll enjoy the read - thanks for taking this journey with me. I'd be glad to hear what you have to tell me in the reviews!

Cheerps!

Barebones - Epilogue: Rebirth

And the cycle comes a full round.

There is only muted horror in the faces of Konoha's last citizens and shinobi. Days of impatient, nerve-wracking wait, end with a ragged figure dragging itself through the gates. Silence follows him like a spell, and so do the stares. Sasuke pays them no heed, his mind incomprehensible even to himself.

Like always, he is chasing after a goal. It matters not if he is defying death itself to reach it - he will get there. He promised he would.

His chakra, which still has a foreign feel to it, spreads not only through his body - but hers as well. He won't let decay stop Her from coming back home where She belongs. He never did this for the other people that mattered most to him. It's only the first step in his path of atonement.

He manages to get her to the memorial stone, and then collapses next to Her in a heap. He doesn't believe in gods to pray to - if they are there, he wants to kill them. And right now, he wants to keep all thoughts of murder away from his mind.

He promised.

She looks like she fell asleep, though her body is in a pitiful state. Broken skin and flesh, after the Ningyo evaporated. Bones jutting out of the wrong places, because of him. The chakra ate away and corroded her very muscles - it feels like, if he touches Her wrong, She will melt in his hands.

And yet, somehow, her expression is peaceful. There is a smile on her face. He wonders if it's because of his last actions and words towards Her, or because of her victory. In the end, She won - She achieved what She wanted to, against all odds. It's undeniable. The price She paid in order to trump fate, however, was too high.

For a few agonizing hours, he battles with his own thoughts and emotions. He doesn't know what to do, or where to go. There is only heart-wrenching pain that he can barely control. Later, he can't remember what happens in that time - it's all a blur. He can't tell if he's crying or it's just blood from his abused eyes, but he imprints her image into his mind either way.

It is well past dusk, when he finally manages to get a hold of himself - his knees protest when he gets up, his eyes still stuck on the girl's final expression. There is a world awaiting him, one that has been plunged into chaos and can barely remember what it's like to see the light. One that he will have to fight against. He has to be strong. He starts to arrange goals, achievements - and after those, he puts limits. Lines he will never cross.

He promised Her.

The senbon pinned to his desk seems to taunt him. It speaks of one last act of defiance against a world that determined that Sasuke Uchiha belongs in the dark. The pair of ninja sitting on the other side of his desk seem to be somewhere between despair, shock and disbelief.

She's dead.

She refused to take it. She was given a weapon designed specifically to kill him, and rejected it. That means that, before She started to chase after him, She still believed in his redemption. It must have been when the doppelgänger took over - he can't remember much, except becoming aware of his surroundings just before the fight began.

Something twists in his chest, but he pushes the emotion aside.

"Technically, you're traitors of Konoha," he opts to say, sensing the fear that hides under Tenten's near-perfect mask. Lee's brow is furrowed, and he stares ahead, ready for anything. "I should execute you. But I won't, because there is a message you need to deliver for me."

Tenten stiffens, her back straightening in an instant. If Sasuke were a man to express amusement openly, he would certainly delight himself in the pair's obvious confusion.

"Konoha will lend its aid to Takigakure in the upcoming war. Iwagakure is preparing for a large-scale invasion." Shinobi don't give information freely. "As a token of trust, you may take Soma, my apprentice and Hokage heir, with you." Shinobi don't give weapons without a price.

"W-what?!" the brunette splutters, dumbfounded. The fear in her eyes turns to panic, her mind racing through a thousand potential hidden meanings in his words. There are none. It's the truth. But obviously, that doesn't match her vision of him slightest - no good shinobi wants to feel this way. It's deadly, more often than not.

Sasuke decides that nothing else needs to be said, and merely waits. The poisoned senbon that she tried to kill him with rests on the wooden desk between them, and he merely wonders how much longer the road to redemption will be.

Reputation is a strange thing.

The world fears Sasuke Uchiha when he walks, alone, to the frontline of the battlefield. They don't know if he is here to aid either side, or to annihilate them both. Iwagakure has had time to lick its wounds and come back roaring, but even they can sense that this one man could turn the tides in whatever direction he chooses to.

