Chapter 3
They woke to birdsong.
Not the screeching kind that came with bad weather or startled movement, but the soft, melodic kind — layered notes from deep in the branches, echoing over water and carried gently by breeze.
Naruto opened his eyes slowly. The sun filtered down through a thick canopy above them, tracing golden lines across his face and the mossy floor. For once, he wasn’t cold. The air was warm. Dry. It smelled like green things and sun-drenched wood.
Sasuke was already up. Of course he was.
He sat cross-legged near the stream’s edge, sleeves rolled halfway, shoulders relaxed. Not defenseless, but still. He held a small length of twine in his hands, threading it through the eye of a thin hook with a precision Naruto had never seen in battle.
Naruto sat up with a yawn, rubbing a hand through his hair. “You fish now?”
Sasuke didn’t look up. “I’ve always fished.”
“Sure,” Naruto said, dragging himself up, “and I’m the Hokage.”
Sasuke gave no response, which Naruto took as confirmation that Sasuke was definitely, absolutely lying.
But the mood was different today. Lighter. No weight on his chest. No tension humming in the air like a wire pulled tight. Just warmth and birdsong and Sasuke pretending he was better at everything, even breakfast.
Naruto stretched his arms above his head, spine cracking in three places.
Then he wandered down toward the river.
The water was clearer than he expected. Cold, too — it bit his fingers when he crouched down to splash it over his face. But it felt good. Clean.
He sat on a flat rock near Sasuke, legs stretched out, eyes on the current. A few small fish darted through the deeper ripples, silver flashes like light on kunai.
They didn’t speak for a while.
And it didn’t feel strange.
Eventually Sasuke cast his line. The hook cut a perfect arc into the water, vanishing with barely a ripple. He settled in like he planned to stay there a while.
Naruto watched him, curious.
“You ever think about staying in a place like this?” he asked. “Building a little house. Growing vegetables. Sleeping in till noon.”
Sasuke raised an eyebrow. “You?”
Naruto shrugged. “I could do it. Wake up, catch a fish. Train if I feel like it. Sit in the sun. Not answer to anyone.”
“Until you get bored.”
Naruto grinned. “Probably by day three.”
Sasuke’s eyes flicked toward the water again. “You’re not built for quiet.”
“You are?”
Sasuke didn’t answer, but Naruto caught the faint shift in his posture — a shoulder relaxing, an exhale released without thought.
Maybe neither of them were built for it. But they were learning to sit in it anyway.
The sun climbed higher.
Sasuke caught two fish in twenty minutes and gutted them with the kind of clinical ease Naruto found both impressive and mildly concerning. He cooked them over a small fire, and for the first time since they left, they ate something hot that didn’t taste like chalk and desperation.
Naruto devoured his. Sasuke ate slower, methodical, watching the forest in that way he always had — like he expected it to turn on them at any moment.
But when Naruto offered him the slightly burnt piece of fish left over, Sasuke took it without a word.
That felt like progress.
They spent the rest of the morning walking along the river.
It was too wide to cross without getting soaked, but they followed it anyway, side by side, the trail uneven beneath their feet. The forest was alive with cicadas now, a soft wall of sound that blurred the edges of the world.
Naruto found a stick and started swinging it at low-hanging branches, sending sprays of leaves into the air. Sasuke watched him, unimpressed.
“Did you have a plan when you left?” Naruto asked suddenly.
Sasuke took a moment. “Yes.”
Naruto kicked a rock into the water. “What was it?”
“Survive.”
“That’s it?”
“That’s always the plan.”
Naruto chewed on that.
Then: “That’s sad, man.”
Sasuke didn’t argue.
They reached a bend in the river where the rocks grew flat and warm. A tree with heavy limbs hung over the water, casting shade. Naruto didn’t wait — he kicked off his sandals and waded in.
The river came up to his knees. Cold as hell, but the sun kept the chill from sinking in too deep. He splashed his face again, ducked his head, let the water rush past his ears.
When he looked up, Sasuke was watching him from the bank, arms crossed.
“What?”
“You’ll get sick.”
“I’m not twelve.”
Sasuke didn’t answer.
