A/N: People, I am saddened but proud to say that this is the last chapter of It's A Humble Path. A few chapters ago I said that I was wrapping up already, and this is it! Idk if you were expecting more chapters but honestly I've dragged this long enough (I was gonna cut this chapter in two, but nah). Thank you to all who have stuck with me from the start, to those who are new every chapter, and to those soon to come! It's been so nice to finish my first multi-chaptered, relatively long fanfic. Honestly, it's been more than 2 years. I even got an amazing doujin-styled drawing made for chapter 19 (check it out on Tumblr, by shuu-chyan).

And now I can finally continue Parting Arrival, for those interested. ;)

P.S. I know I made Boruto like a year older than Sarada, but oh well. Also, I think Sarada's birthday is March 30? Which means she was conceived around Sasuke's birthday, and you know how that might have happened here, huhu. Of course, I made adjustments to my own accord, but it's okay to mess up a little on my first fanfic so gimme a break xD

Please do let me know your thoughts on this ending and the fanfic as a whole, and I'll try to respond to every one of you! I did my absolute best on this ending, and now I can finally focus on my well posponed calculus homework (yuck).

THANK YOU AGAIN EVERYONE. Ily all.

Chapter 21

- The Start -

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Sakura wakes up for the first time—in so, so long—next to him. She opens her eyes at the dawn filtering through the curtain of his room's window, and lands her eyes on a familiar silhouette in front of her, both bodies facing each other on their sides.

It reminds her of their Team Seven missions, when she would wake up sometimes before him and catch his unusually peaceful face under the small rays of light. The only difference is that, back then, she was nothing but a small annoyance in the back of his busy mind, always thinking about revenge and a brother he shouldn't have killed. Back then, he couldn't bother to spare her a glance more times than what was appropriate for a concerned teammate. Back then, he was consumed by the darkness of his past and couldn't look more than two steps ahead of his own shadow.

And now...

She looks at his bare chest, almost touching her own naked chest, which is in her direct line of vision. His upper torso moves up and down slowly, clearly signalling that the man is still deep in sleep. She trails her eyes upward, tilting her head and eyes landing on his collarbone, his neck, his jaw. His face.

He looks so much younger than what he always shows the world, the bags under his eyes are less and the frown is not present. He's always looking double his age because of the invisible weight he carries on his back around everywhere he goes. Now he looks his actual age for once. It brings a small smile to her lips, lifting the corners up without her mind registering the gesture immediately.

Now...

Now he's more sure of himself and what he wants. Now he's not consumed by his hatred and his vengeful, life-long plans. Now he's free of his past, and possibly haunted by the future.

Back then, she loved him. Now, she loves him even more, and she's certain that he feels for her. It's not prudent to assume he's in love, because he's not, and she's learnt for a long time to wait for things that are not for certain. And she's for certain that he'll never reciprocate her love as she gives it to him so blindly. However, he does feel for her.

She knows.

With the pad of her thumb, she brushes his surprisingly soft cheek, tracing the accentuated bone that goes from lips to ear. When she reaches said ear, she takes the opportunity to ghost her fingers across his forehead, moving wild strands of dark hair aside. The lack of obstacles makes it easier to look into his mismatched eyes when he suddenly opens them.

Sea-foam colours clash against a dark, dark cliff.

She doesn't do so much as flinch; she just smiles a little bit more, eyes full of fondness and heart beating calmly inside her chest.

"Good morning," she whispers.

His hand twitches as it decides to touch her own, still on his cheek. His own covers hers silently, and for a moment she's entranced by the way he closes his eyes for a second, then and there, as if her hand against his skin in such an intimate manner is of more comfort than words could ever be. As if he's found peace in the small gesture.

They're so close that she can make out every eyelash bordering his eyelids as he flutters them open again to look at her, and then she can make out the tired, grey specks inside his eyes. It's much easier to lose herself in those eyes when they're both as dark as she's always known them to be—even if, as she has come to know, they're not his eyes, but his brother's.

He moves her hand away from his face with his own, bringing them to the space between their heated bodies.

"So, did you like your birthday gift?" She whispers with a funny edge to the question, making his eyes widen momentarily before some sort of amusement dances over his features.

She doesn't expect the playful smirk trying to tug at his lips.

"You had this planned all along?"

It's then that she makes a small sound in her throat, embarrassed at the implication the question entails.