Power, Sasuke decides, is a good thing to have.

Shibuki takes firm, decisive steps towards his lone figure. The leader of Takigakure isn't escorted by anyone, his gaze fixed on Sasuke and his expression serene. He has become a respectably determined man - he has to be, if he has been rebelling against Konoha and has any idea of what he's up against.

"You came, Hokage-dono," he observes, his bow as small as it could be, while remaining respectful. The tension in his whole body doesn't go unnoticed.

Iwagakure decided that attacking Konoha straight away was a silly thing, with a great enemy to fight and little to gain - as Sasuke predicted, they instead tried to take over the last functioning villages. With the Kazekage under his wing, and the alliance with Otogakure, their best target was Taki. They had been hoping that the lethargic beast residing in Konoha wouldn't wake up.

They were sorely mistaken.

"This world can't afford the loss of so much human life, not now that it's becoming dangerous," he responds, nodding minutely.

Shibuki turns his gaze away, to his forces - hopelessly outmatched by Iwagakure's. Takigakure is just a bunch of refugees and misfits; Iwa has been preparing to go to war for a long time. It's going to be a massacre, but there is no other alternative.

"I read your letter, Hokage-dono," the man replies tersely. He seems to prepare himself for something really difficult to do, and finally sighs out his response. "We will ally with you, if you aid us in this battle."

Anything, for the sake of preventing a war.

Just, maybe, not the way he had initially planned it.

He forsakes sleep in favor of his quests. Nightmares chase him whenever tiredness claims him, and he spends his waking times busy, hounding after the true dreams he seeks to achieve, the goals he has to complete.

Sasuke Uchiha never, ever truly rests, never stops, never gives himself a moment to breathe and feel free of the weights on his shoulders. It is part of his atonement, part of the price he wants to pay for being alive when he shouldn't be, for being the one standing after becoming a monster like he did.

He is assaulted at any hour of the day by assassins, most of them following a quest of revenge. He lets them, of course - he learned from Itachi that, with enough time and the right genjutsu, it's possible to change anyone's mind. It worked for Kabuto - and even Orochimaru.

He recognises the medic-nin from Yugakure, the one that he nearly killed in his quest to find Her. He doesn't say anything, but after all is said and done, the man seems defeated. It's only when the two brothers from the same village find him, that a spark of life finds his eyes.

Sasuke doesn't ask, but he watches as these friends finally reunite once more. It's no surprise that the Kiri-nin requests the ability to take care of them from then on, and he knows that, finally, he can sleep in better peace.

Sasuke doesn't share the same luck. He has too much to atone for.

He lost his faith in humanity a long time ago, it's true - starting with his village, the world, and then himself. However, the sacrifice She made changed something. She was fighting for something greater than her own gain, even her own dreams. Yet She never renounced to the true nature of human heart.

Perhaps it woke him up from his empty ponderation, but after her death, something changed.

If he didn't have dignity, he would compare it to a child desperately looking around, hoping to get candy. Hoping to find reassurance in what feels like a distant dream. When he walks into Takigakure, the village that he literally just saved, he expects to need to defend himself from a hail of kunai.

Instead, there is expectant, unsure silence. The civilians who have only heard the shinobi's tales from him seem to be slightly conflicted. He just saved them all - by virtue of systematically defeating the best of Iwagakure's forces, without even needing to use deadly force. The rest didn't take long to surrender.

Some of the shinobi that weren't involved in the massacre seem wary, but accepting. Alliances and truces, whether they're temporary or not, are a common thing in their world. The others are either enraged, terrified or lost in their memories.

It takes a few days for him to see it (and for them to start to get used to his presence, even if they can't figure out where exactly he is), and his heartrate jolts. It's only the first of many, and with each one there is a growing pain somewhere deep within him.

In their seemingly hopeless misery, these people have managed to become a tight-knit community. Distrust and power-hunger should have destroyed it, yet against all odds, here they are. It's not perfect, not by a long shot, but they get through each day with doses of kindness that he hasn't seen anywhere else.

