Chapter 1
Sasuke’s voice was barely more than a whisper.
“Come with me.”
And this time, Naruto didn’t look away.
The rain had slowed to a mist now, clinging to his lashes, beading in his hair. He could feel Sakura’s breath catch behind him, could feel Kakashi’s chakra shift — subtle, alert — waiting.
He thought about the words still echoing in his head. You don’t owe them. You never did.
He thought about the long nights alone, the praise that came only when he bled for it, the people who looked through him until they needed him.
And he thought about Sasuke.
Sasuke, who saw every broken piece in him and didn’t flinch. Who left, but never stopped looking back. Who came all this way just to say I see you.
Naruto took a breath.
And stepped forward.
Not much — just enough.
Sasuke’s eyes widened. Barely. But it was enough.
Naruto didn’t say yes. Not out loud.
He didn’t need to.
Sakura moved first. “Naruto—”
He turned. Just enough to meet her eyes. His throat was tight, and it felt like something inside him was ripping.
“I have to.”
Her expression crumpled — pain, confusion, something like betrayal — but she didn’t speak. Didn’t beg.
Maybe she knew it wouldn’t work this time.
Kakashi’s voice came next. Calm. Careful. “You understand what you’re choosing.”
It wasn’t a question. Not really.
Naruto nodded.
“I do.”
Kakashi looked at him for a long time. Then he stepped back.
Sasuke turned without a word and began walking. And Naruto followed.
Not quickly. Not recklessly.
Just forward.
Step by step, the clearing faded behind them — the sound of breathing, of disbelief, of the people who’d fought beside him through blood and war and childhood.
Naruto didn’t look back.
They didn’t speak for a long time.
The forest swallowed them. Trees thickened, mud softened beneath their boots, and the light grew dimmer with each step. Sasuke moved like he knew exactly where he was going. Naruto didn’t ask.
The silence wasn’t cold. It wasn’t comfortable either. It was heavy — packed with all the things they hadn’t said, all the questions that hung between them.
Eventually, Sasuke stopped.
A shallow creek ran through the clearing, cutting the land in two. There was a slope nearby, dry enough to sit. Sasuke dropped down, cloak heavy with rain, and rested his elbows on his knees.
He didn’t look at Naruto. Not yet.
Naruto stood a few feet away, hands loose at his sides.
The silence stretched.
Then:
“You thought I was lying,” Sasuke said quietly.
Naruto glanced at him. “No.”
Sasuke turned his head, rain dripping from the ends of his hair.
“But you didn’t believe me.”
Naruto exhaled. “I didn’t want to.”
Another pause.
Then he stepped forward and sat down beside him.
The creek gurgled quietly, steady and cold.
Sasuke looked at him now, really looked — eyes flicking over his face like he couldn’t quite believe he was still there.
“You don’t have to stay.”
“I know,” Naruto said.
Sasuke didn’t speak for a while after that.
And neither did Naruto.
They just sat there — soaked, silent, side by side in the gray light — two people with too much history between them and no clear way forward.
But they were still moving.
Together.
And maybe, for now, that was enough.
They didn’t travel far.
Sasuke stopped them just before sundown, at the edge of an old logging trail gone soft with moss. Trees grew close here, tall and dark and quiet, swallowing sound. There was no real shelter, just a dip in the earth and a cluster of rocks to break the wind.
Naruto didn’t ask why they weren’t pushing farther. He didn’t ask anything.
They hadn’t spoken since the creek.
Sasuke dropped his pack beside a tree and knelt. His hands moved with practiced quiet — clearing leaves, checking the soil, unrolling a battered bedroll. He didn’t look at Naruto, but Naruto didn’t take his eyes off him.
Not for long, anyway.
Naruto stood there a moment, like his body hadn’t caught up to the decision his heart had already made. Then he moved to the opposite side of the clearing and started doing the same.
He had nothing with him. No pack, no food, no spare clothes. Just the weight of everything he’d walked away from and the cold ache of damp fabric clinging to his skin.
He hadn’t thought about that part — how sudden it would feel. How loud the absence would be.
He’d made the choice.
But now he was here.
Here, and hungry, and cold, and staring across a damp patch of dirt at Sasuke, who moved like a ghost that knew the woods better than it knew people.
By the time the sun dipped fully behind the trees, the sky went violet-gray. Light leaked through in streaks. Mist clung to the grass.
Naruto sat with his back against a rock, legs stretched out. His jacket was still wet, and so was everything under it.
Sasuke tossed something across the space between them — a small ration pack wrapped in cloth. It landed near Naruto’s foot.
Naruto looked down. Then back up at him.
“You’re not gonna say anything?”
Sasuke didn’t answer.
Of course not.
Naruto unwrapped it. The food was dry, hard-edged, bland. But he ate anyway.
The taste didn’t matter.
The quiet stretched on.
Sasuke didn’t eat. Just leaned back against the tree with his arms folded, eyes half-lidded, like he was listening to something Naruto couldn’t hear.