Naruto grinned and kicked water at him. Not hard — just enough to spray droplets across the hem of his cloak.
Sasuke stepped back.
Naruto kicked again, harder this time.
“You’re asking for it,” Sasuke said flatly.
“I’m counting on it.”
Sasuke didn’t rise to it. Not yet. But there was something in his eyes — a flash of something just shy of a smile.
Naruto waded out of the water, soaked to the knees and grinning. “Come on, just try being a normal person for five minutes.”
“I don’t know what that means.”
“Means you throw the stick back.”
Sasuke glanced at the branch Naruto had dropped on the bank.
Then, with no warning, he picked it up and flung it.
Naruto dodged too late. It slapped his shoulder with a wet thunk.
He stared at Sasuke in disbelief.
Sasuke shrugged. “Normal enough?”
Naruto opened his mouth, then started laughing. He couldn’t help it. It wasn’t loud, wasn’t sharp — just something cracked open and light coming through.
And Sasuke — Sasuke didn’t laugh, not quite, but he stood there with that same impossible look, the one Naruto remembered from before everything went dark.
Not peace.
But something near it.
By late afternoon, the light began to shift again.
Not in any dramatic way — no storm clouds rolling in, no sudden drop in temperature — but slow, subtle. A weight in the wind. A silence between the birdsong.
Naruto felt it first. He slowed down without realizing it, eyes scanning the treeline more often, stick forgotten in his hand. His mouth had gone dry. His laughter didn’t come as easily now.
Sasuke must’ve felt it too. He hadn’t spoken since they left the river. His steps were quieter. His hand kept brushing the handle of his sword, not drawing it, just checking. A reflex. A warning.
They walked another mile before Naruto broke the quiet.
“You think they’ve started looking for us?”
Sasuke didn’t stop. “Probably.”
“They’ll send trackers.”
“I know.”
Naruto’s fingers tightened around the stick, snapping it in half without meaning to. He let the pieces fall and didn’t pick them up.
“They’ll send her,” he said, quieter now.
Sasuke didn’t ask who.
He just nodded.
The wind moved through the trees in soft gusts. The sun filtered gold through the canopy. It should’ve been beautiful. But all Naruto could think of was the way Sakura looked when he turned away — and the way she didn’t stop him.
He rubbed at the back of his neck, the skin still damp from riverwater and sweat.
“I hate thinking about what they’re saying,” he muttered.
“They’re shinobi. They’ll say what they’re told.”
Naruto’s jaw clenched. “Not about you.”
Sasuke’s steps didn’t slow. “They’re not wrong.”
“Maybe not,” Naruto said. “But they never tried to understand you.”
“They weren’t supposed to.”
Naruto looked at him then — sharp and tired.
“That’s a shitty excuse.”
Sasuke didn’t respond. His gaze stayed forward.
The trail curved uphill, overgrown in parts. Sasuke stepped lightly through it. Naruto followed, crunching over twigs and loose stone. The leaves brushed their shoulders like whispers — thin reminders of how exposed they were.
They stopped at a ridgeline as the sun dipped below the trees. Sasuke surveyed the valley below — all pine and shadow and slope. Nothing moved in the underbrush. No smoke in the distance.
Naruto dropped onto a flat stone and pulled his knees up, arms draped loosely over them.
“I think I made everything worse.”
Sasuke said nothing.
“They’re gonna treat this like a betrayal.”
Still nothing.
“I didn’t want to betray anyone.”
Sasuke turned to him finally, face half-lit by the last light of day.
“You didn’t.”
Naruto shook his head. “Didn’t I?”
“You followed me. That’s not betrayal.”
“Then what is it?”
Sasuke’s mouth tightened.
Naruto didn’t press.
They sat like that for a while — one standing, one sitting, the quiet closing in around them again.
Sasuke stepped away first. He walked to the edge of the slope, looking out over the trees like the answer was hidden somewhere below them.
Naruto watched his back.
He hated that Sasuke could always stand still in moments like this — like he’d already sorted through everything he felt and locked it behind some door no one could open.
Naruto couldn’t.
He was always full — of anger, of fear, of loyalty, of love.