He learns that it's because, otherwise, they would have succumbed. The hardships that threw them into this place didn't end there - people from different nations, upbringings and even cultures, had to figure out how to get through each day (together) without falling into savagery. Shibuki is in charge of the village, after overthrowing Konoha's own forces, and yet it's not just him giving everything to this ideal of civilization.

They all are. There's criminals and greed, just like always before, but something is different. They have something in common that they hadn't realised before: they're all stuck in the same situation, and no amount of achievable individual power is going to get them out of it. They are all fighting for the dream of something better, and he knows that in protecting them, so is he.

Perhaps, just a little bit, he starts to believe in people again.

It takes an entire year for Takigakure to start sending refugees to Konoha. Though Sasuke has done nothing but maintain peace, distrust is something that takes a long time to be repaired. He could force them to comply, of course, but that's exactly what he is trying to avoid doing.

There is only one other person waiting by the gates with him - Soma, his apprentice. After releasing the hostages, he was the only one who chose to stay. Tenten refused to take a potential time-bomb to Taki. He was clearly bitter, and definitely did not remain out of appreciation for the grueling trials Sasuke put him through. Sasuke understood that it was because he had lost everything else.

Orochimaru made the same deal with him. He can understand.

Today, he is proven wrong in this assumption; vague memories of the child having an older brother pass through his mind, but it's the screams of joy that drill the message into his mind. Both of the young teenagers break into a run and into each other's arms, after their long separation and countless doubts about each other's well-being.

The message says that this is the world he should fight for, and why he should never have become the monster he evolved into.

The boys hold each other and cry, as the slow procession of refugees waits by the gates. A few Konoha genin start to take note of the documentation and identification of each of them. He recognises Kurenai and Konohamaru, the latter of which gives him a glare. Tenten and Lee are back, as well as an emaciated contingent of survivors from the massacre.

They give a bleak vibe, one that speaks of many loses and just a little room for hope - but here they are. None of them pay any real attention to him, except the wary glances and similarly fearful messages of body language.

He hadn't expected anything better.

Atonement comes in many shapes and forms. Offering and taking deals that foster trust and that should help with pushing the nations' economy back into shape; patience with people that he would really have liked to beat up in the past.

He does not understand well the language of kindness, but he attempts to make a better world in any way he can.

His team is gone, but they are still the guideline of courage and dedication that he chases after. She was much better than he, when he was stuck in her situation. Naruto started out in the dust and went far enough to reach the stars. Kakashi never let grief destroy his moral compass, instead using the memories of his loss as an anchoring point.

Itachi sacrificed so much for what he believed was right, but he could never truly kill his own heart. The fact that Sasuke is alive is a testament to that.

He has them to fall back onto when he can't go any further. That way, he never gives up.

It starts with hunches on what should he do; things he wouldn't think of too much. The dreams start to become more and more persistent: an ashen meadow, slowly blooming back into life. He supposes it's his conscience, now free from the shinobi duties he subjected it to, trying to tell him that there is one thing he can never truly atone for.

But he can make it better. He can rebuild from the ashes, and make something more.

He keeps thinking about Her; what would She do, how would She do it, what would She feel. The things She would want, if She still lived. It's a moral compass that he holds onto when the logical response seems to veer towards violence or despair. Not to say there are no fights, but he is taking a different approach to everything now.

What he hopes She would have wanted - because She gave him her life, and he will honor her last sacrifice.

It is with odd surprise that he starts dreaming about rats and crows.

His investigation is coming up with trails colder than ice, older than half the civilizations in the world. Long ago, in a time of mythical beasts and endless wars, sentient rats were the harbingers of good fortune. And he knows that they are damn good at senjutsu-genjutsu - enough to fool a fully matured Sharingan and his special Rinnegan.

He also knows that, at some point, the doppelgänger tried to annihilate them all. After his failure to take Her, his resentment grew beyond his expectations - the clone was never anything but a vessel. Spurred by a combination of Tailed Beast chakra and his own twisted emotions. Its voice grew so much stronger, beyond what he could ignore… and that was the point at which insanity dug its heels deep.

They aided Her - they became his enemies, and had to be destroyed. He must have succeeded, because when he finally reaches their Nest again, it is empty. However, he can feel the soft, throbbing source of a familiar energy in the depths of the cave system. He follows it, half-expecting illusions to jump at him at any second, yet nothing happens.