She meets his eyes anyway, fierce as she always has been, yet more gentle with this man.

"Of course not!" She flushes, resisting the urge to puff out her cheeks in defiance—childish defiance, she may add. "You need to spend more time with Naruto because, clearly, you still can't get a joke."

He snorts, much to her surprise, and snakes his arm around her waist slowly with a hand that pauses for a moment as soon as it touches bare skin, bringing her closer and resting his head on the crown of her rose head. The intimate gesture is done with hesitance, but she's mostly glad that he doesn't pull away during his conflicting thoughts of whether he should embrace her or not.

If he were not Sasuke, she thinks, he would have voiced his troubling mind. Regardless, she would have told him to do it anyway and forget about the what-ifs. She would tell him one hundred times if it meant that he would embrace her without resistance.

But he is Sasuke, and he does hesitate, yet he manages to make her feel at home in any case.

Their bodies flushed together makes her shiver against her best wishes, from top to bottom, and she wonders if he notices.

"Don't mention the idiot right now, Sakura," he almost pleads and she can't help the giggle that comes out of her lips at that.

The mention of their best friend after a long night spent together, tangled in bedsheets and moving in sync, isn't something she would like to try again. She understands as he sighs against her, the air that comes out of his lips making their chests brush.

She remembers how his skin felt against hers the previous night as clear as the cloudless sky that day; remembers how the rough pads of his fingers, toughened by the lives they live, touched every inch of her body; remembers how it felt to be caged under his chest. It had been a mess of limbs and garments and shaky fingers, full of unsure instances, but they had made it work somehow.

In that small moment, in that quiet morning, she pushes everything else away from her line of thought. It's just her and Sasuke and their bodies together under some flimsy, brown covers.

When the seconds tick by, and she feels the threads of sleep pull her back in, she doesn't expect him to speak again. But that he does, and with words that leave her breathless for the longest time.

"Thank you."

She tries to ignore the way his words bring a tiny stab to her heart. His gratitude brings back several memories with several different scenes, in several different times, all ending with goodbye. Some sadder and some happier, but altogether the same.

All of them ending with his leave.

She ignores the lump in her throat when she speaks.

"For what, Sasuke-kun?"

She's met with an achingly tense silence before he releases a breath against her hair.

For a moment, she feels the itch in her veins at the prospect of his departure. It's familiar, whispering things in her brain she shouldn't be thinking. And yet she knows, in a deep part of her heart, he wouldn't leave her so early. He couldn't possibly walk away right after a night together, right after their time together. Right?

But still, previous experience shows her the way to feel anxious, and that's all she feels from the time he sighs to the time he talks again. His voice is rough and soft at the same time when he speaks, and she worries he may have noticed her tensed shoulders and her stilled breath in the quiet of the room.

"For the party yesterday, you didn't have to do it, and it wasn't that bad," he says while hearing her laugh shortly at his reply, and then waits a second before speaking again. His voice trails along the letters, trying to murmur words that don't want to come out. "And for..."

That's all she has to hear in order to let her worried thoughts drift away into nothingness. There's no itch, no red, hot anxiousness coursing through her veins, no shortness of breath at something she thinks will come.

She disentangles her hand from his own immediately, instead, and puts it against the hollow between his neck and his jawline.

What remains of her thoughts flies out the window when she looks at him. The worries previously swimming are now drowning in the pool of his dark, dark eyes—his unique ocular powers are not on, and she takes pleasure in look at his eyes without having to watch out for entrapment, because, the last time she let her guard down, she had found herself with his arm piercing through her chest.

She looks away from his currently-gentle eyes and focuses on his thin-but-not-so-thin, inviting lips.

She doesn't want him to finish his sentence. She knows exactly what he's going to say, and he almost looks relieved she understands.

For last night. For loving me. For never giving up.

She closes her eyes and joins their lips chastely, softly and fleetingly. It is gone sooner than it arrives.

Sasuke doesn't have time to kiss her back, and she doesn't wait for him to do so because she's up from the bed in all her naked glory a second later and Sasuke wants to look away out of courtesy, like his family would have taught him to do—even though he has already seen everything there is to her the night before.

She walks around the room picking her clothes up, folding them and holding them close to her chest in what he thinks is an act of hiding herself as best as she can. She manages to exude confidence all the same, somehow.

He wants to look away, yet his eyes stay glued to her figure moving about.