Of the ache that came from wanting too much and never knowing if it was allowed.
“You think I came with you to fix you.”
Sasuke’s voice was quiet, almost lost to the wind.
Naruto blinked. “I didn’t say that.”
“You didn’t have to.”
Naruto frowned. “That’s not why I’m here.”
Sasuke didn’t turn around. “Isn’t it?”
“No.”
The word came fast, sharper than he meant.
He stood, stepping toward him.
“I didn’t follow you to fix anything. Not you. Not me. I just—” He paused, breath catching. “I didn’t want you to go alone again.”
Sasuke’s jaw tensed.
“You wouldn’t have come back,” Naruto said. “And this time, I wouldn’t have followed. I couldn’t.”
Silence.
Naruto stepped closer.
“I didn’t want to wonder for the rest of my life if you were alive, or if you were still hurting, or if you ever looked back and wished—”
He stopped.
Because Sasuke turned then.
And his face — it wasn’t cold. It wasn’t hard.
It was tired. Exposed. Fragile in a way Naruto had only seen once or twice — during war. After loss.
“I wouldn’t have looked back,” Sasuke said.
Naruto exhaled, slow.
“Then I’m glad I did.”
They didn’t touch.
But they stood close — the kind of close that only came after pain had been laid bare.
Behind them, the light faded.
And ahead, the dark stretched long and full of unknowns.
It had been a week.
They didn’t mark the days out loud, but Naruto knew. He counted them in quiet things: how many sunrises since he left Konoha, how many times he’d woken to the sound of Sasuke moving just before dawn. How many nights they’d gone without speaking until the fire burned low and the silence became something softer than before.
They kept moving. No fixed destination, just distance. South, like Sasuke said. Through old forest, broken paths, half-buried ruins of roads no one remembered. They’d pass abandoned shrines and empty farms where the walls had caved in. Once, they found a village, but skirted it wide. Sasuke said nothing. Naruto didn’t ask.
The rhythm had settled in.
They traveled light. Slept close to rivers when they could. Sometimes Sasuke hunted, sometimes Naruto caught fish with his hands and came back soaked and grinning. Sasuke rolled his eyes every time. But he never said stop.
That afternoon, they stopped near a ridge with a low, sweeping view of the hills below. The grass up here was sun-warmed and soft. They’d found wild plums earlier that Naruto swore were the best thing he’d ever tasted, and Sasuke didn’t argue.
Now, Naruto lay flat in the grass, chewing on the stem of one and staring at the sky.
“Tell me something true,” he said suddenly.
Sasuke, seated nearby with his back against a rock, glanced over without lifting his head. “Like what?”
“Anything.”
Sasuke looked away again, at the valley. “The river bends west before it narrows.”
Naruto made a face. “That’s geography.”
“You didn’t specify.”
Naruto pulled another plum from the pouch at his side and tossed it at him. Sasuke caught it without looking.
They were quiet again.
Birds circled far above — lazy, effortless arcs.
Naruto closed his eyes for a moment, letting the warmth settle in his chest. He hadn’t felt like this in a long time. Not entirely safe, not even entirely good — but real. Present. Like maybe there was more to the world than orders and war and grief.
He sat up slowly, rubbing a bit of dried juice off his cheek.
“You know,” he said, voice light but edged with something quieter, “this almost feels like peace.”
Sasuke’s eyes flicked toward him.
Naruto didn’t press.
He didn’t need an answer.
Because Sasuke didn’t look like someone preparing for peace.
He looked like someone bracing for its end.
That shift — subtle, but undeniable — settled between them like a new layer of air. Thicker. Slower.
Naruto chewed the inside of his cheek.
“How far are we from the border?” he asked.
“Close,” Sasuke said. “Two days, maybe less.”
Naruto looked down at his hands. They were steady.
“We’re not going to keep flying under the radar much longer, are we?”
Sasuke didn’t respond.
That was answer enough.
They both knew it had been quiet too long. No real patrols. No signs of Leaf trackers. No threats.
Which meant one thing: something was coming.
Not a scout.
A message.
Or a warning.