Are they allowing him to pass, or is it because the Ningyo is gone?

He reaches a large, watery cavern - a place described only in an old tale. It's empty of any visible life. His steps take him to the statue that lies in the middle, which is a mere deception. Under the stone, the chakra of the rats' energy vessel is slowly rebuilding, reforming.

It is on impulse that he reaches out and touches the moist, warm surface. His fingers trace the shapes of thousands of tails, and the more he does, the less he realises that he has been repeating the same motion for well over half an hour.

His ears perk up at a sound that he believes imagined - a distant bell. Something brushes against his knuckles, and he only catches the phantom image of a dark feather through the corner of his eye. He represses the urge to jump away from the statue, instead pulling his hand away and taking a step back.

The tips of the rats' tails start to light up, and the feathers that he can barely see start to brush against him, as if carried by a gentle wind.

He knows this feeling. The Ningyo transferred part of her most intimate memories and experiences to him - and, as the bells start to form a chorus, he recognises the two genjutsu that protected her mind from complete insanity.

He is almost unsurprised when the cave suddenly lights up with long tongues of fire, spewed by ancient salamanders that had merely been biding their time. They don't harm him - instead, the tongues of flame start to take shapes he recognises well. Large, elongated bodies start to crawl over the wall and ceiling, causing a great rumble.

The information that his kekkei genkai feed him becomes blurred once more, and he merely awaits for the moment that must be coming. When the fires die down, he finds himself in a burnt down meadow.

The myths he read about said that the sapient animals he is dealing with used to ally - putting together their heavenly powers, they could achieve missions that, alone, they would never have managed.

Rats and crows were always particularly entangled: good luck and wealth for the messengers of Heaven. The two, creatures that hide in the shadows and illusions, cunning beyond human comprehension. And both of them came together to aid Her. Through Itachi's chakra, through her own mission right into their Nest, She became part of something much greater than She ever knew.

The rodents and the birds are always bickering, though their enmity is akin to a rivalry between best friends. Itachi's uncanny affinity for crows affected Her, and that must have called their attention. It must have made them want to help Her.

Otherwise, he wouldn't be seeing her perfectly preserved image, in the battered remains of her mindscape. She blinks once, twice, and then looks around in confusion. He only now realises that the little voice in the back of his mind always sounded like hers.

Her eyes finally find his, and for once he can't read the emotions rushing through her expression. She freezes, overwhelmed. He had never expected to see her again, and the suddenness of the situation ensnares him too. For an illusion, it's incredibly realistic.

"It's not fake, ah," comments a vaguely familiar voice. The mere tone of it already raises annoyance in his mind, but he chooses not to show it. "Even her true name has been lost to the world, alongside her spirit - but a part of her still lives in you, ah."

There is a small rat standing by his side. Maru, he remembers. Her teacher and protector. Unknown to her (and he wouldn't know, if he hadn't put together his old memories and hers), he was Itachi's very own partner.

Crows and rats always had different methods to apply their genjutsu - the former focused entirely in the victim's mind, materialising their worst fears through their own energy. The latter took to using the environment as a weapon. A more laid-back take on manipulation, but a rather effective one. To reach new heights, it isn't rare for them to pair off. This one rat was no exception.

And since the Ningyo had a natural chakra component, the moment that She summoned a rat, Maru knew.

"You chose, ah, to preserve her in your heart - and you did, ah. Really, Bastard, by now you should know that you can take this as literal meaning."

Two sentences, and he wants to make fine paste with the rodent. Sasuke takes a deep breath, reminds himself that violence is not always the answer, and steels himself for this.

"You're just showing me what my soul harbors." Maru does not respond, but it's enough of a confirmation.

His heart is beating a little faster than it should.

She isn't gone. He tries to say the name, he really tries, but it escapes his thoughts. There isn't much left of her - like an imprint on his very soul, she is just a weak flicker of life. But she is still there, and that means that not everything is lost.

He finds Kurama guarding a village, of all things he could be doing. It starts with subduing all the mythical beasts that he- the doppelgänger unleashed. Then he starts hearing stories of different creatures: the Tailed Beasts.