Naruto watched him for a long time. Not directly. Just… around the edges.
The shape of him.
The way his breath came — slow, steady, like he wasn’t nervous, like he didn’t care that someone had just abandoned their entire life to walk into the dark with him.
But Naruto knew better.
He could feel it. That same tension he’d always felt when they stood side by side before a mission. The same silence before a storm.
“You don’t trust me.”
Sasuke’s eyes opened.
Naruto stared at the sky. “It’s fine. I don’t trust me either.”
Sasuke didn’t answer.
“You thought I’d back out.”
Sasuke shifted slightly. “You still might.”
Naruto let out a short breath. Not a laugh. Not quite.
“Do you want me to?”
Silence again.
Then: “I didn’t ask you to come because I thought you’d make this easy.”
Naruto sat forward, elbows on his knees, fingers laced. “Why did you ask me, then?”
Sasuke didn’t speak for a long time.
The breeze picked up. Branches overhead swayed. Somewhere distant, a nightbird called — low, steady.
Then, finally:
“Because I didn’t want to keep doing this alone.”
Naruto didn’t move.
Sasuke kept his eyes forward, face unreadable. “Not forever.”
It landed differently than anything else he’d said before. Softer. Honest in a way that made Naruto’s chest feel tight.
He looked down at his hands. They were dirty. Scarred.
“You think I’ll follow you anywhere,” Naruto said quietly.
Sasuke didn’t deny it.
Naruto smiled — tired, almost amused. “You’re not wrong.”
Still, no response.
Naruto leaned his head back against the rock. Closed his eyes.
“I’m not here to save you,” he said. “I just… didn’t want to let you go again.”
That was the truth.
No more chasing. No more dragging him home. No more begging.
He just wanted to be close, even if it hurt.
Even if he didn’t know what would come next.
They didn’t speak again that night.
Eventually, Naruto lay back in the dirt, jacket bunched beneath his head. His clothes were still damp, but he was too tired to care. His body hurt in all the ways he was used to — sore feet, bruised shoulders, that tight ache behind the eyes from too little sleep and too much thinking.
He stared at the canopy above. Leaves shifted in the breeze, filtering moonlight through ragged holes.
He didn’t think about the village.
Didn’t let himself.
He thought about the way Sasuke had said forever. About the space between their bedrolls. About how none of this felt real yet.
But it was.
It was real.
He’d made the choice. He was here.
And Sasuke… Sasuke hadn’t pushed him away.
That was something.
Sasuke didn’t sleep much. Naruto could tell. He stayed still most of the night, only shifting when the cold cut deeper. Once or twice, Naruto cracked his eyes open and found Sasuke looking at the sky too — the same way Naruto had, like it might give him answers he didn’t know how to ask for.
They didn’t speak.
But somehow, they still heard each other.
When dawn broke, Naruto woke to the sound of movement. Sasuke was already up, repacking what little he’d brought, his cloak draped across one shoulder.
The cold hadn’t lifted.
Naruto sat up, rubbing his eyes. His back ached. His tongue felt dry. But there was something else now — a calmness under his skin, quiet and strange.
He was still here.
That meant something.
Sasuke glanced at him once, then tossed him a new ration bar.
Naruto caught it midair.
“Do you always feed your hostages?”
Sasuke raised an eyebrow. “Do you always make jokes when you’re in over your head?”
Naruto shrugged, biting into the bar. “Only when I’m wide awake.”
Sasuke gave the faintest tilt of his head — not a smile, but something close.
Naruto stood and stretched, arms behind his back until something cracked. Then he stepped closer.
“What now?”
Sasuke looked at him.
He didn’t answer right away.
Then: “Now, we disappear.”
Naruto nodded. “Lead the way.”
And just like that, they were walking again.
Not running. Not chasing.
Not going back.
They didn’t speak on the way back.
Three shinobi left the village days ago. Two returned.
Konoha looked the same when they crossed through the gates — same muddy tracks from merchants’ carts, same vendors calling out specials, same genin sprinting past on errands like nothing in the world had changed.
Sakura barely registered it.
Kakashi said nothing. He walked with his hands in his pockets, posture easy, steps even. But Sakura could tell he wasn’t seeing the road. His eye stayed fixed forward, too still to be casual.
They stopped at the mission desk first. Protocol.
The chūnin behind the desk glanced up from the logbook.
“Back early,” he said.
Kakashi handed over the scroll. “Target confirmed.”
“And?”
Sakura felt her stomach twist.
Kakashi’s pause was short, but heavy. “Naruto made a choice.”
The chūnin’s brow furrowed. He looked between them. “I don’t understand.”
“You don’t need to,” Kakashi said, voice flat. “It’ll be filed under sensitive.”
That ended the questions.
The scroll disappeared into the intake pile.
Sakura stood still. Her gloves were damp from the walk. Her boots left streaks on the tile. No one seemed to notice.
They walked to the Hokage’s office next.
