She's always been her father's daughter.

It's a thought that her mother has never let leave her mind. She is Sarada. Born of Haruno Sakura and Uchiha Sasuke. An Uchiha, through and through. Reminders are thrown her way every day by strangers she meets. She's kept constantly aware of who she is and where she comes from.

"You look just like your father."

"You have his eyes."

"Your hair is the exact shade his was."

"Like a perfect clone of him."

She's told day in and day out. The reminders are unnecessary. She can see it every time she lowers her glasses from her face and looks in a mirror, the similarities between herself and the young man in the picture Mama keeps in the living room are uncanny.

The man she knows as Uchiha Sasuke.

Her father is built up around her so much that in her dreams she imagines a man made of power and importance. A man constructed by pain and courage and blessed with sight and selflessness. A hero who would do anything for the people he loves. A knight in shining armor too important to stay home. So important that her and Mama are forced to share him for almost twelve years while he's used for the good of the world around them.

But she doesn't want to share him, Sarada thinks as a child, when she watches her friends play and laugh with their fathers. She wants him all to herself and she often wishes Mama were more selfish.

"Papa's gone because he loves us very much, and there are things that need to be taken care of."

Love is always the excuse. By the time Sarada is older she finds herself wishing he loved them a little less.

By the time she finally meets him, tears ready to be shed-and god, how everything was suddenly so clear to her-and legs shaking, she's prepared to finally embrace this wonder of a man who she has been told loves her so, so much.

When his sword strikes to her left and he reaches out to her with a swiftness unlike anything she's ever seen before, she fears him. And when words are exchanged and he's nothing but cold, she hates him.

(She doesn't really, but she wants to. Even wishes for it.)

Life goes half-way back to normal after that.

She wakes up, eats breakfast, meets up with her team, either trains or goes on a mission, and she finishes her day at home.

Her father's presence is so slight that sometimes it truly feels like it's just like old times. Her and Mama alone again. And it makes her angry because his return was supposed to be it. The thing that she'd awaited her whole life for. The greatest gift she was to ever receive.

His return was to be the penultimate chapter to their story—her's and Mama's. The finale being their happy ending.

And she's sure her mother is happy. God, is she ever. Mama doesn't just hum but sings around the house, and she is so liberal with her smiles that sometimes Sarada gets tired of them. (A secret she tells no one.)

There is no fairy tale bliss for Sarada, but instead a new, unfamiliar brand of fury is born within her. It takes root in the pit of her chest right beside her heart.

(As a child she'd saved lots of room in her heart for her father and for the love and affection she expected to both give to and receive from him.

When she realized she'd been reserving space for something she'd never get it began to fill with something else. Something dark, heavy, and suffocating.)

Mama tries. Oh, does she try so hard to mend Sarada's broken relationship with her father. That's what she calls it, too. Broken.

Sarada thinks that you can't break what wasn't there in the first place, but these are thoughts she's learned to keep from Mama. Thoughts she keeps from everyone. Even her teammates.

At some point she's sure Boruto sees her father more than she does. (Maybe even more than Mama does.) And for a little while, she can't stand him for this. But when Uchiha Sasuke is around, she realizes just how little she missed his presence in the first place; quickly and silently she forgives her friend.

Almost two years after his return he finds her, training alone late at night. Her knuckles has just begun to bleed, her palms long-splintered as she struck a wide stump of a tree over and over and over. Kicks thrown in every few strikes for good measure.

"Do you resent me?"

Her father doesn't need to specify. It's a loaded question, after all.

For not being here for you.

For not being here for your mother.

For never visiting.

For not attempting to develop a relationship with you.

For everything.

Sarada doesn't even pause to contemplate whether or not to spare his feelings.

"Yes."

Because her mother didn't raise a liar.

Things are somehow easier after that. Without the emptiness of their failed relationship as father and daughter haunting her, simple interaction with him comes easier. (Probably because they both simply stop trying to force natural affections that will never develop.)

The heaviness never leaves her chest though, and frustratingly so, she finds that she does indeed love her father, even after everything.

Yet, on nights when he stumbles home, a mess of blood and mangled skin, sending Mama into a flurry, she finds her bones turn cold.

Her fury ignites when this happens, forcing her out of her house and sometimes out of the village. She never stays away for long. Only giving herself enough time to scream and cry somewhere she knows she won't be heard.

These are the nights she hates that she loves her father. Because how dare he put himself in danger and how dare he risk his life when he has Mama (and her) waiting at home for him, always praying for his safe return.

It's on a night like this when Sarada packs up her things, runs, and doesn't look back.