Something between them has changed. Something in the way they look at each other, in the way she smiles secretly. They're like pre-pubescent teenagers, he thinks amusedly, when in reality he had turned twenty-two just the day before.

"I'm gonna shower now, if that's ok," she says, looking at him and averting her gaze quickly at the deep emotion reflected in his eyes.

When nothing meets her ears, she interprets the silence as a confirmation to her request. So she slides open the door that's already incorporated inside of his bedroom, finding it to be his bathroom just as she hoped. It's tiny, but the stall at the end will serve its purpose.

With one small blush, she leaves the sliding door open, and pushes away the curtains of the shower with a shaky hand that doesn't reflect on her voice when she speaks.

"Join me?"

She laughs when she feels his arm around her waist one second later.

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Her time working has never been spent so slowly before.

It's agonising, the way the clock ticks in her mind. And every time she looks over her head at the white, round object on the wall, it has barely been more than one minute.

She can't help it, though. She has to look—she has to check because she wants to get home as soon as possible. She hadn't slept at all the night before (for good reasons) and she doesn't enjoy the way her eyelids droop every now and then, and the way her head blanks in a few instances. Or how her pen sometimes stills in her grasp because she's not looking at the papers in front of her, but rather at the dust particles in the air around her.

She definitely doesn't enjoy how the time passes slowly.

The clocks ticks to the East anyway. The third time she looks up at the clock, half an hour has already gone by. It brings her to move her pen faster and focus more.

She passes said time at her office filling out paperwork and making copies, signing required documents, and going in and out of her space for several surgery procedures. She has to file and fill paperwork at least once a week, and she tells everyone in advance so that she's only called outside when absolutely necessary and in dire situations.

That day, apparently, almost every surgery is a dire situation.

So she spends one more hour of overtime, filling and copying and signing, until she's done with the stacks of paper and she finally logs off her computer.

At last, the clock on the wall shows six in the afternoon.

She leaves the medical coat on the hanger and walks out, locking the door of her small office behind her.

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She pays a visit to Sasuke's apartment two days later, carrying a light heart in her sleeve and a wide smile. Naruto is beside her, arm around her shoulders and the other knocking on the dark door relentlessly.

Sasuke opens the door with bags under his eyes and hair in messy tangles from a rough night, and Sakura blushes immediately at this sight. She only assumes that, after she had to leave early for work, he only slept on and on—since he hadn't had time to sleep the previous night.

It had been even better than the first time.

Sakura tries to lock away her thoughts, but then again Sasuke doesn't make it easy. He looks at her with those sleep-deprived eyes with a knowing look and she feels her knees grow weak. Naruto, of course, is oblivious.

He enters the apartment like a madman and demands Sasuke to get ready because they're going to eat at Ichiraku's ramen today. Sasuke ignores him, and Sakura enters the apartment too.

It's a few seconds of arguing back and forth before Sakura has had it; she has just left work and she doesn't appreciate her free time being spent watching her two boys fighting in strings of curses and damnations. So, she proposes to cook a light meal with their help and watch a movie in Sasuke's living room.

They share a look of mutual surrender, and they agree.

And when everything's ready and they're sitting on the rug of Sasuke's living room, in front of the small television, Naruto sits in the middle, Sakura to his right and Sasuke to his left. Naruto misses the way their best friends hold hands from behind his back.

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She visits Sasuke that night, after she has to complete a short, emergency shift at the hospital that consisted of watching, helplessly, a young boy die under her hands.

It takes away all the ideas she had for them that night, and he understands without her voicing it. She feels drained and tired and exhausted, physically and emotionally, and all she wants is to feel him embrace her for the rest of the night, even if it's already two in the morning. She always has to appear as a strong pillar for the village nowadays. Someone who can't be defeated, who stands side by side with Naruto and Sasuke. And it's what she's always strived for.

But, sometimes, she just wants to feel small in this big world of killings and hate.

She takes off her sweaty clothes, showers alone, and puts on one of his shirts and one of his sweatpants. They only sleep that night, breathing each other in, and it's exactly what Sakura needs.

She has no idea that it's all going to change soon.

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Exactly a week later, she sees Sasuke again.

It's not planned at all—she has been so busy at the hospital the last days that she hasn't had time to pay him a visit. She sees him nonetheless, as if the forces of the universe are propelling them toward each other.