Naruto stood and brushed grass from his pants. “You think it’ll be someone we know?”
Sasuke was already getting to his feet, movements smooth, efficient. “Does it matter?”
“Yeah,” Naruto said, not looking at him. “It does.”
They broke camp quickly. Sasuke moved without needing direction. Naruto mirrored him. They didn’t talk.
But the mood had changed.
As they moved down into the valley, the light shifted again — less warm now, more filtered, like it had to pass through something heavy before it reached the ground. The air smelled different too. Cleaner. Sharper. Wind off water.
It wasn’t immediate, the tension.
It crept.
Little things.
Sasuke’s eyes moving more often. His hand drifting toward the edge of his cloak where he kept his weapon. The way Naruto kept glancing behind them — not because he heard something, but because he hadn’t.
By nightfall, they reached a clearing beside a long, quiet creek. The sky above was open — full of stars. No smoke. No sign of company.
Still, Sasuke didn’t light a fire.
Naruto sat cross-legged on a patch of moss, arms resting on his knees.
“They’re going to make it a statement,” he said.
Sasuke sat nearby, legs stretched out. “Probably.”
“They’ll send someone strong.”
Sasuke didn’t answer.
Naruto watched the stars, letting the silence settle in again.
Then: “You know who they’ll send.”
Sasuke looked over. His face was unreadable in the low light.
Naruto didn’t look at him. “If it’s her, you let me talk first.”
“I wasn’t planning to talk.”
“You owe her that.”
“I don’t owe her anything.”
“You owe me,” Naruto said, quietly now.
Sasuke went still.
Naruto rubbed a hand over his face. “She’s not a soldier to me. She’s not just someone from the village. She’s Sakura. And if she’s the one they send—”
“They will,” Sasuke said, flatly.
Naruto didn’t argue.
He knew.
He felt it.
The kind of knowing you didn’t say out loud because it made things real.
“They’ll make her try to bring me back,” Naruto said.
“She’ll try.”
Naruto looked up at the stars. “Then we don’t run.”
Sasuke turned toward him.
Naruto’s jaw was tight, his eyes sharp, but there was no anger in them.
“Not from her,” he said.
They sat with that.
The creek ran steady nearby.
Sasuke leaned back against a tree and closed his eyes. “If she brings others, we fight.”
Naruto nodded. “But not to win.”
Sasuke opened his eyes. “What, then?”
Naruto met his gaze. “To be heard.”
Sasuke didn’t answer.
But this time, he didn’t look away.
The birds stopped singing at dawn.
Naruto heard it first — not a sound, but the absence of it. One moment the canopy above them was full of soft chirps and rustling wings, the next, everything was still. Even the wind slowed.
He sat up fast.
Sasuke was already standing, cloak half-draped over one shoulder, blade within reach. His gaze locked on the tree line just beyond the stream. It wasn’t panic in his stance — it was recognition.
Naruto rose slowly. His hands didn’t shake.
They’d been waiting for this.
For three days, they’d felt it creeping closer — that breathless tension in the air, the way the forest pressed in more tightly, the unspoken weight in every glance between them. They had stopped laughing. They’d stopped pausing in the middle of the trail just to stare at the sky.
It had been good, for a while.
Now it was over.
Naruto stepped beside him. Not behind. Not ahead.
The silence stretched.
Then: a shape through the trees.
Then three.
Shinobi. Moving with the kind of confidence that came from knowing exactly where their target would be. Fast. Coordinated. Measured.
But it was the fourth that made Naruto’s chest tighten.
Pink hair.
A red cloak.
A headband still worn proudly.
Sakura stepped out of the forest like she’d always been part of it, like the trees had grown around her. Her expression wasn’t hard — not yet. But it wasn’t soft, either. Not like before.
Her gaze swept over them once.
Naruto saw the flicker. That half-second where her breath caught, where she had to look at him to believe he was really there.
He took a step forward.
She didn’t flinch.
“Hey,” he said, voice quiet.
Sakura said nothing for a long time.
Then, with a voice sharper than he remembered: “You made it hard for them to send me.”