He owes them something, and so after following the trail for weeks, he finds the Nine-Tails.

Sasuke can tell that it takes everything he has in him, for Kurama not to go on the rampage of his long life. Naruto was one of the few beings that the kitsune ever cared about. Its anger isn't merely directed towards Sasuke - it's the fox's own nature, that allowed him to gain the power that sent everything to hell.

It's the wrath of a creature that could either be holy or hellish, but he withstands it. It's the sorrow of a being that knows exactly what was lost in the massacre. Sasuke merely offers the truth - the dreams that Naruto once fought for.

It's clear that Kurama does not believe in him, but his words are clear as day: I'll prove you wrong. They are entirely different from what the Uzumaki would have said, but it gets the fox (and the others) to listen.

They can sense that, behind the cold façade and dark eyes of this man, there is a burning determination that will not be put out by anything.

The change is very gradual, slow; it happens over the span of nearly two decades. Some people never change, some scars are never healed. Some will never forgive him.

But the world is slowly starting to bloom, and there is light being reflected back at him. There are people who greet him with respect or a smile. There are words that go beyond the strictly necessary - and while before he would have preferred the silence, while he still doesn't know how to answer them, they reach him.

It's such a beautiful day outside.

He looks out the window, his brush hovering over the unfinished letter. The faded lines of the Seal are still drawn on his skin, and there is a harsh emptiness in his eyes that no amount of time will erase, but his expression and demeanor are serene.

"So it is," he mutters.

He starts to lower the brush once more, the words he wants to express memorised in his mind. The Kazekage is requesting a meeting, to oversee the creation of a nation-wide aqueduct system for Wind Country. Though peace has lasted longer than ever, and children have been born and grown in times without a single war, it's always better to be safe than sorry.

Let's go out!

His fingers almost twitch, and he lets out a small, exasperated sigh. Not this (again). He has duties to observe, and a limited time to dedicate to them. Even if half his life has been spent on this task, he is nowhere near done. The Elemental Countries know peace and prosperity, the world has mostly recovered from the chaos he inflicted on it, and soon there will be a new Hokage. It took him a long time, but he finally found someone suited for the role of protecting his home village.

Please? It's a special day, you know it is!

"Silence is golden," he mumbles, but he finally gives it up and leaves the brush next to the scroll.

The poisoned senbon is still embedded on his desk - few have dared to pick it up over the years, but his offer still stands. If anyone believes that they know better, they are free to challenge him. It took different degrees of effort, to deal with each individual that picked up the old weapon and threatened him with it.

But he did it; he did it with as much of Naruto's empathy as he could muster. With as little bloodshed as Itachi would have wanted. With the unending strength of a certain pinkette, who refused until the end to deny freedom to her heart.

Thank you!

There is a nervous ripple of warmth, spreading through his chest, and he has to suppress his annoyance at the lack of self-control that he has in this regard.

The weight of his duties has been heavy, there is no denying that; true to his word, however, he has lived and he intends to keep it up for as long as he can. It's a worthy price to pay.

He takes the long route out of the Hokage Tower, nodding in a curt, absent manner to the shinobi that greet him. Social interaction is not his thing, but by now both parties know that this silent acknowledgement is his way of showing gratitude.

He is their eternal protector, the one who will defend their dreams until the very end. It has taken years to prove it, but by now it matters little if his attitude is secluded and cold - the truth is that, from afar, Sasuke has become nothing less than the upholder of these values that have taken the world into a new era.

They still don't belong to him, but he carries the torch with as much determination as if it were his life dream. Because it was her dream, and the dream was born from her desire to save him and from the souls that were imprinted on her.

You'll let them put your face on the Mountain now, right?

He takes a look at the reconstructed monument to the past five Hokages. With Iwagakure's collaboration, it was possible to reshape the rubble into the mountain it used to be. It was a more odd idea, from the fierce representatives of Water Country's many shinobi clans, to use water jutsu to shape the faces.

He doesn't deserve to be there. Naruto did.

There isn't a single second of his life in which he doesn't remember the names and deaths of those whose dreams he fights for. Not a single moment is spent paying attention to his own achievements, lest he fall to arrogance once more. Perhaps it's a bitter existence, but it's the only one he desires.