This time, he's not waiting in front of the hospital or her apartment, nor is he in the middle of the street when he suddenly spots her. No.

Instead, she sees him after a night shift while at the Hokage's office (while she's about to ask for permission on a small renovation of the southeast end of the hospital, and she stands there for what seems like an hour, staring at everything with surprise written in her eyes). She enters through the double doors like she owns the place, for there is nobody there most of the times that she barges in.

She doesn't expect to see Sasuke, out of all people, standing in front of Kakashi's desk, seemingly talking about something in hushed voices.

It all stops when she announces her presence by throwing open the doors; Sasuke immediately tenses up and Kakashi gives her an unimpressed look from over his chair.

Sakura analyses the situation as best as her brain can process it.

There are no papers on the ample desk and no folders. Sasuke is standing with his back to her, and he turns to regard her with a face of feigned nonchalance.

She knows, from the shape of his clenched fist in the pocket of his trousers, that she has caught him unawares. He hadn't expected her presence, and he hides his true feelings behind a set of stony ridges and symmetrical planes. She knows this technique since the academy, so she does her best to ignore it.

After a few seconds of cold silence, Sakura takes a hesitant step back.

"I'll come back when you are done," and with a bow, she prepares to leave. Only that Kakashi smiles under his mask and shines his dark eyes toward hers.

"No, you can stay," he moves a hand in front of him dismissively. "Sasuke and I are done here anyway."

Something flashes across Sasuke's gaze, and he turns around to look at his former master questioningly before this one nods curtly, an affirmation she doesn't know the question for.

It's like they understand in their own way, because Sasuke walks toward her, spares her a small glance while passing by, and walks out the door.

Her breath catches in her throat; he had looked at her so differently from a week ago. It had only been a week. Had his feelings changed so fast?

Sakura has to take awhile to speak her concerns about the hospital. She still hears the ringing in her ears when she talks anyway.

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After her successful deal with Kakashi, she spends a good amount of the day at home. She cleans, cooks, and reads. It's peaceful, she finds, spending time alone and putting everything at home in order.

She doesn't think it's because she wants to keep busy—so that she doesn't think beyond Sasuke's actions—in order to avoid intrusive thoughts inside her brain. It's not in her to think at the moment, or wonder why the Hokage and the love of her life were whispering things while in the most important bullding of the village.

So she doesn't think about it.

She doesn't think about the way she has only ever seen Sasuke at the Hokage's office for missions or travels. She doesn't think about the time it has transcribed since he last left for his redemption travels. She doesn't think about how being in Konoha for such a long time may be killing him and eating away at his wanderlust bones—after all, he had only been away for one week the last time he left.

She doesn't think about any of that simply because she can't let herself.

And after she's done with everything in the house, a knock on her door alerts her of her two friends behind it. As soon as she opens it she finds herself in a hug.

"Sakura-chaaaan," is all she hears around her as someone she knows well squeezes the life out of her slowly. The room is spinning—or maybe it's her who's spinning. She wants to tell this man to stop it—because this spinning added to the disturbing thoughts she has not been thinking about concerning Sasuke make her want to throw up, in all honesty—when suddenly she's on her feet and her world finally stands still.

And then she looks at her surroundings.

By the door, a really well-dressed Hinata and a good-looking Naruto stare back at her, both with a smile present on their flawless faces. A small bundle of blankets rests on Hinata's arms.

She ignores Naruto and smiles and hugs Hinata first, mindful of the small bundle in her arms. She realises that her nausea is over when her arms leave the dark-haired ninja, and only then does she embrace her husband with newfound enthusiasm.

Naruto beams, Hinata smiles more, and the baby sighs contently.

"Hey little guy, how are you?" In a high pitched voice, she approaches him and shakes the infant's hand softly while she looks into his deep eyes. They are of a dark blue, almost like navy, and she's amazed at how they have transitioned from black to a deep blue in the span of a few months. Even as a doctor, she finds it incredible.

Naruto speaks first, of course, carrying a wide smile on his full lips.

"What's up?"

"Nothing much, I just finished cleaning," she sighs and moves away from the baby, looking at the couple instead, up and down in approval. "My, don't you two look fancy. I think I should be asking that question, Naruto."

"What question?"

Of course he would look puzzled. Hinata, thankfully, helps him comprehend.