Behind her, the ANBU didn’t move. Three — no masks, but the posture gave them away. One with a heavy broadsword. One with chakra flickering under their gloves. The third stood stillest of all — small, slim, watching Sasuke more than Naruto.
Naruto’s chest felt tight.
“They said I should consider you hostile,” Sakura said.
Naruto shook his head once. “I’m not.”
“You left.”
“I know.”
“You didn’t leave a message.”
He looked down.
Sasuke didn’t move. He hadn’t since they’d appeared. His eyes locked on the third shinobi in the back — the one who hadn’t taken their gaze off him.
Naruto took another step forward. “I wanted to. I didn’t know what to say.”
“You could’ve said goodbye,” Sakura said, and it wasn’t angry. It was something worse. Tired. Frayed.
He opened his mouth — and then she stepped forward too.
Not fast. Just enough to close the distance.
She stopped within arm’s reach. Her voice dropped low. “We thought he took you.”
Naruto’s throat tightened. “No one made me do anything.”
“You really expect them to believe that?”
“I don’t care what they believe.”
Sakura’s jaw set. Her hands curled at her sides. “Then what do you want?”
Naruto looked at her — really looked — and for a moment, he saw it all again: the long walks to missions, the sound of her voice when she laughed at something stupid he said, the way she always bandaged him first, even when she was bleeding.
He didn’t know what to say.
Sasuke’s voice cut through the silence.
“They didn’t just send her.”
Naruto turned.
The third shinobi had stepped forward now, slow, deliberate. The ANBU pulled off their hood — a slim face, pale skin, dark markings near the temple.
Sai.
He looked at Naruto with something almost like regret.
“They sent all of us,” he said. “In case you wouldn’t listen.”
Sakura turned slightly, her posture tensing. “That wasn’t part of the agreement.”
“You knew what they were asking,” Sai replied. “You just didn’t want to hear it.”
Naruto’s stomach dropped.
“They’re calling this a retrieval mission,” Sai continued. “You’re classified as a defector.”
Naruto’s mouth went dry.
“I told them he wasn’t,” Sakura said, sharp now. “I told them if I saw him, I’d handle it.”
“You were sent because they don’t trust you to.”
Sasuke’s hand dropped to his sword.
The air pulsed once.
No one moved.
Sakura’s breath caught. “Don’t.”
“I’m not drawing first,” Sasuke said, calm and cold. “But I won’t wait either.”
Naruto moved between them before anyone else could blink.
“Enough.”
His chakra rippled out — not aggressive, but firm, controlled. The trees shivered. The stream behind them hissed where a leaf touched the surface.
Naruto looked at Sai. “You’re not taking us back.”
Sai didn’t flinch. “It’s not my decision.”
“It is mine.”
Sakura’s voice softened behind him. “Naruto—”
“I’m not going to fight you.” He turned halfway toward her, eyes wide and clear. “But I’m not going back.”
She looked at him like she wanted to believe him — like she was halfway there — but there was something else in her eyes, too. Fear. Not for herself.
For him.
“What if they come next time?” she asked. “The elders. ANBU you don’t know. People who won’t talk first.”
Naruto didn’t blink. “Then I’ll talk louder.”
The wind picked up again.
Leaves scattered across the clearing.
Sai stepped back once, slow.
“I’ll give you tonight,” he said. “To think. To say what you need to say.”
Sakura looked at him sharply.
“You don’t speak for the council.”
“I don’t,” he agreed. “But I do know how to buy time.”
Naruto nodded once.
Sasuke’s eyes didn’t move from the other two.
Sai turned and walked back into the trees.
Sakura didn’t move.
She stayed standing there, alone, watching them like she hadn’t yet decided which direction her heart was pulling.
The sun was low now, bleeding gold through the canopy, casting long shadows that sliced the clearing into uneven pieces of light and dark. The wind had died down, but the stillness it left behind was heavier than any storm.
Sakura hadn’t moved.
She stood rooted where Sai had left her, arms at her sides, eyes locked on Naruto. Her face was calm. Too calm. The way someone looks right before they start shaking.
Sasuke hadn’t moved either.
He hadn’t spoken since Sai disappeared into the trees.