Now that these seemingly impossible dreams are coming true, he can finally step back and merely ensure that everything stays right, instead of being the driving force behind a movement that has changed everything world-wide. It's the only thing he is looking forward to, because it will mean he is closer to the unachievable ideal of true peace.

"We've had this conversation before," he whispers under his breath, dodging his former apprentice with expertise. Soma might have learned from him, but he can never catch him if he wants to be alone. And that is something he does an awful lot.

That's mean! You know it's for the wedding.

It's amazing that something so bright came out of the destruction he caused. And that's why he doesn't want any part in it - he shouldn't be there. It's not hard to hide in the shadows of the village, away from everything and everyone, until he finds a deserted spot near the Memorial Stone.

Kakashi would probably give him a thumbs-up for this habit, or so he wants to believe. After all, this monument is dedicated solely to the ones killed in the massacre.

It's a bright spring day, not a cloud in sight, and the forest's scents seem to fill the air, carried by a pleasant breeze. It reminds him of times long past, faces long lost. The ghostly sensation of a brush on his cheek is enough to drag him out of his reverie.

"Sometimes I wonder how real you are." He has said it before, dozens of times, but the question always lingers in his mind. After all, he has seen what he can create and give life to.

You still don't know my name, so it's impossible for you to have made me.

Unlike with the doppelgänger, this one is trickier. There are no repressed emotions that can build up, no Seal fed by hatred, and none of this last, burning emotion. This is something entirely out of his control, instead of a reflection. He has argued for hours on end with what amounts to a voice in his head, and he still can't put his finger on it, but he knows it's something more than a machination of his.

Female, insistent, vocal - pedantic at times, entirely too emotional, empathetic to the point of making him feel bad and react to things he should be capable of withstanding. Unyielding. It's familiar, but he doesn't know from where.

There is something missing, memories passing in incomplete flashes when he is at his deepest sleep - a meadow he can't place, a person he knows but can't remember. Something so very important, yet he can't name it.

"I will find it," he promises.

Isobu is the one who tells him that there are vestiges of the Seal on him - that something is still trapped in there. Whatever it is, the Three-Tails says, is something that Sasuke has taken into himself willingly. Perhaps unconsciously, he seems to know that it's benign.

It takes him years to discover that the voice in his head is a treasure he wants to keep. He doesn't really know why, but it wrecks him more than once, sudden emotion striking at the thought of this one thing he can't name. He tried to shut it down, at the start, in fear of insanity - but he never could.

It takes him even longer to understand that it's his anchor to the promises he made. Once he is free to wander the world, he studies under the snakes and the slugs - Katsuyu tells him that there is dormant slug chakra in there. If he learns, he could unleash whatever is stuck in him. He discovers that it's of vital importance, but he still can't name it.

He spends the majority of his life chasing after a dream, and every day the voice grows closer, stronger, until the very day he is at the gates of death.

It's after a battle goes wrong, after he miscalculates how much energy he has left - an unfortunate series of events that put him at the end of his rope. Whether he lives or dies, he won. The world will still be safe.

It takes him this to understand.

She saves him; he isn't sure how. It's in the ashen meadow, that he sees her again for the first time in decades, and beyond her, in the forest, hide the silhouettes of souls long freed from their mortal vessel. The words bubble up to the surface of his mind, the syllables stuck on the tip of his tongue.

She smiles sheepishly, and gestures for him to remain quiet.

He fears, however, that if he doesn't find the name, the meaning of all of this will be lost - and so will she.

"I'll always be with you," she assures him. "Because you'll always allow me to." Her caress is gentle, always dazzling him into immobility. She smiles. "One day, Sasuke-kun… but not quite yet. Not quite yet."

The day arrives before he realises it.

The girl's figure is still young and healthy, reflecting a liveliness that he hasn't seen in anyone, not even Lee. She walks by his side every day, each time a little closer to being real, but not quite yet.

He knows it's today, because he can't see through her anymore. Her touch is almost real, and he is dying to know the name.

"My soul was incomplete," she explains to him, as they take the long route to the Memorial. "I lost my name, and if not for you, I would have vanished…"

He realises, then, that it has been a very long time since he questioned the logistics of why he does what he does. Why his dream is to keep the world a good place, and make it a better one.