Sakura didn’t want to be the one to say it.
She didn’t think she could.
But Lady Tsunade already knew something was wrong the moment they entered.
She looked up from her desk, eyes narrowing. “Where is he?”
Sakura didn’t speak.
Kakashi folded his arms. “He’s not dead.”
“Then where?”
Kakashi met her gaze. “With Sasuke.”
The silence in the office cracked like dry bark.
Tsunade leaned back slowly, fingers laced beneath her chin. She didn’t blink. “Voluntarily?”
Sakura felt it rising in her chest again — the heat, the disbelief, the echo of I have to playing over and over in her ears. She clenched her hands tighter and kept her mouth shut.
“Yes,” Kakashi said.
Tsunade’s mouth thinned. “And you didn’t stop him.”
“I didn’t let him die.”
A long pause. Then she stood.
The papers on her desk remained untouched, suddenly irrelevant. “You know what this means.”
“Yes.”
“ANBU will ask questions.”
“I’ll answer them.”
Tsunade’s jaw worked, but she didn’t raise her voice. “They’ll want to know how a jinchūriki defected on a mission and wasn’t restrained.”
“He didn’t defect.”
Sakura flinched at that.
Kakashi didn’t.
Tsunade stared him down. “What would you call it?”
Kakashi’s voice didn’t change. “He made a choice.”
A beat passed. Two.
Then Tsunade sat again.
“Go get cleaned up,” she said.
They left without another word.
Outside, the light had changed — later now, softer. The breeze had picked up, carrying petals from the market stalls and dust from the road. People still moved in the streets. Konoha didn’t slow down.
Sakura’s legs carried her halfway to the hospital before she realized she hadn’t said a word in hours.
Kakashi turned toward his own path without waiting.
That was fine. They all needed silence.
She walked until the ache in her calves reminded her she hadn’t eaten since yesterday. Until the noise of the market grew thin behind her. Until she reached the edge of the compound where the medical staff took their breaks behind the second wing.
She sat on a low wall and pulled her gloves off, finger by finger.
There was dirt under her nails.
Her hands wouldn’t stop shaking.
Kakashi stood alone on the third Hokage’s memorial.
He didn’t know how long he’d been there.
Long enough for the clouds to change shape. Long enough for the smell of roasting meat from the village to drift up and fade.
He hadn’t told Tsunade everything. He hadn’t said how close Naruto and Sasuke had stood in the clearing, or how Naruto hadn’t looked back, not even once.
Hadn’t said how much it hurt to see it — not just the choice itself, but how easy it seemed in the end.
Naruto had always chased after Sasuke.
Kakashi just didn’t realize until now that Sasuke was the only thing Naruto never questioned.
He stared down at the stone for a long time. Names carved into permanence. So many of them familiar.
He imagined what it would look like if Naruto’s name were added someday. If his choice led him into the ground. If Konoha decided it couldn’t forgive him after all.
And he imagined the other possibility — that Naruto survived out there in the dark, changed but alive, still carrying that stubborn light in him like it was something that couldn’t be put out.
Both versions hurt.
But Kakashi knew which one Naruto would choose, if he had to.
He turned and walked away before the sun dipped too low.
That night, Sakura stood outside Naruto’s apartment for five full minutes before knocking.
She didn’t expect him to answer. Of course she didn’t.
But some small, stupid part of her hoped maybe he’d appear anyway — messy hair, ramen breath, pretending everything was fine like he always did.
She knocked once.
Then again.
Nothing.
She let herself in with the spare key he never remembered to take back.
The lights were off. The air smelled like damp wood and disuse. His jacket still hung on the peg by the door.
She walked through slowly, like something sacred might crack under her boots.
The bed was unmade. The dishes were stacked but not washed. One of his sandals was kicked under the table, and a half-finished note — “Back soon. Probably.” — lay beside it.
She picked it up, but didn’t take it with her.
She sat on the edge of the bed and stared at the wall.
And when she cried, she made no sound.
Kakashi was the one who eventually gave the report to the elders. He kept it simple. Tactical. Emotionally sterile.
He knew how to say things in the right tone to make them harder to question.
He didn’t say Naruto left for love.
Didn’t say Sasuke looked like a man who had waited too long for someone to choose him.
Didn’t say it almost made sense.
He said: “Naruto made a decision. He is not a threat to the village. Yet.”
He let the word yet hang just long enough.
Then he walked out before they could ask for more.
They didn’t talk about it.
Not publicly. Not much.
But people noticed.
Naruto’s apartment stayed empty.
Team 7 missions were reassigned.
The ramen shop served one fewer bowl on stormy nights.
And sometimes, when the sky broke open in heavy summer rain, Sakura stood at the edge of the rooftops and looked east — not toward the border, not toward the enemy.
Just toward where she last saw him.
And Kakashi, reading alone in his office, would pause with a hand on the page, eyes distant.
Waiting for the knock on the door that hadn’t come yet.