When she's sixteen, Sarada learns the truth about the everything. The Uchiha's history. Her father's crimes. All the gruesome truths.

She'd only been staying at the hideout for three months when Orochimaru told her; judging by their tone they were more than shocked at Sarada's ignorance to the dark history of her own clan.

So they sit her down and tell her all she can bear to listen to. After four hours, Sarada stands, leaves, and doesn't return again for two weeks.

When she finally does, Karin frowns, Suigetsu and Juugo share strange looks, and Orochimaru smiles (and oddly, she finds comfort in the saccharine grin), purring, "You truly are just like your father, child."

Knowing the source of the pit in her chest does nothing to help her understand it. Instead, Sarada becomes more focused on tending to it. Letting it fester and grow and thrive inside her until her rib cage is brimming with these dark tendrils of fury that she can't easily control.

She sees her teammates a few times-it's silly how easily she forgets Mitsuki's relation to the inhabitants of the hideout-and blows off their every attempt at convincing her to return. Sometimes ChouChou comes along. Sometimes her old classmates, too. But she's already moved on from them, and it doesn't take them long before the painful fact registers.

Mama stopped by a couple months after her return to the hideout-dragging the Nanadaime along with her-begging her to return.

When the Hokage explained to her that he was granting her a temporary leave from the village-stressing the temporary aspect of it-he was sure to let her know that she had six more months to return before she was officially declared a missing-nin.

It's a generous thing he's done, Sarada knows, especially considering her sudden, illicit abandonment of Konohagakure. She's certain he's bending the rules because she's a friend of the family, and the special treatment disgusts her. (Nepotism at its finest.)

A smart part of her can't understand why she ever wanted to be like him in the first place; why she would ever desire the title he holds and wears so dearly to him. Especially knowing how much blood stains the hands of the Hokage before him. Knowing how they've only ever dirtied the bottom of their boots with the blood of her clan, even after all these years.

(It takes all the restraint in her body not to spit on the back of his cloak as he walks away, escorting her heartbroken mother back to the village.)

When she eventually leaves Orochimaru-and the entire hideout-behind, exactly six months later, she knows she will never return to the village as a loyal Konoha kunoichi.

Now, her goals are much, much different.

Two years pass before she sees a familiar face. Yet when Boruto and Mitsuki try to capture her, she retaliates by trying to kill them.

It takes her impaling the latter and nearly beheading the former before they halt their attacks. Before she can leave them to bleed out in the dirt (although she's sure they probably have back-up on the way and will be just fine) Boruto screams after her until his throat is raw, declarations of love spilling past his bloodied lips.

(And she's be a liar if she said she didn't stop, hesitate, and wait.)

She's never had someone confess their love to her, and when she was younger she may have dreamed about it once or twice, but having it happen is nothing like she expected. He's dirty, bloodied, and she's sure she's broken at least a dozen of his bones, but when she turns to look him in the eyes he's staring at her like she's the sun.

It's the way Mama used to look at her father, and she knows that Boruto is telling the truth.

In all honesty though, his confession doesn't make it any harder for her to turn around and leave them there.

(She thinks that maybe in another life she could love him, too. But that's not what she's meant to do in this life. Here, she has one goal and that's to destroy Konoha and bring justice to her nearly-annihilated clan.

Love is something this world could use a little less of, she thinks.)

Ten months later, it happens.

"Sarada!"

She still doesn't know how her father happened to infiltrate her base-she has countless ninja under her command, all exceptionally talented beyond her wildest dreams-but she sees the flecks of blood on the base of his coat and on the side of his face and she's reminded that this man is the epitome of unbridled power. So if Uchiha Sasuke wants to find his daughter, he damn well will.

It's the first time she's seen him in four years and he looks like he's aged more than ten.

There are lines around his eyes and mouth that weren't there before; the ones that were are deeper, more defined now. Silver strings have started to liberally make their way throughout his hair. It's been cut recently, she notes; Mama's work, most likely.

He looks tired in a way she's never seen. Exhausted in a way she doesn't quite understand. She's aware of people in her periphery but they stand at a distance and she can tell that they aren't her immediate threat.

Her father stalks closer to her, his feet dragging heavily across the walkway, making his way to the balcony she's looking out over. When she notices that not only is he unarmed-his katana lays several meters behind him, still sheathed, on the ground-but he's injured, she raises an eyebrow.

"What do you want?"

He's silent for a long moment, feet still dragging toward her (that's when she notices the trail of blood he's leaving behind him) before he speaks.

"Sarada," he repeats her name quietly, as if speaking any louder would cause her to vanish in a puff of smoke.