"She's asking what's up, Naruto-kun," biting her lip, Hinata doesn't wait for Naruto to get it, and instead turns her head toward Sakura to address her properly.

"Thank you," she politely responds before shedding some light on the situation. "Actually, it's our second anniversary today. We came here to ask you a favour."

"Yeah! We're going on a super romantic date now, believe it!"

Hinata blushes at the interruption, and she purses her lips in an apologetic smile when he explains everything in a very straightforward manner; in a very typical manner.

"We need you to take care of Boruto, Sakura-chan! We're gonna be out late. It's going to be awesome! I have no idea why we haven't done this before, actually," with a finger tapping on his chin, he doesn't let any of the females speak before he exclaims again. "Oh! Right, Boruto was too little to leave him with anyone. Plus, our last anniversary was spent with my wife being super pregnant and not wanting to get out of bed. But now she's ready and he's old enough!"

"We're just going for an evening dinner, nothing much. We'd be back by ten," Hinata adds, a little rushed so as to not let Naruto chip in again.

Sakura stares at them for a second before she bursts laughing at their dynamics in a chuckle.

On one hand, Naruto explains everything without a care in the world, and on the other, Hinata tries to talk softly and slowly to let people get ready for the information.

Naruto attacks you; he doesn't let you get ready; he's frank and blunt and genuinely honest. Hinata lets you adjust; she's gentle and soft-spoken and understanding.

Sakura shakes her head internally because she still wonders how they got to fall in love with each other. Not that she hadn't seen signs form the beginning—for god's sake, the woman had been lusting like a puppy over Naruto when they were Genin, it was just Naruto's dense head which didn't let him know she liked him—but such contrasting personalities together, married and with a kid, makes her wonder.

She tries to think of possible moments in the past when they could have developed romantic feelings for each other, mutually, but comes up short. She definitely will have to ask Naruto one day. For now, she just walks toward the baby.

"Gimme," she says, kind of excitedly, and then takes Boruto in her expert arms. "Boruto's fine with me. In fact, you can spend a romantic evening and a romantic night together."

With a wink from her side, Naruto smiles sheepishly and Hinata blushes fiercely.

"Thank you, Sakura-chan! I'll never forget you!"

Hinata and Sakura share strange looks and a laugh. He grabs Hinata's hand as she starts to fill Sakura in on the boy's customs and times for milk and how long to heat up the milk because he liked it a specific way. And then they're out the door, and Boruto opens his eyes to look at Sakura.

He keeps her from thinking further.

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There comes a time when Sasuke decides it's been long enough.

He has dragged the inevitable long enough and has avoided the truth carved in his bones for longer than that.

He needs to get out. He needs to explore the world, visit the remaining villages that he hasn't gone to, ask and help and be of some use. And redeem himself in some way or the other—even if, in the end, he doesn't really feel better than before. And try to pay for the pain he has caused so many people by doing voluntary work. And answer for his sins.

He has to leave.

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Sakura doesn't expect to see Sasuke, once again surprising her, at the front of her apartment one day after she sees him at the Hokage's office.

She definitely doesn't expect this in the middle of the night, but what makes her gasp in silence is the small bag draped across his chest, lone hand on the opening as if to protect it from bring pried apart. It doesn't cross her mind that he's just trying to hold on to something in order to calm the dissonance in his head.

Sasuke stares at her for what seems like the longest time, under the moonlight, right in front of her apartment, lips pursed and jaw set as if he doesn't want to be there. It also doesn't cross her mind that he's been waiting the longest time for this moment; doesn't cross her mind that he feels the anxiousness coursing through him at the real reason of why he's there tonight.

It makes her hesitate when she opens her mouth to speak. So she simply doesn't, and instead opts for looking up at him like a deer waiting for the bullet to meet its skin.

For the first time in forever, she doesn't find any words to say to him. The jumbled mess she has in her brain prevents her from saying anything. First, they dance around each other like a pair of hormonal teenagers. Then, they kiss, they touch, they share their bodies and connect in ways she hadn't known someone could. And then, he halts all possible development and crushes all hope when he looked at her so coldly the day before.

And now he stands there, at her front steps as if nothing.

She closes her mouth and waits for what may never come, biting her tongue and her lower lip in anticipation.

It's only so long before she moves, though, and she can't help but to step aside in quiet invitation and let him accept it by stepping forward and closing the door behind him quietly.