Naruto was the only one between them now. Not a barrier. Not a shield. Just… standing there. Exposed.
Sakura looked at him.
“Why him?”
Naruto’s heart stuttered.
It wasn’t an accusation.
Not even anger.
Just hurt. Plain and raw.
He didn’t answer right away.
She stepped forward. “You could’ve come to me. To Kakashi. You could’ve said something. Anything.”
Naruto opened his mouth, then shut it again.
“You always said we were a team,” she said, quieter now. “That we’d bring him back together. But you didn’t let me try. You just… left.”
Naruto dropped his gaze. “It wasn’t about trust.”
Sakura shook her head. “It always is.”
There was a long pause.
The light shifted across the clearing, warming her face, making her look like she’d stepped out of a memory. That girl who’d once begged Sasuke not to leave. Who’d healed their wounds after every battle. Who always reached for both of them, even when neither reached back.
“I waited,” she said. “Every day. I waited for you to say something. To let me in. But you always kept it between the two of you.”
Naruto looked up then, slow.
There was no anger in his eyes. Just guilt. And something else — something tender and bruised.
“I couldn’t bring him back,” he said. “I tried. For years. I tried because I thought I was supposed to.”
Sasuke’s head turned slightly, his eyes flicking to Naruto.
“And I thought if I failed,” Naruto went on, “it meant everything we went through was for nothing. That I wasn’t strong enough. That I hadn’t earned what we fought for.”
He looked at her now. Met her eyes fully.
“But then I realized it wasn’t about strength. Or saving him. It was about choosing him.”
Sakura didn’t flinch.
He could see the tear in her, though. The way her chest moved too quickly. The way she looked at Sasuke — not with love, not anymore — but with a kind of mourning.
“I didn’t follow him out of duty,” Naruto said. “I followed him because the world doesn’t make sense without him in it.”
The wind stirred again. A soft sound. Barely there.
Sasuke looked down, eyes shadowed beneath his lashes.
Sakura’s voice was barely above a whisper. “Then what happens now?”
Naruto didn’t have an answer.
But Sasuke did.
“They won’t let this go.”
His voice was sharp again. Grounded. Final.
Sakura turned her face toward him.
“I know,” she said.
Sasuke stepped forward. Slowly. He stopped at Naruto’s shoulder. Close enough that their arms almost touched.
“You came here alone,” Sasuke said. “No backup close. Just Sai and two shadows.”
“I wanted to be first.”
“You were.”
Naruto looked between them.
“You don’t have to pick a side,” he said to her. “Not right now.”
Sakura gave a soft, broken sound. “I already did the second I stepped out of the trees.”
She looked at Naruto again, and this time it was different. Something had settled in her. A choice, maybe. Or the beginning of one.
“I can’t follow you,” she said. “But I’m not going to stop you either.”
Naruto felt something catch in his throat. He tried to speak, but all that came was a nod.
Then she turned to Sasuke.
Her voice changed again — firmer, lower.
“If you hurt him, I’ll kill you.”
Sasuke blinked once. Slowly.
“I believe you.”
She didn’t smile.
But she stepped back.
Sasuke watched her go — not cold, not cruel. Just watching, like he had when they were younger and didn’t know how to say sorry.
She stopped at the edge of the clearing, in the light.
“I can give you a day,” she said.
Naruto nodded.
“And then I have to go back.”
“I know.”
She looked at them one last time.
Then disappeared into the trees.
The silence left behind was different than before.
No tension. No fear.
Just a hollow space where something important used to be.
Naruto let out a breath that felt like it’d been sitting in his chest for weeks.
“She won’t tell them everything,” he said.
“No,” Sasuke agreed. “Just enough to protect herself.”
Naruto turned toward him. “And us.”
Sasuke gave him a look — small, unreadable. But not unkind.
They stood there for a long time, the sun dropping behind the trees, the light turning orange and gold and then slowly fading.
Naruto didn’t move.
Neither did Sasuke.
Not until the wind returned, carrying with it the scent of pine and smoke.
“We should go,” Sasuke said.
“Yeah.”
They didn’t say where.
They didn’t need to.