"Sasuke." There's pain in his face when she doesn't call him 'Papa', and it confuses Sarada. Her father is not an emotional man, but tonight, he is different.

Tonight she can read him easier than she's ever been able to read Mama. (And her dear mother has always worn her heart on her sleeve.)

"Come home," he rasps, finally coming to stop just a couple feet from here. "Please. Come back to Konoha."

Pride seems to be the last thing on his mind as he begs her, and Sarada is so confused by his actions that she activates her sharingan to watch him. Only when she's positive that this is really her father does she speak.

"Since when has Konoha been 'home' to you?" She lifts her head slightly, looking down her nose at his semi-crumpled form. Judging by his stance and the blood that is still, ever-so-steadily dripping to the tiled ground beneath him, he's been stabbed in the abdomen and the injury seems a little less than severe. Either way, she knows if he doesn't get medical attention soon, it may kill him.

"You and I both know that Konoha isn't home," he speaks suddenly, startling her, "Konoha hasn't been my home for a long time." During his pause, she's confused. He's never spoken this much to her in her life. Is he bleeding that heavily? About to keel over on death's doorstep? One more glance-over shows her that he isn't, but his words are coming out quickly and desperate as if he has to get the words out in seconds before he's gone.

It's not just the urgency of his words that actually silences her and uproots the confidence in her bones... it's the sheer emotion he's displaying toward her for the first time in her life.

He almost seems human and she's so, so confused.

"You know where home is," he tells her, as if waiting for her to figure it out herself. Perhaps he can still see the confusion on her face, because he doesn't give her time to think it through. "Your mother is home," he clarifies. "Come back to your mother..."

Come back to me.

His words aren't spoken but they can both hear it as loud as a cry.

When the tears begin to build in her eyes, she can feel the odd sensation of shrinking darkness in her chest. The roots of hatred slowly shriveling up and dying. That's when she realizes that she wants to come home.

She wants to return to Mama more than anything else in the world.

"It... it hurts Papa," she says, her typically steady voice cracking with the first tears she's shed in years. "Right here." Lifting a kunai she traces a tiny 'x' right above her heart, nearly ripping the razor sharp tip through her top. "It never stops. I just want it to stop."

His eyes are pained when he speaks again, shuffling half a step closer to her. "I know it hurts. It always will, I'm sorry. But," he reaches out and lightly grabs her wrist, the one holding the kunai to her own chest, "it can be managed. I can teach you how."

She can see both of his eyes clearly now. The rinnegan stares at her with just as much vulnerability than his black, right eye and the sight is so strange to her. To see a rinnegan and think anything other than 'power' simply doesn't seem right. But Uchiha Sasuke is staring at her so exposed and heartbroken that this moment hardly seems real.

But it is real, it is happening, and the tears that are pooling in her eyes are so close to spilling that she's terrified by this effect that her father has on her.

She allows him to pull the kunai away from her own body until it is hanging between them, but when he attempts to remove it from her grasp, his hold on it tightens, and so does hers.

The moment she begins to pull back slightly, she can see the flicker of fear in his eyes-the very same fear that she thrives off of.

She finally breathes then, allowing the tendrils of hate to refill her chest, occupying every inch of herself, even capturing the space her heart still resides.

"Sarada, no-"

Uchiha Sasuke doesn't get to speak his final words because before he can utter anything more, Sarada has driven her kunai through his chest and ripped his rinnegan out swiftly.

"Sorry Papa," she laughs darkly through the tears that have finally fallen. She can taste his blood on her lips and it drives her past the brink of madness. "I'm not going home."

Before her father falls over the low balcony, disappearing several stories below into the darkness, the screams of his companions hits her ears.

She finally turns, watches as Mitsuki and Boruto yell and rush forward toward her location-so that's who she'd seen in her periphery-and smiles toward them, all blood and tears.

Boruto is in a rage as he attempts to reach her, tears streaming down his face as he screams his voice hoarse. He most likely loved her father more than she ever did, but she remembers that he loves her, too. This fact probably only makes her betrayal that much more painful to him, but it makes it all more sweet to her.

She's quick to escape, destroying her balcony, sealing her doors, and leaving her base silently and without need to worry in the underground tunnels. She isn't even a mile away before she rips her own left eye out- disregarding the burning of her new Mangekyou sharingan-quickly implanting the rinnegan in it's place.

The murder of her own family comes so simply to her that she can only grin to herself as she moves further and further away from her father's final resting place.

Whether it be fratricide or patricide, one thing has always been certain to her.

She's always been her father's daughter.