She realises, as soon as the click of the door echoes in the room, that she shouldn't have let him enter at all.

Because now he's everywhere. His scent invades her senses and it messes up her already messy thoughts, and his overbearing presence standing a few steps away makes her want to hide under some blankets—with him next to her on a bed, with them next to each other, kissing each other, touching each other. It makes her angry. She wants some answers now, some explanations, not some cuddling.

She looks at him from rose bangs and he speaks.

"I think I've delayed this long enough," his voice is soft and his eyes are softer, but she doesn't miss the way his hand clenches further on the straps of the bag he carries. He talks slowly, fearing her response. "It's been a long time since I've..."

When his voice fades, she frowns. She doesn't give him the time to complete the phrase she so dreads.

"So you're leaving." Looking away so she doesn't have to face his incredibly flawless face, she doesn't feel guilty for not letting him finish his thought. "Just like that?"

"I don't remember it being any other way before." He shifts his weight onto his other foot.

"Well, before we weren't how we are now."

"And how are we now?"

A look of defiance thrown his way, a look of silent rage.

"You tell me, because now I'm doubting what I believed."

And with that, a look crosses Sasuke's face, as if realising how everything is a mess. He recoils and bites his tongue from saying anything further. He's not thinking straight. He doesn't want her to be upset; he doesn't want this discussion, this argument that steamed out of the announcement of his departure; he hadn't thought this is how things would go.

Seeing the hurt reflected in her shiny eyes, he takes a step forward. And then another, and then whichever necessary to be face-to-face with the woman who has captured his being and taken him whole in the span of years and years of trial and error.

He doesn't deserve this.

He has hurt her. He has despised her in a few instances, back when he thought he could severe his bonds simply by wanting to. He has despised her to the point of wanting to end her right then and there.

His hand touches her shoulder, and then moves up along the curve of her throat; it stays there.

He has wrapped his hand around such throat before, and tried to squeeze the life out of her, and tried to aim a chidori to her back, and tried to cut the same throat with a poisoned kunai of her own making.

Back when he was driven by pure evil and desperation, he has hurt her. And even before that, back to their genin days, he has hurt her feelings too.

He moves his hand up toward her cheek, rests it there while he looks into her questioning eyes.

Even now that he's telling her he's leaving, she still trusts him to get close and touch her.

He has done nothing, absolutely nothing in his pathetic life to deserve such unconditional love. He clearly hadn't been looking for it, and he clearly hadn't been good enough for it.

So, why?

Why would someone so precious waste their life for someone like him? Why would someone so pure be so willing to sacrifice themselves for someone so corrupted? He has never intended to hurt her, yet he still did without meaning to.

She has loved him so selfishly, so unconditionally, so wholly. She has given him her soul, her heart, her body. Everything.

His heart aches for her, right there in her small living room, and so he prepares to set everything right.

He will not hurt her anymore, no. He can't.

If she ever falls out of love with him, he'll understand. But as long as she loves him, he will not hurt her.

He knows she wants to know what's wrong and what he has been hiding, and he knows she's about to ask him, so he speaks first.

"Yesterday, you saw me at Kakashi's office." He takes a deep breath, never moving his eyes away from her own even when his voice breaks for the tiniest second. "I've been meaning to ask him for permission to leave for a year, or so. That's what you saw."

A look of confusion passes over her features, the words echoing in her ears like a mantra she didn't ask for—a year is all she hears, a year gone. He'll be gone for a year this time, almost like the time he left right after the year after the Fourth Shinobi War. And that's all she hears before her eyes shine again with unspilled tears because she doesn't think she can take it again.

He drops the hand that touched her cheek.

Then, something clicks in the cloudy sky of her thoughts, stopping the tears right before falling.

"You've never had to ask permission before. You just leave."

His next words shake her core, taking her heart and twisting it painfully. They're whispered, but she hears then as loud as a yell.

"That's because I wasn't ready—I wasn't planning—to take anyone with me before."

Sakura feels her eyes widen, the air temperature drop considerably, and all the knows is that everything is starting to make sense again in her head, like puzzle pieces connecting with each other to make a bigger picture.

The next words Sasuke states, without a sense of doubt in his voice, bring her world spiralling back into focus and she can't help the small sigh of relief from leaving her body at that moment. She kisses him amidst tears of happiness as he waits for an answer, because she doesn't have to wait for him anymore.

"Come with me."