"Why me?" he asks, half to himself and half to her.

"Because you were the start and end of everything that defined me," she responds, and his heart nearly stops in its tracks. She talks in riddles when it comes to her identity, but this can only have one meaning.

"You're here because I killed you."

"Dying for you doesn't mean dying by your hand," she corrects him, but her tone is very soft, almost gentle. "I gave everything I had to save you, even whatever was left of my soul. I exist because you refused to forget who I was, what I died and lived for, even if I shouldn't be here anymore. Don't you understand? This… all of this - we're defying fate, breaking the rules, doing the impossible."

He closes his eyes, trying to recall her image. Bright pink hair, colorful green eyes, a lapislazuli blue dress swaying in the wind. Her smile, always there for him - until the very end. The trees sway, bells ringing as the breeze plays in the light of the dying afternoon.

"It was predetermined that you and I would follow set paths… but we broke free." He can see - the dreamy glint in her eyes, the corners of her lips tugging upwards, her face turned skyward, to the empyrean ocean above.

She lies down on the lush grass, and he follows, tired and aching for well-deserved rest. Even if he feels like he will never be done, he knows this is as far as he goes. He can only hope that his legacy will be good enough.

The lazy clouds sailing overhead distract him for a long time, but he finally turns toward the pink-haired child and dares to ask:

"Who are you?"

She giggles, because somehow his words get twisted and he says something else entirely.

Enjoying the day?

"Yeah. It's beautiful."

She closes her eyes, sighing deeply and getting comfy on her green mattress. Sasuke doesn't remember her name when she does any of this. He feels tantalisingly close to the truth, but he can't muster annoyance at this situation or her antics.

There is something mesmerising in this scene, in this girl, that numbs out every other thought.

"Why are you so happy?" he inquires, because he can never muster the same careless, unfettered joy that she can. There is always a duty, a mission, a dream to accomplish; and even if sometimes he can't remember why, he can never relieve himself of it, nor does he want to. But he wants to understand her, even if it's something alien to him.

She laughs at his question with fondness, and his heartstrings once again tremble in resonance with her voice. He remembers when she finally whispers, under her breath, those few syllables.

I love you.

The girl who gave her all to him, for reasons that are still beyond his grasp. Just like Naruto and Itachi did. The one who fought until the end, and died with a smile on her face, even though she lost her true name - her soul.

The shinobi who went against every regulation in the old books, who pursued dreams wrought by her heart's desire.

The teammate that he used to find superficial and annoying, yet ended up worming her way into his heart. The precious person that he couldn't kick from that nest she had made, even though he had to.

The center of his insanity, his anchor and downfall, whose dreams he swore to protect and give life to, because she wouldn't be able to.

He holds onto her like a child, out of the blue, and he definitely feels like one. For the second time, he doesn't care, because she is here and he almost forgot her name forever. Because even though he couldn't forgive himself, she did. Even though he stopped believing, she did. Even though he lost the ability to love, she did.

She returns his embrace timidly, with a blush that fits her too well, with tears that seem to be a secondary feature to her usual expression. Her hand strokes his back slowly, soothingly, trying to appease the pain that has bloomed in his chest.

The words, the ones he forgot and the ones he carried for a lifetime, refuse to come out. His whole body trembles uncontrollably, but she merely holds him in silence.

The words aren't important, after all. It took him a very long time, but through every action, through every second of his existence, he expressed the meaning that his voice could never convey. And she knows, because she was always beside him.

"It's alright, everything's alright," she whispers, when his hands clench on the back of her dress and he buries his face on her long, pink hair. "I'm here now. No suffering, no pain."

All this time, the life he shared with her made her whole - what she gave him was returned, and now he can finally separate one from the other. He can finally put a name to her. And when he does, she will be herself again, and this lifelong chase will be over. His mission will be over, and her dream will be complete.

It is with that childish, tearful smile, finally content and whole, that he looks at her and whispers her name.

"Sakura Haruno."

It is with the happiest grin on her lips, with that name on his, that Sasuke Uchiha finally embraces sleep.